Amazon The Developers Category:  Humor Publisher: Ben Woods ISBN-10:  0976432285 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 342 Copyright: May 2005 ISBN-13: 9780976432289 The Developers mixes the insane and obscene with technology, romance and pop culture. But while the book's web development group tries to make its mark on the virtual world, it encounters pre-eminent issues that will soon be shaping the Internet of the future: Are individuals losing their remaining privacy due to the World Wide Web? Will online social interaction eventually replace in-person gatherings as a necessary means? Matt Severnson has assembled a team of hard-working, quasi-geek individuals to build a revolutionary website for a northern Michigan city. The system becomes a big hit despite the group members' idiosyncratic traits. Fast food addiction, incessant sexual tension and heated bingo competition constantly distract the team. While the opportunity arises to build the first nationwide, government-sponsored high-speed Internet portal, the issue comes second to Matt's relationship with Katy, the team's co-leader. They cannot hate each other enough to halt their steamy romance, but they can't love each other enough to share anything but a fish dinner. Excerpt On occasion, Matt wished some technologies, like telephony, had never advanced. He envisioned the days where human operators had to make call connections, plugging wires in a Battleship-like board that covered a wall the size of South Carolina. Not that Matt was old enough to ever witness one in action; the only images he had of a working model were from Andy Griffith reruns. Back then, it was surely easier just to ignore a call, assuming the operator punched the wrong hole. Or better yet, one could always pick up the call and use a disguised voice, claiming to be Edna at the corner grocery store or Ludwig van Beethoven, and the operator would have no choice but to disconnect. Unfortunately, the 21st century brought about the rise of the cellphone, and even though its dependability was sketchy at best, it was difficult to avoid. Matt reasoned he could ignore one or two calls, and even a message could be discounted and blamed on being out of range, the snowy weather or cosmic forces. But there was no way he could ignore eight calls and four voice mails from the office, especially as the owner. Matt gave in and called Kevin to say he was on his way to the LAB. But Matt wasn't on his way yet. It was 10 p.m., and 3 inches of snow had fallen in the past four hours. Even in his 4x4 it would take him at least 30 minutes to get to the LAB. After two years of working there, Matt had actually started calling it the LAB. To him, it was just some cheap office space on the south side of Malorett. Is Malorett, Michigan, even big enough to have a south side? This question perplexed Matt often, usually for 12 seconds during breakfast. Of course when he ate breakfast with others, it bothered him for a good 17 seconds. It just became increasingly difficult to explain to prospective clients that this 2-year-old computer software company was working out of two bedrooms in a pre-1900 house. Even still, could it be called software? Matt had decided long ago it was too cumbersome to explain his company's services: website development, database programming, website hosting, computer technical support, advertising, marketing, writing, pretty much anything a customer wanted. Software had to be the best way to explain it, even if it wasn't always software. The group couldn't really disguise a setup like that in a historic district-turned commercial area. Instead, Kevin came up with LAB, the Local-Area Bedroom, and the WAB, the Wide-Area Bedroom. These names were spinoffs from local-area network and wide-area network, types of networks an IT professional could discuss for weeks. The workers here, Matt thought, were far too busy to explain technological terms to the public. The group performed most of its programming and development in the WAB, while they left the LAB for the big-time stuff: meetings, table tennis, strip shows, that sort of thing. Once they even managed to find a stripper who could play Ping-Pong while giving table dances. Surely Matt wasn't being called to the LAB just for that.

Buzz Magazine, Champaign, Ill., by Katie Richardson
... it doesn't take a super sci-fi buff to see the potential implications of an Internet superpower and the American government operating out of people's homes hand in hand. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Imagine having a serious love jones while trying to begin a new chapter in the world of technology.

With the recent Internet chatter that has been surfacing about larger, more powerful Internet companies the book's message appears to be eerily relevant. This is a must for anyone who really dug 1984 or Brave New World but also likes to surf the Net from time to time, preferably with the idea in the back of your head that Big Brother could be watching.