Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel.  Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.

Happy Birthday To Meeeeee!

Today I am 30 years old.

I distinctly remember when my mom turned 30. She was rather upset by it. I must have picked up on her feelings, because I liked to announce her age to complete strangers in a dramatic, singsong voice. "I'm 5 and my mom is thirteeeeee!" Then I'd watch her squirm. What terrible power a saucy 5-year-old can wield.

According to a recent article in the New York Times Style section, turning 30 is "no longer apocalyptic"; it's the "new 22!" I shudder to agree with the Style section, but it's kind of true. Thanks to birth control pills and medical technology that now lets you have kids safely later, the 20s have become a kind of extended adolescence. One has bills to pay, sure, a career to built, maybe, but there's no longer huge pressure to quickly acquire a mortgage, kids, husband, and so on.

Hit 30, though, and the pressure one used to feel in one's 20s is suddenly very real. A number of books, academic studies, and news reports are fueling a backlash movement that claims it's a mistake for women to put careers before having kids; the costs have been tremendous in terms of fertility treatments, disabled children, to say nothing of the toll a bouncing child has on the aging woman's body. As one study author put it: "Modern women may have gone too far, trading off so much to amass resources that they have lost the long-term game--evolutionary survival of their descendants." Holy shit! I better breed now. The evolutionary survival of my descendants is at stake!

Do I feel the pressure to make babies, buy a house, and finally be a grownup? Hell yes, I feel the pressure. Today, however, I’m going to celebrate like I'm 22 again, minus about four Cosmopolitans, staying up too late, chain smoking . . .

Thanks, Mom! (For having me, that is.)

Discuss

posted by Jenn Shreve at 10:10:43 AM | permalink

Vanity Image Search

I Googled my image, and this was the first thing that popped up! It's a mortuary instructor that I interviewed for Salon back in 1999. The Alan Rapp I found on Google Image looks nothing like my husband, and since when is David Pescovitz a skinny woman on a workout machine?

This is a very fun way to kill time. Discuss

posted by Jenn Shreve at 9:37:48 AM | permalink

Flea Market

On the first Sunday of every month, you are likely to find me sifting through house wares, books, and vintage jackets at the Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire, Northern California’s largest antiques and collectibles show. It's the perfect place to find mirrored 8-track players, Eames rockers, scientific guides to careers in "the Atomic Age," complete sets of "Man & Woman" magazine, and other wonderful things.

Located on a former Navy base, the scale of the market is somewhat boggling. A friend recently pointed me to the Faire's official Web site, which has an amazing panoramic shot that spans the edge of the parking lot to the end of the vendor booths.

I think shopping for used items is a good way to contribute economically without gobbling up new resources or exploiting sweatshop labor. There are certainly enough used goods to go around for some time.

Thanks, Shawn.

Discuss

posted by Jenn Shreve at 4:13:25 PM | permalink

The future is now

[See a bigger version here.]

Futurists and doomsayers have long predicted a future in which parents would customize their offspring in the same way they would a new car. Um, yes, I'd like the blue eyed, female, musically gifted model, thank you. So when I saw this advertisement, plain as day, in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times (where else?), I had to pinch myself. Clearly the future arrived while I wasn't looking.

The introductory text of this ad allows for people who both want and need to choose certain traits, treating the two motivating factors (I don't want another damn girl) and (If I have a girl, she might get my nasty genetic disorder) as equals. I like the name of the system used to separate the unwanted traits from those desired: "MicroSort gender selection procedure." Very heartwarming. Something called "Family balancing" is included in the benefits of using MicroSort. I predict a whole field of study based on family balancing, using what we currently know about age differences in siblings, etc., with all the choices new technology allows.

Rant: It strikes me that all the antiabortion maniacs should wholeheartedly support this type of endeavor rather than complaining about how it's mucking up with "God's plan for mankind." Perhaps genetic sorting could lead to fewer unwanted fetuses and hence fewer abortions. Fewer orphaned baby girls in China. And talk about every child being a wanted child--right down to their perfect little toes.

Discuss

posted by Jenn Shreve at 10:33:55 AM | permalink

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