GR sighting in a book

[Richard Fiero]

“between human and machine” by David A. Mindell

The epigraph:
If you want the truth­I know I presume­you must 
look into the technology of these matters. Even 
into the hearts of certain molecules­it is they 
after all which dictate temperatures, pressures, 
rates of flow, costs, profits, the shapes of 
towers... You must ask two questions. First what 
is the real nature of synthesis? And then: What 
is the real nature of control?­Ghost of Walter 
Rathenau to the Nazi elite, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

People “track” during every conscious moment.... 
alignment processes, in which the alignment error 
serves as datum for its own annihilation, are 
forever being carried out in the familiar 
operations of living.... The needs and nature of 
the interpretive and computing equipment cannot 
finally be separated from those of tracking controls.­George Philbrick, 1945

Later in the preface;
“ . . . I wrote my senior thesis on Thomas 
Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, a book that shaped 
my perspective on technology. It lurks in the background here.”