I picked up this book to be a small break from my all the Steinbeck I’ve been reading lately. I like to alternate a little between fiction and non-fiction. Within the non-fiction, I like to mix it up between professional reading and just interesting. Usually, there is some overlap and I think that applies here. Also, one of the authors, P.W. Singer is coming to speak at my school next week and I wanted to read it before he arrived. I read an earlier book […]
What IS the internet, anyway?
AMC’s computer tech/hot people drama “Halt and Catch Fire” is set in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s a great drama, and also set in the fascinating and generally not seen subgenre of period-piece computer tech. The soundtracks alone make the show worth watching. I love that show, and its iconic line: “Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets you to the thing.” I’ve been online for about 25 years, and the gutsin that quote resonated deeply with me. As an artsy, quiet kid, […]
Why is this book over? How am I not still reading it?
What a breathtaking novel. Enormous in every possible way, and yet somehow totally personal and relatable. I devoured “Alif the Unseen,” and I wish I were still reading it. On its surface, “Alif the Unseen” is the story of a young man, a hacker in a present day un-named police state in the Persian Gulf. He has girl troubles and so he codes a pretty little program to hide his digital presence from his ex-girlfriend, and in doing so taps into the world of jinn […]
A witty and satirical take on social networking, society and privacy.
The Circle is the world’s biggest social network. Part Google, part Facebook and all encompassing, it’s a seemingly benevolent force that everybody is signed up with, and the workplace to aspire to. So when Mae Holland is offered a job, it isn’t hard to see why she’s so enamoured with it, rising her way up the food chain and buying into everything that entails. There are tell-tale signs that the company might have more power and reach than necessary, but she brushes them off, even […]