[HN Gopher] Mother Earth Mother Board (1996)
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Mother Earth Mother Board (1996)
Author : thunderbong
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-02-15 03:18 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| watersb wrote:
| I kept that issue of Wired. Later I heard somewhere that this
| issue was the single most expensive magazine issue in history.
|
| The article is dated December 1996.
|
| I have yet to look through the previous HN submissions, does
| anyone know if there is an online scan of the original? The
| photography and art direction are magnificent, and what's an epic
| travelogue without photos?
| staplung wrote:
| Unfortunately, for any of us that own that edition I assume
| it's illegal to post a scan but I did find a picture of the
| cover of that issue at amazon so you can at least see the Morse
| code "get wired" he mentions in the article: https://images-
| na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51RnGdSp4eL...
| timdiggerm wrote:
| I dunno, the Internet Archive has no problem hosting other
| issues from the same year
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| The Hacker Tourist Travels the World To Bring Back
|
| The Epic Story of Wiring the Planet
|
| - what an epic headline
| timdiggerm wrote:
| Sadly, although the Internet Archive has several of that year's
| Wired issues scanned, they do not appear to have December.
|
| You can read it in a collection of his writings (https://archiv
| e.org/details/someremarksessay00step/page/120/...) but that's
| not much different (and less accessible) than the link on this
| post.
| [deleted]
| EdwardCoffin wrote:
| Relevant is an observation from his editor for this piece, who
| was in the audience for his _Fall, or Dodge in Hell_ talk at The
| Long Now Foundation, responding to an earlier questioner about
| his editing process [1]:
|
| _I just wanted one quick comment, then a question, but when you
| ask this question about his writing style I will tell you: I was
| working under Kevin at Wired when Neil did a story of following
| the fiber-optic cable around the world, and it was a forty five
| thousand word piece, and I will say when you brought the copy in
| I could not improve it. As an editor his was the cleanest copy I
| 'd ever worked with, ever, with any other writer, and I actually
| worked with a lot of writers. So I will say you have something
| going on there about your first drafts that are uneditable._
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/bkxuzwCps70?t=2042
| jpm_sd wrote:
| That's funny, because _Fall_ desperately needed an editor. I
| barely managed to finish it. The "real life" plot lines were
| mostly enjoyable, the "virtual world" stuff was just
| interminably tedious
| EdwardCoffin wrote:
| De gustibus non est disputandum. I liked the virtual world
| stuff.
| [deleted]
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It gets better on subsequent reads but it's not the easiest
| thing to get into indeed. The first time I read it, I found
| the virtual world stuff annoying and hard to understand. But
| it grew on me on the re-read since I knew what he was trying
| to do and because with Neal Stephenson it's always about the
| details and little side plots and not about moving the main
| plot forward.
|
| I had the same experience with the Baroque cycle on first
| read. I've since re-read that many times and I'm already
| looking forward to picking up Fall and Termination Shock for
| more re-reads in a few years.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Rightfully a HN perennial submission, though with surprisingly
| little discussion. Previous posts with conversation:
|
| 4 years ago -- 20 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15635028
|
| 3 years ago -- 23 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20497098
|
| 8 years ago -- 15 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7542326n
|
| 13 years ago -- 9 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=634929
| lproven wrote:
| 3rd URL is broken. You have an extra `n` on the end. It should
| be:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7542326
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Gah! Thanks.
| dgritsko wrote:
| On one of those previous discussions someone recommended Arthur
| C. Clarke's "How the World was One" as a companion piece if the
| subject material is interesting to you. It's long out of print
| at this point but well worth seeking out a copy for a
| fascinating history of early telecommunications.
| ycombinete wrote:
| Was this written by _the_ Neal Stephenson, famous sci-fi author?
| stblack wrote:
| Yes indeed!
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| And it's just as good as you would assume, and then some.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Stephenson is pretty influential as an essayist and general
| concepts guy. One time even William Gibson cited him,
| specifically the "burbclave" idea from _Snow Crash_ , in his
| essay "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" about Singapore.
| Which is pretty much... the literary equivalent of when a band
| plays the "Weird Al" parody version of their song.
| jacquesm wrote:
| When I read Cryptonomicon I figured this was what gave him the
| idea for Epiphyte(2).
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