HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: thx1138@angus.mi.org (Scott Abfalter)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Swanwick and downloadable personalities
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:53:04 GMT
Reply-To: thx1138@angus.mi.org
Organization: North Star BBS

RE: Book review of downloaded personalities et. al. 

  Might you be talking of Micheal Swanwick's "Vacuum Flowers"???

THX

--
Scott Abfalter (thx1138@angus.mi.org)
North Star BBS, Royal Oak, MI --------------------------------------------+-
From: morpheus@entropy.mcds.com (morpheus)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Post-cascades (was Re: U2)
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 15:01:47 EDT
Organization: the pickle factory at Langley, Virginia

ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (mr. tripppp) writes:

> You poseurs.  I'm writing this message from the collection of little
> sticks I keep inside my cave, near my fire.

I haven't even evolved enough to write.  So there.

> PS- Grog says 'ugh'.

So does anyone reading a.cp for cp messages... ;-)


                        --  morpheus@entropy.mcds.com --
               Don't open your eyes, you won't like what you see.
                   The blind have been blessed with security.
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: bliss32@terapin.com (Geoff Schmidt)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: neuromancer the movie?
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:50:41 GMT
Organization: BBS

In article <8eqTOkG00YUoMTbIcE@andrew.cmu.edu>, Patrick C Leger
<pl1u+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>I dunno...For Armitage, maybe if Arnold Schwarznegger lost his accent and
>bleached his hair, it'd work...Of course, he'd have to be the center of the
>movie, then, but oh well... :)
>
>Chris
I think Armitage is not supposed to be HUGE anymore, remember, he WAS a
soldier...  Hes been in a mental wards for QUITE some time, atrophy probably
took over a while ago, now hes just probably grainy looking and semi-muscular. 
I still like the idea of Peter Gabriel being Arkimage...

 bliss
From: houk@athena.cs.uga.edu (Joshua Houk)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: The *best* person to read _Agrippa_ aloud
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:49:37 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1bevanINN184@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> turkel@unixg.ubc.ca (Bill Turkel) writes:
>
>The *best* person to read _Agrippa_ aloud would be
>
>	Jim Carroll
>
>Bill
>turkel@unixg.ubc.ca

Nah... Hunter S Thompson. For sure.

Joshua H.
-- 
houk@athena.cs.uga.edu * email for rockin' indie-list info!
Any thought could be the beginning of a brand new tangled web you're
spinning.   - Sebadoh
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: mike@highlite.uucp (Mike Wiik)
Subject: Re: Book recommendation
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 02:54:10 GMT

<SXL136@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

>   Anybody here read Queen of Angels, by Greg Bear? It's maybe not cyberpunk
>in the *classic* sense, but I have a feeling y'all would enjoy it immensely.
>:-) :-) :-)

I read it when it first came out in hardback: mostly based on a review in
the Washington Post which considered it flawed but also, in the words of
the reviewer, "the most ambitious book I've ever read". I think they quote
this blurb on the paperback edition. One of the few books I'll probably read
again. The toothpaste nano I though was somewhat farfetched but then who
knows??? I second your recommendation...

>  If you like Queen of Angels, then try out Blood Music. Good stuff, although
>quite different from Q of A.  I think Greg Bear's style leaves Gibson writhing
>in the dust. Sorry, folks.

_Blood Music_ is great! Not only is the novel MUCH better than the original
novella, novellette, whatever, but it'd make a great TV movie! Half of it
could be animated!!!

BTW, anyone else reading _The Turing Option_ ? It sure begins a lot like
your typical Analog story... bleh...

	-Mike

-- 
   | o==== . : ... :  :  .     |Mail Me Neat Stuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203
 --@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : |No disclaimers needed: I actually pay for this.
   |           ... :  :        |Give me control of a planet's spreadsheet soft-
mEssAGE fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs |ware and I don't care who makes the laws......
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: gibson/"virtual light"?
Date: 8 Oct 92 19:42:26 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Oct7.190929.19807@yang.earlham.edu> jessec@yang.earlham.edu writes:

>   Does anyone know anything about a William Gibson project that was 
>talked of last year (or was it two years ago?) called "Virtual Light"?

	It's his next novel, to be published by Bantam in Summer, 1993
(at least that's the current date).  He's working on it; it's making him
crazy, but they all do.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: steve@mikejag.wimsey.bc.ca (Steve (PrettyBoy) Barclay)
Subject: Quicksilver Screen
Organization: mikejag (mike) is a private system in Vancouver, BC, Canada
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 23:55:20 GMT

Howdy!

A friend of mine just had his first book published.  It's called 
The Quicksilver Screen  and his name is Don DeBrandt.  I'd love to
hear what people think of it.  Anybody read it?

If not, put down that keyboard, go out and get it and read it!

Then let me know.

Steve

-- 
*******************************************************************************
* My Canada includes Quebec without veto powers, without a guaranteed 25% of  *
* the seats in the house of commons, and without 1/3rd of the Supreme court   *
*******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: artist1@rdrc.rpi.edu (Artist # 1)
Subject: Agrippa in NYC
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 23:23:38 GMT

Since there is so much traffic on this group about Agrippa, though
I would post that I saw the live feed from that fiber-barn will
be at the Kitchen in NYC on, I think, Dec. 5th. They said it would be
six dollars. 

D.Blair
From: sehst3@cislabs.pitt.edu (Sean Horner)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Greetings
Date: 12 Oct 92 00:40:32 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh


	Greetings, cyberdudes.  I am sehst3.  I am not a man; I am a number.

	I guess you can call me Skitz.  I am not stable.

	On the other hand, my environment may be what is not stable, and yet   because I am constant, I am diagnosed to be unstable.

	I am 3hsets.  Now, I am in the air.

	This is not poetry.  This is not a game.

	You are witnessing the mending of a torn, bleeding heart.  Stitches of
circuitry and razorwire hold together this fragment of an entity, providing 
threads of order that counterbalance madness.

	Is it madness to find solace in machines made be man?

	Is it madness to find solace in men?

	Is it madness to find solace in god-created-by-men-created-by-god?

	I am here because I like your literature.  Your genre.  I have been 
absorbing it for three of your years.  It is cold.  It is mean, and it 
subtly asks questions.  I like questions.

	My former self preferred answers.  But there was too much blood.

	I am sehst3.  Call me Skitz.

	I wish to communicate with you.
From: rlr@panix.com (Richard L. Rosen)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Post-cascades (was Re: U2)
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:49:53 GMT
Organization: RLRCLC

In <1b9v1hINNo2v@agate.berkeley.edu> marc@remarque.berkeley.edu (Marc DeGroot) writes:
> >You multi-cellular organisms think you're so talented!  Humbug!  Try
> >typing without any appendages...
> 
> Oh to be unicellular.  Breaking up and making love are the same thing...

We used to *dream* of being unicellular...

There are 126 of us amino acids posting from a brown paper bag in a septic tank
filled with primordial soup.  We have to get up every morning, wait for
lightning to strike the tank, and hope a cell wall forms around us so we can
become a nucleus.  THEN we have to post for 26 hours a day and then...

(Luxury...)
-- 
"It's not an idea for a film, it's my actual life."   Rich Rosen  rlr@panix.com
From: marc@remarque.berkeley.edu (Marc DeGroot)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: U2
Date: 13 Oct 1992 17:26:26 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <424@tnl.com> cobb@tnl.com (john cobb) writes:
>you'd think he would get me a lobster or something - i'm
>feline and feline's historically like seafood.  but no.
>crap from a can.

You're lucky he opens the can for you, you without opposable thumb.
Don't be such an ingrate; you might get reincarnated as a lab rat or
something.

-- 
Marc de Groot (KG6KF) San Francisco |
Internet: marc@kg6kf.ampr.org       |      "Penny for your thoughts, twenty
UUCP: ..!uunet!hoptoad!noe!marc     |          cents for your paradigm."
Packet radio: KG6KF @ K3MC          |
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: mike@highlite.uucp (Mike Wiik)
Subject: Re: reality?
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 07:15:47 GMT

ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (pinkerton floyd) writes:

>|	Personally, I don't think that a CP world is coming, but
>|stranger things have happened in our past, I suppose. 

>I sincerely doubt this, yet I have heard this opinion expressed many
>times before, particularly be my "alternative" or "industrial"
>friends...When looking to the future, people always emphasize more
>drastic change than their eventually turns out to be....

I'm not sure about this word *drastic*. There's been a LOT of changes
in the past decade, despite the repressive Bush regime not to mention
the flood of anal conservatism. The changes we imagine (like spaceships
to Jupiter) no doubt reflect more of our own interests and hopes over
what are sociological changes such as the fall of communism... Not to
mention being easier to visualize...

Note how the police are now "addicted to drug money"; using confiscated
cash to purchase more and better WoD equipment in a neverending vicious
cycle. Note how millions of otherwise law-abiding americans are now
federal felons due to software copying becoming a felony. Them's big
changes.

>.....At any rate, if anything, Gibson's world seems a
>drastic change to me....I think the future will be more benine - don't
>expect change to keep increasing beyond the logrhythmic pace it's
>on now...

We need to remember that Case was a CRIMINAL and thus dealt with types
of people that are not likely to become less violent and more friendly.
As long as you have a job, you can still live fairly decently in Gibson's
universe, and think of the entertainment options!!! :)

Being an optimist, I expect the rate of change to not slow down but
to continue increasing. It's our one shot at immortality, after all...

	-Mike

-- 
   | o==== . : ... :  :  .     |Mail Me Neat Stuff->POB 3703 Arlington VA 22203
 --@-- . o o o ... O -O- o o : |No disclaimers needed: I actually pay for this.
   |           ... :  :        |Give me control of a planet's spreadsheet soft-
mEssAGE fRoM sPAcE ARt stUdiOs |ware and I don't care who makes the laws......
Xref: sparky alt.cyberpunk:4671 alt.bbs.allsysop:726 alt.bbs.ads:1558 alt.bbs.internet:3905
From: chris@iowegia.uucp (Chris Lyons)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk,alt.bbs.allsysop,alt.bbs.ads,alt.bbs.internet
Subject: Re: test
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 92 15:57:36 CDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

dundon@amnese.eng.uab.edu (Daniel Dundon) writes:

> this is a test. please ignoe
>
> thanx

Ok.










Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (pinkerton floyd)
Subject: Less-Speculative SF (was Re: reality?
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 22:44:17 GMT

In article <16075@mindlink.bc.ca> Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer) writes:
|> guest@fcit-c1.fcit.monash.edu.au writes:
|> A cyberpunk revolution ain't gonna happen in the real world is what I'm
|> saying.
|
|Either that or it's already happened.

I wouldn't go that far....

|Max Headroom didn't start out with "20 minutes into the future" for nothing,
|folks.

Erick Erikson wrote that he believed people are impatient idealists,
a statement I have always disagreed with to a alrge extent.  I think
the popularity of cyberpunk proves the statement is wrong,
particularly shows like Max Headroom who boast so loudly about "this
is what it's going to be like...soon!"....

I think one of the best attributes of cyberpunk is that it is
one of the few (only?) forms of science-fiction that are not very
speculative...CP provide answers, reasons, suggestions based on the
world as it is *now*, and go from there to the future and still
maintain a close proximity to the present, allowing for more realism...
Unlike, say, normal "Star Trek" fiction that is purely speculative,
not much basis in current realities (beaming down, warp 9, knowledge
about the entire realm of space, etc..)...CP, on the other hand has
fun-neat-funkeE-fresh stuff that we might see in our lifetimes:  vr,
ai, primative forms of cyborgism, sprawl, decaying
inner-inner-cities...And I think the reason people like Gibson,
Bladerunner, and Max Headroom so much is that these, generally, seem
to be consistently the less-speculative among the genre...

|--
|Jeremy_Reimer@ |"Anti-ninjas were the most feared assassins in the world.
|mindlink.bc.ca | Instead of appearing out of thin air, throwing metal stars
|---------------| and messing around with bo staffs and numchuks they simply
|aka THE JAGUAR!| shot people and then drove everyone mad with pointless
|---------------| conspiracy theories for years afterwards."
|Stealth Sig#42 |  --From "N-Man #3"

--
 ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu   FutureCulture E-List: [future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu]
 andy (hawkeye)         new edge, technoculture, cyberpunk, virtual reality,
                        raves, etc. Home of the famous :) FutureCulture FAQ!
 
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: The Cyberpunk Aesthetic
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 00:42:46 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Tonight on ABC's _Nightline_ (10/15) they showed excerpts from the
presidential debate with real-time statistics superimposed.  The statistics
came from a room of people holding boxes with knobs on them who were
supposed to dial in their approval level in response to what was being
said.  A computer averaged out the data and presented a real-time graphical
display.

On top of the left 1/3 of the screen there was a real-time chart-recorder-like
display, with a new data point added once per second and the chart scrolling
to the left.  The color of the plotted points changed depending on which
candidate was speaking.

In the upper-right corner, there were the cryptic words UNC, BIOCCA, HSIAO
and below that a real-time histogram with seven bars.  The bars represented
the number of people dialed into each intensity level (I assume).

Along the bottom were several lines of text, mostly numbers being updated
in real time.

What bothers me about this is the emerging cyberpunk aesthetic.  Video
just doesn't seem to be high-bandwidth enough unless we add all this
digital filigree.  I guess the first time I saw this was in the late 70's
in the first _Star_Wars_ movie, in which you see the view through Luke
Skywalker's binoculars.  Later, this becomes a recurring design theme in
cheap space movies and the Max Headroom TV show, i.e. putting digital
overlays over video.

What I enjoyed as a parody of the future however now bothers me when
I see it in real life.  It's a sort of future shock, seeing the future
expressed in _Blade_Runner_ becoming true.  It's as though there's an
developing aesthetic in which unenhanced video is somehow less real, less
accurate.  It seems like Americans prefer to view reality through computers,
satellites, and the nose cameras of cruise missiles.
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: tordm@vand (Tord G.M. Malmgren)
Subject: industrial- vs. information society
Reply-To: TordM@VanA.PhySto.SE
Organization: Department of Physics, University of Stockholm -- Sweden
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 13:54:07 GMT


 I've read some posts now about what an industrial society "is" like..
now, since we're leaving that and we're going into information society,
what would this be like?
 it's like at around the 60's we started going into an information society, or
is it me miss-interpreting everybody's use of the word "industrial" ?
or should we use "new industrial age" like "new age" ? what's the next
stage?? push the button and all available services are displayed, pick
your choice, and voila(!) there you go!
 any opinions?




---------------+--------------------------------
 Tord Malmgren | InterNet: TordM@VanA.PhySto.SE | These opinions are my OWN,
               | BITNet  : TordM@SESUF51        | and NOT of this department!
---------------+--------------------------------
 Department of Physics, University of Stockholm
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: pacoid@wixer.cactus.org (Paco Xander Nathan)
Subject: Re: Cultural el8
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 04:35:06 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.012208.17887@wixer.cactus.org> bladex@wixer.cactus.org (David Smith) writes:
>edu>
>The cultural elite is the small handful of people at the top of the
>entertainment conglomerates who decides what information is suitable for mass
>media and what isn't.  There is little chance of wide-scale commercial
>success without the approval of the cultural-economic-elite.

Naw, those people are just bankers.  They get paid to say "No" and take
large percentages out of other peoples work.  The "decision" comes from
shitpails full of analyses based on the reactions of couch potatoes.
Ever worked with a major publisher?  They want to sell.  Smurfs sell.
To paraphrase st.jude, the real conspiracy is the phage.  If you were
right, and some asshole actually decided what would sell, then the toy
biz would be trivially easy.  Naw, left brain conspiracies are always
fucked from the word "go".

pacoid.
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: shaun@octel.com (Attacking Deep Structure)
Subject: Re: REALITY?
Organization: Octel Communications Inc., Milpitas Ca.
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 00:57:10 GMT

In article <2398.403.uupcb@the-matrix.com> wendell.martin@the-matrix.com (Wendell Martin)  writes:
>You know, my cynical side (which attracted me to CP in the first place)
>has been running along similar lines recently.  After mucking about with
>BBS's and Internet for a while, it's clear that a realtime, raytraced
>CP matrix just isn't practical (not just bandwidth, deciding a STANDARD
>is the problem!).  It's possible as an operating system, but unlikely as
>a comm protocol (unless everyone goes to one standard [yeah, sure]).

I think there is reason for hope this time around.  Practically every
major telecom service provider has had to deal with the headache of
interfacing incompatible equipment together.  I really can't believe
that all those people would want to go through it all again.  It's
such a pain in the ass, and it's so expensive.  If ANSI, ISO, and CCITT
would get together to work on a single universal standard before 
incompatible proprietaries start popping up, I don't think there will
be any trouble having them adopted.  If not... <shudder>

@Man
-- 
shaun@octel.com  ||  LOTFB: Lying On The Floor Bleeding
             
(I didn't write the above.  I left my terminal unattended, and the janitor 
sat on it.)
From: turkel@unixg.ubc.ca (Bill Turkel)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: The *best* person to read _Agrippa_ aloud
Date: 13 Oct 1992 17:00:07 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca
Originator: turkel@unixg.ubc.ca


The *best* person to read _Agrippa_ aloud would be

	Jim Carroll

Bill
turkel@unixg.ubc.ca
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk,rec.arts.sf.movies,alt.postmodern,rec.video.releases
From: ndanner@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (norman danner)
Subject: Re: "WAX OR THE DISCOVERY OF TV AMONG THE BEES": PLAYDATES
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 01:09:01 GMT

In article <8gtzw!p@rpi.edu> artist1@rdrc.rpi.edu (Artist # 1) writes:
>...
>Here are the screenings:
>...
>San Francisco:
>UC Berkeley
>Jan. 8 and Jan.9th
>(on film)

This may be a surprise to you, but Berkeley is not in San Francisco!!!
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Danner                    | The only difference between mathematicians
"The guy with the hair."         |  and philosophers is that mathematicians
ndanner@indiana.edu              |      throw away their scratch paper.
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: jpl@newt.phys.unsw.edu.au (James Lloyd)
Subject: Research for Honours Thesis in Communication Studies
Organization: University of New South Wales
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 10:11:46 GMT


I'm posting this for my sister, who is interested in replies to
some questions.  Please e-mail responses to me: 

               jpl@newt.phys.unsw.edu.au

Hello, I am an honours student in Communication Studies in Sydney,
and I'm writing a thesis on technological space and the body, in
particular cyberspace. I'm interested in any responses or comments
you have on the topic of virtual spaces and environments,
especially from women.  

I have some basic questions I would like you to address, but feel
free to expand or add your own.

These are:

1.   where did you first hear/see/read about cyberspace?
2.   what does cyberspace mean to you? and where is it?
3.   would you like to use virtual reality? and why?
4.   what would you look like in cyberspace?
5.   do you think people need bodies in cyberspace?
6.   can you see any problems with the design and/or uses of
     virtual reality?

These responses will be used to test some of the ideas developed in
my thesis. Please include your age, sex and occupation when
replying.

I look forward to reading your responses!

Justine Lloyd

Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: B. STERLING
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:56:12 GMT

In article <2421.403.uupcb@the-matrix.com> wendell.martin@the-matrix.com (Wendell Martin)  writes:
>Re: your recent complaint about a psuvm post...
>
>Sterling isn't a great
>writer.  He's accepted as a great CP author, but his style is sleepy.

	*Sleepy*???  I have no idea what you mean by this.  

	Also, though I grant anyone's absolute right to say anything they 
want about a writer's work, I nonetheless grow tired of obvious semi-
literates (such as the psuvm critic under discussion) who cast witless 
aspersions without the slightest attempt to give them substance by argument 
or evidence.

	Bill Gibson thinks enough of Sterling's skill to write both a story
and a book with him; I think enough of it to send a draft of my book to him
for his remarks and to write an article about his fiction, and I also think the
results in all instances bear out Gibson's and my belief in Sterling's writing
(and reading) skills.
 
>Walter Jon Williams and Gibson may have shortcomings, but they aren't
>sleepy.  Remember, this is a branch of SF - presentation is more
>important than "literature."  Hemingway could have written CP; Melville
>couldn't.

	Your final statement is inarguable without more detail--in fact, I 
suspect it's one of those statements that cannot be sensibly argued either
way.  And your chain of ideas--"sleepy style," "presentation more important
than 'literature"--fails entirely to hang together.  Literature in any sense
stands or falls on "presentation," and a key aspect of presentation is style.
Also, whether you care to think about it this way or not, sf is, inescapably,
literature, for better or for worse--particular examples of it may be 
extremely, oh, *perishable*, but they cannot escape being classified as 
literature.

	I consider much of Sterling's fiction an intelligence test, the
novels in particular; thus I suppose I could fault them for being too 
difficult (or subtle, or complex) if I were inclined to do so, but I'm not.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander