Book reviews old and new mingle here.
Without knowing how we got to the cloud, there is no context with which to begin parsing what tech studies in the late twenty-tens should even look like. A Prehistory of the Cloud reminds the reader that for every software-as-solution, the hardware has to be somewhere. The only reason to give away this storage—shroud it with the cloud metaphor and make it appear limitless and eternal—is to incentivize each user to upload everything without thought.
Read MoreThe writing is ultracasual, colloquial, conversational. Its subject matter is linguistic didacticism, phonetic gestalts, Sapir-Whorf boundaries. The writing takes deep and engaging subject matter and makes it approachable. Most importantly, it is fun to read.
Read MoreClose attention to the text—constant engagement with the language itself rather than just the concepts the text is attempting to explain—is what it means to actually read a book.
Read MoreUnlike cricket, which technically I suppose I only vaguely understand, the category termed objectivist means almost nothing to me. Meant. Meant almost nothing to me, before this book. So when I say a solid third of this book is spent dismantling objectivism, well, it’s not fun for the neophyte. Have you ever heard someone talking—at length—about why Sachin Tendulkar, given modern bowls, should be considered as good a batsman as Don Bradman? You might end up knowing a bit about both Bradman and Tendulkar if you put your mind to deciphering their discourse, but you probably won’t walk away learning any fundamentals of cricket, the sport of choice for the two I just mentioned.
Read MoreI AM ERROR elucidates the functional, physical aspects of the Famicom and applies that knowledge onto the end product; it is why Mario looks the way he looks, or moves the way he moves; why the bushes and clouds in Super Mario Bros. are made from the same tiles.
Read MoreWrit large, this beneficial-to-me contract-breaking underlies the inherent incompatibility of capitalism with the decency; it shows that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is a crock of shit designed to justify self-service, that cost benefit analyses are soulless and destructive. They thrive only because they are easily automated, a danger to society that bolsters a palatable vision of capital accumulation: a simple—and repulsive—way to keep score in an immeasurable and vast existence.
Read MoreIn fiction, authors need to be subtle. In reality, people aren’t. At all. So they do all sorts of mind-bendingly stupid things that no work of fiction would be able to pull off without being ridiculed
Read MoreAt no point did I ever want to stop reading, however, because each paragraph unlocks another piece of a grand mosaic that eventually leads to a more vivid mental image of current China.
Read More
