in baseball, being a hacker is a bad thing

[rone]

I'm not sure where Neal Stephenson was living during the time he wrote Snow Crash, but i note that it was published in 1992, and it was 1991 when Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas started swinging a taped-up piece of rebar in the on-deck circle.  Redneck katana or "good gadget"?  Coincidence or conspiracy?

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[arian1.livejournal.com]

Snow Crash reference FTW.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Just today, I was reading from _The Confusion_, the part where there's a big three-way battle in Cairo, French, Turks, and the Cabal, and when the Cabal member, a samurai, began making a chiffonade of some French musketeers, I had a weird bit of deja-vu about katana swordplay.

Then I realized that I was just remembering Hiro Protagonist beheading a racist redneck in a bar and getting an unexpectedly clean slice.

Both books made me realize that among the many pleasures of Stephenson's books, one of them is that he effortlessly removes the katana and its bearer from the ultra-authentic Feudal-Nihoniphile Kurasawa-wannabe drudgery, and yet steadily walks the line without falling into the "I added swords and other asian shit because it made the scene cooler--look at these tattooes!" trap of the cinematic cyberpunks.

I mean, sure, once he mentioned that Gabriel Goto was "Nipponese," it was pretty clear that Jack's Janissary Sword wasn't the only sword that'd be cleaving the quick from the dead, but at least I feel like Goto was part of the group, not a tagalong to spice up the action. Also, his last name is a basic command. HAW HAW!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Gabriel Goto Considered Harmful"