1984 was a good year

This will be quick because I have homework to do. Over the weekend I read Neuromancer. It’s the classic cyberpunk novel by William Gibson, published in 1984. The book has been on my reading list for years. Bootcamp got me thinking about reading it again. I was kicking around Mercer St Books this weekend with a friend, with no intention of buying anything because my books are overflowing their shelves. The place has a pre-internet feel, with a good stock, poorly organized and reasonably priced. I eat it up. As I was leaving, I saw Neuromancer sitting on the top of a stack of random books. “Okay, fine,” I thought to an ill-defined energy, and bought it. I rarely putting it down over the next two days. The gender thing was fucked, as I have unfortunately come to expect with everything in the sci-fi genera. That said, the aching self-destructiveness of all the major characters laced through the plot with enough consistency that I sympathized with the destitute. The characters that arose in the end and clarification about what was happening, seemed banal, despite the dramatic and twisted character, in comparison to the slow build of emotional credibility of Case, the main character, and a few others. The drama of the task that they are faced with and the conundrum of artificial intelligences calling the shots is a backdrop for how various characters manage their drive for skills and their self-destructiveness. The nuances around this conflict in a technological era where “beauty is cheap” and anything, every sort of dream, is traded on the black market raises some classic themes of science fiction. I do prefer this cyberpunk stuff to the far off sci-fi of Asimov and the like. It makes me nostalgic for the basement of Time’s Up!

I’ve got plenty of pics of the basement, just too lazy to dig them up.
I should go down there soon, get my hands greasy!

Another thing that happened the year of my birth was the first Apple computer. I was reminded of that on Tuesday watching Revenge of the Nerds, the PBS documentary that aired in the mid 1990′s about the rise of the personal computer. It really is a good Apple commercial…

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=z9PQ16KVntQ]

The youngins might know it better from the recent resurrection as an anti-Hilary spoof.

School is going well. Obviously I’m having fun forgetting I’m not a teenager anymore. Okay, I’m gonna get some homework done and then go scare myself sleepless with a little H. P. Lovecraft.