114 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
114 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 17:01:23 PST
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Reply-To: <cocot@osc.versant.com>
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Return-Path: <cocot@osc.versant.com>
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Message-ID: <surfpunk-0026@SURFPUNK.Technical.Journal>
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Mime-Version: 1.0
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Content-Type: text/plain
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From: cocot@osc.versant.com (grne guvf pneq va unys gb eryrnfr lbhe serr fnzcyr)
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To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com (SURFPUNK Technical Journal)
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Subject: [surfpunk-0026] RANT: talkin bout SnowCrash
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Keywords: surfpunk, Snow Crash, Dreamtime, Senoi
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| All our songs are original. Just ask
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| Paul Simon -- he wrote most of them.
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| -- The Coolies
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Is this a first? A piece of original writing for SURFPUNK.
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| "...This Snow Crash thing - is it a
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| virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita
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| shrugs. "What's the difference?"
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I fixed one serious bug in the rant ... hope mnq dont mind. strick
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:45:39 -0800
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From: Jamie Walker <mnq@well.sf.ca.us>
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To: surfpunk@osc.versant.com
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Subject: talkin bout SnowCrash
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Kind of a review... well, sorta comments really .... nah, mostly
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mind-babbles, y'know... well, some stuff about _Snow Crash_,
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by Neal Stephenson and a bit of Gibsons' _Mona Lisa Overdrive_
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This cyberspace, it calls, it's so attractive. I don't even
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program, I can only imagine what it's like for those who play MUD,
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or work with virtual reality, or hack all night. My taste of it is
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online, communicating with people in chat and posts. That's world
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enough for me, a feeling there. And it's like relating with people while
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on drugs, or on a journey, or whatever high you're onIwhen you get
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back to this world, the relationship often doesn't hold.
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So what is this cyberspace, where is it?
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It's this place where anything can happen, where you can be
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anything. It's possibilities. It's Mind. It's the pleasure of
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existing in pure Mind...
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When you're online it doesn't matter what kind of body you have,
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what physical/emotional capabilities or incapabilities. You connect,
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or don't, solely on mind. And maybe on how mind translates through
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keyboard, headstick, or whatever physical means you use to interact
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with your computer. But still, I would think, it's the closest we have in
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this physical world to that connection.
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I begin to wonder, is it the same place as the Australian Dreamtime?
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the place where the Senoi have their dreams? In Gibson's Mona Lisa
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Overdrive, this planet's cyberspace meets and merges with that of
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another planet, or was it another reality?
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As our machines become more sophisticated, and we are able to
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experience the cyberspace described in _MLO_ and _Snow Crash_ ...
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maybe we will meet Dreamtime people and native American myth people
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and all those powers that are always under the surface that we see. In
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Snow Crash .. .we *do * meet them there ... the Loa. and other stuff I
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couldn't follow ... hmm ... have to read it again.
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Maybe this is what is goin to save us...bring us back to true spiritual
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roots which our linear material-based culture has ripped us away from,
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and has methodically ripped every people it has encountered away from.
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Haha to you, western civilization, the circle is about to close, you will
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meet the thing you have been running away from in the cyberworld you are
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creating, and we can be one again.
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Ah, but I rant.
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So what about _Snow Crash_? I loved it. Great story. Great writing.
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And this thing about cyberspace. It just gave me another picture of it,
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added to my understanding of it. Just by the description, the story of
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good ol' Hiro Protaganist flipping in and out, and sometimes operating
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in both places at the same time.
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And the usual cyberpunk stuff, where the world of the future is
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disintegrating, and you have to be fast and tough and techno-savvy to
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survive. I'd probly get killed off in ten minutes, if I was really there.
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But in this book, I was Y.T., and I was fast, and I could survive and enjoy.
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Somehow I could see our world of the present like that.
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The desperation of it. I used to hate it, the disintegration, the
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destruction of nature. Fled to the woods, Oregon, for many years
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to escape it. But now I'm resigned, I've come back to watch the fun,
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hug people while I can before it all goes down. (Because...well, folks...
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I think we're blowing it, I think our planet's going down. That's what I
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see.)
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And ol' _Snow Crash_ just helps me to accept it, to love it while
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it does. Gives me that feeling. On the edge.
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--------------------------------------------------
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why yes, I do live in East Palo Alto ...
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mnq@well.sf.ca.us
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--------------------------------------------------
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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The SURFPUNK Technical Journal is a dangerous multinational hacker zine
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originating near BARRNET in the fashionable western arm of the northern
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California matrix. Quantum Californians appear in one of two states,
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spin surf or spin punk. Undetected, we are both, or might be neither.
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________________________________________________________________________
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Send postings to <surfpunk@osc.versant.com>, subscription requests
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to <surfpunk-request@osc.versant.com>. MIME encouraged.
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Xanalogical archive access soon. We've got esprit up to here.
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________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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