He desperately needs to get up to speed.
Speed makes you paranoid in a while.
(...or would it be "get up on speed"? English propositions are a minefield.)
The idiom comes from this form: get up to (achieve) a speed of 100 km/hour," for example. "Get up to speed" means to achieve a speed able to keep up.
"Get up on speed" is a completely different meaning, implying speed as an amphetamine.
My problem with "Tyler Durden" is that he keeps coming up with credulous or obvious observations, especially about crypto implications. Most of the implications were clear to some of us 10-15 years ago, and written about shortly thereafter. And this was long before the various articles and t.v. shows were making use of the ideas.
(I mentioned an episode of "Law and Order." And yesterday I saw a fairly crummy movie called "The Core," which has an LSB stego application demonstrated.)
Newbies should at least master what's been covered in "Wired" and "Out of Control" and "The Village Voice." All of the articles are online.
This kind of cluelessness was also present in 1993-4 and much moaning occurred about how the Cypherpunks needed an FAQ. After several people volunteered to write one and nothing appeared, I spent much time writing my own version, my Cyphernomicon.
(This space reserved for "Tyler Durden" to carp that I copied Neal Stephenson's name, "Cryptonomicon.")
The problem with FAQs is the obvious one: those most likely to need them are least likely to consult them.
--Tim May
