An author.
3 out of 5
Monday, November 22, 2010
Zachary Churchland : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An octogenarian oil billionaire who had raised the possibility of funding his own brain-mapping project. Also fancies living forever via technology.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Mahnoosh : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A march organiser who gives Martin information and later becomes his wife.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Nate Caplan : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A brilliant entrepreneur who approaches Nasim - fancies living forever via technology.
3.5 out of 5
3.5 out of 5
Jane Frampton : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A science journalist and author of The Sociobiology of The Simpsons and The Metaphysics of Melrose Place.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Fariba : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A Tehran University student Martin interviews during a demonstration.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Hassan Jabari : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A high-ranking Iranian jurist and politician who gets caught with a trans prostitute. Member of the Guardian Council.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Haroun : Zendegi - Greg Egan
A passenger on a flight who gives Martin music software advice.
3 out of 5
3 out of 5
Nasim Golestani : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Iranian computer researcher in the USA who returns home after political changes. Also a cousin of Mahnoosh.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
Martin Seymour : Zendegi - Greg Egan
An Australian foreign correspondent who gets an assignment in Tehran and ends up staying.
4 out of 5
4 out of 5
An Unusual Beginning - Karen Burnham
A short article about Egan's first mainstream novel :-
"But mostly there’s a kid in high school (the story covers four out of five years of schooling), way too bright for his classes, bored almost literally out of his skull. There are no characters other than the narrator; some of the teacher’s get names but they’re just archetypes. None of his classmates even get names. There’s no real antagonist here except “the system,” probably another reflection of those counter-culture mainstays. The (unnamed) narrator is disgusted by criticism and depicts in-class lit crit as an act of disgusting vivisection. He often uses scientific imagery, and he’s always way more precise about it than your average writer: he specifies that someone’s enthusiasm is “1000 watts (RMS),” and if you don’t understand what that means you can at least see that for most people it’s enough to say “1000 Watts” without specifying the measurement system."
3.5 out of 5
http://spiralgalaxyreviews.blogspot.com/
"But mostly there’s a kid in high school (the story covers four out of five years of schooling), way too bright for his classes, bored almost literally out of his skull. There are no characters other than the narrator; some of the teacher’s get names but they’re just archetypes. None of his classmates even get names. There’s no real antagonist here except “the system,” probably another reflection of those counter-culture mainstays. The (unnamed) narrator is disgusted by criticism and depicts in-class lit crit as an act of disgusting vivisection. He often uses scientific imagery, and he’s always way more precise about it than your average writer: he specifies that someone’s enthusiasm is “1000 watts (RMS),” and if you don’t understand what that means you can at least see that for most people it’s enough to say “1000 Watts” without specifying the measurement system."
3.5 out of 5
http://spiralgalaxyreviews.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The Arrows of Time - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
The Eternal Flame - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
The Clockwork Rocket - Greg Egan
The master commits trilogy :-
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
3 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
" * Orthogonal Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
o Orion/Gollancz, late 2011 or early 2012.
* Book One: The Clockwork Rocket
* Book Two: The Eternal Flame
* Book Three: The Arrows of Time "
3 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Judges Who Google: The Tip Of The Iceberg? - Greg Egan
""Today, however, a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search," it added. "As the cost of confirming one's intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that."
You could probably improve the speed of justice even more by just using a wifi-enabled robot judge (as in Harry Harrison's 1959 story Robot Justice) and defense attorneys, like the lawyer program in David Brin's 1990 novel Earth and LEX (Law Expert System) from Greg Egan's 1991 short story The Moat."
3 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2841
You could probably improve the speed of justice even more by just using a wifi-enabled robot judge (as in Harry Harrison's 1959 story Robot Justice) and defense attorneys, like the lawyer program in David Brin's 1990 novel Earth and LEX (Law Expert System) from Greg Egan's 1991 short story The Moat."
3 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2841
Universe May End Sooner Because We Looked - Greg Egan
"Two physicists suggest that we may have brought the universe closer to its death by merely observing dark energy.
“Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” says Laurence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University."
...
"If it's true that we've doomed the universe by looking too closely, you can bet that aliens would not be happy about it. Sure enough, in his 1992 novel Quarantine, science fiction writer Greg Egan wrote about how a quirk in human neurology causes us to collapse the waveforms of anything we observe - and as a result, we've been destroying vast swaths of the cosmos with our telescopes. For this reason, they isolated us from the rest of the universe with the "Bubble:""
4.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1320
“Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” says Laurence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University."
...
"If it's true that we've doomed the universe by looking too closely, you can bet that aliens would not be happy about it. Sure enough, in his 1992 novel Quarantine, science fiction writer Greg Egan wrote about how a quirk in human neurology causes us to collapse the waveforms of anything we observe - and as a result, we've been destroying vast swaths of the cosmos with our telescopes. For this reason, they isolated us from the rest of the universe with the "Bubble:""
4.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1320
Screening Software - Greg Egan
"This idea is taken from a 1991 story, which seems very early for this idea. I couldn't find anything like it until at least 1998.We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive.
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1276
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1276
Spam Filter - Greg Egan
"The earliest reference that I can find in sf for the idea of a spam filter or other way to deal with the problem of spam is in The Moat, a 1991 short story by Greg Egan.
We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1933
We used to get megabytes of automated invective via email, but that, at least, turned out to be easily fixed; we installed the latest screening software, and fed it a few samples of the kind of transmission we preferred not to receive."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1933
Law Expert System (LEX) - Greg Egan
From Technovelgy :-
"Ranjit arrives a few minutes later, carrying a CD; he mimes staggering under its weight. "Latest set of amendments to the UNHCR regulations. It's going to be a long day."
I groan. "I'm having dinner with Rachel tonight. Why don't we just feed the bloody thing to LEX and ask for a summary?"
"And get disbarred at the next audit? No, thanks." The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software - terrified of putting ninety percent of its members out of work. The irony is, they use state-of-the art software, programmed with all the forbidden knowledge, to scrutinize each practice's expert systems and make sure that they haven't been taught more than they're permitted to know."
"There must be twenty firms, at least, who've taught their systems tax law -"
Sure. And they have programmers on seven-figure salaries to cover their tracks."
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1239
"Ranjit arrives a few minutes later, carrying a CD; he mimes staggering under its weight. "Latest set of amendments to the UNHCR regulations. It's going to be a long day."
I groan. "I'm having dinner with Rachel tonight. Why don't we just feed the bloody thing to LEX and ask for a summary?"
"And get disbarred at the next audit? No, thanks." The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software - terrified of putting ninety percent of its members out of work. The irony is, they use state-of-the art software, programmed with all the forbidden knowledge, to scrutinize each practice's expert systems and make sure that they haven't been taught more than they're permitted to know."
"There must be twenty firms, at least, who've taught their systems tax law -"
Sure. And they have programmers on seven-figure salaries to cover their tracks."
From The Moat, by Greg Egan.
Published by Aurealis in 1991"
4 out of 5
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1239
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Plus, Minus: A Gentle Introduction to the Physics of Orthogonal - Greg Egan
"For the past year or so I've been spending most of my waking hours in a place where light, matter, energy and time obey different laws of physics than those that rule our own universe. Studying the way things move and interact under these alternative laws reveals some familiar behaviour, some strange and eerily beautiful phenomena, and some terrifying risks.
To reach what I will call the Riemannian universe involves nothing more than changing a minus sign to a plus sign in a simple equation that governs the geometry of space-time. And curiously enough, although the consequences sometimes seem bizarre, the basic laws here can be understood more easily and intuitively than those that apply in the real world.
We have known for more than a hundred years that the best way to understand time in our universe is to think of it as combining with the familiar three dimensions of space to form a four-dimensional space-time, which obeys its own distinctive geometrical laws. While Newton saw time as an absolute, universal quantity that marched forward in lock-step at an identical rate for everyone, since Einstein we've realised that the passage of time measures an aspect of our paths through four-dimensional space-time that is very similar to the length of a path in space."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/00/PM.html
To reach what I will call the Riemannian universe involves nothing more than changing a minus sign to a plus sign in a simple equation that governs the geometry of space-time. And curiously enough, although the consequences sometimes seem bizarre, the basic laws here can be understood more easily and intuitively than those that apply in the real world.
We have known for more than a hundred years that the best way to understand time in our universe is to think of it as combining with the familiar three dimensions of space to form a four-dimensional space-time, which obeys its own distinctive geometrical laws. While Newton saw time as an absolute, universal quantity that marched forward in lock-step at an identical rate for everyone, since Einstein we've realised that the passage of time measures an aspect of our paths through four-dimensional space-time that is very similar to the length of a path in space."
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ORTHOGONAL/00/PM.html
Friday, September 17, 2010
Incandescence Discussion Interview - Greg Egan
"RG: After many aeons, why would the Aloof still have the reaction/instinct to want to protect beings from approaching the hub? Don't they know that some beings have the capability to protect themselves?
GE: They're erring on the side of caution, and they're not in a great hurry to make up their minds. Giving the Amalgam precisely what it wants, as soon as it wants it, isn't their priority."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.chicago-sf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3243
GE: They're erring on the side of caution, and they're not in a great hurry to make up their minds. Giving the Amalgam precisely what it wants, as soon as it wants it, isn't their priority."
4.5 out of 5
http://www.chicago-sf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3243
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Some Thoughts on Tuesday's Child - Greg Egan
Gary Foshee, a collector and designer of puzzles from Issaquah near Seattle walked to the lectern to present his talk. It consisted of the following three sentences: “I have two children. One is a boy born on a Tuesday. What is the probability I have two boys?”
The event was the Gathering for Gardner earlier this year, a convention held every two years in Atlanta, Georgia, uniting mathematicians, magicians and puzzle enthusiasts. The audience was silent as they pondered the question.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/TUESDAY/Tuesday.html
The event was the Gathering for Gardner earlier this year, a convention held every two years in Atlanta, Georgia, uniting mathematicians, magicians and puzzle enthusiasts. The audience was silent as they pondered the question.
5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/TUESDAY/Tuesday.html
Friday, August 6, 2010
Born Again Briefly - Greg Egan
"It would be absurd to over-generalise from my experience, but equally absurd to treat it as singular. Perhaps neurologists will eventually pin down a particular mechanism associated with the kind of religious practice I've described, but to me it seems equally likely that the mechanisms will be diverse. What I do suspect I once shared with a great many religious believers is not so much the core of mystical experience as the larger package that was wrapped around it: the belief that the universe has a purpose, and that despite the unspeakable horrors of our history and the smaller miseries of everyday life there is a promise that everything will be put right in the end. This is a powerful and appealing notion; once you have it in your grasp it's hard to let go, and some of us will go to very great lengths to rationalise holding on to it."
3.5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/BAB/BAB.html
3.5 out of 5
http://www.gregegan.net/ESSAYS/BAB/BAB.html
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