The Cassandra Column: Out of the Mouths Of Babes… (pdf Page 13) (BCS Interfaces 55) -- "But there's something scary about Fogg which is never scary about Norman or Shneiderman's vision in Leonardo's Laptop which by comparison are innocent childhood dreams. What scares me about Fogg and doesn't scare me about Shneiderman and Norman is that actually Fogg can realise these nightmares of his which he explains in horrid graphic detail, making John Carpenter's The Thing looklike a day at an RSPCA rescue centre. And Fogg understands only too well the impact they will have too. Shneiderman seems blissfully unaware of what might happen if his dreams of a technological blooming aren't nipped in the bud. He's far too nice to think people could be that bad given half the chance. And Norman is only slightly perturbed by implications. But certainly not enough to cause him a sleepless night, raiding his Gulf of Execution fridge. His nightmare vision of the Teddy for example still retains some of its cuddly aspect. Fogg would soon turn that into something even Big Brother would blanch at and would make the Borg look like Little Miss Muffett.



But where are the female sages? Where's Donna Norman? Benita Shneiderman? And whatever the equivalent of BJ Fogg is? He doesn't appear to have a name. Perhaps his parents gave him the initials and left the rest to his imagination? (And what an imagination!) Where are the female visions of a future? Where are the women speculators, dreamers, savants? I have this mild hope that they might be a good deal less scary and uncompromising than the Walden visions offered by the men. And hopefully more accurate as well."