Talk:William Gibson

message: Seems that the age.caulculations mentions that he in hes 60s but the next picture mentions his 70th birthday?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.68.146.169 (talk) 22:18, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: MIstakes

message: To counter post-Featured Article obsolescence, I am going to use this section as a workspace for updating the article with new developments. Older, un(der)used sources are also needed. Feel free to add links to new stories, interviews, podcasts, book reviews and so on related to Gibson. Skomorokh 16:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ZH era interviews, from the WGB. Skomorokh 22:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

text: jackmovemag. Skomorokh 08:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation dump 

message: New Yorker Magazine article / interview Dec 2019 
William Gibson and Cory Doctorow, October 2010. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ZH era interviews, from the WGB. Skomorokh 22:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

text: jackmovemag. Skomorokh 08:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest interview 

message: I created an awards subpage for development before poting to the mainspace. The Locus index is a reliable source for all the notable SF awards. For coprehensiveness we just need to identify the non-genre awards he has been nominated for.YobMod 16:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved into the namespace at Awards and nominations of William Gibson.  Skomorokh  19:54, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Awards

message: The article's "Visionary influence and prescience" section doesn't seem to admit that Gibson's cyberspace isn't remotely how it has turned out.  I'm not sure how to put that criticism into this article.
We don't fly between geometric representations of data hubs by frantically tapping access code on a hot-rod deck, we simply type in a URL or click a link.  We don't see any representation of cyberspace during navigation at all.  We don't jack in at all, we watch a conventional screen.  Even when we use Virtual reality, it is something that takes place within a URL or site.  Here is Bobby the wannabe's understanding of the matrix from Count Zero:
:He'd used decks in school, toys that shuttled you through the infinite reaches of that space that wasn't space, mankind's unthinkably complex consensual hallucination, the matrix, cyberspace, where the great corporate hotcores burned like neon novas, data so dense you suffered sensory overload if you tried to apprehend more than the merest outline.
To give you an idea of how different navigating the internet is from the mechanisms of Gibson's matrix, here is someone guiding Bobby to get hack into the Yakuza via a back door:
:     "When you punch out past the Basketball," Jammer said to Bobby, "you wanna dive right three clicks and go for the floor, I mean straight down..
: "Past the what?"
:  "Basketball. That's the Dallas-Fort Worth Sunbelt Co-Prosperity Sphere, you wanna get your ass down fast, all the way, then you run how I told you, for about twenty clicks. It's all used-car lots and tax accountants down there, but just stand on that mother, okay?"
: ...
:Bobby jacked.
:    He followed Jammer's instructions, secretly grateful that he could feel Jackie beside him as they plunged down into the workaday depths of cyberspace, the glowing Basketball dwindling above them. The deck was quick, superslick, and it made him feel fast and strong.
(these "clicks" seem to be distances, not buttons)
Is it OK to quote big chunks of the books this way?
Meanwhile, almost as a throwaway Gibson fleshes out the idea of an avatar in an online social space just a page later in Count Zero.  This is in 1986, a year before Habitat and I think is breathtakingly prescient.  Is it original research to claim that Gibson was there before anyone else?
:     A square of cyberspace directly in front of him flipped sickeningly and he found himself in a pale blue graphic that seemed to represent a very spacious apartment, low shapes of furniture sketched in hair-fine lines of blue neon. A woman stood in front of him, a sort of glowing cartoon squiggle of a woman, the face a brown smudge. "I'm Slide," the figure said, hands on its hips, "Jaylene. You don't fuck with me. Nobody in L.A." she gestured, a window suddenly snapping into existence behind her"fucks with me. You got that?"
:"Right," Bobby said. "What is this? I mean, if you could sort of explain.." He still couldn't move. The "window" showed a blue-gray video view of palm trees and old buildings.
: "How do you mean?"
: "This sort of drawing. And you. And that old picture.
: "Hey, man, I paid a designer an arm and a leg to punch this up for me. This is my space, my construct. This is L.A., boy. People here don't do anything without jacking. This is where I entertain!
Awesomeness!  -- Skierpage (talk) 00:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  wrong on Cyberspace, unbelievably right on avatars 

message: Regarding reference 126 ^ "Books of the year 2003". Books & Arts (The Economist). 2003-12-04. Retrieved 2007-08-06. This is cited as the source of the quote "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."  There was no issue of the Economist published on December 4.  I checked to see if this was a dating error and examined the April 12 issue but I could not find this quote either.  Perhaps it is in another issue.  He does say this in a National Public Radio Interview (NPR interview (30 November 1999 Timecode 11:55)http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1067220 but I am not sure if this is the original source as he states he has said this many times.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.239.198.98 (talk) 22:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, thanks for raising this, and I agree that Gibson has used this phrase in many different locations. The reason I selected the Economist reference at the time was that it was the earliest version of the quote I could verify in an authoritative source. The link does say December 4, 2003, and may have not appeared in the print edition at that time. I have no objection to replacing The Economist with the NPR ref (as it is earlier), but am not in a position to do so right now. If you want, please go ahead, the template you would need is . Thanks for your interest!  Skomorokh  14:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: William Gibson lists his Twitter account @GreatDismal on his official website, at http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp, so it's pretty safe to say that it's really him. Just a few hours ago, he said "Neuromancer was a conscious critique of all the mainstream SF I'd read up to that point. Why it worked, IMO." I think that's a pretty interesting revelation about what he intended with the work. How (or should?) we work that into this article and the article for Neuromancer? J0lt C0la (talk) 06:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the pointer, interesting comment indeed! I agree that the Twitter account is a safe bet; the only worry would be how serious/considered these tweets are. Thoughts half-formed, cast off lightly perhaps. In any case, this is the tweet in question. I'll think it over some more.  Skomorokh  10:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Continuing the Twitter idea, if someone is alive and uses Twitter (verified accounts only maybe), would it be interesting to anyone / relevant to put said account info in the at-a-glance section at the top? GreatDismal Cus.moritz (talk) 02:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Gibson's Twitter - Interesting comment about Neuromancer

message: In May 2010, Gibson listed his favorite science fiction books for New York magazine:
* Tiger! Tiger! (aka The Stars My Destination) (1956), by Alfred Bester
* Dhalgren (1975), by Samuel R. Delany 
* Arslan (1976), by M. J. Engh
* The Crystal World (1966), by J. G. Ballard
* The Forever War (1974), by Joe Haldeman
* Pavane (1968), by Keith Roberts
* Random Acts of Senseless Violence (1993), by Jack Womack 
* Great Work of Time (1991), by John Crowley
* Holy Fire (1996), by Bruce Sterling     
* 334 (1972), by Thomas M. Disch
-----
Removed as trivial, needs fleshing out and context to be useful. Skomorokh 13:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed section: Gibson's favorite SF novels  

message: This must be a typo since further up the article it is stated they met in 1981: "One of the things that made me like Bruce Sterling immediately when first I met him, back in 1991." 24.4.132.165 (talk) 09:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what the source says, but it's a translation of a transcription so presumably they got the year off by a decade. Skomorokh 10:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo? 

message: Source of name: In April, someone had changed the navbox template to say "Bigend books", and pointed to Gibsons's tweet here as verification.
A named account had suggested "Bigend trilogy" earlier in March, here and here.
The List of works of William Gibson doesn't currently call them anything.
Just noting. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Neither fans nor media have coalesced on a particular name for the trilogy, so I thought it best we left it unnamed for the time being too... Skomorokh 22:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest trilogy or Bigend books 

message: This article is long enough without padding it with unnecessary pics of the Clash and Burroughs and so forth. How about some trimming? 72.229.55.38 (talk) 06:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The images are to break up the monotony of the text; if you can find more relevant ones that would be great, but it is quite difficult to source freely-licenced images from the post-war pre-internet era. Skomorokh 14:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  bloated 

message: which is is rather strange, if he was indeed born in 1948. the image data says it is his 70th, but 1983 does not really allow him either age.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.16.41.96 (talk) 17:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the caption refers to William S. Burroughs, who has always been old as dirt. The Interior (Talk) 17:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about the 69/70 discrepancy, fixed. The Interior (Talk) 18:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  caption on photo '69th birthday 1983' 

message: I didn't want to jump in and start bashing at a fairly well-tended page, as a long-out-of-practice editor, but I thought the page could do with some mention of one of Gibson's weirder side projects: he has a clothing line, in collaboration with the Japanese company Buzz Rickson's. It's fairly un-Googleable, as BR's main website - http://www.buzzricksons.jp/top.html - is usually a wrapper around their latest catalog, but the *current* link is http://bookshelf.wisebook3.jp/bookstore/h5/toyoenterprise/2500/#57 .
BR does very accurate reproductions of military clothing, basically, and Gibson referenced them in one of his more recent novels, Pattern Recognition, saying one of the characters wore a black Buzz Rickson's MA-1 - this is mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayce_Pollard#Apparel . Ultimately as a result of this, BR approached Gibson about releasing a black version of their MA-1 as a collaboration, and the line was later expanded to include black versions of various other BR items.
Seems like a fun/interesting thing to note, anyway.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by AdamWill (talk • contribs) 20:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buzz Rickson's collaboration 

message: (This is a continuation of a discussion at User talk:Ylee#Your reversion of my edits to William Gibson.)
"On the side" is irrelevant whether used literally or metaphorically. If literally, it is unnecessary and redundant; if metaphorically, well, we should avoid metaphors in encyclopedic writing. The context, including the "I don't really use it for anything" quote, already establishes for the reader that Gibson rarely used his modem (not necessarily "at all" as you claim); "on the side" is thus both a metaphor to avoid and, given the context, unnecessary.
The reliable source states that Gibson used BBS lingo. That he himself did not participate in BBS culture directly does not change that he was exposed to such lingo from his social circles. I will reword the sentence to clarify, though.
This isn't a lengthy section on Gibson's exposure to and use of (or lack thereof) to computers; it's one paragraph that is part of a much larger article. Given that, and given his statements on the subject span many years, some jumping around is unavoidable. In fact, it is precisely that the time contexts (of necessity) varies in the paragraph why we should avoid anything other than the simple past tense, including avoiding the past perfect form. Ylee (talk) 18:14, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a featured article. When such an article grows by accretion, the originally flow, content, and context suffers. If you edit to cut content to fit your idea of style, the article suffers. You should have discussed my changes to you edits before removing. You did not. If you do not follow such a procedure, Wikipedia doesn't work? In particular, your dismissal of the close and important connection between Gibson's creations, computing, and culture does this article a disservice. At this point section 4 requires a rewrite. I'll do that, and post a new section on this talk page. - Neonorange (talk) 23:25, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Your reversion of my edits to William Gibson

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080705154050/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/reviews/books/spook-country/spook-country.html to http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/reviews/books/spook-country/spook-country.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080116112214/http://www.projo.com:80/books/content/BOOK-GIBSON_09-16-07_376TE7P.53f53f.html to http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-GIBSON_09-16-07_376TE7P.53f53f.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060515133747/http://greylodge.org:80/gpc/?p=119 to http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/?p=119
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 22:25, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 4 external links on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071013205424/http://dthomasmaddox.com/virus23.html to http://www.dthomasmaddox.com/virus23.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=99d2236b-c329-4969-b07e-6ffebeff5871
*Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/5w9UJStiY?url=http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit52.html to http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit52.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.empsfm.org/press/index.asp?articleID=1259
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:13, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 10 external links on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071029044328/http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=71---80 to http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=71---80
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080108121005/http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/macleod_interview/ to http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/macleod_interview/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080501224918/http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/11/william_gibson/index.html to http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/08/11/william_gibson/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071116072741/http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/books/2003/02/13/gibson/index.html to http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/books/2003/02/13/gibson/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081027165055/http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/sterling_gibson_nas.speeches to http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/William_Gibson/sterling_gibson_nas.speeches
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070914195904/http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/upcoming-movies/william-gibsons-idoru-coming-to-anime/ to http://cyberpunkreview.com/movie/upcoming-movies/william-gibsons-idoru-coming-to-anime
*Added  tag to http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com/2009/07/30/my-poor-old-blogs-just-sitting-here/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100411060446/http://www.richardkmorgan.com/articles/recommended-reading-list/ to http://www.richardkmorgan.com/articles/recommended-reading-list/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071126230416/http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc801.txt to http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc801.txt
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071007141619/http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/07/gibson_doc/index.html to http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/07/gibson_doc/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080814085852/http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/NotesAntiUtopia.html to http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/NotesAntiUtopia.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:49, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071001103652/http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/straylight_run/artist.jhtml to http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/straylight_run/artist.jhtml
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:26, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080307125019/http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/int/1999/04/29/cronenberg/index.html to http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/int/1999/04/29/cronenberg/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130511083458/http://www.scribd.com/doc/81687312/From-Here-to-Infinity-an-Exploration-of-Science-Fiction-Literature-Michael-D-C-Drout to https://www.scribd.com/doc/81687312/From-Here-to-Infinity-an-Exploration-of-Science-Fiction-Literature-Michael-D-C-Drout
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:12, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on William Gibson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071124060041/http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/08/11/guide_intro/index.html to http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/08/11/guide_intro/index.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified