Writing on the Wall: Social Media: The First 2,000 Years
A fine book (narrated well by Simon Vance), with a fine thesis, but the middle bit tends to sag as it is merely a short history of media. It does make it a good book for the ages, when we are all watching trideo, jacked into the matrix through direct neural links, but it does make it longer than it needs to be to makes it's point. For people familiar with the more recent media spaces I think you can get just as much enjoyment by watching Tom's TEDx talk, and hearing his great interview by Leo Laporte on Triangulation (which motivated me to buy the book).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsridS3qVs
http://twit.tv/show/triangulation/126
Black Code: The Battle for the Future of Cyberspace
From my full review chadkohalyk.com/blog/2013/11/16/tour-of-duty/:Professor Deibert has been able to bring some of the deep academic work they have been doing at the Citizen Lab to a wider audience. The book is very accessible, and easy to recommend to your non-cypherpunk friends. Moreover, at least in my case, it should pique interest in reading more Citizen Lab publications for those interested in diving deeper.
. . .
Even though he describes the internet as a “totally immersive environment”, entwined in everyone’s lives whether they want it or not, he maintains that the solution is to depend on a priesthood of “stewards” representing citizens at multi-actor talk shops. This may seem a lukewarm solution to the empowered activists in the room, wanting to inflame and empower the “people” to rise up (cue the cypherpunk call to arms “freedom through encryption”). However, in light of the complacency we have seen over the past six months (and more!) it might just be the most realistic chance we have on the road from information serfdom.
As much as Edward Snowden could be considered a latter day Paul Revere, and the people should heed his warnings, we have seen a terrible lack of anger sweep our nations. It is up to us to not only protect ourselves through our technological prowess, but also to engage with other power actors to ensure encrypted, distributed and ultimately safe infrastructure for ourselves and the general populace in the global north and beyond. It is a tour of duty. Black Code is a book that illustrates it well, and hopefully will empower more to join our cause. Spread it around.
Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think
Although it could benefit from some editing (it can be repetitive), this short book helps clarify the benefits and drawbacks of "Big Data" and has some solid (if early) proposals about how to handle it.The lines of argument that the authors draw are clear and very helpful in thinking of this new way at looking at the world. For example, Big Data shows us the "what" not the "why"; the growing influence of correlation with respect to causation; the different types of Big Data such as mechanical analytics and personal information; and the dangers in using Big Data for punitive measures. The distinction between certain types of analytics data (ie about auto parts or the weather) and personal information is particularly helpful in thinking about the damaging effects of Big Data. This book does a good job in drawing that distinction, but it does not tackle the large grey area in between. An example in the book has car companies recording GPS data when a car's ABS is engaged, ostensibly to make safer navigation routing. Even though this sounds like analytics, it can be considered privacy invasion. The current legal framework for privacy protection is obsolescent at the scale of Big Data.
I have meet Kenneth Cukier and read the Big Data special in The Economist but I was swayed to finally read this book after hearing a VMS interview:
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/full-interviews/2013/05/01/viktor-mayer-schonberger-on-big-data/
For those already versed in BD, I would highly recommend chapters 8 and 9, where they outline the "dark side" of Big Data and some ways to mitigate it.
To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last
Brilliant performance by Steven Crossley for the Audiobook. So many laugh out loud moments. I just wish I was more familiar with English literature so I could get more of the references. Definitely picking up more of Connie Willis's work, starting with The Doomsday Book (of which this book is a sequel. Seems appropriate that I have started reading a series on time travel out of order...)
Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking
Although this book is a PhD dissertation and contains some anthropology technical jargon, Coleman's tone is casual, making it surprisingly accessible.I learned a lot about the F/OSS movement and being surrounded by developers all day (and pretending to be one myself) I think she perfectly captured the culture. Through this book I also learned more about my own political stance, coming to open source from a political background rather than from pure development.
The particular dichotomies she describes (between meritocratism and communal action; and between free speech and intellectual property law) are thought-provoking and spurred me to find out more. Although I had used Ubuntu, I had no experience or knowledge of Debian and began to investigate. To put it another way, this book has influenced how I do my personal computing (eg. being aware of and making more ethical choices, where possible).
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the ethics of computing (which should be everyone IMHO) or developers who are not already inside the F/OSS community.
I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did
This book does not start off well, since the author does not have a very good grasp of the technology. The cases she presents early in the book are familiar, but are described without nuance and with the FUD turned up to 11. I almost quit reading, I was so frustrated. I question her definition of a "website" and "social media" (neither of which she gives a clear definition in the text, though obviously there is a difference in her mind). Furthermore, she thinks that everyone has two distinct lives: offline and an online "doppelganger" (see my earlier comment on FUD). Only two? She should do more reading on publics.Once the book moved away from the technical and into the legal it became much more palatable and possibly even interesting. I assume as she is a lawyer, her grasp of the legal aspects of her argument are better than the technical. She presents an astonishing number of cases which makes me suspect she is glossing over any nuance like she did when she talked about technical topics… but not being a legal scholar I cannot tell.
There certainly is an information management problem exacerbated by the web. I doubt if the solution is a "Social Media Contract" as proposed in this book. At least, the current laws need to be updated/generalized to include online aspects.
This book is short and might serve as a (alarmist) primer. My advice is read it quickly and don't stop here.
You Are Not a Gadget: Being Human in an Age of Technology (Audio)
Lanier's disarming modesty comes off as lack of confidence in his argument, or a collection of mere opinions, which is disappointing for such a thought provoking book. It is good to hear criticism of the prevailing mode of thought, but I wish it was a little less contradictory and smacked less of a peaen to the analog and the rant of an unpaid musician. Great topic, bad approach, 3 stars.
 - Jaron Lanier, Rob Shapiro)
The Engineer: Follow Elon Musk on a journey from South Africa to Mars
Erik Nordeus has done a commendable job, scouring the web of resources to build a narrative of Elon Musk— a man too busy to get involved in a biography— and doing so in a different language! The book is an interesting business model (see leanpub.com/theengineer for more information) and it serves well as a first pass on the story of Elon Musk. I actually learned quite a bit.In the future I really hope Nordeus is able to get an English editor and make some follow up interviews with the man himself. Also, since the book has the tinge of hero worship, I hope that Nordeus can give us some more constructive criticism of Elon (who, admittedly I worship as a hero myself). Regardless, it is an easy and quick read, and well worth it.
Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport
I found the chapters on economic analysis of team cashflow, as well as the analysis on hosting world sporting events the most interesting. Entertaining and thought provoking book!
Mars Direct: Space Exploration, the Red Planet, and the Human Future (Audio)
Although short, it is a nice look at what is "wrong" with NASA and the space policy bureaucracy. The mission brief at the beginning was interesting, but very short. The rest of the book gives more insight into the thinking of Zubrin and his reasons for starting the Mars Society.
 - Robert Zubrin, Erik Synnestvedt)
The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It
Could've been a much shorter book, and it is getting dated in terms of the tech used in the examples, but he brings up some excellent points. I especially like his categorization of generative vs. Tethered appliance. I was already on the path, but this book will push you to at least explore Linux and Android as platforms (even though Zittrain at the time was obviously a Windows user)
Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power
Started off as a bumpy ride simply through the poor editing and lack of footnotes. But it does get better, and it did get me thinking seriously about the conservative versus progressive approaches to martial arts. The Hidden Way chapter is the best, especially the 16 steps to becoming Ueshiba. If you are looking for a serious historical examination of the development and progression of aikido/Daito Ryu, look elsewhere. If you want to read about Ellis Amdur's opinion about the development and progression of aikido/Daito Ryu, then this book would be a good choice.
Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
This book is really a footnoted conversation between Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie Zimmermann, some big names in the internet/activist/anarchist/online security communities. It would have been great to see this as a video, but in some cases the footnotes are essential.Their conversation reminds me of the discussions we have in Talk Club (a local, salon-like discussion group): no holds barred, anything goes, blue sky solutioneering. But these guys are not only really smart, they are professionals in their fields. When they riff upon one another, sure some batshit crazy stuff comes out, but more often than not the reader is nodding his head along to some brilliant comment or another.
See the rest of my review on my blog: http://chadkohalyk.com/blog/2013/06/23/cypherpunks/
We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec Anonymous
More a story of LulzSec as an outgrowth of Anonymous, this book is just one perspective on what makes hacker groups tick. Parmy Olson also depicts how helpless the authorities are, and how hapless the press is, which someone contradicts the veracity of this book.Regardless, once authority gets a clue, the reach of the long arm of the law is sinister, and the story finishes in a moral landscape as grey and barren
This book is a pleasure to read as someone who stood on the sidelines of the Anonymous and LulzSec hacks, reading about their antics on Twitter and the MSM. It is an excellent historical account of recent events for web aficionados like myself. However, I would encourage a wider audience, as it reminds us that in the times of corporate cooperation with government regarding our personal information on the web (ie. PRISM), our information could just as easily be outed by roving anarchist hacker groups wanting to try out their lastest SQLI tricks.
Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age
Just finished rereading this book, scouting it for passages on political theory for my next essay on the political theory of information.
The Martian Chronicles
Beautifully written, you can see Bradbury stretching his skill here. It is pretty amazing to think that this was written more than 60 years ago. It is definitely a product of its time with all the pipe smoking and "Golly, gee" dialogue. Still, as a characterization of the post-war attitudes of progress and destruction, it is a pretty good window into the American psyche of its time.
