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Bigend
Hubertus Bigend is a fictional character appearing in the third trilogy of novels of science fiction and literary author William Gibson. Bigend is the antihero of Gibson's '' Pattern Recognition'' (2003), ''Spook Country'' (2007) and ''Zero History'' (2010). In an interview Gibson says "I've always had a sense of Bigend as someone who presents himself as though he knows what's going on, but who in fact doesn't. It's just my sense of the subtext of the character: he's bullshitting himself, at the same time as he's bullshitting all of us." Character history ''Pattern Recognition'' Bigend is introduced in '' Pattern Recognition'' as the charismatic founder of the fictional " viral advertising"/ coolhunting agency Blue Ant, from the perspective of protagonist Cayce Pollard: Bigend hires Pollard to track down the source of haunting film fragments known as "the footage" that have been appearing anonymously online, though she loathes him and suspects that his motivation is mercenary; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pattern Recognition (novel)
''Pattern Recognition'' is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols. The action takes place in London, Tokyo, and Moscow as Cayce judges the effectiveness of a proposed corporate symbol and is hired to seek the creators of film clips anonymously posted to the internet. The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data. Other themes include methods of interpretation of history, cultural familiarity with brand names, and tensions between art and commercialization. The September 11, 2001 attacks are used as a motif representing the transition to the new century. Critics identify influences in ''Pattern Recognition'' from Thomas Pynchon's postmodern detective story ''The Crying of Lot 49''. ''Patt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero History
''Zero History'' is a novel by William Gibson published in 2010. It concludes the informal trilogy begun by ''Pattern Recognition'' (2003) and continued by ''Spook Country'' (2007), and features the characters Hollis Henry and Milgrim from the latter novel as its protagonists. Plot Hollis Henry and Milgrim find themselves in London working for Hubertus Bigend, unaware that their lives previously crossed in ''Spook Country''. One of Bigend's current interests is fashion, particularly the intersection between streetwear, workwear and military clothing. Milgrim is sent to South Carolina to take photographs of a pair of Army BDUs where he gains the notice of a federal agent named Winnie Tung Whittaker employed by DCIS. Winnie photographs Milgrim and intimidates him into working as an informant. Bigend asks Henry and Milgrim to investigate a secret brand, named Gabriel Hounds after the English legend. At the same time, he becomes aware that a coup is being plotted within his co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans—a "combination of lowlife and high tech"—and helped to create an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. Gibson coined the term " cyberspace" for "widespread, interconnected digital technology" in his short story "Burning Chrome" (1982), and later popularized the concept in his acclaimed debut novel ''Neuromancer'' (1984). These early works of Gibson's have been credited with "renovating" science fiction literature in the 1980s. After expanding on the story in ''Neuromancer'' with two more novels (''Count Zero'' in 1986, and ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' in 1988), th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spook Country
''Spook Country'' is a 2007 novel by speculative fiction author William Gibson. A political thriller set in contemporary North America, it followed on from the author's previous novel, ''Pattern Recognition'' (2003), and was succeeded in 2010 by ''Zero History'', which featured much of the same core cast of characters. The plot comprises the intersecting tales of three protagonists: Hollis Henry, a musician-turned-journalist researching a story on locative art; Tito, a young Cuban-Chinese operative whose family is on occasion in the employ of a renegade ex-CIA agent; and Milgrim, a drug-addled translator held captive by Brown, a strangely authoritarian and secretive man. Themes explored include the ubiquity of locative technology, the eversion of cyberspace and the political climate of the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. ''Spook Country'' quickly reached mainstream North American bestseller lists and was nominated for British Science Fiction Assoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cayce Pollard
Cayce Pollard is the fictional protagonist of William Gibson's 2003 novel ''Pattern Recognition''. Personal history Aged 32 during the events of ''Pattern Recognition'', Cayce lives in New York City. Though named by her parents after Edgar Cayce, she pronounces her given name "Case". She is a freelance marketing consultant, a coolhunter with an unusual intuitive sensitivity for branding, manifested primarily in her physical aversion to particular logos and corporate mascots. A notable exception to her ability to immediately discern semiotic content in imagery is the succession of images of the September 11 attacks in 2001, for her "an experience outside culture". The attacks had added significance to Cayce's backstory in that they encompassed the disappearance of her father, Win, which in turn impelled her mother, Cynthia, to exploring electronic voice phenomena as her own means of divining patterns in the background static. Cayce is left feeling "ungrieved" for her father unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Klein Blue
International Klein Blue (IKB) is a deep blue hue first mixed by the French artist Yves Klein. IKB's visual impact comes from its heavy reliance on ultramarine, as well as Klein's often thick and textured application of paint to canvas. History International Klein Blue (IKB) was developed by Yves Klein in collaboration with Edouard Adam, a Parisian art paint supplier whose shop is still in business on the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet in Montparnasse. IKB uses a matte, synthetic resin binder which suspends the color and allows the pigment to maintain as much of its original qualities and intensity of color as possible. The synthetic resin used in the binder is a polyvinyl acetate developed and marketed at the time under the name Rhodopas M or M60A by the French pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc. Adam still sells the binder under the name "Médium Adam 25". [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Di Filippo
Paul Di Filippo (born October 29, 1954) is an American science fiction writer. He is a regular reviewer for print magazines ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', ''Science Fiction Eye'', ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'', '' Interzone'', and ''Nova Express'', as well as online at ''Science Fiction Weekly''. He is a member of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop. Along with Michael Bishop, Di Filippo has published a series of novels under the pseudonym Philip Lawson. Antonio Urias writes that Di Filippo's writing has a "tradition of the bizarre and the weird". His novella '' A Year in the Linear City'' was nominated for a Hugo award. Early life Di Filippo was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Critical reception Antonio Urias praised the collection ''The Steampunk Trilogy'' (1995) in a brisk review, writing in summary that the tripartite book "contains three bizarre and occasionally humorous novels taking the reader from Queen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biopunk
Biopunk (a portmanteau of "biotechnology" or "biology" and "punk") is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on biotechnology. It is derived from cyberpunk, but focuses on the implications of biotechnology rather than mechanical cyberware and information technology. Biopunk is concerned with synthetic biology. It is derived of cyberpunk involving bio-hackers, biotech megacorporations, and oppressive government agencies that manipulate human DNA. Most often keeping with the dark atmosphere of cyberpunk, biopunk generally examines the dark side of genetic engineering and represents the low side of biotechnology. Description Biopunk is a subgenre of science fiction closely related to cyberpunk that focuses on the near-future (most often unintended) consequences of the biotechnology revolution following the invention of recombinant DNA. Biopunk stories explore the struggles of individuals or groups, often the product of human experimentation, against a typically dystopian b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Times Union (Albany)
The ''Times Union'' is an American daily newspaper, serving the Capital Region of New York. Although the newspaper focuses on Albany and its suburbs, it covers all parts of the four-county area, including the cities of Troy, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. It is owned by Hearst Communications. The paper was founded in 1856 as the ''Morning Times'', becoming ''Times-Union'' by 1891, and was purchased by William Randolph Hearst in 1924. The sister paper ''Knickerbocker News'' merged with the ''Times Union'' in 1988. The newspaper has been online since 1996. The editor of the ''Times Union'' is Casey Seiler, who has held the post since Feb. 1, 2020. He previously served as the paper's managing editor. George Hearst is the publisher. The newspaper is printed in its Colonie headquarters by the Hearst Corporation's Capital Newspapers Division. The daily edition costs $2 and the Sunday/Thanksgiving Day edition costs $3. Home delivery prices are slightly lower. The ''Times Union'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locative Art
Locative media or location-based media (LBM) are Electronic media, media of communication functionally bound to a location. The physical implementation of locative media, however, is not bound to the same location to which the content refers. Location-based media delivers multimedia and other Web content, content directly to the user of a mobile device dependent upon their location. Location information determined by means such as mobile phone tracking and other emerging real-time locating system technologies like Wi-Fi or RFID can be used to customize media content presented on the device. Locative media are digital media applied to real places and thus triggering real social interactions. While mobile technologies such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), laptop computers and mobile phones enable locative media, they are not the goal for the development of projects in this field. Description Media content is managed and organized externally of the device on a standard desk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Micromanagement
In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes, controls, and/or reminds the work of their subordinates or employees. Micromanagement is generally considered to have a negative connotation, mainly because it shows a lack of freedom and trust in the workplace.Chambers, Harry (2004)''My Way or the Highway'' Berrett Koehler Publishers, San Francisco. Retrieved on 20 June 2008. Definition Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as "manageentespecially with excessive control or attention on details". Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as "manageentor control with excessive attention to minor details". The online dictionary ''Encarta'' defined micromanagement as "attenionto small details in management: control fa person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details". Often, this excessive obsession with the most minute of details causes a direct management failure in the ability to focus on the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiv
In the United Kingdom, the word spiv is slang for a type of petty criminal who deals in illicit, typically black market, goods. The word was particularly used during the Second World War and in the post-war period when many goods were rationed due to shortages. According to Peter Wollen, "The crucial difference between the spiv and the classic Hollywood gangster was the degree of sympathy the spiv gained as an intermediary in the transfer of black market goods to ... a grateful mass of consumers."Peter Wollen (2002) ''Paris Hollywood - Writings on Film'' pp185–6 Origins The origin of the word is obscure. According to Eric Partridge the word was originally racecourse slang, but had become widely accepted by 1950. It appeared in a paperback crime novel in 1934.Axel Bracey (1934) ''School for Scoundrels'' (Rich and Cowan) The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that it may come from: *''spiffy'', meaning smartly dressed; *''spiff'', a bonus for salespeople (especially drap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
