Read: Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age

I’m finally done! After the first 3rd or so, it gets much much better. I had a problem with the new vocabulary, so it made it a bit of a daunting task to keep on it.

I love this book! I want a copy of the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer :-) This book reminds me of Ender’s Game a little bit… I’m sure others have drawn the parallels.

From The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson:

You could get a phantascopic system planted directly on your retinas, just as Bud’s sound system lived on his eardrums. You could even get telaestetics patched into your spinal column at various key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks: some concerns about long-term nerve damage, plus it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the f….... middle) all the time—even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who’d somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.

Am reading this now (just started)...I love it. The idea that we should perhaps look to Victorian times for cultural guidance…This resonates with me some, given the apparent trend of our culture towards less decorum and less respect for one another.

I should be able to get started this week after I give the Rails talk.