RIP to a real one.

The Soul of a New Machine may be the best technology book written, but House was a beautifully-crafted and deeply humanist book. Funny too!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/books/tracy-kidder-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.Q-jg.JJqQwhmKtnD2&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Tracy Kidder, Author of ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ Dies at 80

A Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative journalist, he wrote deeply reported books that often focused on heroic goodness in people.

The New York Times

@adrianhon
There's a wonderful quote from SoaNM that sums up the frustration of working with smaller units of time:

"no unit of time shorter than a season"

I quoted most of it here in March 2025:
https://mastodon.ie/@dec23k/114174646972936925

Dec [{(:no_ai:)}] (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] "Now, one day back at Data General, his weariness focused on the logic analyzer and the small catastrophes that come from trying to build a machine that operates in billionths of a second. On this occasion, he went away from his basement and left this note on his terminal:" "I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season." -- Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine

mastodon.ie