Computer Memoir

What if there were a world bigger than the one you can touch? Leigh Alexander recounts a stormy adolescence alongside the mysterious early Internet. From the surrealism of early video games to raw connections made over primitive newsgroups, from sex bots to Sailor Moon, Alexander intimately captures a dark frontier age.

Today, the world is in the midst of the transformative and ever-developing digital age, otherwise referred to as the “age of Information.” It has been an unprecedented, remarkable, and explosive era marked by social media and computer-generated imagery (and with it, deep fakes), among other novel, previously unimaginable concepts.

"Get off your phone and read Jess Kimball Leslie's funny book!" -- Andy Cohen, host of Bravo's Watch What Happens LiveI Love My Computer Because My Friends Live in it is a hilarious memoir of growing up in the early days of the Internet and celebrating technology's role in our lives. Coming of...

Hello Computer is the story of a working-class girl who begins a lifelong love affair with technology after seeing a computer for the first time in 1967. It tells of her quest to become a professor of computing in one of the top universities in England. Empowered as a programmer on pioneering hospital systems, she learns that computer code can change lives. Her story is a journey from 1967 to 2017, through exciting times and epic events, from the dawn of the internet to the dotcom boom, from punch cards to the raspberry pi and virtual worlds.

Catastrophic computer failures have led to aircraft entering death dives, fatal car crashes and killer radiation overdoses in hospitals. Advances in Artificial Intelligence and the UK Post Office Horizon IT scandal have further raised public concern, as an ongoing, previously unreported scandal involving TV Licensing appears to be unfolding. Computer scientist, Dr. Junade Ali, peels back the layers of cover-up, negligence and wrongdoing to uncover how killer computers are born and how everyone can protect themselves.

Alan Meckler was the first person to start a venture in the commercial internet space in October, 1990. There were few means to connect to the internet back then. Yet Meckler anticipated that the internet would be a "black swan event" and that it would revolutionize all aspects of personal and commercial life. The book is a history, but also a very personal memoir of a career entrepreneur and all the difficulties one encounters with raising funds, dealing with cash flow shortages, personnel, and getting people to believe in the next big thing.

Seven true stories about the craziest, creepiest, and funniest customers I've ever met as an in-home computer technician. Read them at your own risk....