Best of
Internet

2021

Deadlines Don't Care If Janet Doesn't Like Her Photo


David Thorne - 2021
    Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall of a creative agency? No? Well, that’s fine as well. You wouldn’t know you were in an agency anyway; flies have no concept of that kind of thing. All they’re interested in is standing in poo then walking around the rim of your coffee mug.

Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Brazil


Glenn Greenwald - 2021
    These stories, based on a massive trove of previously undisclosed telephone calls, audio, and text shared by an anonymous source, came to light only months after the January 2019 inauguration of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump.The revelations “had an explosive impact on Brazilian politics” (Guardian) and prompted serious rancor, including direct attacks by President Bolsonaro himself, and ultimately an attempt by the government to criminally prosecute Greenwald for his reporting. “A wave of death threats — in a country where political violence is commonplace — have poured in, preventing me from ever leaving my house for any reason without armed guards and an armored vehicle,” Greenwald writes.Securing Democracy takes readers on a gripping journey through Brazilian politics as Greenwald, his husband, the left-wing congressman David Miranda, and a powerful opposition movement courageously challenge political corruption, homophobia, and tyranny. Most vitally, Greenwald demonstrates the importance of independent journalism in holding governments to account, reversing injustices, and ultimately securing the freedoms of democracy.

Full Circle: A Search for the World That Comes Next


Scott Ludlam - 2021
    Scott Ludlam draws on his experience as a senator and activist to capture our world on a precipice and explore what comes next.One way or another, we are headed for radical change. We are now in the Anthropocene – humans are changing the earth’s climate irreversibly, and political, human and natural systems are on the cusp of collapse. Ludlam shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here: systems based on the exploitation of the earth’s resources, and 99 per cent of the world’s population labouring for the wealth of 1 per cent.In Full Circle, Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He travels the globe to see what happens when ordinary people stand up to corporations and tyrants. He takes the reader on a journey through time to discover the underlying patterns of life. And he finds that we are at a unique moment when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups are coalescing into one great movement that could transform history.Bringing together a wealth of new ideas, Full Circle outlines a new ecological politics.

Search History


Eugene Lim - 2021
    In elliptical, propulsive prose, Search History plumbs the depths of personal and collective consciousness, questioning what we consume, how we grieve, and the stories we tell ourselves.

There is No Cloud


Kat Wheeler - 2021
    That means the current bane of her existence is a rival company’s home AI device, the HomeTech Hub. Her customers want to use the HTH’s voice commands to control the electronics she’s selling them—and if she wants to keep selling to them, she needs to make sure that happens. Why can’t they just ask it the weather and be happy with that?While attempting to get tech support for one of her clients, Cameron finds something strange in a HomeTech Hub and is immediately curious. Is there something about the product no one’s supposed to know? But when people start dying, she knows something far more complex is going on, and she’s determined to find out what the technology the whole world has let into their homes actually does.As Cameron digs deeper into something she never thought would be possible, she starts to wonder what she’s gotten herself into… and whether she’ll be able to get out.

The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope


Daniel Greene - 2021
    Greene shows how the digital divide emerged as a policy problem and why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better.

Face of a Bigamist


Yve Gibney - 2021
    Rich in investigative detail, she describes how, after viewing the profile picture of a stranger on Facebook, she unearthed a trail of hidden clues to discover a chain of evidence and shocking revelations that led to the discovery of her husband's duplicitous lifestyle and bigamous marriage in Oman.She also outlines her journeys through the judicial system both through the family divorce court and eventually the criminal courts for the bigamy verdict. The courtroom dramas are a real roller-coaster ride as she reveals the cruelties and biases implicit in how unjustly and insensitively the justice system treats victims of these types of psychological and physical crimes, to the point where at times it felt like she was the perpetrator and the Bigamist the victim.While it may be true that hell has no fury like a woman scorned, Yve Gibney’s detective work and determination led to Maurice’s downfall and his disgrace and her own redemption.Don’t get mad; get even.

Social Warming: The Dangerous and Polarising Effects of Social Media


Charles Arthur - 2021
    Facebook didn’t mean to facilitate a genocide. Twitter didn’t want to be used to harass women. YouTube never planned to radicalise young men. But with billions of users, every time these platforms tweak their algorithms to generate more 'engagement', they bring unrest to previously settled communities and erode our relationships. After all, anger keeps you engaged. It has been hard to address climate change precisely because it has been happening slowly and in plain sight. In the same way, we urgently need to address this social crisis before we reach an irreversible tipping point.

Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West


Ethan Lou - 2021
    From investing in Bitcoin in university to his time writing for Reuters, and then mining the digital asset ― Lou meets a co-founder of Ethereum and Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX (before he was reported dead), and hangs out in North Korea with Virgil Griffith, the man later arrested for allegedly teaching blockchain to the totalitarian state.Coming of age in the 2008 financial crisis, Lou's generation has a natural affinity with this rebel internet money, this so-called millennial gold, created in the wake of that economic storm. At once an immersive narrative of adventure and fortune, Once a Bitcoin Miner is also a work of journalistic rigor. Lou examines this domain through the lens of the human condition, delving deep into the lives of the fast-talkers, the exiles, the ambitious, and the daring, forging their paths in a new world harsh and unpredictable.

The Warehouse: Workers and Robots at Amazon


Alessandro Delfanti - 2021
    This cheerful message hides a reality of digital surveillance, aggressive anti-union tactics and disciplinary layoffs. Reminiscent of the tumult of early industrial capitalism, the hundreds of thousands of workers who help Amazon fulfil consumers' desire are part of an experiment in changing the way we all work. In this book, Alessandro Delfanti takes readers inside Amazon's warehouses to show how technological advancements and managerial techniques subdue the workers rather than empower them, as seen in the sensors that track workers' every movement around the floor and algorithmic systems that re-route orders to circumvent worker sabotage. He looks at new technologies including robotic arms trained by humans and augmented reality goggles, showing that their aim is to standardize, measure and discipline human work rather than replace it. Despite its innovation, Amazon will always need living labor's flexibility and low cost. And as the warehouse is increasingly automated, worker discontent increases. Striking under the banner 'we are not robots', employees have shown that they are acutely aware of such contradictions. The only question remains: how long will it be until Amazon's empire collapses?

The Digital Disconnect: The Social Causes and Consequences of Digital Inequalities


Ellen Helsper - 2021
     From societal causes to everyday actions, The Digital Disconnect explores the close and complex relationship between digital and social inequalities, and the lived consequences of digitisation. Ellen Helsper goes beyond questions of digital divides and who's connected or not. She asks why and how social and digital inequalities are linked, and shows the tangible outcomes of socio-digital inequalities to everyday lives. The book: Introduces the key theories and concepts you need to know to understand both 'traditional' and digital inequalities research. Investigates a range of socio-digital inequalities, from digital access and skills, to work on civic participation, social engagement, and everyday content creation and consumption. Brings research to life with a selection of qualitative vignettes, drawing out the personal experiences that lay at the heart of global socio-digital inequalities. The Digital Disconnect is an expert exploration of contemporary theory, research and practice in socio-digital inequalities. It is also an urgent and impassioned call to broaden your horizons, to expand your theoretical and methodological toolkits, and to work collectively to help achieve a fairer digital future for all.

The Ubiquitous Presidency: Presidential Communication and Digital Democracy in Tumultuous Times


Joshua M Scacco - 2021
    The clash of a rapidly changing socio-technological environment and the traditional presidency has led to an upheaval in the scope and standards of executive leadership. Yet research on the presidency, although abundant, has been slow toadjust to changing realities associated with digital technologies, diverse audiences, and new elite practices. Meanwhile, journalists and the public continue to encounter and shape emerging presidential efforts in deeply consequential ways.Joshua Scacco and Kevin Coe bring needed insight to this complex situation by offering the first comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary presidential communication in relation to the current socio-technological environment. They call this framework the ubiquitous presidency. Scaccoand Coe argue that presidents harness new opportunities in the media environment to create a nearly constant and highly visible presence in political and nonpolitical arenas. They do this by trying to achieve longstanding presidential goals, namely visibility, adaptation, and control. However, in anenvironment where accessibility, personalization, and pluralism are omnipresent considerations, the strategies presidents use to achieve these goals are very different from what we once knew.Using this novel framework as a conceptual anchor, The Ubiquitous Presidency undertakes one of the most expansive analyses of presidential communication to date. Scacco and Coe employ a wide variety of approaches--ranging from surveys and survey-experiments, to large-scale automated content andnetwork analyses, to qualitative textual analysis--to uncover new aspects of the intricate relationship between the president, news media, and the public. Focusing on the presidency since Ronald Reagan, and devoting particular attention to the cases of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the bookuncovers remarkable shifts in communication that test the institution of the presidency and, consequently, democratic governance itself.

Job Ready Python


Haythem Balti - 2021
    Based on the highly regarded and effective Software Guild Python course, this book teaches you the basic and advanced Python concepts you will need at any entry-level Python position.With the "Pulling It Together" sections, you'll combine and integrate the concepts and lessons taught by the book, while also benefiting from:A thorough introduction to getting set up with Python Practical discussions of the basics of the Python language, including syntax, program flow, and code organization A walk through the fundamentals of Object-Oriented Programming including Classes, Objects, Interfaces, and Inheritance, and how to leverage OOP to create elegant code A focus on data processing and data analysis with Python

All My Friends Live in My Computer: Trauma, Tactical Media, and Meaning


Samira Rajabi - 2021
    From illness narratives among breast cancer patients to political upheaval among Iranian-Americans, this book examines what people do when they go online after they have suffered a trauma. It offers in-depth academic analysis alongside deeply personal stories and case studies to take the reader on a journey through rapidly changing digital/social worlds. When people are traumatized, their worlds stop making sense, and All My Friends Live in My Computer explores how everyday people use social media to try and make a new world for themselves and others who are suffering. Through its attention to personal stories and application of media theory to new contexts, this book highlights how, when given the tools, people will make meaning in creative, novel, and healing ways.

Voice Content and Usability


Preston So - 2021
    

Trail of Destruction


Tracy Buchanan - 2021
    Can one woman uncover the truth before it all goes up in flames?Eager for distraction in the aftermath of her messy divorce, Ellie Mileham dives into moderating the petty squabbles on her local Facebook group. When a prankster starts trolling uptight members, it’s a welcome diversion at first. But then the war of words moves onto the streets of Forest Grove, with threatening letters escalating into violent destruction. It’s suddenly clear there’s something much more dangerous at play.With lives at risk, Ellie delves into the history of Forest Grove and realises the so-called rural paradise has a dark and sinister heart. As she pieces together the puzzle of her own troubled childhood on the edge of the forest, Ellie learns this is not the first time the villagers have been targeted by an anonymous vigilante with an axe to grind…Could the two cases be connected? Ellie is determined to find out. But with everybody watching and nobody quite what they seem, can she uncover the truth before online threats become nightmarish reality?

Learn to Code with JavaScript


Darren Jones - 2021
    You'll be learning to program with JavaScript - the most popular programming language on Earth. And it runs in web browsers, making it particularly suited to creating web-based apps and games. But the principles and techniques that you'll learn will provide you with a foundation to go on and learn many other languages, too.You'll learn:Programming basics, including data types, variables and moreHow to use logic to control the flow of a programHow to use loops to repeat code over and over againHow to write functions that can be used to store code in reusable blocksHow to store data in collections such as arrays, sets and mapsHow to create objects that store properties and actionsAnd much more!Along the way, you'll build a collection of fun applications, including games and interactive web pages. Start learning to code today!