Cory Doctorow on the future of work
Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow has a wonderful piece in the current Forbes examining the future of work, circa 2027. Worth a look to see one of the potential futures our kids are going to face, and the kind of skills and knowledge they'll need to be armed with. In this clip, a venture-capital scout is perusing the wares of an antique technology artist who has a stall in an abandoned Wal-Mart.
He went for the fish first. Its scales were individual slices from the skins of old Nokia phones--back when it was just Nokia, not Marvel Comics Mobile--each articulated on its own little sprig of memory wire. The gills were scuffed iPod backings, the logos just recognizable under the fog of scratches. The eyes bore HP and PlayStation logos, respectively, and the lips were made from inner-tube strips that bore the smallest recognizable logomarks. As he lifted it, it settled into his hand, arching back to find his thumb and palm, nestling in there.
"It'll work like an old-time phone," she said. "It'll even do a little lookup from old-style exchange numbers to different identity registers and try to get you a voice-call with someone."
"Do people really do that?"
"Some do. Most just want it for the object-ness of it. It's got a lot of emotion." The scuffs, that's what did it. They were like stories, those scratches, each one a memento mori for some long-dead instant in some stranger's life.
Via Forbes