Maybe it's a clash of cultures, the different nuances in British and American English. As Danny has pointed out what Andrew writes is frequently satire, the basic premise is invariably spot on, but maybe his piss taking and irony is not understood in the same way by an American audience.

Likewise for Shirky, maybe he's understood by Americans, perhaps in his social and technological circles his essays ring true. But the essays that intersect most directly with my interests have been littered with errors and false premises; Mobitopia destroyed Clay's assumptions that WiFi would obliterate 3G, and Danny Ayers decontructs the straw men (with Dan Brickley's comments) in Clay's latest essay The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview.

I agree with Marc Canter about rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck into building a semantic web; maybe we are only digging the foundations right now, but you need those for anything but a house of straw. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some photos to codepict...