http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/ CONTEMPORARY HORIZON A European independent, bilingual and multicultural magazine of contemporary culture and spirituality marți, 15 decembrie 2009 LYRIC HORIZONS: DON RIGGS (UNITED STATES)
RAFINAMENT ŞI FORŢĂ EXPRESIVĂ Don Riggs este un poet de un rafinament aparte, şi în egală măsură un artist înzestrat cu o forţă expresivă care nu poate rezulta decât din talentul şi din forţa personalităţii sale. Revista “Orizont literar contemporan” găzduieşte, în numărul special pe lunile noiembrie-decembrie 2009, o selecţie din creaţia sa literară, din care le oferim cititorilor de pe internet ai revistei noastre acest text reprezentativ. (Daniel Dragomirescu)
REFINMENT AND FORCE OF EXPRESSION Don Riggs is both a poet whose work displays a special refinement and an artist endowed with a force of expression which can't stem but from the talent and force of his personality. “Orizont literar contemporan” / “Contemporary (Literary) Horizon” magazine is publishing a selection from his literary creation in the special issue for November-December 2009, a selection from which we offer our Internet readers a representative fragment. (Alina-Olimpia Miron) _______________________________________
CRAVING
Concupiscence means having a little Cupid inside each of us, even when we’ve just been born, desiring what we’ve just been jerked from, maybe, or the very first fruits hanging to slake our thirst, which we had never known before, back when we were in the Garden where we had no needs, unless our mother, the universe herself, did.
So now we’ve had to improvise techniques from foraging to gardening to field work to hydroponics to distilling brandy from fruit juice and whiskey from grain and sticky black resin from alkoloids in flowers refined into heroin.
But what about the yearning for union with the divine? the abnegation of the self, the body, the will – unless it’s will that drives one to fast, ignore hunger – or, better, to focus on that feeling like a flame the chela gazes into, subtly shifting, not too brilliant, a bit of blue or even blackness near the wick.
Exempla abound: the nun who only ate one consecrated wafer a week, the guru who must have had chlorophyll in his epidermis, living on air, sunlight, and moisture that dripped in his cave. The hiker who froze to death in winter.
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INSAŢIETATE
Concupiscenţa înseamnă să avem în noi un mic Cupidon, chiar şi-atunci când abia-am fost născuţi, cu dorinţa să fi fost smuciţi poate. Sau ca primele fructe coapte să ne-astâmpere setea ce n-am mai cunoscut, atunci când eram în Grădina unde n-aveam nevoie de nimic, doar dacă mama noastră, universul însuşi, avea nevoie de ceva.
Aşa c-acum a trebuit să improvizăm tehnici de la a săpa la a planta la a munci pământul la a creşte artificial la a distila coniac din suc de fructe şi whiskey din grâne şi răşină neagră greţoasă din alcaloide în flori rafinate în heroină.
Cum rămâne cu dorul de uniune cu divinul? Cu abnegaţia sinelui, a trupului, a dorinţei – doar dacă nu cumva dorinţa ne-ndeamnă la abstinenţă, la ignorarea hranei
sau şi mai bine la surprinderea intensă a acelei senzaţii precum o flacără spre care priveşte chela foindu-se abia simţit, nu prea aprinsă, cu mucul albăstriu şi chiar negru.
Exemple din belşug: călugăriţa ce mânca o singură napolitană sfinţită pe săptămână, un guru care pesemne c-avea clorofilă în epidermă, care trăia cu aer, cu soare, cu lâncezeala ce i se scurgea din căpăţână. Alpinistul ce-a îngheţat iarna de viu.
Romanian version: Sînziana MIHALACHE Publicat de Daniel Dragomirescu la 13:03 0 comentarii Linkuri de întoarcere către această postare
I, Rowboat: In “I, Rowboat” Doctorow uses some science fiction tropes (common themes, patterns, motifs, concepts) that may be better understood with some context provided: noosphere: http://noosphere.cc/ -- Doctorow uses “noosphere” here to indicate a level of existence which is purely on the mental/idea level, without a necessary physical substrate for the thought to be founded in, as, say, someone’s mind is founded in his or her body.
Further definition of and links about the noosphere: http://fusionanomaly.net/noosphere.html
the Noosphere and the Internet: http://jonudell.net/LSAMag2009.html
Navigating and staking claims in the Noosphere, as in open source software: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/
Embodied consciousness / Incarnation / Downloaded mind patterns: Some science fiction has dealt with the possible separation of mind from body, of reproducing someone’s mind as an electronic configuration, then downloading it into a computer or another physical body:
Rachel in Love: http://www.brazenhussies.net/murphy/Rachel.html Rachel in Love, the Game: http://www.rachelinlove.com/index.php blog: http://sciencefictionbiology.blogspot.com/2006/09/rachel-in-love.html movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058561/
mind uploading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading http://www.transtopia.org/uploading.html http://valley-of-the-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-politics-ais-and-uploading-minds.html http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2009/01/what-are-the-benefits-of-mind-uploading/ http://www.sl4.org/archive/0510/12444.html http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/virtual-reality/mind-uploading-and-mind-children http://www.tech-faq.com/mind-uploading.shtml http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/uploading-your-min/
Doctorow on Science Fiction: http://jetpress.org/v19/doctorow.htm
Journal of Evolution and Technology (relevant issues): http://hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/journal-of-evolution-and-technology-ha-some-reading-material/
Laws of robotics: Asimov’s Laws of Robotics and information technology, by an information tech specialist: http://www.rogerclarke.com/SOS/Asimov.html
Asimov’s Laws of Robotics as seen by a contemporary SF writer: http://www.sfwriter.com/rmasilaw.htm
Microrobot developed to travel in the human body: http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/blog/?p=1328
History of the Three Laws of Robotics: http://www.google.com/search?q=Three+Laws+of+Robotics&hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=PfW&sa=G&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=Rx2LSorhGdKgmAfuodS0DQ&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=11
The Three Laws as summarized in a future encyclopedia: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/1136/robots/robotlaws.html
Overclocked 39 up, 7 down A PC or computer that has been rewired or reprogrammed to work faster than normal; usually causing massive overheats and explosions if not cooled properly What? You overclocked my Athlon and it's still intact?!?! Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overclocked
Overclock It When at some early hour of the morning you still haven't gone to sleep you decide to continue into the next day having not slept. "Man it's like 5am and I got class at 8:30. Think I'll just overclock it because I'll get fuck all sleep" Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Overclock%20It
overclockability 11 up, 2 down How well something can be overclocked. I overclocked that CPU to 3.2GHz, it's got wicked overclockability. Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overclockability
overclocked remix 17 up, 1 down A popular website with many rearrangements of video game background music. Adds new remixes often and allows remixers to try their own luck at the art of remixing. I just heard the new song on overclocked remix, I love it already. Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overclocked%20remix
overclocker 13 up, 7 down A person who can overclock. An overclocker is awesome. Shroomer is an overclocker. get this def on a mug by Charles Ray Mar 20, 2003 share this 2. Overclocker 4 up, 14 down An idiot who cannot accept that the people who make the hardware know more about it than they do, and cannot accept to just have things running a tiny amount slower and lasting a whole lot longer, which is generally cheaper in the long run (if you want faster pay more - your only going to end up paying more when you fry it) Overclocker - its mint look how fast it is Sensible person - your frying it Overclocker - no i'm not theres a fan sensible person - yes but the heat stress will shorten the life meaning someday it won't work Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overclocker
overclocking 30 up, 41 down OVERCLOCKING - The process of installing high hopes, dumb luck, and several paychecks into a rectangular box which transmits a signal to a screen that displays your fate. The outcome is usually depressing. I overclocked my 3.0ghz Pentium 4 Processor to an ungodly fast 4.8ghz Pentium 4 with my Prometia Phase Change Unit Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=overclocking ********************************************************************** Overclocked game: http://www.overclocked-game.com/
Overclocked game walkthrough: http://www.egcgames.com/content.php?id=749
In Cory Doctorow’s short story “I, Robot,” there are a number of references to a generation gap between the narrator and his 12-year-old daughter. These take the form of an intergenerational digital divide. To elaborate on perceptions of a divide between digital natives and older digital tourists, sample the following:
Internet Help Desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LLTsSnGWMI
Medieval Help Desk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
“Bridging the Generation Gap” in information technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeLvhy4xY_k
Digital Divide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ozp9xW6R-w
historical clips from “The Generation Gap:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Qtzo-UNjc
Digital Natives (“21st century learners): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGfNbbQQCW0&feature=related
Evolution of the Digital Native: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttlLOjy2lTs&feature=related
Early Education of a Digital Native: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZwKPDvYA2M&feature=related
BGP:Border Gateway Protocol.Protocol:“In computing, a protocol is a set of rules which is used by computers to communicate with each other across a network. A protocol is a convention or standard that controls or enables the connection, communication, and data transfer between computing endpoints. In its simplest form, a protocol can be defined as the rules governing the syntax, semantics, and synchronization of communication. Protocols may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of the two. At the lowest level, a protocol defines the behavior of a hardware connection.” (source: wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(computing) )for further information on BGP, see the following:
independent router’s netblock:See the following description of routing: “An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification and logical address that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.[1] Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers, they are usually displayed in human-readable notations, such as 208.77.188.166 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for IPv6). The role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: ‘A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.’[2] “
2.0:Suffix indicating the “second generation” of a system.E.g., “Web 2.0” indicates
a new stage in the development of the Web, with new online entities and user
habits (Encyclopedia Britannica online was Web 1.0, Wikipedia is Web 2.0).
Beta Test:“A test for a computer product prior to commercial release. Beta testing is the last stage of testing, and normally can involve sending the product to beta test sites outside the company for real-world exposure or offering the product for a free trial download over the Internet. Beta testing is often preceded by a round of testing called alpha testing.”source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/beta_test.html
Gold Master:A product, such as a new computer program, released for sale.Read on:
“The term release candidate (RC) refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization (read QA cycle), all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more Beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bug.
During the 1990s, Apple Inc. used the term "golden master" for its release candidates, and the final golden master was the general availability release.”
“Guarana (pronounced gwa-ra-NAH) is a creeping shrub native to Venezuela and northern Brazil in the Amazon rain forest. The fruit are small, bright-red, and contains black seeds.
“Guarana seeds are rich in caffeine and contain up to 4-8% caffeine, more than coffee beans, which contain approximately 1–2.5% caffeine. The seeds are also rich in tannins and xanthine alkaloids theophylline and theobromine.”source: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/completeazindex/a/guarana.htm
servers:“1) In information technology, a server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs (and their users) in the same or other computers.
“2) The computer that a server program runs in is also frequently referred to as a server (though it may be used for other purposes as well).”
drive:“A machine that readsdata from and writes data onto a disk. A disk drive rotates the disk very fast and has one or more heads that read and write data.
flashworm:“In this context, we develop the threat of three new techniques for highly virulent worms: hit-list scanning, permutation scanning, and Internet scale hit-lists (Section 4). Hit-list scanning is a technique for accelerating the initial spread of a worm. Permutation scanning is a mechanism for distributed coordination of a worm. Combining these two techniques creates the possibility of a Warhol worm,5seemingly capable of infecting most or all vulnerable targets in a few minutes to perhaps an hour. An extension of the hit-list technique creates a flash worm, which appears capable of infecting the vulnerable population in 10s of seconds: so fast that no human-mediated counter-response is possible.” source: http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc-usenix-sec02/
zero-day exploit:“A zero day exploit is when the exploit for the vulnerability is created before, or on the same day as the vulnerability is learned about by the vendor. By creating a virus or worm that takes advantage of a vulnerability the vendor is not yet aware of and for which there is not currently a patch available the attacker can wreak maximum havoc.”
DNS:“The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participants. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices worldwide. An often used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. For example, www.example.com translates to 208.77.188.166.”(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System )
Eliza-dialog:“ELIZA is a rather famous ‘conversation’ program that takes text input from the user and tries to react as if it were a therapist of some kind. The ELIZA I deal with below was on a Mac. I was at a friend’s place, and after the conversation he insisted on my keeping a record of it.” source: http://tadhg.com/wp/1997/12/31/a-dialogue-with-eliza/
open a Trojan:to enable a Trojan Horse virus in one’s computer.
lusers:(from Urban Dictionary) “2. A word used often by sysadmin or tech support to describe clueless computer users.
“3. A person or group of persons that are very computer illiterate. Sometimes used by geeks to describe people that just use computers.
“Tech support people get more calls from LUsers than Users. LUsers are also known for stupid tech support questions that make it on many sites. People usually excluded from this are users with some computer knowledge or people that work with computers.”
kernel patches:First of all, “kernel:”“On the definition of 'kernel' Jochen Liedtke said that the word is ‘traditionally used to denote the part of the operating system that is mandatory and common to all other software.’[3]”
“Most operating systems rely on the kernel concept. The existence of a kernel is a natural consequence of designing a computer system as a series of abstraction layers,[4] each relying on the functions of layers beneath itself. The kernel, from this viewpoint, is simply the name given to the lowest level of abstraction that is implemented in software. In order to avoid having a kernel, one would have to design all the software on the system not to use abstraction layers; this would increase the complexity of the design to such a point that only the simplest systems could feasibly be implemented.(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computing) ).Now, “patches:”A patch is a small piece of software designed to fix problems with or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance.” (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(computing) )
CGI:Computer-Generated Imagery (term used in digital graphics).
soft phone:“In computing, a softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer, rather than using dedicated hardware. Often a softphone is designed to behave like a traditional telephone, sometimes appearing as an image of a phone, with a display panel and buttons with which the user can interact. A softphone is usually used with a headset connected to the sound card of the PC, or with a USB phone. [1]” (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softphone
“Notable or heroic acts. Often modified by the adjective ‘mad’ which implies an even greater magnitude of heroism.
‘Word of Rucianu's mad sploitz preceded him; indeed, the longer he battled against the oppressive forces of the Empire, the more famous he became to Rebel sympathizers across the galaxy.’ ”
boxen:“An alternative pluralization of boxes. In 60-80s hacker lingo (when hacker ment something very different, btw), it originated from vax/vaxen (the, at the time, correct way to referr to two or more vax computers). Because of this unusual pluralization, it because common to use -en instead of -es or whatever else was correct for all words ending in x or with an x sound, such as soxen or socksen for more then one sock. Box was/is usually referring to a computer (pc, server, workstation, whatever).
five nines of uptime: “Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been ‘up’ and running. It came into use to describe the opposite of downtime, times when a system was not operational. The uptime and reliability of computer and communications facilities is sometimes measured in nines (similar to the unit of metallic purity). ‘Five nines’ means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year.” (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptime
DoS: “A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internetsite or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers.
“One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by either forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consuming its resources so that it can no longer provide its intended service or obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.”
DNS-foo:“The terms foobar, foo, bar, and baz, are common placeholder names (also referred to as metasyntactic variables) used in computer programming or computer-related documentation. They are commonly used to represent unknown values, typically when describing a scenario where the purpose of the unknown values is understood, but their precise values are arbitrary and unimportant. The terms can be used to represent any part of a complicated system or idea, including the data, variables, functions, and commands. The words themselves have no meaning in this usage, and are merely logical representations, much like the letters x and y are used in algebra. Foobar is often used alone; foo, bar, and baz are usually used in that order, when multiple entities are needed.
multitool:Like a Swiss Army Knife, a tool that has multiple attachments for many uses.
worm-load: I’m assuming that, in context, this means that at the particular time in the story, the computers are lot loading (=receiving) very many worms (“worm-load was slow”).
reccy:“Term used by the British army- short for reconnaissance. To survey the area. To become familiar with ones' surroundings.
‘Go over that hill and do a reccy for us, eh son?’ ”
DSLAM:“A DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) is a network device, usually at a telephone company central office, that receives signals from multiple customer Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections and puts the signals on a high-speed backbone line using multiplexing techniques. Depending on the product, DSLAM multiplexers connect DSL lines with some combination of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), frame relay, or Internet Protocol networks. DSLAM enables a phone company to offer business or homes users the fastest phone line technology (DSL) with the fastest backbone network technology (ATM).” (source: http://searchtelecom.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid103_gci213916,00.html )
