DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The fourth installment in Rucker’s “Ware Tetralogy,” Realware works as a standalone novel — fortunate for me because I haven’t read the other three.

It was somewhat annoying to read words not explained in the text (uvvy, sporehead, wowo, gimmie), but this isn’t unusual in the cyberpunk tradition. It all makes sense after a while.

The story is huge in plot, in words, in characters, and in ideas. It is a fulfilling, immersive journey, likely to be enjoyed by fans of cyberpunk and science fiction.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (paperback)

Vanished is a sort of supernatural thriller. It opens with a compelling science-fiction-esque scene — a woman vanishes in front of her husband’s eyes — and then widens into a larger tale by threading together a number of disparate stories.

The tale involves dolphin intelligence, interspecies communication, teleportation, the Philadelphia experiment (!), and ties them all up with believable science. It’s a great, compelling read.

In my opinion the story disintegrates toward the end. I don’t fault MacGregor for this — the ending is viable, but not very satisfying. I still recommend the book for anyone with an interest in wildlife (especially dolphins) or the paranormal.

Patronize these links, man:

• Amazon (paperback)

A friend pointed out this fascinating article (second link, below) on Claude Shannon, whose research in the 1930s and 1940s on “information theory” set out a blueprint for digital media and communications: encoding, compression, transmission, etc. He sketched the first digital circuits in 1937.

Here’s his “groundbreaking” 1948 paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Warning: it’s not called the “most important master’s thesis of the 20th century” because it’s easy to read!

If you’re interested in media, communications, or cryptography, check out this article: Claude Shannon: Reluctant Father of the Digital Age

My favorite part of the article is the description of a device Shannon built called the “Ultimate Machine”:

…a box with a large switch on the side. Turn the switch on, and the lid would slowly rise, revealing a mechanical hand that would reach down, turn the switch off, and withdraw — leaving the box just as it was.

Ha!

If you run a website, you might have been upset to learn that Microsoft’s “Smart Tags” would alter your content to show Microsoft’s advertising as links within your pages. Microsoft postponed this plan, but apparently another company has launched a similar technology.

The technology is called TopText. The marketroids who vomited this onto the Internet work for eZula.com.

First, read the original report from the Chron: Mystery Links

Next, read the Slashdot analysis: Don’t Eat the Yellow Links.

Then, opt out by emailing support@ezula.com.

Kudos to miester for the warning!

Update: you can sign a petition to shut down ezula.com!

So I’m driving through town on a quiet road when I see a car pull out behind me, a few car lengths back. It’s night, but this guy has no lights on. I keep looking at him in my rear-view. Still no lights. Seconds pass…. my car straddles two lanes because I’m focused on the car behind me, which still has no lights on. “What an idiot,” I think; “He’s driving with no lights on!” I swerve back into one lane.

More seconds pass. Suddenly, as I’m watching in the mirror, his lights come on — including the high-beams! “What an idiot,” I think as I’m staring into his reflected headlights; “He’s driving with his brights on!” My car eases back across the lane divider.

I keep staring. Will he turn off his brights? More seconds pass. I’m still staring in the mirror, burning the image of his 4 headlights into my retina like the login prompt on a monochrome terminal in 1985. I glance forward when I sense I’m no longer successfully following the road, but I can barely see the lane markers through the afterimage of the headlights of the car behind me.

Finally, the car turns onto a side street. I look away from the mirror. I still can’t see anything. “What an idiot!” I think again.