I think the phrase originates with Ken MacLeod, but Charlie Stross uses it too, a lot, in his rather full-on book Accelerando.
I’m reading it at the moment on my proto-exocortex (the interface is entirely analog, the storage in mere infinitesimal fractions of avabits, the bandwidth laughable, but it does for me for now).
OK, so there’s too many ideas compressed into this book to relate, and trying to explain it (as I attempted yesterday to a senior manager at work) is likely to result in incomprehension and suspicions of extropian insanity (not that said senior manager is likely to have heard of extropianism).
But basically the story follows three generations of near-future people through the next few hundred years, sprinkling enough cool ideas on each page that reading it is a bit like eating that popping candy stuff that used to come in foil packets: fantastic in small doses but the whole packet at once is a little uncomfortable.
But you should try: and you can easily. Stross has it available for download on the book’s website, here. And if you like it, buy the atomic version.
And if the rapture of the nerds worries you: don’t. It may never happen: and anyway, you’re going to have your hands full in the next fifty years. Whatever happens, we’re in for a wild ride.
