Take the time to read the short story called Yeyuka by noted Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan. It plays out the consequences on society of people with "enough money" being able to have the health monitored 24/7 by way of a ring they wear on their finger. You can find the story here:
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/yeyuka.htm
Just to add some facts to your FUD. SAT3 is indeed an undersea cable that runs down the west coast of Africa but it is not "run by Telkom in South Africa". It was developed by a consortium from a number of different countries along the west coast of Africa and Telkom happened to be the company within South Africa (SA) that coughed up the money to have a landing point in SA (around USD70 million IIRC). While Telkom has had total control over access to SAT3 (with regards to SA consumers only) since it's inception, that monopoly will end on 01 Nov 2007 where upon access will be granted to other players in the broadband market at near cost rates. That said there are two other undersea cables in the works that will terminate in SA and local loop unbundling is scheduled to be complete by 2011. As it is more than 75% of the population (around 30+ million) have a cellular telephones (GSM services have been in place for over 14 years now). Both Neotel (a new fixed line competitor to Telkom) and Vodacom (the largest cellular network in SA) are both moving ahead with rolling out their own national fibre networks to compete with Telkom. GPRS, EDGE and 3G services have been available through the two largest cellular networks for a number of years now and more than one operator will be rolling out WiMax broadband within the next 6 months. So while I agree that South Africa's not currently a broadband meca (from a cost point of view) I believe it currently is and will continue to be a lot better off than most other African countries.
It always kills me how fraction focused American society is (distance on street signs [1/4 mile to next off-ramp], units of measure [1/2 gallon of milk], stock prices [up until a few years ago], money [a quater - which incidentally isn't what a pay phone call costs anymore]. I guess it stems from the fact that they haven't adopted the metric system yet. Sure 1/3 is more compact than 0.3333333 but seriously who wants to have to worry about whether 7/8 of an inch is bigger than 3/4 of an inch when it's immediately obvious by inspection that 0.875 is bigger than 0.75? My biggest shock was when I was in St. Louis in 1999 and the daughter of a friend I was staying with had just started college and was busy doing fractions in her math course. The last time I did fractions as an official topic was some time in primary school (grade school in Americanese). As for the calculator side of things, I had one in high school which I used mostly for science and trig. In university I had an HP48G which helped me zero with calculus and advanced trig. It did the odd bit of matrix manipulation but we left the serious stuff up to MatLab. To tell the truth I haven't missed it once since it got stolen about 6 years ago (anyone interested in the manuals and a box - drop me a line). The biggest irony for me though was when someone on the street in Chicago asked me what the time was and after telling them "a quater to three" twice and getting a blank stare, I switched to "two forty five" and watched the light go on!
What about Cardigan and Egan?
on
The Zenith Angle
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It always amazes me how people go on and on about the "mainstream" authors (presumably applying "what's-good-for-the-masses-is-good-for-me" logic). Now I'm not trying to dis Sterling's work - mainly because I don't recall having read any of it. What I am aiming at though are the Gibson followers. I've read Mona Lisa Overdrive and Johnny Mneumonic (which was much better than the film) and didn't find that they made any sizeable dent on my mental landscape. All of the stuff I've read that was written by Greg Egan however, left virtual craters in my mind. How often is it that you get an (Australian) sci-fi author who is also a hard core computer programmer, is into philosophy, mathematics, chemistry and biology and writes beginner's guides to quantum mechanics just for kicks? Google his home page to download some stupendously inspiring short stories. As far as Pat Cardigan is concerned, her two books called "Fools" and "Sinners" make The Matrix look like a childs game and leave you spinning after the last page. Unfortuantely both of them seem to be out of print and the only current stuff you'll find written by her is a guide to the Lost in Space movie.
Slashdot Mirror
Take the time to read the short story called Yeyuka by noted Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan. It plays out the consequences on society of people with "enough money" being able to have the health monitored 24/7 by way of a ring they wear on their finger. You can find the story here: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/yeyuka.htm
Just to add some facts to your FUD. SAT3 is indeed an undersea cable that runs down the west coast of Africa but it is not "run by Telkom in South Africa". It was developed by a consortium from a number of different countries along the west coast of Africa and Telkom happened to be the company within South Africa (SA) that coughed up the money to have a landing point in SA (around USD70 million IIRC). While Telkom has had total control over access to SAT3 (with regards to SA consumers only) since it's inception, that monopoly will end on 01 Nov 2007 where upon access will be granted to other players in the broadband market at near cost rates. That said there are two other undersea cables in the works that will terminate in SA and local loop unbundling is scheduled to be complete by 2011. As it is more than 75% of the population (around 30+ million) have a cellular telephones (GSM services have been in place for over 14 years now). Both Neotel (a new fixed line competitor to Telkom) and Vodacom (the largest cellular network in SA) are both moving ahead with rolling out their own national fibre networks to compete with Telkom. GPRS, EDGE and 3G services have been available through the two largest cellular networks for a number of years now and more than one operator will be rolling out WiMax broadband within the next 6 months. So while I agree that South Africa's not currently a broadband meca (from a cost point of view) I believe it currently is and will continue to be a lot better off than most other African countries.
It always kills me how fraction focused American society is (distance on street signs [1/4 mile to next off-ramp], units of measure [1/2 gallon of milk], stock prices [up until a few years ago], money [a quater - which incidentally isn't what a pay phone call costs anymore]. I guess it stems from the fact that they haven't adopted the metric system yet. Sure 1/3 is more compact than 0.3333333 but seriously who wants to have to worry about whether 7/8 of an inch is bigger than 3/4 of an inch when it's immediately obvious by inspection that 0.875 is bigger than 0.75? My biggest shock was when I was in St. Louis in 1999 and the daughter of a friend I was staying with had just started college and was busy doing fractions in her math course. The last time I did fractions as an official topic was some time in primary school (grade school in Americanese). As for the calculator side of things, I had one in high school which I used mostly for science and trig. In university I had an HP48G which helped me zero with calculus and advanced trig. It did the odd bit of matrix manipulation but we left the serious stuff up to MatLab. To tell the truth I haven't missed it once since it got stolen about 6 years ago (anyone interested in the manuals and a box - drop me a line). The biggest irony for me though was when someone on the street in Chicago asked me what the time was and after telling them "a quater to three" twice and getting a blank stare, I switched to "two forty five" and watched the light go on!
It always amazes me how people go on and on about the "mainstream" authors (presumably applying "what's-good-for-the-masses-is-good-for-me" logic). Now I'm not trying to dis Sterling's work - mainly because I don't recall having read any of it. What I am aiming at though are the Gibson followers. I've read Mona Lisa Overdrive and Johnny Mneumonic (which was much better than the film) and didn't find that they made any sizeable dent on my mental landscape. All of the stuff I've read that was written by Greg Egan however, left virtual craters in my mind. How often is it that you get an (Australian) sci-fi author who is also a hard core computer programmer, is into philosophy, mathematics, chemistry and biology and writes beginner's guides to quantum mechanics just for kicks? Google his home page to download some stupendously inspiring short stories. As far as Pat Cardigan is concerned, her two books called "Fools" and "Sinners" make The Matrix look like a childs game and leave you spinning after the last page. Unfortuantely both of them seem to be out of print and the only current stuff you'll find written by her is a guide to the Lost in Space movie.