Silicon Snake Oil -- Second thoughts on the Information Highway

Doubleday says... .

No spies in this book -- instead, I ask some obvious questions about networks & computers:

• Does the internet really bring us together ... or does it isolate us from each other?
• Suppose the network replaces newspapers, books, libraries, and teachers. Is that a good thing?
• Who is hurt by computing & networks? (it's not who you think!)
• Do computers and networks really belong in the classroom?
• Why does the network promise so much, yet deliver so little?

• Schools, libraries, and even businesses are being sold down the river, wasting money on ineffective and counterproductive computing systems.
• Information available over the Internet is often stale, incomplete, misleading, unreviewed, or simply wrong.
• Face to face meetings are far more meaningful -- and valuable -- than disembodied network interactions.
• The Internet provides a vast amount of data. But there's a wide gulf between data and information. There's a long distance from information to knowledge.
• E-mail is clumsy, inefficient, and impersonal. It appears to be free, yet is actually quite expensive, and can be much slower than ordinary postal mail.
• The Internet is a poor place for commerce ... it's missing one critical ingredient. Hint: digital cash won't solve this problem!

  But Silicon Snake Oil isn't some anti-technology rant. In this book, I'll take you through an Arizona cave to find the lost women of the Core-Mantle boundary. They're slathered in mud.

  I'll also tell you how to become a railroad baron (start with a lawnmower engine and a sheet of plywood...), why fourier transforms work better on an abacus, three ways to nail Jello to the wall, and a novel technique to heat bath water.

  Watch for Silicon Snake Oil in most good bookstores and all crummy bookstores. Published by Doubleday, purveyors of the finest in books about computing, astronomy, axolotls, and muddy trips to the core-mantle boundary. ISBN 0-385-41993-7.