Government is becoming less important everyday. The biggest indication of this is the lack of differentiation between the Republicans and Democrats. They are puppet parties controlled by the same corporate puppet-masters, as evidenced by the funding of their little conventions by the same mega-corporations like AOL and Exxon. Stephenson may have been a little off with his prediction of these corporations as being like different ethnic brands of the mafia that advertize with huge neon lights. The corporate government of today is much more insidious, choosing to hide behind cute slogans like 'Just Do It' and their hitmen are disguised as are supposed idols, the movie stars and sports heroes. Government will always be around for infrastructure, but their power has been shifted into the hands of Microsoft and the like.
Snowcrash is an excellent book. Actually, it's on my top ten list of sci-fi novels. The setting of Snowcrash was a richly-painted view of a future Los Angeles. Being a current LA resident, I enjoyed his prognostications of the evolution of some of LA's idiosyncracies. For example, the overwhelming size and speeds of our freeways and our tendency to form socially and ethnically stratified enclaves that dot the metropolitan area like fast food chains.
The characters in Snowcrash had depth and were interesting. My roomate enjoys the main character so much that all of his email addresses and logins are 'Protohiro'. The new Batboy in Batman Beyond actually reminds me of the pizza delivery chick, YT, sans breasts. Hopefully Stephenson has thought of some new ideas to add to his repertoire of techno-jargon pioneered in Snowcrash, without lapsing into the dry techno-babble that bored the pants off of me in Cryptonomicon. Did anybody out there actually like that big piece of crap?
When Katz complains about the lack of interactivity at last week's DNC, that leads me to believe that he was either complacently watching the roboticians from the inside of the Staples Center or on TV. The 'Corporate Parties' definition of interactivity is some links to click on their webpage. Thousands of protesters, including myself, had a different definition at last weeks DNC, which involved pepper spray, batons, concussion grenades, and rubber bullets. My roomate got shot in the back... now that's interactive! Fuck voting... take politics to the streets.
Being tech-workers, I assume that most of you have seen the classic anti-tech-work movie, Office Space. How do you feel about this movie's portrayal of our work environment?
Not a week has gone by without one of my co-workers quoting a line from this movie in relation to something in our office. Like when our printer is fucking up, someone will reference Samir's line "This is a Fuck!". When a co-worker was frustrated with contradictory commands from two different bosses, he referred to Peter Gibbons' (Office Space's main character) criticism of three of his bosses telling him to "fill out his TPS reports". Everyday when I stare at the lifeless void of my cubicle, I fondly remember the scene when Peter kicks down a wall of his cubicle to get a better view of the window. Stupid-ass coporate slogans, meaningless yet interminable work, pointless levels of bureucracy, fake-smiles and forced-'good morning's... all of these seemingly unnecessary idiosyncracies of the tech-office remind of Office Space, and make me wonder if the tech-'revolution' has changed anything about the way we work from the kiss-ass-to-get-ahead ways of our parents' blue-chip office jobs. Break down the cubicle walls!
In the words of Peter Gibbons: "It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."
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Government is becoming less important everyday. The biggest indication of this is the lack of differentiation between the Republicans and Democrats. They are puppet parties controlled by the same corporate puppet-masters, as evidenced by the funding of their little conventions by the same mega-corporations like AOL and Exxon. Stephenson may have been a little off with his prediction of these corporations as being like different ethnic brands of the mafia that advertize with huge neon lights. The corporate government of today is much more insidious, choosing to hide behind cute slogans like 'Just Do It' and their hitmen are disguised as are supposed idols, the movie stars and sports heroes. Government will always be around for infrastructure, but their power has been shifted into the hands of Microsoft and the like.
Snowcrash is an excellent book. Actually, it's on my top ten list of sci-fi novels. The setting of Snowcrash was a richly-painted view of a future Los Angeles. Being a current LA resident, I enjoyed his prognostications of the evolution of some of LA's idiosyncracies. For example, the overwhelming size and speeds of our freeways and our tendency to form socially and ethnically stratified enclaves that dot the metropolitan area like fast food chains.
The characters in Snowcrash had depth and were interesting. My roomate enjoys the main character so much that all of his email addresses and logins are 'Protohiro'. The new Batboy in Batman Beyond actually reminds me of the pizza delivery chick, YT, sans breasts. Hopefully Stephenson has thought of some new ideas to add to his repertoire of techno-jargon pioneered in Snowcrash, without lapsing into the dry techno-babble that bored the pants off of me in Cryptonomicon. Did anybody out there actually like that big piece of crap?
When Katz complains about the lack of interactivity at last week's DNC, that leads me to believe that he was either complacently watching the roboticians from the inside of the Staples Center or on TV. The 'Corporate Parties' definition of interactivity is some links to click on their webpage. Thousands of protesters, including myself, had a different definition at last weeks DNC, which involved pepper spray, batons, concussion grenades, and rubber bullets. My roomate got shot in the back... now that's interactive! Fuck voting... take politics to the streets.
Check out http://la.indymedia.org to get truly interactive with the DNC.
Being tech-workers, I assume that most of you have seen the classic anti-tech-work movie, Office Space. How do you feel about this movie's portrayal of our work environment?
Not a week has gone by without one of my co-workers quoting a line from this movie in relation to something in our office. Like when our printer is fucking up, someone will reference Samir's line "This is a Fuck!". When a co-worker was frustrated with contradictory commands from two different bosses, he referred to Peter Gibbons' (Office Space's main character) criticism of three of his bosses telling him to "fill out his TPS reports". Everyday when I stare at the lifeless void of my cubicle, I fondly remember the scene when Peter kicks down a wall of his cubicle to get a better view of the window. Stupid-ass coporate slogans, meaningless yet interminable work, pointless levels of bureucracy, fake-smiles and forced-'good morning's... all of these seemingly unnecessary idiosyncracies of the tech-office remind of Office Space, and make me wonder if the tech-'revolution' has changed anything about the way we work from the kiss-ass-to-get-ahead ways of our parents' blue-chip office jobs. Break down the cubicle walls!
In the words of Peter Gibbons: "It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."