The Off Topic Topic

[HVC]

I get what you're saying Jacob, but I guess I'm just not politically minded enough to to parse the political nuance at the moment i hear a joke. Maybe that's a flaw in me, who knows. Now, that not to say I find every joke the punches down funny (nor ones that punch up, for that matter). That's to say I can find a trans joke in bad taste, but not solely because it's making a trans joke but because it's a bad joke.

[Syt]

Funny, if true. 

[Norgy]

Remember the game "Cyberpunk"? I am getting really old. It was so frustrating. The game. Not the aging. That sort of beats the alternative.

I read Gibson, did not really get into it, but not at all a bad novel.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I've only read Neuromancer so far.  I remember some quaint elements, like "hot RAM" with what today would be ridiculously small values.  I have some of his other books, and I'll get to them eventually.

[Josquius]

I've gotten stuck in a kick of reading scp foundation entries.
It's like tv tropes. Keeps leading to a rabbit hole of new tabs.

[celedhring]

I love Neuromancer, I think Gibson is both a visionary futurist and actually writes good literary prose, a somehow rare gift among sci-fi authors 

[Tamas]

Will it feel too aged if I read it for the first time now?

Feels like the world is going toward mega corps buying and selling heads of state and governments, might as well study up for it.

[Josquius]

I read neuromancer not too long ago. Maybe a decade.
The most aged factor that stood out to me was the classic cyberpunk Japanese dominance thing.

A lot of cyberpunk stuff with their view of the net as this wild West land of chaos felt very outdated 10-20 years ago but it's swinging back to relevancy now.

One in the genre I really loved was the diamond age. Again a bit dated in views of China. If written today I would think they would have the US in china's role. But otherwise quite spot on.

I've had snow crash on my ereader ready to go for a whe now but just can't get in reading mode.

[celedhring]

I read neuromancer not too long ago. Maybe a decade.
The most aged factor that stood out to me was the classic cyberpunk Japanese dominance thing.

A lot of cyberpunk stuff with their view of the net as this wild West land of chaos felt very outdated 10-20 years ago but it's swinging back to relevancy now.

One in the genre I really loved was the diamond age. Again a bit dated in views of China. If written today I would think they would have the US in china's role. But otherwise quite spot on.

I've had snow crash on my ereader ready to go for a whe now but just can't get in reading mode.

Yeah, the scary thing about Neuromancer is that it would felt dated 20 years ago, but a lot of the themes (even if seen through a very 1980s prism) are suddenly more relevant than ever. Gibson captures that sense of alienation in a world that's both rapidly advancing and simultaneously falling apart - which is the most compelling part of the cyberpunk genre.

It's also a short-ish book jam-packed with stuff, a thoroughly entertaining read. The one caveat is that it's one of the books that was so foundational that a lot of the stuff that was visionary when it came out has been mined to hell and back, so it won't feel as fresh. But Gibson's writing is so vibrant - as I said I hold him as one of the better prosists among scifi/fantasy writers.

Incidentally, Apple is adapting it into a TV show coming out next year.

[Tamas]

Thanks I will probably pick it up. I have just finished the Three Body Problem trilogy and while the premise and the story in general was good, the writing (or at least the translation) was terribly boring at times, so I am down for some scifi with some literary qualities.

[frunk]

I would say the four books by William Gibson that are must reads are the Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) and the short story collection Burning Chrome.  Burning Chrome might be the more accessible entry point, as it establishes many of the tropes that are used in his longer work.  Neuromancer is definitely the best of the Sprawl trilogy but Count Zero fills in the last few elements that are used in just about every Cyberpunk style RPG and MLO wraps things up nicely.

[grumbler]

I just read that New York schools offer gifted programs for kindergarten.

How precious

I just read that someone obviously has no clue about gifted ed but feels free to disparage it anyway. 

How precious.

[Tamas]

I felt like joining in with a snarky comment but couldn't think of one.

How precious.

[Josquius]

I was put in with the older kids for maths when I was that age. Having a bit more of a special setup for it than "stop this kid disrupting the others learning. Distract him with something" would have been welcome.
I'd love it if my boy got challenged a bit today. Getting vibes his school is teaching stuff he figured out when he was 2.

[DGuller]

The villanization of gifted programs is one of the thousands cuts that is making the left lose support.  Any individual cut may not add up to much, but take them all together, and you have some real resentment.  I imagine that if you're a parent who wants the best education for their child, and their child is qualified for a gifted program, but the gifted program is cut because it doesn't meet some diversity or equity criteria, you're not going view it as a good governance decision.  You're probably going to view it as a triumph of ideological dogma over good education outcomes.