Pattern recognition
I just finished reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Gibson has always been one of my favorite authors, ever since I borrowed a copy of Burning Chrome from a friend in college. Like most of his works, the sparsely written story took a bit to draw me in. Once it did, I ended up reading it all night until the end.
The title is what drew me to it in the library. I’d recently re-read The Magic of Reading by Bill Hill of Microsoft. Mr. Hill’s paper stems from his work on eBooks, ClearType, and the Microsoft Reader. The human brain is wired for pattern recognition, and this is evident in how people read. The brain learns at first to recognize individual letters, then progresses to recognizing words. Watching Kayleigh teach herself to read sparked my interest in the whole reading process. She’s just like me, able to be utterly consumed by a book.
Gibson’s book doesn’t deal with reading, but someone with the ability to recognize “cool” or “hip” in trends, and consults with advertising firms on new products and advertising. He’s dealt with similar concepts in past books such as Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties. There, the protagonist recognizes patterns in data and data access. I’ve seen and experienced this myself at work: scanning log files, database patterns, etc.
