Technology – Page 16 – Roy Christopher

April 4, 2001

Terence McKenna Meets the Machine Elves of Hyperspace: Struck By Noetic Lightning

Mark Dery contributed this piece to my book Follow for Now. I’m reposting it here for your enjoyment.

Terence McKenna died of brain cancer on April 3, 2000. He was 53. This article was originally published in the late, much-lamented Australian cyberzine 21C (“The Inner Elf: Terence McKenna’s Trip,” 21C, #3, 1996) and later reprinted in the 21C anthology Transit Lounge (Craftsman House, 1997). Its centerpiece is a lengthy interview with McKenna, conducted in two epic sessions in 1996. Continue reading “Terence McKenna Meets the Machine Elves of Hyperspace: Struck By Noetic Lightning”

April 1, 2001

Jay David Bolter: FutureText

Brian Eno calls him, “The New Gutenberg.” His work tip-toes through the same conceptual gardens as Marshall McLuhan, Ted Nelson, Douglas Englebart, and yes, even Johannes Gutenberg himself. Hypertext (he is one of the principle developers of Storyspace — a standalone Hypertext authoring environment), media evolution and the computer’s role in the writing process as well as education are a few of his points of interest. Continue reading “Jay David Bolter: FutureText”

February 15, 2001

Geeks by Jon Katz

Jon Katz’s latest book goes a long way to explain the recently-emerged member of society known as the geek by following two recent high school graduates, Jesse and Eric, out of the hinterlands of Idaho and into the corporate world of Chicago. Through the trials of the two boys, Katz inadvertently finds himself in the middle of the geeks’ story. Continue reading “Geeks by Jon Katz”

January 24, 2000

Eric Paulos: ExperiMental InterAction

Eric Paulos is a man riding the experimental edge between humans and machines. His research in this area, both in his graduate studies in computer science and robotics at the University of California at Berkeley, and with renegade robot troops such as Survival Research Laboratories, is far more adventurous than most researchers in similar space dare to be. “Lethal, anonymous tele-obliteration,” the “I-Bomb,” and several types of tele-embodiment are just a few of his past projects. Danger is definitely not outside the scope of his work. Continue reading “Eric Paulos: ExperiMental InterAction”

November 27, 1999

Bruce Sterling: Future Tense

Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky let me run this interview in my book, Follow for Now. It was originally on Paul’s site, djspooky.com.

“For if the Jazz Age is year for year the Essences and Symptoms of the times, then Jes Grew is the germ making it rise yeast-like across the American plain. . . . The letters after their names are their tommy guns and those universities where they pour over syllables their Big House.” — Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo

“The city no longer exists, except as a cultural ghost for tourists.”
— Marshall McLuhan, “The Alchemy of Social Change” from Verbi-Voco-Visual Explanations, 1967

First things first: It took me a zillion years (summer to winter 1999) to write this ’cause I didn’t know where to start. I think about Bruce Sterling’s writing and see a precedent that runs throughout a lot of American science fiction. It’s a tradition of writing where the future is far more of a barometer to measure the present than the past, and it’s the fracture points in the lines of thought holding it all together that his work explores. Continue reading “Bruce Sterling: Future Tense”

November 9, 1999

Survival Research Laboratories: Post-Apocalypse Now

Remember the evil toys from the movie Toy Story, the ones with all the mis-matched parts from other toys, all rearranged into new strategies of purpose? Imagine those same toys built to life-like scale: in car-lengths instead of Lego-lengths, built with military surplus parts and armed with military surplus weapons. Now picture no-holds-barred warfare between these bastardized giants of the scrap heap. A skirmish between screaming, fire-breathing, chewing, burning monsters bent on hate for one another and devoid of concern for their human overseers. Continue reading “Survival Research Laboratories: Post-Apocalypse Now”

September 2, 1999

John Eikenberry: Free Agent

After graduating from the University of Georgia with a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence, John Eikenberry turned to the web to continue his career. His thesis focused on “using semantic networks for keyword analysis and document classification,” which was achieved mainly by developing independent agents. His current work is centered around a bot/agent development environment. Continue reading “John Eikenberry: Free Agent”

August 2, 1999

Rudy Rucker [Part One]: Keeping It Transreal

My friend and colleague Tom Georgoulias let me run this interview in my book, Follow for Now.

Rudy Rucker has a lot of things on his mind. Although his day job has him teaching computer science and mathematics at San Jose State University, Rucker is a writer. He has written twenty nonfiction and science-fiction books covering such topics as higher dimensions, artificial life, and biotechnology. Called the original cyberpunk author by many, his self-described “transreal” writing style is akin to Kerouac’s On the Road (Viking, 1959) and an issue of Scientific American after a run through the mince cycle on a blender. I recently had the chance to catch up with Rucker and discuss two of his most recent books, Seek! (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999) and Saucer Wisdom (Forge Books, 1999). Continue reading “Rudy Rucker [Part One]: Keeping It Transreal”

June 25, 1999

Kevin Warwick: The Man in the Mind of the Machine

Described a short time ago as Britain’s leading prophet of the robot age, Professor Kevin Warwick is head of the Cybernetic Department at The University of Reading. He has designed countless machines that learn amazingly complex behaviors on their own. He is currently involved in a computer/human interface experiment that finds him with an active microchip implanted in his arm. The chip sets off sensors, causing them to activate various processes as he walks by. Continue reading “Kevin Warwick: The Man in the Mind of the Machine”

June 15, 1999

Richard Saul Wurman: Technology, Entertainment, Design

My friend and colleague Mark Wieman did this interview with Richard Saul Wurman, which ran in my book, Follow for Now.

With the publication of his first book in 1962 at the age of 26, Richard Saul Wurman began the singular passion of his life: making information understandable. Wurman coined the term “Information Architecture” in 1976 and in 1984 he created the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference and remains chairman and creative director. The next TED conference, TEDX in February 2000, will focus on understanding America at the millennium and will be accompanied by the publication of his sixty-sixth book, Understanding USA (TED Conferences, 1999). Continue reading “Richard Saul Wurman: Technology, Entertainment, Design”