I have a love/hate relationship with this post. Love the computing history, the great. simple definitions of things like the BIOS. I am a dog person though, believe cats are the spawn of Satan, and this post has given me appreciation for cats and cat videos.
One of my friends over @smallstack made @meowstack but most writers seem to prefer doggos. But maybe that’s just my feed lying to me. Haha just checked there is a @woofstack! btw, that slam dunk reference was inspired by you. I watched that clip; reminded me of Muggsy Bogues.
I don't *think* Stephenson got me thinking about computers = brains. I was around 20 or 21 when I first read his stuff, and I suspect Asimov, Clarke, and other sci-fi classics had probably already done most of that heavy lifting... but Stephenson did such a great job of explaining how something like that might happen. I think that was the truly notable thing about his work for me.
Oh yes. I think the same thing about ancient myths, too - we keep revisiting stuff that people wrote down hundreds or thousands of years in the past. Why? Because some folks were pretty smart back then, and the universality of the themes seems to defy time.
Yeah and I think there is something else. It's like your bit on music - alternative to *what*? Stuff from another time feels out-of-band from current chaos, rooted in firmer ground. David and his friends got me reading this latest book from 1974, 25 years before he was born
I have a love/hate relationship with this post. Love the computing history, the great. simple definitions of things like the BIOS. I am a dog person though, believe cats are the spawn of Satan, and this post has given me appreciation for cats and cat videos.
Sacrilege
One of my friends over @smallstack made @meowstack but most writers seem to prefer doggos. But maybe that’s just my feed lying to me. Haha just checked there is a @woofstack! btw, that slam dunk reference was inspired by you. I watched that clip; reminded me of Muggsy Bogues.
Very good to know there's a woofstack :) That's a heck of a slam dunk memory, I was kinda thinking of Sounds Spud Webb
I don't *think* Stephenson got me thinking about computers = brains. I was around 20 or 21 when I first read his stuff, and I suspect Asimov, Clarke, and other sci-fi classics had probably already done most of that heavy lifting... but Stephenson did such a great job of explaining how something like that might happen. I think that was the truly notable thing about his work for me.
Isn't it just a little bit weird, circular, meta even, that we love old sci-fi? Classics about the future.
Oh yes. I think the same thing about ancient myths, too - we keep revisiting stuff that people wrote down hundreds or thousands of years in the past. Why? Because some folks were pretty smart back then, and the universality of the themes seems to defy time.
Yeah and I think there is something else. It's like your bit on music - alternative to *what*? Stuff from another time feels out-of-band from current chaos, rooted in firmer ground. David and his friends got me reading this latest book from 1974, 25 years before he was born
Great point about not being rooted (or, rather, not-very-rooted) in today's chaos, the wisdom from the past can just kind of sail right through to us.