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.

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"?

[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...

[tgrass → michaelpinto]

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.

[miles_matthias → michaelpinto]

Cool I have to read it. What are some of the sites you are talking about?

[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!

[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?

[brudgers]

Wikipedia

[miles_matthias → brudgers]

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.

[brudgers → miles_matthias]

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.

[petervandijck]

The internet.