Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho by Jon Katz
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great look at the world of geeks circa 1999. At a time when internet access was mainly for academics and geek culture, Slashdot.org just coming into prominence, and the computing world ablaze, we follow the author and 2 teenagers from Idaho on their journey into Chicago and the world. Interesting how the story runs into the MSM coverage of the Columbine shootings, causing the beginning of the Hellmouth series on Slashdot. Well written book — at the end you feel you really know who Jesse (the more outgoing of the 2) is.
View all my reviews.
tdrapeau Books Book Review, Geek
The new groups feature on Propeller.com is starting to get fun. The team is still adding functionality to it, such as RSS, but its already interesting. The power to join a group of like minded people in your favorite niche topic, and then being able to share your thoughts on it… its the best of Usenet and Forums IMO.
On Propeller you can only create one group, so make it a good one. I believe I have: Battlestar Galactica.
Wil Wheaton is running the Geeks group. The conversation “I am a geek because…” spilled out into its own story.
My favorite response so far, FTC, is from Shoei-Mike:
I’m a geek becasuse:
(0) I’m not starting this list at 1.
(1) My wife wrote this about me.
(10) When I tried really hard to force past my bias against sport, I came up with this.
(11) I converted the message base from my old BBS to HTML pages and put it online.
(100) I found my way here by reading WWdN.
‘Nuff said.
tdrapeau Propeller Conversations, Geek, Groups, Propeller
