Google: Wintermute or Neuromancer?

I love science fiction, so I can’t help it when news like Microsoft’s hostile takeover of Yahoo! invites the possibility that the end result of these web conglomerates’ struggles—that is, the battle between Google and Microsoft over who will control cyberspace—will be something out of science fiction: the unveiling of a speculative “Internet operating system,” and our final transitioning into a truly Gibsonesque cyberspace.

So, how much do you know how to know?

Jonathan V. Last’s article “Google and Its Enemies” on The Weekly Standard got me thinking about knowledge. But not so much knowledge itself, but the retention of knowledge. What does it mean to be knowledgeable in a web 2.0 twenty-first century? Is…