Since at least Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night the idea of mind taping has been knocking around in science fiction for decades. Some examples are William Gibson’s Dixie Flatline and Frederik Pohl’s heechee prayer fans. A particularly good portrayal of how this might be done is Rudy Rucker’s Software. When roboticist Hans [...]
Nearly a month ago, my friend Victor bought and downloaded Portal, a first person action game that involves puzzles, the legacies of faceless defense corporations and bizarre physics. He invited me to try my hand at it. The game very strongly reminded me of Paranoia, right down to the jumpsuits and manipulative, deranged robots. For [...]