Bleeding Edge , riffs on the title

[John Bailey]

Both/And? Don't think there's any primary reading - pretty polyvalent metaphor.

When I think of the word 'bleed' I think of sound bleed, or image
bleed in print, where a signal or whatever travels where it's not
supposed to. Noises from next door, or a photo that's accidentally
escaped the border it was given on the page. (I recall someone posted
a different, more technical definition of edge bleed in relation to
publishing).

So Bleeding Edges are those points where a very Pynchonian line has
been drawn, a border or fence or 0/1 split, but where things
nonetheless make it across the excluded middle.

Among many, many other things, I imagine.

On Fri, Sep 27, 2013 at 12:23 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> So "bleeding edge" means primarily financial bleeding.  Losses. Of
> speculators, and all the rest.  Money, not Tech.
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 18, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>
>> At first I thought the reference in the title was obviously to 2 modern
>> phrases with similar meanings- the cutting edge and the leading edge.
>> Somehow I just amalgamated that into a Detective style title with blood
>> where the cutting was and didn't think much about it. But it is rather a
>> sinister spin on the known phrases themselves. Cutting edge has somehow
>> become a generic reference to the borders of technology and we use it that
>> way without any real sense that something is actually being cut, let alone
>> something that could bleed. But Pynchon has a long history of looking at the
>> very bloody cutting edges of  all colonialist and all technological front
>> lines. Where there are blunderbusses, rockets, surveyors, trains, mining,
>> drilling, doodoes, hereroes, native north americans, electrical marvels,
>> photos killing souls ...there will be  greed, lust, fighting, blood and
>> mangled bodies. I didn't know that leading edge is not just a similar term
>> but also refers to the forward edge of a wing.
>>
>> So even in the title there may be a hint that the cutting edge and the
>> leading edge may be the forward momentum of something dangerous to the soft
>> flesh of the human, something destructive and possibly something self
>> destructive.
>>
>> But then I started looking up terms in wikipedia and came across the
>> phrase itself-
>>
>>  Wikipedia:  Bleeding edge technology is a category of technologies
>> incorporating those so new that they could have a high risk of being
>> unreliable and lead adopters to incur greater expense in order to make use
>> of them.[1][2] The term bleeding edge was formed as an allusion to the
>> similar terms "leading edge" and "cutting edge". It tends to imply even
>> greater advancement, albeit at an increased risk of "metaphorically cutting
>> until bleeding" because of the unreliability of the software or other
>> technology.[3] The first documented example of this term being used dates to
>> early 1983, when an unnamed banking executive was quoted to have used it in
>> reference to Storage Technology Corporation.[4]
>>
>>     Obviously we are seeing the downside risk of internet technology
>> threatening to become its most pervasive political and social character as
>> Cheney's Total Information Awareness is started under Bush and secretly
>> finished under Obama with much help and side benefits from google, verizon,
>> apple, microsoft  hackers, etc.
>>
>> Wikipedia:  The leading edge is the part of the wing that first contacts
>> the air;[1] alternatively it is the foremost edge of an airfoil section.[2]
>> The first is an aerodynamic definition, the second a structural one. As an
>> example of the distinction, during a tailslide, from an aerodynamic
>> point-of-view, the trailing edge becomes the leading edge and vice-versa but
>> from a structural point of view the leading edge remains unchanged.
>>
>>     ( This  aeronautic  meaning is clearly a use  pynchon would be
>> familiar with. Along with the obvious reference to jet aircraft in the 9-11
>> attack It adds a reference to GR  that suggests we are not quite in the
>> clear from colonialist blowback.)
>>
>> Wikipedia: Cutting edge or The Cutting Edge may refer to:
>>         • The cutting surface of a blade or other cutting tool
>>         • State of the art, the highest level of development, as of a
>> device, technique, or scientific field
>>
>>    Interestingly, in the Margaret Atwood trilogy I just finished , the
>> character who kills most of humanity with a bio-engineered disease packaged
>> in a sex drug has a scene where he goes from one part of the
>> bio-enngineering complex he manages to another constantly referring to the
>> work taking place as cutting edge.
>>
>> The leading edge has taken on a more genaric spin-
>>
>> The Leading Edge:  Journal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
>>
>>   And finally just for fun -here is an actual company who works in close
>> alliance with the Golden Fang, Goldman Sachs, The Golden Triangle and
>> wherever else the  shiny yellow gold is: Leading Edge Alliance: LEA Global
>> www.leadingedgealliance.com/  A U.S. based international association of
>> independently owned accounting and consulting firms whose services are
>> listed as:
>> ACCOUNTING & AUDITING,  BUSINESS ADVISORY,  CORPORATE FINANCE, EMPLOYEE
>> BENEFIT SERVICES, ESTATE & EXECUTIVE FINANCIAL PLANNING, FINANCIAL PLANNING,
>> HUMAN RESOURCES,  INFORMATION SECURITY, LITIGATION SUPPORT, RISK, TAX
>> PLANNING & COMPLIANCE, TRANSACTION ADVISORY SERVICES, TRANSFER PRICING,
>> VALUATION
>>
>
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