Comments on: Welcome, Sven! http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/welcome-sven/ falling indelibly into the past Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:39:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Edward Vielmetti http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/welcome-sven/#comment-2231 Edward Vielmetti Mon, 21 Jul 2003 02:31:39 +0000 http://www.new.plannedobsolescence.net/?p=910#comment-2231 <p>There’s a new book about Wired out too, saw it on the heaps of steaming new books pile at Barnes and Noble; it’s a ‘business’ book, full of dot com boom intrigue. </p> <p> Gutenberg Elegies is one of those works that’s of its time, that time being the period (mid 1990s) when people were just starting to realize that the wild-eyed hypertext dreams might actually amount to something, and that the new networks out there are something that might impinge on more than just hobbyists.  Birkerts has an essay in the 1996 “Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club” which is a neat chronicle of the era as well. </p> There’s a new book about Wired out too, saw it on the heaps of steaming new books pile at Barnes and Noble; it’s a ‘business’ book, full of dot com boom intrigue.

Gutenberg Elegies is one of those works that’s of its time, that time being the period (mid 1990s) when people were just starting to realize that the wild-eyed hypertext dreams might actually amount to something, and that the new networks out there are something that might impinge on more than just hobbyists.  Birkerts has an essay in the 1996 “Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club” which is a neat chronicle of the era as well.

]]> By: Rory http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/welcome-sven/#comment-2230 Rory Fri, 11 Jul 2003 12:54:09 +0000 http://www.new.plannedobsolescence.net/?p=910#comment-2230 <p>I was in the ambivalent camp, I guess, but The Gutenberg Elegies was certainly one of the most thought-provoking books I read at the time (’96). When I’m feeling disenchanted with the digital and browsing through a second-hand book store lined with fading paperbacks, I feel inclined to agree with him; but at other times I, well, spend five years of my life working on the web. Birkerts’ original message still sits somewhere in the back of my mind, though, as a cautionary tale, a reminder of what we’re giving up even as we embrace the new; and that’s no bad thing. </p> <p> And that short essay is a thoughtful piece, too, despite its amusing ironies. Thanks for pointing it out. </p> <p> On the subject of Wired, have you read Paulina Borsook’s Cyberselfish? </p> I was in the ambivalent camp, I guess, but The Gutenberg Elegies was certainly one of the most thought-provoking books I read at the time (’96). When I’m feeling disenchanted with the digital and browsing through a second-hand book store lined with fading paperbacks, I feel inclined to agree with him; but at other times I, well, spend five years of my life working on the web. Birkerts’ original message still sits somewhere in the back of my mind, though, as a cautionary tale, a reminder of what we’re giving up even as we embrace the new; and that’s no bad thing.

And that short essay is a thoughtful piece, too, despite its amusing ironies. Thanks for pointing it out.

On the subject of Wired, have you read Paulina Borsook’s Cyberselfish?

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