Gettin' ripe...

The Boneyard

Dead things.

Intro to the Original Edition of Strafe's Guide

I've never had attitude for breakfast before...

Intro to the 2nd Edition of Strafe's Guide

Social criticism from the anti-social.

The Boneyard

POMA

n. [Person Of Many Accounts] Someone who through work, school, or just plain enthusiasm, can be reached through multiple online accounts.
Retired Oct. 2000. Too normal to provoke comment now.

Strafe's Guide to Streetspeak:
Who Gives a Tin Shit?

And the answer is: You do, brainwipe.

(My name is Strafe, and I am a cyberpunk; you must forgive the fact that I occasionally eschew certain social niceties and givens, like hello.)

There exists a cyberpunk axiom which says that Information is Power. From this platform, privacy must count for something. Like your own dear ass, just as a ferinstance. Even the biggest flatline brick in the sprawl is going to have trouble chucking you over if he can't find you. Problem is, for everybody that you want to know your itenerary, there's six more you don't, and you never know who (or what) is listening these days.

Solution is, be able to make sense to your friends and talk shit to your (suspected) ememies, most of whom probably won't be hip to Streetspeak anyway, because they are such losers. Know the lingo. If those unfriendlies and unwelcomes lurking out there get nonsense from you, their courses of action will probably follow suit. While they're buzzing around in this huge vacuum of mis/dis/pissinformation, you can isolate and nuke them in small groups at your leisure. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Shiv?

But there's a better justification for Strafe's Guide: Style Beyond Substance and Attitude Beyond Reason. This, more than anything else, encompasses the heart - er, CPU - of a cyberpunk. Never let them see you try, but flash like chrome at Mach 6 in your outrageous, unbelievably deadly untryingness. If you can make a babe and blow up a building and look bored all at the same time, you've got the idea.

The third reason is:
We need the money. We need the money really, really bad.

Business is business. Action is Action.

Don't take any ticking nickels,

Strafe Narkette

Grand Theft Wordswipe
Cyberpunk. Poetic, efficient and romantic. Distance and passion, machine and man. Great fuckin' word.

It's been used to describe music, lifestyles and artistic sensibilities, but was originally coined to identify one narrow school of science-fiction writers, most notably William Gibson. Which is kinda funny when you consider that he knocked out Neuromancer on a typewriter, didn't know jack or jill about technology at the time, and probably used the profits from the book to buy his first leather jacket---but God, it was a good word...

Trouble is, the flatlines and mundanes grab on to a handle, (and that's what words are: handles on ideas) then forget what the handle is connected to. Soon, anything that ran on more than an AA battery had the prefix "cyber" sloshed across it like cat piss.

But what does "cyberpunk" really mean? It means Technology and Attitude. We don't all listen to music that sounds like a botched tracheotomy growling along with the spin cycle, and we don't all have large hunks of metal punched through our flesh, but there are what you might call some general rules of engagement. Cyberpunks love technology, number one, with a passion that many reserve for drugs. And while confident enough to be kind in most cases, the average Jane Smith Cyberchick is more than able to fuck you over royally if you give her any shit. That chunky thing on her belt probably is a telephone butt-in rig; that scary-looking scope on her pool cue probably is a laser sight. And if you really doubt her leather jacket contains some bizarro kind of weapon, your education might be in for some Ivy-League broadening before the sun sets.

Cyberpunks aren't sexist, racist, or even ethnocentric. They're equal-opportunity snubbers. They're better than everybody, flat-bang, and they have ways of reminding the forgetful. Remember the last time your company fired an employee, and the next day every single computer in your office was running an incomprehensible Japanese operating system that your MIS geek couldn't get rid of without taking the drives down to the metal? That was one of us.

Cyberpunk means better living through technology---and, unfortunately, sometimes things like revenge, spite and violence are part of life. Your average 'punks are aloof sorts, and if you absolutely force them into a meatspace confrontation you can count on the only rule being instant, maximum violence. No warning shots; a cyberpunk on the ropes goes nuclear, straight off. It's not a scruples thing, It's just faster, more convenient, and better style. You should even leave the gentle, geeky-looking ones alone; you have to wonder; if that four-eyed longhair is out-there enough to be sporting a Star Trek communicator on one side of his belt and an unregistered, ramped-up, air-propelled taser gun on the other, is this really someone you want to irritate? Logic!

People who talk about cyberpunks usually fall into one of two categories, and they're weird categories: Some don't believe in us. Some believe, and have a sort of excessive and unhealthy interest. The ones who don't believe in us---who think we're living out some kind of fantasy like kids wearing towels and playing Batman---are easy to fool, and that's good. The ones who have an excessive and unhealthy interest are even easier to fool, and that's just beautiful.

Should it bother me that some mower thinks he understands me because he's seen pathetic films like Hackers? Not a chance. Should I worry because the tie that runs the company I work for has no idea how I keep his network going? Nope. In fact, the less they know about me, the better. Let 'em think I'm breaking into the Pentagon for kicks. Let 'em lie awake at night wondering if the punk-ass kid on the corner is going to steal their credit cards with a laptop and 28.8 modem.

In the meantime, keep 'em guessing. Know the lingo, talk the talk. You can TCB without breaking a sweat or giving away your agenda. Drop a macro into a sentence and communicate fractal waves of meaning. Two words and your partner knows that what you guys are doing would probably be best kept quiet. With a quick phrase, he tells you that it's too late, they already know, and you might have said something sooner, dipshit. And the whole exchange happens right in front of someone who is unaware the conversation was more than a simple greeting.

I know information is power.
I know the street has its own use for things.
I know there ain't much you can't solve, given enough fucking RAM.
I know the power of words.

Language is a tool. Most often it's a radio; sometimes it's a gun. Sometimes---and this is really the point I've been driving at---it's a lockpick, a handy way into rooms you aren't meant to see, corridors you aren't meant to tread. If you're up on the talk, the walk and the rules, you can play the game; you can even pick the game; and you can---if necessary---pick your friends' locks. The game gets nasty sometimes, and there are ultimately two choices---get busy winning or get busy losing.

Check, flatline---your move.

Strafe Narkette

Check Please...