Steven Johnson: We need to be reminded of what life was like before the web. Instead of starting with the future, I propose that we look to the past. In the long run, we’re going to look back at many facets of old media and realize that we were living in a desert disguised as a rain forest.
Decius, in a prescient post from 2004: Ever wanted to know what life was like in the 30s? You will.
Recently: I thought I was unlucky graduating into the tech bust. I had no idea.
Richard Preston: The tallest redwoods were regarded as inaccessible towers, shrouded in foliage and almost impossible to climb, since the lowest branches on a redwood can be twenty-five stories above the ground. From the moment he entered redwood space, Steve Sillett began to see things that no one had imagined. The general opinion among biologists at the time -- this was just eight years ago -- was that the redwood canopy was a so-called "redwood desert" that contained not much more than the branches of redwood trees. Instead, Sillett discovered a lost world above Northern California.
Old Growth And The Future | 
