Neal Stephenson Quote
If these avatars were real people in a real street, Hiro wouldn't be able toreach the entrance. It's way too crowded. But the computer system thatoperates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one ofthe millions of people there, trying to prevent them from running into eachother. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. Onthe Street, avatars just walk right through each other.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd, headed for the entrance, he really iscutting through the crowd. When things get this jammed together, the computersimplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so youcan see where you're going. Hiro appears solid to himself, but everyone elselooks like a ghost. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank, clearlyseeing The Black Sun in front of him.He steps over the property line, and he's in the doorway. And in that instanthe becomes solid and visible to all the avatars milling outside. As one, theyall begin screaming. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro isjust a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. But inthe entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step overthe line into The Black Sun.He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. Now that he's allby himself in the entryway, no longer immersed in a flood of avatars, he can seeall of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. They areall done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars, hoping that Da5id -- TheBlack Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. They flickand merge together into a hysterical wall. Stunningly beautiful women,computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second, like Playboypinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to bediscovered. Wild-looking abstracts, tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who arehoping that Da5id will notice their talent, invite them inside, give them a job.A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing theMetaverse through cheap public terminals, and who are rendered in jerky, grainyblack and white. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans, devoted to thefantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get closein Reality, so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. There arewould-be rock stars done up in laser light, as though they just stepped off theconcert stage, and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen, exquisitely rendered bytheir fancy equipment, but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.
If these avatars were real people in a real street, Hiro wouldn't be able toreach the entrance. It's way too crowded. But the computer system thatoperates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one ofthe millions of people there, trying to prevent them from running into eachother. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. Onthe Street, avatars just walk right through each other.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd, headed for the entrance, he really iscutting through the crowd. When things get this jammed together, the computersimplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so youcan see where you're going. Hiro appears solid to himself, but everyone elselooks like a ghost. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank, clearlyseeing The Black Sun in front of him.He steps over the property line, and he's in the doorway. And in that instanthe becomes solid and visible to all the avatars milling outside. As one, theyall begin screaming. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro isjust a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. But inthe entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step overthe line into The Black Sun.He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. Now that he's allby himself in the entryway, no longer immersed in a flood of avatars, he can seeall of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. They areall done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars, hoping that Da5id -- TheBlack Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. They flickand merge together into a hysterical wall. Stunningly beautiful women,computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second, like Playboypinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to bediscovered. Wild-looking abstracts, tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who arehoping that Da5id will notice their talent, invite them inside, give them a job.A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing theMetaverse through cheap public terminals, and who are rendered in jerky, grainyblack and white. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans, devoted to thefantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get closein Reality, so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. There arewould-be rock stars done up in laser light, as though they just stepped off theconcert stage, and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen, exquisitely rendered bytheir fancy equipment, but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.