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Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

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Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#131

Post by Florin_Andrei »

rasur wrote: post #79
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snow Crash for old school howling-metal cyberpunk. The Baroque Cycle for a semi-fictional view of the beginnings of science - the Newton and Hooke era. Anathem for an interesting take on the philosophy of science disguised as a sci-fi epic.

Have you not read 'The Diamond Age'? IMO it is one of his best works. Nanotech/Networks/Crypto for the masses to understand. I read, loved and was caught up in the VR fever of the 90's via Snow Crash, and love his other books, but TDA is the one I'll never get rid of.

I think I've read all his books. But his work is pretty diverse, so you get to pick and choose based on taste and preference.

There was a time when I thought Snow Crash was the best. There was a time when Cryptonomicon was a lot of fun (still is). Nowadays I incline slightly more towards the 'philosophical opus' type of vibe that Anathem gives off.

Anyway, all his books are pretty good representatives of one sub-genre or another. He's a very good author, and he wrote in a lot of different keys through his career so far.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#132

Post by ChuckMcM »

Thrymr wrote: post #114
ChuckMcM wrote: post #64

Interesting hire. As a startup it seems an unlikely one, Neal is a wonderful author, and has a sharp wit, but as he explains "his brain is not useful" to the work at hand. I could see consulting with him, but hiring him struck me as odd. In terms of what Magic Leap purportedly does my guess would be that Daniel Suarez (Daemon, Freedom) might be a better choice in terms of a vision that applies somewhat directly.

Well, they've got to do something with that half billion dollars. Decisions that don't objectively make sense somehow become possible when you've got that kind of money to spend.

Sad as it is, that is a very real danger of the 'over raise'. Way too many startups have negotiated their bankruptcy in their own, soon to be someone elses, overly well appointed offices. I picked up an Aeron office chair for $12 that way, very sad.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#133

Post by Florin_Andrei »

RickHull wrote: post #72
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snow Crash for old school howling-metal cyberpunk. The Baroque Cycle for a semi-fictional view of the beginnings of science - the Newton and Hooke era. Anathem for an interesting take on the philosophy of science disguised as a sci-fi epic.

All are fantastic. I was put off by the beginning of Snow Crash initially, as there are some tongue-in-cheek bits that struck me as too campy. But I might not say that now, having read it a few times. The Baroque Cycle is a massive piece of work spanning 3 volumes, comprised of 8 nominally independent books. If it seems intimidating, just try the first one and see if you're not hooked. I'd love it if there was twice…

> Anathem is by far my favorite. Its hooks take longer to set, but for me they set much deeper. There is a lot going on in this book, and it will truly blow your mind if you let it.

I've a major in Physics and it took me a couple readings to figure out all (well, most of) the connections therein. My favorite game to play while reading Anathem was figuring out where are the borders between historical fact (translated into the fictional world of Arbre, of course), current hypotheses within present-day science, and just downright fiction. Quick quiz: is "geometrodynamics" Stephenson's invention, or a term used in the real world? You get puzzles like that at every step, some easier, some harder.

A few examples that stand out:

Actual history of science - well, Thelenes, Adrakhones, Saunt Tredegarh, Saunt Muncoster, etc. (again, real people disguised under the mask of Arbran characters)

Current hypotheses - the whole Multiverse thing, the Fraa Paphlagon / Hugh Everett parallel.

Out-and-out fiction - eh... this is harder. The Wick, maybe?

And then there's Fraa Jad, all alone in a category of his own. :) I daresay one of the most striking, memorable characters in all sci-fi - if you get the point of the whole book.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#134

Post by Florin_Andrei »

mattmanser wrote: post #116
RickHull wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All are fantastic. I was put off by the beginning of Snow Crash initially, as there are some tongue-in-cheek bits that struck me as too campy. But I might not say that now, having read it a few times. The Baroque Cycle is a massive piece of work spanning 3 volumes, comprised of 8 nominally independent books. If it seems intimidating, just try the first one and see if you're not hooked. I'd love it if there was twice…

I'm reading Snow Crash at the moment for the first time. The beginning is actually really tough going as a completely new reader today. It's just so ridiculous. I can see where he was coming from, as I grew up in that era, but it's actually pretty bizarre now given the reality is nation states, religion and banks turned out to be so much more powerful than corporations. Which is one of the perils of predictions in ag…

> Snow Crash is by far the most dated book

All cyberpunk is like that, for reasons that are pretty obvious.

> Even Ringworld and the foundation series were better.

Of course. Physical reality changes much more slowly.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#135

Post by Florin_Andrei »

jkaunisv1 wrote: post #106
Fuzzwah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also highly recommend: The Mongoliad semi-fictional view of mid-thirteenth century Mongol invasion of Europe Reamde MMO gold farming, social networking, criminal methods of the Russian mafia, Islamic terrorists

Man I am almost done Reamde and would not recommend that to anyone. I have a massive vocabulary and I was still looking up words every few pages. Every time I suspected it was a synonym for a simpler word, and every time I was right. Writing aside I've found the plot pretty slow with not much interesting happening for most of the Zula portions (ie. middle half of the book). Maybe Stephenson's level of detail just isn…

If you're familiar with his style, and you take Reamde for what it really is - stuff he played with while taking a break from "real work" after the massive Baroque trilogy - then it makes sense and it's quite enjoyable.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#136

Post by DanBC »

tomp wrote: post #45
carloscm wrote: post #10

This is notable not just because of Neal Stephenson, but because his blog post contains what I think is the most detailed public description of the tech so far: --- Here’s where you’re probably expecting the sales pitch about how mind-blowingly awesome the demo was. But it’s a little more interesting than that. Yes, I saw something on that optical table I had never seen before--something that only Magic Leap, as far…

Stupid question: Who is Neal Stephenson, and why is he famous? Wikipedia suggests that he's a sci-fi author, is there a particular reason for his fame, could you recommend some of his works?

{EDIT: snip}

Google Earth was heavily influenced by ideas in his books.

The Kindle was codenamed "Fiona", after Fiona Hackworth, a character in one of his books who uses a super-duper e-book.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#137

Post by worklogin »

worklogin wrote: post #65
danellis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're just a jerk I'm not the one who traded discourse for insults. > You're damned right they owe people something about their company Have you given something to them? Where does this entitlement come from?

Maybe the internet is different than a coffee shop, but you're not only in the minority, but your tone is insulting to everyone (which is everyone) who disagrees with you. You're not asking hypotheticals, you're telling me I'm wrong if I think Magic Leap has a poorly designed website. That's not discourse.

I'll remember next time to describe the exact rationale for believing someone has a poor attitude before calling them out on it.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#138

Post by rst »

Thrymr wrote: post #113
Fuzzwah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also highly recommend: The Mongoliad semi-fictional view of mid-thirteenth century Mongol invasion of Europe Reamde MMO gold farming, social networking, criminal methods of the Russian mafia, Islamic terrorists

The Mongoliad is team-written, and it shows. It's a sprawling, uneven work, with interesting parts, but also tedious one. It is in no small part a vehicle for the authors' interest in the technical aspects of fighting with medieval weaponry.

In the parts of the Mongoliad I managed to make it through, there were characters and plots and swordfights the way you find characters and plots and sex in a porn flick. If that's your thing, you'll really like the book, but I'm just not that into swordfights.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#139

Post by notahacker »

mattmanser wrote: post #116
RickHull wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All are fantastic. I was put off by the beginning of Snow Crash initially, as there are some tongue-in-cheek bits that struck me as too campy. But I might not say that now, having read it a few times. The Baroque Cycle is a massive piece of work spanning 3 volumes, comprised of 8 nominally independent books. If it seems intimidating, just try the first one and see if you're not hooked. I'd love it if there was twice…

I'm reading Snow Crash at the moment for the first time. The beginning is actually really tough going as a completely new reader today. It's just so ridiculous. I can see where he was coming from, as I grew up in that era, but it's actually pretty bizarre now given the reality is nation states, religion and banks turned out to be so much more powerful than corporations. Which is one of the perils of predictions in ag…

I dunno, I find Snow Crash dates much better than most cyberpunk - William Gibson included - precisely because the ridiculousness was intentional. Neal no more believed we'd actually be living in an anarcho-capitalist dystopia with samurai-wielding hipster-heros delivering pizzas for the Mafia than Aldous Huxley believed we'd actually be letter-graded and programmed into praising his Fordship from birth.

Some of the space opera, on the other hand, was so earnest and certain that we'd be flying around at light-speed by now you feel almost disappointed for the authors.

Re: Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

#140

Post by jrk »

bri3d wrote: post #88
aetherson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got lost between my brain and my previous message, but yes, I agree, that's the most likely explanation. But I mention the "they're trying to build like the equivalent of the early table-based Microsoft Surface (before that meant a tablet), but pseudo-holographic instead" idea just because it's so unbelievable to me that stand-alone goggles can possibly deliver what they're claiming.

Stand-alone goggles make more sense than a table, because they're closer to the eye and can more directly manipulate what the user sees. If you read through the depths of Magic Leap's site combined with their patent applications, it becomes clear that they are trying to develop a set of goggles which combines some form of projection onto the retina [0] with some form of selective blocking [1] (to give contrast, and p…

I think the idea is not that they wouldn't have goggles—these lab prototypes have goggles—but that they might be much more constrained than a free, walk-around head mount. Think: Imagineering-like controlled experiences down to arcades rather than a personal walk-around device like Glass^n or Rift AR. Controlling both the environment and background they augment and the head movement (and not worrying as much about miniaturization) could make the problem easier enough to be manageable.

Still unclear. They do seem to imply they want it to be an unconstrained mobile AR device, but that is indeed ambitious enough to warrant skepticism. Walk-around tracking for home/anywhere is still an unsolved problem for Oculus, and overlay AR is at least several times more demanding.

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