The beginning of the last year of the first decade of the first century of a new millenia

Well since it's all of those things that the title has brought our attention to, I might as well plaster my first post on this blog. This blog is intended to be a nearly raw stream of whatever train of thought BS pops into my head at any given time. Anything that does not easily fit into a tweet that is. Unfortunately I don't seem to be prone to writing things like this down unless there is some chance, however small, that someone else will actually be reading it. So for that I apologize in advance.

Preamble thus completed, lets get on with it!

In these wee hours of the fifth day of the new year I feel impelled to lay down my brief (ha!), digression laden summery of how I have spent the weekend.
Honestly I've done jack shit nothing.
That said, since the fireworks of the new year have faded (more metaphorical than literal given that mine involved more alcohol and girls, less gunpowder) I've managed to plow through a total of four books, all of them somewhat related, so I will proceed to share my wholly unasked for opinion of them .

1. The Post-American World
This book was a very sharply written summery of the state of the coming world primarily in the light of the rise of the next great powers of the world; China and India.
I'll spare you further summery, you can always just wiki or google that. What I found most surprising about the book, considering that it has a publishing date of 2008, is just how out of date it already is. The last few months have included major events that would have required some serious extra analysis if the book had come out in early '09. Russian-Georgian conflict in Ossetia, The global financial collapse, the outcome of the US Presidential election, and the reopening conflict between Israel and Hamas that had not even stated until I finished the book.

Each of these has a significant enough impact on the subject matter under consideration that it would certainly have required additional ink spilled over it, but their absence highlights a rank inability of work published on thick reams of paper to have much relevance in the area of current events.

2. Glasshouse
This book is absolutely a contender for my favorite Stross book (in competition with the equally brilliant Accelerendo which it apparently follows) and I deem required reading if you have even the slightest interest in postcyberpunk singularity SF, or much interest in the potential future of technology at all. Actually, it's mandatory reading if you have a pulse and like books, so hopefully that only rules out the dimmer capuchins and occasional toaster ovens that have managed to stumble upon this post.
Aside from the firehose of freakish, but strangely plausible ideas spewed forth from page one onward (much like Vurt, but less squishy!), it also manages to be addictive engaging and finish with a thoroughly satisfying ending. READ IT!

3. Simplexity
A very readable and up to date overview of complexity/chaos/emergent behavior that is not entirely exceptional among such books, but I'd still go as far as to recommend it if you're interested in such things. The opening story about the mapping of the spread of cholera made me start thinking about some very significant byproducts of urban/vertical farming, but that's for another post.

4. Tomorrow Now
One of the first books that I found upon finally discovering the location of a conglomeration of futurist related books in the library (starts with 303 in the Dewey decimal!).
Not untypical of the sort of futurism practiced by Bruce Sterling, which means that it is highly outside the norm, escheringly meta, and at times laugh out loud funny. It meanders, jumps to conclusions, some that I disagree with, some that I never would have considered, is broad and worldly, frustratingly local, and can be simultaneously anachronistic and laser sharp futuristic. It's as messy as the future world that it talks about, which is not a small thing. Absolutely worth a read. For extra fun try imagining Sterling reading it out loud as you go through it!

Now I believe its time to pass out for the night.