Tweeting in Tuk-Tuks: Digital Enlightenment in India


Book Description

The story of a man who came to India to work and then found very different, unusual things there. The book is written in the form of short exerpts in the social media age known as the 21st century. We hear the Om but don't recognise it; somewhere beside a pooing cow, a middle-class Indian is busy checking in with Foursquare while self-discovery tourists are searching for salvation. People are tweeting everywhere. This is a story of social media self-discovery - probably the first in the entire known universe. It took shape during travel, while all sorts of things were constantly happening around the author; while he was actually trying to land an important deal in India - or maybe not? India has never been so digital, but at the same time nor so colourful or so real. This book tells us why the aspiring country can still confuse us, even in the age of Facebook. It's a must-have for anyone who's had enough of traditional self-discovery literature.




Understanding Media


Book Description

When first published, Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.




The Art of Being Human


Book Description

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. "Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage," Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. "Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. ... It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one's hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a "heroic" profession." What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world's jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology. This 2018 text is a revision of the "first draft edition" from 2017 and includes 7 new chapters.




Distributed and Cloud Computing


Book Description

Distributed and Cloud Computing: From Parallel Processing to the Internet of Things offers complete coverage of modern distributed computing technology including clusters, the grid, service-oriented architecture, massively parallel processors, peer-to-peer networking, and cloud computing. It is the first modern, up-to-date distributed systems textbook; it explains how to create high-performance, scalable, reliable systems, exposing the design principles, architecture, and innovative applications of parallel, distributed, and cloud computing systems. Topics covered by this book include: facilitating management, debugging, migration, and disaster recovery through virtualization; clustered systems for research or ecommerce applications; designing systems as web services; and social networking systems using peer-to-peer computing. The principles of cloud computing are discussed using examples from open-source and commercial applications, along with case studies from the leading distributed computing vendors such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Each chapter includes exercises and further reading, with lecture slides and more available online. This book will be ideal for students taking a distributed systems or distributed computing class, as well as for professional system designers and engineers looking for a reference to the latest distributed technologies including cloud, P2P and grid computing. - Complete coverage of modern distributed computing technology including clusters, the grid, service-oriented architecture, massively parallel processors, peer-to-peer networking, and cloud computing - Includes case studies from the leading distributed computing vendors: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and more - Explains how to use virtualization to facilitate management, debugging, migration, and disaster recovery - Designed for undergraduate or graduate students taking a distributed systems course—each chapter includes exercises and further reading, with lecture slides and more available online




Standing up for a Sustainable World


Book Description

The world has witnessed extraordinary economic growth, poverty reduction and increased life expectancy and population since the end of WWII, but it has occurred at the expense of undermining life support systems on Earth and subjecting future generations to the real risk of destabilising the planet. This timely book exposes and explores this colossal environmental cost and the dangerous position the world is now in. Standing up for a Sustainable World is written by and about key individuals who have not only understood the threats to our planet, but also become witness to them and confronted them.




Leaving Australia, 'Again'


Book Description

Book 1 tells the story of adolescence in the 1960s and the journey beyond through the 1970s. Life of transformations through drugs, sex, religious cults in the United States told as an outsider to my own life. Book 2 tells the journey of being a male single parent in a foreign country. I tell the path that took one son all the way to being a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers to his death and the path of my other son from a difficult adolescence to a well-integrated human. My own path took me from being a high school drop out to a PhD and teaching at universities and seven years as a tofu manufacturer amongst many other attempts at finding a place in life.




Coding Freedom


Book Description

Who are computer hackers? What is free software? And what does the emergence of a community dedicated to the production of free and open source software--and to hacking as a technical, aesthetic, and moral project--reveal about the values of contemporary liberalism? Exploring the rise and political significance of the free and open source software (F/OSS) movement in the United States and Europe, Coding Freedom details the ethics behind hackers' devotion to F/OSS, the social codes that guide its production, and the political struggles through which hackers question the scope and direction of copyright and patent law. In telling the story of the F/OSS movement, the book unfolds a broader narrative involving computing, the politics of access, and intellectual property. E. Gabriella Coleman tracks the ways in which hackers collaborate and examines passionate manifestos, hacker humor, free software project governance, and festive hacker conferences. Looking at the ways that hackers sustain their productive freedom, Coleman shows that these activists, driven by a commitment to their work, reformulate key ideals including free speech, transparency, and meritocracy, and refuse restrictive intellectual protections. Coleman demonstrates how hacking, so often marginalized or misunderstood, sheds light on the continuing relevance of liberalism in online collaboration.




Pirate Cinema


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother, Cory Doctorow, comes Pirate Cinema, a new tale of a brilliant hacker runaway who finds himself standing up to tyranny. Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household's access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal. Trent's too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke. Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven't entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people's minds.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Art of UNIX Programming


Book Description

The Art of UNIX Programming poses the belief that understanding the unwritten UNIX engineering tradition and mastering its design patterns will help programmers of all stripes to become better programmers. This book attempts to capture the engineering wisdom and design philosophy of the UNIX, Linux, and Open Source software development community as it has evolved over the past three decades, and as it is applied today by the most experienced programmers. Eric Raymond offers the next generation of "hackers" the unique opportunity to learn the connection between UNIX philosophy and practice through careful case studies of the very best UNIX/Linux programs.




Very Thai


Book Description

This pioneering insight into contemporary Thai folk culture delves beyond the traditional Thai icons to reveal the casual, everyday expressions of Thainess that so delight and puzzle. From floral truck bolts and taxi altars to buffalo cart furniture and