Today's featured commenter: alanwilensky. In a post previewing Neal Stephenson's novel, he first recommends The Glass Bead Game and follows up by explaining why it's hard for an old to get a job:

I refer your readers to Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game", for an interesting paean to an academy built on preserving knowledge. Won a Nobel or Pulitzer, or a big Carnivale doll.

Ours is certainly a Wikipedia-based, shallow culture. I hear constantly from recruiters who barely (read: don't ) know me, and they always wrap the stupid job requirements with, "must be able to multitask, control many conflicting projects, etc."

I halted one of these inane drones just an hour ago and said, "Stop! stop! You mean you want someone who can't do ONE thing well?"

His answer, probably without even thinking, "Yes".