Bruce Sterling

what does war mean today?
Well, humans are very aggressive and scrappy, and go to war at the drop of a hat. However, a standard land war is no longer going to work as it is no longer technically possible. There are no fronts, the commanding headquarters of generals can be smashed instantly and are number-one targets, supply lines can be interdicted at will, trans-border invasions by organized national armies are heavily disapproved by large coalitions of nations. War as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we’re very unlikely to accept or recognize “world peace” even when we get it. Therefore, events that Queen Victoria would recognize as outrages, frontier skirmishes or minor popular rebellions will be reclassified as “war.” And so will major atrocities such as biological warfare and surreptitious nuclear explosions. They used to be seen as insane or unthinkable acts of madmen. But if they take place they’ll be called “war” too. And there will still be no conventional war.
– Bruce Sterling in Inside the Military Entertainment Complex

An Excellent Observation on Airlines in a Longer, Interesting Speech from Bruce Sterling. Worth a read. Really worth your valuable time.

If you’ve been in airports recently, I believe you are seeing a pretty apt, early version of Terrorspace. At any random moment, you can have your possessions rifled through by strangers. Your shoes are scanned, and various small but vital objects in your pockets can be confiscated by semi-educated security geeks. They’re either pathetically under-trained for the job (in which case you certainly feel no safer), or else they are intelligent and capable people (in which case you pity them and wish they had some other job, for the sake of general human happiness and the GNP). Rather than making us any safer, Terrorspace airports serve as political indoctrination centers that humiliate our voting population on a broad scale. They are meant to inure us to ever-escalating levels of governmental clumsiness and general harm.

Bruce Sterling on Star Wars
A Very American Movie

My DVD copy of the William Gibson documentary No Maps for These Territories came yesterday. It’s nifty, and has lots more of Gibson chattering on about things like the future, Crack cocaine, the past, and drug gangs. Also more Bruce Sterling! I ordered it on Sunday when I blogged it Sunday. Nice UPS turnaround. I’ll be watching it all again soon.

¡Schnikes!

Wow. A buncha new inbound links to here.

The bombastic webertainer Oliver Willis and the very talented Ben Dyer have graciously added me to their sidebars. Thank you gentlemen!

Also, folks are linking to my lindows article, which is nice. Thanks camworld, Volker Weber, and sdlug.org!

Makes me feel not-so-bad to be missing SXSW this year. Fellow WebSanDiegans Caleb Clark and Kelly Abbott will be on panels this year. As are many other web luminaries linked from the sidebar of this site. Bruce Sterling is co-keynoting, and there’s a movie about They Might Be Giants premiering.

Wowie zowie.

I’m not saying I told you so, but I told you so.
So Bruce Sterling is the flavor of the moment of the blogging set for his Austin Chronicle article called Information Wants To Be Worthless. As usual he’s smart, insightful, witty, and forces you to think. He’s able to generate hope and cynicism at the same time. I love the guy. I’ll just say that I’ve been talking about the guy to anyone who would listen to me since I read Islands in the Net in 1989. 1989 was 13 years ago. And with the net, I have proof! Here I am in 1997 talking about Bruce on usenet. For even more Bruce, do not miss the Bruce Sterling Online Index. Be sure to check the speeches. Those are my favorites.

Surveillance State
The surveillance state is beginning. 1984 is no longer the relevant text. We need to look to how information flows in Cyberpunk novels like those of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Where having surveillance and databases out there in the aether don’t necessarily make anyone safer or happier or more secure. We must think carefully about how information tracking technologies can and will be used, abused, and subverted.

It may also be time to learn more about the EFF.

The GPS Personal Locator for Children is straight out of Bruce Sterling. Of course, just because you know where your child is, does not mean you know they are safe. And Dori, it’s cool AND creepy. This is the modern age. Jet planes take me thousands of miles to where my parents live, and they also have the capacity to destroy buildings. This our age, or perhaps our children’s age. Moreover, this is the 21st Century. The trick is to try and retain our essential humanity. Just don’t ask me how to do that. Heh. [ via backupbrain ]

That felt good.
In attempting to reinvigorate myself, the site, or both, the home page has been replaced with something like a splash page, and there’s a new header to match it here in the blog.

I don’t know if it will stick, but it feels great to play.

As Bruce Sterling exhorts: Follow Your Weird!

I used to love making mix tapes. From USA Today, an article about the history of, and decline of cassettes. I suppose CD burners will take over, but cassettes are a pretty robust technology. CDs certainly have not proven as resilient as they were promised – they skip, they go bad. I guess none of the major music technologies are that great.

What I’m waiting for is the ability to go down to the swap meet and buy everything that would be in the local Tower Records – on something the size of a single hard drive. In a Bruce Sterling novel people talk about having a copies of the Library of Congress—well, I want a copy of Tower Records!