/Cyberpunk Skull-Tweakers and Fun Fare/
+ The All-Cyber Cryptic Crossword Puzzle
+ Name That Nym!
+ Three-Letter-Acronyms From H.E.C.K. Cryptic Crossword
Puzzles, Twisters and Max Headroom Memorial Rebuses
Chapters 21/ 22/, and Of Course 23/ BOTTOM LINE TIME
/Making It or Faking It/
A Cyberpunk Review to Prepare you, and then
*****************THE FINAL EXAM *****************
It's Not True/False, We Don't Grade on the Curve,
Stop
Sniveling.
......................................................
***** THE OFFICIAL CYBERPUNK HIPNESS CHECKLIST *****
You Won't Like This Either But It's for Your Own Good,
Punk.
......................................................
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......................................................
................-..That Is All..-.....................
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
APPENDIX A: Cyberpunk Valorized:
Careers Under Deconstruction
The Semiosis of Black Leather, Chrome, Mirrorshades
and Modems
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
APPENDIX B: ASCII Charts
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
......................................................
......................................................
......................................................
......................................................
Now, Welcome to.the Text..............................
******************************************************
******************************************************
******************************************************
*****
***** THE
*****
***** REAL
*****
***** CYBERPUNK
*****
***** FAKEBOOK
*****
*****
*****
***** By St. Jude, R.U.Sirius, and Bart Nagel
*****
******************************************************
******************************************************
******************************************************
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ SECTION I: +
+ CYBERPUNK...WHY?? +
+ Okay... HOW??? +
+ +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Chapter 1:
CYBERPUNK: A CHALLENGING POSTMODERN LIFESTYLE CHOICE
Why Bother? Big Wins! (and Unexpected Smallstuff)
======================================================
Cyberpunk is extremely hip. Being extremely hip is the last
hope for people with no money and no power. Being hip gets
you big wins in the status game. Hipness can crush your
enemies and attract the apposite sex. Best of all, cyberpunk
is the next big thing AFTER the next big thing. You can hop
on the cyberpunk bandwagon and coast for a long, long time.
Think of the money you'll save on wardrobe updates! The
worry you'll save on lifestyle decisions!
Cyberpunk has not yet been co-opted. In fact, this handbook
is the very first exploitation of this hip new underground
trend. This is the ground floor. Get in on it!
======================================================
Chapter 2: ACHIEVING CYBERPUNK
Being It or Faking It
======================================================
What is there to know about being a cyberpunk? Leather
jacket, mirrorshades-- that just about does it, right? This
kind of patronizing shirt must farking DIE.*
*Since we can't afford to offend any parental units who might
*purchase this book for their family circle, all chancy verbs
*and nouns have been cleverly encyphered. This is in the
*spirit of true cyberpunkhood, see <<Encryption>>.
You think cyberpunk is just a leather jacket, some chrome
studs, and fully reflective sunglasses? You think that's all
there is? Hah! You can find those on Kansas City bikers and
the whole California Highway Patrol. The true cyberpunk
might tuck a *cellular-modem laptop* under a spiked leather
arm, and a *laser pointer* in the upper zip pocket. Or, a true cyberpunk may
look just like YOU. But sHe** who knows
doesn't tell, and **hirm who tells doesn't know.
**Pronoun disclaimer:
**All pronouns in this book started life as intact males--
**he, his, and him. If anything bad happened to them
**afterwards, blame it on the Riot Grrrls Bobbitt Squad.
The lifestyle and goals of the true cyberpunk are carefully
guarded secrets in a life *totally devoted* to coolness and
secrecy. We will PIERCE THE VEIL, and REVEAL those SECRETS.
We will display for you the INNER CYBERPUNK. We will give
you everything you need to know about embarking on this
challenging lifestyle. When you have read to the end of this
EASY handbook, if you DON'T pass the hipness quiz... well,
just read it again. But turn your TV up louder.
======================================================
Chapter 3: A STYLE GUIDE TO THE CYBERTYPES
Recognizing Them and Fitting In
======================================================
While a cyberpunk is commonly a middleclass white male with way too many
electrons, there are varieties of cyberpunk. Underlying all the types and
genres is Basic Cyber Style, which breaks down to physical gear and mental
attitude:
--->Basic Cyberpunk Gear
is simple. Black leather jacket. Boots. Mirrorshades. Laser pointer. (We
don't know why all cyberpunks need a laser pointer, but it's mandatory.)
We'll give you a more elaborate guide to basic cyberpunk gear. Later.
--->The Basic Cyberpunk Attitude
is quiet assurance. Subdued swashbuckling. Maybe a little menace.
With these cyberpunk basics you can navigate through all the sub-genres. But
if you want to pass as a native in a particular cyber sub-scene without
getting jeered at or beaten up, you gotta accessorize, and pay close
attention to detail.
>>>>Motorpsycho Maniacs
Cyberbikers pack the mystique of both worlds-- high tech, and big greasy loud
engines. Standard cyberpunk costume is ideal for riding motorcycles, and a
mirrorshades helmet is a big plus for the cyber look-- mega robotic coolness.
Motorcycles are dangerous and can kill you. This is also cool.
>>>>Goths, Deathcore, and Vampire-Wannabes
Ideally, for this sub-scene, you should know about The Cure,
which is a band. To fit in, grow your hair big and dye it
blueblack. Spray it with <<Aquanet White>> to make it stick
out, medusa-like. Go to a kidshop and buy plastic fangs.
(The kind that glow in the dark are funny. Funny is NOT the
object here.) All sexes should wear a Victorian shirt--
blouse-- white or black only--- that gapes to show flesh. You
must practice looking tormented, tall and thin. The ideal is
chalk-white face makeup with blueblack eyesockets. Blueblack
makeup with white eyesockets is untested, but might work very
well, if you avoid a minstrel look. At all times think
intensity and torment. Torment...and ironic bitterness. No
giggling or snickering, no kidding.
>>>>Riot Grrrls!
These are fierce girls who like tech. This is a sexist
category, but there we are: girls only. A grrrl can be
called "d00d" and "guy" at all times, but a non-female guy
is not a grrrl. This is just the way things are.
If you're a grrrl, you can wear anything you want to,
because you're there to defend it. This is true for anybody,
really-- look as tough as you wanta be, and be ready to back
it up. Fierce is good. Grrrls with tech expertise are
irresistible. NOTHING is more attractive than a fierce,
blazing, ninja-type grrrl right now, and if she knows UNIX
or phone-freeking, the world is hers. Hrrrs.
>>>>Technopagans/Ravers/Neohippies
Don't worry about this one. This scene is free, loving,
noncomforming, spontaneous. You can dress any old way
and fit right in...
Unless you don't look cool.
Maybe you should stick to basic cyberpunk. Dancing in
leather is hot as h*ck, but sweating is better than not
looking cool. Non-cyber ravers favor floppy hats, five
kinds of plaid 'n' paisley, and multiple organ piercings.
They sometimes take raver drugs. These drugs make you fonder
of other people than you really want to be. (The morning-
after Revulsion hangovers can be nasty.) In this scene,
pretending to be on raver drugs is recommended, and easy,
too. Unfocus your eyes and smile lovingly. In black leather
you won't have to worry so much about getting hugged.
>>>>Academic Cyber-Wannabes
Students, teachers, whatever, dress down. Like you're always
en route to a garage sale...maybe to donate what you're
wearing. Casual. Jeans, black leather jacket, laser
pointer. No tweed, notice, and no Birkenshtocken. If you
flash paperbacks by Arthur Kroker, Paul Virilio and Jean
Baudrillard, it means you're serious. Paperbacks by Mark
Leyner and Kathy Acker means you're *way past* serious.
>>>>Cybercowboys/grrrls
Some of these people come from Texas or Oklahoma. In this crew, to yr
cyberbasics you add a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and grow any hair you've got
really LONG. Males should try to get hair somewhere on their faces.
>>>>Science Fiction Writers
Full-steam straight-ahead hard edge, with a permanent sneer. Just to twist
heads, some males writers go for the Tom Wolfe effete look-- blue blazer and
wing-tips. Still they sneer.
>>>>Web Crawlers and Other Bourgeois Types
You don't really care about this one, do you? You do? Subscribe to WIRED.
Next.
>>>>Deep Geek:
Supernerds, Hackers, Wizards, Phone Phreakers
Things get difficult here. Deep geekware is unstandard.
Very heavy Wizards can look like accountants, or like
streetpeople. Facial hair and Goodwill Casual happen a lot.
Chubby happens too, since these guys don't do enough
dancing in leather pants. To get along in this scene, you
really need to be very smart, very funny, or very sexy. To
work yourself up to smart at least, learn UNIX. Or carry
the 2600 zine in your back pocket and read that. Practice
being technical. But until you get good, wear your
cyberbasics and never leave home without your laser pointer.
This will draw the admiration of people who don't know any
better, which has its own rewards. Leading us inevitably to
the final category...
>>>>Phonies, Poseurs and Pretenders:
Taking the Easy Way In
Don't think: scheme! Forget about reading books, buy no
computers or widgets. Don't do or buy anything. Save all
your money for clothes and art materials. Make your
girl/boyfriend help you assemble your hi-tek models-- you're
gonna need mockups of a laptop computer, a personal
communicator, a beeper, maybe even a fake stun-gun. Realism
is key. Then wear them all with *attitude*. You're better
than real. Strut. Sneer. Remember the 3 disses: distrust,
disrespect, distroy. Wait, that's not right, is it?
We know there are going to be mutterings about this category.
Grumblings that being a poseur is not as easy as we think.
A poseur has a lot of overhead-- in worry, just for starts--
what if you're exposed as <<a clueless>>? And staying locked
to the HOTWIRED Website to catch what you should be
imitating? Dang.
___ ___
| |
| |
[Photo of Billy Idol
Goes Here]
| |
|__ __|
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ SECTION II: +
+ CYBERPUNK... +
+ +
+ KNOWING ABOUT IT! +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
======================================================
Chapter 4: Building Your Cyber Word Power
======================================================
Part 1:
A Dictionary of Terminally Hip Jargon and
Useful Expressions
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
<<acronym>>: A word made from the initials of a name or phrase. Such as
TLA. Three-Letter Acronym. Right.
<<AFAIK>>: As far as I know. An <<acronym>>, in <<haqrese>>.
<<AI>>: Artificial Intelligence. The next best thing to real.
<<aka>>: Also known as. An acronym coined by the FBI in its popular Most
Wanted lists.
<<alliance>>: Among <<phreakers>>, a former AT&T trademark which refers to
teleconferencing systems.
<<anarchist>>: Somebody who feels that governments are an unreasonable
restraint on free humans' being.
<<anarcho-cryptographer>>: An anarchist who hopes to bring down the
established order by persuading everybody to <<encrypt>> their email.
<<anonymity>>: There's no handle like NO handle. Being completely unknown
means you can't be traced. Maybe. You can be anonymous online by bouncing
your email or postings through <<remailers>>. Who are you? Only penet.fi
knows for sure.
<<Aquanet White>>: This is the most intense hairspray on the planet, for
that BIG <<goth>> hair. Since you're being so attentive, here's a bonus goth
haiku:
Sun! Hide white skin, run--
Burning, cloaked, I run... day sky!...
Must... find... Aquanet
<<ASCII>>: An <<acronym>> for... well, nobody remembers what it's an acronym
for, but it means just plain keyboard characters, like your <<dot.sig>> is
made of. This is a portrait of R.U. Sirius rendered in ascii art:
################
# ____ #
# __/=$==\_) #
# //-OO-\\ #
# >>( _ )<L #
# J>>>\ /<<<L #
################
So he comes out looking something like the cartoon character Cathy-- yeah,
but that's the nature of the medium. St.Jude would look exactly the same,
only no hat. Being subtle or elegant in ascii is a real challenge.
<<attitude>>: Strutting. Sneering. Being BAD. Attitude is what all
primates do to make their enemies feel inadequate. Keep it in mind.
<<bah>>: Expresses the whole range of haqr negative emotions, from
dysgruntlement up through horrible contempt, as in response to <<lameness>>.
<<bahaha>>: A haqr evil laugh. Other common evil laughs are BYaa-hahah and
pchtkwaaahahahaha.
<<bang>>: Old haqr term for exclamation point. Sometimes bangs are a series
of characters to add emphasis: w00t@%$%$@!
<<BBS>>: A computerized bulletin-board system. Imagine a bulletin board in
the sky. It's subdivided with topic labels. The cards displayed under each
topic are email postings. You read them to follow the conversations. You
can add your own comments or rebuttals. Some boards have a chat area where
you can talk real-time, sort of like ham radio. The underground BBS chat
areas are hangout places where bored hacker/phreaker types exchange quips and
insults. Good H/P boards have libraries of up-to-date info on tools of the
trade.
<<beta release, in beta test>>: Not ready for prime time. This comes from
the beta phase of program testing, when bugs are collected from patient users
up for major <<lossage>>. "In beta" can describe anything unpleasing or
forked up. If it's really <<FUBARed>>, it can be called ALPHA-release, which
is software still being tested in-house, by programmers and unlucky
affiliates.
<<Big Room, The>>: Used to refer to the place you went OUT to, with one big
bright light up there or else many small ones, you know? Now means the place
you go INTO, the new Big Room-- Cyberspace.
<<bogus>>: Untrue. Unreal. A spoof. Also, bogosity, which is the state of
being bogus, and bogon, a unit of bogosity. Then there's the bogometer...
<<boho>>: Bohemian. Means like, counter-cultural. Underground.
Alternative, with people in black clothes.
<<boxing>>: Using a gadget to get free phone calls. The Red Box plays the
tones of coins registering in a pay phone. The Rainbow Box incorporates many
previous boxes in one diabolical widget, thanks to our Dutch buddies.
<<bridge>>: A <<hack>> into the phone company itself, allowing multiple
<<phreakers>> to cross-talk, like a high-tech, illegal party line.
Appropriating the phone company's own <<PBX>> systems is considered good
<<phun>>.
<<btw>>: By the way, in <<hackerese>>.
<<carding>>: Making purchases on a phony or stolen credit account. The card
as a physical chunk of plastic has become more or less irrelevant.
<<celibate>>: Non-hacking hacker. Sometimes this is a haqr who has been
<<newtered>>.
<<clueless, a>>: (by analogy from "a homeless"??) One who doesn't get it
and is doomed.
<<codez>>: Phone numbers and authorization codes that allow you to make
phree fonecalls.
<<codez kid>>: A person whose purpose in life is finding ways to make phree
fone calls. This is a terrible thing to call someone. Much worse than
<<punk>>.
<<coldlist>>: Shortlist for oblivion. By analogy to hotlist.
<<Con>>: Convention, or maybe it was Conference-- nobody cares any more. A
Con is a gathering of haqrz. There are several every year. The most famous
is Hacking at the End of the Universe, held by the former Hac-tic in
Amsterdam. Next is Hacking On Planet Earth, HOPE, and two infamous Cons are
in Austin TX-- SummerCon, in the summer, and HoHoCon, figure it out.
<<cookbook guyz>>: Haqr wannabes who don't figure out how to do things for th
emselves. They copy down procedures for hacking computers or fones and
follow the instructions, like using a cookbook. Everybody has to start out
this way. Get over it.
<<culture hacker>>: A pirate whose raw material is the society itself. A
<<detournement>> specialist, who takes the <<memes>> of the culture on wild
detours.
<<cracker, kraqr>>: Somebody who breaks the copy protection on computer
games or intrudes into other people's computers. Or invades cyberspace in
strange ways. Or pirates any of the media. See <<pirating>> and <<hack>>
and <<spoof>>.
<<cryonics>>: Freezing your body (or just your head, in the budget plan) so
that you can be revived (or provided with a whole-body transplant) at some
time in the future when
1. they can do that sort of thing, and
2. they really WANT to do that sort of thing for frozen heads like you. See
<<futurespoofing>>.
<<cryptography, cryptology>>: Cryptology is the study of <<encryption>>.
Cryptography is doing it. See <<public key encryption>> for a full rundown.
<<cyberpunk>>: 1. A citizen of cyberspace. 2. A citizen of cyberspace who
wears mirrorshades indoors, at night.
<<cyberspace>>: The planetary Net linked by phonelines and satellites, whose
nodes are computers and human beings. An online metaverse that's now realler
than what's outside your window.
<<cyber-yup>>: A tourist on the info highway. A <<Netcrawler>>, a Web
Browser. If artists and nerds are sort of squatting or homesteading their
homepages, cyber-yups create theirs as investment property.
<<cypherpunk>>: A guerrilla in the war for privacy and lots more
encryption>>.
<<cypherpunks>>: A <<list>> of people interested in cryptology and
cryptography.
<<darqside>>: Antisocial. Evil. Weird. Someone who dares things you
wouldn't, or couldn't.
<<data>>: This is supposed to be plural. These data. If you don't wanna
deal with that, see <<information>>.
<<deck>>: What cyberpunks in NEUROMANCER typed on and jacked in through...
like a keyboard with phonejacks that plug into YOU.
<<deep geek>>: For the specs for deep geek, see Chapter Three.
<<defect>>: <<Roll over>> to the <<narqside>>.
<<detournement>>: Cultural hijacking. Taking something that has a usual
meaning and making it play your way. A detournement is a cultural <<hack>>.
<<dharma combat>>: Wrangling over standards and protocols, as in the
<<IETF>>. Dharma is Buddhist for the principles of operation for the
universe. Lots of <<deep geeks>> are Buddhists, Buddhist-wannabes, or
jack-Buddhists.
<<digital cash>>: The Philosopher's Stone of the nineties. Or maybe the
Brooklyn Bridge. And good luck with it.
<<diy>>: Do it yourself. A part of haqr mind, see Chapter Eight.
<<domain name>>: This is part of the eddress that humans use. If you
subscribe to an online service, like US Online, your domain eddress is
theirs. Your whole eddress is whatever your handle is-- say skulldrool--
plus the server's domain name, like so: skulldrool@usol.com. Top level
domain names are countries, like .au for australia, or categories, like .com,
for company, .org for organization, .gov for the government, .mil for the
military, etc. Domain names can be bought, and maybe they can be hacked.
For example, if I had a military-industrial complex, I might hack an eddress
like dark.satanic.mil.
<<dot.plan>>: This is a file in your home directory within UNIX that people
can read when they <<finger>> you. Your dot.plan file (actually it's just
.plan) is where you put your advertisements for yourself. A typical dot.plan
might start with a motto or a fave quote, such as, "In theory, there's no
difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."
Followed by as intriguing and flattering a profile of yourself as you can
whomp together.
<<dot.sig>>: This is your online signature, your digigraph, which you can
tack onto the end of all your online appearances. A dot.sig is usually made
up of thought-provoking quotes and ascii graphics. While somebody has to
<<finger>> you to get your <<dot.plan>>, everybody is forced to see your
dot.sig every time they read your postings or get email from you. Think of
your dot.sig as a billboard advertising yourself.