"FWLS66" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

"Of course, like a funnel, there was only one way to go;
out. I built that funnel with my own two hands through greed and
apathy, and now I had to go through with it. But if I was going
out, everybody else was coming with me.

"Freddy Flatscreen was a froody guy. I chatted with him by
v-mail a number of times, despite his mail coming back with no
video and a synth voice. He hated graphics of any kind, and
virtual reality even more. He had this idea. Say, Bill, he
mailed me, I've got this idea. Whaddya say we blow the shit out
of the net and run?"

William Doors grinned at the thought, happy memories
flooding over his face like the tide. It wasn't really a
pleasant grin, or a mean grin; it was the definition of the shit-
eating grin. "Oooh, it was a sweet program. Nobody knew all the
undocced calls in VOS but me, since I managed to track down the
original author and trade for them. The Net Will Eat Itself
virus, when unleashed via a small button in my office, would
slide across the net like a power mower, chewing up the virtual
reality aspect of VOS wherever it went. All exporting copies of
VOS had it in them already, just waiting for the signal.

"So, on the day the men in the white coats came for me, I
pushed the button and killed the net.

"The net didn't die, actually. We never wanted to sever the
lines of the baddest communications system ever made. We just
wanted to give these lame-ass, GUI addicted, money minded
dorkwads a kick in the pants. See, VOS always had a built in
text mode, but nobody liked to use it because it was complicated.
With that mode, however, you have power. As fast as you can
type, you can run the net, in ways faster than any metaphor
interface can handle. The corps whined and pulled out, trying to
form some alternate kind of VR software, but the patents on the
mental interface were MINE and nobody ever, ever managed to
duplicate them. No amount of biogenetic research could figure
out how they worked.

"Actually, I never knew how they worked either, since I
didn't design them. I suspect little elves did it. But that's
besides the point.

"Now, the net was there, using some variant of the UNIX
system that Freddy coded for me. Suddenly the shift was made; VR
was out of mode, passe. Text was trendy. The hordes flocked to
this net.

"This new net was just as corrupt and awful as the VR