Random Dialogue

Cory Doctorow is a talented writer and a world-renowned blogger. His work at Boing Boing marks him as a unique snowflake and I’ve generally enjoyed my experiences with his published works in the past. Little Brother, though, is a cut above. It’s a teen book, filled with all the stuff teenagers like: sex, flipping the bird at folks in authority, and a protagonist with a chip on his shoulder. It’s also a thinly veiled guidebook on how to maintain some degree of privacy in a not-too-distant future of invasive technologies and social mores.

Using almost entirely-real-world tech and just a bit of imagination, Doctorow summons up a tomorrow that’s eerily plausible. A terrorist attack in San Francisco drops the DHS onto the Bay like a ton of bricks. The normally freewheeling culture of the SF region becomes a locked-down zone of cameras, RFID tracking chips and constant police surveillance. What’s especially fascinating is that we get to see multiple sides of this story. To privacy loving individualists like the protagonist, it’s a living nightmare. To older folks, scared into silence by a repressive government and hazily looming threats, it’s not that bad. Doctorow doesn’t shirk away from the hard questions and the sometimes-harder answers required of the entirely-plausible situation he conjures up.

Despite my limited technical background, the tech elements of the book are some of the most engaging I’ve yet read. All should be very approachable for teens, but head-on deal with real inventions and their repercussions. The book details routing protocols on the internet, the uses and reasons behind RFID tracking, how email works, how to protect yourself from scammers and spammers, and even a shortform explanation of how crypto works. Think of it as “Cryptonomicon for kids”, an analogy Doctorow invites by referencing Stephenson’s book in his ‘thank you’ section. He also thanks Slashdot, a site I was working for during most of the time he was writing the book … so that’s pretty neat.

If you like the idea that people should read your email, think The Man deserves a good boxing about the ears once in a while, or have ever referred to the Department of Homeland Security as “Security Theatre”, you’ll probably dig this book. It’s relatively short, emminently readable, and well worth passing on to a teenager near you. Yeah, the protagonist and his girlfriend end up having sex - but it’s very specifically safe sex, and everything happens off-camera.

Little Brother offers strong, self-aware messages, a positive attitude about the future of technology, and a protagonist well worth emulating for any young man or woman still figuring out the early 21st century. Give it a shot.

Brian recently asked that I start doing a weekly wrapup of stuff that I’m particularly proud of. I don’t think that’s a terribly bad idea. Here’s the update for today through last week:

• As I’ve mentioned here before, I wrote *a lot* about Warhammer. There’s a handy wrap-up post on Massively that will link you back to all the articles I got out.
• Made an appearance in three podcasts last week: My own MMOG Nation Broadcast hit #9. Massively’s weekly ‘cast hit #8, and I did a guest spot on Shut Up We’re Talking.
• I’m a referenced commentator for an article about Blizzard’s merger with Activision; it’s a really really big deal, if you don’t follow games industry news.
• My first appearance in a print magazine is this week, with my article about ’small’ MMOs taking a bow in the pages of Game Developer Magazine.
• I had the chance to weigh in on the fourth edition of D&D in a pretty noteworthy place. Wired ran a pair of articles I ginned up on the subject; I’ve gotten some really nice comments from folks about them already.

Oh wait. You still need to use AT&T with them. Nevermind. Call me when I can stick with Verizon, Apple!

I won’t bore you with the particulars of the many thousands of words I’ve been writing this week, but suffice it to say that it’s some deeply nerdy shit. Nth level geekery, of the stuff five years ago I never would have even dreamed being paid to write. Today, not only am I getting paid to write it, it’s my primary means of maintaining my lifestyle; I haven’t gotten my first paycheck from a full month of freelancing, but I expect it to be ‘not bad’. “Enough”, rather.

Certainly with this week’s efforts I’m working to make my second paycheck even more adequate. And it’s all because I am now allowed to string words together into (semi) coherent sentences about a subject I feel passionate about. I’m a blogger, yes. I’m a games journalist, maybe. But mostly I’m a writer. The only time in my life I was ever stupid enough to think I could be a writer professionally was at the tail end of my freshman year in college. It lasted all of … maybe four months? And yet here I am.

One of the clearest memories I have from my first Gen Con is sitting in a corner of the Wizards of the Coast castle listening to Ed Greenwood tell stories. Ed’s gotten a lot of flack over the years, but I respect the hell out of him for sheer number of words he’s put out there. To say nothing of the Realms themselves; as strange and pulled-at as they’ve gotten over the years, he’s made a life’s work out of his home campaign. That’s freaking amazing.

Ed’s telling stories, and he gets asked a lot of questions over the course of the hour or so I have between play sessions. It’s free to sit there and listen to him, and he’s expounding on the Realms, stuff he ran back in the day … many things. Someone asks him, kind of jokingly, “Hey, so how do you become a writer? It seems like a sweet gig.” He laughs, and says the one of the few ‘life lessons’ that has remained burned in my brain all these years. His response was something like:

“It’s actually really hard. Being a writer isn’t a choice. If you have to write, if it’s what you have to do, every day … if what you do is write, then you’re a writer. Writing is an action, not a job or a state of mind or a profession. It’s an act. And if you do it, you’re a writer. And nobody can tell you any different.”

I think I’m pushing something like 30,000 words for this week. It’s utilitarian, it’s incredibly boring to vast swaths of humanity, and is impenetrable jargon to most of my friends and family. But … it’s writing. I’m a writer.

Utterly weird, and completely wonderful. Thanks, reality.

Today I finished reading Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon for what is, I believe, my fourth full time. It is my favorite book, and I think I’ve finally figured out why. Every time I read it I get something completely new out of it. Not just that thing you get when you reread a book and miss bits you skimmed the last time; completely new elements. Of course, the words are all the same. Unless someone did some jiggery-pokery with my Kindle copy, the text is identical to that of the tome sitting on my shelf. What’s different, then, is me. The last time I read the book was just after college, I’m sure. Both of the times before that had to have been *in* college, as it was released in 1999. So if you assume that I read it the first two times basically back-to-back, that’s 3-4 years between each reading of the book. In my life, at least, a lot has happened between those 3-4 years.

The first time I read it was in 99′, my sophmore year of college. I hated the class I was taking, enough for me to doubt my interest in programming and take up with network administration books in an independent study course the next year. The highlights were making better friends with folks like Messrs Feldman and Kiefel, Jon Mathison and Gabe Hicks. I played a lot of Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate, and System Shock 2, and watched more Discovery Channel that is really healthy. My takeaway from the book was how much I loved Stephenson’s prose, and respect for folks that understood business.

Today I wonder how I managed to understand most of the words in the book, let alone the context. The me of ten years ago was a blithering idiot about most of the stuff Stephenson talks about in that book. The elements that really struck me were how daft I must have been about travel - actually traveling, not just flying across the country - and long-term relationships. Aye yi yi.

I also have to admit to a shameful fact: Crypto is the first ‘for fun’ book I think I’ve finished since the trip to California in February. But it will very much not be the last. I’ve already started in on Corey Doctorow’s Little Brother, which you can read for free on the interwebs if you’d like.

I’m so … so very glad to be reading again. Words fail.

To say that I’m looking forward to Friday would be a gross understatement. At the end of the week the next edition of Dungeons and Dragons is set to be released, a big marker in my 18 years of playing tabletop roleplaying games. Fourth edition, or 4E, is a big deal(tm) to tabletop nerds for a couple of reasons:

• It’s easy. It’s by far the most simple rulesset that the game has ever had.
• It’s fun. These simple rules are very focused on the combat elements of the game, and bring to life stale game elements that have bogged down previous editions.
• It’s fast. Playtime has been significantly cut down. I know it seems odd for a non-tabletop gamer to envision, but with previous rules events that took place in a matter of minutes inside the game world could take hours to adjudicate in real life.
• It’s online. There’s an entire online component to the game that I find alternately fascinating and frustrating. My hope is to be able to play a game via this system sometime soon.
• Most of all, it’s clean. I’ve spent the last four-odd years mulling the design decisions of MMO devlopers, which has given me an appreciation of game design in general I didn’t have those 18-odd years ago. The way these new systems interlock, the care they’ve given to making simple rules fun and flavourful … oh yeah.

I’m almost done with Cryptonomicon, and despite the staggering amount of work I’m doing this week I’m going to try to finish up before Friday. I really want to crack into those books without wrecking my (still chugging) Kindle-based reading initiative.

Since early this past week I’ve been having some frustrations with Verizon. As a cell carrier they’ve actually always been just fine - never had a complaint. I mentioned before I left that I’d just gotten a new laptop, and as part of that device I’m now EVDO‘d. The problem is you have to get the thing activated. Here’s been my saga so far:

1. Get the laptop, try to use the on-screen prompts to activate. Get all the way to the end and then the system says it won’t work and I have to call.
2. I call to activate. Get put on hold, then disconnected. When I call back, it’s after business hours.
3. Call the next day, and get put on hold. Then get bounced around to (I’m not kidding) 8 different people, each of whom sends me on to someone else. Finally put my foot down as someone tries to transfer me *again*, and demand that she set me up. She does, pissily, and I hang up to try the service. It appears to get me online.
4. Later that weekend I try it again, and determine that I’m actually not online, I was just using my WiFi connection (didn’t disable it like I thought I had.)
5. Call Monday to try again. Go through the song and dance, finally think I have it working. Says that the system won’t recognize me right away give it time to process.
6. Don’t have time to check again until at the airport Wednesday. Doesn’t work, get the message “You don’t have the privileges to access this network.” Call that night from hotel, get hung up on, and by that point it’s after business hours again.
7. Call again on Thursday, can’t get through and have no time because I’m busy from about 9am to 2am the next day.
8. Friday as I’m waiting for a plane I call again. Copy down name and extension of newest helper. Walks me through setup (a third time now) says to shut down laptop wait at least half an hour and then call again if it’s not working.
9. I check again after my flight, still not working At this point it’s after business hours, which are Mon-Fri leaving me SOL until Monday.

Come Monday I’m going to have some cross words with “Tammy”. This is ridiculous.

On the upside the laptop in general has performed its duty admirably. Those optimization strategies I tried before I left worked flawlessly, and the thing really hums along now. Just gotta get this last hurdle cleared before I can have my cybertronic utopia everywhere.