Hacker episode of PBS's Ghostwriter w/Julia Stiles (1993)

"Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace?" Julia Stiles talks cyberpunk in a 1993 episode of the PBS series "Ghostwriter." (Thanks, Frank Drake!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Thad Boyd

Wow, I remember that one (and I’ve been wondering for nearly 20 years why Julia Stiles looked so familiar).

I was 10 but found it pretty insulting even then.

Ghostwriter was still a good show, though.
signsofrain

GhostWriter! WORD. I always liked that Ghostwriter was an enigma – he was a person once but can’t remember who he was.
http://www.facebook.com/horan.shane Shane Horan

As seen on XKCD 103. Nice to finally see the clip!
- Jorpho
  
  *130
retchdog

good quality. personally, this video clip is somehow so cheesy that it’s actually painful for me to watch. even worse than some of the “shock sites.”
Brad H.

Maybe this very clip is what holds Julia Stiles back from headlining the current swath of movies.
- Will Bueche
  
  That, or her enormous head.
  
  I still like her anyway, despite the big-brain intimidation factor.
  - Brad H.
    
    Her head, it throbs rhythmically!
    
    Honestly, the last time I can remember her being in something it was in the first couple of Bourne movies.
Anne Noise

This is my favorite episode of Ghostwriter! Thanks so much for this unexpected nostalgia trip.
Nash Rambler

“Styles upon Styles upon Styles is what I haveYou wanna diss the Phifer but you still don’t know the half. . .”
- Peter Golanski
  
  boom ba bim boom…
zombiebob

as stale an actress back then as she is now. She always plays herself.
LinkMan

So she referenced Neuromancer on a kids’ show about newspapers in 1993.

Then 16 years later she penned one of the most ridiculous ledes ever printed in the Wall Street Journal: “Once again, the Yankees are harshing my mellow…”

Coincidence?
- retchdog
  
  the sky above citi field was the color of a television tuned to Bob Ross’s “The Joy of Painting” on PBS, or at least the color of the canvas after he paints the sky but before he adds the mountains.
  - http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
    
    Jump in to the happy little newsgroups ;)
malindrome

Wow, that writing is almost as bad as for the movie “Hackers”.
Boundegar

Well I thought it was rad.
- jimh
  
  (Finger wagging)
  She thinks she’s all that, but she’s not all that!
http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/ Joshua Zelinsky

In 1993 people thought that the internet might be a place where curiosity and imagination gave you power. Then it turned out that what really mattered was having a cute cat that does silly things.
Frank Diekman

15 years later: LOLcats.
http://twitter.com/bigattichouse bigattichouse

We walked with our Mondo 2000 folded up in our backpack, played with sequencers on our Amiga 500 and chatted via tymenet in france, and argued the possibility of what actually realized as the arab spring, and even dared to think of creating a country that had no physical space…. and then we got old, and maybe a little pudgy, and we still dreamed. Hokey, yes, but we still dream that we can make a place where curiosity and the mind can set you free.
- http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
  
  And porn. All the porn, all the time, anywhere!
http://www.facebook.com/saxton.hale.7 Saxton Hale

I watched PBS obsessively as a kid, and into my adolescence, yet I never saw this show.
Kristiyan

Very emotional snip.
henrybucks

oh the irony of asking for more paper
simonbarsinister

Oh how Julia Stiles yearns for a world where you aren’t judged by how you look. Wut?
- GlenBlank
  
  Julia Stiles is an actress, not the character she plays. Those lines were written by someone else.
  
  But, perhaps more to the point, as a resident of Hollyweird, I know quite a few extremely attractive people who are, in fact, quite happy to find places where you aren’t judged by how you look.
  
  I mean, really – if you wanted to impress someone with your computer hacking skills, would being a cute blonde who looks like Julia Stiles be an asset…or a liability?
  
  (Outside of TV/movie make-believe, that is?)
BunnyShank

The co-star in the clip is/was pretty talented.