

Ask HN: What's our generation's "Whole Earth Catalog"? - miles_matthias

Like everyone else here, I've been reading a lot about the life of Steve Jobs lately. I feel like I had a pretty good idea of his life and his work since I'm a long time Mac user and Apple fan, but scrounging for the details makes him feel still present.<p>Anyway, one of the coolest things about him that I'm re-discovering is his motivation from the Whole Earth Catalog. He said in his 2005 Stanford speech that it was his generation's "bible." That got me thinking - what is our generation's "Whole Earth Catalog"?
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michaelpinto
That's very easy for me to answer -- but I'm a bit older than most of you
folks. As funny as it may seem the book that changed my life and opened my
eyes was "The Media Lab" (1988). and the author of the book was Stewart Brand.
What's interesting is that many of the things being talked about in the book
are now very much a part of the real world. It's also interesting to note that
Brand was also the author of the Whole Earth Catalog.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand>

The closest thing today to the "Whole Earth Catalog" today is really the net —
especially sites that explore underground culture...

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tgrass
His "How Buildings Learn" is an excellent read as well. In it he argues for
construction design, materials and techniques that allow for a building to be
adaptable and habitable over the long term, by different tenants with
different needs.

The book is empirical in nature: it examines buildings that have been capable
of adapting to new uses and demands and those that haven't been. From that
catalog of buildings he explores the qualities that make for an adaptable
building.

For anyone interested in "user interface," this is an insightful work on
designing the built environment.

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smoyer
I actually had a couple late issues of "Whole Earth Catalog", but my real
inspiration came from "Popular Electronics" (my first "computer" was a COSMAC
ELF based on the RCA 1802 uProcessor) and "Radio Electronics". Later Jack
Crenshaw's column in "Embedded Systems Programming" was instrumental in
teaching me about powerful but efficient algorithms ... something I still
practice today.

I suspect you're asking about the current generation ... I don't want to put
words in the "youngsters" mouths but I'm happy to see that the DIY spirit is
alive and well. It's something we can all agree on!

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hasenj
I heard that speech, more than once, but I didn't understand what this "Whole
Earth Catalog" was, other than being a popular book among nerds.

Is there any single book that can be said to be popular among nerds these
days?

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brudgers
Wikipedia

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miles_matthias
Wikipedia is definitely a great resource, but it doesn't provide a common
context to listed works like the Whole Earth Catalog did. I mean, the Whole
Earth Catalog had a whole intro about the spirit of their generation and why
they listed what they listed, in addition to explanations and comments about
the listed works.

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brudgers
My first inclination was "the web" it is not a good analog due to its lack of
curation.

And while the cynical part of me wants to point out that Pepsi co-opted the
spirit of a generation idea a generation ago, Wikipedia's editorial
convictions are no less obvious even if they are necessarily less personal
both due to the scale upon which information is available and the fact that
today's hippies often have computer savvy.

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petervandijck
The internet.

