Stewart Brand

30 Oct 2021 02:15 - 23 Jun 2023 09:43
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    • Best known as the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand has been involved in all sorts of interesting projects, from Doug Engelbart's radically innovative computer systems to George Church's efforts to revive extinct species.
    • He was an early influence on me through the Catalog, which I found as a teenager at about the same time I found Ted Nelson's Computer Lib, which shared some of the sixties alternative esthetics.
    • I leave the interpretation of my role to others. …. My client is civilization and my approach is that of a hacker: to figure out the shortcuts that make things happen.
    • Or for a more in-depth treatment, Fredrick Turner's book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, and there's an upcoming biography by John Markoff. And a documentary We Are As Gods is in the process of being released.
    • Stewart was a visiting something-or-other at the Media Lab when I was a graduate student, and an unofficial advisor to the Vivarium Project. I am quoted a couple of times in his book about the Media Lab.