Here's another story from the Institute for the Future anthology An Aura of Familiarity: Visions from the Coming Age of Networked Matter. Just because I really like it...
Most of the cosmic code is Dark Energy and Dark Matter. The stuff we foolishly call ‘reality’ is the cute friendly part with the kid-colored don’t-be-evil Google graphics.
This time it's a short story called, imaginatively, Beyond the Coming Age of Networked Matter, and is written by Bruce Sterling, although the density of hype-words, as well as the overall geeky overdrive in the story made me feel like I was reading a Cory Doctorow story (but no, he has his own entry in the anthology), or maybe something by Lavie Tidhar.
“I read the forbidden book,” said Crawferd. “It’s not Steve Wolfram’s fault that the universe is a computationally equivalent Turing Machine that’s ninety-six percent hideous darkness.
Heady stuff, either way, a head-rush of a story. Very much recommended.
The illustration on the right is, yet again, by Daniel Martin Diaz (click through for the gorgeous larger version)
