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Until this point in my path through life as a hacker, my potential employers have wanted no more than a summary of my technical feats and accomplishments. A lot of writing of many kinds, code, designs, plans and the coordination of implementations, but there is no history of publication to cite as the currency of a thinking life. And so I must tell my story briefly to show how it is grounded in experience of both practices of making and designing physical things and the arts of craftsmanship and the design, implementation and operations of digital systems.
My path is that of a hacker, I got started because first I could not help taking things apart to learn about how they worked. From a working class background with parents with some education and some success in school, I was near top of my class at one of the best public schools in Chicago. Earned myself entrance to MIT and got my BS in EECS in three years out of five; had to take a break to earn some money before getting my degree in '83. Along the way, I had build a kit computer and started with a PC non-compatible company the same month the first IBM PCs were out in 1980, and I was in a small circle with the founders of the free software movement, the time when the GPL was created.
But I was never just a hacker, I also wanted to know how systems worked on all levels. I would need to inquire into everything much more deeply. This is where I find the inspiration for my second career as a systems designer and architect. The title of architect in systems implementation doesn't necessarily reward the most far thinking approaches. The MIT environment was great for contextualizing what I have learned as a hands on programmer and started me on a path towards general systems thinking.
System, Signs and Autopoiesis
After Fernando Flores' "Ontological Design Course" introduced me to system biology in Maturana and Varella, and later I came to understand the critical importance of C.S. Peirce and his theory of signs. I intuitively grasped the potential for a triadic theory of signs to revolutionize how we think about systems and emergence. Recently discovering Merrill's "Signs Grow", he demostrates how it can be done in a sweeping way that I think Peirce himself would admire.
I will remain ever an amatuer in any of the traditions that I have dabbled in to fill out a background towards a larger scope of work. My practical experience in systems as well as my life's path through organizations large and small where we cannot help but gain not only technical experience but also with the disfunction of our social architectures that limit the applicability of general design principles in practice.
Benkler's illumination of the role of the Commons in the emergence of new modes of production.
My path is that of a hacker, I got started because first I could not help taking things apart to learn about how they worked. From a working class background with parents with some education and some success in school, I was near top of my class at one of the best public schools in Chicago. Earned myself entrance to MIT and got my BS in EECS in three years out of five; had to take a break to earn some money before getting my degree in '83. Along the way, I had build a kit computer and started with a PC non-compatible company the same month the first IBM PCs were out in 1980, and I was in a small circle with the founders of the free software movement, the time when the GPL was created.
But I was never just a hacker, I also wanted to know how systems worked on all levels. I would need to inquire into everything much more deeply. This is where I find the inspiration for my second career as a systems designer and architect. The title of architect in systems implementation doesn't necessarily reward the most far thinking approaches. The MIT environment was great for contextualizing what I have learned as a hands on programmer and started me on a path towards general systems thinking.
System, Signs and Autopoiesis
After Fernando Flores' "Ontological Design Course" introduced me to system biology in Maturana and Varella, and later I came to understand the critical importance of C.S. Peirce and his theory of signs. I intuitively grasped the potential for a triadic theory of signs to revolutionize how we think about systems and emergence. Recently discovering Merrill's "Signs Grow", he demostrates how it can be done in a sweeping way that I think Peirce himself would admire.
I will remain ever an amatuer in any of the traditions that I have dabbled in to fill out a background towards a larger scope of work. My practical experience in systems as well as my life's path through organizations large and small where we cannot help but gain not only technical experience but also with the disfunction of our social architectures that limit the applicability of general design principles in practice.
Benkler's illumination of the role of the Commons in the emergence of new modes of production.