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Cyberpunk is dead?

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Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#31

Post by kragen »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #3

Not dead, just moved. I think the whole bitcoin thing is very cyberpunk-ish. A digital crypto-currency.

Cypherpunkish, more than Neuromancerish. Also, I know a guy who left the US in order to be able to keep gambling online, and a Google executive recently coordinated a peaceful revolution that toppled a 30-year-old dictatorship in Egypt, in 18 days. And there's some debate as to whether or not Iran's efforts to enrich uranium were stymied by a computer worm that destroyed its centrifuges or not, and the world's biggest distributed computers are operated either by the Russian Mafia or by Google, depending on how you measure.

I still see more Rainbows End than Neuromancer in today's internet, but that's hardly surprising; Vinge wrote it considerably later.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#32

Post by daeken »

Rhapso wrote: post #28
daeken wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. I don't mean to threadjack, but I'm running a new startup where I'm building augmented reality displays ( http://gothameyewear.com/ if anyone is interested -- haven't posted it here before, simply because there's not much there), and I occasionally have that "well shit, it's the future" realization in working on it. We may not be in the 2011 of Shadowrun, but we'll have decks soon -- they'll be o…

I am a college student looking to do research on wearable computers and interface designs for this kind of device. Looking for interns?

I'd love to bring on an intern or two, but honestly we're just not there yet. I'm currently funding everything out of pocket, before we seek funding. There will definitely be such opportunities in the (hopefully near!) future, though.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#33

Post by jokermatt999 »

demosthenes wrote: post #22
DanI-S wrote: post #20

The article defines punk (in general) as a deviant subculture that parents are afraid of. Perhaps the general decline of punk can be attributed to modern parents being much less afraid than parents in the 70s. Cyberpunk isn't really exciting when your parents all have iPhones.

I'm not sure why Anonymous does not fit the article's definition.

Between Anonymous and Wikileaks, I feel like we're practically living in a cyberpunk story. We're just the blissfully uninvolved citizens who don't live in the seedy underbelly.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#34

Post by Rhapso »

daeken wrote: post #32
Rhapso wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a college student looking to do research on wearable computers and interface designs for this kind of device. Looking for interns?

I'd love to bring on an intern or two, but honestly we're just not there yet. I'm currently funding everything out of pocket, before we seek funding. There will definitely be such opportunities in the (hopefully near!) future, though.

Fair enough. :) This fall I am going to be doing a project about integrating a neural interface (Emotive Epoc) with a wearable in hopes of a hands free interface that is easy to use. This is a technology I want to make the concentration of my research, there are a lot of techniques we need to find about how to present data to users effectively in a AR situation and how to choose what data to present from very large data sets (think Google goggles and map overlays as starting points) and I want to make that the focus of my graduate research. This is a bit of Sifi I want to help make real.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#35

Post by joebadmo »

dedward wrote: post #19
spacemanaki wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's written two books since then, Spook Country and Zero History which are also set in the present. I haven't read them but supposedly they constitute a sort of informal trilogy. I agree that Pattern Recognition is very good. Although I will always have a soft spot for Neuromancer and his related books and stories.

Read those other two - they're as good, if not a little bit better. Nothing stunningly different. As a long-time neuromancer and Gibson fan, I can say his writing has changed and approached the modern day just as it should. Neuromancer made sense at the time it was published - the net wasn't around, it was a far out concept - lots of room for imagination. If it were only released today, it would just seem like really…

I think WG has always said that writing sci fi for him and many SF authors was always really about the present. And if you read Neuromancer again, it really does bear out.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#36

Post by gaius »

demosthenes wrote: post #8

This piece reads awfully. I haven't seen anything like this since trying to understand inscrutable postmodernist literary criticism at college. I am very interested in this, but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding it. What's he trying to say? Todays market of representations means that we exchange images that are valued by statements without consequence, statements whose only value is the one of attention, some…

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#37

Post by epochwolf »

schrototo wrote: post #23
demosthenes wrote: post #8

This piece reads awfully. I haven't seen anything like this since trying to understand inscrutable postmodernist literary criticism at college. I am very interested in this, but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding it. What's he trying to say? Todays market of representations means that we exchange images that are valued by statements without consequence, statements whose only value is the one of attention, some…

I have to confess, I've got a sort of fondness for this writing style. It's got a certain rythm that makes everything seem more... impactful than it really is. edit: of course, what I meant to say was: While aesthetically confusing on a surface level, the subcurrent of ryhtmic tonality in these disquisitions impacts the reader's thought process in subliminal ways. Hitherto the paragon of collegiate studies, these tex…

Congratulations, I have not read text like that since my philosophy courses in college.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#38

Post by daeken »

Rhapso wrote: post #34
daeken wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to bring on an intern or two, but honestly we're just not there yet. I'm currently funding everything out of pocket, before we seek funding. There will definitely be such opportunities in the (hopefully near!) future, though.

Fair enough. :) This fall I am going to be doing a project about integrating a neural interface (Emotive Epoc) with a wearable in hopes of a hands free interface that is easy to use. This is a technology I want to make the concentration of my research, there are a lot of techniques we need to find about how to present data to users effectively in a AR situation and how to choose what data to present from very large d…

Awesome! I spent some time hacking the Epoc last year (which culminated in the Emokit project) and had a lot of fun with it. So much potential there.

Good luck with everything.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#39

Post by DanI-S »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #33
demosthenes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why Anonymous does not fit the article's definition.

Between Anonymous and Wikileaks, I feel like we're practically living in a cyberpunk story. We're just the blissfully uninvolved citizens who don't live in the seedy underbelly.

I'm not sure we at Hacker News are blissfully uninvolved; we're busy building tomorrow's sinister megacorporations. Or Mr Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

Re: Cyberpunk is dead?

#40

Post by burgerbrain »

demosthenes wrote: post #14
mrcharles wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the only thing truly missing is the idea of a direct neural interface and some kind of virtual world... but in reality that virtual world will likely never exist outside games. Why, you ask? Because the main conceit of the cyberpunk virtual world is that it's entirely like reality with the exception that it's more fantastic. But an amazon/itunes search with a quick click to buy is infinitely faster and more conv…

What is the difference, if any, between alternate reality and augmented reality?

As I understand it, an alternate reality doesn't need to correspond with the primary reality (the metaverse, the grid, the matrix, etc) whereas an augmented reality is essentially a HUD type setup for the primary reality.
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