Silicon Snake Oil : Second Thoughts on the Information Highway

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Summary: The Author's Core Concept are Still Valid
Review: From a technology point of view, this book is dated. However, the author's core concepts are as valid as ever. How do we use computers in schools? It's both a learning and resource issue. How beneficial is e-mail in a business environment? How much time have we all wasted on reading unimportant messages? These and many other issues need to be addressed.

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Summary: Stoll's arguments are silly and outdated.
Review: This book is already out of date. The authors arguments are silly and already outdated. It is classic ludite stuff. Worse than that, it is poorly constructed with many tangents unrelated to the subject. (Compare with Stoll's other book, where the tangents were always important.)

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Summary: Stoll is right on the money
Review: It took a techie to write this book. Cliff Stoll understands the Internet and the technologies employed to make the Internet work. It took someone open to humanity to realize that the Internet and its attached computers are not the be-all end-all solution to life's problems. The author explains in a readable fashion what, in his opinion, the Internet is doing to our culture (especially the education of our children). The book doesn't promote getting rid of the Internet, but it does (hopefully) give the reader a glimpse of where the Internet is useful and where it is not. An excellent book. An easy read.

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Summary: An extremely easy read if the reader is receptive.
Review: "...I'm writing this free-form meidation out of a sense of perplexity. Computers themselves don't bother me; I'm vexed by the culture in which they're enshrined." With this comment made Clifford Stoll sets out to elnlighten the reader about computer culture in his latest book, Silicon snake Oil. This best selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg, porvides much needed insight into the computer craze sweeping society. Stoll uses ancecdotes and unconventional writing styles to drive his points home. His expertise in astronomy, as well as pioneering the information superhighway lend added support for his arguments. According to Stoll, "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, and negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping...computers can't provide a richer or better life." By using stories about his personal experience with computing Stoll illustrates his point of view magnificently. additionally, the stroies he relays about actually living real life serve as proof that life is actually worth living. Stoll comments, "Computers and networks don't just get in the way of work. They also separate us from the pleasures of daily life." At first the writing style is a bit awkward, but after a few chapters the pages turn effortlessly and the writers motive is clear. Stoll, in employing first person and what might seem to some as haplessly wandering from idea to idea, is illustrating the beauty of real life. Through his writing styel, Stoll is showing how beautiful disorder can be and that having everything in life run by binary codes does not necessarily provide ultimate satisfaction. In fact, Stoll seems to suggest, it provides an artificial, sanitized, version of life that allows for little to no creativity and enjoyment. Throughout the book Stoll examines different areas of society and points out the purported benefit of computers and then counters with his proof to the contrary. Stoll delves into education, libraries, the workplace, and even personal relationships. In each instance he clearly illustrates the dangers society faces when it blindly pursues a new technology at the expense of already existing options. This book is an extremely easy read and, if the reader is receptive, imparts knowledge well beyond the 250 pages contained therein. In the end this observation seems to sum up Stoll's premise, "No spreadsheet can create data where there is none. No word processor can help me write better. No online database can answer the tough questions...those which do not yet have answers."

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Summary: One fine sarcasctic piece of prose
Review: Silicon Snake Oil examines the dark side of the Internet. The author, Clifford Stoll, offers a unique perspective, in that he is a techie himself. This viewpoint makes his position all the more solid. Stoll compares the computer age to such trivial gizmos as the electric can opener and the hot dog warmer, both of which he noticed in excess at thrift stores. Stoll acknowledges that they are handy, yet unnecessary, much like a computer, and that their lifespan is far greater than their usefulness. In the end, Stoll reduces these gizmos to clutter. Reality, Stoll claims, is far richer than virtual reality. In his opening chapter, Stoll writes about his experience in a MUD game in which he was exploring a cave and compares it to his far more entertaining experience in which he actually went spelunking. Part of Stoll's strength is that he offers the occasional bright look at the Internet-- a letter via email from a Bosnian refugee or the possibility of meeting a mate. But Stoll also points out that email can be impersonal and possibly lost because of the fact that one wrong letter can send it elsewhere. He credits the traditional postal system because one can write "Alfred E Neumann" on an envelope, and it will make it to MAD magazine. Not so with the Internet. Stoll also discredits chat lines as being a place for meaningless argument, perhaps because of the fact that there exists very little diversity, and men outnumber women so greatly. In reference to the possibility of a woman meeting a future romance online, Stoll writes, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." Stoll offers credit to project Gutenberg for putting texts online. Then he writes of his experience, lying in bed with a laptop on his chest, reading one of these online texts. He claims there is no comparison to leafing through pages, and that a book weighs one pound at the most, as where a laptop can exceed five pounds. Stoll, also an astronomer, then discussed his own experience when the Shoemaker-Levy comet crashed into Jupiter. He was attempting to access image data online, but there were far too many users at the time, and the information took too long to get to him. Stoll wanted to be the first person to crack the numbers of the impact, but the net inhibited that for him. Stoll stands firm on his thesis; the computer and the Internet are helpful, but they are not a necessity. Stoll's ideas are bias free, as he is a computer expert, and his arguments stand strong because of his concession to some points. From a comparison of tedious mathematics to programmed applications to a commentary on the origin of the keyboard (which was designed to place the common keys farthest from the fingers),Stoll's writings are anecdotal, and if nothing else, humorous, making Silicon Snake Oil a fine read for anyone in enveloped in the computer era.

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Summary: This book is a definite page-turner, I highly recommend it.
Review: Technology in the form of the Internet, with its push toward virtual reality and far fetched promises, is receiving too much emphasis in our daily lives according to Clifford Stoll author of this book. Stoll is an astronomer, an author, a computer wizard and a long-time user of the Internet. This book is a close examination of the Internet and its impact on society and the world including several aspects such as: libaries, education, myths concerning the Internet, the skills that are being learned and utilized, the culture of exclusion, and rapid evolution of computer technology. All of these elements have evolved with the advent of the Internet lead to the de-humanization of life, as we know it. Stoll said, "The falsehood of the Internet is that it will provide us with close, meaningful relationships, with cheap, good information and with useful life skills." Stoll's style of writing is easy to read and brings the complex concepts used to discuss technology to a comfortable and entertaining level that heightens the impact of the piece. The Internet is shown as a useful tool while at the same time Stoll warns us of the dangers that occur when a tool is thought to be and used as the cure-all for society. Like Thoreau, Stoll would like to see society move toward simplicity, back to the basics. He uses several personal examples as well as powerful metaphors to address his legitimate concerns about the overuse of the Internet. The author challenges the idea that the Internet is essential. He points out that the Internet is just as easily used to work ing and for entertainment. This raised the question: Does is make doing work more efficient? Stoll justifies his criticism of the Internet, which is an important tool in his life and his work by saying, "For I'm mainly speaking to people who feel mystically lured to the Internet: lotus-eaters, beware. Life in the real world is far more interesting, far more important, far richer, than anything you'll ever find on a computer screen." The Internet is rumored to be: fast and cheap; used by a large number of people; bringing diversity and culture to the common people; a good place to meet others; the ultimate forum for democracy; and starting a literary revival; all of which are discussed in chapter 2. Stoll's belief that the anonymity of people on-line causes some concern is demonstrated in this particularly humorous excerpt, "There are several guys on-line for every woman. But, like the outlook for women in Alaska, the odds are good, but the goods are odd." Stoll recognizes the need that people feel for a community, but he believes that the Internet can only provide an imitation, a mock, a metaphorical reality that will never compare to or create a better society than what already exists. On-line reality is "surrogate to experience," a "simulation of the physical world," a "digital dumpster," because when you turn off your computer the community vanishes. Silicaon Snake Oil is clearly a hand reaching out to touch the shoulder of all the technology buffs and promoters who are at this moment glued to a computer screen. Stoll is sending a message to Internet supporters to consider the benefits of reality, simplicity, and humanity before embracing and approving the magical elixir that is said to make the world a better place, otherwise known as the Internet.

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Summary: Shouldn't we be living on the moon by now?
Review: At a time when those hyping the Internet and its "infinite possibilities" seem to be lost within their own world of virtual possibilities, out of this world steps the voice of reason: Clifford Stoll. Not since man first walked on the moon has there been such an uproar about what the future may hold. According to those hypesters, by now we should be in our second generation of moon families happily toiling in their biodomes raising soybeans and monitoring solar panels. Today's hype hawkers launch into similarly ludicrous diatribes, portraying the Internet as an omniscient living being that will one-day rule the world and if you're not "in the know", your life is, for lack of the will to look for a better term, virtually over. Stoll steps into the melee from the vantagepoint of one who has long been "in the know." Joe Bob Luddite would have a hard sell with a book like this, but coming from Stoll, it holds genuine merit. Trying his best not to sound like a tech-nerd, Stoll for the most part succeeds in layman-izing his text and giving those of us baffled by the blinking lights and shiny buttons a handy-dandy bulls**t detector. Relying on 20 years of experience with networks, Stoll dispels some common myths concerning the Internet and computers. His comments range from the mildly humorous ("One of the joys of computers is how they're great at wasting time that might otherwise be difficult to waste") to the loathsome ("Toadlike, that mechanical brain of the future now crouches on your desk") and encourage the reader to take a more rational approach when examining the repercussions of the emerging technology. Simply put, Stoll effectively warns the reader of the possible dangers associated with deferring to machines rather than thinking and living for oneself. As he puts it: "By simply turning on your computer when confronted with a problem, you limit your ability to recognize other solutions. When the only tool you know is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Which is the tool: the computer or the user?"

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Summary: A look at society's eagerness to blindly adopt technology
Review: Ever wonder why computers make everything better? Ever wonder if they really do? Stoll takes a step back and examines whether our society needs technology and what's its effects may be. A fascinating read.

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Summary: Reviewing the reviewers
Review: I find it disquieting that some readers chastise Stoll for his "rambling" style, for not presenting arguments in a linear, "point and click" manner. Seems they've missed his main point: human experience is too rich and variagated to be confined within the constraints imposed by the all-emcompassing IT ; our personal histories, what makes us us, are made up not of grandiose epiphanies, but rather of day-to-day tidbits, which can better (if not only) shared by anecdotes and, why not, digressions. One reader lambasts him for not being first and foremost a computer jock, but instead someone whose main line of interest lies elsewhere, and has been grudgingly dragged into cyberworld. Well, haven't we all ? How many of us really need computers in our daily lives, how much of the features built into our PCs and Macs we actually use, how much is just technodreck ? Then, there's the cost: tackling the Y2K bug alone will cost upwards of one trillion dollars. Money down the drain, that could be best spent on social and environmental programs worldwide. Curiously, you don't list buyers of SNO as also having bought "Failure to Connect" or, for that matter, "Fahrenheit 451". Again, seems people keep boxing themselves in.

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Summary: Still relevant...
Review: It's odd that something written about the Internet four years ago would still be relevant today, considering how fast the 'net has evolved and exploded, but it's true - Silicon Snake Oil remains every bit an apt commentary and reality check today as it was when it was written. I had first read it back in 1995, and just last week skimmed through it again. True, a lot of the details are outdated and history has (almost comically) outdone even Stoll's most outlandish predictions, but the book should nevertheless be read and digested for its humorous and interesting presentation of a serious viewpoint. I'm just wondering what Mr. Stoll would say now, given the extraordinary events of the past few years...