Without a doubt contemporary SciFi authors such as Vinge and Stephenson have produced great thought provoking works. Always a good read.
But sometimes I'm drawn back to the rollicking rampages of EE Doc Smith or
At 09:50 PM 11/21/96 -0800, John Anonymous MacDonald wrote: the playful
frollicks of Harry Harrison. While not presenting a plausible vision of our future they do offer a significant amount of enjoyment. Pure brain candy!
For absolute brain candy, I recommend "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers". EE.Doc Smith meets the Hardy Boys. The ending I had to read twice...
So will some exceptionally creative sort spend 3 or 4 hundred pages exploring BlackNet and the future of global networking?
We can only hope.
Or has anyone looked at what has happened to trivial networks like IRC's EFnet to see a potential model for how global networking will become balkanized under bandwidth constraints, server cycle shortages, and over worked sysadmins? One physical connection and many virtual, private networks with limitted interoperability and crossover. The internet of the near future may not be the open paradise it is today.
The bandwidth will increase and people will find bigger and better ways to chew it up. Governments will make bigger and bigger claims to why their set of petty rule outweigh other governemnts petty rules, increasing fear, uncertanty and doubt in the process. All in all, things will change and life will go on. (Unless we all die and then all bets are off.)
I read in InfoWorld that the Telco Dereg act may destroy the local loop market for T1 lines from LD COs. As many as 900,000 new T1's may become available at bargain rates on the order of $40 per month with end point hardware under $700. Watch PairGain Technologies as they are the leader in this hardware market and have some real interesting vox/data over twisted pair toys.
Mmmm! Bandwidth! I hear of people complaining how much time is spent online. This is going to be a heroin-like fix to those sort of people. (I already have access to a t-1. It can be pretty damn addicting. At least when the rest of the net is willing to cooperate...) I expect that the big winners in the bandwidth wars will be the hard drive manufacturers. Imagine the amount of crap that will accumulate when downloads take seconds instead on minutes (or hours). Buy your stock now!
Sheesh, I start out talking SciFi and end up talking PairGain! I guess the future is now.
Actually the future was last week. Sorry. You missed it. --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|