Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology
Written by Ellen Ullman
Narrated by Ellen Ullman
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
This program is read by the author.
The never-more-necessary return of one of our most vital and eloquent voices on technology and culture, the author of the seminal Close to the Machine
The last twenty years have brought us the rise of the internet, the development of artificial intelligence, the ubiquity of once unimaginably powerful computers, and the thorough transformation of our economy and society. Through it all, Ellen Ullman lived and worked inside that rising culture of technology, and in Life in Code she tells the continuing story of the changes it wrought with a unique, expert perspective.
When Ellen Ullman moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s and went on to become a computer programmer, she was joining a small, idealistic, and almost exclusively male cadre that aspired to genuinely change the world. In 1997 Ullman wrote Close to the Machine, the now classic and still definitive account of life as a coder at the birth of what would be a sweeping technological, cultural, and financial revolution.
Twenty years later, the story Ullman recounts is neither one of unbridled triumph nor a nostalgic denial of progress. It is necessarily the story of digital technology’s loss of innocence as it entered the cultural mainstream, and it is a personal reckoning with all that has changed, and so much that hasn’t. Life in Code is an essential audiobook toward our understanding of the last twenty years—and the next twenty.
Ellen Ullman
Ellen Ullman wrote her first computer program in 1978. She went on to have a twenty-year career as a programmer and software engineer. Her essays and books have become landmark works describing the social, emotional, and personal effects of technology. She is the author of the novels:By Blood, a New York Times Notable Book; and The Bug, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her memoir, Close to the Machine, about her life as a software engineer during the internet’s first rise, became a cult classic. She is based in San Francisco.
Related to Life in Code
Related audiobooks
The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pattern on The Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"You Are Not Expected to Understand This": How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gamelife: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Smart Machines Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Algorithms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rules of Programming: How to Write Better Code Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnce Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncanny Valley: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Age of Computer Science: From Algol Genes to Neural Nets Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What It Means for Our Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Computing: A Concise History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Biography & Memoir For You
And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When No One Is Watching: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Sematary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Life in Code
8 ratings0 reviews