At the recommendation of a colleague, I finally got around to reading Cory Doctorow’s 2003 sci-fi masterpiece Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom<\/i>. I started reading it earlier today, and pretty much scarfed it down, start to finish, in a single gulp.<\/p>\n
The most fun thing about this book, which takes place about 150 years in the future, is that all of the advanced technology — the cochlear implants, the built-in heads up displays, the casual use of finger and hand gestures as user interface, even the ability to upload our memories and download ourselves into new bodies — are not the focus.<\/p>\n
Rather, these are just the starting point. They are simple givens, like automobiles or washing machines. The real focus of the book is on what people are like in such a reality, how they relate to each other — the world of friends, lovers, mentors and rivals, human concerns that are as old as time.<\/p>\n
The same issues that tug at our hearts, the same mysterious bonds that tie us to each other, yet manifest themselves differently with every newly developed form of communication.<\/p>\n
If only he hadn’t gotten the lyrics wrong to Rocky Raccoon<\/i>. I’m still trying to figure out whether he did that on purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the recommendation of a colleague, I finally got around to reading Cory Doctorow’s 2003 sci-fi masterpiece Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I started reading it earlier today, and pretty much scarfed it down, start to finish, in a single gulp. The most fun thing about this book, which takes place about 150 … Continue reading “But everyone knew her as Nancy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15888,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15887\/revisions\/15888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}