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William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

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Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#81

Post by 0_____0 »

reportingsjr wrote: post #20
guerrilla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also listened to it as an audiobook and while I very much got the vibe, I have no idea what was going on, which is kinda rare (I listen to a lot of audiobooks). It's as if I didn't even read it... buy kinda did. I duno.

I had the same experience reading neuromancer in the last year. I felt like I got the vibe of what was going on, but struggled to understand the details and figure out what was actually happening in the story.

I've read it probably four times over the decades, most recently this year. I think I more or less have a handle on the story now, but after the first read I remember having been sort of confused.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#82

Post by tgv »

I didn't have more problems reading Neuromancer than others, quite enjoyed it, but listening to it is not easy. The names and the random nouns that have acquired new meanings (like sprawl, chiba), are hard to parse for non-native speakers. Harder than in text, IMO.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#83

Post by BruceEel »

shmerl wrote: post #80
4ggr0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i love that a big tech corp will bring us new Neuromancer content.

Irony isn't lost on that.

Maybe for maximum effect it should have been a Japanese company... (maybe Sony, who, IIRC, at some point in the past have required installation of proprietary software/DRM in order to play their content, snuck in a rootkit in the process too, which is itself a kind of cyberpunky thing to do I guess but I digress...)

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#84

Post by LiquidSky »

acuozzo wrote: post #39
IlikeKitties wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a wetransfer link but that expired. Has anyone got a torrent for the CD Version? Or perhaps a reddit acount to contact that OP to get another download for it? If you can make it available i can seed it indefinetly

I have the CD version, but I stupidly re-encoded it to something like 256kbps CBR MP3 back in 2012. Still, the fidelity is far greater than what was shared here. I can uploaded it somewhere if you'd like. Edit: Here you go: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MvEQd-V3Ma86XMnQYpCa... Please share this far & wide. I have a busy night ahead of me or I'd take the time to upload it to IA.

Thank you!

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#85

Post by robotresearcher »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #34
muricula wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the audio quality gives this recording character. What could be more cyberpunk than hearing the quirky artifacts resulting from ripping an obsolete recording medium?

A little embarrassing when the 1970s technology is better than the 1990s.

‘Worse is better’ in effect. MP3 trades quality for convenience.

Edit: I read above that these particular MP3s are corrupted, so they have a serious enjoyability issue.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#86

Post by pragma_x »

LiquidSky wrote: post #30
sien wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a BBC Audio drama of Neuromancer that is 1:56 long. It is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S89BHnaxULo I haven't listened to the audio book of Neuromancer but I re-read it a few weeks back. The audio play I still go back to once in a while as well.

Two minutes hardly seems enough time to do the story justice.

"Some things happen, an space station happens, some AI happens, and in the end, our protagonist figures out that he's kind of insignificant despite being there for all of it."

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#87

Post by stronglikedan »

emil-lp wrote: post #59
LiquidSky wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two minutes hardly seems enough time to do the story justice.

1:56 here refers to the aspect ratio, meaning 1 high and 56 long. So it is actually really long.

lol, what? It's an hour and 56 minutes long is all.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#88

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

robotresearcher wrote: post #85
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little embarrassing when the 1970s technology is better than the 1990s.

‘Worse is better’ in effect. MP3 trades quality for convenience. Edit: I read above that these particular MP3s are corrupted, so they have a serious enjoyability issue.

That's the point. CDs have error correction to handle corruption. MP3 has nothing. A complete downgrade in robustness.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#89

Post by robotresearcher »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #88
robotresearcher wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Worse is better’ in effect. MP3 trades quality for convenience. Edit: I read above that these particular MP3s are corrupted, so they have a serious enjoyability issue.

That's the point. CDs have error correction to handle corruption. MP3 has nothing. A complete downgrade in robustness.

With an advantage in compactness that makes them easier to distribute. That trade off is their point.

Re: William Gibson Reads Neuromancer (2004)

#90

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

robotresearcher wrote: post #89
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. CDs have error correction to handle corruption. MP3 has nothing. A complete downgrade in robustness.

With an advantage in compactness that makes them easier to distribute. That trade off is their point.

That wasn't the MPEG design goal. It was to stream video through a distribution network where dropouts would be tolerated as part of doing business. People were accustomed to snowy analog broadcast video. That is more disruptive when listening to purely audio. This is incidentally why CDs had their error handling significantly improved over Phillips' original prototype which would have been much more susceptible to scratches if commercialized.
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