"Rudy Rucker & Marc Laidlaw - The Perfect Wave" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

тАЬThat dark shape in the core, where it looks like a shark skeleton?
ThatтАЩs a vintage CAM8 cellular automaton machine. My good stick Chaos
Attractor can not only simulate the state of the nearby sea, it can also
propagate realtime tweaks into the surfspace at large, which means that,
when IтАЩm jamming the tubes, my moods can influence them. And when
weтАЩre dry-docked like this, I can use my board to simulate imaginary
oceans. ThatтАЩs what weтАЩre seeing now. A boiling cubic wave equation. See
how it wobbles out those bulges that gobble up the square corners?тАЭ

тАЬThatтАЩs your mood?тАЭ says Kaya, tapping the surface of the board.
тАЬOh, look, you feel me!тАЭ Oblong scrolls percolate out from her touches,
blending with the jerky molten motions of the cubic waves. тАЬI like you a lot,
Zep.тАЭ

Zep freezes the simulation and walks to the wall with his cans of paint.
тАЬGrab a pair of cans and jam with me, Kaya. As soon as weтАЩre done
copying this image we can go into the Surf Shack to stuff our guts.тАЭ

тАЬAnd talk about our future,тАЭ adds Kaya.

****

Despite what one might expect for a kiddie pizza parlor, Cheezemore
RattтАЩs Surf Shack is a place of peace. ItтАЩs the audio ambience that makes
the difference. The great room is wired to play the natural sounds of
breaking waves, sprinkled with seabird skirls. Also woven into the mix are
faint, sweet strands of surf music, and not hackneyed old crapтАФno, itтАЩs
offbeat procedural surf music that no oneтАЩs ever heard, the music mixed
down low enough so that it fades in and out like a party youтАЩre hearing from
a quarter mile down the beach. The roomтАЩs air is fresh, with high windows
open to the breeze off the bay. Children race in circles around a central
clump of booths where their parents enjoy pitchers of imported beer.

Yes, the floor is sticky with spilled sodas, shiny from discarded pizza
scraps, and gritty with cast-off kernels from the bowls of free pretzels and
popcorn. And every so often a child falls heavily and breaks into
screamsтАФbut never for long. The Surf Shack is an oasis of calm, the
vibe-equivalent of an actual beach.

Cheap, free-access videogames line the wall on the roomтАЩs right
side, their speakers turned way down so as not to clash with the pulse of
the surf and the chiming of the surf music. Along the left side of the room
are the pizza and drink counters. And at the far end of the room is the
entrance door to The Perfect Wave, a high-end networked virtual reality
cave with a few hydraulically jacked surfboards. Riding The Perfect Wave
costs seventeen bucks for a five-minute pop, ten minutes for thirty bucks.
ItтАЩs popular enough that sometimes thereтАЩs a line to get in. ThereтАЩs another
Perfect Wave cave down on the Boardwalk, but that oneтАЩs too heavily
frequented, itтАЩs like a worn-out public restroom.