A pal fwd'd me from an Amazon.com newszine thingee:


<excerpt>
<bold><color><param>3333,6666,3333</param><bigger><bigger>Cyberculture

</bigger></bigger></color></bold>

<bold>Editor, Rob Lightner

</bold><color><param>3333,6666,3333</param>

<bold><bigger><bigger><bigger>Editor's Viewpoint

</bigger></bigger></bigger></bold></color>

<bold><bigger>People Matter


</bigger></bold>Looking beyond the marketing hype and gadget-fetish wonderland of the postmillennial world, it can be hard to make out the shiny eyes and soft skin of the human animals hiding therein. But our tools and toys, life-changing as they can be, are ultimately just new kinds of pointed sticks and polished shells for us to admire. Though we're progressing rapidly beyond the industrial age, through the information age, and on to something yet too young for a name, our humanity remains.


 Or does it? <italic>The Spike</italic> argues that we're transcending our humanity through technology's ever-increasing pace of development. It could be that we're soon to reach the point of unrecognizability, but it seems likely that many pre-post-humans would opt out of a future that denies them their essential natures. As author Damien Broderick says, we'll know when we get there.


 Meanwhile, people have challenged the corporate model of technological design through the open-source model. <italic>Rebel Code</italic> chronicles the history of open-source software and Linux in particular, showing that the DIY mentality has survived the 20th-century onslaught of convenience-based merchandising.


 Are we being asked to put up with too much? Repetitive stress, CRT headache, and some forms of cancer might be symptoms of our adaptation to technology. Michael Dertouzos's <italic>The Unfinished Revolution</italic> proposes that we adapt our tools to our needs instead, and finds clever ways to keep the monkey in the middle.




<flushright>Return to Top <<#top> 



</flushright>

 <bold><color><param>3333,6666,3333</param><bigger><bigger>Delectable Cyberculture Reads

</bigger></bigger></color> <italic>The Spike : How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies

</italic>by Damien Broderick

</bold></excerpt><bold>Is life like a calculus problem? As technological change rapidly becomes so great so fast that it might as well be infinite, Damien Broderick tells us to watch out for unprecedented lifestyle challenges. <italic>The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies</italic> posits a near-future world in which molecular machines and biohacking erase the limits that make us human.

</bold>

Too cool! The memes spread...


Damien Broderick



 cool! The memes spread...


Damien Broderick