While reading this section, I was very confused about Qwghlm and the Qwghlmian people that kept appearing in Lawerence Waterhouse's storyline. I figured out it was close to England, but I didn't know if it was a code (with the mixed up letters, shown in other parts of the book) or what.
Wikipedia, as usual, sheds some light:
Qwghlm is a fictional location, featured in the books Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. Qwghlm consists of a pair of islands, Inner Qwghlm and Outer Qwghlm, off the northwestern coast of Great Britain. The islands are geographically similar to the Hebrides. It is somewhat of a parody of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and their mutual dislike for the others' way of life and religion. According to Stephenson, a very approximate pronunciation of "Qwghlm" is Taggum.

I find the Dentist terror pretty amusing. I mean, everyone is afraid of dentists, now this one is a powerful rich fiend. And then that his wife, (reminds of someone like Imelda Marcos) was actually a prostitute (or so Randy is told).

I was thinking back to Gravity's Rainbow and how Pynchon presents WWII vs Stephenson. Is this also going to go back to the Cold War? Actually, it's interesting that G.R., unlike Underworld or Crypt., does not jump back and forth between decades constantly. Perhaps Crypt. is more along the lines of Underworld. DeLillo shows the connections between the Co

"Kivistik had gone for the usual academician's ace in the hole: everything is relative, it's all just differing perspectives" (83).

It is annoying when an argument goes that way, but Randy vs. Charlene's friends didn't really seem to go to one side or another. I'm wondering if the novel is seting up for a discussion of relativity, whether the shades of gray we use are progressive or counterproductive, whether we're limited as a society because of it.

With the other books we've had similar discussions about secrets and their place, so I thought it was interesting that Cryptonomicon treats these encrypted messages as secrets that have a set lifespan. On page 55, Randy asks "How long do you want these messages to remain secret?" ... "Five years? Ten years? Twenty-Five years?" It's interesting to see a character who recognize the difficulty of keeping secrets and the inevitability of secrets emerging into the open i.e. it's just a matter of time.

Let me say first that I am really enjoying this book thus far. It is much more coherent than some of the other books we've read, flows better in my opinion, and gut wrecnchingly funny (ok so maybe I'm exagerrating a bit here but let's just say it's a plus when you have vocal representations of your amusement).

There are two things that I found really interesting. The first was all the technical jargon about symbol logic. I can see how alot of people would not like it but I for one enjoyed it alot. The way it was presented made it really readable. There was a speed an excitment to their discussions which just rubbed off onto the reader. Not to mention Randy's accent was pretty funny, although at certain points it seems like his accent has disappeared totally.

"It's war, baby." also reminds me of the saying, "That's showbiz, kid." The inconsistency of "showbiz," where one day something has that special "it" factor, and the next day, everyone has already forgotten about it and moved on, is present on page 79: Avi and Randy "were frequently mentioned as among Silicon Valley's rising stars...A year after that, the entire enterprise had crashed and burned." I thought the next line was really funny. "This was an epic tale not worth telling." The author likes to use oxymoronic terms (or concepts) next to each other. (i.e. "sophisticated urbanite" tha

Here are my initial reactions to the new novel. I thought the prologue was really ironic because Shaftoe keeps making up these haikus but he's in China. He says it's to add some Oriental spice to his poetry and to impress the folks back home. Way to generalize all Asians, buddy. (I guess I'm a little sensitive about that.) He's really sarcastic, and I was particularly amused when I read, "Now these Chinese are sophisticated urbanites" (1). It's really strange to read about Shanghai as this chaotic, backwards area because today, it's home to a chaotic (some things never change), artsy community.

I have a stupid question to ask. The book often refers to the "Nipponese", "Nips" etc. and I realized I had never heard that term before. I'm guessing this is another word for Japanese? If so, why does the book use this term? Does anybody know the derivation right off the top of their head? I'll look it up if nobody has any ideas...

I loved the hyperbole in the scene on page 76 (and more) where Randy describes Charlene's paper on beards. She goes to such great lengths to research this paper! She watches porn designed for shaving fetishists ("watching a video of a straight razor being drawn along wet, soapy flesh"), she scours Gilette statistics, and even comes up with statistics about different races and their beard growth. (I found that statement somwhat false. Is she counting all ethnicities? I feel she made a generalized statement... Anyway, I digress.) I thought the survey she took was very hilarious--that essentially all women preferred clean shaven men-- and I definitely agreed.

I know many of you are working on Infinite Jest (or Underworld). This thesis talks about both of them and the American media. Check it out in the link below.

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ64196.pdf