The Collapse of Ideas in a Pop Culture

[Ed Carp, KHIJOL SysAdmin]

> Tim May sez:

> And "Wired" is frustratingly repetitive, trendy, over-busy with graphics,

I stopped buying Wired because I never could find anything but page after
page of print that looked like it had been cut out of several different
newspapers and magazines and glued to the page, along with gaudy,
hard-on-the-eyes graphics.  I never got past the graphics to the 
less-than-stellar articles.

> are the Jules Bergmanns of our modern age. (If you don't know who Jules
> Bergmann was, you're a GenXer and can't be held responsible for your
> ignorance :-}.)

Gee ... someone who knows *real* reporting!  I'm suitably impressed, Tim ;)

> them to "Applied Cryptography," to "The Puzzle Palace," and even to
> articles on digital cash in "Scientific American."

The problem is, books aren't getting any cheaper, and to build a decent 
technical library takes several hundred dollars - not to mention the $200 
or $300 a year it takes just to stay current.

> The answer is that in-depth study of ideas hasn't changed much. The
> Tofflerian idea of "overchoice" is solvable by simply ignoring the
> ephemeral cruft that threatens to engulf us.

Read lots of book reviews by people you trust. :) If I looked at every
book on the shelf that had the word "Internet" in the title, I'd be in the
bookstore from dawn till dusk.  There used to be two or three really good
books on VB on the shelves - and a couple of ones that I'd classify as
"fair".  Yesterday, I counted almost 50 different books on VB at Barnes &
Noble.  It's getting rediculous.  Like someone's claim to fame is they've
written a computer book.  The market's *way* oversaturated, yet the
clueless publishing houses keep cranking 'em out, all in an attempt to get
a piece of the pie, I suppose. 

Buyer beware is my new motto.
--
Ed Carp, N7EKG    			Ed.Carp at linux.org, ecarp at netcom.com
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"Past the wounds of childhood, past the fallen dreams and the broken families,
through the hurt and the loss and the agony only the night ever hears, is a
waiting soul.  Patient, permanent, abundant, it opens its infinite heart and
asks only one thing of you ... 'Remember who it is you really are.'"

                    -- "Losing Your Mind", Karen Alexander and Rick Boyes