Older blog entries for adam (starting at number 2)

jmason--yeah, so TV-free can mean pubs. I'll claim that pubs are a superior form of entertainment any day. They involve human interaction, rather than sitting in front of the idiot box. So, perhaps people drink to excess? I know that I regret far less time spent drinking with freinds and buddies than I regret spent in front of the TV.

Perhaps the next morning is an exception.

Woo-hoo! The TV-free lifestyle spreads. Its memetic. And you have so much more time for reading.

Which lead me to want to post a diary entry mentioning a book I'm re-reading, Infinite Jest. Infinite Jest ought to be a hacker classic. Its incredibly self-referential in ways ranging from subtle to drop-on-your foot obvious. The hurt your foot end of this is that its over a thousand pages, and the some of the endnotes have footnotes. Many of which just describe the drugs the characters are taking, but others contain some fairly subtle jokes. The more subtle bit are the references to the outside world, such as the world's funniest joke, which is not a mainly a Python reference, but a video titled Infinite Jest, which features deeply in the plot. Once you watch IJ (the video) you can't bring yourself to do anything else until you die laughing.

The book would be called science fiction if it hadn't been done by a serious author. There are ongoing gags involving the naming of years, various bits of future technology, etc.

I'll admit that part of the kick (for me) is that the book involves Quebecios seperatists, and a bizzare virtual overlay of Boston and Cambridge, with parts described perfectly -- my old neighborhood of Inman Sq features regularly, and mostly accurately, but with occaisonal random bits of non-reality where things that don't exist just sort of meld in in a way that only heavy drug use or artistic license can explain. IJ isn't an easy read the way Snow Crash was. Its not even an easy read the way Godel, Escher Bach is. The first time I read it was a struggle. The second is far more rewarding. I expect that the final joke is that the book is rich enough that it will draw me in again, and again, until I die laughing.

Decided that as I get mentioned in other people's diaries, I probably should write some of my own. I'm thinking a lot about traffic analysis lately; how to quantify it, how to drive it forward as a scientific field. Or maybe I should back up and say that traffic analysis is tea-leaf reading, where you examine all of the stuff about a message that isn't encrypted, and learn about social and organizational networks. The state of the art is totally dominated by the NSA, and they're not talking.