BEg2 chapter 10 leaning waaay into reading in to (such fun)

[Michael Bailey]

Maxine: What do I do, just plug it in my computer?”

 Ziggy:  “Yaahh! No! Mom! you don’t know what’s on it. I know some kids at
Bronx Science—let them check it out in the computer lab up there.”
 ….
Maxine: So now your friends have seen it before I have.

Ziggy: They . . . uh, they don’t read that much, Mom. Nothing personal. A
generational thing.”



Leading me to prolonged & prolix meditations & computations on the
ramifications of that statement.

Fortunately they pack down considerably  (compression algorithm?)

Step one:
It’s not exactly true. Novels still sell, eg.
So I’m thinking Ziggy is oversimplifying based on the limits of Maxine’s
need-to-know (a skill probably acquired before puberty, especially in the
Big Apple)


Side trip:
Computer literacy is embedded in language literacy, but it may be becoming
more like “language literacy is embedded in computer literacy.” Like
language is the frosting & computer literacy is part of basic operational
competence, ie, the cake.


Step two:

Compare the hackers who try to get into hashslingrz who *definitely* intend
reading what’s in there, & either face jail or getting tracked into hacking
for The Company.

Whereas, Bronx Science’s earnest students are minding their own business.
They’re preparing for a less nerve-racking interface with the powers that
employ, which doesn’t involve unseemly interest in other people’s business.


Note that Ziggy turns to Bronx Science public high school
https://www.bxscience.edu/m/
for this assistance.

A) presumably his private school peers aren’t grindstoning nerdishly, but
preparing to be the leaders of tomorrow - if there are hackers amongst the
Kugelblitz go-getters, Ziggy knows that those posh kids will not only read
the shit but propagate it, profile it, and try to profit from it.

And B) Ziggy instantiates private school leadership ability by apparently
having a network of amiable connections (probably not limited to Bronx
Science) upon whom he can call


Contemplating this obviously class-based distinction might ruffle Maxine,
even though she sent him to Kugelblitz.

So he uses lossy compression & just sez, kids these  days don’t read.