The floor is now open for discussion of Manovich, Gibson, databases, narrative, navigable space, data structures, algorithms, games, virtual worlds, interfaces, cyberspace, cyberpunk, and anything else you might think of. Just click the "Comments" link below to post.
Posted by mgk at March 7, 2003 09:21 AMI've done just a little reading in the cyberpunk genre, so for anyone who may be wondering where to start here are some suggestions:
Tad Williams's Otherland series
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0886777631/qid=1047071247/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/102-6169727-3543350
Neal Stephenson
(Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, etc.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Stephenson%2C%20Neal/102-6169727-3543350
Of particular interest may be an article Stephenson wrote for Wired back in the '90s about global telecommunications:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Stephenson%2C%20Neal/102-6169727-3543350
Enjoy!
Alenda
P.S. Can we use HTML in these posts, e.g. to make the links active?
Posted by: Alenda at March 7, 2003 04:21 PMSorry, the last link for the Wired article is actually the following:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
Posted by: Alenda at March 7, 2003 04:26 PMHere is the quote from Gatsby:
"And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night."
Ah yes Cathy, I've always wondered why his grass is blue...hmmm.
On another note, I was thinking of what Manovich said about how computer games follow algorithmic logic (222-223). I'm going to give you a link to a little logic game I've toyed around with for a few years; it is the perfect example of how the player tries to understand the game's logic, and then tries to anticipate what the computer will do next. (And it's fun to boot!)
And no, I have nothing better to do on a Saturday night.
Theseus and the Minotaur:
http://www.tnelson.demon.co.uk/mazes/
I've just turned on the autolink function, so any URLs that get posted will now be live (clickable).
Posted by: Matt at March 11, 2003 12:29 PM