This now page shares what’s occupying my time at the moment. If you have your own website, you might want to create one as well. Learn more about me or read my CV.
My contribution to Prophets of Computing: Visions of Society Transformed by Computing, “Microcomputers for the Masses. Jack Tramiel and Commodore”, just went to the presses. I’m excited to receive my physical copy. 
Prophets of Computing: Visions of Society Transformed by Computing, ACM Books/Morgan & Claypool, New York, NY, 2022
My chapter examines the history of mass market information processing devices in the global marketplace leading up to the personal computer. It argues that the machine’s consumerist roots are its defining characteristic - rather than a tool for augmented intelligence, computers are tools for consumption.
Big thanks to the tireless editor, Dick Van Lente, and the publisher ACM Books/Morgan & Claypool. I have started reading the e-book and I can say that Dr. Van Lente really put something special together. The book is available to purchase on the Morgan & Claypool website.
The recently published post How the Consumer Computer is Consuming Computing became the most popular post on Beyond the Frame by far. It was featured on the front page of Hacker News, the Redecentralize Digest, and Ghostery’s Privacy Digest 17/22.
Also, I’m currently working as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Yorba. We are building an open digital identity service. It is currently in private pre-alpha and we’re looking to work with people interested in Self-Sovereign Identity, Clojure, and decentralized storage. Get in touch if that describes you or someone you know.
Reading
My reading list is overflowing, as usual. I just finished Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future by Ben Tarnoff, which I thought was fantastic. Here are a few titles I’m currently working through:
- Data and Reality by William Kent (1978)
- The classic An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise by John Robinson Pierce (1961)
- The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
- The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (2000)
Recent Memory
I was recently in Bertinoro, Italy working with the brilliant folks on the PROGRAMme Research Into the History and Philosophy of Computing project. I’m specifically collaborating on an untitled chapter on software preservation with Elisabetta Mori and Patricia Falcao for an edition edited by Liesbeth De Mol. The preservation of software-based art will form a cornerstone of our thesis.I covered some of these ideas in my presentation at the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at the Polytechnic University of Turin. The video and all related details can be found in Software Preservation in Networked Art on Beyond the Frame.
Beyond the Frame has always been concerned with software preservation. Museums Without Walls selected Gallery 404 - an online gallery curated by your humble author - for exhibition at this year’s conference.