Andrew Smith author
@andrewsmithauthor.bsky.social
Moondust. Totally Wired. Devil in the Stack. Sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads for a packet of Cheetos: no regrets. Believes few things can't be fixed with well-turned paperclip. andrewsmithauthor.com
Reposted by Andrew Smith author
There's a great bit in Totally Wired by Andrew Smith when he goes to watch an auditon for one and this (in 2011!) is the case, potentials being coached on how to "be natural" etc. Totally dismantles the whole edifice, then it goes REALLY meta and turns out the audition was staged for the
September 27, 2025 at 12:14 AM
There's a great bit in Totally Wired by Andrew Smith when he goes to watch an auditon for one and this (in 2011!) is the case, potentials being coached on how to "be natural" etc. Totally dismantles the whole edifice, then it goes REALLY meta and turns out the audition was staged for the
Reposted by Andrew Smith author
More #BookPost for reaearch. CSWS and Totally Wired are rereads, both amazing books. Need to finish drafting if i'm gonna get any reading done tho i'm doing my nut here with it all cos i'm still not done.
December 22, 2024 at 1:05 PM
More #BookPost for reaearch. CSWS and Totally Wired are rereads, both amazing books. Need to finish drafting if i'm gonna get any reading done tho i'm doing my nut here with it all cos i'm still not done.
Huh. And this other guy (assume a techy?), who assumes everyone knows HTML/CSS/JS because *he* does...
so there's an extract from a guy in the Observer today which is "how I, an author in my 50s, became fascinated by coding" which contains stuff like "I learned there was a classic trio of languages behind most websites"
this guy, who is just discovering HTML/CSS/JS? also author of this
this guy, who is just discovering HTML/CSS/JS? also author of this
December 10, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Huh. And this other guy (assume a techy?), who assumes everyone knows HTML/CSS/JS because *he* does...
Gorgeous! People were there once. Amazing, huh?
#Moon at roughly 88% full tonight from the backyard in #SantaBarbara.
#MoonPhotography #MoonPhotos #MoonShots #Photography #SantaBarbara
Camera settings:
Canon T5i
Sigma 150mm x 600mm
Focal length: 600mm
F-stop: f/10
Exposure time: 1/1250
ISO: 800
Moon Phase: Waxing 88%
#MoonPhotography #MoonPhotos #MoonShots #Photography #SantaBarbara
Camera settings:
Canon T5i
Sigma 150mm x 600mm
Focal length: 600mm
F-stop: f/10
Exposure time: 1/1250
ISO: 800
Moon Phase: Waxing 88%
December 2, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Gorgeous! People were there once. Amazing, huh?
How wonderful. We forget that art saves lives every day.
December 2, 2025 at 4:14 PM
How wonderful. We forget that art saves lives every day.
RIP Jimmy Cliff. Had the honor of sharing a stage with him once, in a football stadium in Reims, France (with my own band A Popular History of Signs). Can honestly say I've never seen a more magnetic performer and "The Harder They Come" will always be one of my favorite songs. #music
Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come
YouTube video by Rocksteady Freddie
www.youtube.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:13 PM
RIP Jimmy Cliff. Had the honor of sharing a stage with him once, in a football stadium in Reims, France (with my own band A Popular History of Signs). Can honestly say I've never seen a more magnetic performer and "The Harder They Come" will always be one of my favorite songs. #music
Reposted by Andrew Smith author
Andrew Smith, author of DEVIL IN THE STACK, reveals the actual man behind the machine (the world’s first digital electronic computer, that is) in this article in @theguardian.com.
Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn't see in the movies
The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of computing?
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Andrew Smith, author of DEVIL IN THE STACK, reveals the actual man behind the machine (the world’s first digital electronic computer, that is) in this article in @theguardian.com.
Wow. Just got called for a Quinnipiac poll about the NYC mayoral race. So these things are real!
October 24, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Wow. Just got called for a Quinnipiac poll about the NYC mayoral race. So these things are real!
Writing this piece on Tommy Flowers was intense but felt such an honour. Thanks to everyone who helped, most especially Prof Jack Copeland, a top top thinker and person. Flaws remain mine, as we writers say! #WW2 #Cryptography #SIGINT #Bletchley
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn’t see in the movies
The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of comput...
www.theguardian.com
October 22, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Writing this piece on Tommy Flowers was intense but felt such an honour. Thanks to everyone who helped, most especially Prof Jack Copeland, a top top thinker and person. Flaws remain mine, as we writers say! #WW2 #Cryptography #SIGINT #Bletchley
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Grew up with that book. What a lovely thing to learn about it.
learned recently that the guy who wrote "The Night Before Christmas," clement clarke moore, also wrote a takedown of thomas jefferson's proto-scientific racism in "Notes on the State of Virginia," basically accusing him and others of making it up to justify slavery. which, that's right.
October 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Grew up with that book. What a lovely thing to learn about it.
Reposted by Andrew Smith author
October 11, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Feel honored to have worked on this story. Alan Turing was brilliant and essential to the defeat of fascism—but so was the far lesser-known Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, who actually built the first digital electronic computer...his is quite the story! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn’t see in the movies
The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of comput...
www.theguardian.com
October 13, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Feel honored to have worked on this story. Alan Turing was brilliant and essential to the defeat of fascism—but so was the far lesser-known Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, who actually built the first digital electronic computer...his is quite the story! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
When I set out to write *Devil in the Stack* my aim was to understand the tech defined by code. I thus think AGI soon is unlikely but degradation of life inevitable w/o action. AI "godfather" Hinton might be right here. Capitalism can adapt but needs a will to do it. Brian Eno said same last week.
The GODFATHER of AI: 'Socialism'
YouTube video by Greens Organise
www.youtube.com
May 30, 2025 at 4:28 PM
When I set out to write *Devil in the Stack* my aim was to understand the tech defined by code. I thus think AGI soon is unlikely but degradation of life inevitable w/o action. AI "godfather" Hinton might be right here. Capitalism can adapt but needs a will to do it. Brian Eno said same last week.
Why the life of writers is getting fraught: fake book recommends (below) are one thing. My publishers trying to use AI to proofread my book *Devil in the Stack* is another. Irony given the book involves me learning to code to investigate the impacts of code/algos on the world! Looking good so far!
Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist
"I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," the writer said. "I'm completely embarrassed."
www.404media.co
May 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Why the life of writers is getting fraught: fake book recommends (below) are one thing. My publishers trying to use AI to proofread my book *Devil in the Stack* is another. Irony given the book involves me learning to code to investigate the impacts of code/algos on the world! Looking good so far!
Seen in Manhattan last night. Now they've got their own museum, d'you think they might leave us alone?
May 2, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Seen in Manhattan last night. Now they've got their own museum, d'you think they might leave us alone?
Reposted by Andrew Smith author
Happy Earth Day, friends.
Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.
Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.
April 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Happy Earth Day, friends.
Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.
Our homeworld, seen by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968.
Reposting this at a UK/Europe-friendly time :-)
Third clip from Big Ears '25, maybe my favorite from dozens of brilliant shows: Portishead singer Beth Gibbons in solo mode. Her Lives Outgrown album was stunning to hear, but for the encore she caused mayhem by treating us to one from the old band...
April 23, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposting this at a UK/Europe-friendly time :-)
Third clip from Big Ears '25, maybe my favorite from dozens of brilliant shows: Portishead singer Beth Gibbons in solo mode. Her Lives Outgrown album was stunning to hear, but for the encore she caused mayhem by treating us to one from the old band...
April 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Third clip from Big Ears '25, maybe my favorite from dozens of brilliant shows: Portishead singer Beth Gibbons in solo mode. Her Lives Outgrown album was stunning to hear, but for the encore she caused mayhem by treating us to one from the old band...
This'll be quite something if it turns out to be true, courtesy Cory Doctorow. A reminder why we need to be cautious about letting tech firms access our stuff, even when it seems to our immediate advantage - that's the model: give us something, take more. pluralistic.net/2025/04/15/m...
Pluralistic: Tesla accused of hacking odometers to weasel out of warranty repairs (15 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
April 17, 2025 at 11:22 PM
This'll be quite something if it turns out to be true, courtesy Cory Doctorow. A reminder why we need to be cautious about letting tech firms access our stuff, even when it seems to our immediate advantage - that's the model: give us something, take more. pluralistic.net/2025/04/15/m...
2nd Big Ears clip. Musicians love the festival cos they set up lots of unlikely collaborations. Here Sun Ra's Arkestra + Yo La Tengo. And yes, that's Marshall Allen at the front (age 101), who was a Buffalo Soldier in WWII, stayed in Paris to study sax & joined the Arkestra in '58. Some kinda life!
April 17, 2025 at 9:34 PM
2nd Big Ears clip. Musicians love the festival cos they set up lots of unlikely collaborations. Here Sun Ra's Arkestra + Yo La Tengo. And yes, that's Marshall Allen at the front (age 101), who was a Buffalo Soldier in WWII, stayed in Paris to study sax & joined the Arkestra in '58. Some kinda life!
Finally gathered vid snippets from the Big Ears Fest in Knoxville, always my fave four days of the year. Will post over coming days. This the simply staggering Anohnie & the Johnsons: *It Must Change* from wonderful recent album My Back Was a Bridge...what a voice huh? Great London-based band.
April 16, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Finally gathered vid snippets from the Big Ears Fest in Knoxville, always my fave four days of the year. Will post over coming days. This the simply staggering Anohnie & the Johnsons: *It Must Change* from wonderful recent album My Back Was a Bridge...what a voice huh? Great London-based band.
Just finished the simply staggering Netflix (I know!) series *Adolescence*. Never mind the timely subject matter of the incel "manosphere" seeping into schools, the technical and creative audacity of its execution is mindblowing. Already having an impact too. SO well done everyone involved.
Adolescence writer Jack Thorne backs Smartphone Free Childhood group
Writer joins more than 100,000 parents who pledge to withhold smartphones until children are at least 14
www.theguardian.com
March 24, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Just finished the simply staggering Netflix (I know!) series *Adolescence*. Never mind the timely subject matter of the incel "manosphere" seeping into schools, the technical and creative audacity of its execution is mindblowing. Already having an impact too. SO well done everyone involved.
Report from the ever-essential Popular Information on insider winners and general public losers from the $Trump memecoin. Insider grafter methods almost identical to those used in the dotcom boom and crash (as sleuthed and exposed in my book Totally Wired.) Do we ever learn? (answer: no)
Trump pumps eponymous meme coin
On Sunday, President Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, to promote his eponymous meme coin, $TRUMP.
popular.info
March 24, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Report from the ever-essential Popular Information on insider winners and general public losers from the $Trump memecoin. Insider grafter methods almost identical to those used in the dotcom boom and crash (as sleuthed and exposed in my book Totally Wired.) Do we ever learn? (answer: no)
Any student of British history knows there's a name for what a Musk administration super pac is doing in offering voters $100 to sign a petition against one candidate in a Wisconsin election. It's called "pork barrel politics." Outlawed in the mid-19th century over there...but ok here in the US?
Buying the vote
In Wisconsin, an Elon Musk-backed super PAC is offering registered voters $100 in exchange for their contact information and signatures on a petition condemning “activist judges.” Signers can receive ...
www.muskwatch.com
March 24, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Any student of British history knows there's a name for what a Musk administration super pac is doing in offering voters $100 to sign a petition against one candidate in a Wisconsin election. It's called "pork barrel politics." Outlawed in the mid-19th century over there...but ok here in the US?