Nora, you made me want my Nana back, not that I ever don't, but grandmothers totally get it. Your grandmother is wise, discerning, completely right, and rocks.

Amen!

She knows...God only knows how she knows, but she knows.

Well, when Tom and I moved in together (not married), there was a bit of a wonder about what to say to Grandma about it. The sex before marriage thing, or co-habitation, is not really her reality. I just figured that she'd ignore what she needed to ignore, and denial is a wonderful thing. It turnded out, my dad came up to Tom at some family function we'd gone to CT for, and said all covert, "Grandma knows... and she's OK with it!"

Cute!

Grandmas know all!

The hell?

Of course Snow Crash is cyberpunk.

The question is whether Cryptonomicon is cyberpunk.

Oh dear. By the time you get to Cryptonomicon, classifying Stephensen's stuff as ANYTHING, even Science Fiction, is hard. It's historical-science-drama-action-fiction. That holds even more for Quicksilver et al.

But I'd say that Cryptonomicon is definitely not cyberpunk. Not enough punk. Not enough cyber in the sense of the metaverse-style cyber, either.

Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is something of a precursor to the genre, and is otherwise an excellent book.

I actually read that in college, for my Sci-Fi Cinema class. (Seriously.)

It's weird to be relieved that sj has migraines, but it's certainly better thn some of the alternatives that sprang to mind, so i'm gonna go with the relief.

There's an anthology of cyberpunk short stories from the 90s called Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling, I think. I like him as an editor, though I don't like the stories he writes. It was supposed to be a manifesto for the cyberpunk movement, iirc.

{{{Maria}}}

Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is something of a precursor to the genre, and is otherwise an excellent book.

Also, the movie version of it (Blade Runner) , to me, embodies what I think of as cyberpunk. Kind of a sci-fi film noir, all gritty and paranoid.

Another good cyberpunk novel: Pat Cadigan's Synners.

Congratulations, Nora!!!

{{{Maria}}} Sounds like Beej had some good advice. I hope you can find your way out of this mess soon.

Also relieved that sj is OK. I get ocular migraines every now and then; actually, my doctor called them "silent migraines" because I almost never have any pain with them. I hope the same is true for sj, because without all the nasty other migraine symptoms, the ocular migraines aren't too bad (at least, mine aren't).

Hey, Billytea! Long time no posting with. Or something.

Yeah, I'm trying something new, it involves putting in a full workday. There are benefits to it, albeit not for me. No, that's not true, I'm actually fairly happy with how the job's going so far. But I miss you guys. Because you've all gone to bed when I'm posting, you see, and I'm all "Bugger, missed them again".

Billytea! As I was packing (or at least pretending to) the other day, I found something I want to send you. Can you send me your snailmail address?

Yes!

...

What, now? Um, just a sec...

I'd hate to cost you a dollar plus postage, but one of these days, you should send me a shiny Aussie dollar, BT.

I'm cheap. How about you come over and collect it? I could put you up for the night.

BT! Alive and well. Yay! Man, a dollar AND a place to sleep just to come visit Australia. That seems like an awesome deal.

{{Maria}} I kept wishing for a solution. It seems insane that they can tell you that you owe when you know you don't. I hope Beej's solution works for you.