Oddly enough, my husband (who occasionally reads my books) started reading Rainbow's End on the 25th-- even though it's been in the house ever since I read it when it was first released. Something must be in the air!

I'm not doing that singularity stuff any more.

It is Old Hat.

Am I to understand that the whole singularity thing has jumped the shark? If so, what's the next big thing?

It hasn't jumped the shark so much as it's gone mainstream within the genre. When this happens to a big idea these days, the consequences for serious exploration go down the tubes for a decade. For example: half-assed popularizations resulted in the early hard-SF based on Eric Drexler's ideas about nanotechnology being drowned out by a sprinkling of magic pixie dust do-anything nanites, that settled over the entire genre like technological dandruff (only more stubborn). See also: the internet (or computers in general) as depicted in Hollywood movies, and any number of other elephantine graveyards where ideas go to die of shame.

Personally, I think the next big thing is going to be talking cats. But then, talking cats are always the next big thing in SF.

Ah-ha! I knew Aineko was too crafty to go away entirely.