Software (novel)
Software is a 1982 cyberpunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It won the first Philip K. Dick Award in 1983. The novel is the first book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy, and was followed by a sequel, Wetware, in 1988.
Plot summary
Software introduces Cobb Anderson as a retired computer scientist who was once tried for treason for figuring out how to give robots artificial intelligence and free will, creating the race of boppers. By 2020, they have created a complex society on the Moon, where the boppers developed because they depend on super-cooled superconducting circuits. In that year, Anderson is a pheezer — a freaky geezer, Rucker's depiction of elderly Baby Boomers — living in poverty in Florida and terrified because he lacks the money to buy a new artificial heart to replace his failing, secondhand one.
As the story begins, Anderson is approached by a robot duplicate of himself who invites him to the Moon to be given immortality. Meanwhile, the series' other main character, Sta-Hi Mooney the 1st — born Stanley Hilary Mooney Jr. — a 25-year-old cab driver and "brainsurfer", is kidnapped by a gang of serial killers known as the Little Kidders who almost eat his brain. When Anderson and Mooney travel to the Moon together at the boppers' expense, they find that these events are closely related: the "immortality" given to Anderson turns out to be having his mind transferred into software via the same brain-destroying technique used by the Little Kidders.
Software 2.0
Software 2.0 is a term derived from Web 2.0 used to describe a second generation of software development methodologies. Analogous to the term Web 2.0, Software 2.0 refer to hosted services which aim to facilitate users creativity to develop and share their own software applications online.
The term includes open source projects -where many developers collaborate in a software project and make the source code available to the end user- and generative programming and automatic programming - where software tools assist users to build customized software applications.
Following Web 2.0 design patterns, Software 2.0 services allow users to share their software applications on web-based communities such as GitHub.
Related concepts
See also
References
Chameleon
Chameleons or chamaeleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of old world lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. These species come in a range of colours, and many species have the ability to change colours. Chameleons are distinguished by their zygodactylous feet; their very long, highly modified, rapidly extrudable tongues; their swaying gait; and crests or horns on their distinctively shaped heads. Most species, the larger ones in particular, also have a prehensile tail. Chameleons' eyes are independently mobile, but in aiming at a prey item, they focus forward in coordination, affording the animal stereoscopic vision. Chameleons are adapted for climbing and visual hunting. They are found in warm habitats that range from rain forest to desert conditions, various species occurring in Africa, Madagascar, southern Europe, and across southern Asia as far as Sri Lanka. They also have been introduced to Hawaii, California, and Florida, and often are kept as household pets.
Chameleon (film)
Chameleon is a 1995 direct-to-video film starring Anthony LaPaglia. The film is directed by Michael Pavone. Pavone wrote and produced the film with Dave Alan Johnson.
Plot
When agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration are ambushed during a raid, Agent Matt Gianni suspects a leak and asks his boss Stuart Langston to enlist an outside agent. Langston brings in Willie Serling, who is a master of disguises and whose family was killed by Alberto Cortese, a drug smuggler. Langston sends Serling to jail undercover to investigate a drug operation possibly run by Cortese.
While in jail, Serling disguises himself as a computer expert and recovers critical bank records. Gianni frees him from jail and sends him to a bank to pose an auditor and follow up on the records. Serling investigates bank executive Jill Hallmann but begins dating her. He finds out that another executive, Morris Steinfeld, is the one involved in criminal activity. Steinfeld finds out that he is being investigated and reports to bank president Jason Ainsley, who informs Cortese of the investigation. Cortese kills Ainsley and also gets Steinfeld killed. Serling, who is targeted next, disguises himself as a hobo and is able to shoot Cortese first, though he does not kill him.
Chameleon (GIS)
Chameleon is an open source, distributed, highly configurable, environment for developing Web Mapping applications. It is built on MapServer as the core mapping engine and works with all MapServer supported data formats. It also works well with OpenGIS Consortium standards for Web Map Services WMS and Web Map Context Documents (WMC) through MapServer's support for these standards.
Chameleon was originally developed in 2002 by DM Solutions Group under contract to NRCan, in support of Canada's GeoConnections program, contributing to the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI). Originally named "CWC2" (CGDI WMS Client Component), Chameleon was renamed once formally released to the open source community. CWC2 was developed in response to the growing number of WMS servers and lack of user friendly WMS clients in developing web mapping applications.
Chameleon has a plugin architecture. A large number of plugins, or widgets as they are called by the Chameleon developers, are available. A Chameleon widget can implement a mapping task such as zooming, panning, showing legends, or displaying map coordinates. Over a hundred widgets are distributed with the application and developers can easily create their own widget for any specific task.
