>Virtual Reality and the Pioneers of Cyberspace: 25 years before Oculus, John Perry Barlow described what it was like “being in nothingness.”
>[...] And they were ready to make a product. They’d made a promo video starring Timothy Leary. Gullichsen had even registered William Gibson’s term “cyberspace” as an Autodesk trademark, prompting an irritated Gibson to apply for trademark registration of the term “Eric Gullichsen.” By June, they had an implementation which, though clearly the Kitty Hawk version of the technology, endowed people with an instantaneous vision of the Concorde level. [...]
moviesCyberspace: The New Explorers: Autodesk Demo Tape on Cyberspace with Timothy Leary.
What an odd interview. I got the sense that the interviewer was really looking for Stephenson to lash out with some juicy rant about how awful Facebook is, but he is so mild about the whole thing.
I think if you saw my full questions (had to edit for brevity) you would have gotten a different sense. I really was curious to know what he thought, given no one else had talked to him, which I found strange, but glad I did!
Nobody's really like Stephenson, but to the extent that he is something of a cyberpunk author, I'd say you might like some of these folks if you're not familiar with them yet:
1. William Gibson - Neuromancer, 'nuff said. The rest of the Sprawl Trilogy is great as well.
2. Rudy Rucker - I haven't read any of his stuff yet, but he is on my short-list of authors to start reading. Gets recommended a lot in these circles.
3. Richard K. Morgan - wrote the books that were the basis for the Altered Carbon series on Netflix if you're familiar with that at all.
4. John Brunner - not really "cyberpunk" but some of his work is often described as "proto-cyberpunk". The Shockwave Rider is one of his most famous works, and it is really good IMO. I haven't read Stand on Zanzibar yet, but it is also highly regarded.
5. Pat Cadigan - I haven't read any of her stuff yet, but she is on my short-list of authors to start reading. Gets recommended a lot in these circles.
6. Daniel Suarez - Daemon and Freedom were really good.
7. Vernor Vinge - I'm only part of the way through A Fire Upon the Deep now, but so far so good. His works are also usually highly recommended amongst HN'ers.
8. Bruce Sterling - I know of him from his non-fiction work The Hacker Crackdown, but he has also written some well-regarded science fiction.
9. S.L. Huang - The "Cas Russell" series is excellent, as techno-thriller / sci-fi stuff goes. I won't say it's anything real deep but the books are fun to read.
10. K.C. Alexander - The "SINless" series is.. um... well, I enjoyed the first two books (not sure how many there even are, that might be it). They probably aren't for everyone, but if you like them, you'll probably really like them. I'll just try to illustrate with one example line from one of the books: "You haven't lived until you've fisted a nun under the cheap light of a neon Jesus".
11. Charles Stross - fellow HN'er and famous author! https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross Writes radically entertaining stuff, including the Laundry Files series, Halting State, Glasshouse, etc. I'd say Glasshouse is an absolute "must read".
12. Greg Egan - I especially recommend Permutation City.
13. China Miéville - Check out Perdido Street Station
He hinted at the revenue model being a big difference between whatever Facebook is building and the plot of his novel "Snow Crash"
Can someone fill in the specifics? I guess the trouble is that for Facebook, you're the product, and advertisers are the clients - but, what is the revenue model of the metaverse from Snow Crash?
In snowcrash, p2p network IO is cheap, compute is expensive. This sets up a metaverse where users render themselves and their content for others. The renders are streamed. No one controls the metaverse itself as it's more of a self hosted, federated affair.
I think there is some sort of main street with some reserved space but it's akin to a url.
Well in Snow Crash the metaverse is controlled by a crazy billionaire who controls the brains of his employees by infecting them with memetic viruses .... in Zuckerberg's case ....
It’s been a few years but I vaguely remember a discussion of address-space in the metaverse, so could be a matter of essentially paying for a “static address” on a particular server. Isn’t the metaverse operated solely by Black Sun? I don’t remember any description of a decentralization/interoperability
Snow crash and Neuromancer are two well known must reads. I remember once hearing someone compare the 2 authors styles in that Neal Stephenson sounds like a hacker trying to be a great writer, and William Gibson sounds like a great writer trying to write like a hacker.
Attempted to get through Neuromancer, but (minor spoiler) when they started to switch persons around it got too confusing and I realized that it might have worked for a movie, but not a book. I also realized that I was only reading it because it was such a famous book, not because I was getting anything out of it, so I stopped.
Just putting this out in case anybody else feels the same pressure.
Metastasis: The spread of cancer cells from the place where they first formed to another part of the body. In metastasis, cancer cells break away from the original (primary) tumor, travel through the blood or lymph system, and form a new tumor in other organs or tissues of the body.
I'm reminded of the master-class hissy fit Harlan Ellison threw when The Terminator came out. He sued, claiming ownership of the general concept of robots from the future. I'm not sure how it shook out, legally, but to this day the T1 film credits include the producers' "grateful acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison."
So there's certainly precedent for Stephenson to claim the moral rights to a "metaverse," whatever that is.
Snowcrash was forgettable. Vernor Vinges Rainbows End and stutf in Orson Scott Cards books left a much bigger mark. Esp the way the chimp troupe gets manipulated by the network. We see Vinges "belief circles" all around us.
You know, you can express enthusiasm without tearing something else down. There was no need for your first sentence.
Personally, I loved Vinge’s “True Names” short story, which I believe may be the first “virtual reality” story. I also loved Snow Crash for its in-your-face gonzo attitude.
I thought a lot of the ideas in snowcrash were very interesting - particularly when you consider that the book was published in 1992 and so a lot of the elements that were cutting-edge on release have had time to diffuse into scifi culture. For example, the potential for 'ideas' to be viruses of the mind, or the degree to which thought is shaped by language.
I actually want to see Zuckerberg’s Metaverse, but I also kind of want to see Neal Stephenson come at him with a team of fancy lawyers and walk away with a large pile of money.
How about he does exactly the same thing, with exactly the same outcome in the real world, just without making any NFTs, burning any coal, or shilling any get rich quick pyramid schemes?
What tangible difference would there be?
None whatsoever.
...Except for no bullshit, no proof of wasted energy, no precious GPUs buried in landfills, no contribution to climate change, no carcinogenic smoke, no lung disease, no cancer, etc...
Did you know: rocks used to be perfectly good companions and construction materials aeons before and decades after the Pet Rock craze came and went.
The cardboard box and the $4 price tag were just a gimmick. So are NFTs.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|4 years ago|reply
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/virtual-reality-and-the-pionee...
>Virtual Reality and the Pioneers of Cyberspace: 25 years before Oculus, John Perry Barlow described what it was like “being in nothingness.”
>[...] And they were ready to make a product. They’d made a promo video starring Timothy Leary. Gullichsen had even registered William Gibson’s term “cyberspace” as an Autodesk trademark, prompting an irritated Gibson to apply for trademark registration of the term “Eric Gullichsen.” By June, they had an implementation which, though clearly the Kitty Hawk version of the technology, endowed people with an instantaneous vision of the Concorde level. [...]
moviesCyberspace: The New Explorers: Autodesk Demo Tape on Cyberspace with Timothy Leary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FC4UQDm_mQ
[+] [-] spenczar5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lhk2021|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Igelau|4 years ago|reply
Here come the punchline!
...
"the book has been out for 30 years and anyone can spin ideas out of it."
[+] [-] smitty1e|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hgibbs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eric_WVGG|4 years ago|reply
start with Player of Games. The various books have no common plot thread, can be read completely out of order; Player is by far the most accessible.
[+] [-] mindcrime|4 years ago|reply
1. William Gibson - Neuromancer, 'nuff said. The rest of the Sprawl Trilogy is great as well.
2. Rudy Rucker - I haven't read any of his stuff yet, but he is on my short-list of authors to start reading. Gets recommended a lot in these circles.
3. Richard K. Morgan - wrote the books that were the basis for the Altered Carbon series on Netflix if you're familiar with that at all.
4. John Brunner - not really "cyberpunk" but some of his work is often described as "proto-cyberpunk". The Shockwave Rider is one of his most famous works, and it is really good IMO. I haven't read Stand on Zanzibar yet, but it is also highly regarded.
5. Pat Cadigan - I haven't read any of her stuff yet, but she is on my short-list of authors to start reading. Gets recommended a lot in these circles.
6. Daniel Suarez - Daemon and Freedom were really good.
7. Vernor Vinge - I'm only part of the way through A Fire Upon the Deep now, but so far so good. His works are also usually highly recommended amongst HN'ers.
8. Bruce Sterling - I know of him from his non-fiction work The Hacker Crackdown, but he has also written some well-regarded science fiction.
9. S.L. Huang - The "Cas Russell" series is excellent, as techno-thriller / sci-fi stuff goes. I won't say it's anything real deep but the books are fun to read.
10. K.C. Alexander - The "SINless" series is.. um... well, I enjoyed the first two books (not sure how many there even are, that might be it). They probably aren't for everyone, but if you like them, you'll probably really like them. I'll just try to illustrate with one example line from one of the books: "You haven't lived until you've fisted a nun under the cheap light of a neon Jesus".
11. Charles Stross - fellow HN'er and famous author! https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross Writes radically entertaining stuff, including the Laundry Files series, Halting State, Glasshouse, etc. I'd say Glasshouse is an absolute "must read".
12. Greg Egan - I especially recommend Permutation City.
13. China Miéville - Check out Perdido Street Station
[+] [-] schneems|4 years ago|reply
- Octavia Butler (Everything)
- Becky Chambers (Wayfarers)
- Martha Wells (Murderbot)
- Liu Cixin (3 body problem/ dark forest)
- N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth & and cities we became)
- Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse)
[+] [-] defect0|4 years ago|reply
Also relevant to this particular thread, his book Rainbow's End features AR/wearable technology.
[+] [-] darkmarmot|4 years ago|reply
Iain M. Banks is also a lot of fun.
[+] [-] landonxjames|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Saga
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep
[+] [-] _3i8o|4 years ago|reply
Look to Alastair Reynolds.
Look to 'Mote in God's Eye.'
[+] [-] lindseymysse|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextaccountic|4 years ago|reply
Can someone fill in the specifics? I guess the trouble is that for Facebook, you're the product, and advertisers are the clients - but, what is the revenue model of the metaverse from Snow Crash?
[+] [-] jayd16|4 years ago|reply
I think there is some sort of main street with some reserved space but it's akin to a url.
[+] [-] Taniwha|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jazzyjackson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dopidopHN|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arrakis2021|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|4 years ago|reply
Just putting this out in case anybody else feels the same pressure.
[+] [-] Igelau|4 years ago|reply
I'd have expected Axios to be a bit more bland about it.
[+] [-] Ankaios|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DonHopkins|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] durovo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CamperBob2|4 years ago|reply
So there's certainly precedent for Stephenson to claim the moral rights to a "metaverse," whatever that is.
[+] [-] wanderingstan|4 years ago|reply
He’s right that compensation isn’t legally due—but he should be proud!
[+] [-] woqjl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdlshore|4 years ago|reply
Personally, I loved Vinge’s “True Names” short story, which I believe may be the first “virtual reality” story. I also loved Snow Crash for its in-your-face gonzo attitude.
[+] [-] hgibbs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kesor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlbertCory|4 years ago|reply
"If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve."
[+] [-] regimeoftruth|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grangerg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdkee|4 years ago|reply
https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-...
[+] [-] davros|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heckerhut|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DonHopkins|4 years ago|reply
How about he does exactly the same thing, with exactly the same outcome in the real world, just without making any NFTs, burning any coal, or shilling any get rich quick pyramid schemes?
What tangible difference would there be?
None whatsoever.
...Except for no bullshit, no proof of wasted energy, no precious GPUs buried in landfills, no contribution to climate change, no carcinogenic smoke, no lung disease, no cancer, etc...
Did you know: rocks used to be perfectly good companions and construction materials aeons before and decades after the Pet Rock craze came and went.
The cardboard box and the $4 price tag were just a gimmick. So are NFTs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock
[+] [-] charcircuit|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] divbzero|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speed_spread|4 years ago|reply
Did you you really think the former president's manner of speech was just him acting retarded?
He was casting memetic spells across all channels. They're still zapping around as we speak.