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Comment by jacobwcarlson | Hacker News Reader

The absence of Idoru[1] references is surprising. Almost as surprising as learning that book is 20 years old. I may need to re-read it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru

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I was just about to write that. Was there anything like take existing at that time or did he project the trends and adding a good dose of Japanese pop culture weirdness, completely on his own?

AFAIK Gibson's just really good at assessing culture and predicting its course.

Idoru is also the first thing I thought of when I read the headline. It was written 20 years ago. Gibson has a proven record of being eerily prescient.

Instant hot coffee in a can was one of my favourite little ideas he put forward.

Yes. I actually came to think about that just recently. The whole scene popped into my mind when making coffee in the morning. It made me feel a bit dizzy actually, and it made me think of what other things that are looking more and more probable.

Anonymous-type groups posing in 3d avatars comes to mind.

I remembered that at the time,I found it implausible that it was possible to go online in Neuromancer without connecting to a fiber or something and that it was just handwaved away. He was right and I was wrong, it was not important.

Only in anime like Megazone 23 and Macross Plus. In fact, Miku may be so appealing simply because she represents the merger of the real world with the anime world that otaku have long yearned for.

Gibson copied the idea from Japanese media. Macross Plus' Sharon Apple, a holographic pop idol, existed for years before Idoru.

For anyone that likes Gibson; I hope you caught this earlier (2015) story too:

"I mine for 100-year-old jeans" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10284638

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