The Efficiency Paradox by Edward Tenner

I knew I had to read this book once I saw it because the title is too good to resist. Plus everyone is generally so positive about big data I was quite interested to see some criticism of it.

First, a definition of efficiency. The author defines it as “producing goods, providing services or information, or processing transactions with a minimum of waste”. The book basically goes through the history of the idea of efficiency and then goes on to discuss specific examples: the internet and democratisation of information, teaching, GPS, and medicine.

The way I see it, the entire argument can be summed into: automating things can be inefficient because innovation requires serendipity (which algorithms cannot provide). In other words, innovation requires inefficiency, i.e. ‘wasted’ or failed ideas.

To be honest, I’m not entirely convinced by some of the arguments. I can see how innovation may require ‘waste’, but for specific examples like GPS, it may be that we don’t have enough information to for the algorithms to be useful. Same for teaching - the bigger the database, the easier it is for lessons to be customised for the student.

And for some things, like medicine, I feel that the argument took the wrong direction: the author argues that automated note-taking doesn’t make things more efficient as doctors still spend a lot of time on the computer, but the author doesn’t discuss how the shared information may make the process more efficient if the patient moves between departments. So I felt this was more of a misdirected argument (and not that relevant to the central premise).

Another example would be the argument about ‘waylosing’ (finding something unexpected when you get lost). I agree that it does have benefits, but I don’t think that ‘the inefficient wanderer, on the other hand, will be using his or her time more efficiently by discovering what is less documented, or even undocumented.’ That really depends on your aim in travelling - to learn something new or to get from point A to point B.

Overall, I thought that the book was interesting, but it didn’t really fulfil the ‘promise’ of telling me the limitations of big data. Instead, the arguments in the book talk more about how we’re misusing the platform innovations, which is interesting but not quite the point. Perhaps these are the ‘limitations’ that the subtitle was talking about, but there really should be a clearer line between the limitations and the purpose of each technology.

Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg

I decided to read this book because it was recommended in Trust Me, I’m Lying, which I thought was an excellent read. Unlike Trust Me, I’m Lying, which was about media manipulation, Say Everything focuses on the history and impact of blogs, which is definitely right up my alley.

I say ‘history’, but it’s really about the first fifteen years and focuses on key people during a certain era of blogging. The book starts with Justin Hall, who intentionally revealed his life online, continues with Dave Winter, who moved from a mailing list to a blog, and continues on. It covers the period from when blogging was new to when it became mainstream and includes the invention of Blogger, the rise of political blogging, and of course, blogging for profit.

Obviously, this is a lot to take in, so I’m glad that the book focuses on specific people, branching out from them to the larger blogging environment. That made it easier to see the rise of the ‘blogosphere’ and how the word went from weblog to blog (and now the word weblog sounds so foreign and archaic!)

The last part of the book takes a look at the effects of blogs, namely journalists vs bloggers, what happens when everyone blogs (the author is actually quite positive about it) and how blogs can develop in the age of Facebook and Twitter. He isn’t as cynical as Ryan Holliday, which makes me quite positive about my compulsive habit of starting blogs.

I now want to read a book about the history of RSS. Any recommendations?

Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holliday

I just finished this and this is definitely a must read! It’s super eye-opening, although it’s also very disheartening and will make you very cynical. So prepare yourselves for a long review because I’m really going to summarise this book.

Trust Me, I’m Lying is basically a book about exposing the dark side of online/modern media. It’s broken into two parts and to start, let’s go back in time to the history of newspapers.

First, there was the party press, which was to explain party policies to members. This is mainly editorial and based on a subscription model. After that came the yellow press, which fought for daily sales. Since they had to sell themselves anew every day, they relied on gossip and sensation. The third stage is the modern stable press, which went back to subscriptions. Since there was a fairly stable income, they had room for more nuance and discussion, and reputation started to matter more than notoriety. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, because the paper had to please its readers, but it was better than yellow journalism.

Right now, however, the internet/new media is in the yellow press stage. Blogs (the books generic term for everything on the internet) make money by generating pageviews (for the ads). Scoops lead to traffic which lead to money, which means that there’s a built in incentive for sensationalism. And with the thousands of blogs competing for your attention, there isn’t much incentive to take the time to fact-check, because that time could mean that you break the news second, not first.

These blogs get their news by something called ‘trading up the chain’. Holliday defines the chain as having three big stages: an entry point (small, local blogs), legacy media (sites like wired), and national news (New York times). Because they want to break the news, blogs will look downwards to the smaller sites for ‘scoops’, which means that if you can disseminate information at the entry level, it can reach the big leagues.

To add to that, the time-pressed nature of journalism (thanks to the CNN effect) means that journalists are dependent on self-interested sources, which can be easily manipulated (sites like HARO - Help A Reporter Out basically ask people to submit tips). And because they need to churn out articles, press releases and Wikipedia can be used to make news too.

In fact, this digital news environment is a product of the link economy, which “is designed to conform and support, not to question and correct.” If you think about the origins of PageRank (Google’s algorithm), which uses the number of links back to a page to judge relevance, then it’s easy to see how a vicious cycle of fake news is created.

I’m guessing you can see how all this can be manipulated - you can plant fake news at the lower levels and use the news cycle to ‘alter reality’ (he uses the example of how he defaced Tucker Max’s billboards to raise awareness of Tucker Max’s books). You can also bribe reporters, not only with free gifts, but the hope of future jobs and tips that help them with their current jobs.

Even in Singapore, you can see how it works. For example, sites like mothership often use Facebook posts and even Dayre posts as ‘news’ sources. And what about the time someone discovered that the same few people were forever being quoted in the articles by the Straits Times?

So the first part is on how the news is made and can be manipulated. A few other points that I thought were good included:

- Headlines tend to be ambiguous (and he also repeated something I’ve heard and believe: if the headline asks a question, the answer is probably ‘no’?)

- People tend to believe the news is what’s important, instead of realising that the news is content that made it past the filters

- There is a trend towards shorter, easier to read pieces which tend to take the nuance out of things.

The second part of the book names some of the worst media manipulators and looks at the effects of this new digital news environment.

People Holliday names as master manipulators include Irin Carmon, Breitbart, Steve Bannon, James O’Keefe, and Charles Johnson. He also talks a lot about how this news environment contributed to fake news and made three very interesting points:

First, the best way to get your message out is to make your critics angry. When they’re angry, they’ll respond and invariably spread your message. Your best bet is to stay quiet and let them embarrass themselves.

Two, there is something called narcotising dysfunction, where we “mistake the business of the media with real knowledge and confuse spending time consuming that with doing something.”

Third, that you can recognise snark when you realise that there is no way to reply to it because it doesn’t actually have any substance. It’s just an effective way to dismiss criticisms that one doesn’t like and enforce social norms.

So, where do we go from here? Holliday mentions a re-emergence of the subscription model, citing the New York Time’s new paywall model. He doesn’t talk about mention patreon, but I think it could also help with breaking the “need for page-views” cycle. If people trust you enough to pay for your stories, then you don’t have as much pressure to push out unverified stories.

For example, if you trust sgbudgetbabe and her investment analysis (and there is absolutely no reason to trust her), you could choose to support her patreon and get her analysis first. That support will help her to continue being able to give unbiased investment news and analysis.

He also mentions the need to draw a line in the sand, which is something that Singapore does (I suppose I should add that I never really found the rules here draconian since you’ll be fine if you tell the truth).

The appendix is also worth reading since it contains articles and interviews with people who admit manipulating the news (including the guy who convinced newspapers that chocolate would help you lose weight)

I already knew some of this, but I never knew it was that bad, so if you’re curious about how the news work, or even if you’re not, you need to read this. It’s probably going to dishearten you because you’ll see how easily the news can be manipulated (and has been manipulated) but knowledge is power and if we want to be informed citizens, we must know how to get to the truth.

Books mentioned in this book (which I’m going to read)

1. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg

2. Being Wrong: Adventures in the margin of error by Katherine Schulz

3. So You’ve been publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (I’ve read this and it’s a fantastic read if you wanna look into the whole online shaming thing).

4. Not a book, but the article on how to be an Amazon Bestseller by someone in his company is a hoot! I read it a couple of years ago but didn’t connect the article with this book until he mentioned it.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

I’ve been wanting to read this ever since I’ve heard of it. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is an exploration of a (not so) modern phenomenon - public shaming. By talking to many people who have been shamed one way or the other and how they’ve adapted to it, Jon Ronson tries to understand the issue.

People interviewed in this book included Justine Stacco (of the misguided tweet), Mike Daisy (of This American Life’s Apple factory episode infamy), Lindsey Stone (of the disrespectful photo) and many more. Along the way, Jon Ronson also explores the idea of the mob mentality, the radical honesty movement, and if our google search results are forever.

By the end of the book, Jon Ronson reaches the conclusion that “we see ourselves as nonconformist, but I think all of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age [...] We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.”

I agree with this observations, but I’m in two minds about whether it’s good or bad. On one hand, we should allow people to have a diverse range of opinions. On the other hand, we shouldn’t condone hate speech against other races, religions, or people advising others to do unethical or illegal things. So where do we draw the line? Can we draw a line?

What I liked about this book was the portrayal of the various people interviewed. Some of them were exposed for things I would personally find repugnant, but I found empathy for all of them. The only one I didn’t like was Adria Richards, because she was an unrepentant hypocrite (although no one should ever have to go through what she has). On the other hand, the man she (wrongly) shamed was a lot more likeable and sympathetic.

In conclusion, if you’re interested in exploring the issue of modern public shaming and how people react to it, you should give this book a go. Just a word of caution: some of the chapters involve a discussion of things like BDSM so I wouldn’t recommend this to younger teens.

The Darkening Web by Alexander Klimburg

This book feels like something that I might have been made to read in one of my tutorials, which is probably why I requested it from Netgalley.

The Darkening Web is basically a book that explains the various aspects of cyberspace and why we are all vulnerable. Seriously, if this doesn't make you paranoid and/or give up on privacy on the internet, you probably haven't read this.

This book covers the basics of cyber security, hackers, the US's history and stance on cyber security, cyber attacks by Russia and China (seriously these two countries are insane. I find China scarier but that's probably it's closer to me), and what may happen in the future. Each topic gets about three chapters of its own, with the exception of the first part.

The book does go into the basics of the internet, but I think that if you don't have a basic knowledge of the end-2-end principal (which is basically net neutrality aka all websites are treated equally) or other web fundamentals, you may find it a little hard to keep up. By the way, this is one of the scenarios that may happen:

If the free internet and the cyber-sovereignty factions cannot find a workable detente, then the best we can hope for is the splitting of the global Internet into wholly national Internets, potentially even complete with their own routing and address structure. In truth, we are already halfway there: as research by the Internet pioneer (and senior Google executive) Vin Cerf and others show, the global Internet is already largely split into different identifiable segments.

What this basically means that if we continue on the current path, with the Great Firewall, Russia stepping up its cyber-attacks and much more, we could end up in our own little silos, which is even worse than what is going on now (and it's not very good now either). And this is the not-so-bad scenario (out of the bad scenarios). Worse scenarios could involve the state using the internet to spy on citizens and change their behaviour.

If you don't think that this could happen (or is just a Chinese sci-fi story - read something similar last year), well, in 2015, there was a report saying that the Chinese government is planning to introduce a mandatory social-credit scheme in 2020. But there's only one directive now so hopefully this doesn't come to pass (and the one directive is that this is to 'foster a culture of sincerity' which sounds a lot like 'influencing behaviour' to me).

This could be worse than Stomp.

In conclusion, this is a tough read, made harder by the fact that it's topical and with no real overarching narrative that I could see. It does, however, cover an important issue that applies to all of us on the internet, and for that alone, I'd recommend everyone borrow/buy a copy and read as much as they understand.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

Turing's Imitation Game by Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah

As part of the Industry 4.0 research two years ago, we studied a little bit about Artificial Intelligence. And that, of course, includes the Turing Test, a very interesting experiment where a machine tries to convince a judge that it's human via conversation. So when I saw this book, I jumped at the chance to read it and learn more.

Turing's Imitation Game starts with an introduction of Turing the man. That short introduction is actually really readable. And then it's Part 1, which is about AI and the Turing Test. The first few chapters are pretty easy, but once it gets into the controversies, the book starts to turn technical and theories are very quickly mentioned rather than carefully explained (although it's still possible to follow along). Part 3 is about the experiments that the writers did - the 2008, 2012 and 2014 tests, with an interview of several elite machine developers. This was the driest section of them all, though I found the interviews to be interesting.

And luckily for me, I did learn a lot from the book. One thing I thought was worth remembering is that:

A key feature of the Turing imitation game is not whether a machine gives a correct or incorrect response or indeed a truthful or untruthful one, but rather if it gives the sort of response that a human might give, so that an interrogator cannot tell the difference.

So this isn't really about artificial intelligence, but more of whether machines can imitate human behaviour. So this does lead to all sorts of interesting questions, such as "when machines can imitate humans perfectly, are they conscious?" Or "what is human consciousness anyway?" And "didn't that movie about the guy falling in love with the computer voice talk about this?" (Oh wait, the last one is just me?)

If you're interesting in how machines work and if we'll ever be replaced or ruled by robots, you might want to read this. Turing's imitation game provides a nice starting point for one to consider what the nature of thinking and consciousness involves, and this book gives a realistic picture of how close computers are to fooling humans (as of 2014, at the very least).

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a fee and honest review.

The Happiness Effect by Donna Freitas

With a subtitle like "How Social Media is Driving a Generation To Appear Perfect At Any Cost", how could I not request this book from NetGalley?

Based on interviews with many students across campuses in America, The Happiness Effect looks at social media and topics like:

- The importance of being 'Liked'

- The Professionalisation of Facebook

- Selfies

- Religion on (and Off) social media

- Anonymity (like Yik Yak)

- Bullying

- Facebook official

- Smartphones

- Taking a Timeout

and so on. It's mostly a collection of interviews, so the voices of the students really shine through.

For me, I really loved this book. A lot of what it says rings true. It is, however, very country-specific. For example, most of my Singaporean friends on 'Facebook' don't seem to do the 'Professionalism' thing, while it's the total opposite in Japan. In Japan, Facebook is like LinkedIn. It seems to be the same in America, where Facebook and Twitter are considered 'Professional'. On the other hand, it seems like Twitter is to Japan what Snapchat is to America.

So the book may not be very relevant once you're out of America. Still, it is fairly relevant, because we are getting more and more dependent on smartphones. And the chapter of anonymity and how people start refraining from giving the unpopular opinion reminded me why some people use apps Dayre - because it provides a greater level of anonymity than Facebook (though of course, it is not totally anonymous. But that is probably related to a discussion of Networked Privacy).

"Our devices and our compulsive posting and checking are helping us flee ourselves."

I actually agree a lot with this quote. I've been very restless lately, and I realise that I pick up my smartphone whenever my brain doesn't want to engage. While I don't post much, I do lurk a lot, and that's not a good thing. It is time for me to add a bit more of intentional stillness into my life.

Ok, this is a rather disjointed review, but I wanted to end with this quote:

"What I have called the happiness effect throughout his book - the requirement to appear happy on social media regardless of what a person actually feels - is an effect of our own making. We are the ones who have created this problem. Young adults have internalised the lesson that if you want say anything happy, you shouldn't say anything at all, even if you feel despair, dismay, anger, or any number of other emotions common to human experience, from us."

This book isn't out yet, but I think that if you're at all interested in thinking about social media, you should definitely get it once it's published.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly

I borrowed this book because it seems like it'd be related to the Black Zemi. It is, but this is something that I should have read before I entered - it is that introductory.

The Inevitable is basically about the 12 forces that will change society forever. According to the author, they are:

1. Becoming (we're gonna require constant upgrades)

2. Cognifying (Artificial Intelligence)

3. Flowing (Things are going to be readily available, and in small bits)

4. Screening (like it says - everything on a screen)

5. Accessing (people are gonna stream stuff, not buy it)

6. Sharing (What is mine is yours and all that. It's about who owns information)

7. Filtering (welcome the algorithms)

8. Remixing (fan made PVs, Fanfiction is gonna be the future)

9. Interacting (Virtual Reality is the future)

10. Tracking (every single thing about you will be recorded and stored)

11. Questioning (We will find more and more new questions)

12. Beginning (The Future is Now)

And then there are like 50 pages of notes, which showed me the book was surprisingly well-researched. I say surprisingly because most of it seemed to be from the author's personal experience, or his personal vision of the future. Personally, I was hoping for something more in-depth.

I was also a little disappointed that he didn't cover some topics - in Filtering, for example, he didn't mention the disintermediated industries, and how that poses a challenge for filtering.

There was also a too-rosy picture of everything. I like most of the technologies here (and have defended some of them to more skeptical teachers and classmates), but even I was like "whoa there" in a number of chapters.

There were so many missed opportunities - for example, though he mentioned that people tend to overshare when given the choice, the issue of networked privacy didn't come out. That could have been a valuable discussion in how people's views and expectations of privacy changes with advancements in technology. And all the legal challenges that will come were largely left out. Not to mention challenges in defining the open standards necessary.

So even though there was some mention of potential problems, it wasn't a balanced coverage by any means.

While the book isn't bad (it's probably aimed towards the complete newbie), I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. For forces that will change the world, I much prefer The Shift by Lynda Gratton. And of course, the 'counter argument' to this will be Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Liveblogged Book Review: Blur by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel

Hello! I don't do this very often, but occasionally, I liveblog reviews on my Dayre. Normally when I have a lot of time. And well, this is probably way, way more detailed and longer than usual, but I wanted to share it too :D Have a good weekend! 

Chapter 1 reminds me a lot of SS. Basically, there are six steps in "the way of skeptical knowing". They are:

1. Identify the kind of content
2. Determine if the news is complete
3. Assess sources
4. Assess evidence
5. How do new news models interact with evidence? (Is there an alternative explanation or understanding?)
6. Are we getting what we need?

Ok, so only the first three are like SS. But I guess this is like the summary of the book before we even dive in.

Chapter 2 is a brief history of how we obtained news, and the summary is: this is not new. With every advancement in technology, we gained more access to more types of news. Now, we can get the information we want when we want it, not only when the newspaper comes or when it's the 6pm/9pm/10pm news.

Today, as more and more of our news comes second or third hand, as journalists increasingly are kept at a distance from original sources by communications "managers", and consumers become our own editors and sometimes their own journalists, how do we decide for ourselves whether something is true?

Chapter three starts with the different types of content - "news, propaganda, advertising, publicity, entertainment or raw information." The fact that all these can be mixed reminds me of the Gushcloud hooha, where advertising was made to look like opinion. That's why we have to learn how to discern what is what.

The book also talks about four types of journalism:

1. Verification - the traditional model, focusing on accuracy and context.
2. Assertion - a model that values immediacy and volume.
3. Affirmation - a media based on affirming the beliefs of its audience
4. Interest-group - groups with a vested interest in something (like lobby groups, companies, etc) putting out something that looks and sounds like news, but probably just furthers their own agenda.

By the way, social networks and the likes are forms of communication, not models of content.

How to tell what is what? For verification, look for stories that have multiple sources, that will admit what they do or do not know. Assertion is more or less based on the flow of information. The affirmation model reminds me a lot of what The Filter Bubble says, and well, I think we all know what special interest journalism is. It's just hard to identify it.

Chapter 4 opens with Crewdson, who sounds like an awesome journalist, I kinda want to read some of his stuff now.

So, how do we know if the story is complete?

Well, the basic news story is to have the facts which raise questions.

And since we're talking about facts, if you see fragments of facts but not the whole picture, that's the assertion model. If you see cherry picked facts plus lots of speculation and opinion, it's probably the affirmation model. The affirmation model also tends to use rhetorical questions.

The word news implies things are me and from all around - North, East, West, South; the points on a compass spell out the word news.

This chapter also talks about the types of stories there are - explanatory, authentication, etc.

Chapter 5 is on sources. The central question here is "what are the sources and why should I believe them?" The types of sources mentioned are:

- sourceless: perhaps a public event that everyone can see. This doesn't need special sourcing
- the journalist as witness
- the journalist as credentialed expert
- firsthand accounts

There is, however, the problem of time. Memory can be manipulated, even when the witness doesn't recognise it. That's why corroboration is important.

Other sources include participants (who are not witnesses), expert sources (who may or may not be biased) and of course, the anonymous source.

By the way, beware buzzwords, which can indicate a story is biased in someway, and is basically used to subtly try and persuade you to think a certain way.

Chapter 6 is on "Evidence and the Journalism of Verification". The question here is "What evidence is present, and how was it tested or vetted?" I guess this is when we start using our SS skills 😂

The chapter uses the Sago case and the alleged John McCain affair to talk about why we need to verify evidence. And how do we check? We should expect a few things:

1. Enough evidence
2. Disproved evidence to have had a fair hearing
3. Acknowledgement of the unknown
4. Coverage to continue

Chapter 7 can be summed as "you really need to make sure the facts are verified and in context". It's basically an elaboration of Chapter 6, with a lot more examples and methods on how you can try to verify the evidence presented.

Chapter 8 asks, "do I know what I need to know?". The first half of the chapter talks more about the different methods that journalists use to discover a story, and the second half is on what we can do to "fulfil our larger responsibilities as news consumers"

Methods include: can I explain this to someone, using questions to test if you have the whole picture, making a list, and others.

But again, I'm reminded of The Filter Bubble. If news is increasing personalised to us, there's an excellent chance that we don't even know what we're missing, and if we don't know that we're ignorant, how can we evaluate the extent of our ignorance?

The last chapter, chapter 9, is titled "What we need from the 'Next Journalism' " It's more for journalists, and talks about the role of the press and what they need to change. Some of the stuff seems to conflict with what I read in The Filter Bubble, so I will have to check that out. (Note to self: check out State of the Media)

And then it's the epilogue and appendix, which doesn't seem to over anything new. It's more of a summary of the book.

Overall, this was an excellent read. And if you read this, I totally suggest reading The Filter Bubble before or after, because both books cover the question of what and how we know, but from two totally different angles.

The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser

This book was published in 2011, so when I picked it up, I was a little worried that the information would be outdated or irrelevant. But I was wrong, and if anything, it's more important than usual (although some of the examples are a little dated). The subtitle of this book is: How the New Personalised Web is Changing What We Read and How We Think, and it basically sums up the book.

In other words, this book is about our virtual lives. Currently, our Google search results, our Facebook feeds, and now our Instagram feeds, are all personalised to what the algorithms think we want. And while this is good in some ways, there are downsides to this as well.

For one, it tends to create an echo chamber. Don't like someone's stance on something? Facebook will notice, and after a while, you won't see that anymore. It might seem nice, but how are we supposed to walk the metaphorical mile in someone other's shoes if we can't even see their shoes?

Another thing would be the tendency for the algorithms to give us what we want  instead of what we need (in terms of news). Unless we're highly engaged with the world and make a deliberate effort to seek other points of view, we might end up with a newsfeed that ignores major events in favour of Hollywood gossip because that's what we click on. Obviously, this can be detrimental to our ability to listen to other viewpoints. It may even affect our creativity.

If you're interested in social media and how the Internet can change you, you should give this book a read. It's easy to read, with little to no jargon, but it talks about a very important aspect of the Internet that not many of us consider.

The God's Eye View by Barry Eisler

When I heard about The God's Eye View, I was instantly intrigued. I mean, I embrace our google/amazon/what-have-you overloads as much as the next person, but I am the sort that never turns on location. Even if it means "find my iPhone" is pretty much more or less useless. The God's Eye View is a thriller that basically confirmed that I should be, if anything, even more cautious.

Basically, in the novel, the NSA has built this terrifying surveillance system called The God's Eye View. With it, everyone can be (and probably is) monitored 24/7. However, when news of this system falls into the hands of a journalist, Anders, the director of the NSA, employs more and more extreme measures to shut him up.

Coming into this mess is Evie, an NSA employee who's beginning to have doubts about what she's doing. But when the man who's sent to spy on her falls in love with her... Well, that's where the NSA's plans start to unravel.

The scary thing about this book is that it could totally be real. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the tech companies (Google, Facebook) already employ some form of this, as a way of data mining. We just sign away our rights without reading the fine print.

Apart from the plausibility of this scenario coming to life/already present, what I found interesting about this book were the characters. There were sides, yes, but each side believed that it was right. It's a bit like Cory Doctorow's Little Brother - are you for privacy, or will you give it up to potentially catch terrorists? The villain of the piece wasn't out for world/country domination. He just assumed that his methods were the best way to protect his country.

While the book has a somewhat happen ending (for the time being), the ending also leaves the possibility of a repeat incident happening in the future. When you get drunk on power, and have unlimited access to information, it's too easy to lose your humanity.

And a warning for the squeamish: there are graphic sexual and violent scenes in the book. I had to skip quite a few pages myself.

Overall, a well-written thriller, and one that will probably make the reader paranoid (or even more paranoid) about having her movements tracked. Looks like just not turning on the GPS isn't enough.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

The Shift by Lynda Gratton

This was recommended to me by a Japanese friend - he read the Japanese version, which is titled "Work Shift" and confused me because I could NOT find a book by that title. But eventually I found it, and woah, is it a thought provoking read.

The book goes like this. First, the author identifies what she thinks are the most important macro-trends taking place. Next, she looks at six possible aspects of the future, three positive and three negative.

The negative aspects are:
1. Fragmentation - a world where a multitude of things constantly demand our attention.

2. Isolation - a world where the reliance on virtual technology and working from home has led to a dramatic decrease (and almost elimination) of face-to-face meetings.

3. Exclusion - ok, this was a bit hard for me to swallow, because exclusion exists even now. According to the author, the difference is that

"the axis of exclusion has shifted from where you are born to your natural talents and motivations and the specifics of your personal connections." 

To be very clear, I don't think the "specifics of your personal connections" part is a good thing, because it's got a lot relying on who you are born too, which is not something anyone can choose. But the natural talents and motivations bit? It sounds like a fairer world to me. The case study involved a girl who loves World of Warcraft and spends at least four hours a day on it.

Assuming that everyone gets the same baseline education, then I see nothing wrong in a smart and ambitious kid from Vietnam or Cambodia beating out a kid from a Western nation, who prioritises games. If there was a failing in the education system, or some intentional bias in there, then yeah, I see a problem, but other than that, I'm fine with it. I don't think that "where you are born" should determine that you get a better life than someone. "Natural talents and motivations" sounds a lot more meritocratic to me.

Again, I am assuming the same baseline education (i.e. everyone who wants to learn can learn), and that even if you choose to work only part-time because you want to game, you are still able to earn a living. Not a luxurious living, with trips overseas or fancy food, but enough to buy the groceries and pay the bills. I understand the future may be a lot more nuanced, but the way the author expresses the idea means that I don't totally agree that it's a terrible thing. And obviously, the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor is a bad thing too.

The positive aspects are:

1. Co-creation - Working with many people to solve large problems

2. Social engagement - Better work life balance, increased empathy and an option for people who want to, to be able to do meaningful work/take time off from work for long stretches to do volunteer work.

3. Micro-entrepreneurship - People making a living through ecosystems.

After this, the author identifies three shifts that we need to make:

1. From shallow generalist to serial master.

2. From isolated competitor to innovative connector

3. From voracious consumer to impassioned producer.

With recent events like the rise of ISIS and the sudden drop in oil prices may affect the accuracy of the predictions (either by delaying them or changing them), what I appreciated about the book was that it was truly global in outlook. Most of the time, all these books focus on the West, which makes does not really apply to a very large segment of the world. But this book has research done in India, Singapore (our Ministry of Manpower was a sponsor too), and the futures, while do not mention Singapore, are set in Brazil, India etc. I found this very refreshing, and made the arguments more compelling to me, because they seemed more relevant.

 The other thing I liked was the use of 'case studies', where they imagine someone's life in 2025. It makes the concepts a lot easier to understand, especially since things like fragmentation can be a bit confusing.

Overall, this is a though-provoking book, and one that I would encourage everyone to read (Also, you can tell that a book is good when even some time after reading it, it makes a big enough impression that you use it in your arguments on why we do not necessarily need to fear that the future will dehumanise us, even if it is a possibility).

The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain

This is technically a book that I'm reading for one of my tutorials, but I find that I need to write things down, to get some order to my thoughts.

The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It is, to me, a warning. The internet came about about because it had the element of generativity. Generativity is "a system's capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences." Basically, because people can add things to the internet, it grew so fast. But now, we're shifting away from generativity to what the author calls "sterile" appliances. The threat of viruses and bad code makes people like me go to closed systems (like Apple), where screening is involved and I'm pretty sure that the apps I download aren't malware.

But, this shift threatens the essence on which the internet is built. So how are we going to combat this? The book talked about the Verkeersbordvrij experiment, where removing traffic signals actually reduced accidents, and points to the success of wikipedia as a way that social pressures instead of legal means can be used to prevent bad information (and possible, bad software) from being spread.

To me, this seems to involve the belief that the majority of people are good and those intending to make mischief can be reigned in. But as the book itself points out, there is now a business model for viruses, and I'm pretty sure that spam mail and the scam emails are making someone money. I believe even the wikipedia model has some flaws - too little eyes on it, and it may just falter (I think there was the Saved by the Bell wiki, that had its content changed, right?). It may be that the generative element works only when the audience size within a certain range.

Or maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical.

Maybe we can preserve the generative element that let the internet grow. After all, “generatively itself is, at its core, not a technology project. It is an education project, an exercise in intellect and community, the founding concepts of the universe.” It may be that the current and future generation of internet uses, the ones who grew up with the concept of the internet, are willing to be informed participants, who will demand the ability to mix and create new things out of the existing, who will use open-source software to its fullest potential. Things like fanvids (as insignificant as they seem) tell me that people taking a range of things and making something new from them.

Or they could be so used to apps that only the select few go beyond that to create apps and rewire parts of the internet.

Maybe, generativity will settle down to a more limited range in the future - we can mix and match and make things, but only using source data that is approved (or imported to the virtual world by ourselves). Would that strain of retained generativity be the real thing, or a false one, controlled by one of the larger tech companies?

I have no idea, but this book definitely gave me a lot of think about.

Now here's hoping I can write my book report.

Digital Wars by Charles Arthur

So thanks to the Understanding Media by Understanding Google course that ended recently, I developed an interest in Google, Apple, and the rest of the tech giants. So I was really happy to see this book in NetGalley.

Digital Wars looks at Apple, Google and Microsoft, and how each of them have been reacting to the digital age. Microsoft established its dominance early on, but Google has overtaken it since then, and Apple has turned out to be a formidable contender.

This book goes through a quick introduction, and looks at the Microsoft antitrust case. After that, it looks at Search, Digital Music, Smartphones, Tablets and China, and compares how each of these three companies have done in each respect. So while it's not a chronological narrative, it does capture a good snapshot of how each company has performed in a given field.

I found this book to be very easy to read and extremely interesting. I haven't really considered Microsoft at all, but this book has showed me that they have been trying to regain their former dominance - although they don't seem to be succeeding in search or digital music.

As the different types of technology start to converge, what with rumors of an Apple smart watch, the debut of Google Glass, Microsoft 8, anyone with an interest in the technology market should read this book. Understanding how these companies have been acting in the past will help understand what they're doing today.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

Long Reads #24 Special Edition: Understanding Media through Google

Hey, if you read my review yesterday (or follow me on Google+), you'd know that I'm taking this course called Understanding Media by Understanding Google. It's a really interesting course, and since this is the last week, I thought I'd share some of the readings that we were given. Click on the titles to get to the different articles(:

Pay to play: Can YouTube succeed with its paid channel subscriptions? by Janko Roettgers - I haven't had to pay for anything on Youtube, but I know of shows I will be willing to pay for. For example, if Toggle decides to charge to watch Phua Chu Kang (local Singapore comedy - I watch it whenever I'm feeling homesick) on Youtube, I would. Especially since Toggle doesn't stream it outside of Singapore. But, as a past Crunchyroll view who stopped once they started paying, I can say this much: If it's free somewhere online, I may not want to pay for it.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?: This paper talks about whether the Internet is changing how our brains work. For example, does it decrease our ability to absorb long essays and novels? Well, judging by the number of book blogs, I would say not. But what if we're an anomaly? I'd actually like to see some data for this, the statistical calculations would be fun to do.

The Freight Train That Is Android: What is Google's business model? This paper argues that not only does Google use a castle-and-moats strategy (castle = great business, moat = defence), they also scorch the earth, making it impossible, or at least very difficult, for others to compete with it. If you're into business, you'll want to read this paper.

Google+ Won (Or Why Google Never Needed a Social Network) - This is a short article, but it looks as Google+ not as a competitor to facebook, but as "the connective tissue between all of Google’s formerly scattered services." If you look at it this way, then despite all the complaints, yes, Google+ is a success.

Minus its leader, what's left at Google+ - After Vic Gundotra left, there was a lot of speculation about what would happen to Google+. One of the speculations in this article is that the Google+ stream would disappear. Say it isn't so!

This is really just a small selection of the readings. There are also quite a few books to read (I got my hands on two, the second review will come soon! The rest, I will find when I go back to Singapore). If you're interested in Google and/or Social Media, you should definitely take this course the next time it's available.

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

As part of my Understanding Media by Understanding Google Course, I was assigned several books. Unfortunately, none of them are available in the school library here, but thankfully, Scribd had a two of them. What Would Google Do is one of them,

To summarise the book in one sentence, it looks at what Google does, and how that will impact various fields such as Media, Public Welfare, Utlities, etc. Some of the areas that he looked at seemed very unlikely to be affected by Google, but the basic question asked is: what would happen if there was no middleman controlling the flow of information?

Whether you like the first part of the book, where he talks about how Google is changing things such as publicness, society, economy and others, or whether you prefer the case study is really a personal preference. Personally, I liked the first half of the book, but that's because the arguments brought up there were new to me and thus more interesting. The second half of the book is really an application of what the first half says, so it felt a bit repetitive at times.

This book is so optimistic that it's hard to be skeptical of what he's saying. The author is definitely persuasive when it comes to making a case for his new world. But, I wonder how much of it is applicable to countries such as China. For some, like how the media will change, I found his forecasts to be interesting and believable, but I still remain doubtful about whether his forecasts of things like healthcare will come true.

All in all, this book is an interesting read. If you're curious about Google and its impact on society today (and how it might impact us in the future), this is a good book to read. I'll leave you with a quote that I really like from the book:

We no longer need companies, institutions, or government to organise us. We now have the tools to organise ourselves. We can find each other and coalesce around political causes or bad companies or talent or business or ideas. We can share and sort our knowledge and behavior. We can communicate and come together in an instant. We also have new ethics and attitudes that spring from this new organisation and change society in ways we cannot yet see, with openness, generosity, collaboration, efficiency. We are using the internet's connective tissue to leap over borders - whether they surround countries or companies or demographics. We are reorganising society. 

Now You See It by Cathy N. Davidson

I realised that I've been taking a lot of breaks this year, but my sisters are coming over for a week (starting from tomorrow), so I won't be blogging, I'll be spending time with them!

I got this book as part of the The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education MOOC at Coursera. But that's not the point I want to make. The point I want to make is that I didn't realise that the author, also the professor in charge of the MOOC, is also the author of 36 Views of Mount Fuji! I remember reading the book and I liked it(:

Now You See It is divided into four parts. The first is about cognitive dissonance. The second is about technology and education/children. The third is about technology and the workplace. The last is about how brains are flexible. Out of all four sections, the second part (about kids/education) was the most interesting to me and left the strongest impression. For example, do video games really cause violence? Or do they help kids learn? (Apparently, 'televisions cause violence' was a thing when televisions first started, so this blame game with technology does seem cyclical). Of course, this book is focused on learning and technology, such as the Duke iPod experiment, which makes sense, seeing as Ms Davidson is a teacher.

Since I know nothing about neuroscience, I can't say if the science in this book is accurate or not. But I do think that a lot of the ideas in this book are interesting. For example, her student-led class (and the controversy that later became when she proposed to delegate the grade-giving process) was definitely food for thought, although I can't imagine something like this happening in Japan in the near future. But for ACS(I)/IB/Singapore JC[maybe], yes, I can see something like this, for perhaps one class.

This is an interesting and fairly easy-to-read book. Since there are basically four sections, you may want to just focus on the section that interests you most, but if you have the time and inclination, you should definitely read it through.

What The Plus by Guy Kawasaki

If you can't figure out from my sidebar, I'm a huge huge fan of Google+. I don't actually have a facebook page for this blog, but I do have a Google+ page. So when I saw this free ebook from Guy Kawasaki, I jumped on it.

What The Plus is a simple introduction to Google+. It's aimed at the completely uninitiated, although I did pick up some things I didn't know, and learnt a few tips. That said, it is aimed at turning someone into a power user. Personally, I'm fine with how I am now, and I don't need to get a huge increase in followers.

Plus, I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of the book - that Google+ is for passions. My Google+ actually only became really active (and a lot of fun), in December, when I met the NaNoWriMo community (HI EVERYONE! ~Waves~). I was one of the few people I knew doing this, so the community there was a huge help. Just reading their posts reminded me that I'm not alone, and that other people are struggling with me!

Of course, the hangouts were awesome (even though I only participated in one). I actually would like to participate in more hangouts, but there's a huge time difference for the ones I'd like to join.

The book has a lot of things: a chapter for us ladies, a chapter for us photographers (I'm a terrible amateur photographer), etc. It doesn't have one thing though: a chapter on communities. But admittedly, that is a very recent developement on Google+. I'm still feeling my way around, but if anyone has any tips on how to make them more fun, please tell me!

(And of course, if you're in Japan/interested in Japan and love to read, you can always join my community Readers in Japan. It's dual language, and really, all you need is to have bought books in Japan (for two categories), or read a Japanese book (for the rest). I'd really love it if you joined and added your two cents)

If you're new to Google+, or even if you're just curious, you should totally pick up this book. You can find it at this link.

Siri and Me by David Milgrim

When the iPhone 4s came out, there was immediately a lot of jokes about Siri. From the fact that it resembles the word "butt" in Japanese, to the various paraody advertisements. Like this Kirsten Stewart one:

So no matter what people say, Siri is now a phenoneman. And with siri being "the most amazing/smartest iphone yet", it was only a matter of time before someone fell in love with Siri.

This little book follows Dave as he develops a one-sided relationship with Siri (she repeatedly tries to get him to date a real girl). It's part short story, part comic book. It alternates between blog posts and comics.

Basically, this is a hilarious look at how we may be too over-reliant on techonology. It's not just Siri, it's every other device as well.

Read this, and wonder if you're too attached to whatever your pretty toy is

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

PressReader App

Alright so today, I'm going to review something that's not a book!

-cue the gasps of horror-

But it's related to reading though

-audible sighs of relief (with everyone thinking "we don't have to listen to more of her life")-

You see, a few weeks ago, Caleb from PressReader contacted me about their app. Since I arrived in Japan, I haven't really been reading the papers, and I was actually craving the papers back home. Naturally, I was interested in reviewing this app. And the clincher was the fact that you could read offline. Since I only have wifi during school hours (where I can't read), the availability of offline reading was very appealing.

I've been using the app for about a month now, and I'm dreading the thought of life without it. The folks at PressReader gave me a pretty cool account for the time being, and I've been able to read The Star and Today newspapers everyday (and now, Guardian Review every Saturday).

Obviously, I love the app for the offline reading. That means you have to download the issues, but I didn't have any space problems with it. For papers that you want to read everyday, you can actually subscribe, and have it "automatically" download everyday. The only caveat is that you have to open the app for the download to start.

And, there are a lot of newspapers to read. While there wasn't The Straits Times or The New York Times(I suspect it's because they have their own iPad app), there are many many newspapers. I made quite a lot of people happy by letting them read their home papers (like The Cape Times, or this Korean paper). So I suppose for most people, they could find their favourite newspaper here. And, if you really love to read the papers like me, you can actually browse and try a lot of different papers from around the world.

Navigation-wise, it's pretty obvious. I had some problems figuring out how to delete the papers I didn't want, but it turns out I overlooked the "edit" button at the bottom left-hand side. You can search for the paper by Country or Language, which I thought was quite useful.

Apart from a few times when the app crashed (I suspect that's because my iPad is pretty old and starting to have some hardware issues), the app runs perfectly. I don't have any complaints in this department.

Oh, and before I forget, this is really like a newspaper. There are a few times, where the feature/comic is cut of halfway because it's printed in the middle. You can view two pages at a time, but the pictures still look a little strange (As though someone printed a picture in the middle, then folded it like a book), and the text becomes really small. You can zoom in, but I like the font size on the single page option (in landscape mode).

The bottom line is that this app is really cool. If you love the papers like me (or you know, need to read them for school/research), then it's worth paying money for this (And I saw a few, like one or two papers, which was free and didn't cost money; so the poor students like me can stick to those). But if you read only one paper and pretty much ignore the rest, you might as well stick to the app made by the publisher of that company (like The Straits Times), which might have better formatting and extra content.

Disclaimer: I received a free trial account from the company in exchange for a free and honest review.