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With a New Introduction by Jaron Lanier

When Ellen Ullman's memoir of her life as a software engineer was published in 1997, it was greeted as a revelatory meditation on the dawn of the digital era. Now, twenty-five years later, Close to the Machine is a true classic, a touchstone work that illuminates our... Read Full Overview

A candid account of the life of a software engineer who runs a computer consulting business out of her live-work loft in San Francisco's multimedia gulch. Immersed in the abstract world of information, algorithms, and networks, she would like to give in to the seductions of the... Read Full Overview