Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
At least the gargoyles in Snowcrash owned their data, selling it for profit to afford their tacky lifestyle. These new gargoyles give all their data to our surveillance megacorp overlords for free.
– Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson in 1992.
It pleases me that Hiro becomes a Gargoyle.
But maybe because I totally was one, with a programmable HP calculator on my hip, I use reverse Polish notation to this day.
At least the gargoyles in Snowcrash owned their data, selling it for profit to afford their tacky lifestyle. These new gargoyles give all their data to our surveillance megacorp overlords for free.