Cyber*

[gfish]

I reread Neuromancer for the first time in well over a decade recently. I remember a certain bit of cognitive dissonance regarding the nature of cyberspace before, but it was much more pronounced this time. It's so easy to be blinded by your preconceived notions of what the interface should be. Yes, the operators jack in with some kind of direct neural interface -- but all that does is provide the visualization (and a convenient way for the device to kill you, thus making it more interesting). To control your actions, you're pushing buttons. From the exact descriptions, it sounds like you have rather fewer degrees of freedom than a modern game controller. The graphics as described are amazingly primitive as well -- all geometric solids. (Which does let the AI stand out when it renders itself photorealistic, but still.) For how immerseive the environment is described as, it just sounds like a really bad FPS in the end. Gibson famously formulated his ideas based only on video arcades, never having actually used a computer, but it's weird how direct that comparison is.

In modern cyberpunk news, the Stuxnet worm news continues to utterly fascinate me. We live in a world where some international power released a worm designed to interfere with the production of weapons-grade uranium at specific Iranian facilities. That just goes right off the holy-crap-awesome scale into actually-kind-of-scary territory.

Comments

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

And yet we know the Gibsonverse Mark 1 had the technology for more immersive systems (SimStim) and also for neural control of software (as detailed in one of the stories in Burning Chrome). I think it's a case of "outsider's mind" - not only does he not recognize the impossibilities of technology (which can be a useful thing) but he's also failing to recognize the implications of the possibilities.

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of the way a scuba diver's rebreather is supposed to work: the machine works so closely with the function of your lungs that it's not hard to die if you forget its limits, or if there's a seemingly minor glitch.

Black ICE was just a deliberate malfunction.

I'm still disappointed how VRML was supposed to bring the web to Neuromancer's level of interface, but FPS is still the gold standard of usability. I think simulator sickness is going to be like the sound barrier for these machines, until we figure out how to fix that.