000			01656nam a22001937a 4500
005			20250821182719.0
008			250821b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780262693264 _qPBK
041			_aENG
082			_a745.2 _b STE
100			_aBruce Sterling
245			_aShaping Things
250			_a1st
260			_aNew York _bMit Press _c2005
300			_a150 p _c6.5 cm
500			_aA history of shaped things. We have moved from an age of artifacts, made by hand, through complex machines, to the current era of "gizmos." New forms of design and manufacture are appearing that lack historical precedent, Sterling writes; but the production methods, using archaic forms of energy and materials that are finite and toxic, are not sustainable. The future will see a new kind of object -- we have the primitive forms of them now in our pockets and briefcases: user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable -- that will be sustainable, enhanceable, and uniquely identifiable. Sterling coins the term "spime" for them, these future manufactured objects with informational support so extensive and rich that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes are designed on screens, fabricated by digital means, and precisely tracked through space and time. They are made of substances that can be folded back into the production stream of future spimes, challenging all of us to become involved in their production. Spimes are coming, says Sterling. We will need these objects in order to live; we won't be able to surrender their advantages without awful consequences
504			_aindex
942			_cREF
999			_c583439 _d583439