Culture Books - Page 3

Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge

Cass R. Sunstein

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $9.45

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

As the dire history of planned economies highlights, small well-informed groups of people will often make far worse decisions than large numbers of people, acting independently, would make. In Infotopia, Cass Sunstein looks at the "wisdom of the many"--particularly as seen on today's Internet--illuminating many new ways of collecting and evaluating information and making effective decisions.
Sunstein shows how the on-line efforts of many people coming together help companies, schools, governments, and individuals to amass ever-growing bodies of accurate knowledge. He describes for instance how Wikipedia, through an endless flurry of self-correcting exchanges, collects information on everything from politics and business to science fiction. Open-source software--which licenses programmers to use, change, and improve the software--taps the power of large numbers of people to spur technological development. And prediction markets--such as the famous Iowa Electronic Market, where people bet real money on the outcome of local and national elections--collect information in a way that allows companies, ranging from computer makers to Hollywood studios, to make better decisions about the future. Sunstein reveals why these revolutionary new methods are so astoundingly accurate and he also shows how people can take advantage of "the wisdom of the many" without succumbing to the dangers of herd mentality.
"Sunstein, one of the biggest of America's internet big thinkers, has written an intriguing new book in which he argues that Hayek's insights about the genius of markets are equally true of the internet."
--Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times
"This extraordinary work synthesizes the latest in how we know, with the latest in what the web has become, to map more compellingly than any other book the promise and risk of the information society."
--Lawrence Lessig, author of Free Culture and The Future of Ideas
"Vivid, readable, and informativea show-me-the-money guide to what soars and what stumbles from the stable of Internet dreams."
--Jedediah Purdy, American Prospect

Portrait and Candid Photography: Photo Workshop

Erin Manning

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $15.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

For the serious hobbyist 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I found this book (And the entire Photo workshop series) to be very helpful especially to beginning and intermediate level photography hobbyists.

It assumes no previous knowledge of photography, and explains such things as f-stop and how things interact to affect exposure without being overly technical.

Each chapter ends with a "Lesson" or exercise to emphasize the subject of that chapter. And being able to combine the book with the website (Free membership) to upload your lessons for group critique (Sometimes including from the author) is a good way to improve you photo skills.

Note that though this is part of a series of books, there is no sequence in reading them. For that reason, there is a degree of overlap in each book.

That said, you really need to be using a SLR type camera to be able to have the control of the camera that many of the exercises require. A point-and-shoot may not allow it.

But for the serious hobbyist, I would say this book (and series) is worth the money and time.

Editorial Review:

The secret to taking great “people pictures” is to observe your subjects, connect with them, and use your camera to its best advantage. Here’s how to work with lighting, location, angle, composition, physical characteristics, environment, and countless other variables, including the unique challenges of photographing babies, group activities, and action. Learn to capture facial expressions, tell a story with a series of candids, add interest to large-group shots, and more. Apply these techniques and watch your subjects come to life.

Composition Photo Workshop

Blue Fier

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $15.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very good . 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

A very good book for the serious novice and realy fun to read. Books on Photography are essential for the beginer.I found most of them have at least one or two new things to teach. They can't replace the classroom but for the money they are a great deal. Don't expect to become a great photog just because of a book. You will always find something that you can try to put to practice. Highly recomended. Practice practice practice and Have Fun.

Three GREAT reasons to buy this book! 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I was quite impressed with this book. I've been very actively taking digital photos for 4 years now and am reaching for the intermediate level of proficiency. The first reason I would recommend this book is that it went far beyond the "Rule of Thirds" and leading lines on into color, framing, lighting, placement, etc., etc. There's a wealth of good information and ideas supported by beautifully composed photo examples. Secondly,staying in keeping with the "Workshop" portion of the book's title, at the end of every chapter is an assignment the reader can embark on to REALLY learn what he/she has just read. The assignments are highly creative and fun. And finally, taking this learning experience yet one step further, the reader is directed to send the results of the assignments to a website where other readers are sharing as well. A great deal can be learned from looking at their submissions and reading reviews. I also discovered other links in this website that take you into a very exciting world of sharing and learning more about digital photography. This book is a keeper!

Editorial Review:

The hands-on instruction that digital photographers need to compose great shots

Introducing readers to the basic elements of design, this full-color guide shows photographers step by step how to frame great compositions before they take the shot. Instructions, advice, examples, and assignments cover all types of photography.

The Adsense Code: What Google Never Told You about Making Money with Adsense

Joel Comm

Amazon Price: $27.61 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Morgan James Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $21.22

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Hidden on the Internet, scattered among billions of Web pages, are the clues to an incredible secret. For those who know the secret, the result is untold wealth. Each month, a small group of people - an elite club who have uncovered the mysteries of The AdSense Code- put their knowledge to use and receive checks for tens of thousands of dollars from Google. And untold numbers of additional site owners are regularly generating supplemental income via AdSense while they play, sleep and eat. The AdSense Code is concise and very focused on the objective of revealing the proven online strategies to creating passive income with Google AdSense. The AdSense Code reveals hands-on solutions to many of the concerns and challenges faced by content publishers in their quest to attract targeted traffic, improve content relevance and increase responsiveness to AdSense ads - using easy and legitimate techniques that have worked for those who know the secrets. Google AdSense expert, Joel Comm, provides you with the keys you need to "crack" The AdSense Code and unlock the secrets to making money online.

Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ

Richard Dooling

Amazon Price: $14.96 List Price: $22.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harmony Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $9.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Will the Geeks inherit the earth?

If computers become twice as fast and twice as capable every two years, how long is it before they’re as intelligent as humans? More intelligent? And then in two more years, twice as intelligent? How long before you won’t be able to tell if you are texting a person or an especially ingenious chatterbot program designed to simulate intelligent human conversation?

According to Richard Dooling in Rapture for the Geeks—maybe not that long. It took humans millions of years to develop opposable thumbs (which we now use to build computers), but computers go from megabytes to gigabytes in five years; from the invention of the PC to the Internet in less than fifteen. At the accelerating rate of technological development, AI should surpass IQ in the next seven to thirty-seven years (depending on who you ask). We are sluggish biological sorcerers, but we’ve managed to create whiz-bang machines that are evolving much faster than we are.

In this fascinating, entertaining, and illuminating book, Dooling looks at what some of the greatest minds have to say about our role in a future in which technology rapidly leaves us in the dust. As Dooling writes, comparing human evolution to technological evolution is “worse than apples and oranges: It’s appliances versus orangutans.” Is the era of Singularity, when machines outthink humans, almost upon us? Will we be enslaved by our supercomputer overlords, as many a sci-fi writer has wondered? Or will humans live lives of leisure with computers doing all the heavy lifting?

With antic wit, fearless prescience, and common sense, Dooling provocatively examines nothing less than what it means to be human in what he playfully calls the age of b.s. (before Singularity)—and what life will be like when we are no longer alone with Mother Nature at Darwin’s card table. Are computers thinking and feeling if they can mimic human speech and emotions? Does processing capability equal consciousness? What happens to our quaint beliefs about God when we’re all worshipping technology? What if the human compulsion to create ever more capable machines ultimately leads to our own extinction? Will human ingenuity and faith ultimately prevail over our technological obsessions? Dooling hopes so, and his cautionary glimpses into the future are the best medicine to restore our humanity.

Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day

Gina Trapani

Amazon Price: $24.99 List Price: $24.99 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $0.35

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I could not find a trick to use 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book, because Amazon recommended it automatically with this great book: The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

and I made a mistake. And this is NOT because the book is bad or poorly written or has no information inside. And this is why giving the stars here is hard thing. How to rate book if YOU can not use a single trick, because you just do not like them or do not need them?
Book is about (TECH!) tips, but I was buying the book, since3 I thought it will be more thinking and time management related.

Gina teaches you how to block entertainment website before 3 o'clock, before you had not done the job - no this or that website, Firefox will not allow you open it and so on so on. Every tip I read I answered - cool yes. Interesting - yes. Will I use it? No.

And so all the way in the book. What I want to say - if it is possible - TRY look inside the book before you buy - some people may find it useful, but if you are regular reader and search for time management books - i am afraid you will expect different book. This is most hard review I ever wrote here. I strongly suggest - get a sneak preview of some tips - you will LIKELY have a reactions like - interesting & cool.... by seems I will not use it.

Editorial Review:

Redefine your personal productivity by tweaking, modding, mashing up, and repurposing Web apps, desktop software, and common everyday objects. The 88 "life hacks" -- clever shortcuts and lesser-known, faster ways to complete a task -- in this book are some of the best in Lifehacker.com's online archive. Every chapter describes an overarching lifehacker principle, then segues into several concrete applications. Each hack includes a step-by-step how-to for setting up and using the solution with cross-platform software, detailed screen shots, and sidebars with additional tips. Order your copy today and increase your productivity!

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

Daniel J. Solove

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $7.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.

 

Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

 

Sovereign Individual

Sir William Rees-Mogg, James Dale Davidson

By: Humanity Press/prometheus Bk Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $10.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Predictions are Finally Coming True 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Keep in mind that this book was written around 1997, before 9/11/2001.
It is summer 2008 and the "US empire" is in decline.
The US debt is quickly approaching the $10 trillion mark.
(that is a one with thirteen zeros behind it)
The US dollar is in decline.
The US financial markets are in meltdown mode.
The FDIC has taken over IndyMac, more banks to follow.
The government is talking about a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
(how high can the US deficit go?)
The government has enacted the so called "patriot act".
The government has expanded the FISA rules.
The housing market is in deflation mode.
The commodities market is in inflation mode (oil approaching $150).

Here are few quotes from the book:
Page 20: "Governments will violate human rights, censor the free flow of information, sabotage useful technologies, and worse".

Page 23: "All nation-states face bankruptcy and the rapid erosion of their authority".

Page 29: "We forecast and explained why militant Islam would displace Marxism as the principal ideology of confrontation with the West".

Page 137: "You can expect to see crises of misgovernment in many countries as political promises are deflated and governments run out of credit".

Page 196: "Governments that tax too much will simply make residence anywhere within their power a bankrupting liability".

Page 197: "Paper money also contributed significantly to the power of the state, not only by generating profits from depreciating the currency, but by giving the state leverage over who could accumulate wealth".

Page 198: "Control over money will migrate from the halls of power to the global marketplace".

Editorial Review:

Two renowned investment advisors and forecasters present their prognostications--political, social, and economic--for the coming years and outline the practical consequences of adapting to the new global economy and the information age. 100,000 first printing. Tour.

The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing

By: EDUCAUSE Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $19.95

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Editorial Review:

The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized infrastructure for delivering computing power, network bandwidth, data storage and protection, and services. Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education. International customers: contact EDUCAUSE at info@educause.edu.

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet

Katie Hafner

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 88 new & used starting at $0.70

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A clearly told story 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a simple tale about the founders of the Internet. It does not get bogged down in many technical terms although there are some. It explains the development of a network that we now take for granted. A good read.

Great Overview of the True History of the Internet 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is quite possibly one of the most engaging computer books I've ever read, which says quite a bit when I've read computer books for years. The narrative style gives you a beautiful glimpse into some of the trials and tribulations that those involved in the original ARPAnet project went through, and how that project exploded into a vast global phenomenon - a prediction that nobody could have made when the project first started.

Editorial Review:

Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.

In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.