RE: Most 200{0,1} prescient SciFi author?

From: Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 02 2001 - 15:24:52 PST


Lisa Dusseault writes:

> - The title-virus itself is problematic. It made me cringe when I read
> about a virus that put people into comas just by displaying a certain
> "snow" pattern on (part of!) their screen.

Ummm... counterpoint: the Pokemon cartoon which did, in fact, cause a
raft of epileptic seizures in Japan. Of course, most viewers were
unaffected, but then again, the Pokemon cartoon wasn't actually
*designed* to have that affect, and it was a broadcast that couldn't
adapt to the viewer's response pattern, whereas software conceivably
could.

Still implausible, perhaps, but in a book which includes jet-propelled
dog-based cyborgs cruising highways at 500 MPH, the mafia using
heavily armored high-tech vehicles for pizza delivery, and a memo from
the Federal government telling its employees not to use U.S. currency
as toilet paper, not to mention all that Sumerian stuff, I'll cut him
some slack...

rst



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