This *is* very cool. It seems the system might break down somewhat based on the notion that customers will respond uncritically to pager commands. They may decide not to ride the coaster or what have you. Which is why I think they should wear pager-collars, removable only by staff, that administer gentle electronic shocks.

I'm struck by the correspondence of Cory's vision of what this tech may become with Sterling's "Maneki Neko" (reprinted in _A Good Old-Fashioned Future_).

I wonder what security is like for this network. Hackers could have a lot of fun 'social engineering' massive crowds of people. Malicious hackers could purposely induce violence and rioting with the right crowd manipulation 'commands'.

Even cooler would be collaborative filtering among pager-holders. Users can be directed to different locations based on the behaviors of riders who have historically rode the same rides in the same order.

Oh yay. A way to remove spontanaeity from an amusement park visit! I know that if this was in place when I was a kid, my mother would have brought us along the "optimal" path that had been so determined, and every trip would be the same rides in the same order. I enjoyed the chaos of trying to go everywhere at once, based on my own whims (as balanced with those of my brothers); this kind of efficiency seems antithetical to the experience. (Not that I would have minded the elimination or reduction of wait times.)

I don't think most hackers have the imagination to do anything really interesting with this system. Look at what they do now--scrawl graffiti on websites and launch DOS attacks. Zzzzz.

I'm always amazed at the stuff Bruce Sterling gets on paper about 15 minutes before it enters meatspace. He also did a good job of writing about anarchically organized demonstrations such as the WTO in that same collection.