[penguicon-general] Fannish Material To Read

[Michael Rudas (computer)]

--- Garrett Kajmowicz <gkajmowi at tbaytel.net> wrote:

> ...I'm looking for suggestions of other items
> which I should be reading or watching
> to better understand the other side of things.

We can start at the intersection-- there is, of
course, a whole genre of what have come to be called
"cyberpunk" novels/stories/films that explore the
intersection of hacker culture (which includes, in
part, open source) and cultural reality.  I personally
saw a lot of this begin to develop in meatspace as
early as the Captain Crunch/early Apple II days, but
it really picked up with the Amiga demo scene in the
late '80s.

books like "True Names", "Neuromancer", and "Snow
Crash" lead the way.

Movies like "The Matrix" and "Existenz" are the end
product of all this.

An interesting aside:  The current edition of Vernor
Vinge's story "True Names" includes an essay by
Richard Stallman:
<http://www.amazon.com/True-Names-Opening-Cyberspace-Frontier/dp/0312862075/sr=8-10/qid=1166422600/ref=pd_bbs_sr_10/002-0039359-2286411?ie=UTF8&s=books>

-- Michael Rudas