Silicon Snake Oil 
Second Thoughts on the Information Highway
Clifford Stoll 

[Review of first half of book by Zube (5/5/96)]

At the risk of sounding bitter, I was most disappointed with the first
half of SSO.  Unlike The Cuckoo's Egg, I didn't even make it to the
second half.  While TCE was not perfect, it was gripping; in contrast,
SSO is dripping: dripping of over-generalization, of contradictions and
of flawed logic.

IMHO, my choices for the subtitle would have been:

"I apologize to those who expect a consistent position from me." (p. 3)
"Is it my own inconsistency?" (p. 79)

SSO is probably the second or third most frustrating book I have 
ever read.  Nearly every other paragraph had me wondering if the author
had really given more than cursory thought to some of the ideas presented.
[I'll give an example below.]

In summary, the author has a problem not only with the net and 
all things therein, but also with computers, computer interface design,
obsolescence, technical people, Unix, and quite a few other issues that he
continually dances around.

In short, I believe his premise to be twofold:

* Nothing can take the place of actual experience/human interaction,
especially computers (no matter how sophisticated) 

* Computers have changed the way we think and act, sometimes not for 
the better.

Ah, but if Mr. Stoll could have only built upon that.  Instead, he 
tries to find every reason possible to berate things that are not the
way that he thinks they should be, while longing for a simpler, more
*real* time.

Consider, for example, his discussion of 

<trumpets blare>

Unix v. the Sears manual typewriter

Unix, says Stoll, has "the most astonishingly inept documentation," and
that the man pages don't contain entries about "how to set margins."
Contrast this with the Sears typewriter.  "It delivers instant hard copy,
never crashes, handles envelopes with ease, and anyone can adjust the
margins."  He ends a chapter with this mind-boggling argument, so I guess
the typewriter is the winner.

Anyone else see problems with this?

Since Stoll wrote it, I suppose he didn't.  You see, Mr. Stoll, a
manual typewriter is exceedingly good at manually producing text.  It
is not, however, good at the myriad of things Unix is good for.  I've
yet to see a Sears manual typewriter bring up my mail, run a program,
store a file, connect me to a Web site, be extensible in any way, or do
anything other than producing fine text.  A manual typewriter is a
simple tool for doing a simple task.  But ask it to do something else,
and gee, you're out of luck.  Furthermore, most of us didn't wake up
one morning and understand all of the intricacies of the typewriter.
We had to *learn* about it.  Herein lies the one of the biggest flaws
of Stoll's book.  He wants all of the benefits from computers and
networks, but none of the responsibility of learning.  Stoll *sometimes*
wants his email, his web surfing, his high-tech world, but he wants it
to be simple, fast and lucid (like a typewriter), and even then since
virtual reality will never equal actual reality, he doesn't really want
it.  But don't take his access away either.

I wonder if SSO was written on the Sears manual typewriter?

An interesting point that Stoll continually makes is that "Every hour
that you're behind the keyboard is sixty minutes that you're not doing
something else."  Profound.  What makes interesting reading is if you
substitute the word "book" for the computer term in the sentence
whenever he starts on this diatribe.  "Every hour that you're behind the
book is sixty minutes ...."  Hmmm.

There are many other issues I could take with this book, but every hour
I spend writing ... oh, you know.

[For you geeks out there, Stoll likes to use the term "the USENET,"
complete with fingernails on the chalkboard.  You would think that an old
"computer jock" like him wouldn't need the article.]

In short, go read The Cuckoo's Egg a second time and forget this one.  

[Addendum -- 4/12/98] 

I took my own advice and reread the Cuckoo's Egg.  It is a vastly superior
book, and now I think I know why.  In The Cuckoo's Egg, Stoll was a
newcomer: eyes open, ego in check, examining the facts carefully.  By the 
time SSO arrived, he was preaching from personal opinion rather than from 
facts and sound thoughts.  In short, Stoll is an excellent student but a
horrible teacher.