
Secrets of the Little Blue Box
How phone phreakers, many of them blind, opened up Ma Bell to unlimited free international calling using a technical manual and a toy organ.
Great articles, every Saturday.
How phone phreakers, many of them blind, opened up Ma Bell to unlimited free international calling using a technical manual and a toy organ.
Ron Rosenbaum Esquire Oct 1971 55min Permalink
The newsletter service is a software company that, by mimicking some of the functions of newsrooms, has made itself difficult to categorize.
Anna Wiener New Yorker Dec 2020 20min Permalink
Children with internet implants.
Alexander Weinstein Lit Hub Jan 2020 Permalink
Half a century on from the summer of love, marijuana is big business and mindfulness a workplace routine. Nat Segnit asks how the movement found itself at the heart of capitalism
Nat Segnit 1843 Dec 2019 15min Permalink
How killing by remote control has changed the way we fight.
Michael Hastings Rolling Stone Apr 2012 30min Permalink
Thousands of bodies are buried in shallow graves around Raqqa, Syria. One group is using Facebook and Google Earth to identify human remains and rebury them where they belong.
Kenneth R. Rosen Wired Apr 2019 15min Permalink
Steve Jobs, age 29.
"It’s often the same with any new, revolutionary thing. People get stuck as they get older. Our minds are sort of electrochemical computers. Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them. It’s a rare person who etches grooves that are other than a specific way of looking at things, a specific way of questioning things. It’s rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing. Of course, there are some people who are innately curious, forever little kids in their awe of life, but they’re rare."
David Sheff, Steve Jobs Playboy Feb 1985 1h Permalink
When Japanese men in their teens and twenties shut themselves in their rooms, sometimes for a period of years, one way to lure them out is a hired “big sister.”
Maggie Jones New York Times Magazine Jan 2006 Permalink
How a Silicon Valley team helped rebuild his distinctive robotic sound.
Jason Fagone San Francisco Chronicle Mar 2018 10min Permalink
The pros and cons of computerized boyfriend models; reposted in honor of the late fabulist Zachary Doss.
Zachary Doss Puerto del Sol Aug 2017 25min Permalink
A 42,000-word, 3-continent spanning “hacker tourist” account of the laying of the (then) longest wire on earth.
Neal Stephenson Wired Dec 1996 2h45min Permalink
Once I made my home smart, what would it learn and whom would it tell?
Kashmir Hill Gizmodo Feb 2018 15min Permalink
How a confused, defensive social media giant steered itself into a disaster, and how Mark Zuckerberg is trying to fix it all.
Nicholas Thompson, Fred Vogelstein Wired Feb 2018 40min Permalink
The lives of programmers sent abroad by Pyongyang to make money by any means necessary.
Sam Kim Businessweek Feb 2018 15min Permalink
Tech takes over the post-Soviet nation.
Nathan Heller The New Yorker Dec 2017 30min Permalink
“I have drunkenly sexually assaulted or raped women—the exact number of which I am currently determining.”
Sarah Jeong The Verge Nov 2017 10min Permalink
The pros and cons of computerized boyfriend models.
Zachary Doss Puerto del Sol Aug 2017 25min Permalink
On the mysterious disappearance of a beloved coding legend (and his code) with stops along the way for a short history of programming languages, an ethnography of code-based communities, and an inquiry into what it means to “die young without artifact.”
Annie Lowrey Slate Mar 2012 30min Permalink
One of the most valuable cars in the world crashes going 200 mph on the Pacific Coast Highway. Its owner claims to be an anti-terrorism officer. In fact, he’s a former executive at a failed software company—and a career criminal. The unraveling of an epic con.
Randall Sullivan Wired Oct 2006 25min Permalink
Olathe, Kansas, became a global magnet for tech talent, thanks to plentiful jobs, cheap housing, and good schools. Then someone opened fire on a pair of Indian-born engineers.
Romesh Ratnesar Businessweek May 2017 15min Permalink
A mystery unfolds in an English mansion.
John Lanchester New Yorker Apr 2017 25min Permalink
An excerpt from Hamid's latest novel: a man and a woman caught in between escape and uncertainty.
Mohsin Hamid Granta Magazine Mar 2017 Permalink
Inside the real lives of people who came early to intentionally provoking, confusing, and generally screwing with strangers online.
Mattathias Schwartz New York Times Magazine Aug 2008 20min Permalink
He was an 18 year old Marine bound for Iraq. She was a high school senior in West Virginia. They grew intimate over IM. His dad also started contacting her. No one was who they claimed to be and it led to a murder.
Nadya Labi Wired Aug 2007 15min Permalink
The Academy of Art University in San Francisco is very profitable for the family who runs it. But not so much for the students who attend in hopes of becoming artists.
Katia Savchuk Forbes Aug 2015 Permalink