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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      2 reasons I think. First, 90s were a transition era between paper and digital, and a lot of stuff just fell through the cracks in janky early digital transition. It’s often not on google. Bad early webpages have vanished. Many journals and magazines kinda unraveled.

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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      Second, software and cheap computing/sensors was a genuine game changer. The 90s version of a lot of tech was just over-engineered and underpowered, and a half dozen Moore’s law doublings later, you could solve problems in simpler, cheaper ways. 90s solutions were obsolete.

      1 reply 1 retweet 13 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      I kinda feel like the 90s were a secret little decade for those of us who weren’t part of dotcom boom (I caught a piece of the action at tail end, 2000-01, but it just wasn’t a big part of my life in the 90s... it was there and cool, but like most people I was doing other stuff)

      1 reply 1 retweet 16 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      The 80s though, that was a big-thinking decade. Great Events were afoot all over; no single thing could suck all attention. Basically, in the 90s we overindexed on charismatic internet and forgot other stuff. After 2000 it was big enough that the attention level was warranted.

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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      Analogy: the 90s are a cache-invalidation decade. In many ways the achievements represented the peak capabilities of industrial era. But the invention of the internet kinda invalidated everything that didn’t have internet thinking wired in as a first principle.

      1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      Another analogy. What do you think was the best piston-powered fighter ever built? You might think Spitfire, Mustang, Zero, Me109,... famous WW2 planes. Correct answer is probably the Vought Corsair. Built tail-end of WW2... after jets had already changed the rules.

      3 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      The Corsair had the best stats of any WW2 plane iirc. 11:1 kill ratio. What eventually “retired” the Corsair in Korea was running up against MiG 15. Yes, there was a brief “hybrid war” period with both jet and piston fighters in the air (in WW2 they were too little, too late)

      1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      General principle of a technology being perfected just before it becomes categorically obsolete. Not just tech, everything is like that: culture, politics... The 90s were the decade industrial era was perfected...Just before it ceased to matter because ground rules changed.

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      And all this is why the 80s were the best decade and it’s all downhill from here. 😎

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    10. Dorian Taylor‏ @doriantaylor 6 Sep 2019
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      Replying to @vgr

      pic.twitter.com/1keuvSfFDD

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 6 Sep 2019
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      Replying to @doriantaylor

      🤔

      10:09 PM - 6 Sep 2019
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        1. Dorian Taylor‏ @doriantaylor 6 Sep 2019
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          Replying to @vgr

          pic.twitter.com/LtZrhnHgxX

          0 replies 1 retweet 3 likes
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