The Pentagon's Brain
Since its inception in 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has grown to become the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science research and development agency. Created by President Eisenhower to prevent another Sputnik, and to focus primarily on defensive programs against nuclear weapons, the agency--and its imagination and scope--has expanded enormously with each passing year. From Agent Orange in Vietnam to insect-sized drones in use today, from the earliest networked computers and the Internet to smart rockets and war zones under 24-hour video surveillance, DARPA is responsible for innovations that have changed the course of war, national security, and strategic planning at the highest levels. To uncover the secret history of DARPA in action, journalist Annie Jacobsen tracked down key players in DARPA's Smart Weapons Program, past and present; neuroscientists building an artificial brain, cell biologists working on limb regeneration, the Nobel laureate who invented the laser. From DARPA's earliest defensive advances to hundreds of ongoing programs, Jacobsen exposes both sides of the DARPA coin: the fantastic technological advances from which we all benefit, and the darker side drawn up in a race for military supremacy.
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- I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineeri...
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Le...
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espiona...
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...
Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computi...
Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1...
Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key...
Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...
Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle - https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Ora...
Winners, Losers & Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-...
Microsoft Secrets - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets-audiobook/dp/B019G2...
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture - https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow-audiobook/dp...
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age - https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-...
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cult...
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer - https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
Bitwise: A Life in Code - https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David-Auerbach/dp/1...
Gates - https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-...
We Are The Nerds - https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds-audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/...
A People's History of Computing In The United States - https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United-Stat...
Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer - https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley-audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG...
How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone - https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone...
Steve Jobs - https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation - https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...
Coders - https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp...
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audi...
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...
The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World - https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Change...
The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Eng...
Also...
"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
"Jobs vs Gates" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie-Nerd/dp/B077KB96...
"Welcome to Macintosh" - https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy-Kawasaki/dp/B00...
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" - https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah-Wyle/dp/B...
"Jobs" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton-Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref...
And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the feel of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.
https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z...
And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:
- A good book about the history of the Jasons (and everything in and around DARPA) is The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA (2016) by Annie Jacobsen. Recommended read!
https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...
https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-cu...
- 1) The Imagineer’s of War by Sharon Weinberger
2) The Pentagon’s Brain by Annie Jacobson
- In the early nuclear age, DARPA had proposals for a 10,000 megaton thermonuclear weapon [1].
In principle, we can design weapons horrendous enough to crack this entire planet apart forever. Four billion years of life up in smoke (or out in debris, I should say).
The question of whether humans are the most intelligent life form on the planet is still under active consideration. :)
[1] The Pentagon's Brain by Annie Jacobsen
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