I just enjoyed browsing through the web of books in amazon, jumping through reading lists, recommended books to my favourite books, read comments.
One comment touched me and i have to quote it:
So I am really, really delighted that *True Names* is now back in print. I note that it is now fashionable to write books “explaining” the Net and the near-term future of our society to the layman — books such as Negroponte’s *Being Digital,* Gate’s *The Road Ahead*, or Dertouzos’ *What Will Be*. These books are a waste of time. If you would like to explore the implications and likely future of the computer revolution, I would recommend three novels, instead: *True Names* (Vernor Vinge), *Snowcrash* (Neal Stephenson), and *Neuromancer* (William Gibson).
Vinge and Stephenson are not only excellent writers, they are trained, competent computer scientists. *Neuromancer* is the best-written of the three; *Snowcrash* is the funniest and hippest; *True Names* — well, *True Names* is the source.
-“Olin” Shivers
see source
true names — well, True Names is the source.
use the source, Luke
read his review. read the book.
I read it because in 2003 some freaky geek in vienna (whom i knew from designing a trading card game together) told me about the book and I am one of the lucky who got hold of the original print on ebay. The story is energy, it is the pure intellectual force of cyberspace, no dumb story around about yakuza or dystopic future towns, it is pure code, pure web, pure idea. it is rough, not fine-cut stuff like today’s smooth cyberspace stories. it doesnt try to impress you, it impresses you because of the idea. because of the plain idea of using a fantasy world to interact with the most astonishing information system you could think of. the world itself is new, the social rules in it, the interaction with humans, the goals these have.
I am gonna read it right now. and I do it. like jesus told us: listen to me and do the stuff. read and do.
we can have cyberspace. we can have a three dimensional interface to all data of the world, to control and live there. we already build 3d desktops, one floor above me at the DFKI. interactive with data gloves, take your documents, move them.
I hacked Wolfpack, an open Ultima Online server to have my medieval world be filled with news from www.planetrdf.com. In this world, I can also render the friends of my foaf file running around as rabbits. I could do anything there, as long as it is based on RDF.
The next step will be to make our Semantic Desktop, the gnowsis, get out to the masses. I want to enable developers to use all this data on their machines, to see it as one big RDF graph. information, ideas, people, all as a graph. Extend this graph over your peers, include the semantic data of your friends in your own graph, see it, feel it, sense what is going on in the world. write semantic emails. receive semantic emails. write a semantic blog. read the semantic blogs of others.use a semantic wiki. have a semantic web content management system. luckily, all these things are going on at the dfki (hm, there is no one doing semantic blog. thanks to steve cayzer for publishing about it).
but what for? to find the next dentist in your neighbourhood? No, I want to know WHO is KNOW thinking about “True Names” and knows how to code RDF – I want to instant message this person. I want to see where my girl is right now (she is in the US on holiday). I want to “meet with the circle in the castle, after the swamp, behind the gate that is kept by the guard.” (true names)
yeah, on the seventh day god relaxes and sees that semantic web is be good. we will see the world in a different way. perhaps through the glasses of a sorceress or a wizard or a witch or an eagle or a frog. but whatever form we have: we can see the world. see it, see what is going on. think of the globe in Neil Stephenson’s “Snowcrash” – or, even better, download keyhole and hack your semantic web geo-annotated photos to it. a christian level 10 hero used to say… do the stuff!
