Agent Palmer

If you’re looking for the whole story of the personal computer or microcomputer industry, you have to read a few books. You owe it to yourself to at least cover the two diametrically opposed players in the game: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

I’ve read the Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson, so next up was a Bill Gates biography called Gates: How Microsoft’s Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself the Richest Man in America by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews.

I know, you’re not thinking, “Palmer was on another podcast,” but “what do Kiss, They Might Be Giants, and The Strokes have in common?”

Well, they all hail from New York, and that was the theme of Our Liner Notes Episode 6 “Agents of New York”, retroactively chosen by myself and hosts Chris and Paul Maier. And yes, all three bands hail from New York, but now you’re asking yourself, “what is Our Liner Notes?”

I’ve never been an Apple person, so you can’t call me a MacHead. That doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for Steve Jobs, which is why I picked up his biography by Walter Isaacson. Jobs was an innovative thinker and one of the creative minds that has led technology to where it is now.

Jobs is arguably, along with Steve Wozniak, one of the paramount forefathers of personal computing, as well as the modern mobile age. I, like many others, was interested in how this all came to be – how he was able to see the future before it was here.

I have finally read Chuck Klosterman’s debut book, Fargo Rocks City and it was everything I thought it would be.

I understand that as a fan of Klosterman’s work, it is a bit odd that I picked up his sophomore effort Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto and then went on to read and own every other book he has published, save for his debut.

Well, I have remedied that mistake and his debut is on par with the wit and pop culture furnishings that I’ve become accustomed to.