“Online culture, he goes on, “is a culture of reaction without action” and rationalizations that “we were entering a transitional lull before a creative storm” are just that — rationalizations. “The sad truth,” he concludes, “is that we were not passing through a momentary lull before a storm. We had instead entered a persistent somnolence, and I have come to believe that we will only escape it when we kill the hive.”

Jaron Lanier, “You Are Not A Gadget”

The NY Times has a review of Jaron Lanier’s controversial book, which discusses the dark side of anonymity on the net, how groupthink and ‘digital Maoism’ are shaping our culture and how web aggregators may kill off original thought once and for all. Check it out.

This is pretty bizarre. Supposedly it’s running off of Microsoft’s Bing servers, but it will search the internet as you type. Try it! It’s a bit of a surreal experience. It could also lead to shenanigans while trying to search for sextants or shih tzu (if you don’t know how to properly spell it.)