Dailydave mailing list archives
Re: The Long Run
From: "Jeremiah Johnson" <jeremiah.johnson () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:32:44 -0500
Thanks Dave, I'll take a look. I recommend Feed by M.T. Anderson, its a very quick read but gives a possible answer to the question of 'what would happen if we had the internet hardwired to our brain?'. Hackers are involved in the story, but hacking is not the main point, and hacking is used for a different purpose since its no longer about 0wning some corp server, but peoples brains. http://www.amazon.com/Feed-M-T-Anderson/dp/0763622591/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-6138693-5850068 Amazon.com This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy. Anderson gives us this world through the voice of a boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate, whose vocabulary, in a dead-on parody of the worst teenspeak, depends heavily on three words: "like," "thing," and the second most common English obscenity. He's even made this vapid kid a bit sympathetic, as a product of his society who dimly knows something is missing in his head. The details are bitterly funny--the idiotic but wildly popular sitcom called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", the girls who have to retire to the ladies room a couple of times an evening because hairstyles have changed, the hideous lesions on everyone that are not only accepted, but turned into a fashion statement. And the ultimate awfulness is that when we finally meet the boy's parents, they are just as inarticulate and empty-headed as he is, and their solution to their son's problem is to buy him an expensive car. Although there is a danger that at first teens may see the idea of brain-computers as cool, ultimately they will recognize this as a fascinating novel that says something important about their world. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. -miah On 8/29/07, Dave Aitel <dave () immunityinc com> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Now available: http://www.immunityinc.com/downloads/TheLongRun.pdf http://www.immunityinc.com/resources-dkm.shtml has been updated with "The Long Run". It's a rather old book, by internet standards. I read it when I was sixteen, but it's been out of print for a long time. It has the earliest known reference to internet addiction, among other things. It also answers the question of why "CANVAS" is named "CANVAS". In any case, it's one of the classics of hacking fiction, the others being Neuromancer and Snow Crash. So if you haven't read it, you really really should. - -dave -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG1ZnDB8JNm+PA+iURAlLeAKDs+l6rTB0i23QYqc123Tw+3woc3ACgjUYu kkOIzqwl+1ZzUYutCft5bZQ= =o4p7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list Dailydave () lists immunitysec com http://lists.immunitysec.com/mailman/listinfo/dailydave
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Current thread:
- The Long Run Dave Aitel (Aug 29)
- Re: The Long Run Jeremiah Johnson (Aug 29)