God I hate this writing style. And the title. The reality is probably more bland.
In the 80s and 90s, tech was magic. Lots of computer magazines, cyberpunk novels. Tech fact and fiction sold in huge quantities. Mainstream tech publications depended on tech ad dollars, so editors preferred tech sycophants. There were doom-scarers but it was mostly a utopian thing. It's what got me into tech as a kid.
After the dot-com bubble burst, this imploded. Investment in tech dropped across the board, including advertising tech publications. I'd love to get a count of cyber/tech fiction novels published through the 80s,90s and early dot-com burst.
throwaway81523 3 hours ago [-]
This is a pretty interesting article. Firefox shows the first paragraph for a second and then blanks it, but lynx -dump manages to get the text. There's an audio too but I ignored that.
viceconsole 3 hours ago [-]
Firefox reader mode displays the full article perfectly.
> Ok, but first I have to tell you about Dick Pick. Literally his name. Richard A. Pick. Went by Dick.
How Americans keep straight face in such situations?
wmf 2 hours ago [-]
Often they don't and it's kind of the point. You could go by Rich, Richie, Rick, Ricky, Dickie... if you choose to call yourself Dick, you know you're going to cause some amount of snickering and you're doing it on purpose.
Also I remember men called him Richard Feynman but a lot of women called him Dick. That's sending a different message.
stevoski 2 minutes ago [-]
I recall sitting in a seminar in Australia, conducted by an American man called Buck Rogers. I had a moment of disbelief when he introduced himself.
I later found out that he had legally changed his name to Buck Rogers to intentionally be noticed.
Tade0 53 minutes ago [-]
"Borsook" as it is spoken means "badger" to most Slavic language speakers. Whoever was the immigration officer back then was noting things down by ear.
ben_w 2 hours ago [-]
Not an American, but this reminded me of Randy Baumgardner and Foggy Bottom.
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HF8QPPLS
edit: update to mention the new book's author.
In the 80s and 90s, tech was magic. Lots of computer magazines, cyberpunk novels. Tech fact and fiction sold in huge quantities. Mainstream tech publications depended on tech ad dollars, so editors preferred tech sycophants. There were doom-scarers but it was mostly a utopian thing. It's what got me into tech as a kid.
After the dot-com bubble burst, this imploded. Investment in tech dropped across the board, including advertising tech publications. I'd love to get a count of cyber/tech fiction novels published through the 80s,90s and early dot-com burst.
How Americans keep straight face in such situations?
Also I remember men called him Richard Feynman but a lot of women called him Dick. That's sending a different message.
I later found out that he had legally changed his name to Buck Rogers to intentionally be noticed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Baumgardner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foggy_Bottom
“…a legislative intern, accused Baumgardner of sexual harassment in which he slapped her butt…”
You can’t make this stuff up.