Word: stephenson
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Anathem By Neal Stephenson; out now What ever happened to the great novel of ideas? It has morphed into science fiction, and Stephenson is its foremost practitioner. Here he imagines a postapocalyptic world where cloistered monks keep the secrets of mathematics safe from the fallen civilization around them...
...recent high school grad from Glen Gardner, N.J., Stephenson is sending out his e-mail solicitation at a time when students' financial needs are expanding and the loan market is shrinking. A slew of peer-to-peer lending companies geared toward the college set - including Virgin Money, GreenNote, Fynanz, and CapAlly - have sprung up in the past year. Borrowers create Facebook-like profiles detailing their backgrounds, interests, and financial goals, and lenders choose the students who seem particularly appealing - or appear most likely to pay back the loan. The companies play matchmaker, then keep track of who owes what...
...soon to tell whether this business model will work. Meanwhile, Stephenson is taking a slightly different route. Instead of promising to repay the money, the future sociology major is trying to motivate givers by offering them a souvenir. "If you will send me $2.50 in the next week or so, I will send you a piece of my graduation gown," he promises, in a kind of collegiate variation on relics of the cross. "For $3.50, you get a piece...
...help keep his end of the bargain in four years, he is keeping a spreadsheet with contact information for all of the donors who did not send money anonymously. Among them is Chris Sperry, a sponsorship manager in Atlanta who put $5 in the mail for Stephenson even though the two of them have never exchanged a single word. Like other donors, Sperry says he wants Stephenson to have an easier time paying for school than he did. "It's a shame that you get saddled with [loans] right out the gate," Sperry says, recalling that during his own years...
...Stephenson's solicitation explains that for safety reasons, he provides potential donors with a P.O. box instead of his home address. And the natural-born promoter also directs PayPal users to route the money using his e-mail address, MStephenson@AccessHybrid.org. "In case you're interested, I have plans to use my college education to improve our environment," he notes toward the end of his tuition plea, which explains that AccessHybrid is an organization he set up to help college and vocational students buy fuel-efficient cars. "I found the work incrediably [sic] satisfying," he adds in what would have been...