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.

lathin' haven
My lathe finally arrived, like some sort of time-machine on a pallet.

I've been busy getting it hooked up, figuring out the dials, and lingering over the long 'aaayyy' when I pronounce lathe -- a disturbingly frequent occurrence these days.

It's a completely manual, totally analog, high-precision piece of machinery. (Pardon me, I'm a bit besotted.)
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posted by steve steinberg at 10:47:24 PM | permalink

maps, unconnected.

I've made maps to show the evolution of technical debates and maps to reveal the shape of a nascent peer-to-peer network. I've mapped the flows of deposits between bank branches in northern New Jersey, the density of radio signals in San Francisco, and the psychoacoustic space of MIDI files.

None of them ever got me where I wanted to go.

I enumerate these maps because, chances are, you've done the same. Someday I'll write a history of people's efforts to "fly through" data, to turn digital information into - if not the territory, certainly a map. It's been a popular pastime at least since the 1960s, with maps of computer networks and financial information particularly flush genres.

I once read an interview (now lost) with a Dutch scholar responsible for some of the preceeding decade's best work in mapping information. He mournfully explained his theory of why these maps never "worked", and why they never could. The theory seemed true but unimportant; the fact that the interview took place in the middle of his career is what stuck in my mind. Why the compunction to map?

In The Power Of Maps Dennis Woods points out there is plenty of evidence that maps "work", especially if your objective is to slaughter a distant indigenous civilization. This is the power of maps: they eliminate the advantage of local knowledge. You don't need a trail guide when you have GPS. Residency lose its power.

If I can't expound on ludicrous theories in the BoingBoing guest blog, where can I? Here's mine: people keep trying to map information spaces because they want to .. not kill, expose... The hand of god-- whatever. Because maybe, with a good enough map.. more detail.. higher resolution.. sub-meter accuracy! Who knows! Like one of those old spirit photographs ... Revealed you fucker.
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posted by steve steinberg at 2:49:22 PM | permalink

my biotech adventure

Recently, I decided to sequence my DNA in my spare time. "How hard can it be," I figured. "There must be a machine on eBay that does all the work." Besides, for my masters thesis in computer science I had applied numerical modeling techniques to studying sea urchin embryos. I was cross-disciplinary, god damn it.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Biotech protocols are more like cooking than engineering.

The problems started with buying the reagents. Perhaps I should have recognized that these chemical kits shared the same rhetoric as household cleaning agents -- everything is easy, nothing requires scrubbing -- but I was still naive. Besides, Qiagen refused to sell their products to me which of course only increased my desire. (I was able to buy them through a distributor instead.)

The next setback was the gear. In almost every endeavor you can count on the Germans for some sexy, easily fetishized equipment. But biotech tools are universally ugly: clunky bits of hygienic plastic, a neon racing stripe constitutes their aesthetic. I found only a few exceptions worth buying. The Finnipipettes aren't terrible, the Biofuge centrifuge actually boasts a very nice 1960s Olivetti look, and Millipore's water purification equipment at least tries.

I'll spare you the rest of equipment -- just try to find a PCR machine that doesn't look like it should be dispensing frozen drinks -- but the piece de resistance (functionality-wise) was a Visible Genetics OpenGene sequencing system I picked up on eBay for $500. Retailed for 40 grand before the company got acquired out of bankruptcy.

Which brings me to the final dénouement: pulling out the protocol's instructions, pipette in hand. Immediately, I was overcome with the same terror that cookbooks instill in me. "Mix gently," the instructions began. Gently? How about a RPM on that, please? Newtons per cubic mm? Something? "Aspirate until clear", it continued. Clear like "totally transparent", or clear like "I can see the DNA goop"? I stumbled along, undoubtedly compounding errors at each step.

Incubation, rehydrate, hybridization -- "until warm", "as appropriate", "if needed". "If we applied this 'scientific' methodology to, say, bridge building," I kept telling myself, "we'd all be dead." And no wonder we still haven't really finished sequencing the human genome-- I've met fucking alchemists who depend on less hokum.

With a little tweaking on the OpeneGene machine -- did I mention it uses a proprietary protocol? And that the software is written for NextStep? -- I finally got my DNA results. And while the results would indicate that I'm from Mars, I now feel strongly that biologists are equally extraterrestrial.
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posted by steve steinberg at 1:35:58 PM | permalink

Farewell!

How swiftly comes the end, snaking through the chaos of daily life, tiptoeing in the silence of night. I've had terrific fun posting to Boingboing, transforming daily conversations with myself into something public and tangible. I'd planned to post a few more things, but spent this past weekend traveling, attending two weddings, and generally burning myself out with liquor and song. With a little recovery time, I could have gone on posting for some time; indeed, I am weighing the pros and cons putting a small blog on my soon-to-be-redesigned Web site. Alas, for now, other obligations and the cyclical nature of the guest bar require I say my farewells! If you miss me, I've got a piece coming out on death and t-shirts in Slate later this week (I'm told), and will be maintaining my Live Journal and posting my redesigned Web site soon. If not, then adieu!

Thanks, David, Xeni, Cory, and Mark

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posted by Jenn Shreve at 9:15:26 AM | permalink

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