Neal Stephenson Kickstarts CLANG Swordfighting Game

Neal Stephenson Kickstarts CLANG Swordfighting Game

No, that is not Kane from C&C. It seems the guy who wrote Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon may be a gamer, and a picky one at that. Author Neal Stephenson has co-founded an organization known as the Subutai Corporation to make (among alternative things) CLANG, a computer arena dueling game that he says can finally do justice to the art of swordfighting. (I have a sense he'd have a factor or 2 to mention concerning melee combat in Skyrim.) Anyway, he is place along a hell of a Kickstarter video to sell us on the concept, and it includes an awesome cameo look (at the 3:00 mark) that is price anticipating by itself.

So what does one think? Are you inquisitive about a swordfighting game that needs you to wield a physical, motion-tracking sword? Or can this inevitably build all those Wiimote-accident horror stories pale in comparison?

Neal Stephenson's Hieroglyph Project and Relationships and Technology in Science Fiction

I was reading through Annalee Newitz's piece in last month's Smithsonian concerning Neal Stephenson's efforts to make a additional optimistic science fiction within the wake once reading Emily Nussbaum's piece on Community and Doctor Who within the New Yorker, and therefore the combination struck me. The factor that I'm most inquisitive about seeing in my science fiction right away isn't solely new technology, and not solely explorations of what relationships may seem like within the future: I'm inquisitive about explorations of what our relationships to our new technology are planning to be like.

One of the items Emily praised concerning Doctor Who in its latest incarnation was its exploration of how a particular technology—time travel—affects characters' relationships to every alternative, and enhances fears of abandonment, missed possibilities, and therefore the want for profound patience with the folks you like. Stephenson, Annalee writes, features a additional concrete set of motivations:

    "We have one rule: no hackers, no hyperspace and no holocaust," Stephenson says. He and his collaborators need to avoid pessimistic thinking and magical technologies just like the "hyperspace" engines common in movies like Star Wars. And, he adds, they're "trying to urge faraway from the hackerly mentality of kidding with existing systems, versus attempting to make new things."Stephenson's greatest hope is that young engineers and scientists can absorb concepts from the stories and suppose, "If I begin performing on this right away, by the time I retire it'd exist."

I think what I'm interested by may be a fusion of the 2. Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel 2312 is concerning exactly that dilemma: what happens when humans who are interconnected to their personal computing devices to the purpose of getting them embedded in their bodies, discover that computing's evolved to the next level such that they aren't positive they trust one thing they're intimately connected to? What happens once they date somebody or become involved in skilled relationships where somebody needs them to detach? These aren't precisely new questions—Orson Scott Card posed lots of them along with his character Jane, a sentient expression of the web, in Speaker for the Dead—but Robinson sounds like he's riffing off Siri, the Apple personal assistant that doesn't work further as we're told it'll, however that we're presupposed to need to love quite a trifle.

And these aren't the sole technologies that cause those varieties of queries. Watching Star Trek one or two of years ago, i used to be struck watching Bones repeatedly stab Kirk with injections. I actually have a nut allergy, and my Epi-Pens are a supply of each nice comfort and anxiety to me. I'm glad they exist, however I'm fearful of really having to jab myself with one, and that i was each uncomfortable and fascinated to ascertain Bones doing that repeatedly as if it absolutely was no huge factor. I'd be curious to listen to from long-time Trekkies within the audiences whether or not there are episodes of the show or movies i would have missed that address what it's wish to have medical technology that smart. Do folks take additional risks? Do doctors overmedicate patients? will it lead them into error? I feel like we've lots of science fiction, whether or not it's John Scalzi's work or The Forever War that discusses how medical technology changes decision-making by troopers. however from a doctor's perspective, I can't imagine what it'd be wish to have a tool that powerful at your disposal, and I'd like to see a futuristic medical show that explores a number of those queries. I'd totally watch a show a few futuristic Atul Gwande (or, who am I kidding, Shonda Rhimes 2032 show house Mistresses).

Good gadget style or rigorously thought-out rules are a primary step towards smart science fiction. however simply putting those tools or those rules into action while not meditating on them aren't the sole thanks to tell stories with them.