Eastern Standard Tribe

Cory Doctorow

When I finally found Eastern Standard Tribe (official site, with downloads) in the bookstore (Barnes & Noble; that'll teach me to go to Borders all the time), I was quite excited. I'd recently read Doctorow's I, Rowboat in "The Year's Best Science Fiction: 24th Annual Collection" (originally from OverClocked), and I was looking forward to more Doctorow goodness.

Unfortunately, Eastern Standard Tribe didn't speak to me. It's the story of Art, a user-interface designer who gets thrown in a mental asylum for extreme, violent paranoia, and his world of subterfuge and sabotage in the name of his "Tribe", the titular Eastern Standard Tribe.

I think my disappointment stems largely from my preconceptions about what the book would be like. I had, I think, envisioned a story less about subterfuge and more about a society organized around personal timezones, even if it were distributed around the globe, might function.

Overall, not a bad story (and some of the user-interface stuff is interesting), but not one that really interested me.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Cory Doctorow

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (official website, with downloads) is the second Cory Doctorow novel I've read, but the first that I really enjoyed (see my review of Eastern Standard Tribe). It's the first-person account of Jules, a member of the Bitchun Society.

(The Bitchun Society is a post-scarcity ad-hocracy made possible by free, unlimited energy; free, fast cloning; and free, ubiquitous neural-implant network connectivity (whew!) whose primary currency is Whuffie, or reputation.)

Jules, with the help of his girlfriend, Lil, attempts to help his friend Dan—formerly a missionary for the Bitchun Society to the technophobic remnants of the world—regain his reputation so Dan can go out in a blaze of glory, while defending Disney World's Liberty Square, including the famous Haunted Mansion, from an opposing ad-hoc that wants to turn its attractions into simulated rides. All is going well, until Jules is murdered in the Tiki Room, which ticks him off a little.

I think part of the reason I liked this book so much is that, thanks to Steve, I'm fairly familiar with the setting (or, at least, I'm familiar with Disneyland, which is close enough that I get the picture). But the other part is the cool tech: the cloning, the implanted computer and HUD and connectivity that would put today's Japan to shame.

But, ever since reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, I've been wrestling with the concept of personality and identity in a world where everything you are can be backed up and restored in a couple days' time. What does it mean to be Geoff? If I were to make a backup today, "die" tomorrow and be restored, what of that time in-between when I existed and acted but is now irrevocably lost to me? And how do I feel about this? If I were offered, today, the one-time-only opportunity to become a part of the Bitchun society; to have my personality and memories able to be permanently backed up and recorded; granted essential immortality; a clone of myself ready to step in and take my place should anything untoward happen to me; would I take the opportunity? I can honestly say I don't know. There is so much that's amazing about the idea; so much that it would offer, but potentially so much to lose. (Even setting aside questions about security of the system that runs my brain, the sufficiency of the backups created, the issue of impersonation or duplication and, of course, privacy.) And what of the route to get there?

I suppose, in the end, it would be a simple matter of survival: whether I die and am reborn as a clone of myself, or just die, this me will still be dead, but only with the Bitchun Society will some part of me continue on.

Annoyed

I don't buy a lot of games.

Mostly, I don't play very many games, although I've been playing Culdcept and Dead Space lately.

But I really wanted to play Portal, because I've heard it's so amazing.

And now, I'm about twenty minutes in to installing it, and it's nowhere near done, as far as I can tell.

First it installed Steam. I don't want Steam; I've never wanted Steam, it's a waste of time and memory and bandwidth.

Then I had to create a Steam account to even install Portal. This despite my having plunked down my money at a counter to purchase the stupid game. It tells me I can't access the games that I've already paid for without my Steam account. Which I didn't want anyway.

Fuck you, Valve. You're lucky I'm so lazy that I'm willing to put up with this shit this time. I won't be buying any more of your games in the future, though.

EDIT: I think the thing that annoys me most of all is that I wanted to just sit down and play portal for a bit. Instead, I'm still waiting. Console gaming is looking more appealing all the time...

New writings on One Step from Sunday

There are some new parts to Trickery and a new part to Fangs for the Memories over at One Step From Sunday.

Promotions!

But not raises.

On Saturday, BrightonMusic had their board meeting, and they decided to change my title from "Assistant Music Director" to "Music Director", alongside Kat (actually, Kat suggested it).

So, yay!

Musopen begins Music Theory Textbook Project

Musopen has begun a Music Theory Textbook Project (as announced on the Musopen blog) to create and release to the public domain a music theory textbook suitable for use in college courses. They're looking for volunteers right now, and although I doubt I can contribute much to the actual theory portion of the book, I've volunteered to proof-read. Give it a look!

Inventory as Waste

My coworker Paul was telling me today about some of the presentations he attended at the Agile conference earlier this month, and one of the things he mentioned was the idea that inventory is a kind of waste.

It took me a little while to grasp this concept, but I think of it this way:

Imagine a mechanic's shop. There is a team of mechanics, and they all work together to fix cars (or whatever). They have an inventory of wrenches, and each wrench has a certain cost associated with it, based on the initial cost of the wrench, the cost of storing it, degradation of the wrench over time, etc. The wrench's purpose is to be used to fix cars. When used for its purpose, the wrench is not wasted; it is contributing to the goals of the team. Whenever the wrench is in storage instead of being used for its purpose, it is wasted; it costs the team to store it, track it, put it away, etc. So, ideally, every wrench should be used (appropriately; misuse of a tool is another topic!) as much as possible.

Now, of course, some waste might be necessary. Perhaps certain tasks require the use of multiple wrenches, or when the team is at capacity all the wrenches are in use (but this doesn't happen all the time, nice as that would be). So you have to find the appropriate balance of waste vs efficiency.

Atheism in Pop Culture: "Old Time Religion" (from Greta Christina)

Greta Christina has a bit of a contest going for parody verses for "Old Time Religion."

A couple examples from the post:

Let us worship Aphrodite
In her silky see-through nightie
Though she's mean and somewhat flighty
She's good enough for me.

Let us sacrifice to Isis
She will help us in a crisis
And she hasn't raised her prices
And that's good enough for me.

Here are my entries:

The invisible pink unicorn
May be found in ancient cuneiform
And always shall my socks adorn...
And that's good enough for me.

The Principia Discord-i-a says
The Goddess Eris is our goddess, yes,
And chaos give such good milk, I must confess,
That it's good enough for me.

New post on One Step From Sunday

I've just written a new post on One Step from Sunday entitled "One Foot in Front of the Other". It's very short, so... go read it!

Orange Butterfly

Orange Butterfly
Originally uploaded by emeraldimp.

We went to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster today. Here's a taste of pictures to come...

I Hate Creepy Crawlies!

I

hate

Creepy

Crawlies!

(and flyers,

too)

So, why do I take so many pictures of them?