@darius @theuniverse If you haven’t read Phil Lapsley’s Exploding the Phone, the result of many years of original research into the history of phone phreaking, it might make a really interesting counterpoint to Stacy Horn’s book. Very much to her credit, Echo was famous for its supportive vibe, unlike other early NYC ISPs, which tended to be more like the city back then, rougher, often a bit gnarly. But precisely because phreaking is *so* different, and such unknown territory, the stories he tells — most of all about how scattered misfits found each other on “the world’s largest machine” — you might find lots of strange resonances. Chock full of neurodivergence, too. I loved it, much more than the usual tech history. He’s a tremendous writer, and I never understood why the book didn’t get more attention.

@darius @jym @tomjennings @jomc Super! And props + thanks for all your excellent work. Also, btw, a while back when we were debating which variation on Mastodon to use for TLDR, I mentioned HT and Joshua Schachter said (among other great things) that you gave the funniest talk he's ever seen — this one, pretty sure https://youtu.be/l_F9jxsfGCw

@darius @jym @tomjennings Voila: a pretty crisp MP3, 66 mins, ~37MB. I'll look around for a proper citation, but it's a talk he gave 2009 Oct 26 (YYYYMMDD FTW!) at University College London. Peter Willetts with an S — really interesting guy.

MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LHM5E1S4YnCPh70pdhWu3a2CmI01yaqO/

Willetts: https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/peter-willetts