Close to the Machine

: Technophilia and Its Discontentsby Ellen Ullman(9 total)

With a New Introduction by Jaron Lanier A Salon Best Book of the Year In 1997, the computer was still a relatively new tool---a sleek and unforgiving machine that was beyond the grasp of most users. With intimate and unflinching de

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Ellen Ullman (9)

There was a time (still in living memory) when “virtual” was a free word in the English language. It meant “almost true” or “for all intents and purposes, but not completely, not truly.” One could say, “I was virtually happy.” Were you truly happy? No, you weren’t, because adhering to the “virtually…

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Virtual What Is Real?What is true?The internet

The corollary of constant change is ignorance.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Change Ignorance

We think we are creating the system, but the system is also creating us. We build the system, we live in its midst, and we are changed.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Simulacrum Projections of Self Systems

We think we are creating the system for our own purposes. We believe we are making it in our own image. We call the microprocessor the “brain”; we say the machine has “memory.” But the computer is not really like us. It is a projection of a very slim part of ourselves: that portion devoted to logic,…

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Simulacrum Projections of Self Systems

We have a “presence” on the Web: we are therefore real.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology The internet What Is Real?

What is it about the Internet, with its pretty graphics and simple clicks, that makes users feel so inundated; and about the spreadsheet—so complicated a tool—that makes them bold? The received wisdom about user-friendliness is challenged here. Human beings, I think, do not like to be condescended t…

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Spreadsheets The internet Click Tools

Once we were impressed by buildings; now we are impressed by virtual on-line spaces, that’s all.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Architecture Space

The new drug: the instant, the now, the worldwide.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Drugs Now

The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-it notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

— Ellen Ullman, amazon.com

Technology Mess Programming Post-It Notes Thought

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