Rounding out the "Bigend Trilogy," Zero History is up to the standards you'd expect from William Gibson's "in the present" stories...moreRounding out the "Bigend Trilogy," Zero History is up to the standards you'd expect from William Gibson's "in the present" stories. Reading through it, you can feel the mastery of his own style of that Gibson has: soulless, unsentimental, and over saturated with a sort of frenetic calm. As with most science fiction, the plot is more of a fixture, and characters are almost equally part of the set. The more pleasurable part is the atmosphere created, here, from places like a "private hotel" with ornate-weird interior decoration, fashion-fetishizing, London motorcycle couriers, and even a brief stint in blown-out rural America.
As with the previous books in the series - Pattern Recognition and Spook Country - the plot itself is the mystery of the book: trying to figure out why all these characters are being compelled to hunt down the secret "Gabriel's Hounds" clothing maker. There's some frenetic, tacked on action at the end (as usual) that makes for the major look into characters - what will they do when forced to make a "difficult choice" - but all of that is just background imagery for the more comfortable string of scenes Gibson paints in the rapid chapters.(less)
Executives are often left with few hand-holds for fitting Agile development into their usual management tasks - setting plans (including budget), meas...moreExecutives are often left with few hand-holds for fitting Agile development into their usual management tasks - setting plans (including budget), measuring success and failure, using leadership to set the plans and spirit that teams operate under, the mechanics of scaling Agile to multiple teams at "big" companies, and most importantly being able to make business decisions with imperfect information.
In a quick 27 pages, Israel Gat covers the tasks management must take on introduce, manage, and then maintain Agile in their organization. Packed into this brief guide is enough information to bring an executive up to speed on what they should be doing if they've found themselves in charge of an Agile organization, or if they're trying to boot-strap to that state.(less)
It seems like a complete overview if Orwell's place in the intellectual world. It's like a long essay, with all sorts if 20th century, cold war intell...moreIt seems like a complete overview if Orwell's place in the intellectual world. It's like a long essay, with all sorts if 20th century, cold war intellectual name checking - so much so that you get nostalgic for the simpler times if Western US vs. USSR scholar games.
You'll also get an in-depth argument for why (and how) Orwell in a good model of an essayist and thinker, a thought leader for political and moral culture.
Hitchens doesn't shirk from pointing out flaws in Orwell either.(less)
This is a very basic introduction to using the web for marketing and sales. It's a good overview of the "what," with little of the "how...moreThis is a very basic introduction to using the web for marketing and sales. It's a good overview of the "what," with little of the "how."
If you feel like you don't know anything at all about web-marketing, it'll be helpful. Otherwise, not.(less)
This collection is a bit more uneven than the newer Fragile Things. There
are great short stories in it, but some are not as polished as you migh...moreThis collection is a bit more uneven than the newer Fragile Things. There
are great short stories in it, but some are not as polished as you might expect. That said, if you're a fan, you'll like it.
I especially enjoyed the Cthulhu stories and "Murder Mysteries" was excellent. There's several stories of characters passing the time in LA an other parts of America that are nice reading as well.
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Innovation and culture evolution are being held back by the Internet, and you're giving away free labor while it's happening.
There's a mem...moreInnovation and culture evolution are being held back by the Internet, and you're giving away free labor while it's happening.
There's a meme that's starting to emerge: all this dot.technology we've fallen in love with stopped making big innovations about 10 years ago. We need something post-Internet, it seems to be saying. Our wonderment with the Internet is causing stagnation in our culture. Worse, it's forcing old business models - or how creatives get paid if you wish - to evolve or simply go away.
You Are Not a Gadget operates in this nice space. Lanier is very polite in branding all the Facebook, Twitter, Google stuff as trash. Essentially, in my words, the Internet has just become trash, daytime TV. It's not the PBS that The Well was. And while the Internet can be used as a communication tool for politics, it's now no more special than any other tool and no less useful for truth or falsehoods. For every Iran, there's dozens of swift boaters, sharpie speech noters, and Tea Party truther torpedoers.
In place of thinking the Internet is the end of communications innovation, Lanier wants to push you to think of new art forms, technological innovations, an just plainly moving our culture forward instead of stupidly funding the next dot.com billionaire.
He ends the book with some examples of what this post-Internet innovation could look like. His examples, drawn from his own imagination and work in virtual reality and obsession with octopuses, are all too science fictiony to take too seriously - but whether they seem probable or not, their very nature
of seeming absurd to those of us in the Internet generation illustrates his point: just because it doesn't seem possible in the frame and reality that we currently live in (the Internet) doesn't mean it isn't. The Internet is just one part of our larger culture, not the constraints we have to operate in.
His writing is tedious and academic, but the book is short enough that you can power through it. The strongest parts are the first two thirds where he lambastes current Internet culture as being anything wonderful (though it used to be). The last third, as noted above, is weird and like reading epic, Victorian poetry: you feel like you're supposed to like it, but you don't.
(The ironic part is that me writing a review in Goodreads, here, is part of all this: free labor for someone else's commercial enterprise.)(less)
Like American Gods (the only other Gaiman book I've read so far) this one is incredibly easy to read. Anansi Boys is a fun and light-hearted book and ...moreLike American Gods (the only other Gaiman book I've read so far) this one is incredibly easy to read. Anansi Boys is a fun and light-hearted book and manages to eek out a cheesy ending without being too cheesy. It's sort of a feel good, fantasy book, really (the boys evolve into better people, the boys get the girls at the end, the villain is punished) with excellent writing, dialog, and everything.(less)
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