Book picks similar to
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future: A 29-Minute Summary. by Bern Bolo
business
non-fiction
self-development
icebox
From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
Fred Turner - 2006
Bleak tools of the cold war, they embodied the rigid organization and mechanical conformity that made the military-industrial complex possible. But by the 1990s—and the dawn of the Internet—computers started to represent a very different kind of world: a collaborative and digital utopia modeled on the communal ideals of the hippies who so vehemently rebelled against the cold war establishment in the first place. From Counterculture to Cyberculture is the first book to explore this extraordinary and ironic transformation. Fred Turner here traces the previously untold story of a highly influential group of San Francisco Bay–area entrepreneurs: Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. Between 1968 and 1998, via such familiar venues as the National Book Award–winning Whole Earth Catalog, the computer conferencing system known as WELL, and, ultimately, the launch of the wildly successful Wired magazine, Brand and his colleagues brokered a long-running collaboration between San Francisco flower power and the emerging technological hub of Silicon Valley. Thanks to their vision, counterculturalists and technologists alike joined together to reimagine computers as tools for personal liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers. Shedding new light on how our networked culture came to be, this fascinating book reminds us that the distance between the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is not as great as we might think.
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America's Master Communicator, George Lois
George Lois - 2012
Offering indispensle lessons, practical advice, facts, anecdotes and inspiration, this book is a timeless creative bible for all those looking to succeed in life, business and creativity. These are key lessons derived from the incomparle life of 'Master Communicator' George Lois, the original Mad Man of Madison Avenue. Written and compiled by the man The Wall Street Journal called "prodigy, enfant terrible, founder of agencies, creator of legends," each step is borne from a passion to succeed and a disdain for the status quo.Organised into inspirational, bite-sized pointers, each page offers fresh insight into the sources of success, from identifying your heroes to identifying yourself. The ideas, images and illustrations presented in this book are fresh, witty and in-your-face. Whether it's communicating your point in nanosecond, creating an explosive portfolio or making your presence felt, no one is better placed than George Lois to teach you the process of creativity.Poignant, punchy and to-the-point, Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!) is a must have for anyone on a quest for success.
How to Quieten Your Mind: Tips, Quotes and Activities to Help You Find Calm
Anna Barnes - 2018
A busy mind is one of the hazards of modern-day life, and it can be a huge drain on your energy and well-being. But be assured: whether you find it difficult to keep unwanted thoughts at bay or you've just got a hundred and one things to think about, there are ways to relax and unwind that can be learned, practised and perfected. Filled with helpful tips, soothing statements and calming activities, How to Quieten Your Mind will put you back in the driving seat and help you to feel relaxed, more in control and at peace with yourself.
Kings of Crypto: One Startup's Quest to Take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street
Jeff John Roberts - 2020
He turned to the audience and shared his idea with the simple slogan: "Coinbase, the easiest way to get started with Bitcoin."For a moment late in 2018, one Bitcoin, which physically amounts to a few electrons blipping on a tiny bit of silicon, was worth $20,000—the same as a pound of gold. Libertarian technologists who believed Bitcoin would be the foundation of a new world order saw the moment as an apotheosis. Everyone else saw a bubble. Everyone else was right, and the bubble burst. But Bitcoin survived, and the battle for its soul rages on. True believers view it as the foundation for a future economy freed from the vicissitudes of Wall Street and government control of currency. Pragmatists believe that bringing Bitcoin into the mainstream will, as the Silicon Valley cliche goes, make the world a better place. But they need buy-in from traditional institutional systems that can prevent the crypto world from devolving into the lawless criminal bazaar it was becoming during the bubble.Journalist Jeff John Roberts drops us into the unfolding drama as he follows the rise, fall, and rebirth of cryptocurrency through the experiences of major players across the globe. We follow Silicon Valley entrepreneur Brian Armstrong and his company, Coinbase, as it tries to make Bitcoin easy to use and available to all while fighting off hackers, thieves, and zealots. Roberts keenly observes the importance of leadership and strategy in the developing field of virtual currencies and what happens when these guardrails are missing. His ability to explain crypto technology clearly and lay out the ramifications of its infiltration into the global financial system makes this book a must-read for leaders in every industry. The amazing story—full of startup hijinks, shady investors, billionaire bros and their Lambos, closed-door meetings with Jamie Dimon, hacking (so much hacking!), Libertarian free-state utopias in New Hampshire, and the Winklevoss twins—make this a page turner that readers will love.
The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?
Seth Godin - 2012
But he ignored that warning and plunged to his doom. We’ve retold this myth, and many others like it, to generations of kids. All these stories have the same lesson: Play it safe. Obey your parents. Listen to the experts. It was the perfect propaganda for the industrial economy. What boss wouldn’t want employees to believe that obedience and conformity are the keys to success? But there’s another part of the myth that those in power hope you’ll forget. Icarus was also warned not to fly too low, because sea water would ruin the lift in his wings. Flying too low is even more dangerous than flying too high, because it feels deceptively safe.The safety zone has moved. The propaganda has been exposed, and the old promises have been broken: Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce, and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: make art.Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.Whether you’re a teacher, engineer, doctor, middle manager, or customer service rep, you can fly higher by bringing your best self to work. You can care about what you’re doing today and how you can improve tomorrow. Godin shows us how it’s possible, and convinces us why it’s essential.
Evernote for your Life: A Practical Guide for the Use of Evernote in Your Everyday Life
Tyler Collins - 2012
Whether you are... -A student struggling with reams of lecture notes, references, and recordings of talks -A journalist who needs to compile ideas, log interviews, and communicate on the move -A busy individual who wants to keep and share photos, store business cards and notes “Evernote is your new, virtual filing cabinet.” Mastering Evernote will show you how to navigate and enhance your experience of this wonderful tool in just two hours. Start slicing through the multi-layered functions and various possibilities within Evernote. Discover the tool that will change the way you remember things forever. Whether you are an advanced user wanting to push Evernote to its limits or a beginner ready to explore the impact of this free app on your life, Mastering Evernote will evolve your proficiency by stacking up tip after trick till you reach the top. We are committed to providing an up-to-date experience. Buy the book once and get access to unlimited updates as they are released. Keep reading to see how the book has already been improved and expanded since the original release in October 2012. Let us know what you think should be added in future editions! What's included in Mastering Evernote? -Amazing and creative ways to use Evernote to its fullest -Charts, and illustrations for understanding the inner workings of Evernote -How to use both the web, Desktop, and Mobile version of the Evernote application -Evernote vs. OneNote, Google Docs and other systems of organization and why it crushes the competition -How to use Evernote along with other social media including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs -How to use Evernote as file storage facilitator - never use file trees again! -How to dominate the Evernote search feature to find everything in your digital library including office documents or personal pictures -How to set up an "Evernote scanner" to get rid of all the paper in your life -How to set up the perfect Evernote user interface -Tagging best practices -The "Temporary Notebook System" that organizes any project -BONUS: The Evernote Cheat Sheet! A quick look guide for advanced searches Each section of the book takes you deeper into the functionality and inner workings of Evernote, making this book an excellent reference guide. If you’re an advanced Evernote user skip the beginner sections and jump straight to the advanced. If you’re new to Evernote just read the book front to back as each new strategy, technique, and Evernote tip builds on the one before it.
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future
Andrew Yang - 2018
The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future—now. One recent estimate predicts 45 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next twelve years—jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across our communities in the form of political unrest, drug use, and other social ills. The future looks dire-but is it unavoidable? In The War on Normal People, Yang imagines a different future—one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls "human capitalism."
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
Jason Schreier - 2017
In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous.Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
Erik Brynjolfsson - 2014
Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.
The Fifties
David Halberstam - 1993
Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon, but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; U-2 pilot Gary Francis Powers; Grace Metalious, who wrote Peyton Place; and "Goody" Pincus, who led the team that invented the Pill.A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The Art of Creative Thinking
Rod Judkins - 2015
Rod Judkins, a lecturer in creativity at the world-famous St Martin's College of Art, will examine the behaviour of successful creative thinkers and explain how all of us can learn from them to improve our lives. Judkins will draw on an extraordinary range of reference points, from the Dada Manifesto to Andy Warhol's studio, via Steve Jobs, Nobel Prize winning economists and many others, and distil a lifetime's expertise into 90 succinct chapters. Along the way he shares the story of most successful class in educational history (in which every single student won a Nobel prize); shows why graphic nudity during public speaking can be both a curse and surprisingly persuasive; and reveals why, in the twenty-first century, it's technically illegal to be as good as good as Michelangelo.
how tom holland Eclipsed his dad
Dominic Holland - 2013
Dominic Holland is this 'celebrity' dad - a professional stand-up comedian and author. He has appeared on television many times including The Royal Variety Show and Have I Got News For You. He has had his own award winning BBC Radio Four series, The Small World of Dominic Holland. A published author, journalist and writer for other famous comedians... So no slouch himself then. But his eldest son, Tom, played Billy in BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL in London's West End and then was cast in the leading role of Lucas in the film, THE IMPOSSIBLE, now on general release in cinemas worldwide. As well as stand-up comedy, fortunately for this story, Dominic Holland has also taken a crack at Hollywood with his writing and compared to his son, with very contrasting results. Tom flies back and forth to LA to accept and give out awards while his dad still treads the boards and in smaller and less salubrious venues that most egos could bear. "How tom holland eclipsed his dad" is an extraordinary true story and a complete fluke. Without a drama lesson in site, let alone a stage school, how a young boy gets himself long listed for an Academy Award and gets to meet and mix with Hollywood's glitterati is an interesting tale on its own - but the story is hilarious when set against the endeavours of his dad. Written with great affection by a dad who is much more proud than he is bemused, this book will appeal to any parent who wants their kid to prevail and to any kid who casually dreams of becoming a star themself.
Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft From The Inside: How The World's Richest Corporation Wields Its Power
Jennifer Edstrom - 1998
District Judge Stanley Sporkin. Teamed with the daughter of one of Bill Gates's closest associates, thirteen-year Microsoft veteran Marlin Eller shows us what it was like at every step along Gates's route to world domination, making all that's been written before seem like a rough guess. If the Justice Department had Eller and Edstrom investigating the current-headline-making antitrust case, they would have on the record many of Microsoft's most respected developers directly contradicting the "authorized" version of events being presented in court. They would know the real scoop on how Windows was developed in the first place, shedding new light on the 1988 Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit over the alleged copying of the Mac. They would even know the real story of how Microsoft killed off Go Corporation, told for the first time by the man who did the deed, Marlin Eller himself. Revealing the smoke-and-mirror deals, the palms greased to help launch a product that didn't exist, and the boneyard of once-thriving competitors targeted by the Gates juggernaut, this book demonstrates with often hilariously damning detail the Microsoft muddle that passes for strategic direction, offset by Gates's uncanny ability to come from behind to crush whoever's on top.
Implementing Domain-Driven Design
Vaughn Vernon - 2013
Vaughn Vernon couples guided approaches to implementation with modern architectures, highlighting the importance and value of focusing on the business domain while balancing technical considerations.Building on Eric Evans’ seminal book, Domain-Driven Design, the author presents practical DDD techniques through examples from familiar domains. Each principle is backed up by realistic Java examples–all applicable to C# developers–and all content is tied together by a single case study: the delivery of a large-scale Scrum-based SaaS system for a multitenant environment.The author takes you far beyond “DDD-lite” approaches that embrace DDD solely as a technical toolset, and shows you how to fully leverage DDD’s “strategic design patterns” using Bounded Context, Context Maps, and the Ubiquitous Language. Using these techniques and examples, you can reduce time to market and improve quality, as you build software that is more flexible, more scalable, and more tightly aligned to business goals.
Rework
Jason Fried - 2010
If you're looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf.Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you'll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don't need outside investors, and why you're better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don't need to be a workaholic. You don't need to staff up. You don't need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don't even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You'll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of "downsizing," and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages.