brianstorms

Joined 16 years ago

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1,275

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247

Member since

Oct 2

Wrote a book on the history of the PLATO system: THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE PLATO SYSTEM AND THE DAWN OF CYBERCULTURE. Story about the birthplace of social media, gas-plasma flat panel displays, chat rooms, online newspapers, MMORPGs, you name it. Dares to challenge much of the early Silicon Valley software mythology. "It will blow your mind" - Kevin Kelly. See http://friendlyorangeglow.com

Over 25+ years I've founded or co-founded a bunch of startup companies including Eventful, Nettle, Coconut Computing, Birdrock Digital, FlatWorks, and worked at some you may have heard of, MP3.com, eBay, Eazel, RealNetworks.

These days I'm working fulltime producing, arranging, and recording music; main project is to arrange, produce, record, and perform covers of the ENTIRE Beatles song catalog. That project is now underway; 5 songs released; lots more coming. See https://confusionboats.bandcamp.com

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Recent submissions

Comment · 9 days ago

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Comment · 10 days ago

Gosh, it sure seems like this author got a lot of this history from the "Gas and Glass" chapter of my book THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW (Pantheon Books, 2017), which is a history of the PLATO system including the invention of the plasma display. Or maybe he got it from an AI that got it from vacuuming up my book.

Funny how the article has zero citations or notes.

So it goes.

Comment · 8 months ago

I read every book written by Robert Caro—now there was an author who loved em-dashes!

I enjoyed his use of them so much in his writing that I started using them in my own book that came out in 2017. I freely admit—without hesitation—that my own use of em-dashes is due to author Robert Caro's influence.

There is much amusement at the idea that tech-weenies today are freaking out that the appearance of em-dashes in text is a surefire tell that so-called "AI" generated said text.

Read some books, get away from the computer, eh?

Comment · 1 year ago

this.

Comment · 1 year ago

Yes I fucking am. Thank you for your concern.

Comment · 1 year ago

Who fucking said my "book flopped financially" -- please, point that out. Oh, wait, you can't, because you just made that up. Fucking hell. This place sucks.