haltingState

John Welkner

In halting state there was not really one term that through me off, but the format of the reading. I think that the way the author made the book so that it skips between charaters really throughs me off. Like you will be reading as sue the cop and get used to terms that a cop would use. Then it switches to Elaine who is playing an OLARP with a couple of people. When the book does throw out new terms it take me a while to figure them out because of this.

Clifford Chamberlin I agree with John Welkner on the issue of terminology in general. There weren't many technology related terms I couldn't figure out immediately, like the use of "mobie" for mobile phone. However, I was dumbstruck with the aforementioned terminology(or better labeled as seemingly absurd colloquialisms) until I realized that I would most likely never really understand most of it without a Google equivalent by my side throughout the reading. This realization came when I went from assuming that Stross was British to painfully understanding that he is in fact Scottish, or at least writes as if he is. This startling fact came into view slowly and then all at once when I encountered the Dickens-esque run on paragraph beginning on page 27 and including such words as "bampots", "neds", "collar-the-radge", "brangling", "tinnies", and my personal favorite, "chibbing", which contrary to it's silly and innocent sound to American ears is actually the Scottish equivalent of shanking or knifing without the prison connotation. Upon further investigation on Wiktionary is discoverd the following: "Bampot" is simply a word for idiot or fool, "Ned" refers to (usually) youths of low class and violent dispositions, "collar-the-radge" meaning to collar/arrest said neds which is referred to as the radge, "Brangling" is squabbling, and "Tinnies" are cans(empty or somewhat full) of beer. Considering I continue this Wiktionary escapade I will probably understand what's going on by about page 247.

Karen

Cliff, there are only a little over 300 pages in the book so I am glad you'll at least understand the last few chapters of the book.(Not just you, I think all of us are a lil' taken back by the wee bit o' the scotch.) I had never heard of the character Cthulhu who according to Wikipedia is a character created by H.P. Lovecraft and also has a place in mythology. Cthulhu is considered extreme evil and is squiddish looking. Here's a link if you want to see an image of Cthulhu [] You'll find the reference on page 67.

Jing Wang The word "lifelog" came cross my mind while I was reading. It's a very straight forward word that you can pretty much guess its meaning when you first see it. I found it interesting that there are people actually do this kind of thing. According to Wikipedia, "[|Lifeloggers (also known as lifebloggers or lifegloggers) typically wear computers in order to capture their entire lives, or large portions of their lives.]" Lifelogging started since 1980 when cameras and computers became small enough to wear. I still can't believe people wear computers and cameras to walk around for most of their lives. I think it would totally change their life especially social interaction.

@Jing - This reminds me of two movies I recommend watching if you find this kind of thing interesting or want to see a few more perspectives on it: //The Final Cut//, starring Robin Williams, is about a man who edits life recordings for people's funerals. //Freeze Frame// is about a man who records every minute of his life to protect himself from being charged with murder after having been acquitted of triple homicide once already.

Sam Sachs

A term I came accross not knowing while reading was GANT charts on page 73. Turns out these are a type of bar charts that illustrate a project schedule. more information about them []. Im also going to have to agree with John, the format of this book is rather confusing at this point. Its jumping from one part of the book to another part to another before coming back to the first part. Hopefully later in the book the paths will merge together and it will all make some sorta sense.

James Le I came across the two words on the same line, "shunt" and "M25", which is found on page 21. Further reading indicated that there was a car accident because a vehicle in front decided to do a brake check. Although I could vaguely piece it together I still didn't understand the exact meaning of the two words. Google told me that the "M25" is a 117-mile orbital motorway that almost encircles Greater London, UK. As for "shunt", I found quite a few definitions for it but seeing how the M25 was in the UK I assumed "shunt" was there too. Yahoo! Answers for UK & Ireland told me that in terms of vehicles & transportation, it means being hit up on the rear side by another vehicle.

John S. Rampersaud Heads-up display (HUD) – A HUD is a devise that produces information on a transparent screen showing the individual the vital information without having to look away from the task that is presented to them. The HUD is used in air-crafts, automobiles, and helmets. The military created the system to be used in their air-crafts and like most things created by the military the HUD made its way into commercial use for the regular population. The HUD has made driving, flying, and riding a bike safer by displaying the information on a screen in the vision of the user, giving them the ability to stay focused on the road and not have to look away.

Aula S Symbian/GDF- Symbian is an operating system designed for smartphones and mobile phones. Throughout the book the program Zone is mentioned to run on Symbian/GDF. GDF is a an abbreviation for Geographic Data Files. Geographic data files is a common reference model for most organization involved in creation, update, supply and application of reference structed road network data. I initially came across Symbian/GDF on page 57 and then once again on page 69. From what the book itself describes Symbian/GDF as the one of the distributed-processing platforms that most MMO run on.

Will Gallagher As the type of person who plays games regularly and keeps up with forward technology, it is easy for me to understand almost all of the terms in this book. Like most posters above me, confusion sets in when I am reading dialect heavy text. The best example I can think of, which Cliff mentions above, is Jack thinking to himself "...gets the brangling thugs playing a game on their mobies instead of lobbing tinnies and chibbing innocent bystanders..." Cliff compares this to Dickens' prose, but I liken it to //A Clockwork Orange//. In any case, the Cockney type speech is confusing and I don't try to understand it.

Kyle Long When I was finishing up a chapter, the novel was mentioning finances and the millions of dollars can put a complexion on a situation. I then came across a term called KPI matrix on page 18. I searched the web for the definition on the concept and it came up as “key performance indicator” ([|KPI]). The term stands for a measure of performance which is commonly used to assist an organization that define and evaluate how successful it is. It allows the organizations to promote long term organizational goals towards progression. The book uses the term as a scale for the money being demanded by Hackman and that even a robbery wouldn’t make the performance meter of the KPI matrix but the amount of money desired would have to the probability of being political.

David Weiss As for the terms, it's a piece of cake for me to understand them. What I don't understand is what the heck is happening in the book. It's like skipping around way too much that it confuses me whenever I read a new chapter. I've often found myself backtracking just to remember what's going on. What's even worse is the fact that the book puts me to sleep. I'd rather rewatch ExistenZ then have to put up with this book, no offense intended. It also annoys me how books of the gamer genre use illogical and/or unnecessary actions within the book's game world. Why the hell did they need an army to rob a in game "bank". Hello, that's what hacking is for, duh.

Alvaro Giorgetta Global Hegemony: I wasn't 100% sure what this meant. At first I thought it meant the struggling for global domination. But when I looked it up online (wikipedia to be more accurate) I found out that I was absolutely right! . Hegemony comes from the greek word hegemonia and means leadership. By the way I have to agree with David this book is very confusing!

David Noonan Throughout the book thus far, the author uses acronyms without explaining them. This happens most often in the chapters from Sue's perspective. The first time that one of these acronyms comes up is almost immediately - MOP is used without explanation on page 4 of the book. Also, the speech used by the characters is entirely too frustrating to read, especially since they apparently talk that way in their heads too.

Peter Quattrociocchi III This is much like Snow Crash, a book we had to read for another class. Words and or/ acronyms appear that are not of the English dictionary. However, there is enough context surrounding the use of the word to give an understanding of how it is used.

Andrew Montgomery I agree with you Peter, most of these types of books have acronyms that are not part of our "English dictionary," I beleive James noted out a word that I also found on page 21. "Shunt." Now knowing it had to do with a car accident, I investigated the word some more. "to shove or turn (someone or something) aside or out of the way. "....."to sidetrack; get rid of. "......."to move or turn aside or out of the way.", as James said there is tons of meaning to the word, however considering the car crash we can use our own imagination on what exactly happen from the meaning of the word. As I look through the novel there truly is alot of words that we might not understand, however when we look up the meaning we can get a better idea of what happen in the text.