What makes a great standalone piece of hardware is not the same thing as what makes a great networking device. One can work as an essentially closed system. The other is absolutely dependent on its openness.

Books have souls. Or so romantics like me tend to think.

More than anything, rave was an intentionally designed experience. The music, lighting, and ambience were all fine-tuned to elicit and augment altered states of consciousness. The rhythm of the music was precisely 120 beats per minute, the frequency of the fetal heart rate, and the same beat believed to be used by South American shamans to bring their tribes into a trance state. Through dancing together, without prescribed movements, or even partners, rave dancers sought to reach group consciousness on a level they had never experienced before.

A society that's addicted to narratives with beginnings, middles, and endings will eventually yearn to end. We just want it to end.

Nothing is sacred. And, more importantly...the 'nothing' you end up with is truly sacred.

Technology has moved away from sharing and toward ownership. This suits software and hardware companies just fine: They create new, bloated programs that require more disk space and processing power. We buy bigger, faster computers, which then require more complex operating systems, and so on.

... we're moving into an era when we will define ourselves more by the technologies we refuse than the ones we accept.