Did they ever settle out the problems between Foundation Imaging and Netter digital so the CGI could be re-rendered?

Diamond Age ranks way up there for me. All the UBI discussions that have been happening? In there. AI education tools? Yep. Differing views on IP? Also there. Some good thought works.

A Deepness in the Sky - A good story with plenty of thought bombs. The Focused and the localizers are good examples.

Rainbows End - our concerns about AI? How about an AI that never comes up with anything new but is great at mixing and harnessing individual and groups of people?

Poor Man's Fight series. A good adventure story based around student loans and macroeconomics. :-)

That sounds like Makers but I don't remember that specifically.

The two books are slightly aligned, but yeah they could be read in any order without a problem. But both are very worth a read.

My favorite Buckaroo Banzai quote is from the intro. "Don't tug on that, you don't know what it's hooked to." The perfect motto to live by while maintaining legacy software systems. :-)

Have you take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End_(novel) ? Dr Vinge does "thought bombs" a lot with most of his books where you read something and he has all kinds of implications that jump out with one of his concepts.

Another of his works - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_(novella) about simulations reminded me a lot of Stross' thought experiments - but from the other side.

But all of them tend to have something - "Reality Graphics" in A Fire Upon the Deep, the localizer net and the Focused in A Deepness, Rainbows End above considers why you might have an underground market in Bootleg processors... Interesting stuff to ponder.