And this may sound weirdly obvious, but every single one of those pieces of software was written by a programmer. Programmers are thus among the most quietly influential people on the planet. As we live in a world made of software, they're the architects. The decisions they make guide our behavior. When they make something newly easy to do, we do a lot more of it. If they make it hard or impossible to do something, we do less of it.If we want to understand how today's world works, we ought to understand something about coders. Who exactly are the people that are building today's world? What makes them tick? What type of personality is drawn to writing software? And perhaps most interestingly -- what does it do to them?One of the first pieces of coding a newbie learns is the program to make the computer say "Hello, world!" Like that piece of code, Clive Thompson's book is a delightful place to begin to understand this vocation, which is both a profession and a way of life, and which essentially didn't exist little more than a generation ago, but now is considered just about the only safe bet we can make about what the future holds. Thompson takes us close to some of the great coders of our time, and unpacks the surprising history of the field, beginning with the first great coders, who were women. Ironically, if we're going to traffic in stereotypes, women are arguably "naturally" better at coding than men, but they were written out of the history, and shoved out of the seats, for reasons that are illuminating. Now programming is indeed, if not a pure brotopia, at least an awfully homogenous community, which attracts people from a very narrow band of backgrounds and personality types. As Thompson learns, the consequences of that are significant - not least being a fetish for disruption at scale that doesn't leave much time for pondering larger moral issues of collateral damage. At the same time, coding is a marvelous new art form that has improved the world in innumerable ways, and Thompson reckons deeply, as no one before him has, with what great coding in fact looks like, who creates it, and where they come from. To get as close to his subject has he can, he picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding practice, and tries his mightiest to up his game, with some surprising results.More and more, any serious engagement with the world demands an engagement with code and its consequences, and to understand code, we must understand coders. In that regard, Clive Thompson's Hello, World! is a marvelous and delightful master class.

    The science of complexity studies how single elements, such as a species or a stock, spontaneously organize into complicated structures like ecosystems and economies; stars become galaxies, and snowflakes avalanches almost as if these systems were obeying a hidden yearning for order. Drawing from diverse fields, scientific luminaries such as Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Kenneth Arrow are studying complexity at a think tank called The Santa Fe Institute. The revolutionary new discoveries researchers have made there could change the face of every science from biology to cosmology to economics. M. Mitchell Waldrop's groundbreaking bestseller takes readers into the hearts and minds of these scientists to tell the story behind this scientific revolution as it unfolds.

    It aims to give readers a fundamental overview of the technologies that make up the telecommunications infrastructure.

    government for trying to steal trade secrets, by a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.In September 2011, sheriff's deputies in Iowa encountered three ethnic Chinese men near a field where a farmer was growing corn seed under contract with Monsanto. What began as a simple trespassing inquiry mushroomed into a two-year FBI operation in which investigators bugged the men's rental cars, used a warrant intended for foreign terrorists and spies, and flew surveillance planes over corn country--all in the name of protecting trade secrets of corporate giants Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer. In The Scientist and the Spy, Hvistendahl gives a gripping account of this unusually far-reaching investigation, which pitted a veteran FBI special agent against Florida resident Robert Mo, who after his academic career foundered took a questionable job with the Chinese agricultural company DBN--and became a pawn in a global rivalry.Industrial espionage by Chinese companies lies beneath the United States' recent trade war with China, and it is one of the top counterintelligence targets of the FBI. But a decade of efforts to stem the problem have been largely ineffective. Through previously unreleased FBI files and her reporting from across the United States and China, Hvistendahl describes a long history of shoddy counterintelligence on China, much of it tinged with racism, and questions the role that corporate influence plays in trade secrets theft cases brought by the U.S. government. The Scientist and the Spy is both an important exploration of the issues at stake and a compelling, involving read.

    In a new chapter for this edition that brings the story up-to-date, Nicholas Carr revisits the dramatic new world being conjured from the circuits of the "World Wide Computer."

    Presenting the concept of the "New Jim Code," she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life.This illuminating guide provides conceptual tools for decoding tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold but also the ones we ourselves manufacture.If you adopt this book for classroom use in the 2019-2020 academic year, the author would be pleased to arrange to Skype to a session of your class. If interested, enter your details in this sign-up sheet https: //buff.ly/2wJsvZr

    With all our media now traveling a single network, an unprecedented potential is building for centralized control over what Americans see and hear. Could history repeat itself with the next industrial consolidation? Could the Internet—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by one corporate leviathan in possession of “the master switch”? That is the big question of Tim Wu’s pathbreaking book.As Wu’s sweeping history shows, each of the new media of the twentieth century—radio, telephone, television, and film—was born free and open. Each invited unrestricted use and enterprising experiment until some would-be mogul battled his way to total domination. Here are stories of an uncommon will to power, the power over information: Adolph Zukor, who took a technology once used as commonly as YouTube is today and made it the exclusive prerogative of a kingdom called Hollywood . . . NBC’s founder, David Sarnoff, who, to save his broadcast empire from disruptive visionaries, bullied one inventor (of electronic television) into alcoholic despair and another (this one of FM radio, and his boyhood friend) into suicide . . . And foremost, Theodore Vail, founder of the Bell System, the greatest information empire of all time, and a capitalist whose faith in Soviet-style central planning set the course of every information industry thereafter.Explaining how invention begets industry and industry begets empire—a progress often blessed by government, typically with stifling consequences for free expression and technical innovation alike—Wu identifies a time-honored pattern in the maneuvers of today’s great information powers: Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T. A battle royal looms for the Internet’s future, and with almost every aspect of our lives now dependent on that network, this is one war we dare not tune out.Part industrial exposé, part meditation on what freedom requires in the information age, The Master Switch is a stirring illumination of a drama that has played out over decades in the shadows of our national life and now culminates with terrifying implications for our future.

    They teach you how to make games. This book does not show you how to make games. It shows you how to take your game project to the finish line. Many game projects never make it beyond the alpha state.Game Development Success Is All About The Inner Game.Being a successful game developer does not (just) mean being a great programmer, a smart game designer or a gifted artist. It means dominating the inner game of game making. This separates the pros from the wannabes. It's the knowledge of how to stay focused, motivated and efficient during your game projects. It's the skillset of keeping things simple and avoiding misleading dreams of the next overnight success. Finally it's about thinking as a salesperson, not just as a designer, programmer or artist.

    This and other developments will prompt utilities to undergo the largest changes in their history. Smart Power examines the many facets of this unprecedented transformation. This enlightening book begins with a look back on the deregulatory efforts of the 1990s and their gradual replacement by concerns over climate change, promoting new technologies, and developing stable prices and supplies. In thorough but non-technical terms it explains the revolutionary changes that the Smart Grid is bringing to utility operations. It also examines the options for low-carbon emissions along with the real-world challenges the industry and its regulators must face as the industry retools and finances its new sources and systems. Throughout the book, Peter Fox-Penner provides insights into the policy choices and regulatory reform needed to face these challenges. He not only weighs the costs and benefits of every option, but presents interviews with informed experts, including economists, utility CEOs, and engineers. He gives a brief history of the development of the current utility business model and examines possible new business models that are focused on energy efficiency.Smart Power explains every aspect of the coming energy revolution for utilities in lively prose that will captivate even the most techno-phobic readers.

    Jacobson provides a comprehensive overview of this spectacular industry, allowing everyone on Earth to understand the integral role space plays in our lives, how it will continue to transform the world, and how you could participate.In the vein of Mary Roach, Jacobson makes a complex topic easily understandable—and accessible—for every reader.Space as an industry offers a triple bottom line: Return on Investment, Innovation, and Inspiration.INVESTMENTImagine if you had the opportunity to invest in Apple when it was new and undiscovered—would you do it?Space is a culmination of many disciplines, and it works in tandem with various industries. The sector’s growth depends on merging different fields with cutting-edge technologies, fantastical ideas with logical applications.Investors, including John Doerr, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia, RRE, Bessemer Venture Partners, First Round, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and Andreesen Horowitz, took notice and are backing companies in this growing sector.INNOVATIONSpace is the sector with the most unlimited potential for progress and collaboration. When space advances, other industries benefit. When other industries advance, space benefits as well—innovations and progress multiply.From Hollywood to navigation, communications devices to streaming services, medical discoveries to robotics, agriculture to energy, all of these industries affect space and are affected by space—much like bees pollinating flowers.Jacobson proposes that space startups can borrow tactics and strategies developed by other entrepreneurs and thought leaders—such as Peter Thiel, Eric Ries, and Ben Horowitz—to improve space startups' probability for success.INSPIRATIONWhat do Jules Verne, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick, Jerry Pournelle, Andy Weir, and David Bowie have in common?For centuries, artists and creators have helped inspire real space efforts. They merged space with arts and entertainment to construct visions and stories that helped us articulate, amplify, and imagine what is possible—ultimately influencing and shaping reality, from Moon missions to mobile phones.What will we accomplish over the next decade? Is there a way to achieve great personal success and benefit others—maybe even all of humanity?

    Blockchain protocols are taking the world by storm, and the Ethereum project, with its Turing-complete scripting language Solidity, has rapidly become a front-runner. This book presents the blockchain phenomenon in context; then situates Ethereum in a world pioneered by Bitcoin.See why professionals and non-professionals alike are honing their skills in smart contract patterns and distributed application development. You'll review the fundamentals of programming and networking, alongside its introduction to the new discipline of crypto-economics. You'll then deploy smart contracts of your own, and learn how they can serve as a back-end for JavaScript and HTML applications on the Web.Many Solidity tutorials out there today have the same flaw: they are written for "advanced" JavaScript developers who want to transfer their skills to a blockchain environment. Introducing Ethereum and Solidity is accessible to technology professionals and enthusiasts of all levels. You'll find exciting sample code that can move forward real world assets in both the academic and the corporate arenas. Find out now why this book is a powerful gateway for creative technologists of all types, from concept to deployment.What You'll LearnSee how Ethereum (and other cryptocurrencies) workCompare distributed apps (dapps) to web appsWrite Ethereum smart contracts in Solidity Connect Ethereum smart contracts to your HTML/CSS/JavaScript web applicationsDeploy your own dapp, coin, and blockchainWork with basic and intermediate smart contractsWho This Book Is For Anyone who is curious about Ethereum or has some familiarity with computer science Product managers, CTOs, and experienced JavaScript programmersExperts will find the advanced sample projects in this book rewarding because of the power of Solidity

    The Google Story takes you deep inside the company's wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that rakes in billions in profits, making Brin and Page the wealthiest young men in America. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and culture of innovation enabled a search engine to shake up Madison Avenue and Wall Street, scoop up YouTube, and battle Microsoft at every turn. Not afraid of controversy, Google is expanding in Communist China and quietly working on a searchable genetic database, initiatives that test the founders' guiding mantra: DON'T BE EVIL.

    Computers in Bangalore are locked away in dusty cabinets because teachers don't know what to do with them. Mobile phone apps meant to spread hygiene practices in Africa fail to improve health. Executives in Silicon Valley evangelize novel technologies at work even as they send their children to Waldorf schools that ban electronics. And four decades of incredible innovation in America have done nothing to turn the tide of rising poverty and inequality. Why then do we keep hoping that technology will solve our greatest social ills? In this incisive book, Toyama cures us of the manic rhetoric of digital utopians and reinvigorates us with a deeply people-centric view of social change. Contrasting the outlandish claims of tech zealots with stories of people like Patrick Awuah, a Microsoft millionaire who left his engineering job to open Ghana's first liberal arts university, and Tara Sreenivasa, a graduate of a remarkable South Indian school that takes impoverished children into the high-tech offices of Goldman Sachs and Mercedes-Benz, Geek Heresy is a heartwarming reminder that it's human wisdom, not machines, that move our world forward.

    Putting scandals in the Church and the media's response in a much larger context, this stimulating history is a model of nuanced scholarship and provocative reading.

    In Power to the Public, Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank describe a revolutionary new approach--public interest technology--that has the potential to transform the way governments and nonprofits around the world solve problems. Through inspiring stories about successful projects ranging from a texting service for teenagers in crisis to a streamlined foster care system, the authors show how public interest technology can make the delivery of services to the public more effective and efficient.At its heart, public interest technology means putting users at the center of the policymaking process, using data and metrics in a smart way, and running small experiments and pilot programs before scaling up. And while this approach may well involve the innovative use of digital technology, technology alone is no panacea--and some of the best solutions may even be decidedly low-tech.Clear-eyed yet profoundly optimistic, Power to the Public presents a powerful blueprint for how government and nonprofits can help solve society's most serious problems.