Talk:Snow Crash

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[edit] first reference to avatars?

Albeit the term "avatar" was used by the first to mean a graphical representation of user at Habitat, I believe Snow Crash is the first novel where the concept of avatar is fully developed, with detailed descriptions of avatars in cyberspace (metaverse). Is this true? If so I can add to the main entry. Cheers, MarioGuima 12:17, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] discrepancies

Can we get some verification for this=> "L. Bob Rife (based on L. Ron Hubbard)" ??? Dustin Asby 09:14, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

L. Bob Rife is founding a religion, he has a boat. It's been a while since I read it, but I think there are other "similarities". I remember thinking it was a reference to Hubbard when I read it. Mikkel 09:22, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Considering the brainwashing tactics of Rife, their attempted corruption of the internet through the virus, the boat, the similarity in name structure, and the propagandist actions of the "raft"... if you compare all that to Hubbard and some of the actions of the Scientologist movement (eg. Scientology vs. the Internet ), I'd say it's fairly safe that Stephenson at least had Hubbard in mind when he was creating Rife. Arcuras 19:52, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Rife always struck me as a kind of mix of L. Ron Hubbard, Ted Turner, and possibly Pat Robertson. I think the best way to incorporate this topic into the article would be a quote or comment from Stephenson on his inspiration for Rife, if there is one out there. Otherwise it's probably better just to describe Rife as he is presented in the text of the novel, without speculating on the real-life model for the character. MFNickster 05:54, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this novel was written prior to the incidents between Scientology and the Internet Community. That can't have been a consideration in the characterisation. The Sea Org does spring to mind, though.212.85.13.113 17:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] L. Bob Rife

I snipped this from the L. Bob Rife article, which is now redir'd here:

L. Bob Rife was born in 1948, probably in Odessa, Texas. There he played fullback in high school for Permian High (the school featured in Friday Night Lights). He was on the second-string Texas all-state team in his senior year before going on to Rice University on an academic scholarship and majoring in communications. He then became a television sports reporter in the Houston area and after two years of this went into the communications business with his great uncle, a financier with ties in the oil business.

For five years Rife's activities were consisted of expanding his business throughout the United States until he began giving vast amounts of money to religious organizations and the archeology, astronomy, and computer science departments of his own university in Bayview, Texas, Rife Bible College. Shortly after, Rife was also expanding his fiber-optics market into East Asia after forcing the Japanese to let him in and expand his ever growing monopoly.

He's also a thinly guised parody of L. Ron Hubbard, particularly The Barge / Sea Org.

[edit] Gushing removed

Like many postmodern novels, Snow Crash has a unique style and a chaotic structure which many readers find difficult to follow. It is crammed full of subtle references to geography, politics, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, history, and computer science, and its rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading.

This paragraph is a little too POV for a WP article. I would have edited it a bit for POV-ness, except that it's just plain wrong: how many people had to read the book four times to get it? You don't need a companion volume to understand this --- it's not exactly the computer age's Finnegan's Wake or Gravity's Rainbow. jdb ❋ (talk) 00:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just to point out, I wrote that sentence. I was introduced to Snow Crash through a large college seminar that covered a wide range of American literature (long story). I have always been a science-fiction fan from a young age (although at the time I had only read a little cyberpunk) and I fell in love with the book right away, but even then it wasn't until my second reading that I noticed all the funny little details that Stephenson packs in. Most of the people in the seminar were not science-fiction fans and kept whining at every class at how the book was boring, unreadable, chaotic, impossible to understand, incoherent, etc. The instructor ended up having do a lot more lecturing as opposed to discussion for Snow Crash because few people in the class understood the book well-enough (even after multiple attempts at reading it) to hold a coherent discussion about its themes and underlying implications.

And in case you're about to retort that most people in most colleges are idiots, I should point out that this was at the most prestigious public university in the United States (guess which one). So the average IQ of these people was a bit higher than your average community college student. Of course, my alma mater ranks at only between 20 and 25 on the U.S. News & World Report ratings, but I doubt the population of the universities that ranked even higher (the Ivy League) could be considered representative of the world English-speaking population.

The point I'm trying to get across is that WP is for a general intellectual audience, not just hard sci-fi fans who take computer jargon and cyberpunk style for granted. Keep in mind that most people's idea of science fiction is simple, linear, childish fantasy stuff like what Anne McCaffrey writes (I am specifically thinking of The Ship That Sang series). Most people, once they finish their mandatory English requirements in high school, never get around to reading contemporary writers like Philip Roth or Milan Kundera who love to screw around with the reader's sense of time and location.

So, I think it's fair to imply in the article that Snow Crash is a bit harder than the garbage that passes for bestsellers on Amazon nowadays.

--Coolcaesar 03:34, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. It's been a week with no reply from Jdb. I'm putting my passage back in for now.

--Coolcaesar 00:17, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed your reply. If you want to put it back, OK -- it sounds like you've spent more time considering this issue than I have. But please rephrase it to use more NPOV language --- "crammed full of subtle references" and "rich texture is best appreciated upon a third or even fourth reading" are phrases appropriate for a dust jacket or PublishersWeekly blurb, but not an encyclopedia article. thanks, jdb ❋ (talk) 01:38, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pit bull reference removed

I've removed the reference to the novel "also centering on pit bull terriers being good pets", which is quite inexact. There are pit bulls in the book, but they hardly would be defined as important, even if one of them plays a relevant part before the end. And certainly the novel does not make emphasis in pit bulls being good pets; just a comment that the one YT and her boyfriend found was nice and friendly.

BTW, I'm not sure the bit about unanswered questions does belong on the article, either (surely there are dozens of unanswered questions of that caliber). But I'll leave it to others to remove, if necessary. --Lektu 21:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I concur with your view that the novel did not center on pit bull terriers. The issue of Y.T.'s relationship with a pit bull terrier (who later became a Rat Thing) was only a minor part of the larger theme of whether machines or flesh are superior. The more important representative aspects of that theme include Y.T.'s initial in-the-flesh meeting with Ng, and the final confrontation with Raven, where Uncle Enzo thought to himself that he would rather have a good soldier with polished shoes and a 9mm pistol, as opposed to all of Ng's fancy machines. --Coolcaesar 23:24, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

The pitbull did save her life at the end of the movie as well as killing several villains. The story included point of view and *internal monologue* of Y.T.'s old pitbull as well. -Thodin

Put it on the "Important characters" section, then. There's no doubt that Fido is a character of certain relevance, as the ending shows. But that does not make true the comment I removed. The book does not try to defend the position that pit bull terriers are good pets, and the fact that Fido is a pit bull (as opposed to, let's say, a fila brasileiro or a gos d'atura) is totally irrelevant. --Lektu 22:33, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] We should NOT have a list of other cyberpunk authors on this page

Yo everyone: This page is NOT a general overview of the cyberpunk genre. This is an article about Snow Crash. We already have a cyberpunk article just for cyberpunk in general. Therefore, we should NOT have a separate list of cyberpunk authors on this page. Most of those novels on the list aren't even remotely similar to Snow Crash in style or subject matter (e.g., Darwin's Radio).

There was a similar problem over in the Judge article two months ago, where we had a list of famous judges that partially duplicated List of judges. Now the Judge article simply has a link to List of judges. That's the way to do it. The point of hypertext is to say it once and link to that text and not repeat the same thing ten times.

Come on, people, this is a hypertext encyclopedia, not a paper encyclopedia! It's not that hard.

If someone doesn't come up with a good reason for why we should have a separate list here, I'm getting rid of it in a week (or less).

--Coolcaesar 04:45, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it would be more appropriate to post a link to cyberpunk or list of cyberpunk authors or something similar in the "See also" section.

– Mipadi 04:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with Coolcaesar. Articles that include lists like this become bloated beyond the scope of topic at hand. And no one can ever seem to agree on who should be included in these lists. -->Chemical Halo 05:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree so much I yanked the list. A list of cyberpunk authors might be a worthy page to create, if anyone has the urge and/or time. Turnstep 13:20, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of that. I agree that a separate article dedicated to such a list could be a good idea, but it should be linked from Cyberpunk, not here. --Coolcaesar 00:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why the garbage information on Enki has to go

Okay, to avoid a violation of the 3RR, I am formally raising an issue. I can't believe I have to state the obvious.

First, I traced the source of that poorly written garbage about Enki in the article. It was brought in by user Mirv at this edit on 6 September 2005[[1]], from the Enki article, where it was introduced by user 70.179.255.248 at this edit [[2]] on 21 July 2005.

Now, here are the defects in that passage which justify why it should go (now I feel thankful for the weekly passage-and-response critique exercises that are mandatory in California middle school English classes):

(1) Unencyclopedic style. Stream-of-consciousness style is grossly inappropriate for an encyclopedia, especially when it appears to be coming from the consciousness of a five-year-old with an apparent inability to focus.

(2) Paragraph and sentence length is too long. Only insanely difficult European philosophers like Hegel write paragraphs and sentences that long. Modern English style as formulated by Strunk and White in Elements of Style is short and concise.

(3) First-person voice. This has been debated again and again on the Manual of Style talk page, and the consensus was to stay away from it unless there is a clearly demonstrated need. It sounds unencyclopedic and too often allows writers to sneak in original research in violation of the No original research policy.

(4) Disorganized. Rewriting this mess would take too much time. I estimate that at a minimum, this would have to be broken into 5 separate paragraphs and all sentences would have to be split in two if not three. The disorganized structure of the passage requires significant reordering; probably over half of all sentences would have to exchange places. Do you have the time and energy to do that? I have better things to do like prepare for the massive reorganization of the Lawyer family of articles I have been planning for a month (see Talk:Lawyer and Talk:Juris Doctor).

(5) Even if it's relevant, it's too much information and probably non-notable. Relevance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for info to stay on Wikipedia. This is in-depth information more appropriate for a Cliff's Notes book, not casual Web users looking for a light, general treatment of the subject.

Of course, if you have the time, skill, and energy to rewrite the passage into something coherent that actually fits with the rest of the article, feel free to do so. Otherwise, I'm taking it out in another week. --Coolcaesar 03:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I have rewritten it. Do you have objections to this version of the text? --Sn0wflake 05:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for rewriting that hairball of a passage; it's getting better. I will think about it and raise any more objections if I can come up with any. --Coolcaesar 20:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metaverse Question

In the book, does he ever describe how users of Metaverse terminals input commands or movements? Someone on Slashdot mentioned that he never actually describes the input method, and left it to the reader's imaginations. I know he describes the VR visual display system in detail, but I can't recall him ever escribing how the users actually controlled their avatars, unlike in Gibson's Neuromancer and other CP books. I don't have a copy to look through at the moment. Identity0 05:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a copy of the book in front of me, and I don't think he actually does address this. I have to admit it's bugging me. While I do like the idea of the VR being projected directly onto the retina instead of plugging in via some sort of brian port (as is more common in cyberpuck), without any way to tell how they're actually controlling their avatars a lot of the scenes in the metaverse just frustrate me. How are they sword fighting, for starters? Is the "greatest swordfighter in the world" merely pressing the a button really fast? (12 May, 2006)

Presumably you can use different input methods - in the swordfight with the Japanese businessman, Hiro exits the Metaverse when Vitaly blocks his goggles, and he's standing with his sword outside the U-Stor-It with people hiding from Hiro. So evidently Hiro was actually acting out the fight with his body. On the other hand, it describes the businessman as "in a nice hotel in London or an office in Tokyo or even in the first-class lounge of the LATH, the Los Angeles/Tokyo Hypersonic, sitting in front of his computer, red-faced and sweating, looking at The Black Sun Hall of Fame." So presumably the businessman was not acting out the fight, but using some type of controller. Also, remember that some "black-and-whites" enter the Metaverse through public access booths, which makes it unlikely that they can use body-motion sensors. The input method is an interesting thought problem, but it's not really essential to the story. MFNickster 16:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

In the acknowledgement he mentions something about some pictures he made for the book, but never made it to print. Does anyone know if these pictures are available?

I think you're referring to his discussion of how the project began as a computerized graphic novel. I don't know if the art created for the computer version was ever published. --Coolcaesar 05:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

He claims that he wrote more code than prose for the project. If he spent that long writing, I can only assume that the code never produced an image... --Joel 21:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Da5id Meier pronunciation

FWIW, I have Snow Crash in audiobook format, and the name is pronounced "David." I believe that is the correct pronunciation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.41.51.3 (talk • contribs)

I always pronounced it "Day-sid" to myself, but "Day-vid" probably is correct. Note that Roman numeral 5 is V. Of course, you wouldn't want to run too far with that idea, since D and I are also roman numerals. --Mdwyer 22:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge: Dav5id and Juanita Marquez

I'm proposing that Da5id and Juanita Marquez be merged with this article. The fiction notability guidelines suggest that these characters probably don't warrant their own article, and it makes sense to put them here. While both characters are important, neither is really important or widely known outside this work of literature. – Mipadi 13:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree and support a merger. Reading this book right now for the second time. - Zepheus (ツィフィアス) 19:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree as per Mipadi. -Blahm 23:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree - there is no need for separate articles on these characters. MFNickster 07:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree - While both are integral characters in the overall story of the book, their characterization simply is not detailed enough to warrant its own article. I do, however, suggest a redirect for those two names back to the main Snow Crash article to help ensure that people searching for the names who are unfamiliar with the way that Wikipedia works will be able to find the content that they desire. --Thorne N. Melcher 05:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone else think the "important characters" section is getting a little fat? Someone just added "Roadkill," who has about 4 lines in the book. MFNickster 15:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. I think it'd be nice to trim out the "unimportant" characters, and expand the information on the main characters. – Mipadi 15:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged the characters. I think some of the "important characters" could still be removed, though. It might also be a good idea to expand the information on the main characters, and perhaps give each one a header so that they can easily be linked to from other articles (if a writer wants to directly link to Da5id, for example). – Mipadi 15:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: The Raft & editorializing "Camp of the Saints"

I'm not sure if that part needs to be cleaned up or not, since I have never read the book cited. the poster uses the term "appears to be" and "openly racist", which in my opinion violates NPOV as well as appearing unverifiable. However, I admit that I don't have the guts to edit this myself because of the sensitivity of the topic and inability to cite this one properly. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.99.158 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 Aug 2006 (UTC)

I went and removed it. You're right, "openly racist" isn't even used in the entry for "Camp of the Saints" so it shouldn't be here, either. Maybe if there's some proof that it's a parody someone will put it back (with a cite this time). Wyatt Riot 09:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Calling "Camp of the Saints" racist is silly. I restored the reference because it is obvious to those who have read both books. That two dystopian novels feature a floating craft of immigrants deserves mention. Yakuman 01:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Right, but did Stephenson actually derive his Raft concept from Camp of the Saints? It's one thing if an author explicitly credits another by borrowing particular named characters or titles. For example, if an author explicitly mentions Cosette and Valjean, then it's obvious that a reference to Les Miserables is intended. But if there's a mere similarity of general concepts, that may not be enough. After all, Vietnamese boat people were a huge media phenomenon back in the 1980s when Stephenson was first developing his writing skills, because they were constantly highlighted in the American media as the unfortunate result of American foreign policy in Southeast Asia. It's just as likely that Stephenson could have drawn the idea of the Raft from those media reports.

I've read Snow Crash over 10 times and I never saw an explicit reference in there to Camp of the Saints. It seems like you're drawing a very weak inference, and Wikipedia can't be the first publisher of such an inference. Please read, in their entirety, the relevant Wikipedia core policies at Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. --Coolcaesar 17:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uru inspired by Snowcrash?

I find it highly unlikely that Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was inspired by Snowcrash. Did Cyan (creators) ever state that anywhere? The only similarity that exists between the two works, is that Uru lets the user interact in a MMO environment. Uru's theme is based on the earlier Myst series games which are very far removed from Cyberpunk.

I propose this is maybe changed to using 'Second Life' as a reference, as this is much closer to the concept of the Street and the Metaverse. Interestingly enough, the concept of virtual real estate and its value and trade is realy evident and publicised in 'Second Life'. Add a reference to that? --Vanillaflava 16:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time period

There was a recent edit that changed the time period of the novel from the "end of the 20th century" to the "early 21st century". Is there really a definitive time period for the novel? I've read it numerous times, and just finished re-reading it, and there are no dates given, so is there any concrete way to ascertain the time period? I always got the feeling the novel did take place around the end of the 20th century (but in a "fractured timeline" as noted in the article), not the early 21st century. – Mipadi 19:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I originally changed it to "around the end of the 20th century" from "the arguably near future", because there are some clues in the novel that the timeframe is right around the present day (ergo no longer the future). Stephenson mentions that Hiro and Raven were born in the early '70s, and describes Hiro as a "man around thirty." Put the clues together, and you're looking at a setting around 2005, certainly no later than 2010. My guess is that Stephenson was shooting for 15-odd years after the publication date (1992), which certainly fits "the early 21st century." Because the novel is vague, though, I just used the turn-of-the-century mark to keep the time setting general. MFNickster 20:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the book says that Raven was born in 1972; I'm guessing Hiro was born around the same time. I thought it mentioned somewhere in the book that Hiro was 27, but I can't seem to find the passage. – Mipadi 01:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Here are some of the clues I found:

1. "Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944, at the age of sixteen, and spent a year in the Pacific, most of it as a prisoner of war. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. By that time, Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension, but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service, and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties." So Hiro's dad was born around 1928. He would have been 42 in 1970.

2. "[Hiro] recognizes many of the people in here, but as usual, he's surprised and disturbed by the number he doesn't recognize—all those sharp, perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. Software development, like professional sports, has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit."

3. Juanita and Hiro were freshmen together in college, when Hiro was 17. At Black Sun Systems, Juanita tells Hiro (before they began dating) that she thought she was pregnant when she was 15, then comments that she was a grad student 10 years later. We find out she married Da5id after her breakup with Hiro, and divorced Da5id two years later. The Black Sun took off shortly thereafter, So Juanita is at least 28 in the storyline.

4. Hiro: "My father went home and kicked around for a while and finally had a kid during the seventies. So did yours."

Raven: "Ainchitka, 1972. My father got nuked twice by you bastards."

MFNickster

Many grad students go to industry before or during their studies, especially in the CS field. Many grad students are married. This means Juanita could have both married and divorced Da5id before she was 25. The passage seems to indicate that the "10 years later" was still a while before she married Da5id (since she spent time dating and then breaking up with Hiro), and that the divorce two years later was a long time ago from the book's perspective. The youngest estimate of her age would have her date Hiro while a freshman in college and concurrently working at Black Sun, then marrying Da5id soon thereafter, then going back to grad school after the divorce and separation from the company ... she would still be in grad school, and she would be 25 years old. A more traditional view would have her graduate college at 22, get a PhD at 27, put her at Black Sun for two or so years before tying the knot with Da5id, divorced around 31, and a few years have passed since then, putting her in her early-to-mid thirties.

Clue 4 combined with the assumption that clue 2's "thirty-year-old men" is intended to include Hiro (a fair assumption) means the book takes place between 2000 and 2019 (a 30-year-old born in 1970 vs a 39-year-old born in 1979). I got the impression Raven's father was older than Hiro's (he was at least more experienced and mature given Hiro's story at the end), as that Raven was older than Hiro, so I figure Hiro was born around 1974 or so. I think the logic in clue 3 suggests Juanita is a year or two older than Hiro (which makes her marriage to the older Da5id more believable). Coupled with my above paragraph, this means Hiro is in his early thirties, which in conjunction with a birth date around 1974, sets the book around 2006. It may be a good assumption to consider that Stephenson wrote the book in 1988 and likely placed it twenty years in the future, which would be 2008. With the exception of language like "gippers" (which speaks of Reagan), he does a very good job of not discussing history after the Vietnam War, leaving 30+ years for corporate takeovers and governmental failure, only ten of which needed to be covert/revisionist.

Based on this, I'd say the best timeframe to cite would be "in the near future." The purposeful lack of the 10-15 years proceeding the book's publication date makes it timeless enough to fit in today's near-future as well (if you disregard the dates used for the previous generation and the birth decades, which Stephenson could have done by making Raven's grudge one inherited by land and blood and by stationing Hiro's father in one of the US military bases in Japan established after WWII that are still present to this day, then nixing the silliness about their family ties). --Adam Katz 23:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

That'd be 2009, not 2019. The only problem is, it was "the near future" in 1992, but that was 15 years ago, so I think "early 21st century" works better than "the near future" for the purposes of the article. Interesting that he didn't work the Y2K problem into the story somehow! MFNickster 01:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The actual time period may be a mute point; it seems like the important thing for the reader to realize is that the novel does not exist in the present world. To quote Stephenson, "The science fiction approach doesn't mean it's always about the future; it's an awareness that this is different." 71.224.60.238 (talk) 20:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Juanita Marquez edit

Regarding this edit: I think the previous information should be retained. Juanita's info might be longer than that of the other characters, but I think there was some good information that was removed. All the info there was merged from Juanita Marquez, and I think it's interesting and relevant to the book and this article. It should be replaced, but since two edits have been reverted, I thought I should get the input of other editors before reverting again. – Mipadi 23:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching this Edit Skirmish as it's happened. I can see both sides. I think that 67.183.29.218 believes that there is too much content for such a small character, while Mipadi contends that the information is relevant to the article. In my opinion, the information that was deleted was overdoing it a little. The phrase "capable of divining that her granddaughter was pregnant just by watching her face" seems silly and trivial. Although it was a turning point for the character, it's role in the novel is moot. It's more important that she studies information processing, and less important how she came to study it. Also, I've read the book, and I don't care that she is "mystical and cranky;" all I want to know is her relation to the main character(s) and how she fits into the novel. In conclusion, I tend to agree with our anonymous IP friend, but I'm also not sure we should throw out the 99%, so to speak, when it could be rewritten and improved. - Zepheus <ツィフィアス> 00:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Moderation in all things. There was some silliness and trivia there, but not let us go overboard. -- Gwern (contribs) 00:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There were some pretty relevant pieces of info that related directly to the themes of the novel; I think they should be retained. – Mipadi 05:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Da5id Meier = Sid Meier ??

Other than the fact that they are both computer programmers, what is the basis of this comparison? Meier is a relatively common last name... Venicemenace 18:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Stephenson does seem to like packing in the allusions. And Meier is a common last name? I dont actually see that many entries on the Meier page. --Gwern (contribs) 20:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter - unless you have some information from Stephenson saying that Sid Meier is (at least partly) the inspiration, then it is unverifiable original research and doesn't belong in the article. MFNickster 20:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Venice, also note that the first name is in l33t. In l33t, Da is "the" and 5 is an "s", so the real name is "the sid meier". I don't think it is too much to suggest that Stephenson is passing familiar with l33t. As for whether this is OR... no author unpacks all (or generally even some) of their allusions, so the best that can be done is to lay out the reasoning and point to other who have noticed this.[3][4][5] --Gwern (contribs) 20:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Gwern, I don't think the number of notable Meiers (ie. the # of entries on the Meier page) is a good indicator of how common the last name is. It seems to me that the V/5 connection, strengthened by the audiobook pronunciation as "DAVID", is a lot stronger than any hard evidence linking the character to Sid Meier - message board speculation of a l33t angle notwithstanding. There are a number of primary characters in the novel that are NOT apparently based on real people, so the idea that this character is remains purely speculative. "Da" Sid Meier? I don't know, it just seems like a huge reach to me. Venicemenace 16:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems someone has removed Gwern's l33t explanation...without which the Sid Meier statement does not hold up at all. Eventually it MUST be either removed or strengthened, IMO. Venicemenace 04:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

To Gwern: none of the sources you cite is notable, and a couple of them have content mirrored from Wikipedia. The first one doesn't mention "Da5id" at all. Perhaps Stephenson is alluding to Sid Meier, but without a citation, it is original research. The article shouldn't engage in literary criticism. MFNickster 05:31, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleted. --Kjoonlee 05:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hiroaki or Hirohito

Two days ago someone changed the name from Hiroaki to Hirohito. Apparently some references on the web show Hirohito as the full name of Hiro. According to my paperback ISBN 0-553-56261-4, it is Hiroaki, on page 89. Fred Hsu 03:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The novel is the definitive reference. Just make sure to cite it whenever you revert 'Hirohito'. :) MFNickster 04:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur. It is definitely Hiroaki. I've read Snow Crash at least 8 or 9 times from cover to cover and I wrote a large part of this article (just trace the history back to about 2004 or so), so I should know. --Coolcaesar 08:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

thank you for doing so, this is a gorgeous and wonderful article. it should be front page. 144.15.255.227 01:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Dystopia"

The article includes "The setting is a near-future dystopian version of Los Angeles...". However, it then goes on to describe several things which are anything but dystopian, as dystopia has it. Is there any grounds to describe this as dystopian by Wikipedia's definition? Or is Wikipedia's definition wrong? If neither, this has to go. Notinasnaid 21:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. While the Los Angeles in Snow Crash probably isn't a place I'd want to live, it doesn't seem to be presented as a dystopia in any sense of the word. I removed it. Wyatt Riot 23:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Snow Crash is used as an example (along with "other cyberpunk literature") at Dystopia. "a totally or near-totally socially privatized world without a democratic state or with a state that only serves the business sector" seems pretty much on-target. I vote for reinstatement. Jerry Kindall 00:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I just don't know if Snow Crash is bleak enough to be considered a dystopia. I would also question inserting the term here merely because the book is mentioned in another article, especially in a section which is tagged as unreferenced. I googled "Snow Crash dystopia" quickly and no reliable references jumped out at me, but it was a quick search and I didn't look very hard. I would prefer some kind of reference outside Wikipedia saying that the book is indeed a dystopia before it's added here, but that's just my opinion. Wyatt Riot 01:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree: there should be a reference for this, and a reliable one (not e.g. an Amazon reader comment). Take care though - being bleak isn't the qualifying factor, according to dystopia. I have noticed a tendency to find countless things described as a dystopia, apparently just because they are gloomy, even stories that describe post-apocalypse anarchy without any form of order. Notinasnaid 09:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Ruling class"

The term "ruling class" is not present anywhere in Snow Crash. If you want to convey the idea presented in the book of a global elite, the wording needs to be changed. Also, the phrasing was grammatically incorrect. 04:14, November 24, 2006 Salvor Hardin

I did not write that phrase, but I restored it last time, because I felt that its removal took away something from the article. Perhaps the wording needs to be changed, but simply removing a phrase is not the right thing to do. Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC) See actual text

That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest, hippest, best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives.

Also, why did you remove the word "chaotic" from "Set in a chaotic world with a political-economic..."? The book describes an extremely chaotic place, don't you agree? Fred Hsu 14:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

No, the society depicted seemed quite stable to me. Salvor Hardin 03:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Mhm... I don't agree. But perhaps I am wrong. I had never though I would ever get into wiki edit war, and I won't. So I'll leave it at that. Fred Hsu 15:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverend Wayne Bedford

I added an entry for Bedford in the "Important characters" section a while back. I thought it would be removed any day. But it wasn't. While Bedford never actually appeared in person in the novel, his church is a central player in this novel, connecting Rife to the glossolalia movement. Perhaps we should have a separate section for "Important franchises" in addition to the "characters" section. In the new section, various franchises and their relationship to one another can be illustrated... Fred Hsu 20:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First use of word Metaverse?

Just read this book recently and realized that its probably the first use of the word "metaverse", which I kept hearing as a way of describing what Second Life is among academics. On some level the word means something similar to Gibson's "cyberspace" but with a greater connotation of a simulated "space" rather than an information-based environment, positioning it as maybe the "cyberspace" of the 21st century as people move towards more literal MMO metaphors for online interraction. All that to say that maybe there should be mention in the article of the origin of the word being the book, as the word is gaining importance. Jeremyclarke

The article does mention that the word was coined by Stephenson, which implies the first use. In his acknowledgments, he says "The words 'avatar' (in the sense used here) and 'Metaverse' are my inventions, which I came up with when I decided that existing words (such as 'virtual reality') were simply too awkward to use." MFNickster 23:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unbalanced quotes and confusing grammar

under #Literary_significance_and_criticism
there are unbalanced quotes starting at:
Michaels further contends that this basis - "
and the grammar in much of this section is confusing

Better now? --Gwern (contribs) 22:16 24 February 2007 (GMT)

Is there some reason why that section is almost entirely dominated by the ramblings of a lone literary critic, with only a pittance of reference to anything else? There's a serious lack of anything resembling balance to this sections coverage, and it reads like someone using it as their personal soapbox. --72.14.99.199 03:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

It's so dominated because that happens to be the only serious work of literary criticism dealing with Snow Crash in any substantial sense which I have found and actually read. Have to work with what I have. Suggestions for other sources of substantive criticisms of SC are welcome. --Gwern (contribs) 03:55 25 February 2007 (GMT)

Gwern, you didn't write the section on Michaels (I did). But we are on the same page in terms of it being the only serious source of criticism available.

True, but I inserted all (I think) the quotes, which I was referring to, and a bit of summary and linking stuff as well as some stuff from Rorty. Snow Crash seems to have been fairly ignored; even JSTOR let me down this time. --Gwern (contribs) 04:04 17 March 2007 (GMT)

[edit] Reason

I noticed that someone else keeps deleting the "reason" section without explanation, and while I disagree with the way they went about it, I definitely see where they're coming from. Why should a gun that only appears for the latter part of the book get a whole big section when Hiro, the main character, only gets two sentences? If we're going to take this article into the realm of detailed descriptions, I don't think that Reason should be the place to start. Why doesn't the Metaverse have its own section if we're giving Reason such a big chunk of this article? Cheesechimp 02:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd support a Metaverse section. --Gwern (contribs) 03:14 3 July 2007 (GMT)

I personally like the "reason" section, but I think that the "notable tech" section ought to /all/ be linked off into it's own section (and it would be nice to see some more info added, for example, on the motorbike/skateboard, the gargoyles, the librarian/earth, ng's-car/pizza-car, etc.) -- tcplee : Tue Sep 25 13:41:44 CEST 2007

The statement "The initial operating system needed a software patch, as it crashed in the field during Hiro and the Mafia's assault on the Raft. The weapon was new and had not yet been rigorously tested in the field." Is only one possible interpretation. To my reading, the book was intentionally vague on the subject, and it was possible that the gun failed because it was affected by the Snow Crash virus, just like Hiro's bike. I suggest that all such interpretation is removed, or add an admission that this is not strictly in the text of tho book. -- Kisses, 209.21.65.28 20:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Reviving this old topic, it appears that this was originally an article on it's own that was merged here. I found it to be overly detailed, and the fact that there is contention about the interpretation on this discussion page serves to reinforce this fact. The original text (primary reference) should only be used for facts and claims that are generally inarguable. Anyone wanting the level of detail described in the article as I found it should be going to the book itself, or to a fansite, not to Wikipedia. I'm perfectly fine with the section existing, but I have reduced the section to a more appropriate summary style. -Verdatum (talk) 05:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aleut bombing

Raven claims to be angry with the world because of nuclear testing on the Aleutians. Was it real? Do we have an article on that? If so, please link to it from the article. --84.20.17.84 08:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course it was real. Needless to say, just about any time you hear someone angry over US nuclear tests, they are probably correct. There were many morally questionable aspects of nuclear testing (this applies to all nations, BTW). We even have an FA on one Aleutian nuclear testing site - Amchitka. --Gwern (contribs) 16:54 18 September 2007 (GMT)

[edit] Nietzsche, plot, ubermensch

A tangential blurb contrasting thematic characteristics in Snow Crash with Nietzsche-ian philosophy (specifically the existence of the ubermensch) would be fascinating to read... I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raven's Ambition and what Stephenson is saying about American identity

When Hiro is chasing Raven in the Metaverse; Raven explains exactly how he will exact revenge for his father's murder; Raven's plan may illustrate the view that America exists entirely in the intellectually elite (aka the hackers). If this is a common interpretation of the aforementioned event then a more eloquent representation of this thematic undertone should be integrated with the plot summary section. I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.60.238 (talk) 15:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hero Protagonist... bunk

Hiro is not equal to hero

That's right; it's a pun. MFNickster (talk)

Protagonist is equal to protagonist

Perhaps those who suggest the main character is aptly named "Hiro Protagonist" because he is both the hero and the protagonist are implementing a "new" literary character analysis technique; duck typing is a better way to go on this one (and by "this one" I mean all literary analysis). Based on thoughtful interpretation of Snow Crash, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hero at all; self interest is the hero in this novel. To make my point salient to all those in the audience: Based on thoughtful interpretation of the novel, my opinion is that Hiro is not a hiro at all; self interest is the hiro in this novel. I am willing to reinforce this claim with evidence; but I will only present this evidence if this viewpoint is challenged.

In fact, to indulge in unsupported speculation, I believe that Hiro was not spelled Hero for a reason: to suggest that Hiro is defintly not the hero [a character trait that could be evidenced by Hiros' actions in the novel]. To further indulge in speculative analysis, the juxtaposition of a misspelled word and a correctly spelled word, in the context of a proper name, may cause the reader to ponder the misspellings raison d’être... more often than not. 71.224.60.238 (talk) 20:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you're reading too much into it - it's a simple play on words. But, if you want to add anything on this to the article, make sure to cite a source. MFNickster (talk) 20:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that I should cite the recreational intellectual forays created within the confines of my mind... interesting. Alright, I hereby place the comments in this section under GPLv2. 71.224.60.238 (talk) 15:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm just saying that content on Wikipedia must be verifiable and not original research, that's all. MFNickster (talk) 17:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)