Bleeding Edge , riffs on the title

[David Morris]

So "bleeding edge" means primarily financial bleeding.  Losses. Of
speculators, and all the rest.  Money, not Tech.

On Wednesday, September 18, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> At first I thought the reference in the title was obviously to 2 modern
> phrases with similar meanings- the cutting edge and the leading edge.
>  Somehow I just amalgamated that into a Detective style title with blood
> where the cutting was and didn't think much about it. But it is rather a
> sinister spin on the known phrases themselves. Cutting edge has somehow
> become a generic reference to the borders of technology and we use it that
> way without any real sense that something is actually being cut, let alone
> something that could bleed. But Pynchon has a long history of looking at
> the  very bloody cutting edges of  all colonialist and all technological
> front lines. Where there are blunderbusses, rockets, surveyors, trains,
> mining, drilling, doodoes, hereroes, native north americans, electrical
> marvels, photos killing souls ...there will be  greed, lust, fighting,
> blood and mangled bodies. I didn't know that leading edge is not just a
> similar term but also refers to the forward edge of a wing.
>
> So even in the title there may be a hint that the cutting edge and the
> leading edge may be the forward momentum of something dangerous to the soft
> flesh of the human, something destructive and possibly something self
> destructive.
>
> But then I started looking up terms in wikipedia and came across the
> phrase itself-
>
>  Wikipedia:  Bleeding edge technology is a category of technologies
> incorporating those so new that they could have a high risk of being
> unreliable and lead adopters to incur greater expense in order to make use
> of them.[1][2] The term bleeding edge was formed as an allusion to the
> similar terms "leading edge" and "cutting edge". It tends to imply even
> greater advancement, albeit at an increased risk of "metaphorically cutting
> until bleeding" because of the unreliability of the software or other
> technology.[3] The first documented example of this term being used dates
> to early 1983, when an unnamed banking executive was quoted to have used it
> in reference to Storage Technology Corporation.[4]
>
>     Obviously we are seeing the downside risk of internet technology
> threatening to become its most pervasive political and social character as
> Cheney's Total Information Awareness is started under Bush and secretly
> finished under Obama with much help and side benefits from google, verizon,
> apple, microsoft  hackers, etc.
>
> Wikipedia:  The leading edge is the part of the wing that first contacts
> the air;[1] alternatively it is the foremost edge of an airfoil section.[2]
> The first is an aerodynamic definition, the second a structural one. As an
> example of the distinction, during a tailslide, from an aerodynamic
> point-of-view, the trailing edge becomes the leading edge and vice-versa
> but from a structural point of view the leading edge remains unchanged.
>
>     ( This  aeronautic  meaning is clearly a use  pynchon would be
> familiar with. Along with the obvious reference to jet aircraft in the 9-11
>    attack It adds a reference to GR  that suggests we are not quite in the
> clear from colonialist blowback.)
>
> Wikipedia: Cutting edge or The Cutting Edge may refer to:
>         • The cutting surface of a blade or other cutting tool
>         • State of the art, the highest level of development, as of a
> device, technique, or scientific field
>
>    Interestingly, in the Margaret Atwood trilogy I just finished , the
> character who kills most of humanity with a bio-engineered disease packaged
> in a sex drug has a scene where he goes from one part of the
> bio-enngineering complex he manages to another constantly referring to the
> work taking place as cutting edge.
>
> The leading edge has taken on a more genaric spin-
>
> The Leading Edge:  Journal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
>
>   And finally just for fun -here is an actual company who works in close
> alliance with the Golden Fang, Goldman Sachs, The Golden Triangle and
> wherever else the  shiny yellow gold is: Leading Edge Alliance: LEA Global
> www.leadingedgealliance.com/  A U.S. based international association of
> independently owned accounting and consulting firms whose services are
> listed as:
> ACCOUNTING & AUDITING,  BUSINESS ADVISORY,  CORPORATE FINANCE, EMPLOYEE
> BENEFIT SERVICES, ESTATE & EXECUTIVE FINANCIAL PLANNING, FINANCIAL
> PLANNING, HUMAN RESOURCES,  INFORMATION SECURITY, LITIGATION SUPPORT, RISK,
> TAX PLANNING & COMPLIANCE, TRANSACTION ADVISORY SERVICES, TRANSFER PRICING,
> VALUATION
>
>
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