Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Virtual Light

"Was it significant that Skinner shared his dwelling with one who earned her living at the archaic intersection of information and geography? The offices the girl rode betwen were electronically conterminous- in effect, a single desktop, the map of distances obliterated by the seamless and istantaneous nature of communication. Yet this very seamlessness, which had renered physical mail an expensive novelty, might as easily be viewed as porosity, and as such created the need for the service the girl provided. Physically transporting bits of information about a grid that consisted of little else, she provided a degree of security in the fluid universe of data. With yor memo in the girls bag, you knew precisely where it was; otherwise your memo was nowhere, perhaps everywhere, in that instant of transit."
William Gibson, Virtual Light

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

best bit of the whole book! cheers for posting it. gonna go read it again now. :)