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Chaos Engineering: System Resiliency in Practice
by Casey Rosenthal Nora JonesAs more companies move toward microservices and other distributed technologies, the complexity of these systems increases. You can't remove the complexity, but through Chaos Engineering you can discover vulnerabilities and prevent outages before they impact your customers. This practical guide shows engineers how to navigate complex systems while optimizing to meet business goals.Two of the field's prominent figures, Casey Rosenthal and Nora Jones, pioneered the discipline while working together at Netflix. In this book, they expound on the what, how, and why of Chaos Engineering while facilitating a conversation from practitioners across industries. Many chapters are written by contributing authors to widen the perspective across verticals within (and beyond) the software industry.Learn how Chaos Engineering enables your organization to navigate complexityExplore a methodology to avoid failures within your application, network, and infrastructureMove from theory to practice through real-world stories from industry experts at Google, Microsoft, Slack, and LinkedIn, among othersEstablish a framework for thinking about complexity within software systemsDesign a Chaos Engineering program around game days and move toward highly targeted, automated experimentsLearn how to design continuous collaborative chaos experiments
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
by Max FisherThe Chaos Machine is an essential book for our times - Ezra KleinThe Chaos Machine is the story of how the world was driven mad by social media. The election of populists like Trump and Bolsonaro; strife and genocide in countries like Myanmar; the rampant spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as deadly as the pandemic itself; all of these are products of a breakdown in our social and political lives, a breakdown driven by the apps, companies and algorithms that compete constantly for our attention.Max Fisher is a leading New York Times technology reporter whose work has covered the way that social media sites - driven increasingly by artificial intelligence rather than human ingenuity - push users towards more and more extreme positions, deepening the divisions in society in pursuit of greater engagement and profit. With extraordinary access to the most powerful players in Silicon Valley, and with testimonies from around the world of the havoc being wreaked by our online selves, The Chaos Machine shows us how we got to this uniquely perilous moment - and how we might get out of it.
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
by Max FisherHow social media is hacking our minds, our societies and the world - and what we can do about it.The Chaos Machine is the story of how the world was driven mad by social media. The election of populists like Trump and Bolsonaro; strife and genocide in countries like Myanmar; the rampant spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as deadly as the pandemic itself; all of these are products of a breakdown in our social and political lives, a breakdown driven by the apps, companies and algorithms that compete constantly for our attention.Max Fisher is a leading New York Times technology reporter whose work has covered the way that social media sites - driven increasingly by artificial intelligence rather than human ingenuity - push users towards more and more extreme positions, deepening the divisions in society in pursuit of greater engagement and profit. With extraordinary access to the most powerful players in Silicon Valley, and with testimonies from around the world of the havoc being wreaked by our online selves, The Chaos Machine shows us how we got to this uniquely perilous moment - and how we might get out of it.(P) 2022 Hachette Audio
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
by Max FisherFinalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismFrom a New York Times investigative reporter, this &“authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media&” (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech&’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world. The Chaos Machine is &“an essential book for our times&” (Ezra Klein). We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social network preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies&’ founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ubiquity of hate speech and its spillover into violence, ills that first festered in far-off locales, to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear. His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, The Chaos Machine is the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it&’s too late.
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
by Antonio Garcia Martinez<P>Liar's Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager and startup founder/CEO. <P>The reality is, Silicon Valley capitalism is very simple:Investors are people with more money than time.Employees are people with more time than money.Entrepreneurs are the seductive go-between.Marketing is like sex: only losers pay for it. Imagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this "chaos monkey" to test online services' robustness--their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society's chaos monkeys, disruptors testing and transforming every aspect of our lives, from transportation (Uber) and lodging (AirBnB) to television (Netflix) and dating (Tinder). One of Silicon Valley's most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez. <P>After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook's nascent advertising team, turning its users' data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark "Zuck" Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company's monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg's desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel. <P>Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital "privacy," García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. <P>Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive? <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley
by Antonio Garcia MartinezThe instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback and featuring a new afterword from the author—the insider's guide to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.”— Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York TimesImagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys. One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. In Chaos Monkeys, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future.
Character Animation Fundamentals: Developing Skills for 2D and 3D Character Animation
by Steve RobertsExpand your animation toolkit and remain competitive in the industry with this leading resource for 2D and 3D character animation techniques. Apply the industry's best practices to your own workflows and develop 2D, 3D and hybrid characters with ease. With side by side comparisons of 2D and 3D character design, improve your character animation and master traditional principles and processes including weight and balance, timing and walks. Develop characters inspired by humans, birds, fish, snakes and four legged animals. Breathe life into your character and develop a characters personality with chapters on acting, voice-synching and facial expressions. Expertly integrate core animation techniques with your software of choice featuring step-by-step tutorials, highlighting 3ds Max, Maya and Blender workflows. Adapt the tips, tricks and techniques for unique projects like character design for rotoscoping and motion capture. Advance beyond the fundamentals of 2D and 3D character animation with the companion website which includes short demonstration movies, 2D and 3D exercises and fully rigged character models.
Character Computing (Human–Computer Interaction Series)
by Alia El Bolock Yomna Abdelrahman Slim AbdennadherThe book gives an introduction into the theory and practice of the transdisciplinary field of Character Computing, introduced by Alia El Bolock. The latest scientific findings indicate that “One size DOES NOT fit all” in terms of how to design interactive systems and predict behavior to tailor the interaction experience. Emotions are one of the essential factors that influence people’s daily experiences; they influence decision making and how different emotions are interpreted by different individuals. For example, some people may perform better under stress and others may break. Building upon Rosalind Picard’s vision, if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent and to interact naturally with us, we must give computers the ability to recognize, understand, even to have and express emotions and how different characters perceive and react to these emotions, hence having richer and truly tailored interaction experiences. Psychological processes or personality traits are embedded in the existing fields of Affective and Personality Computing. However, this book is the first that systematically addresses this including the whole human character; namely our stable personality traits, our variable affective, cognitive and motivational states as well as our morals, beliefs and socio-cultural embedding. The book gives an introduction into the theory and practice of the transdisciplinary field of Character Computing. The emerging field leverages Computer Science and Psychology to extend technology to include the whole character of humans and thus paves the way for researchers to truly place humans at the center of any technological development. Character Computing is presented from three main perspectives: ● Profiling and sensing the character ● Leveraging characters to build ubiquitous character-aware systems ● Investigating how to extend Artificial Intelligence to create artificial characters
Character Development and Storytelling for Games
by Lee SheldonThis is the third edition of Character Development and Storytelling for Games, a standard work in the field that brings all of the teaching from the first two books up to date and tackles the new challenges of today. Professional game writer and designer Lee Sheldon combines his experience and expertise in this updated edition. New examples, new game types, and new challenges throughout the text highlight the fundamentals of character writing and storytelling. But this book is not just a box of techniques for writers of video games. It is an exploration of the roots of character development and storytelling that readers can trace from Homer to Chaucer to Cervantes to Dickens and even Mozart. Many contemporary writers also contribute insights from books, plays, television, films, and, yes, games. Sheldon and his contributors emphasize the importance of creative instinct and listening to the inner voice that guides successful game writers and designers. Join him on his quest to instruct, inform, and maybe even inspire your next great game.
Character Formation in Online Education: A Guide for Instructors, Administrators, and Accrediting Agencies
by Joanne J. JungThe unfortunate reputation of online courses today is one of little or no effort on the professor's part and little or no learning on the student's part. A missing element in online courses is the kind of mutual engagement between student and instructor that provides not only a higher level of learning but also lasting character formation within the student. Character Formation in Online Education stems from author Joanne Jung's years of experience teaching online courses with the aim of improving the teaching environment for professors and the learning environment for students. By replicating, customizing, and incorporating the best and most effective practices of what a great professor does in on-campus classes, reimagined for an online delivery system, Jung shows how a higher level of learning and transformation can be achieved through online learning communities. Handy and practical, this user-friendly book provides guidance, helpful tools, and effective suggestions for growing learning communities in online courses that are marked by character growth in students—the kind of growth that is central to the mission of Christian higher education.
Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
by null Kate Conger null Ryan MacNamed a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews&“Riveting . . . Character Limit offers a telling lesson in the cost of getting everything you want.&” —The Washington Post&“You couldn&’t hope for a better ringside seat on the unfolding drama . . . [Character Limit] is a triumph.&” —The Guardian &“Masterful in how it paints a picture and puts you in the room with the famous entrepreneur . . . Character Limit is a page turner.&” —ForbesRising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk&’s unprecedented takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal&’s seismic political, social, and financial falloutThe billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before. While its founder had idealistically dreamed of building a "digital town square," he detested Wall Street and never focused on building a profitable business.Musk joined the platform in 2010 and, by 2022, had become one of the site&’s most influential users, hooking over 80 million followers with a mix of provocations, promotion of his companies, and attacks on his enemies. To Musk, Twitter — once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech — had badly lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the &“woke mind virus&” and claimed that the survival of democracy and the human race itself depended on the future of the site. In January of 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and soon after, made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion dollars. Backed into a corner, Twitter&’s board accepted his offer—but Musk quickly changed his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him to close the deal in October. The richest man on earth controlled one of the most powerful media platforms in the world—but at what price? Before long Twitter would be gone for good, replaced by something radically different, as Musk remade the company in his own image from the ground up.The story of the showdown between Musk and Twitter and his eventual takeover of the company is unlike anything in business or media that has come before. In vivid, cinematic detail, Conger and Mac follow the inner workings of the company as Musk lays siege to it, first from the outside as one of its most vocal users, and then finally from within as a contentious and mercurial leader. Musk has shared some of his version of events, but Conger and Mac have uncovered the full story through exclusive interviews, unreported documents, and internal recordings at Twitter following the billionaire&’s takeover. With unparalleled sources from within and around the company, they provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers.This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost?
Character Mentor: Learn by Example to Use Expressions, Poses, and Staging to Bring Your Characters to Life
by Tom BancroftYou've researched your character extensively, tailored her to your audience, sketched hundreds of versions, and now you lean back content as you gaze at your final character model sheet. But now what? Whether you want to use her in an animated film, television show, video game, web comic, or children's book, you're going to have to make her perform. How a character looks and is costumed starts to tell her story, but her body language reveals even more. Character Mentor shows you how to pose your character, create emotion through facial expressions, and stage your character to create drama. Author Tom Bancroft addresses each topic with clear, concise prose, and then shows you what he really means through commenting on and redrawing artwork from a variety of student "apprentices." His assignments allow you to join in and bring your drawing to the next level with concrete techniques, as well as more theoretical analysis. Character Mentor is an apprenticeship in a book. Professional artists from a variety of media offer their experience through additional commentary. These include Marcus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace), Terry Dodson (X-Men), Bobby Rubio (Pixar), Sean "Cheeks" Galloway (Spiderman animated), and more. With a foreword by comicbook artist Adam Hughes, who has produced work for DC, Marvel Comics, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Pictures, and other companies.
Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional polygonal modeling techniques
by Jason PatnodeCreate believable CG character models with this unique book and DVD package. The stunning color images show just what you can achieve, and the detailed step-by-step tutorials show exactly how to achieve them. Every technique and tip is backed up with practical tutorials, using the models, textures and video on the companion DVD to offer a crash course to this vital skill. Jason Patnode takes you from low to high-resolution modeling - helping you span the gap between game and film industry skills. Based on Maya 2008 and ZBrush 3.0.You'll learn: Pipeline and modeling guidelines . Overview of Maya . Introduction to ZBrush modeling . Concept art . Anatomy . Creating a video game character . Creating a hyper-real character . Creating a photo-real character . UVs and texturing . How to create a demo reel
The Character of Consent: The History of Cookies and the Future of Technology Policy (Information Policy)
by Meg Leta JonesThe rich, untold origin story of the ubiquitous web cookie—what&’s wrong with it, why it&’s being retired, and how we can do better.Consent pop-ups continually ask us to download cookies to our computers, but is this all-too-familiar form of privacy protection effective? No, Meg Leta Jones explains in The Character of Consent, rather than promote functionality, privacy, and decentralization, cookie technology has instead made the internet invasive, limited, and clunky. Good thing, then, that the cookie is set for retirement in 2024. In this eye-opening book, Jones tells the little-known story of this broken consent arrangement, tracing it back to the major transnational conflicts around digital consent over the last twenty-five years. What she finds is that the policy controversy is not, in fact, an information crisis—it&’s an identity crisis.Instead of asking how people consent, Jones asks who exactly is consenting and to what. Packed into those cookie pop-ups, she explains, are three distinct areas of law with three different characters who can consent. Within (mainly European) data protection law, the data subject consents. Within communication privacy law, the user consents. And within consumer protection law, the privacy consumer consents. These areas of law have very different histories, motivations, institutional structures, expertise, and strategies, so consent—and the characters who can consent—plays a unique role in those areas of law. The Character of Consent gives each computer character its due, taking us back to their origin stories within the legal history of computing. By doing so, Jones provides alternative ways of understanding the core issues within the consent dilemma. More importantly, she offers bold new approaches to creating and adopting better tech policies in the future.
Character Rigging and Advanced Animation: Bring Your Character to Life Using Autodesk 3ds Max
by Purushothaman RajuGain a thorough understanding of animation and character rigging using Autodesk 3ds Max to create realistic character animations. This book is split into three modules that are subsequently divided into chapters. The first module is the foundation module: in this module you’ll cover, among other topics, the 12 cardinal principles of animation with reference to classic real-world examples and famous movies/animation shots. Using these, the further chapters explore using key frames and graph editors to obtain fluid motion in your animations. Practical examples are used to better explain which feature suits a particular scenario. The second module, called the backbone module, introduces you to deformation tools and their use for character animation. Further chapters cover driven animations, constraints posed by bones, bipeds, and the CAT tools available in 3ds Max 2019. The final module, the lifeline module, encourages you to bring your character to life by applying principles learnt in the previous modules. Here you will be guided on how to retarget animations from one character to other characters or rigs.On completing Character Rigging and Advance Animation, you will be able to create character rigs for bipeds and quadrupeds with ease, animating them with life-like motion. What You Will LearnUnderstand the 12 principles of animationSet up an animation-ready character rig from scratchMaster the deformation tools available for animation Who This Book Is ForReaders who are familiar with 3ds Max at a basic level and are looking at getting into character rigging and animation.
Characterisation of a Personal Learning Environment as a Lifelong Learning Tool (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Sabrina LeoneThis work focuses on the characterization of adult lifelong learners' Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) by implicit and explicit tools of personalization. It aims aims toward creating a system for the development of a learning path for the characterisation of PLE for adult life learners. The synergy of formal and informal learning in the dynamic construction of a lifelong learner's PLE is fully explored, with the recognition that the majority of learning, especially for life long learners, occurs outside traditional learning formats. Specifically, this volume discusses the design, implementation, and validation of the SSW4LL (Social Semantic Web for Lifelong Learners) format, and the the SSW4LL system, built on Moodle 2.0 integrated with an adaptive mechanism (conditional activities) and some tools of Social Semantic Web (Semantic MediaWiki, Diigo and Google+). With thoroughly grounded cases studies, this volume makes the case that these systems are suitable to provide a dynamically personalized learning environment to the lifelong learner. All of these environments are fully discussed and cases made for each as a tool for constructing adult learners' PLEs.
Characteristics of Games
by George Skaff Elias Richard Garfield K. Robert GutscheraUnderstanding games—whether computer games, card games, board games, or sports—by analyzing certain common traits.Characteristics of Games offers a new way to understand games: by focusing on certain traits—including number of players, rules, degrees of luck and skill needed, and reward/effort ratio—and using these characteristics as basic points of comparison and analysis. These issues are often discussed by game players and designers but seldom written about in any formal way. This book fills that gap. By emphasizing these player-centric basic concepts, the book provides a framework for game analysis from the viewpoint of a game designer. The book shows what all genres of games—board games, card games, computer games, and sports—have to teach each other. Today's game designers may find solutions to design problems when they look at classic games that have evolved over years of playing.Characteristics of Games—written by three of the most prominent game designers working today—will serve as an essential reference for game designers and game players curious about the inner workings of games. It includes exercises (which can also serve as the basis for discussions) and examples chosen from a wide variety of games. There are occasional mathematical digressions, but these can be skipped with no loss of continuity. Appendixes offer supplementary material, including a brief survey of the two main branches of mathematical game theory and a descriptive listing of each game referred to in the text.
Characterizing Interdependencies of Multiple Time Series: Theory and Applications (SpringerBriefs in Statistics)
by Yuzo Hosoya Kosuke Oya Taro Takimoto Ryo KinoshitaThis book introduces academic researchers and professionals to the basic concepts and methods for characterizing interdependencies of multiple time series in the frequency domain. Detecting causal directions between a pair of time series and the extent of their effects, as well as testing the non existence of a feedback relation between them, have constituted major focal points in multiple time series analysis since Granger introduced the celebrated definition of causality in view of prediction improvement. Causality analysis has since been widely applied in many disciplines. Although most analyses are conducted from the perspective of the time domain, a frequency domain method introduced in this book sheds new light on another aspect that disentangles the interdependencies between multiple time series in terms of long-term or short-term effects, quantitatively characterizing them. The frequency domain method includes the Granger noncausality test as a special case. Chapters 2 and 3 of the book introduce an improved version of the basic concepts for measuring the one-way effect, reciprocity, and association of multiple time series, which were originally proposed by Hosoya. Then the statistical inferences of these measures are presented, with a focus on the stationary multivariate autoregressive moving-average processes, which include the estimation and test of causality change. Empirical analyses are provided to illustrate what alternative aspects are detected and how the methods introduced here can be conveniently applied. Most of the materials in Chapters 4 and 5 are based on the authors' latest research work. Subsidiary items are collected in the Appendix.
Charge-Trapping Non-Volatile Memories: Volume 1 – Basic and Advanced Devices
by Panagiotis DimitrakisThis book describes the basic technologies and operation principles of charge-trapping non-volatile memories. The authors explain the device physics of each device architecture and provide a concrete description of the materials involved as well as the fundamental properties of the technology. Modern material properties used as charge-trapping layers, for new applications are introduced.
Charged Bodies: People, Power, And Paradox In Silicon Valley
by Thomas MahonAt the heart of Silicon Valley's meteoric rise is a story etched in the lives of those who shaped it and those who were forever transformed by it. Author Tom Mahon provides an insider's perspective on the birth of the semiconductor industry, which sparked the region's transformation from sleepy farmland to the heart and soul of the high-tech revolution. Through twenty-five extended, in-person interviews you'll meet a diverse cast of characters whose goal was to create technology and tools in service to humanity. In the Afterword to this edition, the author questions whether they accomplished their objectives and urges readers to rise up and rethink technology. What did it take to create the atmosphere that transformed rich farmland into the wealthy center of high-tech? Five climates lined up in just the right way. Educational institutions (Stanford and Berkeley); an attractive location with balmy, Mediterranean-like weather; a history of technology development (Federal Telegraph in the early twentieth century); financial risk taking (the gold rush); and a cultural climate near the center of an ideological revolution (the hippie movement). The Santa Clara Valley had them all. In spades. Before personal computers, or the Internet, or social media came *chips*. Inventive minds took advantage of the quad-electron structure and unique properties - insulative and conductive - of silicon to create semiconductors. But Charged Bodies is more than just the story of new technologies emerging from "The Valley of the Heart's Delight." Using an approach like The Canterbury Tales, Tom Mahon captures the spirit of Silicon Valley in the 80s through the stories of the people all around him. The inventors and bankers have their say. But so do a range of other people who lived through that transition. Listen as artists and hackers, detectives and journalists, lawyers and scientists, flappers and philosophers tell the story of Silicon Valley in their own words.
The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (Infrastructures)
by Morgan G. AmesA fascinating examination of technological utopianism and its complicated consequences.In The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why—despite its failures—the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development. Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small, sturdy, and cheap laptop computer, powered by a hand crank. In reality, the project fell short in many ways—starting with the hand crank, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were captivated by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises, OLPC, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning.Drawing on fifty years of history and a seven-month study of a model OLPC project in Paraguay, Ames reveals that the laptops were not only frustrating to use, easy to break, and hard to repair, they were designed for “technically precocious boys”—idealized younger versions of the developers themselves—rather than the children who were actually using them. The Charisma Machine offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development.
Charming (Lorimer Real Love)
by Mette BachSeventeen-year-old Char loves music, but never considered a singing career until her singing went viral online. Now instead of participating in the Gay Lesbian Alliance, Char devotes herself to seeking fame. When she is viciously bullied online she finds an app that supports victims of cyber-bullying. Naming herself @Charming, Char gets to know the app's creator, @Cinders. @Cinders inspires Char to reconsider her obsession with online fame. When @Cinders turns out to be Ash, a girl at Char's school, Char must show Ash how much she means to her. Charming is a modern retelling of Cinderella, where Prince Charming is a girl who learns the nature of fame and love. Distributed in the U.S by Lerner Publishing Group
Charting the AI Transition in Education and Business Environments: Navigating the Generative Inflection Point for Industry 4.0 Success (Routledge Research in Digital Education and Educational Technology)
by James Hutson TJ RainsThis book delineates a comprehensive framework designed to ultimately assist organizations as they navigate the critical juncture—often termed the inflection point—in adopting generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Addressing the exigent shift in organizational strategy mandated by Industry 4.0, and urging a transition from mere digital transformation to what is being progressively understood as "generative transformation,” it fills a conspicuous lacuna in both academic and practical discourses by presenting a timely synthesis of research, empirical studies, and case analyses. The authors utilize an interdisciplinary methodology, bridging the epistemological divide between the technological intricacies of generative AI and its effective implementation within institutional frameworks. Reorienting the focus of organizational leaders from a simplistic replacement paradigm to one of technological-human augmentation, it works toward a prescriptive blueprint for enabling organizations to adopt generative AI without compromising their most valuable asset: human intellectual and emotional capital. Fostering interdisciplinary dialog among academics, industry professionals, and policymakers, it fills a critical gap in current discourses and serves as a catalyst for future research and collaboration.
Chasing Herobrine (Unofficial Graphic Novel for Minecrafters #5)
by Cara J. StevensPhoenix must save her village from the ghost of Herobrine in this suspenseful fifth tale in the Unofficial Graphic Novel for Minecrafters series. This adventure series is created especially for readers who love the fight of good vs. evil, magical academies like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter saga, and games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Pokemon GO. The redstone dust has barely settled after Phoenix’s epic battle against the Defender when word of a new threat arises: the legendary ghost of Herobrine has been sighted in Phoenix’s village, and under cover of darkness, he’s terrorizing a new family each night. Phoenix and T.H. rush to the village, where they discover a tangled string of clues. Just as the friends-turned-sleuths are sure they’ve unraveled the mystery of Herobrine’s griefing, they uncover a secret that makes them question everything they’ve learned. And when a new, stronger enemy appears, their hunt for Herobrine is turned on its end once again. Can a ghost be in danger? And could Herobrine cease to be their enemy and instead become . . . their ally? Fans of Minecraft won’t want to miss this gripping, mysterious addition to the series that began with Quest for the Golden Apple! <P><P> <i>Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. To explore further access options with us, please contact us through the Book Quality link on the right sidebar. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.</i>
Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy
by Ronald J. DeibertLike a John Le Carré novel updated for the digital age, Chasing Shadows provides a gripping account of how the Citizen Lab, the world&’s foremost digital watchdog, has uncovered dozens of cyber espionage cases and protects people in countries around the world. Called &“essential reading&” by Margaret Atwood, it&’s a chilling reminder of the invisible invasions happening on smartphones and computers around the world. In this real-life spy thriller, cyber security expert Ronald Deibert details the unseemly marketplace for high-tech surveillance, professional disinformation, and computerized malfeasance. He reveals how his team of digital sleuths at the Citizen Lab have lifted the lid on dozens of covert operations targeting innocent citizens everywhere. Chasing Shadows provides a front-row seat to a dark underworld of digital espionage, disinformation, and subversion. There, autocrats and dictators peer into their targets&’ lives with the mere press of a button, spreading their tentacles of authoritarianism through a digital ecosystem that is insecure, poorly regulated, and prone to abuse. The activists, opposition figures, and journalists who dare to advocate for basic political rights and freedoms are hounded, arrested, tortured, and sometimes murdered. From the gritty streets of Guatemala City to the corridors of power in the White House, this compelling narrative traces the journey of the Citizen Lab as it evolved into a globally renowned source of counterintelligence for civil society. As this small team of investigators disarmed cyber mercenaries and helped to improve the digital security of billions of people worldwide, their success brought them, too, into the same sinister crosshairs that plagued the victims they worked to protect. Deibert recounts how the Lab exposed the world&’s pre-eminent cyber-mercenary firm, Israel-based NSO Group—the creators of the phone-hacking marvel Pegasus—in a series of human rights abuses, from domestic spying scandals in Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Greece to its implication in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.