[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_fullwidth_header title=”@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF90aXRsZSIsInNldHRpbmdzIjp7ImJlZm9yZSI6IiIsImFmdGVyIjoiIn19@” text_orientation=”center” _builder_version=”4.16″ _dynamic_attributes=”title” _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_fullwidth_header][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Description Paragraph” _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”16px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Discussion of issues raised by Mobius: A Memoir<\/em> and The Mobius Vector: The Long Road Home<\/em>, and Mobius: Out of Time<\/em>, the books of the Mobius Trilogy<\/em>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”#efefef” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_blog fullwidth=”off” include_categories=”117″ show_more=”on” show_author=”off” show_categories=”off” admin_label=”Mobius Connection Video Grid” _builder_version=”4.21.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_blog][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Discussion of issues raised by Mobius: A Memoir and The Mobius Vector: The Long Road Home, and Mobius: Out of Time, the books of the Mobius Trilogy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"By Andrew Briney\r\nEditor-in-Chief, Information Security Magazine<\/em>\r\n\r\nBoston, May 2004\r\n\r\nOne of the perks of being a magazine editor is that book publishers send me free copies of their latest releases, hoping I\u2019ll publish a review. Since my magazine focuses on computer and Internet security--the hot topic of the day--there\u2019s no shortage of titles to choose from. As I write this foreword, there\u2019s at least 10 Syngress titles on my bookshelf, ranging from \u201cBuilding DMZs for Enterprise Networks\u201d to \u201cEthereal Packet Sniffing\u201d to \u201cSecurity Assessment: Case Studies for Implementing the NSA IAM.\u201d\r\n\r\nThese are all fine books, mind you. Each is chock-full of important information that helps technology professionals do their jobs better. The problem is that you may see Syngress on the spine of this book and assume it belongs with the others.\r\n\r\nThis book will not help you improve your job performance. It will, however, improve your life performance.\r\n\r\nOn the surface, this book is a selection of Richard Thieme\u2019s \u201cIslands in the Clickstream\u201d essays, 144 in all, originally published on the Web between late 1996 and spring 2004. But that\u2019s only what this book is. It\u2019s not what this book is about.\r\n\r\nThis book is about the complex interrelationship between humans and technology: how you interact with computers, how the Internet influences how you learn and perceive reality, and how technology both helps and distracts you from knowing thyself.\r\n\r\nThis book is about power and knowledge, insight and inspiration, culture and experience, physics and metaphysics. Like space and time, there are multiple dimensions to this book. I\u2019ll wager you\u2019ve never read anything quite like it.\r\n\r\nThe first essay in this book was written in December 1997. It\u2019s called \u201cFerg\u2019s Law,\u201d which simply states: \u201cWhen everything can go right, it will, and at the best possible moment.\u201d This is more than an optimist\u2019s overhaul of Moore\u2019s Law. It\u2019s a prophecy fulfilled as the pages of the essay--and the book--unfold.\r\n\r\n\u201cFerg\u2019s Law\u201d is about a scuba diving trip Richard took off the coast of Maui, a dive that took him out far beyond the stability of land and its creature comforts. At one point in the dive, Richard swims past the edge of the coral reef, where the sea bottom drops off dramatically. As he floats in liquid nothingness, something unexpectedly moves near him, something large and dark and unknowable. It is there, at the edge of his perception, and then just as quickly it disappears into the blackness.\r\n\r\nThe experience is akin to Sartre\u2019s description of spiritual nausea, a feeling of existential angst. Only when Richard has retreated to the safety of the reef does he regain his sense of self.\r\n\r\nIn many ways, this story is a metaphor for the rest of the book. Richard is an edge-dweller. Throughout these essays, he carries us center-dwellers to the precipice and forces us to see what\u2019s there in the inscrutable darkness. What he reveals is a glimpse of the \u201cunknown possibilities\u2026the invitation of life itself.\u201d He then brings us back to safety, flush with insight into the wonders that lay beyond.\r\n\r\nSo you may ask, \u201cWhat does this have to do with technology?\u201d The answer is: everything. Technology is a medium that continually expands our notion of \u201climits.\u201d Richard once wrote an article for Information Security on the topic of \u201cwearables.\u201d In this piece he suggested that our reliance on technology has become so pervasive that we\u2019ll soon be wearing clothing and eyeglasses and shoes all connected into one great computer network. In fact, it won\u2019t be long, he argued, before we all have surgically implanted computer chips guiding how we interact with the world: how we see and learn and shop and drive and experience\u2026and exist.\r\n\r\nIn \u201cField of Subjectivity,\u201d Richard tells the story about a man who already embodies this futuristic reality, a quadriplegic with a brain implant that allows him to move a computer screen cursor with thought. In these and other stories in this book, \u201cthe network that is the computer is linked to the human network\u2026. A complex pattern of energy and information, life blurs at the edges into its raw materials.\u201d\r\n\r\nCarbon and silicon, inextricably entwined. The only difference is the interface.\r\n\r\nMuch of this book is about the relationship between content and context, which Richard argues is ultimately the same thing. Caveat lector: some of this content is heavy lifting, not because the text is inaccessible but because it pushes us into unfamiliar territory, forcing us to consider new realities and new ways of thinking.\r\n\r\nI mention these things not to scare you away but to entice you further. During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson wrote more than 1,800 poems. Because she rarely ventured out of the confines of her small room in Amherst, Mass., her poetry reads like a diary, an intense survey of the landscape of her mind. Many of the essays in this book have the same character and quality. Unlike Dickinson, Richard is a world traveler. But his writing is similarly personal and undeniably human in its exploration of inner space.\r\n\r\nAs for the context, that\u2019s where the action is: the point of departure between what Richard writes and what it ultimately means to you. I tell you this: If you approach this book like a miner\u2014digging deep, taking your time\u2014you will discover a wealth of gold. Nuggets of wisdom surface in every story, for Richard is a master at aphorisms. Here are a few of my favorites:\r\n\r\n\u201cCyberspace is \u2018space\u2019 indeed, brimful of gods and goddesses, angels and demons waiting to become flesh. That\u2019s neither good nor bad, it\u2019s just what\u2019s so.\u201d \u2013\u201cThe Voice of the Computer\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe seed contains the tree. The seed knows from the moment of germination where it is headed. It may twist in response to drought or food, but [it] knows how to become the mature tree. And we know how to become who we already are.\u201d \u2013\u201cDetours\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIdentity is destiny. Our task is to name ourselves, and we will, once we know who we are\u2026.We are who we think we are, but we can always\u2014with a mere word\u2014transform who we think we were into who we choose to be.\u201d \u2013\u201cA Model for Managing Multiple Selves\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe older I get, the more obvious it is that those who think they have a clue do not have a clue, and those who know they do not have a clue have a shot at having a clue.\u201d \u2013A Miracle by Any Other Name\r\n\r\n\u201cTechnology has defined cultures and shaped behaviors forever. The technologies that evolved out of organic molecules, we call \u2018nature.\u2019 Those that we made, we call \u2018culture.\u2019 Both kinds are melting into a gray area we don\u2019t know how to define.\u201d \u2013\u201cThe Simple Truth\u201d\r\n\r\nRichard also is a raconteur, and his all-too-infrequent yarns are the best parts of this book. Some stories are long, woven throughout the essay; others are short vignettes that punctuate an insight or observation. In all cases, Richard\u2019s narration provides glimpses of the grace and beauty of everyday experience.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s the story about his days as an Episcopal priest, rallying his congregation to engage in a special event; about his interaction with young computer enthusiasts (a.k.a. hackers) at the DefCon and Black Hat conferences; about stargazing at his uncle\u2019s farm in Indiana; about sipping latte in a coffee shop with his son, gazing out onto the darkening woods beyond the Milwaukee River.\r\n\r\nThese stories are \u201cvisionary\u201d--vestiges of Richard\u2019s memory and past experience that, in the act of retelling, transport us into timeless moments of intense clarity. In this way, Richard\u2019s content becomes our context.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m not embarrassed to admit that two stories actually brought me to tears. Both concerned \u201cnear-misses\u201d with Richard\u2019s family. The first, \u201cThe Simple Truth,\u201d is about his wife\u2019s diagnosis with breast cancer. The second, \u201cA Miracle by Any Other Name,\u201d is about how his son survived a near-fatal motorcycle accident.\r\n\r\nExactly what happens in these stories I\u2019ll let you discover on your own. What I\u2019m concerned about here is context. Richard writes with grace and humility in these stories; he is clearly awed by the way that life spontaneously gives, and then takes away, and then gives again.\r\n\r\nThe first time I read these stories, particularly \u201cMiracle,\u201d I was enveloped in raw emotion. I ceased to be a \u201creader,\u201d a passive receptacle into which Richard poured his words. I was with him. I was a spiritual participant in his experience. If you read this book deeply and with an open mind, the same thing will happen to you.\r\n\r\nOne sentence from \u201cMiracle\u201d had particular significance for me. After reading it the first time, I scribbled it down on a piece of paper and taped it to my computer monitor, where it remains today:\r\n\r\n\u201cEven in normal, mundane life, compassion and generosity of spirit are the glue of the universe.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis is Ferg\u2019s Law, expressed not as a concept, but as an imperative. But for me, it\u2019s more than that. It\u2019s Thieme\u2019s Theme, a living symbol of \u201cthe human dimension of technology.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs I work, there it is, a simple scribble affixed to the edge of my computer, out of focus but never out of sight. I do believe it improves my life performance.\r\n\r\nReprinted by permission of Syngress Publishing.<\/em>","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4705"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5357,"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4705\/revisions\/5357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thiemeworks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}