Neal Stephenson predicted MySpace

Alas too true.

Google as the Librarian, I like that. No shuffling on tatami mats, though.

Also in 92 you'd stll have been on AMA, Ned? I don't imagine that it took 14 years for you to figure out that there were uncool people on the internet (though the ratio has been rising, it's true).

Actually do you have some examples of the unique MySpace tweaks? I don't think I've seen them (or maybe I can't distinguish between various types of looking like busy ass)

I was thinking yesterday about how I'm in general in favour of misusing/subverting the intentions of technology, or at least doing so as a dialogue. So after the intial flurry of use of Friendster as the network discovery that it was supposed to be, people started adding fake accounts for stars, and the original purpose broke down. Then Friendster added 'I am a fan of' as well as 'I am a friend of', to allow people to use it both ways. Which makes it all the stranger that MySpace, which is finally found it's niche as Friendster for bands, doesn't have anything similar.

And the thing I'm seeing on MySpace a lot is instead of sending people messages using the private messaging, people are leaving them as comments on the person's page, which is just wrong, meaning that I'm just old.

I'll let donut speak for it more! (From where I'm at the actual point of comparison missing would be the Army of Emo Head Shots and Mascara.)

Also in 92 you'd stll have been on AMA, Ned? I don't imagine that it took 14 years for you to figure out that there were uncool people on the internet (though the ratio has been rising, it's true).

I actually read the book in 1994, at which time I'd only been on the net for a year myself. Keep in mind at the time of reading it I thought it was a striking thought and over the years it's been a case more of seeing how the idea finally ended up playing out. 'Uncool' is a loaded word on my end, admittedly -- more the (hardly original on anyone's part) reflection that as a general populace embraces a means of communication/expression, the results will be rather different than that which was first there.

Actually do you have some examples of the unique MySpace tweaks? I don't think I've seen them (or maybe I can't distinguish between various types of looking like busy ass)

Oh man, where to begin. Well donut identified two as specific plagues to MySpace he's dealt with recently:

* the 'dalmatian' black/white spotted background which, in combination with black or white text on the page, results in an often unreadable mess

* the 'I'll load up five videos and have all of them playing at once when you log on to my page' approach. I encountered one of these the other day and was duly saddened.

And the thing I'm seeing on MySpace a lot is instead of sending people messages using the private messaging, people are leaving them as comments on the person's page, which is just wrong, meaning that I'm just old.

Speak up, sonny.

I do the public/private message thing :(

Check excelsior thread for a post from Mickey for context.

xpost -- Hahaha

...it's interesting, because people say "Stephenson PREDICTED" this, when I think that, in some ways, it's more a matter of influence, esp. in video games (which is really the area I can speak about with some knowledge of having spoken to hundreds and hundreds of game creators)....I'd say most guys in the industry were real big Snowcrash fan, and, in some ways, I think that book might have altered the course of the industry a bit, esp. in the online gaming sphere...for example, just one little fact, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that Microsoft's J Allard (Xbox guru)'s online name is actually Hiro Protagonist...

...so basically I think it's a mix of prediction and influence...i.e. Stephenson saw things evolving in a certain way, then published a book about it, then a bunch of computer nerds sort of came up reading his book and made some of the stuff happen in reality...a wierd confluence of events I guess...

I actually just read it for the first time a couple of months ago (out of a wierd sense of "duty" or something)....it's not that great a book.

so who's been reading his latest?

Not me yet, but I've for some reason been rereading The Confusion...still good, but god the courtly intrigue drags the second time through.

still waiting for the goddamn thing to arrive in shops

I haven't read anything but Cryptonomicon, which I loved. What else is essential?

Diamond Age, Snow Crash.

I think the next big thing is going to be social networking sites with APIs like "Web2.0" sites like Flickr and del.icio.us have.
― R.I.P. Concrete Octopus ]-`: is a guy with a belly button piercing (ex machina), Sunday, March 19, 2006 6:24 PM (2 years ago)

Is the Baroque Cycle worth wading through? It looks interesting, but jesus is it big.

I've had zero desire to read it. Friends who have say the first book is good and then it all spectacularly goes to shit afterwards.

article in wired made this dude look like a massive tool

this one:
"Novelist Neal Stephenson Once Again Proves He's the King of the Worlds"
http://www.wired.com/culture/art/magazine/16-09/mf_stephenson
?

From Jennifer Egan's Look at Me (2001):

"It's not a magazine--it's a database," he said. "What I'm doing is, I'm optioning the rights to people's stories, just ordinary Americans: an autoworker, a farmer, a deep-sea diver, a mother of six, a corrections officer, a pool shark...Each one of these folks will have their own home page--we call it a PersonalSpace(TM)--devoted exclusively to their lives, internal and external."

...

Each one would be different, he explained, to reflect the life of the individual, but certain categories would be standard: Photographs of the subject and his or her family. Childhood Memories. Dreams. Diary Entries...And people could add their own categories, too: Things That Make Me Angry. Political Views. Hobbies."

I bogged down immediately in the Baroque Cycle trying to get a handle on the enormous cast of characters, and then started enjoying it more and more as it went on. I found it to be worth the time, but YMMV. (I wasn't entirely convinced by the idea of the love interest that thrives across the decades, but the travels and geopolitical shenanigans were fun.)

i read the latest a few months ago. it's good - well written - but ultimately it feels like three different books

1) mathy portrait of the artist as a young man
2) paul theroux on a different planet
3) rama w. monks

article in wired made this dude look like a massive tool

otm

I think the Diamond Age is pretty brilliant but can't deal with anything else he's written. Snow Crash is very badly written, the later books are too offputting...I'll try to get through them again one day probably.

It showed up on my Kindle last week after I pre-ordered it a few weeks ago. It started out a bit dense (although he warns the reader at the beginning about this), do to lots of made-up words, but I've been liking it more and more. I'm about 15% of the way the through. I'm scared that the ending will suck, though, since that seems to happen a lot with him (See: Snow Crash, Diamond Age).

the ending doesn't suck, it just ... well ... belongs in a different book

"do??" I meant "due."

As an aside (and I'm not spilling anything here - see this), the Kindle codename was Fiona. Founder was a big NS fan.

I actually have read The Diamond Age, but I forgot all about it till just now.

2) paul theroux on a different planet

This sounds good.

Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon & more...

So:

Joe Cornish, who has been offered a ton of projects since his alien invasion breakthrough film Attack The Block, has been set to write and direct the Neal Stephenson novel Snow Crash. The book has just been reacquired by Paramount Pictures, with Kathleen Kennedy and Kennedy/Marshall producing.

It’s the second go around on the project for Paramount, which first developed the book back when it was published in 1992. It is a big bestseller and a seminal cyber-punk book that probably was ahead of its time. The book is set in the near future, when the U.S. exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and private enterprise and the mafia control everything. The plot involves a computer virus that is manifested as a drug called Snow Crash that is transmitted visually from computer screens to unsuspecting users, frying their brains. Hiro Protagonist – that’s the character’s name – a computer hacker/samurai swordsman/pizza delivery driver who investigates and tries to stop the takeover of postmodern civilization. It sounds wild, but it is steeped in its own mythology and has become a cult favorite among the cyberpunk set. Paramount dropped the project years ago and it went to Disney with Kennedy/Marshall and languished. Kennedy introduced Cornish to the book, he committed and it is now back at Paramount and is a priority. Cornish is repped by CAA and Independent Talent and the book was repped by CAA for the lit agency Darhansoff & Verrill.

poor old ilb: Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon & more...