Faster: The Acceleration of Just about EverythingSynchronize your watches. We have reached the epoch of the nanosecond. This is the heyday of speed. If one quality defines our modern, technocratic age, it is acceleration. We are making haste. Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers -- they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel. In Faster, James Gleick explores nothing less than the human condition at the turn of the millennium. He shines a light of enterprising and analytical reporting -- as well as sly wit -- on the newest paradoxes of time. His journey takes us through the bunkers and trenches of a war we barely knew we were fighting: to the atomic clocks of the Directorate of Time, to the waiting rooms that focus our impatience, to the film production studios that test the high-speed limits of our perception, to the air-traffic command centers that give time pressure new meaning. We have become a quick-reflexed, multitasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding species. We don't completely understand it, and we're not altogether happy about it. Faster is a mirror held up to our times -- and a mordant reminder of why some things take time. |
Contents
Pacemaker | 3 |
The Door Close Button | 23 |
Time Goes Standard | 43 |
Copyright | |
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acceleration American average Barry Levinson brain button cameras century channels clock commercial created day traders devices director directory assistance Dirk Johnson drive E-mail efficiency electronic elevators fast faster feel files film flash flight human Ibid images instant Internet James Gleick Law of Small leap second leisure less listen lives machine means measured Mersenne Prime Microserfs millisecond minutes a day modern motion movie multitasking never on-line pace paperwork Paperwork Reduction Act perhaps Press Pseudo-Event psychologists radio real-time record remote control researchers says screen Sebastian de Grazia seconds seems sequence sky lobby sleep slow Small Numbers speed spend talk tech television things time-saving tion Type viewer waiting watch Woody Allen words wristwatch wrote York