Crypto-what, now?

Cryptonomicon sounds like an interesting book with its parallels between computer code and military code breaking. Neal Stephenson, despite the quirks that Steven points out in his presentation, has emerged as a more influential author than Gibson for our purposes, I would argue. I think it's neat that Stephenson inserts real people with his characters - it gives the characters some weight especially when they have names from obscure nursery rhymes and don't seem motivated in the book. What sounds most interesting to me is the way the author describes human biological functions in mechanical terms. I'm sure I've seen it before, but it makes me think about the similarities between humans and machines.