On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Matt Dismukes wrote: > > I followed earlier recommendations and read that book. Some points: > -It was hard to find. I went to 7 book stores before I found it. Vinge > has another title that's more prevalent. There's A Fire Upon The Deep, to which A Deepness In The Sky is a prequel. There's also the Across Realtime trilogy, and True Names. > -It's long, and Vinge likes to drop hints over a 100 page spans before he > tells you exactly what he's talking about. Some readers like that, though. I have only the following faults with it: the book is far too short, and much too obvious. > -Some of his ideas are refutable. For example, he calls this period we're > living in now "The Age of Broken Dreams". One of the dreams is that > we'll figure out the aging process and become immortal, and that never > happens. I don't see why not. Another key idea is a network of microscopic I recommend studying biochemistry and molecular biology for a few years. Then it will perhaps become more obvious. (No, I can't state it more succinctly, some things are just not compressible). It is really extremely difficult trying to patch biology, because it wasn't designed to be patched, and the nature of our patches is so far so very different to the operation paradigm of biology. > computers that float in the air. You unknowingly inhale them, and the > operator is able to read your neurons (i.e., your thoughts). How are > your gonna fit code, cpu, and radio transceiver in a bacterium-sized > package? Vinge doesn't say what it's made of. It's not bacterium sized, it's in fact macroscopic, about the size of flat mica flitter, just enough to get airborne, especially in microgravity environments with strong airflow. It has to be macroscopic, because otherwise it wouldn't have proper geometry to absorb microwaves powering it. Or even generate/sense visible radiation for I/O. Also, the culture which produced the localizers was more highly advanced that Qeng Ho (but it wasn't of any use, quite the opposite). They just skimmed a hot product of a civilizations spike, before it plummeted. Vinge deliberately introduces technology curbers, because otherwise every culture would necessarily fall into Singualarity, resulting in a a book that cannot be written and/or be publishable, since being utterly unintelligible. > -Although HUDs are mentioned often, so what? The idea of overlaying > the real scene with a computer display has already been covered, and Vinge is an old timer. I'm not at all sure he invented Augmented Reality, but he was certainly one of the first to publicsise it. > Vinge doesn't really add substantially to that idea. His characters > are very dependent on augmented reality, however. Maybe that > social/psychological factor appeals to you. You're speaking from a distinctly pre-Singularity viewpoint. You must understand that for a high culture the bulk of happenings no longer appears in physical space. In fact the physical space will become increasibly invaded by hardware, eventually utterly usurping and bulldozering it, making it ultimative uninhabitable for biology. In fact, Vinge usually gives a very toned down version of what e.g. "conventional" nanotechnology would have been capable of. I have some pictures in my head I'm unfortunately incapable of selling to Hollywood, even if they could do the VFX, no one could relate to the result. > In all, I found it an above average book. Not great. 'No ideas I hadn't > been exposed to already. But I'm glad I read it. You're either are ahead of the crowd, or you overlooked some of his points. Difficult to imagine, but Vinge *can* be subtle. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 -- Subscription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org please, Please, *PLEASE* don't subscribe through a forward/false domain
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