August 25, 2003
For safe keeping*
From an interview with Neil Stephenson:
"For the most part, Snow Crash turned out to be a failed prediction. People have shown limited interest in immersive 3-D technology, so I think it worked better as a novel than as a prognostication. But it provided a reasonable, coherent picture of a particular kind of entertainment technology. That sort of vision is valuable to engineers. Because of the way institutions work, an engineer ends up working on one part of a system but doesn't get to stand back and see the big picture. When engineering types speak highly of some science fiction writer, usually it's not because that person predicted the future. Rather, it's because he or she put together disparate ideas into a coherent vision that could be used as a road map by the people who are actually deploying such a technology."
*There is a stress between the function of a blog as both public facade and personal media web. I suppose that's partly why I have more drafts than published posts.
Posted by Trevor F Smith at August 25, 2003 08:33 AM | TrackBack