fences. Every once in a while, under pulley tension, a strand would pop and lash free, wickedly eager to scar and/or blind. Then you’d learn instantly that barbed wire is a torture device with extensive military applications.

As I wrestle with my wobbling polyvinyl pipes and dangling chunks of illustration board, that early lesson is returning with redoubled force. I now finally and fully understand the wisdom of a good design-school education. You can lie to the board of directors, but folks, you just can’t lie to steel wire.

I’d love to rattle on about this subject, because the many weird, sexy applications for digitally interactive mobiles are so intensely novelistic and science-fictional. But I’ve got a deadline and a budget to meet. The clock is ticking and I’m running out of cash. I’m learning a lot really fast. So I’d like to keep talking here, but, well, I gotta go.

Bruce Sterling ( bruce@well.com) is a science fiction writer and part-time design professor.