Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents – Ellen Ullman Koop Online

Here is a candid account of the life of a software engineer who runs her own computer consulting business out of a 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 programmer’s world, where “weird logic dreamers” like herself live “close to the machine.” Still, she is keenly aware that body and soul are not mechanical: desire, love, and the need to communicate face to face don’t eas…