Civilizing the Internet

Civilizing the Internet PDF Author: Joseph Migga Kizza
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786405398
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Besides creating a virtual utopian landscape, the Internet has given new exposure and to some extent a veiled degree of legitimacy to all sorts of human vices. Misdeeds upon the Internet have caught many people, communities, and governments off guard, and many are struggling to come up with policies and censorship mechanisms to regulate an Internet they see as going out of control. The most affected domains are telecommunications, broadcasting, and computer services. In essence, this book discusses the convergence of the three media. It looks at the historical development of the Internet, its globalization, the concerns it has raised, and the tools available to deal with these concerns on a variety of levels. Also analyzed are the attempts being made around the globe to regulate the Internet. Students in computer, engineering, and library studies will find the book particularly helpful. It also serves those working in information-sensitive areas such as insurance and banking.

Civilizing the Internet

Civilizing the Internet PDF Author: Joseph Migga Kizza
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786405398
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
Besides creating a virtual utopian landscape, the Internet has given new exposure and to some extent a veiled degree of legitimacy to all sorts of human vices. Misdeeds upon the Internet have caught many people, communities, and governments off guard, and many are struggling to come up with policies and censorship mechanisms to regulate an Internet they see as going out of control. The most affected domains are telecommunications, broadcasting, and computer services. In essence, this book discusses the convergence of the three media. It looks at the historical development of the Internet, its globalization, the concerns it has raised, and the tools available to deal with these concerns on a variety of levels. Also analyzed are the attempts being made around the globe to regulate the Internet. Students in computer, engineering, and library studies will find the book particularly helpful. It also serves those working in information-sensitive areas such as insurance and banking.

Magic and Loss

Magic and Loss PDF Author: Virginia Heffernan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501132679
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Virginia Heffernan gives a highly informative analysis of what the internet is and can be in an examination of its past, present and future.

The Internet Galaxy

The Internet Galaxy PDF Author: Manuel Castells
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199255771
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Castells helps us understand how the Internet came into being and how it is affecting every area of human life. This guide reveals the Internet's huge capacity to liberate, but also its possibility to exclude those who do not have access to it.

Technology in World Civilization, revised and expanded edition

Technology in World Civilization, revised and expanded edition PDF Author: Arnold Pacey
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542463
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
The new edition of a milestone work on the global history of technology. This milestone history of technology, first published in 1990 and now revised and expanded in light of recent research, broke new ground by taking a global view, avoiding the conventional Eurocentric perspective and placing the development of technology squarely in the context of a "world civilization." Case studies include "technological dialogues" between China and West Asia in the eleventh century, medieval African states and the Islamic world, and the United States and Japan post-1950. It examines railway empires through the examples of Russia and Japan and explores current synergies of innovation in energy supply and smartphone technology through African cases. The book uses the term "technological dialogue" to challenges the top-down concept of "technology transfer," showing instead that technologies are typically modified to fit local needs and conditions, often triggering further innovation. The authors trace these encounters and exchanges over a thousand years, examining changes in such technologies as agriculture, firearms, printing, electricity, and railroads. A new chapter brings the narrative into the twenty-first century, discussing technological developments including petrochemicals, aerospace, and digitalization from often unexpected global viewpoints and asking what new kind of industrial revolution is needed to meet the challenges of the Anthropocene.

The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature

The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature PDF Author: Neal Pollack
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060004533
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Neal Pollack has been the Greatest Living American Writer across six decades, seven continents, and ten wives. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award (twice), and the Premio Simon Bolivar for contributions to the people's struggle in Latin America. In 1985, Pollack's writing was declared "beyond our meager standards" by the Swedish Academy With the publication of The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, the definitive collection of his work in English, a new generation of readers is set to discover nothing less than the ultimate meaning of human existence on earth. This astonishing work of fictitious nonfiction, the funniest and most creatively styled postmodernist confection of its time, has been universally praised as the best book ever written except for maybe Don Quixote and The Shipping News. The Anthology -- now expanded, updated, and thoroughly repaginated -- answers, once and for all, the question that has plagued American society in general, and literary critics in particular, since Neal Pollack was born: "Who is Neal Pollack?" At last, we know.

Technology in Western Civilization: Technology in the twentieth century

Technology in Western Civilization: Technology in the twentieth century PDF Author: Melvin Kranzberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 792

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Book Description
A complete and well-planned account of the history of technology in Western civilization from pre-historic man to the present age of the computer.

The Empire of Mind

The Empire of Mind PDF Author: Michael Strangelove
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442659440
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
Where many critics see the Internet as an instrument of corporate hegemony, Michael Strangelove sees something else: an alternative space inhabited by communities dedicated to anarchic freedom, culture jamming, alternative journalism, and resistance to authoritarian forms of consumer capitalism and globalization. In The Empire of Mind, "Dr. Strangelove," the scholar Canadian Business referred to as the "acknowledged dean of Internet entrepreneurs" and Wired called "the Canadian guru of Internet advertising," presents the compelling argument that the Internet and new digital communication technology actually undermine the power of capital, producing an alternative symbolic economy. Strangelove contends that the Internet breaks with the capitalist logic of commodification and that, while television produces a passive consumer audience, Internet audiences are more active, creative, and subversive. Writers, activists, and artists on the Internet undermine commercial media and its management of consumer behaviour, a behaviour that is challenged by the Web's tendency toward the disintegration of intellectual property rights. Case studies describe the invention of new meaning given to cultural and consumer icons like Barbie and McDonald's and explore how novel modes of online news production alter the representation of the world as it is produced by the mainstream, corporate press. In the course of exploring new media, The Empire of Mind also makes apparent that digital piracy will not be eliminated. The Internet community effectively converts private property into public, thereby presenting serious obstacles for the management of consumer behaviour and significantly eroding brand value. Much to the dismay of the corporate sector, online communities are disinterested in the ethics of private property. In fact, the entire philosophical framework on which capitalism is based is threatened by these alternative means of cultural production.

Animal Internet

Animal Internet PDF Author: Alexander Pschera
Publisher: New Vessel Press
ISBN: 1939931355
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
"Animal Internet is a most important book. This excellent work could be a strong catalyst for people to rewild, to reconnect and become re-enchanted with all sorts of mysterious and fascinating animals, both local and distant. By shrinking the world it will bring humans and other animals together in a multitude of ways that only a few years ago were unimaginable." —Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence "An original book that goes against the trend to stubbornly keep nature and technology divided from one another."—Der Spiegel "Animal Internet is one of the most interesting books that I've read in recent years."—Bavarian Radio "What Pschera describes sounds futuristic but it's already widespread reality . . . Pschera's book is not just popular science: he describes not only the status quo, but also thinks about an ongoing transformation."—Wired.de Some fifty thousand creatures around the globe—including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats, and snails—are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. With a broad cultural and historical perspective, this book examines human ties with animals, from domestic pets to the soaring popularity of bird watching and kitten images on the web. Will millennia of exploration soon be reduced to experiencing wilderness via smartphone? Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature. Foreword by Martin Wikelski, Director, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology Alexander Pschera, born in 1964, has published several books on the internet and media. He studied German, music, and philosophy at Heidelberg University. He lives near Munich where he writes for the German magazine Cicero as well as for German radio.

The Underminer

The Underminer PDF Author: Mike Albo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596917075
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Successful, gorgeous, and beloved by everyone you know, the Underminer remembers your every foolish ambition and humiliating mistake-and never fails to remind you. The Underminer makes you feel suicidal. But the Underminer is your friend. Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan do us all a public service by capturing the elusive evils of an age-old archetype. To understand and resist your toxic friend, you need The Underminer. Who is the Underminer? "An insincere, name-dropping predator with a rise so meteoric that you feel like crawling into your sad little apartment and eating gallons of ice cream right out of the carton while sniffling over reruns of old Bette Davis movies."-New York Times Book Review "A character that is so malicious, so insensitive and sadistic, that we can only gape horror-struck as every venomous phrase rolls off her tongue."-Rocky Mountain News "A psychological predator of the highest order. A viper cloaked in velvet. The Shaquille O'Neal of schadenfreude."-Boston Globe "An ego-skewering, passive-aggressive blowhard of indeterminate gender, surfing annoyingly along the breaking waves of pop and consumer culture-from dot-com to New Age, from hip-hop to a yurt in Afghanistan-always on top and armed with a put-down."-New York Times "The 'friend' who somehow manages to turn every compliment into an incredibly subtle insult, thus making you wonder whether you are truly the most neurotic person in all of Manhattan-or if your friend is just, well, evil."-New York Post

Your Computer Is on Fire

Your Computer Is on Fire PDF Author: Thomas S. Mullaney
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026253973X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Technology scholars declare an emergency: attention must be paid to the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems. This book sounds an alarm: we can no longer afford to be lulled into complacency by narratives of techno-utopianism, or even techno-neutrality. We should not be reassured by such soothing generalities as "human error," "virtual reality," or "the cloud." We need to realize that nothing is virtual: everything that "happens online," "virtually," or "autonomously" happens offline first, and often involves human beings whose labor is deliberately kept invisible. Everything is IRL. In Your Computer Is on Fire, technology scholars train a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems.