"Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling - Hormiga Canyon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

cutting-edge Venice Beach graphics shop that crafted custom
virtual-physics algorithms for movies and the gaming trade.

Of course, StefanтАЩs true interest, dating way back to college, had
always been physics, in particular the Holy Grail of finding the correct
version of string theory. Pursuing the awesome fantasy of supersymmetric
quantum string manifolds felt vastly finer and nobler than crassly tweaking
toy worlds. The Hollywood FX work paid a lot, yes, but it made Stefan a
beautician for robots, laboring to give animated characters better hair,
shinier teeth, and bouncier boobs. String theorists, on the other hand, were
the masters of a conceptual universe.

Though the pace of work had nearly killed him, Stefan had had a good
run at Square Root of Not. Their four-person shop had the best
fire-and-algebra in Los Angeles, seriously freaky tech chops that lay far
beyond the ken of Disney-Pixar and Time-Warner. The Square RootersтАЩ
primary client, the anchor-store in the mall of their dreams, had been Eyes
Only, a big post-production lab on the Strip.

But Eyes Only had blundered into a legal tar pit. All too typical: the
suits always imagined it was cheaper to litigate than to innovate. DisneyтАЩs
Giant Mouse was crushing the copyrighted landscape with the tread of a
mastodon.

Stefan hadnтАЩt followed the sorry details; the darkside hacking
conducted in Hollywood courtrooms wasnтАЩt his idea of entertainment.
Bottom line: rather than watching their lives tick away in court, the Square
Rooters had taken the offered settlement, and had divvied up cash that
would otherwise go to lawyers.

Their pay-off had been less than expected, but all four Square
Rooters had been worn down by the grueling crunch cycles anyway.
Liberated and well-heeled, each Square Root partner had some special
spiritual bliss to follow. Lead programmer Marc Geary was puffing souffl├йs
at a chef school in Santa Monica. Speaker-to-lawyers Emily Yu was about to
sail to Tahiti on an old yacht sheтАЩd bought off CraigтАЩs List. Handyman
Jayson Rubio was roaring around the endless loops of L.A.тАЩs freeways on a
vintage red Indian Chief motorcycle. As for StefanтАФStefan was sinking his
cash into his living expenses and his home-made ultracluster
supercomputer. Finally, freedom and joy. Elite string-theory instead of
phony Hollywood rubber physics.

Some days the physics work got Stefan so excited that he could think
of nothing else. Just yesterday, when heтАЩd been feeling especially manic
about his code, doll-faced Emily Yu had phoned him with a shy offer to
come along on her South Seas adventure. Idiotically, Stefan had blown her
off. HeтАЩd overlooked a golden chance at romance. Instead of hooking up,
heтАЩd geeked out.

Today he was nagged by the sense that he should call Emily back.