You've been watching me again haven't you?

This is pretty darn close to how the 'dillomobile, my late, lamented 1988 Toyota Corolla gave up the ghost on an engine seal failure last December. It wasn't carrying me to an interview, but it was hauling geeks, who were pounding away on their laptops in the backseat.

*sigh* 11 years, 211,000 miles, 24 states and who knows how many Coke cans under the seat. JETDILO, I salute thee!

Oh please, please publish this soon. I'm hanging now.. hanging.. Sigh.

Edited by author 03-31-2003 12:35 PM
Sorry, Jakenuts -- the likely earliest pub date for this is 2005 or so... I won't be finished the first draft until about Jan 1 2004, then figure a year of futzing around, rewriting, getting the book sold to my publisher and signed off on, blurbs, proofs, etc... I'd be pretty shocked and amazed if it hit print before June 2004, and not displeased if didn't make it to the stands until Jan 2005 (around the time that I intend to finish off "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town," a weird urban fantasy novel about wireless networking clans in Toronto's Kensington Market...)

Hmm, can you start fan fiction before something is even published? I don't want to wait either, let's just "finish" it for him on our own :)

That's just excellent (re-read it). You need to finish it while the taste of nerdvana is still lingering in our mouths. I can't count how many times I've given the "carpetbagger" speech myself (and I've had the unamerican.com WHITEY WILL PAY sticker on my car since 97). It could be the complementary bookend to Microserfs.

Edited by author 03-31-2003 02:55 PM
I like it.

I really do. Makes me wish *I* had another inspiration for a story....

But tomorrow I start a new job and who knows maybe then I finally get some new inspiration....

Looking forward to reading the final product.

BTW Corey: You're still getting tons of inspiration from Toronto these days? Kensington market I can see that way though. It's a rather "wicked" neighbourhood. I like it.

geektastic

Cory, you can write. Instead of shooting off ever-intensifying volleys of subpar cred chaff a la Bret Easton Ellis, why not use your talents for good?

I mean, sure, you could probably eke out a career and a standing invitation to LAN parties by growing your voice further into the Sharper-Image-catalog-text and Sourceforge-project-homepage-complete-with-logo directions; but are you really happy about that Wired-in-its-downfall collection-of-consumer-goods-as-description-of-individual granfalloon of a second sentence? Even knowing you're trying for a Cool World level of overdoing it, isn't it a bit too cliche?

Does anyone really believe that any interview in 2003 includes fifteen essay questions on the history of the Internet AND the fine points of MFC AND SQL, and the 80s term PEBCAK? I didn't -- it's a tin ear problem, Cory -- you're writing outside your experience, trying to jam as much nerdfodder into the cannon as you can. But it doesn't come out energetically cartoony gonzo because you've got the levels wrong.

Think of it; would Le Carre have opened a story, "Operation! he surveyed his supermagnificent absolutely spectacular (tm) Spy equipment. Only the latest in Carl-Zeiss optics to grace the 9mm Glock spy pistol, easily and cleverly concealed in the rim of his bowler hat, metallic glint of purest chrome hinting at its origins in the titanic metal factories of the magnificent Northeast of England..." Fuck, no; it's pre-Hardy Boys level material.

You can write. I obviously don't speak for the legion of fanboys, but I wait for you to write up to your own level.

Not to be a LeCarre fanatic (it's just what I have open right now), but compare and contrast:

"Let me confess to you at once that if I had not, on the spur of the moment, picked up my pen and scribbled a note to George Smiley inviting him to address my passing-out class on the closing evening of their entry-course--and had Smiley not, against all my expectations, consented--I would not be making so free to you with my heart."

John Galt, I concur.

is this book going to come with a catalog insert in the back where I can order all the uber-leet, DRM-free geekery stuffed in here?

I agree with John Galt. I guess a real dot-com book is due soon (poor "Amazon" Daisey didn't write it). I don't feel bad for Mason and can't see why I'd ever like him. Plus, watch the interview and geekspeak hyperbole. Otherwise, I'd expect this to be another stellar book once you rethink the angle of attack.

Damn, people. It's fiction, lighten up. If Franklin's assessment of Mason is correct, then he's probably not supposed to be a likable sympathetic character, and that could make a great story too (ever read the Thomas Convenant series?). But I didn't read anything that insists that the assessment was accurate.

Actually, that bit about having to answer fifteen essay questions about computer-ish things probably was inspired by real life -- mine, in fact.

In November, before a certain Toronto-based software company of some repute would even let their headhunting firm pre-interview me for a C# programming job, I had to answer the following 12 essay questions:

1. What is good code?
2. What are basic, core, practices for a developer?
3. What do you like about .NET?
4. What don't you like about .NET? What would you change?
5. What do you like about programming?
6. Do you have a favourite programming book? More than one? Which ones? And why.
7. What is the responsibility of QA?
8. Who is Dr Bob?
9. Who is Don Knuth?
10. Who is Kent Beck?
11. What do you know about Linux? Assuming you're familiar with it, what do you like about it? What don't you like? If you haven't used Linux you can skip this question.
12. What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?

The story appears in my blogs (see http://kode-fu.com/geek/2002_11_17_archive.shtml#85687929 and http://kode-fu.com/shame/2002_11_17_archive.shtml#85687910) and Cory pointed to these entries (see http://boingboing.net/2002_11_01_archive.html#85650064 and http://boingboing.net/2002_11_01_archive.html#85688546). I was Cory's lieutenant at OpenCola for two years, he's one of the guys I use as a reference and as a result, he's got a pretty good idea of how my job searches have been going.

The part that I find unbelievable is all the Mountain Dew drinking. Ewwwww! I'll take the crab juice, please.

It's a draft people, take a laxative.

I was left wanting to know what happened next.



Nice segment:

"You're the kind of sneering, *creative*, self-important
'consultant' that sucked the economy dry. You're a carpetbagger,Mason. You're a phony. You have a Humanities degree. You know the gag-lines from last night's South Park, but you can't write code from stubs. Wherever there's an entrepreneur with a great idea and a little money, there you are, like a tapeworm, eating the company out from the inside. I've seen a thousand of you, Mason, and there's no more place for you in the Valley. Go find another industry to pick on, and get the fuck out of mine." He delivered
this all with a wet smile and a charming crinkle in his eye and only the veins standing out in his neck mirrored the hostility of his words.

I don't concur with John Galt. I've read the excerpt that was put up by Cory and the one by LeCarre that John Galt put up and I must say that I find that Cory's writing style flows much more smoothly (and was also more interesting). And so what if the levels are "wrong"? I felt that there was just a tad of exageration in there, not as much as you can see in Dilbert of course, but it was just enough to make me smile :) You know, I just can't help but wonder, really, "how far is that from the truth?" :)

If I want realism, I'll go read a newspaper :) I for one am looking forward to this new story. Keep up the good work Cory! (can we call you Cory or should we use M. Doctorow instead? :)

Of course, opinions are just that : opinions :)

I'm with Galt.

I've read only "0wnz0red" and "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," but I find myself frequently skimming Cory's overly florid-with-brand-name-droppings prose. The ideas are great fun (even when they're ripped-off from Varley), but, sweet jesus, does it ever feel like a ploy for l33t-cred sometimes.

It's a draft, sure, and by putting it out there for us to view, I'm assuming Cory wants constructive criticism. Given how defensive he usually gets re: his language choices (Martian!), I don't foresee any of our comments here changing a thing Cory does. So, uh, maybe that was a bad assumption of mine.

Oh -- the story sounds interesting. I look forward to skimming through the novel next year sometime.

--sean

Hey, Cory, I wonder if you don't mean Defcon 1, which is the highest state of alert (basically, at war), while Defcon 5 is the lowest, least urgent state of alert.

Skimming -- yes, that's the dead-on feeling I sometimes get when reading Cory. Maybe I can subliminally detect that gee-whillikers moment when he's about to mash down with both hands on all the numbers on the celestial technojizz cash register and ring up another ripped-from-today's-RSS frisson. Whatever it is, it's anathema to the flow.

Lord of the Cows has a good point in that Cory is not trying to be like Le Carre; he's trying to be more like Dilbert, or as I put it, Cool World. Not everyone can be or should be Le Carre. But introducing a character as a collection of in-jokes, tech objects, disparate memes from different eras in technology, and dangerously loose (to the point of distraction) sets of unrelated technologies is weak work by any writer. It's writing informed by Flash animations, AIM and [H]ardOCP.

Maybe Cory wants to be the Robert X. Cringely of fiction (although arguably Robert X. Cringely is the Robert X. Cringely of fiction already). Maybe he doesn't mind being more like Garfield than Calvin & Hobbes. I think he wants to be a Big Remembered Science Fiction Author; these comments are offered in the hope that I'm right.

Edited by author 03-31-2003 07:48 PM
Nice piece of work. You know I'm looking forward to this one anyway. You create a sense of the culture well; the wordnoise works in inference. And I like the way you build up the little pen-portraits of the characters incrementally. Franklin might be a prick, but Mason's a disgusting little object. This is feeling like a 90,000 word job, though...

That is a hideous sentence from LeCarre. And the "parodic" opening some pseudonym constructed is actually fairly similar to Ian Fleming's style, which amused me...

1. There aren't (and weren't) very many startups in Menlo Park. Mostly rich people, a particle accelerator, and VC firms.

2. When referring to the Peninsula as a proper place, capitalize it.

3. 50 miles down the Peninsula from its northernmost point (San Francisco) will take you far beyond Menlo Park. Past San Jose, too.

Okay.. well, realizing this is a draft (no editorial comments from me, I'm sure Tor books hires competent people ;) ) I just want to put my two cents in re: the Galt observation.

Cory I'm sorry but I agree here with what Galt's going for. Maybe your earlier works draft like this and the editor gently eschews the constant techno-jargon dropping. If not, you should know -- coming from the literate geeks (er.. wait.. is there such a thing as an illite.. nevermind) -- it feels like it is trying too hard.

Then again maybe you are laughing sarcastically at all of this, because we fell for it, and this is more in line with who this character actually is (consumed by the technology, seeking redemption? ahhhhh sooooooo).

In any case.. thank you for the sneak peak.. awfully swell.. look forward to the book.. realize that you are a /good/ writer, and you understand form and functions of characters well.. don't feel you have to force lingo in there to be l33t.

Galt (who is that guy?) wrote: "Lord of the Cows has a good point in that Cory is not trying to be like Le Carre; he's trying to be more like Dilbert, or as I put it, Cool World. Not everyone can be or should be Le Carre. But introducing a character as a collection of in-jokes, tech objects, disparate memes from different eras in technology, and dangerously loose (to the point of distraction) sets of unrelated technologies is weak work by any writer. It's writing informed by Flash animations, AIM and [H]ardOCP."

There's a huge body of fiction that deals in commodification, in-jokes, brand names, and technology. You may not like it and think it sucks, but it hardly counts as not-literate or unliterary. Doctorow's work is all about distraction. W. Gibson uses cultural collage, albeit in a different way. Can we use the P-word here?

I don't know if it's realistic to measure all SF writers on a single vertical scale. It reminds me too much of early 20th century lit crit: "Jones had perhaps the finest mind of his generation. But Smith was almost as fine. And Rogers was pretty fine, sort of in-between Smith and Jones."

I couldn't quit reading Down and Out. Is it War and Peace? No, but it was a good read, and that's saying a lot. Why don't you armchair critics go back to being armchair generals, or whatever it is you do when you're not wearing the tweed jacket with elbow patches. Geesh.

Of course, I would like to see him get a little more Pynchonian in his treatment of surfaces. Ok, I"m a hypocrite.

Edited by author 03-31-2003 11:52 PM
Speaking as someone who worked at a dot com, I think Cory nailed it. I know several Masons. I've met several CTO/CIOs like that. Bastards. They're all bastards.

Also, speaking as someone who has nearly a decade of experience in publishing, yes . . . Cory will have a chance to "kill his poodles" so to speak. I like his writing style. I find it very natural. And, in this case I found the jargon appropriate. However, I know for a fact that this will be streamlined and perfected. To our liking? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'm sure there will be plenty of people with the power of print publications behind them who will be happy to share their thoughts on that subject down the line.

Be kind to Cory. When Novel #4 comes out and it is titled "Manifesto" and he starts exhibiting unearthly powers we may all be sorry.

/usr/bin/god

/usr/bin/god?

No. First, god is almost certainly going to be needed in single user mode, and how. So.

/bin/god.

And futhermore, this is god we're talking about here, not emacs. So.

/sbin/god

But you need god at creation. So, it should be

/boot/god

Which leaves open the idea of /boot/god.conf. Hmm.

# $FreeBSD: src/sys/boot/forth/god.conf,v 1.00 -6006/11/26
# Modified 30-Mar-2003, EVO (root@eriko.org)

kernel="god"
mutliple_kernel_load="NO"
load_other_image_"NO"
load_modules_before_kernel="NO"
kernel_symlink="NO"
sleep_cycle="d7"
privledged_parent_processes="YES"
user_kill_process="NO"
user_exchange_process="NO"

but I digress.

Of course, /boot/god is silly. We know where god is.

/root

Watch.

kill -15 `ps ax | grep god | cut -b 1-6`

if that doesn't work.

kill -9 `ps ax | grep god | cut -b 1-6`

will.

And, of course, if you have too many newbies abusing the documentation, "killall man" sorts that out. And if that isn't god, I don't know what is.

(Note one should be very careful about the "killall" command. Sometimes, it means *just that.*)

I agree with Erik. Except that the ecumenical answer is

    /usr/local/bin/god

feh

so, here's the thing. i really enjoyed your writing. stylized after whatever or whomever. who care's, it's entertaining. not every novel we read or write has to be Pride and Prejudice or The Fountainhead. i too was left wanting to know what happens next. some people are just too s-m-r-t (sic) for their own good {Erik/anser}. i stumbled upon your stuff totally by accident, but having paid my hommage to the world of tech support, code and all that is techni-nerd life, i quite enjoyed your work. you have a niche and you will have a following - so what if it is all the dilbert loving crackpots out there in the big bad world. keep up.