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Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World

July 9, 2012

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Author:
Christopher Steiner
Publisher:
Portfolio Hardcover (2012)

The routing story of the last gasp of human agency and how today’s best and brightest minds are endeavoring to put an end to it.

It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills — and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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Super Scratch Programming Adventure!: Learn to Program By Making Cool Games

January 31, 2013

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Author:
The LEAD Project
Publisher:
No Starch Press (2012)

Scratch is the wildly popular educational programming language used by millions of first-time learners in classrooms, libraries, and homes worldwide. By dragging together colorful blocks of code, kids quickly learn computer programming concepts and make cool games and animations.

In Super Scratch Programming Adventure!, kids learn programming fundamentals as they make their very own playable video games. They’ll create projects inspired by classic arcade games that can be programmed… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI

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The Rapture of the Nerds: A Tale of the Singularity, Posthumanity, and Awkward Social Situations

September 9, 2012

rapture-nerds-cover

Author:
Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross
Publisher:
Tor Books (2012)

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.

Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Singularity/Futures

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Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century

October 29, 2012

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Author:
James R. Flynn
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (2012)

The ‘Flynn effect’ is a surprising finding, identified by James R. Flynn, that IQ test scores have significantly increased from one generation to the next over the past century. Flynn now brings us an exciting new book which aims to make sense of this rise in IQ scores and considers what this tells us about our intelligence, our minds and society. Are We Getting Smarter? features fascinating new material… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Human+

September 8, 2012

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Author:
Martin Higgins
Publisher:
Amazon Digital Services (2012)

A finger is poking through the screen of reality … David yearns to change the world, but he is only a struggling artist — struggling to pay his rent, struggling with drug addiction, struggling to stay sane amidst a gathering storm of demonic visions and dark precognitions.

Adrift on the streets of New York, he is led by a bizarre vision to follow a mysterious young woman who… read more

Topics: Human Enhancement | Singularity/Futures

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Surviving Orbit the DIY Way: Testing the Limits Your Satellite Can and Must Match

September 6, 2012
Author:
Sandy Antunes
Publisher:
Make (2012)

Is your picosatellite ready for launch? Can it withstand rocket thrusts and the vacuum of space? This do-it-yourself guide helps you conduct a series of hands-on tests designed to check your satellite’s readiness. Learn precisely what the craft and its electronic components must endure if they’re to function properly in Low Earth Orbit.

The perfect follow-up to DIY Satellite Platforms (our primer for designing and building a picosatellite),… read more

Topics: Electronics | Innovation/Entrepreneurship

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Return To The Garden

October 1, 2012

ReturnToTheGarden

Author:
Norie Huddle
Publisher:
Amazon Digital Services, Inc. (2012)

RETURN TO THE GARDEN is the first novel in a series called “The Eleanor Chronicles” that Norie Huddle is writing to introduce almost 45 years of her research and thinking about practical ways to transform human civilization so that we may survive and thrive.

Luis Alvarez, a young Ecuadorian man, meets an older North American woman named simply “Eleanor” on a long bus ride in Ecuador. They have a… read more

Topics: Survival/Defense

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Universe

March 25, 2013
Author:
Martin Rees
Publisher:
DK ADULT; Rev Upd edition (2012)

From the fiery mass of the Sun’s core to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Universe takes you on the ultimate guided tour of the cosmos. Full of stunning out-of-this world images reflecting recent advances in space imagery, you’ll go on a journey from our solar system all the way to the farthest limits of space.

With information on the nature of the universe,… read more

Topics: Space

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Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age

January 29, 2013

Future Perfect

Author:
Steven Johnson
Publisher:
Riverhead Hardcover (2012)

Combining the deft social analysis of Where Good Ideas Come From with the optimistic arguments of Everything Bad Is Good For You, New York Times bestselling author Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest movements to health care. Johnson paints a compelling portrait of this new political worldview — influenced by the success and interconnectedness of… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Singularity/Futures | Social/Ethical/Legal

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The Last Pictures

November 19, 2012

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Author:
Trevor Paglen
Publisher:
University of California Press (2012)

Human civilizations’ longest lasting artifacts are not the great Pyramids of Giza, nor the cave paintings at Lascaux, but the communications satellites that circle our planet. In a stationary orbit above the equator, the satellites that broadcast our TV signals, route our phone calls, and process our credit card transactions experience no atmospheric drag. Their inert hulls will continue to drift around Earth until the Sun expands into a red… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures | Social/Ethical/Legal | Space

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Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

September 28, 2012

Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Author:
James Wesley Rawles
Publisher:
Atria/Emily Bestler Books (2012)

THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT IS GONE.

It’s the near future, and thanks to a perfect storm of reckless banking practices, hyperinflation, a stock market gone mad, and the negligence of our elected officials, the entire social, political, and economic infrastructure of America has collapsed.

Chaos reigns in the streets, medical treatment is no longer available, and a silent coup has placed a dangerous group of… read more

Topics: Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

November 27, 2012

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Author:
Steven Pinker
Publisher:
Penguin Books (2012)

A provocative history of violence—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought and The Blank Slate

Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species’ existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history.… read more

Topics: Human Enhancement | Survival/Defense

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Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology

October 3, 2012

Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology

Author:
Peter Lucas, Joe Ballay, Mickey McManus
Publisher:
Wiley (2012)

We are facing a future of unbounded complexity.  Whether that complexity is harnessed to build a world that is safe, pleasant, humane and profitable, or whether it causes us to careen off a cliff into an abyss of mind-numbing junk is an open question. The challenges and opportunities–technical, business, and human–that this technological sea change will bring are without precedent. Entire industries will be born and others will be… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Internet/Telecom | Singularity/Futures

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The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t

November 26, 2012

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Author:
Nate Silver
Publisher:
The Penguin Press HC (2012)

“Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century.”
—Rachel Maddow, author of Drift

Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger—all by the time he was thirty.The New York Times now publishes FiveThirtyEight.com, where Silver is one of the nation’s most influential political forecasters.… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship

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Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World

December 26, 2012

Found_in_Translation_Book_Cover

Author:
Nataly Kelly, Jost Zetzsche
Publisher:
Perigee Trade (2012)

Translation affects every aspect of your life – and we’re not just talking about the obvious things, like world politics and global business.

Translation affects you personally, too. The books you read. The movies you watch. The food you eat. Your favorite sports team. The opinions you hold dear. The religion you practice. Even your looks and, yes, your love life. Right this very minute, translation is saving… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Social Networking/Web/Education

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