Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art


Virginia Heffernan - 2015
    It is among mankind’s great masterpieces—a massive work of art. As an idea, it rivals monotheism. We all inhabit this fascinating place. But its deep logic, its cultural potential, and its societal impact often elude us. In this deep and thoughtful book, Virginia Heffernan presents an original and far-reaching analysis of what the Internet is and does. Life online, in the highly visual, social, portable, and global incarnation rewards certain virtues. The new medium favors speed, accuracy, wit, prolificacy, and versatility, and its form and functions are changing how we perceive, experience, and understand the world.

I Hate the Internet


Jarett Kobek - 2016
    As billions of tweets fuel the city’s gentrification and the human wreckage piles up, a group of friends suffers the consequences of being useless in a new world that despises the pointless and unprofitable. In this, his first full-length novel, Jarett Kobek tackles the pressing questions of our moment. Why do we applaud the enrichment of CEOs at the expense of the weak and the powerless? Why are we giving away our intellectual property? Why is activism in the 21st Century nothing more than a series of morality lectures typed into devices built by slaves? Here, at last, comes an explanation of the Internet in the crudest possible terms.

China Hand


Harry Homewood - 2016
    For the U. S. Navy, that meant restricted budgets — and the Asiatic Fleet, on the far side of the world out of sight of the Navy’s commanders and the American public, was at the bottom of the list for the Navy’s limited resources. Bobby MacPherson, Seaman 2nd Class, only seventeen years old and freshly graduated from radio operator school, was naively excited by his assignment to the submarine S-37 stationed with the Asiatic Fleet. The exotic places providing bases for the American Navy — Manila, Shanghai, Tsingtao — and their strange cultures, histories and people engaged his driving curiosity and sharp mind. He was very different from most of the “China hands,” the long time sailors of the Asiatic fleet, who spent their time drinking and chasing the countless prostitutes that populated the port cities of the Philippines and China. His outstanding athletic ability and his earnest integrity made him popular with his crewmates and officers despite his differences. All of those qualities drew Bobby into a dangerous and malicious plot against the American forces in Asia; a plot involving nearly all of the competing powers in China — General Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, Mao Tse-tung’s Communists, the Imperial Japanese military occupiers of China, warlords and ancient, powerful families who considered themselves the true rulers of China. CHINA HAND is a never before published novel by best-selling author Harry Homewood. Like his previous, hugely popular novels FINAL HARBOR and SILENT SEA, CHINA HAND is based on his real life experience — in this case his service in an S-Class submarine in the Asiatic Fleet in the years before World War II. It is intensely authentic. Harry Homewood was a qualified submariner before he was seventeen years old, having lied to the Navy about his age, and serving in a little "S"-boat in the old Asiatic Fleet. After Pearl Harbor he reenlisted and made eleven war patrols in the Southwest Pacific. He later became Chicago Bureau Chief for Newsweek, chief editorial writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, and for eleven years had his own weekly news program syndicated to thirty-two PBS television stations.

Made to Stick (Chapter 4: Credible): Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die


Chip Heath - 2008
    Offer people the chance to test your ideas themselves–a “try before you buy” philosophy. People want to believe your ideas, so give them a reason to. Examples include the Nobel-winning scientist no one believed, flesh-eating bananas, and the human-scale principle.

The Internet Is Not the Answer


Andrew Keen - 2015
    There are many positive ways in which the Internet has contributed to the world, but as a society we are less aware of the Internet’s deeply negative effects on our psychology, economy, and culture. In The Internet Is Not the Answer, Andrew Keen, a twenty-year veteran of the tech industry, traces the technological and economic history of the internet from its founding in the 1960s through the rise of the big data companies to the increasing attempts to monetize almost every human activity, and investigates how the internet is reconfiguring our world—often at great cost. In this sharp, witty narrative, informed by the work of other writers, academics, and reporters, as well as his own wide-ranging research and interviews, Keen shows us the tech world, warts and all, and investigates what we can do to make sure the choices we make about the reconfiguring of our society do not lead to unpleasant unforeseen aftershocks.

Arbitrage: The authoritative guide on how it works, why it works and how it can work for you.


Chris Green - 2012
    This is the complete, authoritative, and exhaustive manual outlining the Arbitrage business model. It has been compiled and made available to anyone interested in buying products to be resold online. In this book, Chris Green will give you the keys to the Arbitrage Kingdom with the mindset of unlimited opportunities and abundance and not one of scarcity. Empires are being built by using powerful new programs like ScanPower to source and evaluate items for resale. Pair this with Amazon's amazing fulfillment program called Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) to outsource the storage, shipping, and customer service of your items, and you have a completely scalable, nearly risk-free business model with a near-zero entry cost. The techniques described in this book can be used by anyone, anywhere to build a small side business or large empire. The only limit is you imagination.

Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations Are Changing the Rules of Business


Malcolm Frank - 2014
    Today's outliers in revenue growth and value creation are winning with a new set of rules. They are dominating by managing the information that surrounds people, organizations, processes, and products--what authors Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring call Code Halos. This is far beyond "Big Data" and analytics. Code Halos spark new commercial models that can dramatically flip market dominance from industry stalwarts to challengers. In this new book, the authors show leaders how digital innovators and traditional companies can build Code Halo solutions to drive success. The book:Examines the explosion of digital information that now surrounds us and describes the profound impact this is having on individuals, corporations, and societies; Shows how the Crossroads Model can help anticipate and navigate this market shift; Provides examples of traditional firms already harnessing the power of Code Halos including GE's Brilliant Machines, Disney's theme park Magic Band, and Allstate's mobile devices and analytics that transform auto insurance. With reasoned insight, new data, real-world cases, and practical guidance, Code Halos shows seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, students, line-of-business owners, and technology leaders how to master the new rules of the Code Halo economy.

Architecting for the AWS Cloud: Best Practices (AWS Whitepaper)


Amazon We Services - 2016
    It discusses cloud concepts and highlights various design patterns and best practices. This documentation is offered for free here as a Kindle book, or you can read it in PDF format at https://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/.

Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped


Dean Budnick - 2011
    The garage start-up, dubbed Ticketmaster, would come to achieve such market dominance over the following decades some critics would denounce the company as an unlawful monopoly. Yet its path to the top was far from inevitable and Ticket Masters analyzes the legality and ethics behind the actions of Ticketmaster, including its recent merger with Live Nation. Ticket Masters, based on first-person interivews with the key players, is a character-driven story that explores the actions and impact of the iconoclasts guiding Clear Channel, Ticketmaster, Live Nation, SFX, MusicToday, and StubHub, while folding in related tales of trustafarians, scalping syndicates, old-school music promoters, and would-be Internet tycoons. Ticket Masters answers such questions as: Just what is included in a service fee and why does it vary with the price of a ticket? Why am I forced to pay for parking when I'm taking public transportation to the concert? and Who really pockets all of that money? This guide to the concert industry looks into cubicles, conference rooms, and booking agencies and includes interviews with promoters, musicians, and corporate executives with connections to both Ticketmaster and the bands. Special attention is paid to the touring activities and ticket-selling practices of the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, U2, Dave Matthews Band, and the Rolling Stones.

Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters


Bill Tancer - 2008
    As online directories replace the yellow pages, search engines replace traditional research, and news sites replace newsprint, we are in an age in which we've come to rely tremendously on the Internet--leaving behind a trail of information about ourselves as a culture and the direction in which we are headed. With surprising and practical insight, Tancer demonstrates how the Internet is changing the way we absorb information and how understanding that change can be used to our advantage in business and in life.Click analyzes the new generation of consumerism in a way no other book has before, showing how we use the Internet, and how those trends provide a wealth of market research nearly as vast as the Internet itself. Understanding how we change is integral to our success. After all, we are what we click.

The Wisdom of Crowds


James Surowiecki - 2004
    With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google


Scott Galloway - 2017
    Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong. For all that's been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway.Instead of buying the myths these compa-nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they're almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world's first trillion-dollar company, can anyone chal-lenge them?In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world's most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can't match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career.Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.

Live a Thousand Years: Have the Time of Your Life; Wisdom for All Ages


Giovanni Livera - 2004
    Most of us measure our time by clocks and calendars. Live A Thousand Years reveals the power of measuring your time and your success by moments and experiences.

The S.N. Killer


Shameek Speight - 2012
    In these current times there is not aperson that isn’t somehow linked to a social networking site. Technology has evolved in ways that allow you to access such sites from your iPad or cellphone. With that said, do you know the person behind your next friend request? Do you know the person behind that profile picture, or better yet the person you’ve been chatting with for months or the person you been flirting with, or do you just think you know? Detective Lauren Pitman and her partner Detective Alexis Lovett head a Special Division Unit, in charge of solving Internet Crimes. Those crimes include rape, homicide and missing persons to name a few. Recently women have been targeted throughout the Tri-State Area. Several victims have been found dead with missing body parts. What these women seem to have in common is that all these women were all online on different social networking sites, talking and interacting with a man, who police cannot seem to be able to trace or locate almost as if he doesn’t exist. A recent development has found that this particular social network killer is into cannibalism. Detective Lauren Pitman and Alexis Lovett must work fast to uncover the killers identity before he claims his next victim.

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future


John Brockman - 2011
    Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Chris Anderson, Nassim Taleb, Esther Dyson, Brian Eno and nearly 150 other intellectual rock stars reveal how the internet is changing our minds, culture, and future, in John Brockman’s latest compendium from Harper Perennial and Edge.org.