Bruce Sterling's Final Prediction 162
In Bruce Sterling's final column for Wired, he summarizes the output of a survey of Net prognosticators conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The piece is peppered with Sterling's trademarked stop-you-in-your-tracks imagery. An example: "The bubble-era vision of a Utopian Internet is dented and dirty... The Lexus has collided with the olive tree, and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders."
metaphor (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, this stops me on the tracks alright - I'd rather the train run me over than read a book full of this lousy attempt at metaphor.
IMHO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IMHO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The short version (Score:2, Insightful)
To an extent, maybe. But I know a couple sysadmins who are able to work from home (I refuse to use pointless buzzwords) but choose not to. I just can't see many businesses or employees wanting to do this, except in fringe cases. In-person communication is usually vastly more efficient than electronic communication.
I'm 21, and you're a fucking moron. Yes, young people tend to use the Internet. Some spend way too much time documenting their shallow lives and stalking others on MySpace. This doesn't mean that they have difficulty telling the difference. For example, it is extraordinarily difficult to have sex online.
Uh, we're already there. Try to keep up.
What? If this means anything, it escapes me.
The Internet allows for easy communication. Fancy that. It doesn't mean anyone will listen to you or give a crap about your "perspective with an attitude" (I assume it's also EXTREEEEME!)
Again, you make a statement that doesn't really mean anything, then pat yourself on the back for "predicting" it? Yes, people who can accurately predict trends will do well in business. Wow.
Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably because a pathological obsession with violence isn't the exclusive provice of "olive tree" people.
Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Lexus has collided with the olive tree,"
Fine. He ought to have stopped right there.
"...and its crumpled hulk spins in a ditch as the orchard smolders."
Appalling. This Lexus has collided with an olive tree so violently that it has got the orchard (not just the tree) smoldering while the vehicle itself, now a crumpled hulk, is still spinning in a ditch. What got the smoldering staerted? Did the gas tank rupture and spew already-burning fuel all over it? It just doesn't make sense. Mr. Sterling has taken a perfectly apt metaphor and mangled it.
How one can draw the conclusion from this bit of tortured writing that the "guy is a good writer," I loath to guess. Taking that point of view, I would suppose that every movie that has a character utter "Here's looking at you kid," is a good one. It simply isn't the case.
Re:IMHO (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lexus and the Olive Tree (Score:2, Insightful)
But you don't have to have read Stephen King's "Pet Sematary" to comprehend "The soil of a man's heart is stonier!"
I think I'll "understand [my] world better" if I read Milton Friedman (the economist) in lieu of Thomas Friedman (the journalist).