From bOING bOING Issue 14: Marc Laidlaw article

bOING bOING was a zine that my wife Carla and I launched in 1988 to cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

We've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft's Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

For the last several weeks, we've been running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. Last week, I wrote about bOING bOING's interview with Kevin Kelly.

This week, I'd like to introduce to the final piece in the anthology: an article by science fiction and computer game writer Marc Laidlaw, who wrote about his surreal experience meeting with Hollywood bigshots who hired him to write the screenplay adaptation of William Gibson's Virtual Light. It appeared in bOING bOING #14 (64 pages) and was published in 1996 in Los Angeles. The issue also contained a funny article by Jef Raskin (the creator of the Macintosh project at Apple) about how he got a free set of encyclopedias by tricking an unscrupulous salesman.

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X.

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive)

Previously:

bOING bOING's interview with author William Gibson.

bOING bOING's interview with Robert Anton Wilson.

bOING bOING's interview with Rudy Rucker

bOING bOING's interview with Bruce Sterling

bOING bOING's interview with Kevin Kelly Mark Frauenfelder at 7:32 AM Wed

From bOING bOING Issue 13: Kevin Kelly interview

bOING bOING was a zine that my wife Carla and I launched in 1988 to cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

We've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft's Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

For the last several weeks, we've been running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. Last week, I wrote about bOING bOING's interview with Bruce Sterling. This week, I'd like to introduce the interview that my wife Carla and I conducted with writer and Wired co-founder Keven Kelly. It appeared in bOING bOING #13 (64 pages) and was published in 1994 in San Francisco. (Pesco wrote the cover story on Dark Wave and the resurgence of goth!) We asked Kevin about his book on chaos, machine evolution, and emergent behavior, called Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, & the Economic World.

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X.

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive)

Previously:

bOING bOING's interview with author William Gibson.

bOING bOING's interview with Robert Anton Wilson.

bOING bOING's interview with Rudy Rucker

bOING bOING: free collection from the print zine, 1989-1997 Mark Frauenfelder at 7:00 AM Wed

From bOING bOING Issue 9: Bruce Sterling interview

bOING bOING was a zine that my wife Carla and I launched in 1988 to cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

We've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft's Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

For the last several weeks, we've been running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. Last week, I wrote about bOING bOING's interview with Rudy Rucker. This week, I'd like to introduce the interview that our friend Jon Lebkowsky (one of bOING bOING's early editors) conducted with author, design consultant, and investigative journalist Bruce Sterling. Bruce talked about hackers and phones freaks, which he covered in his book, The Hacker Crackdown. The interview appeared in bOING bOING #9. Bruce was a great supporter of bOING bOING in the early days, and wrote some excellent pieces for the zine.

bOING bOING #9 (64 pages) was published in 1992. It contained the following quote by poet Gary Snyder: "Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering."

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X.

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive)

Mark Frauenfelder at 7:00 AM Wed

From bOING bOING Issue 3: Rudy Rucker interview

bOING bOING was a zine that my wife Carla and I launched in 1988 to cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

We've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft's Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

In the coming weeks, we'll be running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. Last week, I wrote about bOING bOING's interview with Robert Anton Wilson. This week, I'd like to introduce the interview I conducted with a wonderful science fiction author, math professor, painter, and software creator: Rudy Rucker. The interview appeared in bOING bOING #3. At the time Rudy was developing cool educational software about chaos and fractals for Autodesk. Rudy also wrote a regular column for the print edition of bOING bOING, called "Zip."

I first met Rudy at a Mondo 2000 party in 1985 in Berkeley, California. He read from his book, Wetware, and brought with him a little cardboard device he made that folded and unfolded, and as I recall, was supposed to be a shadow of a 4-dimensional cube.

bOING bOING #3 was published in 1990, in Boulder, Colorado. It was 38 pages long. Contents included a two-page comic by Marc Laidlaw, an article about "Neuro Tarot" by Antero Alli, a review of fractal software, and an interview with the creator of a phosphene-inducing device called the Kaleido-Sky.

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X.

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive)

Mark Frauenfelder at 7:00 AM Wed

From bOING bOING Issue 1: Robert Anton Wilson interview

bOING bOING was a zine that my wife Carla and I launched in 1988 to cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

We've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft's Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

In the coming weeks, we'll be running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. Last week, I wrote about bOING bOING's interview with author William Gibson. This week, I'd like to introduce the interview Carla and I conducted with author and stand-up philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, who was (and still is) one of my favorite people. His blend of optimism and skepticism shaped the way I look at the world more than any other writer. (For a good introduction to Wilson's work, check out one of his lesser-known books, "Right Where You Are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati.")

The interview with Wilson ran in the first issue of bOING bOING came out in 1989. The issue was 32 pages long and also contained reviews of Rudy Rucker's novel, Wetware, K Eric Drexler's book about nanotechnology, Engines of Creation, and a biography of Aleister Crowley by Colin Wilson. It also had reviews of comic books and interview with Jack Dean, the 1988 California Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate, and an article about cryptography by Chuck Hammill.

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X.

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive)

Mark Frauenfelder at 7:00 AM Wed

bOING bOING: free collection from the print zine, 1989-1997

Twenty-three years ago, my wife Carla and I came up with the idea to create bOING bOING, a zine that would cover comic books, cyberpunk science fiction, consciousness technology, curious phenomena, and whatever else surprised and delighted us. That zine, which ran for 15 issues until 1997, evolved into the very website you're reading right now.

The first few issues of Boing Boing had print runs in the low hundreds, and the biggest was 17,500 copies. Today, the blog easily gets that many page views in an hour, so it's safe to say that the vast majority of Boing Boing readers have never read anything that appeared in those early zines. Today we're happy to announce that we've made available a free anthology of some of our favorite interviews from bOING bOING, the zine. You can access it for free with Microsoft’s Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, whose sponsorship has made this project possible.

The anthology, called bOING bOING: History of the Future! is a collection of interviews with and articles by some of our favorite writers and thinkers - Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, William Gibson, Kevin Kelly, Marc Laidlaw, and Bruce Sterling.

In the coming weeks, we'll be running posts about the articles included in the bOING bOING: History of the Future anthology. The first piece in the new issue is an interview with author William Gibson, whose novel Neuromancer introduced me to the fantastic cyberpunk science fiction genre.

When I printed the first issue of Boing Boing in 1989, I located William Gibson's mailing address and sent him a copy. He wrote back with a complimentary letter, and I added him to the subscription list. I always appreciated receiving his occasional postcards, and reading interviews with him in other magazines where he mentioned bOING bOING as a zine he enjoyed.

bOING bOING's interview with William Gibson ran in bOING bOING #12 (cover at left) and was published in 1993 or 1994. In the interview, Gibson was asked if he thought the technology he'd envisioned in the 1980s would soon manifest itself in the real world. He said, "I don't think we're going to see anything too drastic happening culturally around computers until the user-interface evolves to the point where it's easy to use. I mean when you say 'hey, I do a lot of e-mail' or 'hey, I hang out on the Internet' -- the reason that has a kind of elite buzz to it, is that the learning curve is still too steep."

In addition to this entertaining interview, bOING bOING #12 contained a two-page comic strip about the legal battle between Margaret and Walter Keane, who painted those famous big-eyed sad kids.

The document is in Microsoft Word format and you can view it for free with Office Web Apps on SkyDrive whether you have Word on your computer or not. And if you'd like to download it for local perusal or printing and don't have a recent version of Microsoft Word or one of the many other applications that can open the document, you can use the free Word Viewer for Windows or Quick Look built into Mac OS X .

The History of the Future! A free anthology of articles from the bOING bOING print 'zine 1989-1997 (SkyDrive) Mark Frauenfelder at 4:38 PM Wed