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A UC Santa Cruz student wrote her dissertation on the culture of elementary particle physicists by infiltrating the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. She rep
by MichaelCrawford 11y ago
A UC Santa Cruz student wrote her dissertation on the culture of elementary particle physicists by infiltrating the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
She reported that the scientists at SLAC "wear t-shirts and blue jeans".
I don't recall or name or the title but someone at http://anthro.ucsc.edu/ http://anthro.ucsc.edu/ should be able to tell you; if you actually want to read it you should be able to get it through interlibrary loan at your local library.
Rather more seriously, in UCSC's Anthropology of Religion I read a book by an anthropologist who read a UFO cult leader's proud announcement of the specific date upon which aliens would visit the earth to bring peace - save us from nuclear war, etc.
Knowing that a vital peer-reviewed publication was at hand, the anthropologist joined the cult.
I don't recall that book's title or author either but I will post it in an edit or reply if I can dig it up.
- felixc 11y agoAnother similar example is Tracy Kidder (a writer, not an anthropologist) being embedded with a team at Data General, resulting in the fantastic book "The Soul of a New Machine". I can't recommend it enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
- ghaff 11y agoStill probably the best book on product development ever written. [Disclaimer: I worked at DG for 13 years, albeit a bit later, and knew many of the people in "the book" quite well including Tom West.] Showstopper, on the development of Windows NT, is also quite good.
- EdwardCoffin 11y agoI read it a few times and liked it. However, once I read what Philip Greenspun had to say about it in writing about Copeland's Generation X [1], I rethought it, and came to agree with him. I've been unable to re-read Kidder's book since, though I've tried. He essentially said that Kidder spent a year in the presence of engineers, and at no point came close to understanding what makes them tick, and in contrast Copland seems to have spent a week with some and instantly grasped their essence. [1] (NOTE: NSFW photo at top of page) http://philip.greenspun.com/writing/reading http://philip.greenspun.com/writing/reading Edit: Fixed a grammar problem.
- runlevel1 11y agoThe book was When Prophecy Fails [1] by Leon Festinger who, if memory serves, was one of the pioneers in the theory of cognitive dissonance. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
- xyzzy123 11y agoI believe you're thinking of "Beamtimes and Lifetimes" - actually, I thoroughly enjoyed that book.