A little of my recent reading:
## A wonderful piece about SpaceWar, the ur-computer game, by Stewart Brand from Rolling Stone, 1972. (Yes, 1972.) Also about: that thing we would someday call the computer revolution. [Courtesy Metafilter.]
## Inspiring interview with Howard Rheingold from Business Week. I first met Howard around the time his "Virtual Communities" book came out, and he was starting a column at the S.F. Examiner, where I then worked. I interviewed him for the Examiner (you can read it here) back then, and what I said about him still, I think, applies: "His blend of enthusiasm tempered with inquisitive caution distinguishes him from both starry-eyed techno-hucksters and atavistic technophobes." Here's what's on his mind today:
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We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.
But I think we're seeing hints, with all of these examples, that the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices -- these are all like those technologies...that made capitalism possible. These may make some new economic system possible. |
Take that, Francis Fukuyama!
## Having linked to Brand and Rheingold I must now complete the Whole Earth trifecta with a general bow in the direction of Kevin Kelly and his wonderful Cool Tools site, and in particular to the great compendium of documentaries, or "True Films," that he and his contributors have compiled.
## Here's a fun illustration of how hard it is to keep your brain's parallel-processing working right when the verbal and visual cues are contradicting one another. Then click on the site's comments button for an illustration of what it looks like when people's brains aren't working at all. [link courtesy Sam Ruby]
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