Contributors

Rudy Rucker (Cellular Automata) has worked as a mathematics professor, a software engineer, a computer science professor, and a freelance writer. He’s published 29 books, including a nonfiction book on the meaning of computers: The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul. He publishes an online SF zine called Flurb, and has been known to say that everything is a cellular automaton. He’s currently writing a cyberpunkish trilogy of novels in which nanotechnology changes everything. The first, Postsingular, appeared from Tor this fall, and will soon be available for free download on the web. rudyrucker.com

“Despite being the editor and publisher of Cool Tools,” Kevin Kelly (Book Yourself) admits,

“I’m neo-Amish. I am selectively late in adopting new technology, and mindful of the social costs when I do. I like old tools and gadgets that sport wear-marks and other evidence they are really used. Rule of thumb: never put a cover case around anything handy. That includes iPods. And when it comes to shopping, thrift counts. ‘High quality’ is usually overrated. With rare exceptions, if Costco sells it, it is good enough for me.”

Parker Jardine (Primer) says, “Picture a super-strong, blond-haired brute that enjoys every sport the Southwest has to offer. Then couple that with a 7-to- 5 weekday job as a systems administrator. I spend most of my spare time either working on my renewable energy projects, or on epic, multiday mountain bike rides with my girlfriend, Jennifer, and super dog, Lilly.” He’s currently working on connecting his solar PV system to the utility grid and designing a solar panel for electrolysis, and he is fond of top sirloin elk steak.

Richard Kadrey (Infrared Photography) is a freelance writer living in San Francisco.

He has written about art, culture, and technology for places such as Wired, Discovery Online, and Wired for Sex on the G4 cable network. He is the author of the new novel Butcher Bird, as well as three other novels, including the cult favorite Metrophage. Along with the Pander Brothers, he developed the original comic Accelerate for DC/Vertigo. Image Comics will reprint the comic as a graphic novel in fall 2007. Kadrey also works as a photographer under the name KaosBeautyKlinik. He is working on a new novel.

Rory Nugent (Solar Xylophone) began creating electronic art after starting NYU’s ITP program over a year ago. Previously “stuck in a remote factory somewhere in backwoods North Carolina,” he’s now completely immersed in schoolwork. These days, “between forgetting to eat lunch and getting no sleep, I obsess over solar panels, wind turbines, and growing tiny potted plants, wishing I had the time in my day to play the Wii, my massive Netflix queue, and ‘so bad it’s good’ dance music.” He likes thinking about “all the things it’s easy to forget about when our lives are moving at 100mph” and “passé technology like FM radio and analog telephones.”

Adam Fish (Mathemagician photography) got his start in photography “by despising the graphic design program at UNT,” where, as a typography student, he resented having to spend “hours and hours inking letters with Rapidographs.” He currently lives in Dallas with his wife, Brooke, and son, Jude, and is a fan of sports, both watching and playing. When asked what new idea excites him most in or out of his field, he says that “although not new, taking a nap sounds pretty exciting to me. It also seems to be outside the field of parenting.” He recently shot a portrait of George Foreman in a marching band costume.

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