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]   |
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Mona Lisa Overdrive
''Mona Lisa Overdrive'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following ''Neuromancer'' and ''Count Zero'', taking place eight years after the events of the latter. The novel was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 1989. Plot Taking place eight years after the events of ''Count Zero'' and fifteen years after ''Neuromancer'', the story is formed from several interconnecting plot threads, and also features characters from Gibson's previous works (such as Molly Millions, the razor-fingered mercenary from ''Neuromancer''). Thread one: concerns Mona, a teen prostitute who has a more-than-passing resemblance to famed Simstim superstar Angie Mitchell. Mona is hired by shady individuals for a "gig" which later turns out to be part of a plot to abduct Angie. Thread two: focuses on a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conway, South Carolina
Conway is a city in Horry County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 24,849 at the 2020 census, up from 17,103 in 2010 census. It is the county seat of Horry County and is part of the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area. It is the home of Coastal Carolina University. Numerous buildings and structures located in Conway are on the National Register of Historic Places. Among these is the City Hall building, designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument. Since the completion of the Main Street USA project in the 1980s, Conway's downtown has been revitalized with shops and bistros. Highlighting the renovation of the downtown area is the Riverwalk, an area of restaurants which follows a stretch of the Waccamaw River that winds through Conway. History Conway is one of the oldest towns in South Carolina. Early English colonists named the village "Kings Town" but soon changed it to "Kingston". The town was founded in 1732 as part of Royal Governor Robert J ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction. Comics exploring cyberpunk themes began appearing as early as Judge Dredd, first published in 1977. Released in 1984, William Gibson's influential debut novel ''Neuromancer'' helped solidify cyberpunk as a genre, drawing influence from punk subculture and early hacker culture. Other influential cyberpunk ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Count Zero
''Count Zero'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with ''Neuromancer'' and concludes with ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'', and is an example of the cyberpunk subgenre. ''Count Zero'' was serialized by ''Asimov's Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'' in the 1986 January (100th issue), February and March issues, accompanied by black and white art produced by J. K. Potter. The January cover is devoted to the story, with art by Hisaki Yasuda. The magazine version was edited to contain less swearing and sexual content. Plot introduction Seven years after the events of ''Neuromancer'', strange things begin to happen in the Matrix, leading to the proliferation of what appear to be Haitian Vodou, voodoo Loa, gods (hinted to be the fractured remains of the joined AIs that were Neuromancer and Wintermute). Two powerful multinational corporations, Maas B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burning Chrome
"Burning Chrome" is a science fiction short story by Canadian-American writer William Gibson, first published in '' Omni'' in July 1982. Gibson first read the story at a science fiction convention in Denver, Colorado in the autumn of 1981, to an audience of four people, among them Bruce Sterling (who Gibson later said "completely got it"). It was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1983 and collected with the rest of Gibson's early short fiction in a 1986 volume of the same name. Plot "Burning Chrome" tells the story of two freelance[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday reality. In cyberspace people can hide behind fake identities, as in the famous The New Yorker cartoon." (Delfanti, Arvidsson, 150) The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, government, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment, commonly defined as standing for the global network of interdependent information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems. Others consider cyberspace to be just a notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. The word became popular in the 1990s when the use of the Internet, networking, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wired (magazine)
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has been in publication since March/April 1993. Several spin-offs have been launched, including '' Wired UK'', ''Wired Italia'', ''Wired Japan'', and ''Wired Germany''. From its beginning, the strongest influence on the magazine's editorial outlook came from founding editor and publisher Louis Rossetto. With founding creative director John Plunkett, Rossetto in 1991 assembled a 12-page prototype, nearly all of whose ideas were realized in the magazine's first several issues. In its earliest colophons, ''Wired'' credited Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan as its "patron saint". ''Wired'' went on to chronicle the evolution of digital technology and its impact on society. ''Wired'' quickly became recognized ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Information Age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947, the optical amplifier in 1957, and Unix time, which began on January 1, 1970 and serves as the basis for Coordinated Universal Time and the Network Time Protocol. These technological advances have had a significant impact on the way information is processed and transmitted. According to the United Nations Public Administration Network, the Information Age was formed by capitalizing on computer microminiaturization advances, which led to modernized information systems and internet communications as the driving force of social evolution. Overview of early development ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style. The word ''iconography'' comes from the Greek ("image") and ("to write" or ''to draw''). A secondary meaning (based on a non-standard translation of the Greek and Russian equivalent terms) is the production or study of the religious images, called "icons", in the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian tradition (see Icon). This usage is mostly found in works translated from languages such as Greek or Russian, with the correct term being "icon painting". In art history, "an iconography" may also mean a particular depiction of a subject in terms of the content of the image, such as the number of figures used, their placing and gestures. The term is also used in many academic fields other than art history, for example semiotics ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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High Tech
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest technology on the market. The opposite of high tech is '' low technology'', referring to simple, often traditional or mechanical technology; for example, a slide rule is a low-tech calculating device. When high tech becomes old, it becomes low tech, for example vacuum tube electronics. The phrase was used in a 1958 ''The New York Times'' story advocating "atomic energy" for Europe: "... Western Europe, with its dense population and its high technology ...." Robert Metz used the term in a financial column in 1969, saying Arthur H. Collins of Collins Radio "controls a score of high technology patents in a variety of fields." and in a 1971 article used the abbreviated form, "high tech." A widely used classification of high-technological manuf ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Low-life
A low-life (or lowlife) is a term for a person who is considered morally unacceptable by their community. Examples of people society often labels low-lives include aggressive panhandlers, bullies, criminals, drug dealers, freeloaders, hobos, gangsters, people who make constant use of profanities, prostitutes, pimps, scammers, sexual abusers and thieves. Often, the term is used as an indication of disapproval of antisocial or destructive behaviors, usually bearing a connotation of contempt and derision. This usage of the word dates to 1911. The long-term origins of the ideas behind this in the Western world trace back to ancient times with the distinction of high culture associated with aristocracy at the top of the social hierarchy who were regarded in aristocrat-dominated society as compared with low culture associated with commoners at the bottom of the social hierarchy that included many impoverished people among them. In common usage, the term can also be used for people as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are made up of telecommunication network technologies, based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency methods that may be arranged in a variety of network topologies. The nodes of a computer network can include personal computers, servers, networking hardware, or other specialised or general-purpose hosts. They are identified by network addresses, and may have hostnames. Hostnames serve as memorable labels for the nodes, rarely changed after initial assignment. Network addresses serve for locating and identifying the nodes by communication protocols such as the Internet Protocol. Computer networks may be classified by many criteria, including the transmission medium used to carry signals, bandwidth, communications pro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |