After Chris pointed me at his discussion of Hannibal Lecter as posthuman, and I read his Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat after someone linked it on del.icio.us, I made the connection to the author I vaguely remembered from my days reading a lot of Kuro5hin and looked up everything localroger has written there. I find that localroger is truly a great American essayist of the internet era. Here's a selection of stories he wrote for K5, which happens to be most of them:
- Pilgrimage to Trinity: the circumstances and history of nuclear proliferation as inspired by a visit to the Trinity test site.
- Plant and Food Plant: the mechanism of modern industry as described by an industrial systems hacker.
- The Tip Jar as Revenue Model: A Real-World Experiment: the results of the free publication of his novel, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect.
- Bookends in Time: a personal reflection on the destruction of space shuttle Columbia.
- Hi, my name is Roger and I am a New Orleanian and Devastation: localroger is local to New Orleans, and these recent articles are about his experience with Hurricane Katrina.
- 69 Years Later, Is It Happening Here?: Lewis Sinclair's It Can't Happen Here, a novel about the possible ascent of Huey Long to American fascist dictator before World War II, as seen through the lens of the 2004 election.
- The Blank Slate: an elaboration on brain function and the folly of genetic determinism.
- Communication Protocol Design Basics, A Modest Search Engine Proposal, and Confessions of an Unrepentant Code Commando: various technical essays on developing industrial control software.
- Letter from the Delta: a slice of life from the same New Orleanian industrial plant systems programmer.
- Is the Universe Really Consistent?, The Fish Goes Away, The Next Big Paradigm Shift, The Purpose of Religion, and A Brief Introduction to Horary Astrology: essays on science and religion from a pragmatic hacker who still admits the possibility of mystery.
- Lastly, the piece of localroger's that I loved the most at the time, A Casino Odyssey: the four-part personal experience of hacking gambling.
I still haven't read his novel or any of his short fiction, but the strength of localroger's nonfiction makes me want to.
Comments
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Yeah, localroger is one hell of a writer. K5 in general still has some gems that get to the vote-driven front page, but there’s also real problem with abusive members.
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As someone who’s read Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, I’ll give you this summary: Ender is a kid who is told he’s playing a battle sim in training for protecting Earth against invasion, but he is actually being used to control a fleet that offensively exterminates a race. On learning what he’s been used for, Ender is devastated. He spends the second book learning about the species and spreading an understanding of the species. His goal is to ensure that the species can live again without humans fearing it, and in the end he introduces the last living member of the species to human civilization. Through the story, Ender works to safeguard a second civilization against extermination when that extermination would seem to be in humanity’s best interest, owing to a disease they carry.
I don’t see the Hitler parallel here. I see a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions in localroger’s writing being used to back snarky personal attacks against Orson Scott Card, but I don’t see the great essayist you’re talking about.
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Dude, A Modest Search Engine Proposal is anything but a “technical essa[y] on developing industrial control software.” For a better idea of what it’s about, go check out The Adequacy Style Troll (AST): A Brief Refresher .
Enjoy.
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Wow, interweb’s a dick.