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Link Dump
Time is short this week, so I'll just have to rely on my army of chain smoking monkey researchers for a few links:

• The Singularity: Vernor Vinge's take on the Singularity. He predicts that we'll have the technology to create a super-human intelligence within 30 years, and that once the transition is made, " the human era will be ended." The concept has been around a while (and Vinge has written a pair of novels focusing on those ideas, amongst other things) and this 1993 essay is a good introduction.
• A Gamer's Manifesto: David Wong and Haimoimoi deliver a hearth breaking list of things gamers really want out of their games. Astute readers may remember Wong's brilliant Ultimate War Sim. The manifesto isn't quite as funny, but it does nail the frustrating things about gaming right on the head. And, of course, with all the calls for better AI, they're just begging for the Singularity...
• Interview with Umberto Eco in the Telegraph: The topics include a comparison of Foucault's Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code (big difference) and whether Eco is the Italian Salman Rushdie (no). Interestingly enough, before I knew what the Singularity was, I had thought that "Abufalafia" (the allegedly "incredible" computer from Eco's Foucault's Pendulum) would comprise of just such an intelligence. Alas, once I read the book, I realized it was not to be... [via Johno at The Ministry of Minor Perfidy]
• Zak Smith’s Illustrations For Each Page of Gravity’s Rainbow: "The Modern Word hosts a staggering 755 illustrations by New York based artist, Zak Smith, depicting the events and imagery of Pynchon’s magnum opus." Some interesting stuff there... I'll have to add a link to my review. [via William Pittsburg, who apparently wrote the introduction and coded the pages]

That's all for now, perhaps more early in the week...

Update: Added another link and some text...

This post is part of the Kaedrin Weblog. It's been categorized under Culture and was originally published in June 2005.

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I enjoyed the interview with Eco; he always strikes me as a really intelligent, down to earth guy. I was also pleased to see that he has a new book out, and thanks to the magic of the internet, within a minute after reading that, I had it ordered and beginning its journey to my house.

It's funny, when I read the Da Vinci Code, the first thing I said about it to anyone was "Eco did the same story in Foucault's Pendulum, but he did it better."

-foucault

The only Eco book I've read has been Foucault's Pendulum, but I too have always liked his style...

Have you ever read The Crying of Lot 49? One of the things that struck me about that book was that 1. It shared a lot of structural similarities with Foucault's Pendulum (meaning that it concerned conspiracies of similar structure, but that were semantically different) and 2. It was more approachable than any other Pynchon or Eco work... It's quite short, and well worth the read, if you get a chance...

I'll have to check that out. I've been meaning to try some Pynchon at some point...it might be good to start with something less weighty than Gravity's Rainbow.

For Eco, I highly recommend Name of the Rose...but it requires a substantial chunk of time and effort. It's a hard book to get into, as the first hundred pages or so drag, but once you get into it, it's well worth the effort.

I also just finished Zodiac (last night, couldn't sleep at all, so I read all night), one of Stephenson's early books. It was ok...I think he was still developing his style when he wrote this one, so while it has some unconventional and amusing characters, it's not quite up to the level of his other work. And, dare I say it, the ending was not so great...this one and the Diamond Age, I think, both do have weak endings, which may be where Stephenson gets that reputation for being unable to properly end his novels.

-foucault

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