Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel.  Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.

Photoblogging at the Iran-Kurdistan border

Image: An Iranian woman in full hejab (covering), shot yesterday on March 13, 2003. Click on image for full-size view (640x480).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 8:34:14 PM | permalink

Audio post: crossing the border into northern Iraq

(originally published on Thursday, March 13, 2003)

I'm calling in from the highly-guarded border of Iran and Kurdistan. A truck is waiting for us to transport CNN staff, our personal belongings, and our television gear into Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. We're crossing into this region to cover the northern front of a potential war with Iraq, in an area dense with oil-rich fields along the northern no-fly-zone.

listen at kevinsites.net

posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:29:09 AM | permalink

Blood of the Rooster

Dateline: Iran

This morning we will leave Tehran, Iran and drive ten hours to the border of Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq. A few months ago an Iranian contact told me it would cost thousands of dollars to cross from here. Now, apparently, journalists stream across by the dozens--as many as 200 so far--all to cover a possible northern front in a war against Iraq.

There are eight of us from CNN making this trip to the city of Erbil, a mix of shooters, satellite engineers, producers and reporters--we will ride in a 12-passenger tour bus with a microphone mounted to the dash. A small, blue pickup--filled to the bursting point, will carry most of the 50 cases of television equipment and personal belongings we are taking with us.

As we pack up our gear, I cross the street in front of the small Iranian apartment building where we were staying, to shoot some video, a wide shot of the truck and bus. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a man come out of a small convenience store, carrying a beautiful black rooster. He gently places it below the curb on the busy street. With a box cutter he cuts off its head. The lump of its body pulsates like a heart for a few moments as little puddle of crimson spreads across the pebbled asphalt. The rooster’s cockscomb lying close by.

Full text at kevinsites.net

posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:27:48 AM | permalink

Ring Tones & Screen Savers

Don't get me wrong. It's not boredom, but desperation that makes you consider things like this while waiting for this conflict to begin, "have we done a story on cellular phone ring tones in the Middle East," I recently asked someone. "I mean you literally can't go 30 seconds without hearing a Kylie Minogue tune or Beethoven's Symphony in C Minor emanating from someone's pocket." I was eating breakfast with a CNN engineer recently, when the strains of Camptown Ladies filled the restaurant. The microwave dish got blown over in the windstorm last night, he was told. All the doo dah day.

It is, after all, appropriate. This war, if it happens, will be the ultimate E war (for electronic) with it's satellite guided munitions, night vision goggles and pilotless drones. And not just for the military. When journalists embed with fighting units-they'll carry the gear that will theoretically allow them to report live from the front lines, and send back video and still images as quickly as they can fire up their satphones.

And so far, while we wait, we're able to stay connected. To wake up and watch President's Bush's news conference at 4 AM local time. To read the wires on the diplomatic chess match at the U.N., to email friends and family that we are rested, well-fed and safe.

But of all the images of this pre-war E war so far, this is the one that stays with me; in our workspace, personal laptops temporarily abandoned by their users--off for coffee or a bathroom break-one by one, ghostly images of wives, children, girlfriends, husbands, pets, slowly appearing from the depths of cyberspace---as screensavers.

Full text at kevinsites.net

posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:21:42 AM | permalink

Bridges, borders and scenes from Kuwait

(originally published on CNN.com, Friday, February 28, 2003, Link)

U.S. Marine Sgt. Jesse Jokinen is wearing his helmet and full body armor. But instead of an M-16 rifle, he carries a level. Instead of a hand grenade hanging from his vest, there's a retractable tape measure. Jokinen is with the 8th Engineers Battalion.

Some U.S. commanders say if there's war with Iraq, there's a good chance that Iraqi forces will blow up bridges, dams and anything else that could slow down an American assault. It will be this battalion's job to make sure tanks, trucks and troops can move on their path. That means building bridges, and fast.

So today, in the desert an hour outside of Kuwait City, Jokinen's active duty Alpha Company engineers will compete against Michigan reservists from Bravo Company for practice -- and a little press coverage. They will try to be the first to assemble a medium-girder bridge across a 90-foot-wide pit in the sand.
Full text at kevinsites.net

posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:18:23 AM | permalink

Canaries in the coal mine

(originally published on CNN.com, Wednesday, February 26, 2003, Link)

We have two birds in our CNN workspace, Anthrax and Smallpox. Parakeets. But for us, canaries in the coal mine. Tiny, organic early warning systems against a chemical or biological attack.

Here in our offices overlooking the tranquil Persian Gulf, despite the flurry of activity, it does not seem to me as if we are on the threshold of war.

That's partly because from here, right now, I can't see the Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Paladin howitzers and the 100,000 American troops amassed in the Kuwaiti desert.

I can't see the military staging areas, Camp New York and Camp Virginia -- named after the states hit in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Here, facing the morning sun in the east, I see only the rippling blue water and the needle-piercing orbs of the Kuwaiti Towers.

The backdrop of the towers provide what we call in TV news the perfect visual cliche, a landmark, like the U.S. Capitol or the Kremlin, which immediately cues viewers to what city or country they're seeing.

In every live shot from Kuwait City, behind every reporter, you will see the Kuwaiti Towers. We even have an emergency number posted on the wall to call if the tower lights go dark. (...) Full text at kevinsites.net

posted by Xeni Jardin at 9:12:39 AM | permalink

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