Bookshelf: The Pirate’s Dilemma
I recently finished reading The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Hackers, Punk Capitalists, Graffiti Millionaires and Other Youth Movements are Remixing Our Culture and Changing Our World by Matt Mason. I posted a link to Amazon to buy the book but it’s free to download (you choose the price) from the Official website. I’ll start by saying that this is a great well-researched book for anyone who is (a) a pirate (b) a creator (c) a media exec or (d) wanting to look at the history and origins of piracy in context. Mason starts off from the odd perspective of introducing us to the punk revolution. The entire first chapter is devoted to punk capitalism. Whilst I think this has it’s place in the history of piracy, I didn’t think it was necessary to devote … Read entire article »
Bookshelf: The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explains Almost Everything
I just finished reading The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explains Almost Everything. I read it in part because I’m interested in big picture ideas and why things are the way they are, and partly because it’s coming from the same approach and school of thought as another book I read last year – Freakonomics . Not that Freakonomics and The Economic Naturalist are teaching exactly the same subject or entirely in agreement, the ‘school of thought’ I refer to is to examine cultural, historical and environmental mindsets and events and try to determine the reasoning behind such things. I’ll start by saying it’s a good book and it did cause me to learn a few things, but I didn’t find it as good a read as Freakonomics. For a start I found the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Bookshelf, Worthwhile Reading
2 Months on The Shangri-La Diet
I don’t have the greatest eating habits, and I don’t diet well either. I’m too finicky and enjoy sweet things way too much. So when I heard about the Shangri La diet a year ago I was intrigued. It wasn’t until summer 2009 that I finally picked up the book. We were visiting family in BC and I spotted it in a second hand book shop. I only got round to reading it this January and before I was half way through I was eager to give it a go. The theory is based on science and self-experimentation by Seth Roberts. The idea is that we all have a set-point (a food thermostat) and the higher the set-point, the longer it will take for us to feel full (just as a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Must Read, Troubleshooting
Bookshelf: Beam Me Up, Jesus
I picked up this book, by Jim Gerard (who is apparently a comedian) expecting a witty, well-researched, ‘Louis Theroux’ look into end-times rapture pop culture – the cousin of Christian theology that we don’t mention in polite company, but I must have been thinking of another book and mistook it for this one. To be fair to Gerard, he does offer a disclaimer right at the start and this should be taken as a pitch for the humour and intellect level to be expected – “If you’re a secular humanist who believes in reason rather than magic fixers, this book will provide that warm feeling of smug superiority.” The book does start off well, the first few chapters and the Readers Digest version of the Book of Revelation really did make me … Read entire article »
Bookshelf: The End of America
I picked up this book in the Borders sell off, it wasn’t one I was desperate to read, but it piqued my interest. End of America, the: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot, by Naomi Wolf was first published in 2007 and is already starting to feel a little dated – reading it just 3 years later after a new President and the rhetoric of The War Against Terror (TWAT) is losing it’s appeal. The warnings contained however, are not dated, and will continue to be relevant to both Americans and future societies who aspire to a democratic ideal. Reading this book brought back memories for me of the last decade and my general disgust with the theme that the world had changed and would never be the same again … Read entire article »
The Biggest Pirates of All: Stealing from the Public Domain
I was reading a topic on Slashdot the other day about the public disclosure of Google’s internal emails in its court battle with Viacom, that seem to take the shine off Google’s “Do No Evil” image. I’m not particularly invested in this news itself, but what cause me to stop and think was this comment from user drDugan (emphasis mine): What’s more evil? You know what’s evil? Copyright term of “70 years + life of the author”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term [wikipedia.org] Almost every single thing creative that someone creates today will *never* enter the public domain within our lifetime. Nothing. The owner of the copyright must explicitly grant it to the public domain, or license it for other’s use, distribution, sharing, mashing, basically anything more than fair use… Copyright is no longer about promotion of creativity, its … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Distractions
Bookshelf: The Morello Letters
I recently finished reading The Morello Letters from Monster Publishing. Jon Snow, who is featured in the book as one of the recipients of RM Morello’s letters is quoted on the cover as saying “The funniest collection of spoof letters I have ever read!” The concept, though not original is always good for a laugh. A typical oddball character writing letters to famous and/or powerful people in order to provoke a response. Unlike Jon Snow however, I’ve seen it done better, in the form of From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters. If you want to see some hilariously written letters then this is the one to read. The thing is I didn’t find Morello’s letters particularly funny, they were rambling and slightly tedious. However Morello does score above Toth in one … Read entire article »
Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks
I recently finished reading this book so I thought I’d share my opinion. Now I must declare my bias, I really like zombie stories, but I tend to go for the movie/graphic novel kind so this was a first to read a zombie story in book format. I also haven’t read the Zombie Survival Guide (the other book by Max Brooks) but it’s had good reviews. That said, I have mixed opinions of this book on the whole so I’ll start with the good. The fictional story is set sometime in the near future (from what I can tell) after a worldwide apocalyptic war against the undead. There are only hints of how the infection came about, but this is not essential to the plot, which is more a collection of survivors … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Bookshelf, Worthwhile Reading
Book Review: Charles Mackay’s Extrodinary Popular Delusions & The Madness of Crowds
“A modern-day interpretation of a finance classic” That was a long title for a short book. It’s not the actual Charles Mackay work, it’s a modernised version written by journalist Tim Phillips that basically summarises the important details and lessons that apply today, as much as (if not more than) they did back then. “Here’s the catch: we rarely spot bubbles as they occur. We can identify them with hindsight, but that’s not a lot of use if you’re investing. It takes a strong stomach, when a price keeps rising, to hold fast to your belief that it was fairly priced at half its current price.” Ch. 22 p. 45 Each chapter is broken down in to two concise pages and covers everything from the crusades to witchcraft and the dutch tulipomania to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Bookshelf, Must Read, Worthwhile Reading
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