Silicon snake oil

What Hacker News says

1. gdubsFeb 2024
   I'm so grateful both to have grown up during the birth of the web, and to have read Stoll's books as a kid. I was introduced to his work through The Cuckoo's Egg, which had me absolutely riveted. And then read "Silicon Snake Oil". Regardless of which aspects of Stoll's predictions came true, I really appreciate his perspective. So many of the things he said in Snake Oil stick with me to this day. Like, despite all this technology around us, the importance of a good chocolate chip cookie recipe and the company of friends. Also learned a lot about writing from him. Like using short sentences.
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2. ghaffApr 2023
   It's been years since I've read it but recall it as a good read. He has another couple books as well but he admits he was wrong about various things in Silicon Snake Oil and the other book is sort of an ed-tech ant (about which he really wasn't wrong but not sure it brought a lot of new ideas.
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3. JanneVeeMar 2023
   I remember that humor from Silicon Snake Oil, it was a wonderful book. I think back to it when working in an industry where everyone takes a tractable problem and makes it intractable for "job security".
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4. jjkaczorMar 2023
   Heh - it's a "project" - myself, between learning to do 3d printing, in order to build parts/widgets to get my diode laser running for etching/engraving/cutting, it is an endless stream of tweaking this or that. OTOH, I am able to repair/replace things that would have been junk. (For example, I have a keyboard slider tray, where during a move, I lost the plastic sliders - those little parts paid for the cost of the 3d printer)

   Go next level - implement a QR code label and recognition system, so it can find the correct box automatically. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

   Also - thank-you for your books, I read "The Cuckoo's Egg" when I was 18 and it was one of the most amazing things I had read to that point. (I also loved "Silicon Snake Oil" - but missed "High-Tech Herectic")

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5. ok123456Mar 2023
   I remember their being a negative backlash against that book.

   Most of the Stoll fans on the early internet were expecting some futurist pablum, which he certainly could have sold out and done, but instead offered a polemic.

   I read both "The Cuckoo's Egg" and "Silicon Snake Oil" as a young teen and it shaped and tempered my view of technology.

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6. deltarholamdaMar 2023
   I don't keep a lot of computer books, but I still have "Silicon Snake Oil" and Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not A Gadget".
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