a word, by the way, that literally means
"no-place"--can also be seen in the
way software designers have repackaged
the world. You can go anywhere on
the Web with Netscape and you will still
be within the familiar confines of your
"navigator." Like More's Utopia, the Net
is a place where "if you know one of
their cities, you know them all." Whether
hopping from web site to web site or
getting money from an ATM, the
electronic world is a place with
a limited range of gestures.
Sure, the success of film and television is
their ability to channel our fantasy lives
into familiar formats. But on-line, all
aspects of our lives--grocery shopping,
religion, sex, conversation--are subject
to formating. They are parceled into
rectangles of text or image. We type. We
click. We answer "yes," "no" or
"cancel." The net whittles the vastness of
the planet into something neat and
manageable.
