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Vernor Vinge drew up some diagrams of what this would look like, whereabouts 2005: http://vrinimi.org/front9uns.j...

So.... life imitates art? Or at least thinks about it.

Of course, Vernor Vinge's Vision of amateur intelligence assessments does indeed ignore the old adage that 98% of everything is crap. The internet pushes that number a good deal further. We're talking 5 nines of crap, here. By the time you've waded through all the crap generated by people whose tinfoil hats are too tight, you've spent more money than just paying a real agent.

Still it's a good book. It was available as a free download from http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html, posted by Vinge, but it's no longer there.

Or in this particular case, progress towards a very specific book by an author you didn't mention: Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End. Time to shred the libraries. Time for the rise of the Librarians Militant. (Speaking of, has anybody written Librarians Militant fan fiction?)

You should read "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge. It's a near-future sci-fi story that does a good job of presenting how automatic cars should work. The car stuff is incidental to the point of the story -- which is amazing -- but very well-done. Vinge has even made the book available for freeonline, or you can pick it up in dead tree form in the usual places. It won the 2007 Hugo for best sci-fi novel of the year. Great stuff.

Yes, you can find it online (legally, even). Vernor Vinge posted it on his site, right here: http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html

Just going through the pictures on the various photosites, I counted EFG/Guy Fawkes, Pirates, Ninjas, "It's a TRAP!", a call for Rule 34 on Xenu, Hello Kitty, Raptor Jesus, just about every meme (hell, the turnout was seriously (O RLY? Ya, rly!) estimated at OVER NINE THOUSAND)... just about every playable meme was in play.

02-10-08 was like a Belief Circle collision straight out of Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End (Hey, a link to the entire text of a Vinge novel! If you haven't read the book, drop what you're doing for a few hours and read it!), but in meatspace.

I'd go so far as to say that with the $cifucks putting out displays for their front groups, throwing out the "what are your crimes" bullbaiting technique, the "bigot" quote to the media, they got to play all of their memes too. We may have witnessed the first Belief Circle collision in human history.

In chapter 8 of Rainbows End ( http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html#CHAPTER%2008 ) , Vinge posits the development of a drug with enhances The Public's belief in something.

Online Copy: http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html

In chapter 8 of Rainbows End ( http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html#CHAPTER%2008 ) , Vinge posits the development of a drug with enhances The Public's belief in something.

Online Copy: http://vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html

SciFi coming true!
But ... I am still waiting for full Secure Hardware Environment.

Just a clarification, the title is Rainbows End. The missing apostrophe is intentional; in fact, Vinge even titled one of the chapters "The Missing Apostrophe." (It's chapter 35.)

In fairness to Rainbows End, Vinge's use of augmented reality (not my favorite term for the concept, but I'll use yours for consistency) was more of a plot device than an end in itself. I should also point out that the Qeng Ho of A Deepness in the Sky used a "consensual virtual reality" visualization system to overlay on top of the world around them, something the autocratic Emergent culture was distrustful of. This plays up Vinge's libertarian views of technology as a force of social equalization and good.

There is a fulltext of Rainbows End on Vinge's site.

There is a fulltext of Rainbows End on Vinge's site.