6 ms·

You might want to read the history of Wired magazine on Wikipedia. Early Wired was a much different beast than the Wired magazine of today.

by wooster 16y ago

aresant 16y ago
Fair point - wow, that makes my impression of the brand even more depressing.
lhnn 16y ago
Glanced through the wiki; I didn't see much about its amazing journalistic past that sets it apart from today. Wired is a geeky magazine with sensationalist headlines that nevertheless can be interesting most months. Once again, a woman is complaining because a magazine accurately targets its readers (though, even I was put off by the almost desperate obvious baiting with this month's cover). When I saw the 'boob' cover on TFA, before seeing the blog title, I knew it was going to be a feminist complaining about how misogynist and mean geeks and the geek ecosystem are. P.S.: Misogyny is the hatred of women. Most geeks love women! Their lack of presence in the IT world is what makes us surprised to find a competent female in our field... there are so few competent IT people anyway, so the cross-section of two minorities is rare.
- ahi 16y ago
  Horny for women and loving women are two very different things.
  - Evgeny 16y ago
    But not mutually exclusive ...
- crux_ 16y ago
  > Most geeks love women! Yet so few respect them.
  - makmanalp 16y ago
    Upvoted, and while I agree (assuming this is referring to male geeks), I feel like most geeks don't respect anyone till it's well earned and deserved.
    - jamaicahest 16y ago
      And why should we? Show me one craft where newbies are respected without proving their skills and I'll reconsider. I personally would like to see more women choosing careers in IT, not because we need something pretty to look at, but because they want to be in IT. No healthy industry can be all but exclusive to one gender.
      - locopati 16y ago
        Maybe you should offer respect because your perspective on the world is not the only valid perspective. Maybe your perspective limits you from seeing other aspects that could be worthy of respect.
        natep 16y ago
        I think the two sides are talking about different things. Parent (and its GP, etc) are talking about respecting someone as a person, and GP (and its GP, etc) are about respecting someone's technical opinion on the relevant subject. Not sure if I've interpreted them correctly, but if I have, I don't think those ideas are mutually exclusive. Now, do some people think they're just not respecting a newbie's technical opinion but come across as/are actually disrespecting the person? Quite possibly.
  - nimms 16y ago
    and yet so few women respect geeks...
    - crux_ 16y ago
      I'm not a woman; hell, I'm a geek myself. But reading that little whine just made me respect "geeks" that much less.
- groaner 16y ago
  Wired is a geeky magazine with sensationalist headlines that nevertheless can be interesting most months. You make it sound like Reddit is a perfect fit for the Condé Nast family.
- bjelkeman-again 16y ago
  When Wired came out the first time it was very much better than anything they publish today. But the context was also much different and the contrast with the competition was much higher. Today you have many online magazines / blogs etc. which makes what Wired was, look less today than it did at the time. The Wired issue which was nearly twice as thick as a normal Wired issue, because of the Neal Stephenson's story of the undersea fiber optic cable FLAG, stands out as one of the highlights: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
arethuza 16y ago
Depends what you mean by "Early Wired" - around '95 it was interesting enough but by '99 or so it had got trashy enough that I stopped reading it regularly.
lwhi 16y ago
I remember first reading wired in 1994 - when it was a wholly different magazine. It was packed full of insightful and interesting articles about the rising tech-scene and it really had a huge effect me. I found it completely inspirational. A mix of social theory, art, design and technology - articles about memetics (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html) and 'the well' (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_well.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_well.html) .. and a whole host of interesting stuff, that I don't think I'd have been exposed to otherwise. There was a UK edition for a while, which wasn't profitable enough (eventually leading to it being pulled). I bought every issue and read it religiously. Then, around the height of the first dot-com bubble - it morphed into a different beast, and in my opinion began to distance itself from its original core readership. It seemed that it was gearing itself as a publication for geeks-with-money, and the articles were also distanced from each other by multiple pages of adverts for the kind of luxury-tech products that only the very rich could afford. I put up with it for a while, it had a kind of aspirational appeal .. but after a while, became very fed-up with the inverse-proportionality of magazine thickness to interestingness. The style of the journalism has always involved a degree of wide-eyed hyperbole .. but I think this is understandable. For a long time the magazine championed technology's ability to change the world in an exciting and positive way. There weren't many other publications which were seeking to do the same. I wouldn't consider buying it now.. it's not the same as it was. I've also noticed that the blog has undergone a change - I'm kind of shocked by the poor level of journalism .. I suppose - like much of the web - the wired blog is trying to attract eyeballs. It's sad, but things aren't like they used to be.
- deutronium 16y ago
  Are you sure the wired UK magazine has been pulled? I bought the November 2010 issue, not too long ago.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    My mistake ... it was relaunched in 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/23/wired-magazine-media-technology http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/23/wired-magazine-m.... Is it any good?

You might want to read the history of Wired magazine on Wikipedia. Early Wired was a much different beast than the Wired magazine of today.

by wooster 16y ago

You might want to read the history of Wired magazine on Wikipedia. Early Wired was a much different beast than the Wired magazine of today.

aresant 16y ago

Fair point - wow, that makes my impression of the brand even more depressing.

lhnn 16y ago

Glanced through the wiki; I didn't see much about its amazing journalistic past that sets it apart from today. Wired is a geeky magazine with sensationalist headlines that nevertheless can be interesting most months. Once again, a woman is complaining because a magazine accurately targets its readers (though, even I was put off by the almost desperate obvious baiting with this month's cover). When I saw the 'boob' cover on TFA, before seeing the blog title, I knew it was going to be a feminist complaining about how misogynist and mean geeks and the geek ecosystem are. P.S.: Misogyny is the hatred of women. Most geeks love women! Their lack of presence in the IT world is what makes us surprised to find a competent female in our field... there are so few competent IT people anyway, so the cross-section of two minorities is rare.

ahi 16y ago
Horny for women and loving women are two very different things.
- Evgeny 16y ago
  But not mutually exclusive ...
crux_ 16y ago
> Most geeks love women! Yet so few respect them.
- makmanalp 16y ago
  Upvoted, and while I agree (assuming this is referring to male geeks), I feel like most geeks don't respect anyone till it's well earned and deserved.
  - jamaicahest 16y ago
    And why should we? Show me one craft where newbies are respected without proving their skills and I'll reconsider. I personally would like to see more women choosing careers in IT, not because we need something pretty to look at, but because they want to be in IT. No healthy industry can be all but exclusive to one gender.
    - locopati 16y ago
      Maybe you should offer respect because your perspective on the world is not the only valid perspective. Maybe your perspective limits you from seeing other aspects that could be worthy of respect.
      - natep 16y ago
        I think the two sides are talking about different things. Parent (and its GP, etc) are talking about respecting someone as a person, and GP (and its GP, etc) are about respecting someone's technical opinion on the relevant subject. Not sure if I've interpreted them correctly, but if I have, I don't think those ideas are mutually exclusive. Now, do some people think they're just not respecting a newbie's technical opinion but come across as/are actually disrespecting the person? Quite possibly.
- nimms 16y ago
  and yet so few women respect geeks...
  - crux_ 16y ago
    I'm not a woman; hell, I'm a geek myself. But reading that little whine just made me respect "geeks" that much less.
groaner 16y ago
Wired is a geeky magazine with sensationalist headlines that nevertheless can be interesting most months. You make it sound like Reddit is a perfect fit for the Condé Nast family.
bjelkeman-again 16y ago
When Wired came out the first time it was very much better than anything they publish today. But the context was also much different and the contrast with the competition was much higher. Today you have many online magazines / blogs etc. which makes what Wired was, look less today than it did at the time. The Wired issue which was nearly twice as thick as a normal Wired issue, because of the Neal Stephenson's story of the undersea fiber optic cable FLAG, stands out as one of the highlights: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

arethuza 16y ago

Depends what you mean by "Early Wired" - around '95 it was interesting enough but by '99 or so it had got trashy enough that I stopped reading it regularly.

lwhi 16y ago

I remember first reading wired in 1994 - when it was a wholly different magazine. It was packed full of insightful and interesting articles about the rising tech-scene and it really had a huge effect me. I found it completely inspirational. A mix of social theory, art, design and technology - articles about memetics (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html) and 'the well' (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_well.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_well.html) .. and a whole host of interesting stuff, that I don't think I'd have been exposed to otherwise. There was a UK edition for a while, which wasn't profitable enough (eventually leading to it being pulled). I bought every issue and read it religiously. Then, around the height of the first dot-com bubble - it morphed into a different beast, and in my opinion began to distance itself from its original core readership. It seemed that it was gearing itself as a publication for geeks-with-money, and the articles were also distanced from each other by multiple pages of adverts for the kind of luxury-tech products that only the very rich could afford. I put up with it for a while, it had a kind of aspirational appeal .. but after a while, became very fed-up with the inverse-proportionality of magazine thickness to interestingness. The style of the journalism has always involved a degree of wide-eyed hyperbole .. but I think this is understandable. For a long time the magazine championed technology's ability to change the world in an exciting and positive way. There weren't many other publications which were seeking to do the same. I wouldn't consider buying it now.. it's not the same as it was. I've also noticed that the blog has undergone a change - I'm kind of shocked by the poor level of journalism .. I suppose - like much of the web - the wired blog is trying to attract eyeballs. It's sad, but things aren't like they used to be.

deutronium 16y ago
Are you sure the wired UK magazine has been pulled? I bought the November 2010 issue, not too long ago.
- lwhi 16y ago
  My mistake ... it was relaunched in 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/23/wired-magazine-media-technology http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/23/wired-magazine-m.... Is it any good?