City of Bits

Abstract

My name is wjm@mit.edu (though I have many aliases), and I am an flâneur. I hang out on the network. The keyboard is my cafe. Each morning I turn to some nearby machine - my modest personal computer at home, a more powerful workstation in one of the offices or laboratories that I frequent, or a laptop in a hotel room-to log into electronic mail. I click on an icon to open an "inhox" filled with messages from round the world-replies to technical questions, queries for me to answer, drafts of papers, submissions of student work, appointments, travel and meeting arrangements. hits of business, greetings. reminders, chitchat, gossip, cornplaints, tips, jokes, flirtation. I type replies immediately, then drop them into an "otubox," from which they are forwarded automatically to the appropriate destinations. (Note the scare quotes. "Box" is a very loose metaphor. and I will come back to that later.) If I have time before I finish gulping my coffee. I also check the wire services and a couple of specialized news services to which I subscribe, then glance at the latest weather report. This ritual is repeated whenever I have a spare moment during the day.