The WELL: inkwell.vue.221: Bruce Sterling: The Zenith Angle

#60: Thomas Petersen (sushi101) Thu 9 Sep 04 13:06

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 13:06:00 PDT

Stewart Brand that is ofcourse, thanks Earl [Read entire topic]

#59: Thomas Petersen (sushi101) Thu 9 Sep 04 12:09

Thu, 09 Sep 2004 12:09:00 PDT

I saw Bruce at ars electronica, what a joy, definately one of the best speches there, next to Steve Brand from the Long Now foundation.

Luckily the weather picked up it was 5 wonderfull days. [Read entire topic]

#58: brighter clouds ahead (noebie) Wed 1 Sep 04 10:02

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 10:02:00 PDT

"...the thirty or forty other pressing contemporary issues that have kind of fallen off the edge of the universe, while we're supposed to worry about Paris Hilton..."

shades of guy debord [Read entire topic]

#57: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Tue 31 Aug 04 11:02

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:02:00 PDT

Bruce, thanks for braving the wifi wilds over the last couple of weeks. This was swell. Drop back by and tell us about Ars Electronica when you get a chance. [Read entire topic]

#56: Berliner (captward) Tue 31 Aug 04 06:03

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:03:00 PDT

And I'll see *you* in Austria: make sure you hit the opening party, because the chef who's catering is an old friend. Mmmmm! [Read entire topic]

#55: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Tue 31 Aug 04 01:25

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 01:25:00 PDT

*Fell off the edge of the digital universe for a couple of days there, but at least I got a suntan.

*Now I'm in Austria. It's rainy here and full of electronic art.

*See y'all next time. [Read entire topic]

#54: Angus MacDonald (angus) Sun 29 Aug 04 13:48

Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:48:00 PDT

Could be. I'd like to say that =The Zenith Angle=, aside from being as thought-provoking as this discussion demonstrates, is a swell novel: wonderful as art and as entertainment. There is a cleverness to the plotting that's a delight without being pushy, and the characters are the most believable I've encountered in a book with so much technology. [Read entire topic]

#53: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 28 Aug 04 05:46

Sat, 28 Aug 2004 05:46:00 PDT

And I guess *none* of us will be around, if we don't wake up. Last night I saw Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on Bill Maher's 'Real Time,' and he was arguing that global warming is 'bad science.' He believes that it's all politics:

"It is vital that the public understand that what is going on in this attack against President Bush is about a political agenda; that global warming is not a scientific imperative. It is a politically-driven theory.

"Those espousing global warming are building on public fear and apprehension. Young people in particular are being lied to about the environment and about global warming. Global warming, of course, is one of the worst falsehoods that they talk about. When I meet with student groups, it is clear they are being told false things about a lot of areas of the environment."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/6/13/190522.shtml

That quote's from back in 2001, and you would think that by now everyone has got past denial about global warming, but he was saying pretty much the same stuff last night.

Is it time for another Viridian Design contest? [Read entire topic]

#52: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Sat 28 Aug 04 00:50

Sat, 28 Aug 2004 00:50:00 PDT

We were all influenced by them. The founders of the industrial design profession in America were Broadway stage designers.

I have a lot of respect for Norman Bel Geddes; people like to look back and mock the campy aspects of the past's futurism, but, well, that comes pretty easy.

One could make a cruel rejoinder:

If you're so smart, why don't you look forward and mock the campy aspects of the future? And if you're not up for that job, could it be that you don't have a future and you don't deserve one? You won't even be around to be mocked. [Read entire topic]

#51: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Fri 27 Aug 04 19:09

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 19:09:00 PDT

It knows no bounds.

Somehow this makes me think about the futures that early sf authors and artists were dreaming, and the nostalgia some of us have for those visions of the future... for example, the world of _Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow_ (http://www.skycaptain.com/). Speaking of design, those artists were cranking out visionary industrial design, design for objects that didn't exist and might never exist. See http://anubis4_2000.tripod.com/SciFiArt/tomorrow.htm. I suppose there's no question that you were influenced by those artists? [Read entire topic]