Slashdot Mirror
Sneak Preview Of Vernor Vinge's Next Book
orac2 writes "The current issue of IEEE Spectrum Magazine is running a special report titled Sensor Nation, about the technology and social issues involved with the rising tide of ubiquitous surveillance and analysis. One of the articles is a short story by Vernor Vinge about what kind of future we could end up living in, titled Synthetic Serendipity. The story is actually adapted from the book Vinge is currently working on, called Rainbows End (and for the grammar nazis, that's right, there's no apostrophe at the end of 'Rainbows.') ObPlug: I'll be talking at The 5th HOPE in New York on Saturday at 4pm in Area B, and I'll bring along a few issues for any interested slashdotters."
And I thought people named "Verner" went out with the apollo program?
Well, it's probably supposed to mean that even rainbows end.
Fleur de Sel
And for the spelling pedants, it's spelled "Sneak Preview". (I haven't made up my mind whether the use of "nazi" for "pedant" is more or less offensive than the morons who compare the US of 2004 to Nazi Germany, but I really could do without either.)
shameless karma whoring
Vinge is the author of two Hugo award winning novels: A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep, as well as numerous short stories including True Names, which envisioned an avatar-based Internet in 1981, years before Gibson's cyberspace or more appropriately, Stephenson's Street of Snowcrash. He's also a former computer science professor at San Diego State, and someone who both knows the details of the technology he writes about, including pervasive sensors, search tools, game design, and wearable computers, and has the writing chops to make you care about his characters.
I'm very much looking forward to the new novel.
And by the way for those interested in security issues in sensor networks, see the work by Adrian Perrig, he's got a book and a number of papers on the topic.
Mod me down as troll, but I'm about to speak the truth. Ubiquitous surveillance? There are cameras covering every inch of the city I walk in. Massive government analysis? A huge database called MATRIX contains all my financial and medical records, searchable by federal agents. I have to give my SSN, despite the law, to every two-bit huckster who asks for it, to buy a house, a car, a plane ticket, you name it.
/pre-emptive rant against every knee-jerk EPIC-spouting idiot who will soapbox this thread.
And you know what? I don't care. Because I've made a choice to deal with this stuff. If you don't want to live with modern society's "privacy invasion", then don't bitch that you can't take part in all the luxuries and services it provides for you. Don't own a house. Don't own a car. Don't have a credit card. You know there are millions of people living in America who are completely in the Black, off the radar, invisible. I know people who call them "illegals" but they're just good people, most of them Mexican, making a decent living. If privacy is important to you, get off your god damned yuppie ass, stop bitching, and go get a real education from someone who actually knows something about privacy: the "illegals" who mop your shit off the linoleum floor. You want to know what their "social security number" is? 123-Fuck-You-Charlie-Bravo.
You can give it all up, check out of the system, dissapear. If you have balls. On the other hand, if you're a coward and you want your cake: the house, the car, the job, the credit rating, the phone number and static IP address - but you don't want to accept the "privacy invasion" that comes part and parcel with modern society - do us all a favor and drink up a nice cup of Shut The Fuck Up.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
The article suggests that this information will be available in the future and that we all will be willing to absolutely forgo anonymity to have information about anything at any given time. I do have to admit that I forsee one small problem here: if the government, your boss, your neighbor, know what you are reading through, then you will be more selective about what you study, and thus, it really isn't free access to information.
It's like the government knowing what you are checking out of the library. It makes you think again about trying to get a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook, you know, even if you feel that you have the right to read it. Even so, as I said, we no longer have privacy, so if we can end our governments' monopoly on privacy, then I believe that we will be better off for it.
It's the spelling nazi that will get you in the rear. SNEAK, not SNEEK.
We trust you have learned your lesson this time, no? Just be grateful that the "Lose, not Loose" guy is out of town.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
One of the major advantages that privacy gives you is the right to live as you wish without being hassled by people who don't like it. We shouldn't be expected to give this up, regarless of who's making profits, what terrorist threate there are, or anything else.
... its spelled "grammer nazi's"
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
I've read a lot of good sci-fi writers, but so few are as good at character development AND hard core science fiction writing.
If Vinge didn't spend so much time teaching, he'd probably have time to write more novels.
Anyone have some suggestions of writers who come close to Vinge for great sci-fi? (I've already read most of Gibson, Stephenson, Simmons, Bear, Sagan, Haldeman)
ILL Clinton
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
That is a good story. I recommend checking it out. It even sounds partially plausible. ;)
/b
|f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
Mea Culpa. That's what you get for only reading the body text on the submission page and not the subject line as well.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
...the origins of the Borg.
Step one: Everything described in parent.
Step two: Neural interfaces, getting around all of those pesky "physical" operations (finger waving, eyeball cues, etc). One can participate in society completely as a "ghost," without lifting a single finger.
Step three: Network the neural interfaces. "Shared brainstorming" will be considered the fast-track method of advancing science and technology.
Step four: Reassign the "physical substrate" to menial tasks. If I can participate fully in society WITH MY MIND, why not rent out my body to work in the factories or operate the machinery? It's not like I actually need my body for anything else - might as well let it be a "drone."
Step five: Shared neural experience of human society slowly breaks down the boundaries between one human and another; a "hive mind" emerges.
Resistance is futile.
dinner: it's what's for beer
. . . called Rainbows End (and for the grammar nazis, that's right, there's no apostrophe at the end of 'Rainbows.')
That should be "Nazi", not "nazi".
Sincerely,
A capitalization Nazi.
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whaaaa!!!!! I'm just a paranoid spineless American that wants to be coddled and pretend I'm secure!!! Whaaaa!!!
Listen coward, I'm an American and I don't want to be spied on. Got that? How about you take your government ID card and move to a socialist nation that will own you. Some of use have the sack to live in a free nation. If YOU don't then YOU move. Take your wallowing and move to China. They'll protect you, from yourself most of all.
If everyone was really out to see that everyone does well, if everyone was really basically
:)
decent, then it could work.
But if only 90% of people are like that, then "total information" could make your life annoying
as heck, one of the reasons why "total sharing" (communism) always fails so abysmally.
Which means that such a system has to find and harshly punish (reform, exile, or kill) anyone who
doesn't cooperate (assuming the enforcers are not corrupt), with near 100% effectiveness (i.e,
become totalitarian).
Even if you do that, natural inclinations are for the corrupt to seek power, and become the enforcers.
Any large-scale society needs significant privacy (even if not officially protected) simply so that
people can live near each other without constantly fighting. Small, relatively isolated communities
can do without much privacy because then can effectively exile or control the 10% or whatever
that don't fit in.
Ultimately we'll probably settle in at some level of surveillance that is survivable (I hope), with
more or less in various communities and individual or community measures to have some control (like
"community associations" that don't allow surveillance (or limit it), or EMP grenades for
that matter).
Unless of course someone develops really effective subliminal or broadcast mind control, in which
case it's pretty much over (for practical purposes). The advantage to that being that you
won't care if you have privacy (or anything else).
I don't mind a credit card company to keep track of my purchases, or my car ownership being registered in some government database. What I do mind is for corporations and governments to do god knows what with that data, and use it for purposes other than the ones it was collected for. One way to ensure this is to accept the system and cop out, hide, disappear like you suggest. Another way is to try and change the system, making sure that there are proper laws to govern what can be done with your data, and to make sure that the government collects only the data it needs to do its job. Our country (the Netherlands) has very strict rules about this: you can ask any company to disclose what data they have stored about you, and the data is not allowed to be used for anything other than its stated purpose. Sure... it's misused sometimes, but at least you'll have a nice legal stick to beat them with if you catch them. Not foolproof, but good enough if you want the nice house, car and other luxuries of our modern society.
People 'bitch and moan', as you call it because they want the system changed, rather than just give up.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Vinge is an auther of the technological singularity concept. Technological singularity is a situation then pace of technological change increasing to such a degree that our ability to predict its consequences will diminish virtually to zero and a person who doesn't keep pace with it will rapidly find civilization to have become completely incomprehensible. For example transfer to usage of languadge instead of basic system of signal could be considered as a technological singularity for proto-human, though drawn in time.
Of course, anyone can turn off their enhancements and see the plain old reality, but most people don't bother most of the time because things are ugly that way.
There's less need for optical sensor feeds to change reality than you might think.
In my experience, most people have moved the alteration of perception part back deeper into their brains.
They already live in a mediated reality here and now in 2004.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I read it in Wired.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
We have today's winner! Add the parent troll to the list of Standard Slashdot Trolls
If everyone were... Subjunctive mood. Yes, I've got karma to burn.
If only they were "illegals" where I live. Unfortunatly, here, they are red-neck nuts. Check it out: Freedom County. These people are the tin-foil hat and automatic weapon crowd.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Read "Synthetic Stupidity" for a split second. Which, in hindsight, actually seems like a good title for a book...
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
(and for the grammar nazis, that's right, there's no apostrophe at the end of 'Rainbows.')
Nor is there a period.
I would refer you to The Transparent Society by David Brin
"Official Summary"
David Brin takes some of our worst notions about threats to privacy and sets them on their ears. According to Brin, there is no turning back the growth of public observation and inevitable loss of privacy--at least outside of our own homes. Too many of our transactions are already monitored: Brin asserts that cameras used to observe and reduce crime in public areas have been successful and are on the rise. There's even talk of bringing in microphones to augment the cameras. Brin has no doubt that it's only a matter of time before they're installed in numbers to cover every urban area in every developed nation. While this has the makings for an Orwellian nightmare, Brin argues that we can choose to make the same scenario a setting for even greater freedom. The determining factor is whether the power of observation and surveillance is held only by the police and the powerful or is shared by us all. In the latter case, Brin argues that people will have nothing to fear from the watchers because everyone will be watching each other. The cameras would become a public resource to assure that no mugger is hiding around the corner, our children are playing safely in the park, and police will not abuse their power. No simplistic Utopian, Brin also acknowledges the many dangers on the way. He discusses how open access to information can either threaten or enhance freedom. It is one thing, for example, to make the entire outdoors public and another thing to allow the cameras and microphones to snoop into our homes. He therefore spends a lot of pages examining what steps are required to assure that a transparent society evolves in a manner that enhances rather than restricts freedom. This is a challenging view of tomorrow and an exhilarating read for those who don't mind challenges to even the most well-entrenched cultural assumptions. --Elizabeth Lewis
People are already freaking out about cameraphones in dressingrooms/lockerrooms. And Net-accessible smartphones inside corporate offices. Then there's the gargoyle who's been barred from surveilled stores for looking the cyclops back in the eye.
This seems very consistent with current politics, where Presidents (and their VPs) testify before committees unable to take notes, and public documents are supressed, then released only for in-person public review, barring recording. Has amnesia become the required state for modern people? Is Anderson/Enron record shredding the default in the info age? Who's looking at you, kid? And will you ever remember that night on Bourbon Street until the video appears on BitTorrent during your Congressional campaign?
--
make install -not war
You can also squirt noise into your accesses too. If you check out 100 books from the library and return them a couple days later, which ones did you actually read? Some of them were how-to-build bombs, some of them were erotic, some of them were just plain boring... probably.
If you download 20 gigabytes of generic porn per day, no one knows you're a pervert who is collecting pictures and voice samples that resemble your friend Peter's sexy wife Lois. (Damn, she's hot.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I assume this would be correct if the "end" in question pertained to the termination of multiple rainbows (i.e. they went away) and in fact seems to imply that all rainbows are ending. More likely it is a play on the phrase "end of the rainbow", a mythical place where a pot of gold can be located. Using the plural of rainbow would imply that this single place is in fact common to all rainbows everywhere, in which case there must be one huge pot of gold there. How seemingly disconnected rainbows all terminate at a single place is left as an excercise for the reader. Perhaps they have more than 3 dimensions?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
One pissed off grammar Nazi. They should call the followup "English's end", although, the author would probably write it "Englishs end".
this describes the world of illusion captain pike lived in when he was borken up and in his wheelchair, in the original ST. What was his love lifes characters name? I remember her "illusionary" face, and her "reality" face but don't recall her name right now.
Having read this I had the feeling that Vinge's future comes to pass the technology choices we engineer today and basic privacy rights will make as big difference to tomorrow. There was a strong sense of user choice in public verse private information in the piece that is not clear in many interfaces today. Of course some problems of today like clear legal statements still echo'ed nicely in the piece.
"They insist that we have nothing to fear about revealing our quirks, pathologies, and personal data, so long as absolutely everybody is doing it--including our commercial and federal overseers. Our own loss of privacy will be a small price to pay for what we'll get in return, these advocates say."
This is a ridiculous statement. If they feel so comfortable, why don't they place webcams in their bedroom and toilets? After all, everyone is doing it...
And a small price? Has it ever accured to those people that the abuse is gigantic, and that there is a good reason to regard privacy as a right? If they really think no1 has anything to fear if our personal data is for grabs, they are idiotic ninkenpoops. Just imagine what would happen, say, if a medical insurance-compagny would know you have some diseaese or gentic make-up that makes you sensitive and have a high risk for cancer or something? How do you think they will react? "We know you're a high-risk case, but that doesn't matter for us and we'll grant you the same as everyone else, because everyone is doing it?"
Apart from the obvious economic issues for an individual, there are also the sociological ones. Has it ever occured to them that people don't WANT that others know about something, whether they do it or not? Does a woman want it to be known that she had an abortion? Does a person automatically wants his sex-life (or lack thereof)to be known to all, even if he knows others are doing it? Do they honestly believe that I (and I'm guessing Im' not the only one) would want my personal feelings and emotions be known, because everyone is sharing them?
Well, I have seen Springer and Opera a few times, and it NEVER made me want to do the same, on the contrary.
No, it does not follow that, because 'all do it', you should be happy with 'life as an eternal peepshow'. And what's more, anyone with a grasp of human nature would realise that will never come. It's like saying 'if everyone were peacefull (or rational, or whatever), the world would be a better place'. Even if true, it's a nonsensical statement in any practical sense. Human nature involves good and evil, as well as the drive for meddling in someone elses' business and wanting to keep things private.
While they maybe right in the development of future privacy-invading technologies, they make the same error many 'futurologists' do; they extrapolate from the current conditions, and think they can predict what is going to happen. What folly.
If history teaches us anything, it's that it's comprised of forces and counter-forces: if at one time it swings to much in one direction, you can be sure there will be a counter-reaction. If privacy is being abused en masse, it will not lead to a broad acceptance of that abuse, but rather to a counter-reaction.
And I also do not think there is some sort of causal relationship between 'having unrestricted acces to the internet' and privacy abuse. You can have acces to data, yet remain anonymous, as is proven even today on the internet, let alone with systems as Freenet. As long as you are and remain anonymous (or at least pseudonymous), one can not deduce your rl where-abouts and make your private dealings public.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Williams is vastly underrated. Try his book "Aristoi" and you'll flip--it's a great far future tale that deserves a lot more attention than it got. "Voice of the Whirlwind" and "Hardwired" are good cyberpunk novels too, while "Metropolitan" and "City on Fire" (his take on urban fantasy) are also worth your while. However, I'd stay away from his current Praxis series--they're not his best books
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
Vinge's previous two books ("A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky") were part of a loosely linked series of books in a far-future space opera entitled "The Zones of Thought".
I was under the impression that his next book was to be part of that series. Instead, the linked excerpt indicates that the new book will be associated with his short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High".
Anyone know more about this?
The origins of the Borg, like every other Star Trek invention, and SF generally, are in our existing social behaviors. Groupthink, for good or ill, ins a stong influence on our minds already, with only our unaugmented mutual presence to carry it. As we improve communications to complexities suitable for subliminal presentation, and interfaces disappear, the Borg is one model we'll race towards. But if we retain our individual choice to participate in the group model, it doesn't have to be as bleak. Unconstrained consensual reality can escape the bonds imposed on it by the physical artifacts of traditionally coerced groupthink, and offer freedom of individual expression and determination unknown before the Info Age. Now, as we design its rudimentary beginnings, is the time to decide.
--
make install -not war
I've read his entire Revelation Space series. His stories have an incredible problem with pacing and his characters are about as believable as cardboard puppets and have similar personalities. Most of the personalities of his characters can be interchanged with one another without any problem.
His vision of technology is what is interesting in his books but that's it.
Now, I don't think that the government is doing this yet, but lets say they have their robot program out there and it hits that blog and your information is once again property of the government. So now you don't want to tell anyone anything anymore because it could reach the gov. or whatnot.
So then, I ask, what is the point of being human if you are unwilling to voice an opinion. Whether you make that happen by buying the book The price of loyalty or by attending an anti-bush rally, all of this information could one day fall into the hands of the administration. So, are you willing to give up your voice in order to protect your privacy
I know that I'm not!
So, once again, basic argument, I want the government to give up some of it's privacy in order that we have better control of this (US) 'democracy' (actually a republic) and are better informed to make national decisions, like we should.
Unfortunately, this is not available to us.
Shouldn't the government be forced to do the same?
I don't think that privacy is necessarily a right, but man, the government has us by the nuts on this one.
Buy the book. With cash.
As the power of technology improves there will be more of this going on. You never know what they'll be able to trace. My point is that when we give up some privacy, so do they.
They haven't yet.
It's probably a brief sentence in the indicative mood. Subject = "rainbows", verb = "end", third person plural present tense of "to end".
The title therefore makes an affirmative statement that all rainbows do indeed end.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
My name is Paul David Salcido. Now go out to google and look up Frank Salcido. He's on the FBI's most wanted list. He used the name David Salcido or Salcedo once or twice.
Now, the media isn't allowed to have the list. If they did, I would have been contacted earlier. I missed a key state vote, but otherwise, I'm fine. I'll make the next presidential election (but now I'm moving to Ohio, another Matrix member, so I wonder if I'll have to do this again).
Inaccurate informatino is as bad as accurate information.
You mods are a bunch of bum stetsons!
Now, don't gripe because Ian M. Banks is not *hard* sci fi. However, he presents a really interesting view of a possible future culture. His fundamental premise is: How does (relatively rigid) human culture adapt to omnipresent surveilance and omnipotent, paternalistic (maternalistic, for you gender Nazis) technology?
I recommend, to start: (Player of Games) or (Feersum Endjinn). He's from the UK, so some titles are hard to get.
Are there any other Banks fans out there?
. . . to anti-war protesters:
"America -- Love It Or Leave It".
If that's the society you want, have you considered North Korea?
Hey, I majored in English Lit, not grammar. :)
Jesus Fucking Christ. Get a life, people.
The title is grammatically correct anyway. Rainbows (plural noun) end (verb) - multiple rainbows come to a stop. Heh.
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!