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.
Segway-Bush connection, This ABC News story floating around outlines the odd meeting between Dean Kamen and GW bush and how he ended up with a Segway Some years ago when George Sr. was in office and was making noise about computers I had my book publisher send copies of a couple Dvorak Books on the topic to the President, figuring they would be good for him. The books came back from the Secret Service with a long condemnation about how the President can't accept "gifts" and this was improper and blah-blah-blah. So I was a little surprised by this Segway situation. These things are worth $8000, my book was $24 or so.
Web alert. These pics are flying around the net fast; look for them in your email.. This is a sample: a pic of George W. falling off his (loaner?) Segway as reported by Jim Bourg at Reuters. (Photo credit Reuters)The complete set of pics (4) can be found at various Reuters sites. This happened yesterday at Kennebunkport. What's interesting to me is that this is not supposed to happen on a Segway. If you look at the complete set of pics you'll see that Bush had the thing tilted BACK before he tried to get on it. I think it was never turned on. DOH! Whatever the case, I have never been a fan of this contraption. And since the Segway folks are trying to get government contracts for this thing, does Bush having one constitute a bribe? Or worse, did the taxpayers buy it for him? Just wondering why he has one and how he got it.
Party Report. I consider giving parties to be an art form and didn't want to pass up a chance to see how Maxim would throw a Hollywood party, which they did Weds night -- the Maxim Hot 100. It was a party to celebrate its big issue highlighting the 100 hottest women in 2003. This was a real Hollywood party as it was actually in Hollywood -- a huge outdoor party in a parking lot near Hollywood and Vine, in fact.The formula for this kind of party is to load up the event with as many "C" list celebrities you can muster, have them roam around being celebrities, and having the invitees say bad things about them behind their back. You also load up an event like this with gorgeous girls, models and dancers from LA and have them roam around looking as bored and non-plussed as possible unless there is a photo-op when they turn on the charm with a canned hot look..Everyone goes home alone. The bars at the event were sponsored by Budweiser and Smirnoff, so that tells you something. The food were Chicago style hot dogs that were actually quite good. Unfortunately nobody distributing the dogs really knew what a Chicago style dog was so they placed the tomato and lettuce as if it were a side dish or a salad among other gaffes. 
Cell Phones on Airplanes. I don't know about you but I despise people roaming around airports or sitting in airplanes yakking on their cell phone like every minute of their time is so important that they have to be wheeling-and-dealing 24/7 on the phone. Worse, they apparently want YOU to listen. While I detest these folks I also find the "don't turn on cell phones until we reach the gate" and other BS even more revolting. The plane has landed. What difference does it make? Is the pilot going to turn onto the freeway because of the mysterious cell phone interference? The interference issue itself is questionable but now everyone is citing the new report from the UK's CAB, I'm looking at it and seeing pumped up levels of transmission to create the interference, dubious anecdotes and other misleading info. You tell me. Personally I hope that cell phones don't cause a problem but I also don't want people using them on the plane. Can you imagine?