I didn't really understand the FIFA scandal until this...

I was wondering why the Justice Department got involved until I saw this:



Oh.  My.  God.

Brin on transparency

The 1996 article I mentioned. (Later, a book, and a website that has some reaction to more recent developments.) Some prescience in there:

"The devices will get tinier, more mobile, and more clever. In software form, they will cruise the data highways. The rich, the powerful, police agencies, and a technologically skilled élite will always be able to find out whatever they want to know about you and me."

Brin's excellent novels include Startide Rising, Earth, and The Practice Effect. At least, that's what I remember.

Douglas Adams on Technology

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
   
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
   
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
   

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

 

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On fiction, games, and fictional games.

For those of you of the game-loving mindset, you may find this article interesting. It has pretty charts and many pictures. Also, words.

More importantly, I stumbled across that first article in this blog post about something or other related to games and fiction and fictional games, but mostly stood out to me because it was written by the wife of Leonard Richardson, author of Constellation Games, which means that this post is sooper-dooper relevant to book club.

Elon Bailey.

"Now, I don't mean to say this meeting was completely mandatory, but we didn't see you there. Why? Don't you love this company?"