Once in a while, while we scour through the immenseness of our being while we seemingly weightlessly float through the ever increasingly vastness of our daily lives and tasks we get the opportunity to stop, yes {STOP} ..stop the maddening sounds of keystrokes, the blindingly starring at giant lcds, and unplug the media storm that is our existence, head to our shelves, pick up that bounded paper-based collection in brick-shaped form that has been ever collecting little living microbes on its being, and are able to sit down, {SIT} and read, {READ} ...read something so profound that it just reshapes it all, getting us to {re}think, {re}evaluate, just {re}everything
Shaping Things, by Bruce Sterling is just one of those books. Illustrating the way it is, and the way it will likely be, by observing our being and the design of the many {artifacts, machines, products, gizmos, and spimes} that have all become, and will become such an integral part of our daily existences. Bruce outlines it all, mapping the line of empire and the line of no return and how design of these integral {things} has impacted, and will impact us; our opportunities and our cognitive abilities and how they relate to our interactions with these devices; these things that are supposed to enable us to be smart{er}, make life easier, and just enable us to BE{more effective, efficient, et al}.
Being a lifelong human-computer interaction {HCI} enthusiast and practicing HCI researcher, Bruce's words were quite profound personally. If you are looking for an interesting read, or if you are interested in design {and future design}, I encourage you to give this book a read. Exceptional is the word that comes to mind. With that, I leave with a blurb for the book:
The 20th century's industrial infrastructure has run out of time. It can't go on; it's antiquated, dangerous, and not sustainable. It's based on a finite amount of ice in our ice caps, or air in our atmosphere, of free room for highways and transmissions lines, of room in the dumps, and of combustible filth underground...
Perhaps a rather grim look at the current state of things but to the point; he is indeed not far off from the truth - bang on you could even say. That all said, the main thing of it all is that Bruce provides encouragment for the future design of everyday things and for an aspiring designer like myself (software design and development {does indeed} count here folks!), I found this book highly enjoyble; A+ -tMac