Name: Close to the Machine
ISBN: 9781250002488

Close to the Machine

Here is a candid account of the life of a software engineer who runs her own computer consulting business out of a live-work loft in San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch. Immersed in the abstract world of information, algorithms, and networks, she would like to give in to the seductions of the programmer's world, where "weird logic dreamers" like herself live "close to the machine." Still, she is keenly aware that body and soul are not mechanical: desire, love, and the need to communicate face to face don't easily fit into lines of code or clicks in a Web browser. At every turn, she finds she cannot ignore the social and philosophical repercussions of her work. As Ullman sees it, the cool world of cyberculture is neither the death of civilization nor its salvation - it is the vulnerable creation of people who are not so sure of just where they're taking us all.

What Hacker News says

isityettimeJul 2026

Things like this are (sadly) common (and age-old) problems with automation and computerization. (For a vivid account of this phenomenon, check out the novel _Close to the Machine_, by Ellen Ullman.)

As executives and analysts increasingly use the "AI" craze to push automation and computerization (and layoffs) generally, even aside from AI proper, it should not be surprising that the individuals and groups opposing those moves also use the same labels.

The lack of precision in language here sucks. It sucks for the discourse and it also sucks when it comes to focusing anger and productive energy on the core problems (obfuscation of human responsibility, erosion of human agency, declining institutional flexibility, deprofessionalization, etc.). But it doesn't begin with the critics of AI.

thread

manuhortetAug 2023

I recently read Ellen Ullman's memoir about her life as a software developer in the dot-com bubble era: "Close to the machine: Technophilia and its discontents".

The book was written before I was born, but I can still closely relate to most of the cultural points made. She does a great job defining the anxieties and frictions you experience working in the duality of the very formal computer systems and the subjective, messy working contexts, filled with deadlines, bureaucracy, "rockstars"...

Her takes on the internet are also super relevant today. A favorite extract of mine: "When I watch the users try the Internet, it slowly becomes clear to me that the Net represents the ultimate dumbing-down of the computer. The users seem to believe that they are connected to some vast treasure trove — all the knowledge of our times, an endless digitized compendium, some electronic library of Alexandria — if only they could figure out how to use it. But they just sit and click, and look disconcertedly at the junk that comes back at them".

What other similar books would you recommend?

thread

danielovichdkAug 2023

Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents https://www.amazon.com/Close-Machine-Technophilia-Its-Discon...

thread

Random_BSD_GeekAug 2023

> What other similar books would you recommend?

"Close to the Machine" by Ellen Ullman and "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland occupy roughly the same space in my memory.

thread

rektideMar 2023

> In my experience, in both business and academia, bullshit intolerance is a severe career limiting trait.

How very well said.

I've craved a book describing the alienation of the engineer, how strange it is to be so well connected to such self-speaking details, to be such a hyper-critical beast on the hunt for issues, a monster at scoping out problems & understanding their bounds, at evaluating possibility. And being trapped in a world where so much around us can feel like bullshit, like a removal of information, only making things vague. Where so many goals & intents seem detached & decoupled.

This simple phrase rather puts a pin on some of the difficulty of life as a developer.

I don't have many recommendations to explain or explore The Most Important Life Aspect Of Being A Programmer, which you've so very really captured imo. Ellen Ullman's Close To the Machine (`97) is a relatively-early memoire that has some very nice capturances of this weird world, of the life of being a machine-speaker, a truth-finder, apart from the rest of the adrift weird world. Haven't picked it up but her new book (Life In Code, `17) yet. I really crave a lot more discourse on this. This is the most undersung reality. Programmers & would-be/could-be programmers should know. The world should know.

thread

pcthrowawayMay 2022

I studied English alongside CS and was really into the creative nonfiction genre in my university days. I remember really enjoying "Close to the Machine" by Ullman, might be worth checking out.

thread