I believe modern SF needs to at least be aware of the singularity, if only so that it can dismiss it intelligently (or work around it). But I suspect the singularity is like faster-than-light travel for the IT generation. We may hope for it, and the rules don't forbid it, but we don't know how to do it yet (and it may not be possible).

I have no policy, for or against: only a personal style. Which is to say, I use them when I think it's appropriate to; for example, an internal monologue by a locquacious and verbose narrator is more likely to be larded with adverbs than an exchange of instant messages between cops at a crime scene.

The late 90s were crazy science-fictional if you were inside the superheated steam bubble of the dot-com 1.0 industry.

The problem with ebook filesharing is simply one of scale. But I think the "piracy" problem is massively over-rated.

I'd like to be proven wrong on the difficulty of handling the medical side-effects of long term exposure to deep space (both microgravity induced illnesses and radiation damage).

What I'm hoping for is something that goes much, much further than the conservative enablers of dog-eat-dog capitalism putting on a puppet show of cleaning house. But that's probably not going to happen just yet.

What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation - especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job.