Pyramids and Pancakes

This is the blog of Anya Ixchsel aka Australian academic Angela Thomas who specialises in mulitiliteracies. Her research into the Second Life virtual environment is addictively interesting…..

http://anya.blogsome.com/

Well, this is my first post to my first blog. I thought it would be a good place to start with an introduction to the title of this blog. ‘Pyramids and Pancakes.’ It is the title for a chapter from a book written by Michael Lewis ‘The Future Just Happened.’ In the chapter he tells the story of a 15 year old boy called Marcus Arnold. Arnold was a keen Court TV watcher and, whilst browsing the askme.com site realised he could answer one of the legal questions posed by a user. He set himself up as an expert lawyer on the site using the handle LawGuy1975 when filling out the form. Experts on the site (all were qualified lawyers) were rated according to the quantity, speed and quality of their answers. Marcus ended up the number one ranked lawyer out of 150. In cyberspace how is it that a 15 year old boy can provide legal information that has greater value than 149 qualified lawyers?

when we look at revolutions, we find that the outward acts against the old order are invariably preceded by the disintegration of inward allegiances and loyalties. The images of kings topple before their thrones do -PETER L. BERGER