appleshampoo (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} appleshampooid) wrote,@ 2009-03-25 21:32:00 |
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Being a book nazi, with a book that doesn't even have a movie (Snow Crash)
I'm reading Snow Crash right now; I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, but it's still good (268 pages after just 5 days, so it must be okay). But there's this stupid thing that's bugging me about it.
A major part of the plot of Snow Crash is the Metaverse, basically a big online virtual world, kind of like Second Life, except with fewer giant penises walking around. And, you put on goggles and are basically there, as opposed to looking at the world through your monitor.
Naturally, transmitting that much data to your computer and back takes a lot of bandwidth, but it sounds like most people in the future are on fiber connections, so they can handle it. But whenever someone goggles into the Metaverse on a slow, public connection, their avatar shows up in grainy black and white. Makes sense: the connection is slower so their computer can't transmit a nice crisp image of them. BUT, the descriptions of what these people see themselves while in the Metaverse are just as detailed and intricate. Which is totally wrong. If you're jacked into this place from a slow connection, you're going to see everyone else in grainy black and white, just like they see you in grainy black and white.
Anyway, it bugged me. Especially when the book was describing one character seeing an intricate water drop refracting light while goggled in from a public pay-as-you-go terminal at a truck stop.
Still a good book, although this little detail has taken some of the fun out of it for me. Just like when the elves showed up at Helm's Deep in the movie version of The Two Towers. There was exactly one elf at Helm's Deep: Legolas.
I'm reading Snow Crash right now; I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, but it's still good (268 pages after just 5 days, so it must be okay). But there's this stupid thing that's bugging me about it.
A major part of the plot of Snow Crash is the Metaverse, basically a big online virtual world, kind of like Second Life, except with fewer giant penises walking around. And, you put on goggles and are basically there, as opposed to looking at the world through your monitor.
Naturally, transmitting that much data to your computer and back takes a lot of bandwidth, but it sounds like most people in the future are on fiber connections, so they can handle it. But whenever someone goggles into the Metaverse on a slow, public connection, their avatar shows up in grainy black and white. Makes sense: the connection is slower so their computer can't transmit a nice crisp image of them. BUT, the descriptions of what these people see themselves while in the Metaverse are just as detailed and intricate. Which is totally wrong. If you're jacked into this place from a slow connection, you're going to see everyone else in grainy black and white, just like they see you in grainy black and white.
Anyway, it bugged me. Especially when the book was describing one character seeing an intricate water drop refracting light while goggled in from a public pay-as-you-go terminal at a truck stop.
Still a good book, although this little detail has taken some of the fun out of it for me. Just like when the elves showed up at Helm's Deep in the movie version of The Two Towers. There was exactly one elf at Helm's Deep: Legolas.
