Hiro and Y.T.

So I started reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and I'm about 40 pages into it, and know it's going to be awesome.

Hiro and Y.T., by the way, are the...ahem...Protagonists...well at least Hiro is.

I was initially turned off by the whole 'cyberpunk' term because it sounded desperately needy. It screamed: I'm a cutting edge technophile who reads amazingly gadget-ridden books and don't make fun of me because I watch Star Trek, The Original Series! Of course, the dichotomy of the matter is that I like books with gadgets and own the TOS on DVD, but really who doesn't?

I digress...

What's the point in discussing the plot, when you can get it from Interweb Cybertown, suffice it to say that it anticipated virtual worlds like Second Life, and is rich with relatively accurately extrapolated computer science themes and disciplines. Above that, and this is what I find the most rewarding, is its social commentary on consumerism and what happens when privatization goes wrong, while at the same time not being extremely preachy.

It's so far been a visceral and completely engaging read. Which was a nice change from reading Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, about which I read somewhere in some dust jacket text indicating that Gully Foyle should watch out because Sterling's Abelard Lindsay was the new man constantly on the remake. I found that to be debatable, but the last part of Schismatrix became so anti-climactic (right around the time of the Neotenic Cultural Republic) and somehow bereft of the intensity and passion with which it initially started out that I returned it to the library...twice. Both times I checked it out! I had other books (Snow Crash) waiting in the hopper and somehow I just couldn't force myself to finish it.

I never do that, but when I do, it's soooo liberating.

Dick was right: we can remember it for you wholesale

In case you were wondering, ign put out a pretty good video review of Halo 3. Some scathing remarks for the campaign mode, but nothing but kudos for the multiplayer.

This review got me thinking...it seems like the trend with games these days is to develop a big sandbox environment so you can play online with folks from Uruguay, Minneapolis, Alsace-Lorraine, Manhattan, and Hayward...or just with your buddies on the block and spend six hours hacking away at each other.

Taking the evolution of games and considering the trend manifesting in other social vectors, like the online environments like MySpace and Facebook, and the plethora of gadgets that have come out that serve to blur the lines between offline and online culture, it could be argued that people are placing more value on their virtual selves, and thus their virtual relationships. There's actually talk of Microsoft buying a minority stake in Facebook...for $300-500 million dollars. The company is currently valued at $10,000,000,000.

Not to be a complete Luddite, as I can see the argument that some of these are new and useful artifacts of our culture's exploration into virtual reality. It's puberty all over again. We're awkwardly moving through a period where some people are "blossoming" sooner than others, and some are acclimatizing faster to the changes than others. However, unlike most things in human history, I think we'll not see this increasing trend of integrated technology dissipating. Rather, we'll see other aspects of our lives and communities ramp up to become part of the evolving new hegemony. Those that don't make the leap will become legacy artifacts.

On the other hand, regardless of how tech-integrated one might feel, or how many gadgets one might have, or no matter how many nanobots you have stimulating your neural pathways so you can totally kick ass on your ACT/SAT/GMAT/GRE test, or how many friends you have associated with your MySpace account, at our core humans are social creatures that require flesh-based face to face interactions. It will always be this way...unless of course a dominant trait surfaces: one that favors encoding genetic material into binary code and developing virtual offspring. Heck, some folks at Calvin College recently built a super computer for under $1,256. With distributed computing we'll each be able map the entire genome index of all earthly life by next summer!

I'll put my faith in humanity and conclude that we'll shuffle in the right direction: a balance of silicon and flesh. Unless, of course, the next iteration of the Windows OS requires a cybernetic implants so a recurring process can run to determine that you're running a 'genuine' copy.

More on Halo 3: Cnet has some great recent coverage of all things Halo.

Crysis release date for U.S.

Finally. 11/16/2007.

Don't knock the enthusiasm for games. Word on the street is that Al-Qaida is using Worlds of Warcraft and the Second Life online virtual community to run simulated terrorist activities because they can't do dry runs in real life.

Now you can finally buy your friends

Someone recently sold their myspace account on ebay. She (according to the picture) had over 100,000 friends. There were all these other great perks about the account (no domain profile registered, early account, etc.) and someone bought it for over $2,000.

I just missed winning the bid, and I'm so sad. As a result of my myspace participation I've scored so many virtual hot dates and landed so many virtual job interviews, and made some awesome virtual friends with people who didn't just want me because I have wonderfully juicy healthy organs that could be sold for a hearty profit on the black market.

If I could've won that stupid bid, I would've been set in my virtual world. I'd never need to leave the house. Sassypants27 and bigmikedogrules95 would've kept me informed on everything. I totally heart those guys.

Actually, in retrospect, I think if I would've won the bidding, I would've given the account to that guy I see when I walk to the train from work. He stands on a corner and just watches people go by. He looks all rugged and lonely, and I think he'd really have benefited from all those friends more than me. They could've given him a virtual home, virtual clean clothes, and virtual food.

Well, I can't do anything about it now. Guess I'll just see if ebay will let me bid on that guy's Blackness.