Deeper into the wordy quagmire that is Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. As with Quicksilver, this volume contains a considerable dose of magical moments dissolved in a nearly impenetrable sea of overdone gibberish. It’s brilliant gibberish, but not brilliant enough to make this book shine the way I typically expect from Stephenson. While enhancing the Baroque […]
“Today, in the sunset of the fossil fuel era, the oil industry remains the most concentrated industry in the world, followed closely by the telecommunications and the electrical power generation and distribution industry. Virtually all the other industries that depend on the fossil fuel/telecommunications matrix require, by necessity, huge capital expenditures to establish sufficient vertical […]
“‘Sooner or later one of us will break,’ Jack said wearily. ‘This Inquisition is as patient as Death. Nothing can stop it.’ ‘Nothing,’ said de Ath, ‘except for the Enlightenment.’ ‘And what is that?’ Moseh asked. ‘It sounds like one of those daft Catholicisms: The Annunciation, the Epiphany, and now the Enlightenment,’ Jack said. ‘It […]
“The Collaborative Commons is already profoundly impacting economic life. Markets are beginning to give way to networks, ownership is becoming less important than access, the pursuit of self-interest is being tempered by the pull of collaborative interests, and the traditional dream of rags to riches is being supplanted by a new dream of a sustainable […]
This is a terrific primer on media history and one reporter’s take on how average citizens can promote a free, open news environment. Aided by Josh Neufeld’s clever illustrations, Brooke Gladstone takes the reader on a whirlwind journey through media history’s most tenuous moments, setting her sights on the perennial conflict between authoritarian power, which […]
“Who doesn’t love a good story? But stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Some news stories, science stories for instance, never really end. They’re all middle. It’s a narrative nightmare. Try to fix the problem by tacking on a provisional ending, and the reports appear more conclusive than they really are.” ––The Influencing Machine: Brooke […]
“There is no conspiracy. Even though the media are mostly corporate-owned, their first allegiance is to their public because if they lose that allegiance, they lose money. Sometimes the press leads the public; sometimes the public leads the press. The media, at least the mainstream media, don’t want to get too far ahead. They just […]
This book came to my attention by way of David Brin, who claims it as mandatory reading for anyone interested in saving the world. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but the assertion that positive sum games play a critical role in biological and cultural evolution is definitely significant, especially insofar as it […]
“Consciousness may reside in computers, networks of computers, even networks of computers and people. The philosophers who hold this view aren’t fuzzy-minded New Agers or reactionary Cartesians or mystical poets like Teilhard himself; they are people who accept a basic premise of modern behavioral science––that all causality happens in the physical world––and who also appreciate […]
“Oyonnax, in a strange girlish gesture, put a gloved hand to her lips, suppressing a laugh. ‘You still do not understand. Versailles is like this window.’ She swept her arm out, directing Eliza’s eye to a scene in stained glass. ‘Beautiful, but thin, and brittle.’ She opened the casement below to reveal the street beyond: […]