(Part 2) Best products from r/Cyberpunk

Serial Experiments Lain should get touched on as both one of the more abstract/intellectual cyberpunk works and a rare example in the genre of a story driven by a non-sexualized, non-action-girl female protagonist. It also manages to avoid almost every cliche, so it'd be an interesting counterpoint to those who feel cyberpunk is just gritty future noir in rainy urban centers where everyone has robot legs.

I'm rereading Bruce Sterling's "Schismatrix" right now, and his story "Twenty Evocations" would be great to throw into a class like this. It's short, it's poignant, it's literary and someone already put together a great list of questions to ask a class after reading it.

Tad Williams' "Otherland" series is way too long to cram into a class like this, but may deserve a mention for being one of the more diverse and human works in the genre. It features characters from a wild variety of backgrounds, and manages to pull off the "global cultural melting pot" that so many cyberpunk works aim for remarkably well.

Greg Egan's "Permutation City" has some really wonderful questions about persistence of identity, time and relativity, subjective experience and physical reality, but it's still melting my brain too much to even know how to summarize. Ditto "Aeon Flux," which is at least shorter. Episodes like "The Purge" are framed around some great open questions on morality, free choice and such. I can't imagine you could get away with showing it to a high school class, though; and I took AP classes where half this crap was part of our reading when I was in high school.

I feel Peter Watts and Paolo Bacigalupi do "modern" cyberpunk well, adapting the genre's themes to contemporary concerns and technologies. Semi-relatedly, I really wish there were more works in the genre that address social and/or political issues. Kim Stanley Robinson's "New York 2140" might or might not qualify.

There's also Storming the Reality Studio, a fantastic anthology which is heavy on early cyberpunk, protocyberpunk and genre influences and nonfiction by Kathy Acker, William Burroughs, John Shirley et al.

Also Hackers. Shut up. You know it's awesome.

You know, I just signed the lease on a new place with a friend, and we were looking up this exact thing. I'll try to gather up some links of neat stuff I've run across before!

Here's one guy's "Deus Ex-esque bedroom" Those hexagonal mirrors can be found in sets for quite cheaply, and since then I've seen this pattern replicated.

Infinity LED mirrors can be made super easily and very cheaply, and they look awesome.

Hackerspaces can have some crazy ideas. Most of them look like they take a lot of work. Many of them just involve lots of neat junk.

Someone had mentioned a (fairly?) simple home automation project wherein all the light switch housings were replaced with cheap Raspberry Pis with attached cheap touchscreen displays to control lighting and whatever else you connected to it. Seems neat.

Drones are consumer-ready and pretty cyberpunk... get some drones?

Those neat noir "bars" caused by high-contrast blinds with light sources behind them.

This chair in black. Kinda. Also this chair. Kinda.

Etsy can have some pretty sweet stuff sometimes!

This pendant lamp.

Basically anything using LEDs can look neat. Or tacky. But mostly neat.

Low beds can be pretty neat and fitting. I personally love having just basically a mattress bed on the floor. It's makeshift, but it's my favorite type of bed.

Anything involving weapons could be considered cyberpunk decor (going more for the dystopia vibe). Regardless of whether you own one or even can own one, this quick-access hydraulic lock box is neat, and meant to be used in a living space or bedroom. I'd put other things in it, just for the fun of it.

If you wanted to really up the dystopia/low-life aspect, you could get replica (like airsoft?) firearms and mount them on a wall or something. Obviously don't do this with real guns. That's retarded.

Articulating monitor mounts to be used with desktop monitors are pretty sweet and can add additional tech vibe, as are articulating laptop stands for the same purpose.

Wanna take apart a computer and hang it up? Impractical, but så kult!

Lights, lights, lights. This time, lights around the shower!

Mount your networking stuff to the wall. Modem/router/switches and whatnot. Don't be afraid of lights and cables.

I'm still looking around at more things and gathering more ideas. Most things you'd have to make yourself, and that's sort of what I plan on doing for almost everything. Is this helpful at all so far? I can keep going.

> I'm still slightly confused. So my understanding now is the game remains in alpha currently.

Calling what's out now alpha might be overstating it. They have a few playable modules, but if you want to be able to do anything other than look at your ship in the hangar, racing, or deathmatch style dogfights, you're going to have to wait. That being said, what's out now is pretty fun, and in six months to a year it should be amazing.

If you want to play something like this right now, Freelancer is a cult favorite, which some of the same people made. It's a little hard to get (you need to buy physical discs, since it's not for sale as a download anywhere), but it still has an active modding community. It's on nowhere near the same level, but if you like space fighters, it's a great game.

To a lot of people, Catholicism is a polytheistic, pagan-influenced, Saints/Popes/Mary-worshiping corruption of Christianity.

Tolkien may be Christian but he incorporated a lot of traditional Norse mythology to tell a Christian story, which, if you know anything about the history of Catholicism, is pretty much the third most Catholic thing in the world that you could possibly do. It's right behind 2) praying the rosary and 1) feeling shame. It's just above 5) actually going to church and 4) never going to church.

(If you're confused, a lot of the stories surrounding Catholic saints and holy sites are based on the appropriated pre-Christian local indigeneous myths. As it spread, Catholicism has historically absorbed pagan beliefs as efficiently as American culture has absorbed immigrants. I think this is a particularly good comparison because in both cases the result is that the dominant system was successful and yet profoundly changed by the experience.)

And on top of that, the way Tolkien created, spoke of, and related to Middle Earth was arguably very shamanistic

^ I highly recommend that article.

For a lot of people, LOTR is a spiritual experience even if they would never describe it that way or recognize it as anything other than a good story. It has had and continues to have a profound effect on many. It was certainly spiritual for Tolkien and representative of his own theological background, so it's sort of understandable why a lot of close-minded control-freaks of competing Christian traditions would see it as threatening. While most people who oppose it are undoubtedly very ignorant, there are legitimate reasons why certain educated but strictly religious people may not approve of it.

Also, when some people say "Satanic" they just mean that whatever they're labeling is incompatible with their personal version of Christianity. ie. The "synagogue of Satan" in the book of Revelations. Plenty of Christians see Judaism and Islam and the "wrong" versions of Christianity as Satanic. What God they pray to has nothing to do with it.


The book itself: The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience

They were funded on Indiegogo a while back. They were initially made by Axent Wear, but there's been loads of other companies making them since. Axent probably has the highest quality Cat-earred headphones on the market as a result, but they still aren't great headphones. They're more for aesthetics than anything.

You can find their official distributor here. I definitely wouldn't recommend them though.


As for ones without cat ears, they tend to be headsets rather than straight headphones, so they're usually pretty cheap when it comes to audio quality as well. You can find light up headsets of all kinds at most electronic stores like Best Buy.

Afterglow is probably the best I can think of quality wise. You can find them here on Amazon.

SD card and shipping & handling not included.

Hardware

pi zero - $5.00

pins - $8.95

[wifi adapter](https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN722N-Wireless-Adapter-External/dp/B002SZEOLG?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top) - $13.33

right angle USB ports - $5.64

USB battery - $3.99

micro-mini usb cable - $2.89

Total: $39.80

*I used an Alfa AWUSO36NH but the TP-LINK TL-WN722N should work. More information on compatible network adapters here.

The optional Illuminated LED shutdown switch makes this device easier to use but costs an additional $16.99 Alternately, you can ssh into the piratebox with a mobile device to shut it down.


Disk image

Here's a .img file for your convenience. Just install the image to an SD card (at least 4 gb) and run it in a Pi Zero to get started. Note: auto broadcast on FM isn't enabled by default so you'll need to add a cronjob as detailed in the guide if you want to activate this feature.

About

PirateBox software runs on inexpensive hardware to connect users over an offline wifi network. Join it and your browser redirects to a simple interface where you can share files, chat, and stream video.

Pifm is a small program you can install in a Raspberry Pi PirateBox, aka “pi(rate)box.” It can broadcast on FM radio to inform potential users about the PirateBox wifi network, play uploaded music, and with a USB microphone Pifm lets you talk live to your audience.

Improvements

The first version of this project was well received so I'm back to share design and documentation improvements. Pi(rate)FM Zero is now fully self contained. It turns on and off with a button press and can automatically broadcast information about the wifi network over empty FM stations at user defined intervals.

Controversy

The FM signal may be messy but it's also short range. The Pifm developers claim it can broadcast up to 100 meters. In my experience (with a 20cm antenna) it goes no further than 40 meters.

To my understanding this device is legal in the US under 47 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Section 15.239 and the [July 24, 1991 Public Notice (still in effect)](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-297510A1.pdf]. From the FCC's website:

>Unlicensed operation on the AM and FM radio broadcast bands is permitted for some extremely low powered devices covered under Part 15 of the FCC's rules. On FM frequencies, these devices are limited to an effective service range of approximately 200 feet (61 meters).

I experimented with a 100 MHz low-pass filter but the FM signal leaks through the network adapter. I'll continue to look into it. Pifm may cause interference but there shouldn't be any trouble if you keep it away from airports and don't attach massive antennas to it.

Why not use a car/smartphone FM trasmitter?

You totally could. It might even be better in some situations if you don't mind a slightly larger, more expensive device with an extra battery to charge. Keep in mind you'd lose the ability to live broadcast with a microphone or play audio directly from the PirateBox.

Going forward**

In my next version I'd like to improve the PirateBox interface and make a way for users to rate playlists while having Pifm automatically play the highest ranked tracks. Users could upload music and vote on which tracks gets played. It'd be your own personal short range interactive digital-analog radio station hosted on a private intranet.

Oh! Okay, well the blurb reads:

"A woman who dreams of machines. A paper lantern that falls in love. The most compelling video game you've never played and that nobody can ever play twice. This collection of Catherine M. Valente's stories and poems with Japanese themes includes the lauded novella "Silently and very fast", the award-nominated "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time" and "Ghosts of Gunkanjima" - which originally in a book smaller than your palm, published in a limited edition of twenty-four. ALSO INCLUDED ARE TWO NEW STORIES: The semiautobiographical, metafictional, and utterly magical "Ink, Water, Milk" and the cinematic, demon-haunted "Story No. 6"."

I hope that was what you're looking for! I picked it up on a whim because I liked the art and its interesting allusion to the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

There is a website, too, although I haven't looked into it: www.haikasoru.com

I'll leave you with a note of praise from a critic:

"I finished this collection late one night and had what felt like a year's worth of intense dreams" - Charles Yu, Author of "Sorry Please Thank You"

EDIT: So apparently the site I linked you to contains malware [according to chrome], so I've looked around and found it on Amazon! I hope this helps! It's way cheaper than what I got it for!

I saw it when it first came out a long time ago. I remember reading about Mitnick from this book http://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620 so, I was really excited to see the movie, but It felt very 'made for TV' quality. Not nessecarily inaccurate, just treated more like a cop drama.


The book was very good, as was Bruce Sterling's http://www.amazon.com/The-Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic/dp/055356370X


I emailed Mr. Sterling about hacking when I was in highschool, and he was one of the first people to suggest that I not take it too far, and instead work towards building things. I still follow that advice today.


Also, if you haven't read it yet, The Cuckoos Egg was a fun read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083DJXCM?btkr=1


It was that book that inspired me to work as a programmer for a university.


Good movies about hacking are few and far between, I'm afraid. It's all too easy to use Hacking as 'magic', and just make it rediculous.

It's an enjoyable speculative fiction by a good author, but it's by no means an action-driven story. The main plot is about someone trying to prevent physical books from being digitized. So if you're ok with a more dialog-driven story it has some interesting ideas.

Honestly, if you want a story focused solely on augmented reality, check out Veneer. It's a self-published book on the Kindle store but it's about a society that has AR fully integrated to the point where people don't even know what the real world looks like anymore. It's much better than The Digital Sea, which I also found as part of my search for good augmented reality stories.

Thanks! I'm a huge fan of the subtle sometimes. There is another book that was written by Mark Fabi titled Wyrm.

I highly recommend it, though its older and centers around a MUD.

http://www.amazon.com/Wyrm-Mark-Fabi/dp/0553578081

It's not the straight up cyberpunk style but its a great cyber/hack style that was great back in the late 80's early 90's wand has a lot of fun technical stuff.

I found what I was thinking of. It's called a 3d holographic display. It is also a rotating bar with lights on it but the software must be more complex I guess.
Here's a cheaper one. GIWOX 3D Hologram Advertising Display LED Fan, Holographic 3D Photos and Videos - 3D Naked Eye LED Fan is Best for Store, Shop, Bar, Casino, Holiday Events Display Etc. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077YD59RN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UmT6BbP4K4N8D

And a $1200 one GIWOX 2018 3D Hologram Fan Display 65S with Powerful WiFi,1080P HD and 724Pcs Led Beads,Four-Axil Design and High Transfer Speed,Upload by iOS and Android 3D Holographic Fan(25.6Inch) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HSTLTR5/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_spT6Bb5JKYS7J

Most of these are very early cyberpunk, the progenitors of the genre if you will. As such I'm not sure if they can be described as necessarily obscure but I don't see many of them mentioned that often (admittedly I'm somewhat new to /r/cyberpunk so you guys might talk about them all the time, in which case please disregard). As a final note not all of these are available on the Kindle market. Nevertheless here's a few that leap to mind -

1. When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger which has two sequels if you enjoy it, the third being better than the second imo.
   
   
2. The Ware Tetrology by Rudy Rucker
   
   
3. Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling. He also edited the early cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades which is worth checking out along with a several of his other works.
   
   
4. Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan who also wrote a few others worth looking at.
   
   
5. Frontera by Lewis Shiner.
   
   
6. I hesitate to mention this one as it's hardly obscure but if all you have seen is the film which is based off it, it is definitely worth getting Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick.
   
   
7. Vurt by Jeff Noon.
   
   
8. Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter along with his other novels Glass Hammer and Dr. Adder.
   
   
9. Someone else mentioned Walter Jon Williams novels which I would also highly recommend.
   
   
   
   
   
   

A little more about the book for those who are interested.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Gravity-Fails-George-Effinger/dp/0765313588