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William Gibson on Blogging 180

Posted by CowboyNeal from the stuff-to-read dept.
The Ape With No Name writes "With Pattern Recognition now out, Gibson talks to the Guardian about blogging, which ones he's looking at and why he may have to quit blogging himself. He's quoted as saying '...if I'm ever going to write another book, I'm going to have to quit doing my blog as I have a hunch it interferes with the ecology of being a novelist.'"
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William Gibson on Blogging More

William Gibson on Blogging

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  • Blogging ruining his flow as a writer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Flounder ( 42112 ) * on Friday May 02, 2003 @03:58AM (#5860382)
    Definitely writing a blog is different than writing a novel. Blog is more of a stream of consciousness / random synaptic firing kinda thing. While with a novel, you've gotta keep the entire story in mind while writing.

    Could going back to the stream of consciousness style actually screw you up when trying to write a novel??

  • The main problem with Blogs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Boss, Pointy Haired ( 537010 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @03:58AM (#5860383)
    is too much Amateur Philosophy.
    • Too much Amateur Everything.
    • And here I thought Proffessional Philosophy was an Oxymoron :-(

    • Re: TAKE OFF EVERY BLOG (Score:5, Insightful)

      by croddy ( 659025 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:36AM (#5860481)
      the main problem with blogs is that, as far as google is concerned, they masquerade as useful information when all they contain is idle chatter. and through some fluke of their evil software, they seem to get indexed really fast, so when a major political or social even happens, google is noised to the brim with blogs and you have to start at result number 40 or so before you get past the blogs.

      I can get a google search with porn turned off; why can't I get blogs turned off too?

      • In your search string, add the term -blog

      • when a major political or social even happens, google is noised to the brim with blogs and you have to start at result number 40 or so before you get past the blogs. I can get a google search with porn turned off; why can't I get blogs turned off too?

        Then I suggest you use Google News [google.com].

      • Re: TAKE OFF EVERY BLOG (Score:4, Insightful)

        by redtail1 ( 603986 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @10:07AM (#5861591)
        Good idea, but the problem is that the line between blogs and news sites is blurring more every day. One man's navel gazing is another man's news source. Who is to say that a columnist is "hard news" when her personal slant and opinions about the topic she is writing about resemble a blog?

        Come to think of it, the main difference between blogs and other sources of information are editors. I think we all need one.

      • Personally, it isn't the blogs that bother me on google nearly so much as the forums and discussion boards. I've experienced a bit of blog noise, and my blog [peterswift.org] has even reaped the benefits of it...when I look through my http referrers, I get lots of hits from google for current topics that I just happen to mention. For example, when the new honda commercial [peterswift.org] came out, I was one of the first couple spots on google for related searched. I can see this as a problem, because I'm just an indirect link to the rea [honda.co.uk]

      • Wow!! You got your comment refrenced directly by the Register [theregister.co.uk]

        You must be proud.

        And to keep this on topic, It's great that google is going to filter out blogs. It should clean up the search results nicely.

    • Hold on now... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Redking ( 89329 )
      I think this is too broad of a generalization. Sure some blogs are the typical, "what I did today" or "pictures of my cat" but some blogs are informative and can reveal things deep in a person's soul that you would never realize. Sometimes there is something therapeutic about letting your thoughts and emotions flow even if it's just strangers reading them.

      rk

    • Re:The main problem with Blogs (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And I personally don't rate Gibson as a writer, no matter what the nerds say. I think nerds should get out and read some real writing, not just Gibson, Stephenson etc. They don't say anything very much, and you`d be missing out on some classics.
      This story, by the way, was mentioned on the amusing (for all the wrong reasons) Register site in the UK, with predictably hilarious results!

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30403.ht m l

      Such as:

      "He's an artist, which means he collects and refines ideas over t

      • Re:The main problem with Blogs (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Hast ( 24833 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @08:34AM (#5861116)
        I think nerds should get out and read some real writing, not just Gibson, Stephenson etc. They don't say anything very much, and you`d be missing out on some classics.

        I partially agree with this. There's a lot of really good books out there, and going for the "classics" is a good way to find good books fast.

        In general I find SF books more interesting than most books though. I just read a note by Philip K Dick were he pretty much nailed it with the comment that most stories are more about style than content. This makes for interesting reading, but not much thinking.

        If I want interesting ideas I'd rather pick up a SF book I'm recommended than a typical classic. And often that is because since the book is a "classic" the provocative ideas in it are not really all that provocative any longer. Swift, Voltaire and such classical authors spring to mind. While "Candide" is a good book and was (at the time) provocative I find the ideas now are more interesting from a historical perspective than as ideas.

    • ...is too much Amateur Philosophy.
      Well that, sir, is an egregious example of Amateur Philosophy(tm) if ever I saw one!
  • There was an early review of Pattern Recognition in one of the UK broadsheets where the (female, as it happens) reviewer was complaining that she didn't like it, didn't understand it, and it was unfair to expect anyone to understand what 'steganography' was. She couldn't go and find a dictionary?

    I'm really looking forward to reading it, when I can find someone to borrow it off :)

    • Re:steganography, reviewers and dictionaries.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Afrosheen ( 42464 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:51AM (#5860519)
      Don't waste your time. Actually, if you're a big fan of his older stuff (Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Burning Chrome, etc) then you'll probably hate it. I thought he started losing it around the time of All Tomorrow's Parties (but I doubt anyone here would agree with me) and this book continues in the same wandering, aimless, boring prose. Gone is his trademark mile-a-minute, high tech crime and criminals, ultra-cool underworld, replaced with a cleaner view of tomorrow.

      Come on. It's based on the premise of someone releasing video clips onto the internet and people finding them. There's a whole cult following, and a marketing mogul catches wind of it and finances the main character so she can get to the root of it. Bor-ing. But since ATP was so bad, I decided to give him another chance. Never again, Mr. Gibson. At least I have the older books to remember when he was great.

      BTW nazi mods, this isn't a troll. Take it with a grain of salt.

      • Re:steganography, reviewers and dictionaries.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Nerant ( 71826 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @07:22AM (#5860847)
        IMHO:
        I find that in his latest books, namely All Tomorrow's Parties and Pattern Recognition, Gibson has moved away from his previous style of "dark cyberpunk". Instead, he explores in detail how technology has social reprecussions.
        In ATP, it was a basically about how the matrix of that future made it possible for certain individuals to see future change:ie. Laney. He doesn't emphasize it very much, but what this change in ATP was the advent of nano-fabrication, which is why in the last chapter he talks about how a watch is restored using nano-technology.
        In Pattern Recogniton, it is all about the Internet. How messageboards/forums appeal to introverts like Cayce. Even key events, such as the list of numbers hidden in the fragments of the video clips were obtained through F:F:F.
        Remember the girl who Taki thought was a japanese school girl but was actually a bartender they took a picture of to get him to give Cayce the numbers? Later on this girl (Judy Tsuzuki) finds out about the whole scam and falls in love with Taki, or so she professes. Someone she has never met before.
        And in the ending, he reveals to us that Cayce has hooked up with Parkaboy in a boy-girl relationship. So, i feel that Pattern Recognition is more a commentary on how the Internet has allowed introverts to go about forming human relationships in a non-conventional way, rather than a dark and sharp cyberpunk thriller.

        • Re:steganography, reviewers and dictionaries.... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Afrosheen ( 42464 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @08:17AM (#5861052)
          Part of his 'dark cyberpunk' appeal in his past books was indeed the social repercussions of technology and how it affected both micro and macrocosms. In Neuromancer, Case was a loner, a hacker and a drug addict and ended up getting fried trying to crack a system. Alot of his friends ended up getting flatlined also. This paralleled the do-no-harm crackers back in the day (think Free Kevin) that really didn't damage systems, just explored them and exploited them. Ultimately Case wasn't in it for the money, he was in it for the challenge, the thrill of the hunt. 99% of real 'hackers' are in it for the same reason (and yes I know the difference between hacker and cracker). Gibson really distilled the cracker/hacker ethic at the time of that novel and focused it into a well-rounded character.

          Gibson has always been about exploring social connotations of technical evolution; hell, the whole genre is about that. Asimov had his decades of exploring the concept of humans living with robots and the pitfalls and joys they might encounter. Gibson now seems to be taking less the position of fortune teller and more the position of commentator on our times. Unless you're living in a coma, PR won't come as a surprise, and it's version of tomorrow could literally be tomorrow.

          Call me old fashioned, but I liked his writing better when he wrote about the gritty, dirty underworld of the supercool. Maybe he SHOULD stop blogging. ;)
        • Remember the girl who Taki thought was a japanese school girl but was actually a bartender they took a picture of to get him to give Cayce the numbers? Later on this girl (Judy Tsuzuki) finds out about the whole scam and falls in love with Taki, or so she professes. Someone she has never met before.

          Remember the story a year of so ago, here on Slashdot, about the guy on the (gaming I think) message board that made a female character, then made up his own relationship with her, and finally , when he got bor
      • Oh I agree. But he starting losing it after he wrote Neuromancer; even as the series progressed it became weaker. Or maybe that first was just unprecedented?

        No arguement on ATP -- the only reason it was published is Gibson's name. IMHO.

      • I dont feel Gibson has done any quality work since Mona Lisa Overdrive. The Difference Engine had potential, but really dropped the ball.

        And WTF was up with Virtual Light? Did he write that right after he finished reading Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"?

        I pretty much have no further interest in anything involving Gibson: his 15 minutes ended years ago.

      • I would agree with you in the "losing it" department, but for me the slide started happening way earlier - although I can't decide if he was "slipping" in Difference Engine (because he was collaborating with Sterling) or Virtual Light. But by Idoru, I had a classic case of "who the fuck cares" by midway thru the book. I haven't touched ATP or Pattern Recognition yet, and if I do I'll probably check them out from the library first - I have better ways to spend my book budget than on authors who seem to be
        • If you haven't read Cryptonomicon from Neal Stephenson, now is the time. It's a grueling journey (800+ pages) but well worth your time. It's available in soft cover now too, relatively cheap. It'll make you want to read his work again, once you get past his weird 2nd person narrative style.

          Ironically enough, I like Stephenson better than Gibson now (for his more current works), when in the beginning I sought the same type of material as Gibson and found Stephenson. Cryptonomicon is an epic masterpiece th
    • Don't read it for the technical consistency or plausibility; after all, the main character has an allergy to soulless marketing. It has a nice melancholy mood, with a moving tragedy.

  • The article is not about blogging (Score:5, Informative)

    by MoThugz ( 560556 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:06AM (#5860409) Homepage
    ...but the internet in general. His fav sites, his thoughts on the blogging phenomenon, even googling, while we're at it.

    In fact, the gist of the article is about sites he likes and visits often...

    Err, and it's not even an article per se... shouldn't this be categorized under Interviews instead?

  • FYI (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wicked L ( 663963 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:12AM (#5860421)
    William Gibson's blog is located here: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp

  • meaning changed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John_Renne ( 176151 ) <zooiNO@SPAMgniffelnieuws.net> on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:19AM (#5860440) Homepage
    At first I considered a blog as somekind of diary people would keep online. The main reason people would read blogs was inspired by some kind of voyeurism. Nowadays most blogs are just a view on todays (or yesterdays) news. People nowadays read blogs to read the headlines and possibly different opinions .

    I've once started a blog myself. Didn't last too long. The process of starting on including installing etc. was more fun to me than writing in it every day ;-)
    • Blogging is a concept that is slowly losing its meaning. Software developers are beginning to blog, as are writers, artists, etc. This used to be a truly independant, virtually anonymous medium.

      Remember when the phrase "web portal" used to mean something? The same dilution is happening here.
      • Blogging is a concept that is slowly losing its meaning. Software developers are beginning to blog, as are writers, artists, etc. This used to be a truly independant, virtually anonymous medium.

        You mean that the association is breaking down between a medium and a certain type of writer &/or certain type of attitude. That is a valid point, but it doesn't mean that blogging as a concept is losing its meaning. Its meaning is just expanding, along with the practice. The acutal technique of blogging is al

  • Puff piece (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Potor ( 658520 )
    It's not Gibson's fault, but that article was useless. Strafor, cnn, bbc, google ... wow, you've opened my mind to some new sites, Guardian! And as for Gibson's 'insights'into blogging ... . I imagine that a much more interesting interview was left on tape.

  • Discipline (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @04:26AM (#5860458)
    ...is simply being able to remember your goal.

    Blogging is the antithesis of goal driven composition, and it's about time this was understood.
    • I've frequently sat down to compose something with a specific goal in mind and then post it on my blog.
      • Ok, so you composed something, with a clear goal in mind...good for you. Now convince me that uploading it after you're done is anything other than clicking a mouse to complete a cut/paste. One has nothing to do with the other, except to foster a weak rationalization, which closely resembles a troll, me thinks. What...you just want to argue, is that it? bloggers....
        • Blogging is the antithesis of goal driven composition
          One has nothing to do with the other

          So they're simultaneously the opposites and nothing to do with each other?

          Nice trick.

          Oh, and your original post was definitely trolling. Making an insulting statement that's untrue and has nothing to back it up... now that's a troll.
          • that's it....that's the best you can do? A big bad composer and professional blogger like you? C'mon, you can do better than that...I can take it....this is your big chance. Stand up for all bloggers and make me cry like a schoolgirl...give me your best shot...take your time, work on it...you can do it, I know ya can...yawn
    • Blogging is the antithesis of goal driven composition, and it's about time this was understood.

      Depends on your goal. I used to maintain two blogs, one for posting drafts of poems and prose, and the other for brainstorming and freewriting. They afforded me a place for language play, experimentation and growth as a writer. I also found input from my peers to be invaluable; when I refined the best blog snippets into proper prose or poetry, I found the comments of my blogging community to be remarkably usefu

  • BLOGs (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 )
    Aren't blogs just online teenage girl-type diaries to which the key has been given to everyone on the planet that has web access?

    And why is it that almost all of them use the same non-text-resizeable template, rendering words to display about the size of the period that ends this sentence.
    • Yes, and Slashdot posters are entirely made up of 13 year old Unix hackers who can't type Microsoft without the dollar sign.

      Alternatively, it's just possible that anyone can keep an online journal. Or post on Slashdot. Or use IRC. Or do whatever they like.
    • And why is it that almost all of them use the same non-text-resizeable template, rendering words to display about the size of the period that ends this sentence.

      I agree about the tiny default size of many fonts but the inability to resize the text is the fault of the browser. Mozilla and most other browsers (besides IE) handle that quite nicely.

  • The article seems totally content-free, and just a plug for his new book.

    Here's a summary, stripped of the verbiage:

    Is there an art to blogging?
    A vague question and I'll give you an equally vague answer with a lot of buzzwords thrown in. And oh, while I'm at it, I think I'll say something about my book. "interferes with the ecology of being a novelist".
    Yeah right. Whatever.

    What constitutes a good blog?
    No idea. When the war broke out blogging became popular.
    What a relevant answer!

    Do you f

  • Does blogging aversely affect the professional writer's writing? The Guardian interview touches on an important question, but only briefly - this is one that should probably be tackled by a team of researchers. When I started up a simple blog-on-a-Wiki last December, I was a bit plagued [issho.org] by a similar question:
    Why would writers write in their free time [japantimes.com]?
    For me, as long as I can get away with taking one or even two week breaks from the blog [issho.org], it is not a problem. "Write when you need to, blog when you can," is about where I find myself at the moment.

  • I can understand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02, 2003 @05:04AM (#5860544)
    I am supposed to writing a ten page history paper right now, but no, what am I doing, posting on Slashdot instead. Blogging, posting to forums, watching Bill O'Reilly just to get angry, they are all more interesting distractions than writing a book or a paper because they are easier and don't require as much energy. If you get all your emotion out on the little stuff, you have nothing left for the book.

  • rivetting read (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rockedbottom ( 517728 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @05:08AM (#5860552) Homepage
    *yawn*
    The kind of article/interview that would put anyone off Gibson forever. I'm so glad i just finished reading the brilliant Virtual Light trilogy, before finding out that he visits bbc, cnn and google. If those were the most interesting sites he could think of, it probably means he sticks to surfing pr0n only.
    • Well, what should Mr.Gibsons favourite sites be then, smarty?
    • The kind of article/interview that would put anyone off Gibson forever. I'm so glad i just finished reading the brilliant Virtual Light trilogy, before finding out that he visits bbc, cnn and google. If those were the most interesting sites he could think of, it probably means he sticks to surfing pr0n only.

      I fail to see what his choice of news sources has to do with his ability to write well. Does knowing that he prefers to visit CCN, BBC, or Google somehow make you enjoy his books less? If so, I think y
    • Dear god -- the Virtual Light trilogy? Well that explains why he kept carrying that damn theme from book to book. Maybe it was brilliant -- I could not get over the fact that the namesake novel had too much ripped from Snow Crash (i.e. badass messenger saves the world) to actually enjoy it.

      Gibson was a pioneer, a trailblazer. I like him just enough to not call him a one-hit-wonder, but that's kinda how it's turned out.

      • Those of us who don't read SF just because it's SF feel that his novels have only improved.

        And if you think Virtual Light ripped off Snow Crash, go check the publication dates again.
        • And if you think Virtual Light ripped off Snow Crash, go check the publication dates again.

          I concur. According to isbn.nu [isbn.nu], Snow Crash was published in hardcover by Bantam Doubleday Dell on June 1, 1992. Virtual Light's hardcover came out through the same publishing house on September 1, 1993.

          That's a span of 15 months. Subtract the time used to actually publish a book -- several months to edit, proofread, design cover, produce galleys, typeset, plan marketing -- and Gibson would probably have to have be

  • Call me cynical (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @05:32AM (#5860588)
    if I'm ever going to write another book, I'm going to have to quit doing my blog as I have a hunch it interferes with the ecology of being a novelist

    Personally I found this pretentious bollox. Smacks more of an author trying to cash in on the current albeit dying fad of blogging to help promote his new book.

    Newsflash William. Writing juvenile gibberish on a web page is not a form of higher art. Stick to the novels.

    • Re:Call me cynical (Score:5, Insightful)

      by y0bhgu0d ( 168149 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @06:43AM (#5860728)
      sounds like flamebait to me. i'll bite.

      how exactly is blogging dying? from everything i have observed, weblogs (on whatever issue; politics, technology, religion, personal) have been getting more popular. in fact, when america attacked iraq back in march, several "warblogs" carried unbiased information about what was going on. these places got millions of hits per day when conflict broke, and they might have been getting a couple hundred a day before that.

      blogging is far from dying ;)

      also, gibson usually gets rather deep with his entries, more of an insight into his mind than a "OMFG taht chick r0xx0rz :O :O :O"

      *shrug*

      • Re:Call me cynical (Score:2, Insightful)

        by wantedman ( 577548 )
        Blogging is dying in the greater sense. Like indepentant music, or internet porn, it is getting harder and harder seperate the wheat from the chaff. With millions of blogs, and millions more expected, how am I going to find a new, *good* blog?

        Overall, blogging seems to be becoming like thousands of nameless porn sites, barely scrapping by, while the established few continue to make money, baised on name alone.

  • He mentioned this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Senjaz ( 188917 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @06:10AM (#5860657) Homepage
    He mentioned this before at least at the book signing in Birmingham if not before then too.

    He said it's difficult because the 'blog provides an outlet for your thoughts and material, it doesn't have chance to accumulate.

    So he doesn't 'blog when he is writing, that gives him chance to fill a store of thought enough to fill a book.

  • Authors' blogs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omniscient Ferret ( 4208 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @07:27AM (#5860859)
    One can blog just to get stuff out to the public, and get a bit of a response. Gibson said during a reading that he felt that blogging was too fun; it didn't feel like work. Even interracting to two or three dozen people in a blog struck him as a time sink.

    Neil Gaiman [neilgaiman.com] is writing very conversationally, responding to questions. (In verifying the address, I noticed he has written about this topic already [neilgaiman.com].)

    Elsewhere, Warren Ellis [diepunyhumans.com] & Bruce Sterling [infinitematrix.net] are just commenting on stuff that comes up as they research their upcoming work. Cory Doctorow (and co.) [boingboing.net] & Charlie Stross [antipope.org] just have more varied interests than Gibson, I guess. And hell, the way they're working on a new story is in a blog [craphound.com].

    Um. I feel weird that I'm pointing out so many examples. I read all these regularly, though.

  • The Guardian (Score:4, Informative)

    by aeolist ( 302023 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @08:17AM (#5861051)
    The article's small and content free because it's designed to be not much more than a sidebar: the Guardian (Britain's major left-liberal daily) publishes one of these micro-interviews every week, with the same sort of blah questions ("Most useful site?" "Google", invariably). It makes more sense in the print version of its tech supplement, where it acts as normal space-filling journalism, and usually a plug for book, album, site, whatever.
    Also, The Guardian is absolutely obsessed with blogs. Every week, the supplement will feature one of the following articles: "Are Blogs the new Journalism?", "Wi-Fi Blogging - Is this the Future for Reporting?", "Blogging - Journalism for Everyone?", etc., ad nauseam.
    The last decent one I remember is Dave Green being cynical [guardian.co.uk].

  • Niche Blogs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nilepoc ( 7329 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @09:07AM (#5861279) Homepage Journal
    There is another aspect to blogging that I haven't seen mentioned in this discussion. Blogs can be a good way to see what it is like to pursue something you are considering. That is why I keep my blog. When I figured out what I want ed to study for graduate school, I went out and tried to find some first person accounts of what it is like to become a Nurse Anesthetist. I bet most of you have not even heard of one. Anyway, it was difficult at best, to hook up with one, let alone find out how school was for them. So When I started school, I started a blog to let people know what anesthesia school was like.

    Anyway, I guess I am trying to say that not all blogs are just random thoughts about how someones school lunch smelled like a nursing home.
  • When will the street version come out?

  • Pournelle proves you can... (Score:4, Informative)

    by [amorphis] ( 45762 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @09:21AM (#5861341)
    I don't see that anyone's mentioned Jerry Pournelle [jerrypournelle.com] yet.

    Somehow he finds time to write novels while running a very insightful blog, writing a column for Byte, keeping active in the amatuer aerospace community, and generally having a life. I don't know how he does it, epecially at his age.

    He proves that blogs and more, the internet, can coexist with real life(tm)
    (for authors at least).

  • What a strange analogy! (Score:4, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @09:26AM (#5861365) Homepage
    the ecology of being a novelist

    Does that mean the process of being a novelist involves eating your way up the food-chain until you either die or are excreted back to the bottom? :^)

  • Blogging is a waste of time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheRealBeale ( 663320 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @09:41AM (#5861430)
    Although I keep what you might call a blog on my own computer, it's more a private diary or journal than a blog. I kept a diary on paper for 10 years and have moved over to this system for numerous reasons. I think that blogs take away the integrity of a diary. A good diarist doesn't write for an audience, only for himself. Samuel Pepys' diaries have worth because he writes without the bias you would expect in a blog, where the writer may have an agenda or an axe to grind. I wouldn't look to blogs for facts and nor would I trawl through one looking for a stranger's opinion when I'm more likely to find the quality and breadth of opinion in a forum. Blogs seem to me to be there for egotists who feel they have an audience when they post to a webpage - often enough the quality of the writing isn't of a good standard. Things my girlfriend and I have argued about [thingsmygi...dabout.com] is an exception however. Well written and very funny.
  • Gibson is largely overrated...he's the James Joyce of the tech set (ok, not quite that bad). He's had some great ideas but has trouble putting those ideas into a well-written and complete story. Perhaps he should consider a collaboration for his next novel...
    • What do you read, Star Trek novelisations? Joyce wrote The Dead [google.com] , what have you done? [online-library.org]

      It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous

      • Star Trek novelizations? Hardly. I'll have you know I only read original Star Trek fiction.

        Others, though, have done more than I:

        Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant. -- George Orwell

        Never did I read such tosh. As for the first two chapters we will let them pass, but the 3rd 4th 5th 6th -- merely the scratching of pimples on the body of the bootboy at Claridges. -- Virginia Woolf

  • his books don't quite click for me, but I always liked the other odds & ends he wrote. his 1999 piece about ebay [wired.com] was always one of my favorites.

  • why blogging is good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mboedick ( 543717 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @10:33AM (#5861780)

    The most important thing about blogging IMO is that it allows the average person to easily be a producer on the net instead of just a passive consumer (ala TV). Weblogs also allow for the publication of very obscure and specific content that would not exist otherwise (such as a weblog about various things to wget and curl [superdeluxo.com]).

    Sure, there is a lot of crap in blogs, but everyone has something worthwhile to say once in a while. There are a lot of very smart people who write weblogs.

    Those who think blogging is pretentious should read the following entry on Dave Winer's Scripting News [userland.com].

    Those in power always resist something new that empowers the masses in what was formerly their exclusive domain (such as news organizations suppressing the weblogs of reporters, and elitist intellectuals who think expressing opinion should be their privilege only).

  • While I may agree that a big part of blogging is egotistic crap, those people are still writing and hopefully developing their writing skills. Some people (including myself) might be better off with a personal diary, though. Nevertheless I find it hard to believe that some kind of writing is bad for your writing career, and other kinds are good.

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"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight

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