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I just finished 'Hackers & Painters' by PG, it's a really nice holiday read. The tone is light, but he gets you thinking about the world. The book is from 2004

I just finished 'Hackers & Painters' by PG, it's a really nice holiday read. The tone is light, but he gets you thinking about the world. The book is from 2004 so the chapter about 'the modern web' was not very ground breaking anymore, it did gave me a nostalgic smile :)

thundergolfer 4y ago
My brief review: the essays on technology are quite good, even great. The essays on politics and culture are shallow and bad. PG is a good example of violating the Tom Watson quote: “… I’m smart in spots, and I stay around those spots.” However, it’s helpful that PG writes political stuff. You shouldn’t have to be good a politics to practice it.
- wawjgreen 4y ago
  wow Watson is very smart.
- pc86 4y ago
  Any time PG strays from tech - and specifically VC-funded startup tech, but not always - the results get increasingly bad.
seanhunter 4y ago
This is an interesting counterpoint to “Hackers and Painters” and is worth a read. https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm
- atoav 4y ago
  As someone who has a MA of fine arts and teaches programming to (among other arts) painters I think this criticism is spot on. If I'd mention Graham's point to our esteemed art history profs they would probably laugh at the man. Especially given how much the approaches and mindsets of actual painters differ. The only thing I'd say is: "Some painters share similar traits with some hackers". But this could be A) literally said about every two subsets of humanity and B) not all of those traits are positive.