tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005194706805666352011-11-27T20:07:31.677-05:00Tomorrow looks like a vicious Yesterday...Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.comBlogger71100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-72495734211951827462008-04-11T18:07:00.017-04:002008-04-13T20:25:10.653-04:00

"In the future, all wars will be fought by robots."It sounds vaguely utopian, doesn't it? For anyone willing to skip over the implication that we will still be happy obliterating each other in order to solve the world's problems. But there is one other truly naive notion in this statement - the idea that both sides would have robots. Asymmetric wars will be the gold standard of conflict in the

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-51370228426493965212008-03-10T18:06:00.017-04:002008-04-14T10:08:25.434-04:00

Having just finished Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus, I have to admit right now that most if not all of my preconceptions going into the book were shattered and then re-shattered like some parody of humanity's factional fracturing that occurs over the book's time line.To begin with, let me just dispense with my judgment: read this book! Read it and then read it again! Like any great work of art

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-64000845752231846482008-03-05T20:19:00.001-05:002008-03-11T11:40:46.669-04:00

I know that title can look a bit intimidating to the uninitiated. What is a Stand Alone Complex? Who are Anonymous? What does any of that have to do with L. Ron Hubbard?Anonymous is a much more esoteric subject, I think, so we'll start with the more imposing but perhaps easier to grasp "Stand Alone Complex."The Stand Alone Complex is a pretty interesting philosophical proposition which is the

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-46357354066613910522008-02-13T16:21:00.003-05:002008-03-11T11:39:10.021-04:00

Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash, which has typically been trumpeted along side William Gibson's and Bruce Sterling's work as part of the cyberpunk definitive, explores a world of hyperbolic extremes. Corporate-Tribal-Suburbia. Hyperinflation. Impossibly bureaucratic and irrelevant federal governance, taking the Big Brother-feel of 1984 and then placing it on the scale of your local DMV office.

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-90488790566208358922008-02-06T20:26:00.001-05:002008-04-16T09:54:04.865-04:00

By now, it's almost common knowledge that there have been a rash of "incidents" (Thanks, BoingBoing) surrounding the internet infrastructure of the Middle East. Something has managed to disable five separate cables connecting the region to the rest of the world.The economic implications are already disastrous. Stalled or massively slowed internet has consequences far beyond just the commerce of

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-25959167980253453012008-01-02T20:12:00.000-05:002008-02-06T21:26:24.102-05:00

Edwards' strategy for a withdrawal in the opening ten months of his administration is interesting but makes dangerous assumptions about the amount of cooperation to expect from Iraq and its neighbors. It is a strategy for dealing with the new Iraq as a serious sovereignty; whether or not it can handle the demands of sovereignty is a serious question. He has a point that more political pressure

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1500519470680566635.post-7939672166543216762007-12-11T01:14:00.000-05:002008-03-11T11:35:54.054-04:00

Futurepunk is the science fiction genre which does not exist yet. Here, at 1:16AM, I will theorize that it will exist and do so very abruptly over the course of the next five years. It will shock, anger, and perhaps even frighten the unready. It will be both a regression back towards cyberpunk's dread and driven attitude, and a progression away from this as its foundation. It will not have the

Casey Samulskinoreply@blogger.com2