This is a book review. I can't now find the thread that was discussing books so I'm going to make a new one. Should this upset anyone, here are my lips.
Transmission is a book I just read that I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend strongly. It is the story of the Leela virus and what happened to the world's Internet communications. The interesting aspect that ties into another thread here, is the description and use of Asperger's Syndrome as part of character and plot development. The book has an intriguing and unexpected ending. Well, unexpected to me anyway.
I have taken the liberty of scanning in some paragraphs of text from the book so you can get a feel for the author's style, I like it. I'm pretty sure this doesn't upset copyright, I think we're allowed 10% of a publication or something? Anyway I can delete if there are any problems.
Quote Hari Kunzru:
Apart from Clay, most of the AV team were not particularly gregarious creatures. People did their thing and other people left them to get on with it. No one took much notice of Shiro's habit of flapping his arms violently every few minutes or Donny's refusal to allow purple objects into his field of vision. Everyone left their phones on voicemail and most wore headsets while they worked, creating a private sonic space that was, according to custom, violated only in an emergency. Interaction was via email, even if the participants occupied neighbouring cubicles. This made sense to Arjun. Personal space is valuable. The ability to prioritize one's communications is valuable. Interrupting someone to talk to them is a way of pushing your query to the top of their stack. It overrides someone's access controls and objectively lessens their functionality, which was as close to an engineering definition of rudeness as he felt he was ever likely to come...
...What in-house socializing did exist was largely conducted through the circulation of entertaining data sets. The joke, in it's classic office form, was popular.
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A. None it's a hardware problemUnfortunately jokes seemed to cause confusion for some staff members, often provoking detailed, and even angry dissections of their semantics. A safer mode was the questionnaire. Something about multiple-choice tests chimed with the r 'n' d personality, and formatted quizzes were sent round at the rate of several a day, asking the respondents to assess their knowledge of Angel, their `nerditude quotient', their sexual performance. Week by week, Arjun learned more about himself. His dungeons and dragons alignment turned out to be Lawful Good. His penis was of average size. He was not a secret Mac user, though his lack of familiarity with sex toys and his inability to recall an occasion when he dressed up in leather or rubber clothing to please his man rated him `an old-fashioned gal'. Twelve lattes and nine Cokes a day also bracketed him a 'high-level caffeine addict'. Worried, he sent an email to a support group, who mailed back suggesting he drank fewer caffeinated beverages.
One questionnaire generated more traffic on the Virugenix intranet than all the others. Under the heading 'How Asperger's are You?' it asked the respondent to consider such issues as:
Do you meet people's eyes when you talk to them?
Do you find it difficult to develop or maintain relationships? Does ambiguity confuse you?
Do people accuse you of failing to share their interests?
Do others get angry or upset at you for reasons which appear illogical?
Do you have any inflexible routines or habits? Do you excel at detailed logical tasks?
Do you have to remember to modulate your voice when speaking? Do you have difficulty decoding social behaviour?
Do you have an encompassing obsession with one or more specific and restricted activities?
Do people tell you your technical preoccupation with parts of objects is abnormal or unusual?
Are small personal rituals important to you?
Do you have any repetitive motor mannerisms (tics, gestures, rocking, etc.)?
Are you or have you ever been employed as an engineer?
Asperger's Syndrome was a bad thing, a
disease. Yet, as he filled in his answers, Arjun realized that this profile fitted the majority of people in the AV group, possibly including himself. He was obsessive. He liked repetition. He hated ambiguity. Change could be a problem. Was he ill?
Others evidently harboured similar suspicions, and for several days a stream of messages flowed around the intranet. To his; surprise Arjun discovered that at Virugenix (unlike most workplaces, where being diagnosed with a neurological disorder might be a cause for concern, Asperger's was a badge of honour. Emails pointed out that mild AS is associated with extremely high IQ scores, that AS sufferers are often brilliant programmers, and that Bill Gates (who rocked back and forth, spoke in a monotone, was obsessed with technical detail and happened to be a billionaire) was proof that high-function autists were superior to the common herd. Someone mailed to say that he had always suspected `people like us' were wired differently to `people like them'. Gradually a competition developed, as people tried to prove that their own special cocktail of dysfunctional personality traits was casually connected to professional brilliance.
To:
aygroup@virqgenix.com From:
darrylg@virug_enix.com Subject: I WIN FOOLS
FACT. If I did not have sound and visual reminders programmed into my PDA, 1 would forget to change my clothes EVER.
FACT. I can recite pi to ninety-seven decimal places and know the exact times of sunrise and sunset at seven named locations in the continental United States FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR ...
Arjun suspected that Darryl's email disqualified him, since boasting was excluded by a clause in the American Psychiatric Association's definition of Asperger's, which mentioned a `lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests or achievements with other people'. He tried to assess his own situation. He was clearly less symptomatic than some of his workmates: Shiro, for example, never spoke and his only discernible enthusiasm was for a certain series of telephone switches used by Pacific Bell in the early 1970s. He, on the other hand, knew not to stand too close to people and responded to body language with his own appropriate body language. But did he do so naturally, or was it a learned response? At what point should one consider oneself abnormal? The question started to preoccupy him (was that itself a symptom?'), so finally he emailed the person who had first sent out the mail, and asked for advice.
To:
chriss@virugenix.com From:
arjunm@virugenix.comhello chris girl or boy i am wondering about your quiz ...A response came back that afternoon.
To:
arjunm@virugenix.com From:
chriss@virugenix.com2 x chromosomes. How do you feel about team sports?...She had been roped into a softball game over at the Microsoft campus. If he wanted to talk to her, she would be there on the sports field after work. He would recognize her easily enough.
I'll be the one with most visible tattooing.../end quote
Author