Geeks Bearing Gifts
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Geeks Bearing Gifts
| Full title | Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World Got This Way |
|---|---|
| Author | Ted Nelson |
| Published | 2009 |
| Pages | 199 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Nelson’s idiosyncratic counter-history of computing — the argument that today’s conventions are frozen accidents of who happened to be in which room, not the outcome of anything like design. A hostile witness to the received Xerox/ARPA story. |
Where I heard about it
- The replies to Sarah Guo — named in answer to her question on X (March 2025): “is there a book / essay about environments that best support scientific discovery? Not about specifically bell labs, cavendish, xerox parc, los alamos - but why these places were so productive?” The full list of replies is on Is There a Book… (tweet).
About this edition
Named in the thread as “Nerds Bearing Gifts by Ted Nelson”; the book is Geeks Bearing Gifts.
Connections
- Ted Nelson — author, and the originator of hypertext.
- Xerox PARC · DARPA — the institutions whose received history the book disputes.
- Open Source Knowledge — the portfolio idea.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.