New stories by authors including Neal Stephenson, Rose Eveleth and Robert Harris imagine a techno-apocalypse precipitated by the internet. Some even hint at how we could dodge it Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632880-900-how-to-avoid-a-techno-apocalypse-brought-on-by-the-internet/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: neal stephenson
Are We on the Cusp of a Metaverse, the Next Version of the Internet?
The Washington Post describes it as “the next internet.” Wikipedia defines it as “a collective virtual shared space…including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet.” But it was Neal Stephenson who named it “the metaverse” in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. Are we closer to seeing it happen? The Washington Post reports:
In the past month,…
Dreams of Offshore Servers Haunt The Ocean-Based Micronation of ‘Sealand’
Late Christmas Eve, 1966, a retired British army major named Paddy Roy Bates piloted a motorboat seven miles off the coast of England to an abandoned anti-aircraft platform “and declared it conquered,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ian Urbina. Bates used it as a pirate radio station, sometimes spending several months there while living on tins of corned beef, rice pudding, flour,…
Bizarre New Theories Emerge About Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto
“I am not saying that Neal Stephenson is Satoshi Nakamoto,” writes the features editor at Reason. “What I am saying is: Would it really be surprising if he were?” This prompted a strong rebuke from CCN Markets: The article starts, “Consider the possibility that Neal Stephenson is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin.” Let’s not do that. That’s like saying…