Small Streams

The More Memes Change . . .

I'm enjoying John Markoff's book What the Dormouse Said and having wonderful mondo moments, such as when I open my browser to write about the personal computer revolution I get a prompt from a piece of software to update itself.

The invention of PCs was one of those "don't try this at home, kids," exercises. Mix together lots of Defense Department money, a bunch of nerds, inflated egos, LSD, Grateful Dead music, and electronic circuits, and these wonderful machines and wireless technologies is what you get. You can also see why a blue state lifestyle is something to warned against. Bill Gates' counter revolution may have calmed us down and got us to work on Excel and Minesweeper for a while, but the whole open source and scripts and content management for the rest of us is about to jiggle us to another level. Some telling snippets on fascinating people, such as Stewart Brand (More Stewart Brand!). Some disturbing parts, like when a group of 25 engineers eat LSD to have a product creation session. Not a whole lot of level three revelation, but enough level twos to create a bangup map of intersections between sociology and technology.