Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly views technology as a natural organic living process. He calls it the technium. He views it as being part of human evolution. I found the ideas to be fascinating but overly anthropomorphic. He gave living qualities to stone, steel, spoons, bricks, and computers. There is both a humanizing and a dehumanizing aspect to this writing.
The humanizing aspect is a view of increased possibilities, more opportunities to create greater freedoms and greater choice. The author shows how machines improve our lives and expand our possibilities. He also includes systems of thought like science, art, and law as part of technology. He describes how technology evolved as we evolved from the stone age to modern cities.
Where it fails and seems a bit dehumanizing is his taking a picture of nature that seems very utilitarian. He describes that eventually there will be no waste with biophilic technology. I think this lessens nature and makes it machine like. He even claims the Amish are part of the technium because of how they use technology. This was a bit far fetched to me. I don't like to think of myself as evolving in a similar way to a machine.
The unabomber, Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology views are gone into. This was quite daring to do. Kevin Kelly does not shy from tackling some opposing view points. He even talks about primitivism. This makes the book different.
There is a deeply philosophical bent to the writing. I can recognize some of the philosophy. Some of it is very much at the edge of high technology. He seems to be trodding a slightly different path than transhumanism where the idea is that we will become more than human when we integrate with machines. Kevin Kelly also does not argue for the singularity where machines become smarter than humans. Machines are a different kind of intelligence than human intelligence. His ultimate goal is to open infinite games for people, more choice, more freedom, more opportunities through technology.
Read this book it will open your mind to new ideas. It makes you think. Kevin Kelly helped launched Wired Magazine. His website is http://www.kk.org/
The book is fairly dense reading. It includes notes, an annotated reading list, black and white photographs, charts, and an index. It is very much a popular science title.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Wikipedia Revolution by Andrew Lih, Foreword by Jimmy Wales
The Wikipedia Revolution How A Bunch of Nobodies Created The Worlds Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih, Foreword by Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia.
This book is written by Jimmy Lih who was an editor for Wikipedia for over four years. The book itself reads very much like Wikipedia does. If you like using Wikipedia, you probably will like this book. Mr. Lih seems to use the NPOV (no point of view) style which Wikipedia uses in writing the book. If you look in the notes section, the majority of citations come directly from the Wikipedia site.
There is a lot of precursor material to when Wikipedia starts. The technology behind Wikipedia is very much a history of open source software, linux, and "the hacker ethic." In 1995, Ward Cunningham invented Wiki software which was a quick way to edit and create web pages by any person involved. It was not until 2001 that Wikipedia was started. Wiki is the Hawaiian word for "quick."
The book describes how already existing technology coalesces around a new form of organization to make an online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is based on volunteer time. Very few people on Wikipedia are paid. A lot of the people who are editors on Wikipedia come from http://slashdot.org/ a premiere technical community. Many of the same people who work on open source software which is free work on Wikipedia which is also free. The majority of the licensing on Wikipedia's content is copyleft, an idea created by Richard Stallman, a famous computer programmer and proponent of the GNU free documentation license.
Wikipedia is not the first major reference work which asked for donations of free time to create. The Oxford English Dictionary put out general requests for donations of dictionary entries. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester chronicles a story in the creation of the OED. Wikipedia takes it one step further, it asks for donations and then makes the information freely available.
There is a story of Wikipedia taking what is already available in the public domain, editing it and expanding it into encyclopedic entries. Wikipedia absorbed the United States census data and used it as a template for creating descriptions of towns and cities in the United States. The CIA World Fact Book entries were taken as descriptions of countries and then expanded with user generated content. When I use Wikimedia, I see many images from the Library of Congress archives which are in the public domain. This is incredibly useful, however, it has some problems with reliability.
The human factor is both the strength and weakness of Wikipedia. Because anybody can contribute to Wikipedia, there are a number of problems. Wikipedia acknowledges they are not a primary source of information, the majority of their information is secondary. We learn they are not seeking to be a place for original research. I thought this was very interesting. When I use Wikipedia, I find the citations in Wikipedia's entries to be far better in many cases then the written entries because they link to primary or original research.
The structure of Wikipedia described in this book is very loose. The code of conduct seems to be more important than fixed rules. This looseness has led to a lot of controversies; inaccurate biographical entries, editors who are other than they say they are, a focus on self-promotion, a preference for popular articles over more academic works, and a way of work based on the idea of consensus. The infighting and the controversies inside Wikipedia are described in detail inside this book. We get the story of how spammers, trolls, libelous content, edit wars, and other problems are addressed.
I liked reading this book. It gives a lot of insights into how people can build on peoples previous works. I also like Wikipedia and find it a useful. This book tries to be objective, it is not pure praise which makes it much better than many recent books on technology. The writing is journalistic in style. The book has citations and an index, but no pictures.
This book is written by Jimmy Lih who was an editor for Wikipedia for over four years. The book itself reads very much like Wikipedia does. If you like using Wikipedia, you probably will like this book. Mr. Lih seems to use the NPOV (no point of view) style which Wikipedia uses in writing the book. If you look in the notes section, the majority of citations come directly from the Wikipedia site.
There is a lot of precursor material to when Wikipedia starts. The technology behind Wikipedia is very much a history of open source software, linux, and "the hacker ethic." In 1995, Ward Cunningham invented Wiki software which was a quick way to edit and create web pages by any person involved. It was not until 2001 that Wikipedia was started. Wiki is the Hawaiian word for "quick."
The book describes how already existing technology coalesces around a new form of organization to make an online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is based on volunteer time. Very few people on Wikipedia are paid. A lot of the people who are editors on Wikipedia come from http://slashdot.org/ a premiere technical community. Many of the same people who work on open source software which is free work on Wikipedia which is also free. The majority of the licensing on Wikipedia's content is copyleft, an idea created by Richard Stallman, a famous computer programmer and proponent of the GNU free documentation license.
Wikipedia is not the first major reference work which asked for donations of free time to create. The Oxford English Dictionary put out general requests for donations of dictionary entries. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester chronicles a story in the creation of the OED. Wikipedia takes it one step further, it asks for donations and then makes the information freely available.
There is a story of Wikipedia taking what is already available in the public domain, editing it and expanding it into encyclopedic entries. Wikipedia absorbed the United States census data and used it as a template for creating descriptions of towns and cities in the United States. The CIA World Fact Book entries were taken as descriptions of countries and then expanded with user generated content. When I use Wikimedia, I see many images from the Library of Congress archives which are in the public domain. This is incredibly useful, however, it has some problems with reliability.
The human factor is both the strength and weakness of Wikipedia. Because anybody can contribute to Wikipedia, there are a number of problems. Wikipedia acknowledges they are not a primary source of information, the majority of their information is secondary. We learn they are not seeking to be a place for original research. I thought this was very interesting. When I use Wikipedia, I find the citations in Wikipedia's entries to be far better in many cases then the written entries because they link to primary or original research.
The structure of Wikipedia described in this book is very loose. The code of conduct seems to be more important than fixed rules. This looseness has led to a lot of controversies; inaccurate biographical entries, editors who are other than they say they are, a focus on self-promotion, a preference for popular articles over more academic works, and a way of work based on the idea of consensus. The infighting and the controversies inside Wikipedia are described in detail inside this book. We get the story of how spammers, trolls, libelous content, edit wars, and other problems are addressed.
I liked reading this book. It gives a lot of insights into how people can build on peoples previous works. I also like Wikipedia and find it a useful. This book tries to be objective, it is not pure praise which makes it much better than many recent books on technology. The writing is journalistic in style. The book has citations and an index, but no pictures.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Playaway Audio Device
I decided to try a playaway audio book which is a new format. It is a preloaded digital audiobook. http://www.playawayaudio.com/ I checked out Petty Crimes by Gary Soto a few hours ago. The total playtime of the preloaded audiobook is 3 hours and 45 minutes. It consists of ten short stories. I will be able to skip the stories which I don't particularly like.
They have packaged the device in an interesting way. Essentially, they put the device into a larger vhs container about three inches by six inches. There is a padded pounch inside the video container containing the playaway. The playaway requires earphones like an ipod would have. For safety reasons we insist that people use their own earphones. It would be unsanitary for people to put in used earphones. I spent a dollar and got some earbuds so I can listen to the playaway. We are selling the earbuds at cost.
The cost of the playaway is much cheaper than an audiobook. It is about $30-$35 for a playaway that can be used repeatedly by a library. We have some audiobooks that cost as much as $100 each. Most are about $60-70 each.
Because the playaway is a new piece of technology, we still are not certain what the exact problems or issues we will have with them as a library.
It makes me a little nervous listening to something on the train. I said, I wouldn't do this thing normally, but the device is intriguing enough for me to play with.
I checked to see if the playaway worked. The battery had run out. We had to replace the battery for Petty Crimes by Gary Soto. After listening for a few minutes, I decided that I didn't much care for Petty Crimes.
I checked out a different playaway, I am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins. Narrated by Patricia Floyd. The story is good, but the playaway makes tiny little skipping noises. This is annoying. The sound is still pretty clear.
I checked again and I realized that I hadn't plugged in the headphones all the way. My mistake. Anyways, this recording was blessedly short. 1/4 of an hour, just about the attention span of your average ten to fourteen year old. This audiobook is written for between 5th and 8th grade listening level. It is also a book which is regularly assigned for children and young teenagers to read. Some people like to listen to their assignments rather than reading them.
There was a brief advertisement from Recorded Books, the publisher of the digital audio recording (playaway) at the end of the reading. It encouraged you to buy audiobooks on their 30 day layaway plan. It was brief much like the audio recording.
The playaways which we have were purchased by our teen librarian. She purchased mostly assignment titles which teenagers could listen to if they wanted to. Books like Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, or the previously mentioned Petty Crimes by Gary Soto.
They have packaged the device in an interesting way. Essentially, they put the device into a larger vhs container about three inches by six inches. There is a padded pounch inside the video container containing the playaway. The playaway requires earphones like an ipod would have. For safety reasons we insist that people use their own earphones. It would be unsanitary for people to put in used earphones. I spent a dollar and got some earbuds so I can listen to the playaway. We are selling the earbuds at cost.
The cost of the playaway is much cheaper than an audiobook. It is about $30-$35 for a playaway that can be used repeatedly by a library. We have some audiobooks that cost as much as $100 each. Most are about $60-70 each.
Because the playaway is a new piece of technology, we still are not certain what the exact problems or issues we will have with them as a library.
It makes me a little nervous listening to something on the train. I said, I wouldn't do this thing normally, but the device is intriguing enough for me to play with.
I checked to see if the playaway worked. The battery had run out. We had to replace the battery for Petty Crimes by Gary Soto. After listening for a few minutes, I decided that I didn't much care for Petty Crimes.
I checked out a different playaway, I am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins. Narrated by Patricia Floyd. The story is good, but the playaway makes tiny little skipping noises. This is annoying. The sound is still pretty clear.
I checked again and I realized that I hadn't plugged in the headphones all the way. My mistake. Anyways, this recording was blessedly short. 1/4 of an hour, just about the attention span of your average ten to fourteen year old. This audiobook is written for between 5th and 8th grade listening level. It is also a book which is regularly assigned for children and young teenagers to read. Some people like to listen to their assignments rather than reading them.
There was a brief advertisement from Recorded Books, the publisher of the digital audio recording (playaway) at the end of the reading. It encouraged you to buy audiobooks on their 30 day layaway plan. It was brief much like the audio recording.
The playaways which we have were purchased by our teen librarian. She purchased mostly assignment titles which teenagers could listen to if they wanted to. Books like Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, or the previously mentioned Petty Crimes by Gary Soto.
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