NerdTV Notes
From BenningtonWiki
From the PBS series NerdTV. On-campus mirrors of the episodes can be found here.
Contents |
[edit] Dave Winer
(by Max)
"I'm a developer, and I want to party with you."
Slowly I am coming to realize that the foundations of every existing standard in the field of Computer Science has its roots in people and events that took place long before people even dreamt that computers could exist like they do today. In the early 1900's, Von Neumann was blazing a path through the jungle of computer architecture and logic. Further back in the early 1800's, George Boole created the foundations of binary algebra, the basis of the modern ALU. More recently, starting in the 70's (which is eons ago in internet years), guys like Dave Winer were beginning to develop the concept of separating form and content in an organized hierarchy, which is an architecture paralleled in dozens of computing subfields, like HTML/CSS.
I'd venture to say that Mr. Winer is so important not because of what he has done and said, but because of his mindset, and what he will do. He seems to have an almost intuitive grasp of what it means to release your ego and collaborate on an idea, when to push something further and when to let the universe tug it along by itself. He started with Frontier (which is now an open source project) and nudged it along; it was picked up and dropped again by Netscape, becoming RSS, but he held onto it and eventually convinced the New York Times to publish with it, which is what he considered to be its biggest moment. He made huge contributions to what has become the blog boom and continues to be generally open-minded about the future of technology. I had never heard his name before, but I'm definitely going to keep tabs on him now.
[edit] Avram Miller
(by Aurora)
Not gonna lie... he's not too exciting. He goes on tangents, talks about prostate cancer and a lot of weird shit he did.
He did some interesting stuff back in the day: neuroscience, bio-feedback and brainwaves. he built flip flops as well as AND and OR gates in order to help him with his bio-feedback research. At one point he consulted with astronauts experiencing astro-projection in order to help keep them in their bodies.
One fine day he bought a computer and had no clue what is was. He was amazed, didn't understand the concept of software... a dew hours later BAM, he understood it. Since that day he went on to work at various science/medical or computer companies eventually veering further and further into tech-territory.
He joined Intel in 1984 and didn't think it would go anywhere.
They were working on projects like an object orientated personal computer with Siemens.
He basically was the one who said, Intel, don't work on personal computers... invest in early stage companies.
Turned Intel into a venture capitalist company... Intel business strategist.
Basically he's responsible for Intel's success.
So if you like Intel... say thank you I suppose.
[edit] Anina Weiner
(by owen)
Cellphone super model Anina Weiner is a woman who wants no wires. Living in a world where mobility is life, she is a major proponent of mobile communications as well as the adoption of the cell phone as an extension of the human body.
It all started when, as a model always on the go, she needed to be in touch with her financial institutions, agents, and so on, but lacked a reasonable method for doing so. Sure, she had a cellphone, but simple verbal communication was not enough. She wanted to email pictures of herself to prospective buyers, needed to update her blog, and check her friends' as well. So, she started messing around with her old-school WAP (wireless access protocol ) phone, taking apart the code and learning how such wireless data transfers actually worked from the inside out. Eventually she turned from user into developer, and has now formed a group along with some of her model friends that is an advanced continuation of her hacking abilities who have the ultimate goal of creating am all-in-one universal mobile device, which would combine the functions of a PDA and cellphone in one, as well as facilitate methods for easy data transfer/internet access.
Not being a cellphone user or a super model, it is hard for me to see how such a mobile device might "revolutionize the world" or, "bridge the digital divide". The services these technologies offer seem way beyond any necessity, or even comfort to the human race. The phone is good, but needing to check your blog every few hours from the top of a swiss mountain (where you are doing a snowboarding photo-shoot) seems more like an addiction.
[edit] Bill Joy
(by Eben)
Bill Joy: Smells, I'm sensitive to bad smells, and have always been interested in...
Robert X. Cringely: [unintelligible] visiting your grandmother's house?
This interview does not adaquately express how and why Bill Joy is important. It focuses largely on his recent work as a venture capitalist (which is, admittedly important, as w/out v.c., companies such as google would never get off the ground), and almost entirely ignores his work w/ BSD, Sun, etc. Mr. Joy was heavily involved in BSD development. He wrote vi, as well as the C shell. He later co-founded Sun Microsystems. These are not unimpressive accomplishments. What is clear from the interview is Mr. Joy's innovative nature. He is clearly someone who thinks critically of the future with a firm understanding of both the present and the past. However, he is not exclusively concerned with the IT world, and he makes it known that he also thinks critically about the future of such things as energy, materials, life sciences, sustainability, etc. Mr. Joy's importance lies in being able to foresee a set of plausible future situations based on past and present trends, and to make significant changes in technological development.
[edit] Dan Drake
(by Mike)
Dan Drake is a very nervous fellow.
He was one of the founding members of the company which ended up coding and shipping AutoCAD. He got his start programming 16bit chips on the some of the oldest computer buses for a friend of his. The business grew and grew until they had enough personal to incorporate. At this point they were shipping the 16bit processors with their own operating system to be run on the old-ass buses.
When the company began, they knew they wanted to write software, and get away from the operating system / chip business, but they didnt know exactly what software they would write. AutoCAD was their first successfully marketed and bought program. It was developed by a programmer "out of state" who was not interested in becoming part of the company, and so sold his code for royalties. The AutoDesk guys then expanded upon it, and added extras, raising the cost of the program to make money.
But wtf is this important, you ask? Well... AutoCAD was one of the first digital design environments. Ever. Pre-AutoCAD, digital design / protyping environments were massive machines made by IBM et al, which were unaffordable, clunky and inelegant. AutoCAD basically created the market for portable, flexible digital design with no expressed specific, but many possible, uses.
Also. He's hated Microsoft since 1982. He totally owns a mac... running OS2. GET SOME.
[edit] Max Levchin
(by Ang)
Max is a busy man. He's been up all night, and this is why:
"That's what you do when you have fun. You just don't want to stop." - Max
Not only does Max find his work fun, but he also doesn't like to give up. If not giving up means pulling an all night-er, then he finds it a worthwhile venture. What does his girlfriend think of his nocturnal lifestyle? He seems to think she's happy for him. What do his parents think? He says they want him to slow down a bit, trim his intensity, and move back to...Chicago.
Max believes in creating the most productivity, but with the highest efficiency possible. Originally, he wasn't going to make PayPal. He wanted to work with the security issues involved with hand-held computers. When he realized that hand-helds were about as popular as MiniDisk players, he changed his plans. Now, he deals with the security of online money transfers: PayPal. Max doesn't think money is important, though he does think it is "an important measuring tool for success."
He seems genuinely interested in making things that people need, and loving it. He has the right idea. A combination of hard work and determination, on the part of him, and his friends, has resulted in the creation of a valuable and highly useful program. "Useful," just like "efficient," means a lot to him, and seems to be one of his downfalls. He seemed resentful of hard work being put into "useless" or "inefficient" or "hardly necessary" things. In fact, while watching the documentary, I wasn't even quite sure what he did approve of, outside his own companies.
Though, he does admit that PayPal isn't perfect. PayPal lost a lot of money to anti-fraud, among other not-so-nice things. But (again with the determination), he only wants to make it better. He leaves that to other people now, though. He's actually starting his fifth and sixth companies (because he doesn't have enough of them already, apparently).
As to their uses, I do not know. Considering that he does not value uselessness, I would assume that they are useful, at least to him. The details were not well described by him in the documentary. PayPal seems to be what he's famous for. As for why he's important or not? The documentary didn't give enough information about him or his companies to understand the impact he's made on the world (the interviewer seemed more concerned with why Max'd been up all night). I guess, just by looking at PayPal, I'd say that he is important to the technological world, but not vital. PayPal has furthered successful online shopping and selling, making it safer and more efficient. I guess that's useful for sellers and buyers alike.
All in all, though, Max is "changing the world and making interesting things happen." And walking his dog.
[edit] Andy Hertzfeld
(by Forrest)
From the Nerd TV Episode (which is all I know about Andy Hertzfeld) it seems that as well as being a very good programmer I'm sure, Andy is important because he has been heavily involved in exciting and innovative areas of the computer/software industry for over two decades. He has some perspective on larger trends from this involvement, and is able to articulately convey them.
As well as being a systems programmer on the original macintosh in the eightees, creating pieces of the OS which were a big part of its look and feel (such as the window and menu manager), he got into open source software heavily in the ninetees. At a time when he describes Microsoft's monopoly as stifling innovation from a developer and user's perspective, he saw Free and Open Source software as possibly a force which could create a healthy software industry, something he wanted to speed along. He saw his role as trying to make some of it easier to use through automated systems management (services that would keep your computer up to date and working properly over the internet) and better GUI interfaces. As a member of Easel, he worked on Nautilus (the Gnome Desktop Environment's file manager or "graphical shell"). Unfortunately this project lost funding and was only half completed. He said the people who picked up development of the project were less innovative with it, and were kind of just making it similar to Windows.
He describes himself as a literary nerd, and wrote a book about the development of the Mac as well as a website, folklore.org, which is meant to facilitate "collective historical storytelling." Much of this episode was great stories about various people in the software industry and trends in it over the past two decades. One of my favorite parts is how he got started. He was in graduate school, and bought an apple ][, which was way more interesting than his studies because he could really get to know the apple inside and out, whereas at school he didn't have root access to the timeshared Unix systems. He dropped out to become an "Apple hobbyist." six months later he was working on the Mac at apple.
