Blue Ant > Dazzle Camouflage

October 02, 2012 in Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

How do you camouflage an inflatable mylar drone in the shape of a penguin? You really can’t, but for the climax of Zero History, one character opts for a disruptive paint job known as “dazzle” as a way to break up its gestalt.

“The result wouldn’t conceal the penguin against any background at all, particularly the sky, but broke it up visually, made it difficult to read as an object.”

Dazzle, or “razzle dazzle” is a form of camouflage invented in World War I by British artist and naval officer Norman Wilkinson. The Royal Navy, unable to conceal its ships, went for something altogether different by painting them with loud, irregular black-and-white patterns. The result was a floating Picasso, certainly visible, but hard to make out its size, shape and speed. German submarines needed to know all three to successfully calculate a hit with a torpedo, so turning British ships into a series of discordant shapes did a far better job of protecting them than trying to make them blend into their surroundings.

Blue Ant > Brabus Maybach

September 23, 2012 in Arts & Culture, Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

“Most people don’t self-drive these,” Bigend said, pulling out onto Sunset, headed east.
“Most people don’t drive them at all,” Hollis corrected, from the passenger seat beside him. She craned her neck for a glimpse back into what she supposed could be called the passenger cabin. There seemed to be a sort of frosted skylight, as opposed to a mere moonroof. And a lot of very glossy wood, the rest in carbon-colored lambskin.
A Brabus Maybach,” he said, as she turned her head in time to see him give the wheel a little pat.

Blue Ant > The Curta

September 14, 2012 in Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

In a subplot of Pattern Recognition, Cayce Pollard uses a rare prototype of an early computing device as a bargaining chip for a crucial email address. She makes a straight offer to a menacing, drunken ex-spy — even trade, email address for the Curta.

It’s described as a black, cylindrical hand-grenade, “a precious instrument…performing calculations mechanically, employing neither electricity nor electronic components. The sensation of its operation is best likened to that of winding a fine thirty-five millimeter camera. It is the smallest mechanical calculating machine ever constructed.”mputing device as a bargaining chip for a crucial email address. She makes a straight offer to a menacing, drunken ex-spy — even trade, email address for the Curta.

1960 PopSci offers a glimpse into optimism, darkness of Cold War America

September 08, 2012 in Blog, Science & Environment, Writing

The most immediately notable thing about this 1960 issue of Popular Science I picked up a vintage market is the smell. It smells, heavily, of chlorine. Not just chlorine, it smells like an indoor whirlpool Jacuzzi, like filmy chlorinated water and aqua blue PVC, with a vinyl cover holding down vapors that make the nose and eyes burn.

The smell isn’t relevant to the content, and it’s specific to this one water-damaged copy. But it’s a fitting smell, and it conjures images of spilled martinis, one-piece bathing suits and foamy wet chest hair. Consumer products awash in chemicals and exciting new compounds, promising joy and leisure.

Blue Ant > Bibendum

September 05, 2012 in Arts & Culture, Geek, Writing

Cayce Pollard in Pattern Recognition has a unique ability to judge how the market will respond to logos and brands. At the root of this rare talent, for which Bigend employs her, is a “phobic reaction” to trademarks she’s had since age 6 when she threw up after seeing The Michelin Man in a French catalog. Otherwise known as “Bibendum,” the 114-year-old, anthropomorphic stack of tires remains her biggest weakness.

'99% Invisible' Uncovers the Hidden World of Design

August 30, 2012 in Arts & Culture, Portfolio, Writing

Originally published in the East Bay Express, 2012 Roman Mars' radio show and podcast is changing the way we look at design — and maybe the nature of public radio.

By Tate Williams

When people think of design, they usually conjure images of prominent, beautiful objects, like a sleek modern building or a stylish piece of furniture. But there's another world of design, one we rarely notice, that quietly orchestrates our lives — the paths we walk, our moods, our interactions.

That secret world is the terrain of 99% Invisible, a four-and-a-half-minute-long KALW radio show and podcast that local producer Roman Mars creates at night from his home in the East Bay, and has become something of a national hit. In its sixty-plus episodes, the show has uncovered the hidden world of design, revealing such stories as the murderous history of dentures, the faults and virtues of the cul de sac, and the free-jazz of deteriorating escalators.

Blue Ant > Faraday Pouch

August 30, 2012 in Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

Zero History operative Milgrim is kept on a tight leash by his handler Ollie Sleight. He supplies Milgrim with nothing but an unusual phone and what he calls a “Faraday pouch” for carrying his passport.

Radio-frequency identification tags. They were in lots of things, evidently, and definitely in every recent U.S. passport…You could sit in a hotel lobby and remotely collect information from the passports of American businessmen. The Faraday pouch, which blocked all radio signals, made this impossible.

The pouch plays a role in Milgrim’s evolution as his involvement in corporate espionage deepens.

Blue Ant > The Rickson's

August 25, 2012 in Arts & Culture, Blog, Geek, Writing

Buzz Rickson’s Black MA-1 Bomber Jacket Cayce Pollard, brand-phobic coolhunter at the center of Pattern Recognition, adores her Japanese-made replica of a standard issue U.S. Air Force flying jacket.

The Rickson’s is a fanatical museum-grade replica of a U.S. MA-1 flying jacket, as purely functional and iconic a garment as the previous century produced…Cayce’s MA-1 trumps any attempt at minimalism, the Rickson’s having been created by Japanese obsessives driven by passions having nothing at all to do with anything remotely like fashion…It is an imitation more real somehow than that which it emulates.

The Rickson’s is a quite real jacket, emblematic for Gibson of the almost religious craftsmanship of Japanese garment makers. Buzz Rickson’s is, in fact, a Japanese clothing company founded in 1993 that specializes in replica vintage flight jackets, one of which is the MA-1.

Blue Ant > Floating Bed

August 25, 2012 in Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

Hollis Henry stays at Bigend’s Vancouver apartment toward the end of Spook Country, and gets a mysterious warning call on the way there:

“Do you have any piercings?” he asked.
They took a right.
“Excuse me?”
“Piercings. If you do I must warn you about the bed in the master bedroom. The top floor.”
“The bed.”
“Yes. Apparently you don’t want to crawl under it if you have any magnetic bits. Steel, iron. Or a pacemaker. Or a mechanical watch. the designers never mentioned that, when they showed me the plans. It’s entirely about the space underneath, visually. Magnetic levitation. But now I have to warn each guest in turn. Sorry.”

Blue Ant > I started a Tumblr

August 23, 2012 in Arts & Culture, Blog, Geek, Science & Environment, Writing

I've been wanting to start a Tumblr about a particular topic as a hobby because I have such an overabundance of free time. Nothing was really striking me, but I've been reading "Zero History" by William Gibson, and I remembered, particularly in his newer novels, how dense they are with references. Some are real, some are not real, some of them are right on the brink of being real. I remember when I saw Gibson do a reading for the release of the new book, and during the Q&A, he was asked about the potential of hyperlinks in ebooks. He sort of shrugged at the idea, but answered that, since the Internet became widespread, when he writes, he doesn't feel the need to explain everything he mentions. It's as though novels are now are somewhat suspended in a cloud of information readily at the fingertips of almost every reader.

Fifty pages in and I found myself on the subway, googling references on my phone to see if he made it up or if it's a real thing that's out there. Also in his newer novels, he writes in present day. Gibson is noted as saying "The future is here — it's just not evenly distributed." His books are filled with existing items that are on the very fringe of awareness, or on the brink of becoming mainstream. It makes for a participatory reading experience, and it's a reason he's one of my favorite authors.

And so, the Tumblr. The very geeky Tumblr. For now known as Blue Ant after the corporate identity of eccentric, wealthy puppet-master Hubertus Bigend, whose curiosity drives the events of Gibson's most recent three novels. In it, I'll pick some little item mentioned in the book and explore the story behind it. It will be fun. And it will let me write little pieces about cool things. The general topics will be fashion, marketing, computing, design, corporate espionage, all great stuff even if you have no clue who William Gibson is.

I'll repost stuff on the website. Here's the inaugural post: