101–110 of 175 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we're going in this direction, you might find enjoyable the book Echopraxia (and its predecessor, Blindsight ). Without spoiling too much, it features a group of people that pushed their cognitive wetware and hardware to the point they can't even communicate with normal humans anymore.
The character in Blindsight didn't push anything, they lost half their brain to a bioweapon.
"A Fire Upon the Deep" and also "A Deepness in the Sky" were both astonishingly great books.
After that, I started going through his catalog. Can't recommend enough for lovers of hard sci-fi and expertly-crafted storytelling.
1) In a 2004 article for ACM Queue magazine, I couldn't resist excerpting the software archaeology bit as a an introductory section: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039532 and of course, as an ancient Unix person, recognized the date.' 2) In 2007, I was Program Co-Chair for the Hot Chips conference, and got Vernor to give a keynote first day. We used keynotes for fun topics. (I had a connection via UC Berkeley P…
An interesting theme unmentioned so far here appears in Fire.., Children… & (somewhat) in Deepness…: technology progress and it’s possible acceleration depending on the information you have. Level of civilization tech has fallen (or never existed). People a) recall that some tech worked OR b) Know specific choices are right ones OR c) Have a computer (or at least a book)with detailed instructions. Now: is it possible…
Hence: 1981 Arpanet => True Names' cyberspace, and lookahead to issues of identity and privacy
1992: USENET => FIre's galactic communication network, with mix of well-informed commenters, flamers and out-of-touch people
1999: smart dust => Deepness' localizers (note presentation by Pister 1997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust
2006: Wikipedia revert wars => battles to enforce augment3ed reality perceptions
As for issues of sensor nets and surveillance, at 2004 Foo Camp, Pam Samuelson and I did a session where I talked about the sensor net technology and she talked about issues of surveillance, privacy, law that were already surfacing ... even years before iPhones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Samuelson
Read Vernor Vinge's "The Cookie Monster" to see one of the major inspirations for Black Mirror, and a character similar to Elon Musk. Full text here: https://www.ida.liu.se/~tompe44/lsff-book/Vernor%20Vinge%20-... Also everyone should read Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" to understand a plausible outcome of the technological change we are witnessing today. It's a bittersweet book, about being a small human in a world w…
I also hold, strongly and somewhat idiosyncratically, that it would work quite well as a Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki film. (Chew on that for a minute, hahah.) (EDIT: So much so that I did, at one point, badly mock-up a poster for it: https://imgur.com/a/S96hTSV)
RE is phenomenally underrated, not just because of its prescience, but also because of the way that it's simultaneously accessible and layered. It's apropos that Pokemon-like entities show up in the story since, like the original Pokemon games, it's a relatively simple and straightforward story, with some complex thoughts and troubling implications drifting below the surface. I like the tagline, "A novel with one foot in the future," because it perfectly alludes to the nature of adolescence, which describes the setting and also the age (and up) of people who should be reading it if they want to get a glimpse of the times that are fast barreling towards us.
Excusing further Japanese pop culture analogies, I get the feeling that Vinge fans treat it as FFTA to ZOTs' FFT. Which is a bit of a shame, kind of like eschewing 1984 for The Forever War.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the more general Vinge theme, his "True Names" novella is probably overlooked compared to his novels. But, along with Varley's "Press Enter" (written about the same time) is a really good early take on the "Net" and its intersection with the real world.
True Names was really really hard to find for a long time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a meme phrase that applies quite literally to Focus, and has similar implications in the real world to those in the novel. That phrase is "weaponized autism".
If we're going in this direction, you might find enjoyable the book Echopraxia (and its predecessor, Blindsight ). Without spoiling too much, it features a group of people that pushed their cognitive wetware and hardware to the point they can't even communicate with normal humans anymore.
One common disappointment I have with sci-fi is how often AIs or alien intelligence are so close to human intelligence. In the Star Trek universe, every alien species is essentially humanoid with some added prosthetic and makeup. This is understandable in a weekly TV show with a tight schedule and budget. But I've read lots of books where the aliens or AIs not only act human, they think and reason like humans. What a boring waste!
There was a lot to like about Blindsight, but I particularly appreciated the completely alien life forms and their interpretation of broadcasts coming from Sol.
Vernon Vinge True Names. It’s prophetic.
Read Vernor Vinge's "The Cookie Monster" to see one of the major inspirations for Black Mirror, and a character similar to Elon Musk. Full text here: https://www.ida.liu.se/~tompe44/lsff-book/Vernor%20Vinge%20-... Also everyone should read Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" to understand a plausible outcome of the technological change we are witnessing today. It's a bittersweet book, about being a small human in a world w…
I often wonder if the AI in "Rainbows End" becomes the "Power" that gets resurrected in "Fire upon the Deep".
. . .
*SPOILER!* There's just a hint of the hidden villainy and ruthlessness at the end of Rainbow. *SPOILER!*