<![CDATA[Faster]]>

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Never in the history of the human race have so many had so much to do in so little time. That, anyway, is the impression most of us have of civilized life at the end of the millennium, and Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything only sharpens it. Elegantly composed and insightfully researched, Faster delivers a brisk volley of observations on how microchips, media, and economics, among other things, have accelerated the pace of everyday experience over the course of the manic 20th century. Author of the pop-science triumph, Chaos, James Gleick brings his formidable writing skills to bear here, creating an almost poetic flow of ideas from what in other hands might have been just a mass of interesting facts and anecdotes. Whether tracing the modern history of chronometry (from Louis-François Cartier's invention of the wristwatch to the staggeringly precise atomic clocks of today's standards bureaus) or revealing the ways the camera has sped up our subjective sense of pace (from the freeze frames of Eadweard Muybridge's early photographic experiments to the jump cuts of MTV's latest videos), Gleick manages to weave in slyly perceptive or occasionally profound points about our increasingly hopped-up relationship to time. The result is the kind of thing only an accelerated culture like ours could have come up with: an instant classic. --Julian Dibbell

191826

1999

Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

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2 1 false false Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Mon Jan 07 01:23:39 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 21 18:10:49 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Mar 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 18:10:58 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 18:18:29 -0700 2009 Faster is, despite its being almost a decade old, it's still entirely relevant. Asi...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Sun Oct 11 01:54:15 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 02:05:20 -0700 2009
Gleick is one of the small handful of popular science writers able to spin a delightful series of yarns ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Mar 17 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Jun 14 22:39:02 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 22:39:55 -0700 2009 Everything by James Gleick. (Ironically enough, not a quick read.) The basic thesis of the book is that our modern culture is obsessed with the notion of speed and the acceleration of everyday actions is a driving force in our techno...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 23:23:15 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 02:57:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 29 18:41:39 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 19:09:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 07:01:12 -0800 2009 Tue Jun 16 10:15:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Nov 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Oct 04 15:12:38 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 06 19:47:21 -0700 2009
our obsession with seconds... milliseconds...

the book is full of information a...more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jan 15 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 10:59:11 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 14:01:35 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Nov 12 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Mon Jan 05 09:13:56 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 09:15:31 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Fri Jul 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 09:07:39 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 09:27:56 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 04:39:58 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 10:49:13 -0700 2009 Dislikes: Opinionated ramblings without any explanation or defense of the opinion. Like listening to an old man complain about how the world has changed.]]> 0 0 false false Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed Sep 09 14:48:01 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 14:48:01 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 1999 Thu Aug 27 11:29:44 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 11:29:44 -0700 2009 A modernization of Toffler's Future Shock, without the impact of Toffler's style, and that of a totally new concept.]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 14 09:04:24 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 09:43:20 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jan 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Dec 28 14:58:02 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 02 15:03:09 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sat Feb 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Sep 07 08:33:07 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 07 20:47:39 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Jun 21 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Thu Apr 03 08:46:54 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 03 08:46:54 -0700 2008
I’ve ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jul 08 12:29:51 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 08 12:35:36 -0700 2008 Simplexity and a recent 411 call have reminded me of it. As others have said, some of the information is now a little dated. Also, I wouldn't recommend it to those prone to anxiety; even just hearing about everything speeding up stress...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 11:54:15 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 11:54:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=189213