interconnected-org-9bc7pq.txt (13300B)
1 2 3 [1]Interconnected 4 5 A blog by Matt Webb 6 7 • [2]About 8 • [3]Archive 9 • [4]Work 10 11 Subscribe for $0 12 13 • [5]Email 14 • [6]RSS feed 15 • [7](What is a feed?) 16 17 Unoffice Hours 18 19 • [8]Book a call 20 • [9](What is this?) 21 22 a.k.a. genmon 23 24 • [10]Bluesky 25 • [11]X/Twitter 26 • [12]Insta 27 • [13]Mastodon 28 • [14]LinkedIn 29 30 Building the AI clock 31 32 • [15]Check out Poem/1 33 34 3 books with Samuel Arbesman 35 36 17.16, Friday 14 Nov 2025 [16]Link to this post 37 38 I had a look to see when I first mentioned Samuel Arbesman here. It was 2011: 39 [17]the average size of scientific discoveries is getting smaller. 40 41 Anyway I’ve been reading his new book, [18]The Magic of Code (official site). 42 43 There’s computing history, magic, the simulation hypothesis, and a friendly 44 unpacking of everything from procedural generation to Unix. 45 46 And through it all, an enthusiastic appeal to look again at computation, as if 47 to say, look, isn’t it WEIRD! Isn’t it COOL! Because we’ve forgotten that code 48 and computation deserves our wonder. And although this book isn’t an apology 49 for technology (`computing is meant to be for the humans', says Arbesman), it 50 is a reminder - demonstrated chapter by chapter - that wonder, delight and 51 curiosity are there to be found. 52 53 (And if we look at computation afresh then we’ll have new ideas about what to 54 do with it.) 55 56 Now I’m decently well-read in this kind of stuff. 57 58 Yet The Magic of Code is bringing me new-to-me computing lore, which I’m 59 loving. 60 61 So, in the spirit of a virtual book tour - an old idea from the internet where 62 book authors would tour blogs instead of book stores, [19]as previously 63 mentioned - I asked Samuel Arbesman for a reading list: 3 books from the Magic 64 of Code bibliography. 65 66 (I’ve collected [20]a couple dozen 3 Books reading lists over the years.) 67 68 I’ll ask him to introduce himself first… 69 70 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 71 72 Samuel! Tell us about yourself? 73 74 I’m a [21]scientist and writer playing in the world of venture capital as 75 [22]Lux Capital‘s Scientist in Residence, where I help Lux explore the 76 ever-changing landscape of science and technology, and also host a podcast 77 called [23]The Orthogonal Bet where I get to speak with some of the most 78 interesting thinkers and authors I can find. I also write books about 79 science and tech, most recently [24]The Magic of Code, as well as The 80 Half-Life of Facts and Overcomplicated. The themes in my work are often 81 related to radical interdisciplinarity, intellectual humility in the face 82 of complex technologies and our changing knowledge, and how to use tech to 83 allow us to be the best version of ourselves. 84 85 The best way to follow me and what I’m thinking about is my newsletter: 86 [25]Cabinet of Wonders. 87 88 I asked for three fave books the bibliography… 89 90 #1. Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science, edited 91 by Harry R. Lewis 92 93 I love the history of computing. It’s weird and full of strange turns and 94 dead ends, things worth rediscovering and understanding. But it’s far too 95 easy to forget the historically contingent reasons why we have the 96 technologies that we have (or simply know the paths not taken), and 97 understanding this history-including the history of the ideas that 98 undergird this world-is vital. More broadly, I want everyone in tech to 99 have a “historical sense” and this book is a good place to start: it’s a 100 handbook to seminal ideas and developments in computing, from the ELIZA 101 chatbot and Licklider’s vision of “man-computer symbiosis” to Dijkstra’s 102 hatred of the “go to” command. Because the ideas we are currently grappling 103 with are not necessarily new and they have a deep intellectual pedigree. 104 Want to know the grand mages of computing history and what they thought 105 about? Read this book. 106 107 Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science: [26]Amazon 108 109 #2. In the Beginning… Was the Command Line, Neal Stephenson 110 111 I’m pretty sure that I first read this entire book–it’s short–in a single 112 sitting at the library after stumbling upon it. It’s ornery and opinionated 113 about so many computing ideas, from Linux and GUIs to open source and even 114 the Be operating system (it was written in the 1990’s and is very much of 115 its time). Want to think about these ideas in the context of bizarre 116 metaphors or a comparison to the Epic of Gilgamesh? Stephenson is your guy. 117 This expanded my mind as to what computing is and what it can mean (the 118 image of a demiurge using a command line to generate our universe has long 119 stuck with me). 120 121 In the Beginning… Was the Command Line: [27]Amazon / [28]Wikipedia 122 123 #3. Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine, Chaim Gingold 124 125 Chaim Gingold worked with Will Wright while at Maxis and has thought a lot 126 about the history of SimCity. And when I mean history, I don’t just mean 127 the way that Maxis came about and how SimCity was created and published, 128 though there’s that too; I mean the winding intellectual origins of 129 SimCity: cellular automata, system dynamics, and more. SimCity and its 130 foundation is a window into the smashing-together of so many ideas–analog 131 computers, toys, the nature of simulation–that is indicative of the proper 132 way to view computing: computers are weirder and far more interdisciplinary 133 than we give them credit for and we all need to know that. Computing is a 134 liberal art and this book takes this idea seriously. 135 136 Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine: [29]Amazon 137 138 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 139 140 Amazing. 141 142 Hey here’s a deep cut ref for you: in 2010 [30]Arbesman coined the term 143 mesofact, `facts which we tend to view as fixed, but which shift over the 144 course of a lifetime,' or too slowly for us to notice. I think we all carry 145 around a bunch of outdated priors and that means we often don’t see what’s 146 right in-front of us. I use this term a whole bunch in trying to think about 147 and identity what I’m not seeing but should be. 148 149 Thank you Sam! 150 151 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 152 153 More posts tagged: 154 155 • [31]3-books (34 posts) 156 157 Auto-calculated kinda related posts: 158 159 • [32]Between early computing and modern computing: some cultural histories 160 (3 Apr 2025) 161 • [33]Some books I enjoyed in 2023 (28 Dec 2023) 162 • [34]3 Books Weekly #22: Featuring Nat Hunter from Machines Room (29 Jul 163 2016) 164 • [35]3 books from Chris Noessel (23 Jun 2020) 165 • [36]What I’ve been reading in 2022 (30 Dec 2022) 166 167 If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social 168 media. [37]Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt. 169 170 171 172 Most recent posts 173 174 • [38]My top posts in 2025 3 Jan 2026 175 • [39]More scraps from my notes file 26 Dec 2025 176 • [40]Filtered for conspiracy theories 19 Dec 2025 177 • [41]My new fave thing to go to is algoraves 11 Dec 2025 178 • [42]My mental model of the AI race 5 Dec 2025 179 • [43]Context plumbing 29 Nov 2025 180 • [44]Spinning up a new thing: Inanimate 19 Nov 2025 181 • 3 books with Samuel Arbesman 14 Nov 2025 (This post) 182 • [45]Oedipus is about the act of figuring out what Oedipus is about 7 Nov 183 2025 184 • [46]Filtered for wobbly tables and other facts 30 Oct 2025 185 • [47]Some wholesome media 24 Oct 2025 186 • [48]I love the smell of autopoiesis in the morning 15 Oct 2025 187 188 Continue reading: [49]All in 2025 189 190 streak New posts for 301 consecutive weeks (see: [50]blogging tips) 191 192 New? Start here: [51]Best of 2025 (also [52]2024, [53]2023, [54]2022, [55]2021, 193 [56]2020) 194 Or explore the archives: [57]On this day 195 196 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 197 198 Archive 199 200 • [58]2026 1 post 201 • [59]2025 61 posts 202 • [60]2024 60 posts 203 • [61]2023 68 posts 204 • [62]2022 96 posts 205 • [63]2021 128 posts 206 • [64]2020 118 posts 207 • [65]2019 23 posts 208 • [66]2018 47 posts 209 • [67]2017 22 posts 210 • [68]2016 48 posts 211 • [69]2015 88 posts 212 • [70]2014 30 posts 213 • [71]2013 6 posts 214 • [72]2012 27 posts 215 • [73]2011 76 posts 216 • [74]2010 2 posts 217 • [75]2009 2 posts 218 • [76]2008 59 posts 219 • [77]2007 20 posts 220 221 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 222 [78][ ] Search 223 Since February 2000. Copyright © 2026 Matt Webb. 224 225 p.s. here’s [86]my blogroll and the [87]colophon. 226 227 228 References: 229 230 [1] https://interconnected.org/home/ 231 [2] https://interconnected.org/ 232 [3] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman#archive 233 [4] https://www.actsnotfacts.com/ 234 [5] https://buttondown.com/genmon 235 [6] https://interconnected.org/home/feed 236 [7] https://aboutfeeds.com/ 237 [8] https://calendly.com/mwie/30min 238 [9] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/24/unoffice_hours 239 [10] https://bsky.app/profile/genmon.org 240 [11] https://x.com/genmon 241 [12] https://www.instagram.com/genmon/ 242 [13] https://mastodon.social/@genmon 243 [14] https://www.linkedin.com/in/genmon/ 244 [15] https://poem.town/ 245 [16] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman 246 [17] https://interconnected.org/home/2011/03/17/finding_baby_sciences_and_new_moons 247 [18] https://themagicofcode.com/ 248 [19] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/10/18/shopping 249 [20] https://interconnected.org/home/tagged/3-books 250 [21] https://arbesman.net/ 251 [22] https://www.luxcapital.com/ 252 [23] https://www.theorthogonalbet.com/ 253 [24] https://themagicofcode.com/ 254 [25] https://arbesman.substack.com/ 255 [26] https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-That-Created-Future-Computer/dp/0262045303 256 [27] https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Was-Command-Line/dp/0380815931 257 [28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line 258 [29] https://www.amazon.com/Building-SimCity-World-Machine-Histories/dp/0262547481/ 259 [30] https://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/28/warning_your_reality_is_out_of_date/ 260 [31] https://interconnected.org/home/tagged/3-books 261 [32] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/04/03/september 262 [33] https://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/28/books 263 [34] https://interconnected.org/home/2016/07/29/3_books 264 [35] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/06/23/3_books 265 [36] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/12/30/reading 266 [37] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman 267 [38] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts 268 [39] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/26/scraps 269 [40] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/19/filtered 270 [41] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/11/live 271 [42] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/05/training 272 [43] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/28/plumbing 273 [44] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/19/inanimate 274 [45] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/07/oedipus 275 [46] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/10/30/filtered 276 [47] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/10/23/wholesome 277 [48] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/10/15/3dp 278 [49] https://interconnected.org/home/2025 279 [50] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak 280 [51] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts 281 [52] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/12/30/top-posts 282 [53] https://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/22/top-posts 283 [54] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/12/21/top_posts 284 [55] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/12/23/top_posts 285 [56] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/12/17/top_posts 286 [57] https://interconnected.org/home/on-this-day 287 [58] https://interconnected.org/home/2026 288 [59] https://interconnected.org/home/2025 289 [60] https://interconnected.org/home/2024 290 [61] https://interconnected.org/home/2023 291 [62] https://interconnected.org/home/2022 292 [63] https://interconnected.org/home/2021 293 [64] https://interconnected.org/home/2020 294 [65] https://interconnected.org/home/2019 295 [66] https://interconnected.org/home/2018 296 [67] https://interconnected.org/home/2017 297 [68] https://interconnected.org/home/2016 298 [69] https://interconnected.org/home/2015 299 [70] https://interconnected.org/home/2014 300 [71] https://interconnected.org/home/2013 301 [72] https://interconnected.org/home/2012 302 [73] https://interconnected.org/home/2011 303 [74] https://interconnected.org/home/2010 304 [75] https://interconnected.org/home/2009 305 [76] https://interconnected.org/home/2008 306 [77] https://interconnected.org/home/2007 307 [86] https://interconnected.org/home/blogroll 308 [87] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/10/28/colophon