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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  2327 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Jaron Lanier Sees Silicon Valley’s Sinister Side

Good to see someone talking to Jaron again. He's a very interesting dude, who looks at the world through this interesting crack in the facade; like a desktop globe with a cut in it, he sees interesting shit inside, but not all of it.

I was fortunate enough to be in his circle of friends around the time he sold the PowerGlove tech to Nintendo, and came into very very large buckets of cash. The best thing was that it didn't change who we was, essentially, at his core, which was a computer tinkerer, electronics geek, with a decidedly non-conformist view of the world.

He, Stuart Brand (of the Whole Earth Catalog/Network), and Cliff Stoll (writer of The Cuckoo's Egg), were all a part of this odd group of thinkers who are still relevant today, and have been talking about the confluence of tech and humanity for a long time.





veen  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd love to pick his brain some day. What did you think of his books, if you've read some of them? His new book is about VR and I'm already looking forward to his angle on it.

goobster  ·  2325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Jaron's books? Not my cup of tea. He is smart, and sees the grand sweep of things, while also knowing the pinouts on a 68000 processor chip by memory. I enjoy his broad vision, but not his tendency to get into the little details.

It's a bit too much, when someone gives me a big beautiful sausage full of flavor, and then immediately drags me down into the factory to see it made. Let just enjoy this for a bit, alright? :-)

Cliff Stoll is kinda the opposite. He is so manic, that all he has is details, and he delivers them in a fascinating way. (I need to go back and read that book again, now that it is 30 years later...)