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i must say. i've just started snow crash for the first time ever. and its fucking amazing. the way he builds up the metaverse through all those details. i feel like i'm there in that reality.
and its a fantastic reality. I find my self sitting down to read it at every chance i get.
cut class today to read it.
and its a fantastic reality. I find my self sitting down to read it at every chance i get.
cut class today to read it.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Tue, March 23, 2004 - 5:59 PMMy favorite bit from Snow Crash is when Raven is meeting T-Bone, and the younger Crip with the Geiger counter comes out and performs the religious ceremony of taking readings from the sky spirit, the ground spirit and the black biker angel. That bit kinda sticks with you. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Fri, March 26, 2004 - 4:15 PMthere's a alot sticking with me so far. im only 1/4 through it at this point. The descritions of things in the metaverse are fantastic. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Fri, March 26, 2004 - 4:23 PMRight now, I've got to the point in the book where the Sumerian mythological underpinnings are being discussed...that after the explanation of the connection to Biblical creation...quite heady stuff I'm getting into.
I guess that must have been Stephenson's intent from the start...quite impressive.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, August 26, 2004 - 8:34 PMwhat exactly do you like about the metaverse? i just finished reading the book (for the third time) and find the metaverse scenes/chapters functional at most. the software in hiro's computer (librarian, globe) is way cool, but the on-line stuff (motorcycles, maglev, ports, black sun) and 'avatar physics' seem to belong in a children's book. they're not very well thought out and have written 'plot device' all over it.
of course, it may well be that you see that very differently if you don't know much about programming and user interface design, and maybe if i was an expert in weapons i'd bitch about those :-) -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, August 26, 2004 - 8:46 PMI liked the idea of the Black Sun, where the avatars were detailed enough to communicate with facial expressions and body language. The rest, I thought, seemed to fit pretty well with the rest of the book: the huge animated advertisements on the street, the variety of avatars ranging from the photocopier quality public-access Clints and whatever the female equivilant was (haven't read the book for several months, can't remember) to the giant walking penises and whatever else, and the fact that there was a physics engine that everything had to conform to if for no other reason than to keep people from going totally gonzo with their buildings and avatars.
For a book written in, what, '94? it doesn't date itself too badly I thought... -
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the female clint is called brandy (IIRC)
Fri, August 27, 2004 - 12:38 AMisn't the facial expression software used throughout the metaverse? neal's avatars are good enough, but the environment they live in is weird. yes, in a way that kind of fits pretty well with the rest of the book, but other authors invented versions of a cyberspace that could really replace the web one day. the metaverse doesn't feel like a replacement for the web, it feels like the replacement of one big site, as if yahoo had merged with angelfire and they went 3d. (because: it has a fixed layout, is taylored to the needs of lusers, run by a single corporation, etc.) compared to the coolness of Y.T.s load of nifty gadgets or Ng's arsenal of deadly machinery, the metaverse is pretty lame.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Wed, September 1, 2004 - 4:44 PMi think he was actually writing the book in the late 80's, which moves the story from being pretty neat to THIS GUY IS BRILLIANT.
i kinda think the only real legitimacy the book has is from the mounds of sumerian/tower of babel/glossolalia speculation presented. without it it would have been a comic book without pictures. -
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Unsu...
Re: snow crash beginnings....
Sat, March 12, 2005 - 8:53 PMAnd what's wrong with Comic Books??? -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Sun, March 13, 2005 - 10:00 PMDude, no no, his point is that Stephenson originally wrote it as a graphic novel, and adapted it when the graphics didn't work out. Read the author's note for more information; apparently, Stephenson spent more time writing graphics code for the illustrations than writing text. -
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Unsu...
Re: snow crash beginnings....
Mon, March 14, 2005 - 5:16 PMNo, I read Snow Crash so long ago, I don't remember that, I think I'd have read the authors note, oh well. That's cool. Although I like the graphic novel format alot, I'm glad he went with a novel.
Has anyone done a graphic version of it? Not that I've ever heard of.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Tue, March 30, 2004 - 10:59 PMI've read hundreds of books and nothing else ever grabbed me quite the way Snow Crash did. I think most of the dreams I had while reading it, and for quite awhile afterwards, were related to something in the story.
I have to admit that I actually went through some withdrawal once I finished it and really missed the characters, although it was not a book that left me feeling like the author just finally had to end it and did, without ever resolving the story. I hope he decides to revisit them some time in the future and let us know what's happened to them. I'm especially interested in seeing what kind of an adult Y.T. turns out to be. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Sat, April 3, 2004 - 8:46 PMoh Y.T is so cute and spunky..she reminds me of my friend karen ...this hyper active skateboarding chick with a fresh mouth and intense lust for life....
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Mon, April 5, 2004 - 7:57 PMY.T. is revisited. In Diamond Age she is the headmistress of a Victorian school for girls. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Tue, April 6, 2004 - 12:23 AMNo way, really? See, that's what I get for reading The Diamond Age first! I never made the connection. Darn, now I have to read it again! <=0P -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Tue, April 6, 2004 - 4:32 AMIt's basically a cameo, but yeah, James speaks Truth, YT shows up in Diamond Age. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Wed, April 7, 2004 - 1:15 PMI need to reread this. The thing about getting ina funk after it's over, I felt that way about Cryptonomicon, each time I read it. It's such an emotional commitment. While Quicksilver was engrossing, compelling and frankly, jaw-droppingly complex, I didn't have quite the same pang afterwards.
I also remember having frequent dreams after Zodiac was finished. The imagery was strong for me. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, April 8, 2004 - 8:54 AMI have yet to read Zodica but i heard that book was excellent.
my cousin told me so.
and boy does he have good taste in cyber punk novels.... -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, April 8, 2004 - 10:35 PMI think the truth of drug from Zodiac shoudl be gospel:
The purest drugs have the smallest molecule.
N2O is essentially, a perfect drug. No side effects, no damage, no addictive properties. Totally safe unles syou do something really stupid like tie a plastic bag over your head.
Pure genius.
--S -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Mon, April 12, 2004 - 12:00 AMSnow Crash Endings...
I finished Snow Crash today!!! fucking awesome. needed to be done.
what to read next..hmmmm
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, May 13, 2004 - 3:39 PMi just have to say this: N2O is about as good a drug as H2O. they both have the same effect: they keep you from getting oxygen to your brain. -
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, May 13, 2004 - 10:39 PMActually, that's a common misconception. The reason N2O makes you high is because it is a natural vasodilator used by your own body. Increased amounts of N20 cause your blood vessels to expand and increases the flow of oxygen to your brain, making you giddy. -
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N20
Thu, March 10, 2005 - 10:12 AMAfter a quick google, it looks like N20 works via chemical receptors in the brain, much like any other psychoactive drug:
sulcus.berkeley.edu/mcb/165_..._908.html
So, even though it's low on side-effects, it is doing more than affecting the amount of oxygen to the brain.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Thu, March 10, 2005 - 12:20 AMThis is not exactly so.
Methanol is simpler than ethanol, but much more toxic. HCN is simpler yet, but again: less high, more damage. Hg was a favorite of Chinese emperors and Daoist mystics (makes you hallucinate a bit, so I hear) as well as Hooke et al., and you can't get much simpler than a pure element, but man does it have side effects.
On the other hand, N-oleolethanolamine and N-linoleoylethanolamine (cannabinoid breakdown inhibitors in chocolate) are damnably complicated, quite enjoyable, and more or less benign.
I put Sangamon's principle on the same shelf as "built-in operating system", the "crystalline structure of borosilicate glass" (from his Wired article on fiber optic lines), and Shaftoe's bladed yo-yo: necessary stumbles that occur when one mind reaches so impressively far.
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Re: snow crash beginnings....
Wed, March 9, 2005 - 2:35 AMwhoa. i never realized that. thank you. i have a crush on her, hah. (i figure she's what, 28 now? purrfect.)
i'd read diamond age, i just slipped on that connection somehow.
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