where wizards stay up late by katie hafner

One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation.

For Bemelmans was 'the man who came to cocktails'. Within 25 years, the Internet had grown from an impossible dream to an indispensable scientific tool.Ī clear and comprehensive, though often flat, account of an important bit of scientific history.Īn extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. By the time the Defense Department decided to try to regain control, it was obvious that they had inadvertently created an entity no single authority could control. E-mail quickly took center stage, followed by newsgroups in which scientists with a common interest could exchange information and views. Far-reaching decisions were made by the first person who happened to tackle the problem at hand.

Gradually, the ARPANET became the focus of an intensive development effort among computer scientists but their goals were far different from the defense projects its creators had envisioned. A small Massachusetts company, Bolt Beranek and Newman, managed to win the bid within a year, inventing almost everything from the ground up, they had managed to connect several college campuses on the West coast. Believing that advanced computing capacity was vital to the national defense, ARPA proposed connecting a number of computers through the phone system. Taylor) began to wonder why none of the computers could 'talk' to the others, the seeds of the Internet were sown. ARPA quickly acquired several advanced computers when several scientists (notably J.C.R. The key instrument was the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), nominally part of the Pentagon. Newsweek contributing editor Hafner (coauthor of Cyberpunk, 1991) and husband Lyon, who is assistant to the president of the University of Texas, begin their story back in the '50s, when President Eisenhower decided that basic scientific research was the quickest way to improve the nation's defense. Now that high school students are spending their spare time cruising the Internet, it's probably time the rest of us found out how the whole thing started.

Where wizards stay up late by katie hafner