Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages


Alex Wright - 2007
    Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Dark Age monasteries.Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle to cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a "tsunami of data." With some historical perspective, however, we can begin to understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and information architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. Finally, he pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.

Learning Theories Simplified: ...and How to Apply Them to Teaching


Bob Bates - 2015
    Willingham on educational neuroscience? Written for busy teachers, trainers, managers and students, this dip-in dip-out guide makes theories of learning accessible and practical. It explores over 100 classic and contemporary learning theorists in an easy-to-use, bite-sized format with clear relevant illustrations on how each theory will benefit your teaching and learning.Each model or theory is explained in less than 350 words, many with accompanying diagrams, and the 'how to use it' sections, in less than 500 words. Every entry includes:Do it steps in order to apply the theory or modelReflection points & challenges to develop your understanding of how to apply itAnalogies & metaphors from which understanding and meaning can be drawnTips for the classroomFurther reading if you want to explore a theory in greater depth. More titles by Bob Bates: Educational Leadership Simplified A Quick Guide to Special Needs and Disabilities

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built


Stewart Brand - 1994
    How Buildings Learn is a masterful new synthesis that proposes that buildings adapt best when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and that architects can mature from being artists of space to becoming artists of time. From the connected farmhouses of New England to I.M. Pei's Media Lab, from "satisficing" to "form follows funding," from the evolution of bungalows to the invention of Santa Fe Style, from Low Road military surplus buildings to a High Road English classic like Chatsworth—this is a far-ranging survey of unexplored essential territory.More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they're allowed to. How Buildings Learn shows how to work with time rather than against it.

Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games


Nick Dyer-Witheford - 2009
    No longer confined to a subculture of adolescent males, video games today are played by adults around the world. At the same time, video games have become major sites of corporate exploitation and military recruitment.In Games of Empire, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter offer a radical political critique of such video games and virtual environments as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and Grand Theft Auto, analyzing them as the exemplary media of Empire, the twenty-first-century hypercapitalist complex theorized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. The authors trace the ascent of virtual gaming, assess its impact on creators and players alike, and delineate the relationships between games and reality, body and avatar, screen and street.Games of Empire forcefully connects video games to real-world concerns about globalization, militarism, and exploitation, from the horrors of African mines and Indian e-waste sites that underlie the entire industry, the role of labor in commercial game development, and the synergy between military simulation software and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan exemplified by Full Spectrum Warrior to the substantial virtual economies surrounding World of Warcraft, the urban neoliberalism made playable in Grand Theft Auto, and the emergence of an alternative game culture through activist games and open-source game development.Rejecting both moral panic and glib enthusiasm, Games of Empire demonstrates how virtual games crystallize the cultural, political, and economic forces of global capital, while also providing a means of resisting them.

A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life


Janet E. Helms - 1992
    White people generally fail to understand that they have a racial identity -- whether they are willing to recognize it or not -- and that having it doesn't have to be a negative. Designed specifically for Whites, but useful for others, this easy-to-read paperback includes examples and activities that enhance the reader's understanding of the part race plays in the lives of each of us. This book is being used in various programs and classes at universities, school districts and businesses across the country, as well as by individuals across the world.Who needs a color-blind society? --I'm not colored --But what color am I? --Recognizing racism --A model of white racial identity development --Contact : "I'm an innocent" --Disintegration : "How can I be white?" --Reintegration : "We have the best because we are the best!" --Pseudo-independent : "Let's help them become more like whites" --Immersion/emersion : "I'm white!" --Autonomy : "I see color and like it!"

The (Un)official Teacher's Manual: What They Don't Teach You in Training


Omar Akbar - 2017
    Many of the difficulties however, are not in the classroom... In The (Un)official Teacher's Manual, Omar Akbar offers direct, humorous and accessible advice on how to deal with the daily issues faced by a teacher- none of which involve teaching! Includes guidance on: lesson observations, emails, promotions, avoiding meaningless extra work, meetings, parents, maintaining a work-life balance, dealing with workplace bullying, and much more. While Omar pulls no punches on the reality of working in a school, a positive streak is maintained throughout. A must read for any teacher or potential teacher. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Contents: Introduction: Why This Book Was Written 1. How to Get the Most from Observations, Learning Walks, and Book Scrutinies 2. The Don’ts of the School Email System 3. How to Get Promoted and Other Things to Consider 4. How and When to Say No and Yes 5. The Dos and Don’ts of Meetings 6. How to Get Parents on Your Side 7. Guidance for Trainee Teachers 8. Ensuring a Life-Work Balance 9. Bullying: the Problem and the Solution 10. How to Get the Teaching Job You Want 11. Maintaining Good Relationships 12. Why It’s All Worth It

The Dream Architects: Adventures in the Video Game Industry


David Polfeldt - 2020
    He shares what it's like to manage a creative process that has ballooned from a low-six-figure expense with a team of a half dozen people to a transatlantic production of five hundred employees on a single project with a production budget of over a hundred million dollars.A rare firsthand account of the golden age of game development told in vivid detail, The Dream Architects is a seminal work about the biggest entertainment medium of today.

Images of Organization


Gareth Morgan - 1986
    Morgan shows managers how to break free of management fads by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of management metaphors and applying them to organizational life.

Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue


Ryan Holiday - 2018
    Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel.For years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit--until it was too late. The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory.Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.

Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away


Rebecca Goldstein - 2014
    But Plato’s role in shaping philosophy was pivotal. On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy. But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her. Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene? Have they already arrived? Does philosophy itself ever make progress? And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance? Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation of these conundra. She interweaves her narrative with Plato’s own choice for bringing ideas to life—the dialogue. Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour. How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion?  How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child? How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency? What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts? With a philosopher’s depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world.(With black-and-white photographs throughout.)

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age


Michael A. Hiltzik - 1999
    And they did it without fanfare or recognition from their employer. Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning provides a fascinating look at technohistory that sets the record straight. In Dealers of Lightning, Hiltzik describes the forces and faces behind the revolution that the Xerox PARC team single-handedly spawned. The Xerox PARC group was composed solely of top technical minds. The decision was made at Xerox headquarters to give the team complete freedom from deadlines and directives, in hopes of fostering a true creative environment. It worked — perhaps too well. The team responded with a steady output of amazing technology, including the first version of the Internet, the first personal computer, user-friendly word-processing programs, and pop-up menus. Xerox, far from ready for the explosion of innovation, failed to utilize the technology dreamed up by the group. Out of all the dazzling inventions born at Xerox PARC, only a handful were developed and marketed by Xerox. However, one of these inventions, the laser printer, proved successful enough to earn billions for the company, therefore justifying its investment in the research center. Most oftheteam's creations would go on to be developed and perfected by other companies, such as IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Drawing from interviews with the engineers, executives, and scientists involved in the Xerox PARC, Dealers of Lightning chronicles an amazing era of egos, ideas, and inventions at the dawn of the computer age.

Ideas Have Consequences


Richard M. Weaver - 1948
    Weaver unsparingly diagnoses the ills of our age and offers a realistic remedy. He asserts that the world is intelligible and that man is free. The catastrophes of our age are the product of unintelligent choice and the cure lies in man's recognition that ideas--like actions--have consequences. A cure, he submits, is possible. It lies in the right use of man's reason, in the renewed acceptance of an absolute reality, and in the recognition that ideas like actions have consequences.

The Art of Listening


Erich Fromm - 1991
    This volume fulfills his wish. Not intended as a textbook about psychoanalytic therapy, these reflections provide welcome new information about Fromm the therapist and the way he dealt with the psychological suffering of his patients. As Fromm envisioned, each chapter is structured to capture the informality and intimacy of his psychoanalytic work so that readers get a new and different sense of Fromm's humanism, honesty and insight. These talks and seminars, given by Fromm between 1964 and his death in 1980, deal with the issues between analyst and analysand that go to the heart of the psychoanalytic process. For Fromm, the analyst is his or her own next patient, as the patient becomes his or her analyst.

Kindness Wins


Galit Breen - 2015
    With compassion, humor, insight, and practical wisdom born of firsthand experience, Galit Breen makes a compelling case for online decency. What would happen if parents and kids everywhere could read these 10 simple rules of conduct, learn them by heart, and live by them each and every time they log in? The world would change dramatically--and for the good of us all."--Katrina Kenison, author of Mitten Strings for God and The Gift of an Ordinary DayIf kindness wins, accountability rules. The need for this mantra is never clearer than when scrolling through posts and comments online.Approximately four out of ten kids (42 percent) have experienced cyberbullying. When we were young, our bullies weren't usually strangers. They were the kids who passed mean notes about us in class, the ones who didn't let us sit at their table during lunch, and the ones who tripped us in the hallway or embarrassed us in gym class. Cyberbullying isn't all that different from the playground bullying of our youth and nightmares. But with social media, our bullies have nonstop access to us--and our kids. In fact, we're often "friends" with our bullies online.When freelance writer Galit Breen's kids hinted that they'd like to post, tweet, and share photos on Instagram, Breen took a look at social media as a mom and as a teacher and quickly realized that there's a ridiculous amount of kindness terrain to teach and explain to kids―and some adults―before letting them loose online. So she took to her pen and wrote a how-to book for parents who are tackling this issue with their kids.Kindness Wins covers ten habits to directly teach kids as they're learning how to be kind online. Each section is written in Breen's trademark parent-to-parent-over-coffee style and concludes with resources for further reading, discussion starters, and bulleted takeaways. She ends the book with two contracts―one to share with peers and one to share with kids. Just like we needed to teach our children how to walk, swim, and throw a ball, we need to teach them how to maneuver kindly online. This book will help you do just that.

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers: Gold Edition


John Szczepaniak - 2014
    Konami's secret games console, the origin of Game Arts and Quintet, unusual events at Telenet, stories on Falcom, politics behind Enix's game programming contests, a tour of the Love-de-Lic and WARP offices (with layout sketches). Every interviewee is asked about unreleased titles. Foreword by GAMESIDE magazine's editor-in-chief, Yusaku Yamamoto. INTERVIEWEES INCLUDE: Hitoshi YONEDA / Tatsuo NOMURA / Katsutoshi EGUCHI / Toru HIDAKA / Roy OZAKI / Kouichi YOTSUI / Masaaki KUKINO / Yoshitaka Murayama / Harry Inaba / Ryukushi07 / Kotaro UCHIKOSHI / ZUN / Yoshiro KIMURA / Kouji YOKOTA / Jun Nagashima / Yuzo KOSHIRO / Masamoto MORITA / Akira TAKIGUCHI / Masakuni MITSUHASHI / Kohei IKEDA / Hiroshi SUZUKI / Tomonori SUGIYAMA / Yutaka ISOKAWA / Yasuhito SAITO / Takaki KOBAYASHI / Keite ABE / Keiji INAFUNE / Makoto GOTO