William Gibson's Thing for Damaged Experts and Ninjas

It was apparently a weekend for wakeup dreams -- Saturday morning's jolted me awake at the precise moment when I'd realized that someone had burglarized my (dream) house -- an idealized version of my parents' house. (The dream's tipoffs: It was far too tidy and had a Miata in the garage.)

I attribute the dream to some It Takes a Thief reruns I saw on Discovery last week.

Anyway, despite the fact that it was 5am-ish, I couldn't get back to sleep. So I finished reading William Gibson's Spook Country, which I had just borrowed and started.

I enjoy all of Gibson's works.* This one was a little unsettling because one of the protagonist arcs -- primarily Tito's -- doesn't reveal who the "good guys" are until very nearly the end. In fact, for a while it seems possible that Tito is helping terrorists set up a nuclear device or dirty bomb. It's that Le Carre novel-ish, morally ambiguous kind of thing.

Gibson's recurring themes are really prominent here. They include:

Mysterious, Wealthy, Oddly-Named String-Pulling Savants: Hubertus Bigend (also featured in Pattern Recognition) takes a more benign but essentially similar role to Cody Harwood in All Tomorrow's Parties and Josef Virek in Count Zero.

You can see the root of this in Neuromancer's Wintermute AI (though Julius Deane handles a bit of this in the early going).

Ninjas: While Neuromancer's Hideo is the only actual ninja (outside of the short stories), you can see the ninja qualities in the effortlessly efficient, ruthlessly competent others who dance elegantly through the world with catlike grace -- usually while killing people: Most notably, Molly (and the Panther Moderns) in the Sprawl Trilogy and Konrad the Taoist knifeman in ATP.

In Count Zero, Beauvoir represents part of this, though it's mostly Turner, a rougher, Westernized, more everyman version. Idoru's tomahawk-wielding ex-toecutter Blackwell is on the edge of this, as an even more brutal, not-quite-reformed-criminal variation. And I exclude Virtual Light's Loveless, as he's a bit too psychotic (and too easily beaten).

Alternately, in Spook Country's less fantastical world, we see the ninja manifest in Tito and his extended family of Russian-speaking Chinese Cuban spies, whose focus is espionage tradecraft, not assassination.

Damaged Experts: In Neuromancer, all the primary characters are damaged experts in some way -- Case, drug-addicted hacker; Armitage, insane Special Forces; Molly, ex-meat puppet assassin, though we can also see it to a lesser-extent in the supporting characters: Finn, agoraphobic fixer; Peter Riviera, speedball-addicted holographic artist; and Maelcum, ganja-addled space pilot.

However, the prime example in Neuromancer of the damaged expert is the Dixie Flatline ROM construct -- a dead man's expertise and personality hardwired into a cassette.

In Count Zero, the damaged experts are smaller roles (the Finn; Pye, the rarely-sober vet who sews up Bobby), until the appearance of Turner's reclusive backwoods tech genius brother Rudy), the brain-implanted Angie Mitchell, crazy space hacker Wigan Ludgate, the robotic boxmaking artist itself.

In Mona Lisa Overdrive, though we can see bits and pieces in other characters (AI guide Colin, hacker Tick, nurse Cherry), the primary role falls to Slick Henry, the memory-impaired robot builder, and his drug-abusing, former console cowboy patron Gentry. (Though the Finn has a cameo as a ROM personality construct playing oracle in a laser-armed, armored housing.)

It's been a while since I read the Bridge Trilogy books, but Virtual Light's Skinner sort of fulfills this role, though he's more of an oracle. We see damaged experts in Zona (and some of the other computer-dwelling otaku) in Idoru. And the prime example would be ATP's Silencio, the quasi-autistic boy, drawn out by his watch fixation, as well as Colin Laney, who's introduced with his nodal point fixation in Idoru, but who becomes truly damaged (and ultimately dies for his obsession) in ATP.

As to Pattern Recognition -- I'm not nearly as familiar with it as I am with the other books, though Hobbs Baranov, the former government cryptographer who provides information probably qualifies, as does brain-damaged Russian twin who is behind the footage (though she is also the mystery being solved).

In Spook Country, the damaged experts are very clearly Milgrim, the psychoactive drug-addicted translator of idiomatic Russian, and Bobby Chombo, the obsessive-reclusive GPS-hacker who doesn't sleep in the same square twice. (Art expert Odile Richard is not damaged -- she's just French.)

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I talk about Gibson's tendencies towards the Nancy Drew aspect, as well as his peculiar manifestation of techno-fetishism.

*Note: I'm less familiar with his Bridge Trilogy and post-9/11 books (which presumable form the first 2 books of a trilogy to be named later) -- I couldn't even find my copies of Virtual Light and Idoru, which were at the bottom of a box until today. Why yes, I am procrastinating. Very badly.

Tags: william gibson, spook country, damaged experts, ninjas, count zero, mona lisa overdrive, all tomorrow's parties, pattern recognition, neuromancer, virtual light, idoru, bridge trilogy

What's Worse, Reston or Kansas?

I'd seen the report that Sprint Nextel is looking at layoffs, but Silicon Alley Insider also reports that the new CEO is also looking at relocating their executive HQ from Reston (right off Reston Parkway) back to Overland Park, Kansas.

Gee, where have I heard something like that before?

Actually, since their operational and engineering HQ is in Kansas (according to the Wikipedia entry), it would be different from the AOL corporate HQ move and might make more sense, though I doubt that Northern Virginia technology advocates would see it that way.

I've only been to Kansas once (and for barely a weekend at that -- most of it was in the car, since we drove out over July 4th weekend), so I don't really have a basis for comparison. Other than the cost of living is presumably a lot lower out there. Though we have fewer tornados.

(To DCites who might scoff that the suburbs is the suburbs -- I trot out my canned response: Once you're outside of New York, it's all suburbs.)

Tags: sprint nextel

I Don't Need Help Crashing Firefox

Firefox has typically been a little crashy for me, but it's gotten worse with some of the newer versions, especially now with 2.0.0.11.

And, I admit, I flog it pretty hard -- I usually have several windows open at once, each with lots and lots of tabs going. (Right now, it's 2 windows with a total of 16 tabs, which is nothing. I still prefer this to using a feedreader, though this may change, since I just installed the now-free full NetNewswire.)

Anyway, crashing out is generally only a slight inconvenience, thanks to Blogger's draft autosave, and the window and tab restoring features of the invaluable extensions Tab Mix Plus and Session Saver (currently in the sandbox -- I haven't tried Session Manager yet).

I find, though, that there's one thing I can do to consistently cause Firefox to crash: If I've already got an overburdened browser session going, when I mouse over the Firefox Help menu (with the integrated search box), the browser will freeze up, then crash out.

I'm assuming that I just need more RAM, but it reminds me of some of my past Macs. Many, many Mac OSes ago, I had a work machine (I forget if it was the Quadra or the Powerbook 5300) that would crash when I hit the Help key on the extended keyboard.

Since I only hit the Help key by accident, I ended up prying it off the keyboard. Problem solved. I may still have it somewhere.

Likewise, on one of the compact desktops with the external volume buttons -- when I hit them, the machine would freeze up. I ended up covering them with tape.

Then as now, I never aspired to be a true Mac power user and actually figure out the root cause (e.g. I had MacsBugs and ResEdit but it was like giving a graphing calculator to a caveman), so I just tried to avoid the symptoms.

Tags: firefox

IMDB Goofs and Trivia From the Dream I Had This Morning

I woke up from a dream this morning and couldn't get back to sleep (second night in a row), so I started this entry while the pages of my Sunday Washington Post were warming up.

Since it was a cinematic kind of dream, here's an IMDB-style Goofs and Trivia section for it (inspired by the [Something] Awful Movie Database):

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Depending on the nature of the attack, diving behind a low concrete wall could provide sufficient protection from the flash, heat, and pressure wave of a nuclear detonation.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Refugees fleeing from the aftermath of a nuclear explosion would not be so darn good-looking.
  
  
• Plot holes: It is exceedingly unlikely that plague rats would appear so quickly after a nuclear attack. Unless they escaped from a lab or something.
  
  
• Continuity: The season changes between winter and not-winter, seemingly at random.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Dad is shoveling the driveway, the snow changes from regular snow, to a sheet of clear ice (several feet thick) between shots.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The woman on the bus is seen using a Phillips-head screwdriver, then later stabs someone with it. Although a slotted screwdriver would generally serve as a better stabbing weapon, a Phillips screwdriver can be used in this fashion.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): My explanation of the difference between "species" and "genus," though wildly incorrect, is consistent with the long period of time since my last biology class.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Females can play video games, some at a proficiency matching, or even exceeding, those of males.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [joelogon] Doesn't remember much else from the dream, and can hardly make sense of the illegible and unintelligible scrawl from the notepad.
  

Real-Time IM: Instant Messaging, One Letter at a Time

Checking the feed from my old work blog, I see that Joe Manna posted about the Real-Time IM feature in the new AIM 6.8 Beta (for PC, natch). It uses a direct PC-to-PC connection so that each chatter can see what the other person is typing, as they type it, letter by letter, backspacing and all. (You know -- the way computer chat used to work in movies until directors finally figured out how IMs worked.)

One of the commenters calls it out as feature ICQ has had for 10 years, but for me, it goes even farther back -- to 1993, using talk on an NYU shell account to message my friend Dave down in North Carolina.

It was very exciting and very futuristic. We were easily impressed, back then.

Of course, since there were no online presence indicators (for us regular lusers, that is), if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to keep fingering them until you found them online.

I always found the resulting conversations to be very stream of consciousness, since going back to change a word or phrase you'd started would only slow you down. It also gave you a very real and very powerful incentive to improve your typing.

As to why include it in the next AIM client? I'm not sure -- it seems gimmicky at this point, and I think there are better reasons to initiate a direct client-to-client connection.

Unless you're a typing tutor, of course.

Tags: AIM, real-time IM

All Red Dawn: All the Time

After careful analysis, and with CourtTV's rebranding to TruTV fresh in mind (to better reflect its updated programming mission blah blah blah), I've come to the conclusion that the AMC network, formerly American Movie Classics, should update its name to the RED network, for "Red Dawn Every Day."

This is only a slight exaggeration -- if they could get "RDFFHH" into a meaningful acronym, it would be even better, since the Big 3 AMC offerings seem to be Red Dawn, Firefox and Hamburger Hill. (Okay, throw Heartbreak Ridge into the mix, too.)

Tags: AMC

A Twitter Dilettante's (Me) First Tweetup With Susan Reynolds

I just got back from a Twitter meetup ("Tweetup") at Jimmy's in Herndon that Shashi gave me a heads-up on -- the featured attraction was Susan Reynolds, whose social media-enhanced battle with breast cancer was just written up in today's Washington Post.

As I've noted before, I'm still a Twitter dilettante -- I don't update all that frequently, and I've currently only got 21 followers and 14 people that I follow (and most of those folks are lurkers). But I'm still interested in the phenomena, and how people find ways to make it useful.

Had a bunch of conversations about different aspects of social media, blogging, New Media Jim, Second Life, the navel-gazing nature of the contemporary social-media-o-sphere, the DC tech community (as compared to that of, say, Boston, NYC, or SF), etc., and it was definitely intellectually stimulating (though, for my part, all I have to do is regurgitate the conventional wisdom and hot buzzphrases to feel intellectually stimulated).

I must admit, though, after 2 hours of trendwatching and futurecasting and social media pund-ification, I was ready to clear my head. I was going to stop by Carpool, though it was dreary enough out that I just decided to go home.

Also, even though I did meet a bunch of interesting folks tonight, I'm not sure how, or even if, I will be growing my Twitter contact list. I guess I'm still not sold on the whole "ambient intimacy thing." We'll have to see how that goes.

Tags: twitter, tweetup, susan reynolds

Things That Should Not Be Made Out of Plastic

Snow Shovels: I have a cheap, metal-bladed snow shovel that's lasted almost 10 winters. The edge of the blade is a little chipped, but it still works fine. My parents have snow shovels that must be 20 or 30 years old. Can you tell me that any plastic-bladed snow shovel is going to be as cost-effective?

Home Mailboxes: My townhouse complex replaced its mailboxes not too long ago -- since my metal mailbox had just been recently replaced (bad hinge), mine was spared. But everybody else got plastic mailboxes. Guess whose mailboxes have doors that don't stay closed?

Now, I realize that, strictly speaking, snow shovels and mailboxes are not durable goods. But I fear for our disposable culture, where lower life-cycle costs are sacrificed at the altar of lower up-front costs.

Feel free to add your own examples. And you kids, stay off of my lawn.

See the color of my skin? That means I'M the boss!

I went to Dr. Dremo's last night to catch one of the Washington Psychotronic Film Society's last three screenings there.

This week's feature was The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck, an Indiana Jones knockoff directed by, and starring, David Keith (who should not be confused with Keith David).

David Keith has had notable roles in films like The Lords of Discipline, An Officer and a Gentleman, and U-571.

This was not one of those roles.

Perhaps directing himself was a mistake.

Starring in the female lead was Kathy Shower, who at the time held the distinction of being the oldest Playboy Playmate at the ripe old age of... 32.

Which is significantly younger than I am right now.

Man, I'm getting old.

Anyway, she doesn't get naked until an hour into the movie.

Other than that, there's a notable moment when the doofus white safari tourist, on the run from headhunters, says to his native guide (paraphrasing):

"See the color of my skin? That means I'm the boss!"

He is, of course, caught and decapitated shortly thereafter.

That's about it.

On an attendance note, the movie crowd was about the same, but the bar crowd was heavier than I'd seen on a Tuesday. Maybe people getting their last licks in -- I don't think the two-dollar pint special, which was some sort of ginger beer, was that big of a draw by itself.

The last two movies that'll be shown are Beer and Plan 9 From Outer Space, so don't miss 'em.

---

As for tonight, The Positions are playing at the Rock and Roll Hotel. I may try to go see them, but I'll probably also try to meet up with some folks at Clyde's in Ashburn beforehand, which would make it kind of a haul. So we'll see.

Tags: dr. dremos, wpfs

Fighting... er, VOTING underway in New Hampshire

Funny Freudian misstatement by NPR's Carl Kassell during today's 11am Hourly News Summary:

"Fighting is underway in the New Ha... rather, voting is underway in the New Hampshire presidential primary..."

It's not exactly Miss Teen South Carolina territory, but I guess he was stuck on the "war report" template, since there are a few more mini-flubs in there.

As to why it took so long to get the clip up? I had to re-install the Audacity sound editor, which hosed my audio settings for a bit until I finally rebooted. Then, I had to pick an audio hosting service with an embeddable player -- not exactly rocket science, but I had to choose a provider. I'm trying Twango, we'll see how that goes.

Tags: npr, blooper, carl kassell, new hampshire primary

Parade Gets Benazir Bhuttowned

Here we see yet another, particularly unfortunate failing of dead tree media (Weekend Supplement Edition) -- the cover to this Sunday's (January 6th) Parade magazine, which features an interview with Benazir Bhutto. It speaks of her in the not-dead tense:

January 6, 2007 Parade magazine cover.

In the online edition, they preface the interview with this:

Editor's note: The assassination of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 occurred after PARADE’s Jan. 6 issue went to press.

They also talk about how they posted the full interview online, immediately after her death.

Not having to deal with the production and distribution of a weekly national newspaper supplement, I'm sure there are very good reasons why they couldn't update the edition. Even though she was assassinated a week and a half ago.

And I'm pretty sure that the dead tree edition of the magazine reaches far, far more people than the online version (looking at the demographics of the people who still read the Sunday newspaper).

The techno-optimist in me hopes that this is going to be one of the last times that print media gets so badly overtaken by events. Not because print dies -- that would be bad, since the form factor is more convenient and conducive to serendipitous browsing.

I'm just looking forward to the potential transformation of print media if and when electronic paper ever gets here in a large-format, consumer-friendly, Minority Report-esque way. Which will turn dead tree media into a print/broadcast hybrid.

It's 2008, after all. We're ready and waiting.

Tags: parade magazine, benazir bhutto

Simulating Your Way Out of a Speeding Ticket

I was looking at the TruTV (formerly Court TV) Web site to find the next airing of their new Tiger Team show, since I missed it and the premise sounds interesting.

The site wasn't particularly helpful in that respect, though they do have a full episode online.

Anyway, along the way, I saw a promo for a Flash game for one of their other shows, Speeders -- you try to talk your way out of a speeding ticket:

I tried it out, and got off with a warning. Makes sense, since I'm such a smooth, articulate, and persuasive talker, right?

Then I tried it again, taking an alternate tack:

A Children of Men reference.

The police officer reacts negatively, as do I:

Realizing I may have gone too far, I express contrition:

The police officer reacts positively to my honest expression:

Success!

Armed with this tru-to-life simulation, you can be sure I will follow this script the next time I get pulled over.

If nothing else, this could lead to an appearance on another one of their shows.

Tags: trutv, speeders, welcome to speederville

Talking Myself Out of a Job: The Beg, Borrow, and Steal Model for Corporate Blogging

TVNewser reports that CBS has flatlined its Public Eye blog (via Silicon Alley Insider).

I was not a regular (or even sporadic) reader of the blog -- it had launched in the summer of 2005, and I first saw it at the October 2005 BlogOn conference.

At the time, I opined in my then-work blog that I didn't think that Gil Schwartz, CBS EVP for Communication, really "got" bloggers and blogging (though I note that he started blogging in 2007 for his Stanley Bing persona, so maybe he came around).

Trapped in the Cost Center Ghetto?

---

Now, the Public Eye blog was originally created to bring transparency to their editorial operations (largely in response to the 2004's "Rathergate").

However, the report quotes a spokesperson who says it was shuttered because they weren't able to find a "sustainable business model" for it.

This is the problem for corporate blogging -- how do you justify the costs (however low -- and they ain't necessarily low)? How do you measure blog success, where, unless you're building a mass audience (and you're not), you're just another cost center?

One conceit of bloggers is that our influence is profound, yet can't always be adequately captured by quantitative metrics like pageviews, comments, linkbacks, citations, pagerank, uniques, time spent, repeat visits, and ad impressions.

(This is especially true when those metrics aren't very good.)

I've faced that particular problem, myself, and I don't have a good answer for it. For example, if you publicly answer someone's technical problem, will it be reflected in a tangible way -- reduction in call volume on that issue, resulting in X dollar savings? It's hard to say.

It's even worse when you're talking about anything that's not tied to a fixed point (everything that's not like those defining moments in the PR-blogging talking point-o-sphere -- the Kryptonite lock-opening and iPod nonreplaceable battery examples).

That's when you start dipping in to the weasel glossary for terms like goodwill, branding/positioning, mindshare, and engagement. (Back at AOL before they ditched the paid-subscription model, the equivalent phrase was "helps retention." I used it many, many times.)

Accepting the "Beg, Borrow, and Steal" Model for Corporate Blogging

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Lets stick with the assumption that corporate blogging is still valuable (and not just to the corporate blogger). How do you justify this to the bean counters?

I don't think you can, and unless you can co-opt the PR or communications budget, I suspect that the answer lies in explicitly laying out what people are already doing -- for corporate blogs that are not primarily created as revenue-generating destinations (adjunct blogs, or product support blogs that add personality or "behind the scenes" flavor):

If the blog goals are "softer", the costs have to be minimal -- relying on the efforts of non-dedicated staff who are essentially moonlighting, and leveraging the existing infrastructure for things like design, hosting, moderation, etc.

Does this means more work for no pay? Pretty much, unfortunately: Take solace in the fact that, if you're any good at it, you do get to exploit the corporate brand to build your personal brand, which is not for nothing.

(I also note without irony that I would have essentially talked myself out of a job, which I figure is close to what happened. Though I would have tried to justify being in the "infrastructure" bit of things.)

Now, for destination blogs, where you're trying to build a mass audience (even a "mass niche audience") around an interest or whatever, you can and should devote dedicated resources to support them, so long as the return warrants. Though there has to be a rigorous and ruthless eye when it comes to costs and benefits (see the recent Gawker Media pay adjustments).

Of course, given the questionable, ponzi-like nature of the online advertising game, we'll see how long that model lasts.

Tags: cbs public eye, persona brand, mass niche audience

These Are Not New Year's Resolutions

These are simply things that I have to do.

• Get a Job: Not a resolution, a necessity. Prerequisites being "look for a job" and "do that damned resume update." While I have plenty of financial leeway, the purposelessness is starting to get to me -- I like a little more structure in my life.
  
  I'm looking at opportunities involving online social media and community, which pretty much encompasses anything online, social, media, or community these days.
  
  
• Obtain the Body of an Underwear Model: Not sure where I'll be able to keep it, though. Which ties into...
  
  
• Clean Up the House: Also not a resolution, more like addressing a psychological condition. Packrat-ism, verging on hording, seems to run in my immediate family. See my future entry, "Clutter Is Armor."
  
  
• Resolve the Identity Theft Thing: I'm not doing my credit rating any favors.
  

Tags: not new year's resolutions

Fratboys and Armored Cars: Another New Year's Eve

I was feeling about 80% on New Year's Eve, with a scratchy throat and a remnant of a post-nasal drip. But I was determined to go out.

This time around, Scott's band, One Ton Wonton was playing a New Year's Eve gig at Ragtime in Arlington. So I met up with the usual folks.

The Sandridges were well-represented:

Jerry dresses to impress.

The band in action:

There was also a veritable fratboy convention, both in front and in the back room -- here's what I twittered at 11pm:

Staring with baleful loathing at a fratboy wearing a jacket, tie, jeans, baseball cap and deck shoes. I'm guessing SAE

At midnight, there was the usual hoisting of glasses and mashing of lips. Also, someone jumped a motorcycle over Las Vegas. It was not extraordinary, and towards the end of the night I couldn't stop sneezing (the smoke was getting to my already-addled sinuses). But it was still fun.

Oh, and on the way out, there was an armored car parked in front of the courthouse. Though I guess we didn't need it:

Plenty of firing ports for your convenience.

Happy New Year.

Tags: happy new year, new year's eve, ragtime