How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Robert Gu—and perhaps every student—has dreamed of shortcuts. Learn Russian or Latin or Chinese or Spanish, overnight and painlessly! But be careful what you wish for.... He read the sections on side effects: Learning a language, or a career specialty, changes a person. Cram in such skills willy-nilly and you distort the underlying personality. (15.198)
Robert Gu is learning about JITT here, which is another example of technology's dark side: Sure, JITT can teach you some new skill or field. And yes, we love the idea in theory. But they haven't quite got all the kinks worked out, as we see with Carlos Rivera and Alice Gu. We like the idea of learning a language quickly; we're not crazy about the idea of being brain-damaged ever after. (Or, in Carlos's case, until medical science comes up with a cure.)
Quote #8
First, he laid down a consensus for the robots' appearance. There were queeps and chirps, spitting and shooting in all directions. In reality, these were his 400 mobile manipulators—known as "tweezer bots" in the business. They were barely fast enough to keep up with the humans. But he also had mapped megamunches and xoroshows and salsipueds—these onto his cleaner bots and sample carriers. Behind them lurked the two largest mechs in Huynh's lab, combination forklifts and heavy equipment installers; for now, they were tricked out as gray-masted blue ionipods. (20.188)
One of our favorite words when discussing virtual reality in this book is "consensus": just because you give your robots a certain look in the digital world, doesn't mean that other people are going to see them as such. Besides all the technology, what you need is for the "Community" to agree with you on what they see. Or even better, have the community help out.
Quote #9
There were glimpses of Robert's recent passage. That was enough to guide them downstairs. But now there were places where even wireless failed, and Juan and Miri could talk only to each other.
"It's like a haunted house." Juan's voice was hushed. His hand reached out and grasped hers; she didn't shake him loose. She needed him to keep cool. Certainly losing all connectivity in the middle of an office building was an eerie thing. (22.22-3)
At the end of the library riot, there's a bit network failure. So if you're interested in how technology breaks down and how people cope, you can check that out. But we wanted to put some focus on this little moment, when Juan and Miri are following Robert into a digital deadzone. This is what Robert wanted and failed to get in quote #4. For young peeps like Juan and Miri, though, this deadzone isn't fun—it's a little spooky.