(2006-02-21) Doctorow Stross Jury Appeals

A fun pair of stories by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross are Jury Service and Appeals Count.

• "It was sort of one of those things," Adrian says vaguely. "You know how it happens? Someone does some deep Data Mining on the proteome and spots a correlation. Posts their findings publicly. Someone else thinks, hey, I know that joe, and invites them to a party along with a bunch of their friends. Someone else spikes the punch while they're chatting up a Sheila, and then a prankster at the Libyan embassy thinks hey, we could maybe rope him into one of the hanging judge's assizes, howzabout that? Boy, you can snap your fingers and before you know what's happening there's a flash conspiracy (Conspiracy Theory, Flash Mob) in action - not your real good old fashioned secret world order, nobody can be arsed tracking those things these days, but the next best thing. A self-propagating teleology meme. Goal-seeking Neat Ideas are the most dangerous kind. You smoke?"

• Singularity as Geek Rap Ture.

• In the state she's in, she could lift a car and set it down on top of a baby, a reversal of the kind of hysterical strength he's heard that mothers possess at moments of extreme duress.