Willful Machines

Willful Machines PDF Author: Tim Floreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481432788
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In a near-future America, a sentient computer program named Charlotte has turned terrorist, but Lee Fisher, the closeted son of an ultraconservative President, is more concerned with keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his developing romance with Nico, the new guy at school, but when the spider-like robots that roam the school halls begin acting even stranger than usual, Lee realizes he is Charlotte's next target.

Willful Machines

Willful Machines PDF Author: Tim Floreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481432788
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In a near-future America, a sentient computer program named Charlotte has turned terrorist, but Lee Fisher, the closeted son of an ultraconservative President, is more concerned with keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his developing romance with Nico, the new guy at school, but when the spider-like robots that roam the school halls begin acting even stranger than usual, Lee realizes he is Charlotte's next target.

Willful Machines

Willful Machines PDF Author: Tim Floreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481432796
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The closeted son of an ultra-conservative president must keep a budding romance secret from his father while protecting himself from a sentient computer program that’s terrorizing the United States—and has zeroed in on him as its next target—in this “socially conscious sci-fi thriller to shelve between The Terminator and Romeo and Juliet” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In the near future, scientists create what may be a new form of life: an artificial human named Charlotte. All goes well until Charlotte escapes, transfers her consciousness to the Internet, and begins terrorizing the American public. Charlotte’s attacks have everyone on high alert—everyone except Lee Fisher, the closeted son of the US president. Lee has other things to worry about, like keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his crush on Nico, the eccentric, Shakespeare-obsessed new boy at school. And keeping Nico from finding out about his recent suicide attempt. And keeping himself from freaking out about all his secrets. But when attacks start happening at his school, Lee realizes he’s Charlotte’s next target. Even worse, Nico may be part of Charlotte’s plan too. As Lee races to save himself, uncover Charlotte’s plan, and figure out if he can trust Nico, he comes to a whole new understanding of what it means to be alive…and what makes life worth living.

Willful Machines

Willful Machines PDF Author: Tim Floreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 148143277X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In a near-future America, a sentient computer program named Charlotte has turned terrorist, but Lee Fisher, the closeted son of an ultraconservative President, is more concerned with keeping his Secret Service detail from finding out about his developing romance with Nico, the new guy at school, and when the spider-like robots that roam the school halls begin acting even stranger than usual, Lee realizes he's Charlotte's next target.

Dismantlings

Dismantlings PDF Author: Matt Tierney
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501746774
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
"For the master's tools," the poet Audre Lorde wrote, "will never dismantle the master's house." Dismantlings is a study of literary, political, and philosophical critiques of the utopian claims about technology in the Long Seventies, the decade and a half before 1980. Following Alice Hilton's 1963 admonition that the coming years would bring humanity to a crossroads—"machines for HUMAN BEINGS or human beings for THE MACHINE"—Matt Tierney explores wide-ranging ideas from science fiction, avant-garde literatures, feminist and anti-racist activism, and indigenous eco-philosophy that may yet challenge machines of war, control, and oppression. Dismantlings opposes the language of technological idealism with radical thought of the Long Seventies, from Lorde and Hilton to Samuel R. Delany and Ursula K. Le Guin to Huey P. Newton, John Mohawk, and many others. This counter-lexicon retrieves seven terms for the contemporary critique of technology: Luddism, a verbal and material combat against exploitative machines; communion, a kind of togetherness that stands apart from communication networks; cyberculture, a historical conjunction of automation with racist and militarist machines; distortion, a transformative mode of reading and writing; revolutionary suicide, a willful submission to the risk of political engagement; liberation technology, a synthesis of appropriate technology and liberation theology; and thanatopography, a mapping of planetary technological ethics after Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Dismantlings restores revolutionary language of the radical Long Seventies for reuse in the digital present against emergent technologies of exploitation, subjugation, and death.

Tattoo Atlas

Tattoo Atlas PDF Author: Tim Floreen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 148143280X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"After Franklin commits a horrific crime and is sent to a special lab for rehabilitation, only Jeremy believes that Franklin might actually be better...but when crimes start up again in their small town, Jeremy begins to wonder if evil can ever truly be quelled"--

Machines Like Me

Machines Like Me PDF Author: Ian McEwan
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385545126
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—”a sharply intelligent novel of ideas” (The New York Times) that asks whether a machine can understand the human heart, or whether we are the ones who lack understanding. Set in an uncanny alternative 1982 London—where Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence—Machines Like Me powerfully portrays two lovers who will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first generation of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he codesigns Adam's personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong, and smart—and a love triangle soon forms. Ian McEwan's subversive, gripping novel poses fundamental questions: What makes us human—our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns against the power to invent things beyond our control. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!

Final Jeopardy

Final Jeopardy PDF Author: Stephen Baker
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547519435
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The “charming and terrifying” story of IBM’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence, from the Business Week technology writer and author of The Numerati (Publishers Weekly, starred review). For centuries, people have dreamed of creating a machine that thinks like a human. Scientists have made progress: computers can now beat chess grandmasters and help prevent terrorist attacks. Yet we still await a machine that exhibits the rich complexity of human thought—one that doesn’t just crunch numbers, or take us to a relevant web page, but understands and communicates with us. With the creation of Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-playing computer, we are one step closer to that goal. In Final Jeopardy, Stephen Baker traces the arc of Watson’s “life,” from its birth in the IBM labs to its big night on the podium. We meet Hollywood moguls and Jeopardy! masters, genius computer programmers and ambitious scientists, including Watson’s eccentric creator, David Ferrucci. We see how Watson’s breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence could transform medicine, law, marketing, and even science itself, as machines process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, answer our questions, and possibly come up with new hypotheses. As fast and fun as the game itself, Final Jeopardy shows how smart machines will fit into our world—and how they’ll disrupt it. “The place to go if you’re really interested in this version of the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence.” —The Seattle Times “Like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine, Baker’s book finds us at the dawn of a singularity. It’s an excellent case study, and does good double duty as a Philip K. Dick scenario, too.” —Kirkus Reviews “Like a cross between Born Yesterday and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baker’s narrative is both . . . an entertaining romp through the field of artificial intelligence—and a sobering glimpse of things to come.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Wilful Blindness

Wilful Blindness PDF Author: Sam Cooper
Publisher: Optimum Publishing International
ISBN: 0888903308
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Revised and updated edition of the Globe and Mail and Amazon bestselling book “If you want to understand war in the 21st century, read this to get part of the story.” — Robert Spalding, US Brigadier General (retired) “This book reads like a thriller and is stranger than fiction. Gripping, racy and exciting, it is difficult to put down. A tale of gambling, narcotics, tycoons, criminal gangs and Communists. And the shocking part is that it’s not a novel, it is all true.” — Benedict Rogers, CEO Hong Kong Watch In 1982 three of the most powerful men in Asia met in Hong Kong. They would decide how Hong Kong would be handed over to the People’s Republic of China and how Chinese business tycoons Henry Fok and Li Ka-Shing would help Deng Xiaoping realize the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic and global ambitions. That meeting would not only change Vancouver but the world. Billions of dollars in Chinese investment would soon reach the shores of North America’s Pacific coast. B.C. government casinos became a tool for global criminals to import deadly narcotics into Canada and launder billions of drug cash into Vancouver real estate. And it didn't happen by accident. A cast of accomplices — governments hungry for revenue, casino, and real estate companies with ties to shady offshore wealth, professional facilitators including lawyers and bankers, an aimless RCMP that gave organized crime room to grow — all combined to cause this tragedy. There was greed, folly, corruption, conspiracy, and wilful blindness. Decades of bad policy allowed drug cartels, first and foremost the Big Circle Boys — powerful transnational narco-kingpins with ties to corrupt Chinese officials, real estate tycoons, and industrialists — to gain influence over significant portions of Canada’s economy. Many looked the other way while B.C.’s primary industry, real estate, ballooned with dirty cash. But the unintended social consequences are now clear: a fentanyl overdose crisis raging in major cities throughout North America and life spans falling for the first time in modern Canada, and a runaway housing market that has devastated middle-class income earners. This story isn’t just about real estate and fentanyl overdoses, though. Sam Cooper has uncovered evidence that shows the primary actors in so-called “Vancouver Model” money laundering have effectively made Canada’s west coast a headquarters for corporate and industrial espionage by the CCP. And these ruthless entrepreneurs have used Vancouver and Canada to export their criminal model to other countries around the world including Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Cooper finds that the RCMP’s 2019 arrest of its top intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, raises many frightening questions. Could Chinese transnational criminals and state actors targeting Canada’s industrial and technological crown jewels have gained protection from the Mounties? Could China and Iran have insight into Canada's deepest national security secrets and influence on investigations? Ortis had oversight of many investigations into transnational money laundering networks and insight into sensitive probes of suspects seeking to undermine Canada’s democracy and infiltrate the United States, according to the evidence Cooper has found. Wilful Blindness is a powerful narrative that follows the investigators who refused to go along with institutionalized negligence and corruption that enabled the Vancouver Model, with Cooper drawing on extensive interviews with the whistle-blowers; thousands of pages of government and court documents obtained through legal applications; and large caches of confidential material available exclusively to Cooper. The book culminates with a shocking revelation showing how deeply Canada has been compromised, and what needs to happen, to get the nation back on track with its “Five Eyes” allies.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition)

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition) PDF Author: Charles Yu
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307379884
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This enhanced eBook includes video, audio, photographic, and linked content, as well as a bonus short story. Hear TAMMY talk. Learn the origins of Minor Universe 31. See the TM-31. Take a trip in it. Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinked endnotes. Video and audio are embedded directly in text. *Video and audio may not play on all readers. Check your user manual for details. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.

Sensation Machines

Sensation Machines PDF Author: Adam Wilson
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1641291656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Set in a near-future New York City, where the ubiquity of automation has caused mass unemployment and a major market crash, Sensation Machines is by turns a portrait of a marriage in decline, a murder mystery, and a panoramic vision of a post-Trump economic dystopia. Michael and Wendy Mixner are a Jewish Brooklyn-based couple whose marriage is failing in the wake of their daughter's stillbirth. Michael, a Wall Street trader, has secretly lost the couple's life savings. Wendy, a digital marketing strategist, has been hired onto a Cambridge Analytica--style data mining project, whose mysterious owner has ambitions to reshape America's social and political landscapes. When Michael's best friend is murdered, the evidence leads back to Wendy's client, setting off a dangerous chain of events that will profoundly change the couple--and the country. Sensation Machines inhabits the perspectives of the Wall Street bros, the marketing mad men, the Silicon Valley sociopaths--and uncomfortably humanizes them, while considering the ways everyone is complicit in the consequences of late capitalism. Sensation Machines is a novel of big ideas, intricate plotting, and keenly observed human drama.