Bakin%HI-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP (03/30/84)
From: Jerry Bakin <Bakin @ HI-MULTICS>
The latest "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" (May '84)
has a short story by John Varley called "Press Enter[]" This is a very
reasonable account of a software hacker (who gives himself the name
Kluge) who over a 30 year period has erased himself from the world.
Varley admits not anyone can do this, this hacker was in the business
since the fifties, and installed most of the systems involved. (Setting
up Trojan Horses, or acquiring knowledge of their weaknesses.)
The story is not about Kluge however, it is about Kluge's neighbor and a
Vietnamese woman from CALTECH.
Kluge has committed suicide, and left everything to the neighbor. The
suicide note is written as a computer program, and explains that the
fifty gallon drum of drugs in the bedroom was for his personal use, not
for retail. LAPD isn't impressed, and fearing murder and not suicide,
retains the woman to make what she can out of his system.
The dialogue is handled well, with the exception that the woman
obviously had a bad encounter with the MIT hackers dictionary. Varley
uses this as a device to impress the reader with how much the woman must
know about computers, but that's alright, because the jargon is used in
the proper places, and usually is a method the woman uses to snow the
cops or FBI.
Its a fairly well written story, not hard-sf, but plausible, and makes
proper use of the adjective brain-damaged.
My one concern is with the jargon: I haven't wandered around CALTECH
much, do techies really use 95% of the hackers dictionary in every
breadth? For that matter do the people at MIT?
Jerry.
P.S. The intro mentions that M__i_l_l_e_n_i_u_m will soon be a major motion
picture. Does anyone know anything more about this? Will Robert
Redford be the FAA investigator? Who will play Louise? BC?SASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (04/01/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC>
You might be amused to note that every major character in this novella
is named after a computer. Every one. Some are disguised, though.
-- Steve
P.S. SOME people (not everyone, but some) DO use 95% of the Hacker's
Dictionary in every sentence they speak. Believe it.
$$SASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (04/01/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> I should amend my previous note. Two characters are named "Kluge" and "Foo". These are not QUITE names of computers, but they are close. -- Steve
SASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (04/01/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> I should amend my previous note. Two characters are named "Kluge" and "Foo". These are not QUITE names of computers, but they are close. Even the first names are used. Did you notice "Hal", "Lisa", and even "Victor"? -- Steve
keller@uicsl.UUCP (04/14/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-49000:uicsl:10700097:000:601 uicsl!keller Apr 13 16:23:00 1984 In "the Hacker's Dictionary" it says about the word FOO: "A hacker avoids using 'foo' as the real name of anything. Indeed, a standard convention is that any file with 'foo' in its name is temporary and can be deleted on sight." Was this a clue to the fate of Lisa Foo? Half baked brains are like a fallen souffle. I maintain that the story is a crock. BTW, when I was in grade school I thought of a Frob as a little medallion that construction workers wore from their belt showing a picture of something like a backhoe or bulldozer. -Shaun ...uiucdcs!uicsl!keller (from the birthplace of HAL)
keller@uicsl.UUCP (04/26/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-49000:uicsl:10700100:000:60 uicsl!keller Apr 26 10:31:00 1984 ILL MEM REF: FROB --> FOB Must be meatware rot...Thanks to