The 500 Year Delta : What Happens After What Comes Next

Rating:
Summary: Excerpted in Wired magazine
Review: While centered somewhat on marketing perspectives and therefore containing the inevitable irritating references to current brilliant gambits in this field, this book is an intriguing read and draws some very interesting conclusions about trends in our behavior and the possibilities for our collective future. The Delta metaphor is quite apt and provides an understandable premise for what might otherwise be a very complex idea. The actual predictions for the near and distant future contained in the book are unexpected and thought provoking. This book is well worth reading if you seek some insight to the warp and weft of the fabric that makes up today; and what the pattern of the cloth may look like for tomorrow.

Rating:
Summary: Baloney
Review: You really have to approach this book with your baloney detectors on 'High.' There's a lot of excellent, insightful analysis on what's going on with the change 'jerk' (where 'jerk' is defined as the rate of change of the rate of change -- the acceleration of acceleration) of recent years, where changes in technology drive societal changes at an expanding pace. There's also a whole lot of unfocused hogwash and one-true-wayism; these kids take themselves quite seriously, in that bedrock way that people who think they *don't* take themselves too seriously sometimes do. You can sift through the bullpuckey to find a good haul of useful nuggetry, but if you swallow this book whole, you'll find that the sharp corners don't go down so easy.