Download or read book The Charisma Machine written by Morgan G. Ames and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating examination of technological utopianism and its complicated consequences. In The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why—despite its failures—the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development. Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small, sturdy, and cheap laptop computer, powered by a hand crank. In reality, the project fell short in many ways—starting with the hand crank, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were captivated by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises, OLPC, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning. Drawing on fifty years of history and a seven-month study of a model OLPC project in Paraguay, Ames reveals that the laptops were not only frustrating to use, easy to break, and hard to repair, they were designed for “technically precocious boys”—idealized younger versions of the developers themselves—rather than the children who were actually using them. The Charisma Machine offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development.
Download or read book The Charisma Machine written by Morgan G. Ames and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating examination of technological utopianism and its complicated consequences. In The Charisma Machine, Morgan Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why—despite its failures—the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development. Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small, sturdy, and cheap laptop computer, powered by a hand crank. In reality, the project fell short in many ways—starting with the hand crank, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were captivated by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises, OLPC, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning. Drawing on fifty years of history and a seven-month study of a model OLPC project in Paraguay, Ames reveals that the laptops were not only frustrating to use, easy to break, and hard to repair, they were designed for “technically precocious boys”—idealized younger versions of the developers themselves—rather than the children who were actually using them. The Charisma Machine offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development.
Download or read book American Dream Machine written by Matthew Specktor and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty; a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life. American Dream Machine is the story of an iconic striver, a classic self-made man in the vein of Jay Gatsby or Augie March. It's the story of a talent agent and his troubled sons, two generations of Hollywood royalty. It's a sweeping narrative about parents and children, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood, and by extension, American life. Beau Rosenwald—overweight, not particularly handsome, and improbably charismatic—arrives in Los Angeles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a seismic battle that redraws the lines of an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, in accordance with the cultural transformations that dictate the fickle world of movies. We watch Beau's partner, the enigmatic and cerebral Williams Farquarsen, struggle to contain himself, to control his impulses and consolidate his power. And we watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, learning for themselves the shadows and costs exacted by success and failure. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role—nourishing, as well as destructive—that illusion plays in all our lives.
Download or read book Mastering NET Machine Learning written by Jamie Dixon and published by Packt Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master the art of machine learning with .NET and gain insight into real-world applications About This Book Based on .NET framework 4.6.1, includes examples on ASP.NET Core 1.0 Set up your business application to start using machine learning techniques Familiarize the user with some of the more common .NET libraries for machine learning Implement several common machine learning techniques Evaluate, optimize and adjust machine learning models Who This Book Is For This book is targeted at .Net developers who want to build complex machine learning systems. Some basic understanding of data science is required. What You Will Learn Write your own machine learning applications and experiments using the latest .NET framework, including .NET Core 1.0 Set up your business application to start using machine learning. Accurately predict the future using regressions. Discover hidden patterns using decision trees. Acquire, prepare, and combine datasets to drive insights. Optimize business throughput using Bayes Classifier. Discover (more) hidden patterns using KNN and Naive Bayes. Discover (even more) hidden patterns using K-Means and PCA. Use Neural Networks to improve business decision making while using the latest ASP.NET technologies. Explore “Big Data”, distributed computing, and how to deploy machine learning models to IoT devices – making machines self-learning and adapting Along the way, learn about Open Data, Bing maps, and MBrace In Detail .Net is one of the widely used platforms for developing applications. With the meteoric rise of Machine learning, developers are now keen on finding out how can they make their .Net applications smarter. Also, .NET developers are interested into moving into the world of devices and how to apply machine learning techniques to, well, machines. This book is packed with real-world examples to easily use machine learning techniques in your business applications. You will begin with introduction to F# and prepare yourselves for machine learning using .NET framework. You will be writing a simple linear regression model using an example which predicts sales of a product. Forming a base with the regression model, you will start using machine learning libraries available in .NET framework such as Math.NET, Numl.NET and Accord.NET with the help of a sample application. You will then move on to writing multiple linear regressions and logistic regressions. You will learn what is open data and the awesomeness of type providers. Next, you are going to address some of the issues that we have been glossing over so far and take a deep dive into obtaining, cleaning, and organizing our data. You will compare the utility of building a KNN and Naive Bayes model to achieve best possible results. Implementation of Kmeans and PCA using Accord.NET and Numl.NET libraries is covered with the help of an example application. We will then look at many of issues confronting creating real-world machine learning models like overfitting and how to combat them using confusion matrixes, scaling, normalization, and feature selection. You will now enter into the world of Neural Networks and move your line of business application to a hybrid scientific application. After you have covered all the above machine learning models, you will see how to deal with very large datasets using MBrace and how to deploy machine learning models to Internet of Thing (IoT) devices so that the machine can learn and adapt on the fly Style and approach This book will guide you in learning everything about how to tackle the flood of data being encountered these days in your .NET applications with the help of popular machine learning libraries offered by the .NET framework.
Download or read book The Star Machine written by Jeanine Basinger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • From one of our most distinguished film scholars, comes a rich, penetrating, amusing book about the golden age of movies and how the studios worked to manufacture stars. With revelatory insights and delightful asides, Jeanine Basinger shows us how the studio “star machine” worked when it worked, how it failed when it didn't, and how irrelevant it could sometimes be. She gives us case studies focusing on big stars groomed into the system: the “awesomely beautiful” (and disillusioned) Tyrone Power; the seductive, disobedient Lana Turner; and a dazzling cast of others. She anatomizes their careers, showing how their fame happened, and what happened to them as a result. Deeply engrossing, full of energy, wit, and wisdom, The Star Machine is destined to become an classic of the film canon.
Download or read book The Time Machine written by H. G. Wells and published by Modernista. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Victorian England, an eccentric scientist unveils his latest invention: a machine capable of travelling through time. Demonstrating its capabilities, the Time Traveller embarks on a journey to the distant future, arriving in the year 802,701. He discovers a seemingly utopian society inhabited by the gentle Eloi, but soon uncovers a dark and terrifying underworld ruled by the sinister Morlocks. As the Time Traveller delves deeper into this bifurcated world, he realises the grim consequences of societal decay and the potential fate of humanity. H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is a pioneering work in the science fiction genre, introducing the concept of time travel and coining the term »time machine«. First published in 1895, it has since become a classic, influencing countless works of fiction and shaping the genre’s development. H. G. WELLS [1866-1946] was a British author and pioneer in the science fiction genre. His works, including The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, delved into futuristic and societal critique themes. Wells’s visionary portrayals of technology, social structures, and extraterrestrial life made him one of the most influential writers in his field and a precursor to modern science fiction.
Download or read book Charisma written by Jeanne Ryan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartracing thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of NERVE, the book that launched the major motion picture! Aislyn suffers from crippling shyness—that is, until she’s offered a dose of Charisma, an underground gene therapy drug guaranteed to make her shine. The effects are instant. She’s charming, vivacious, and popular. But strangely, so are some other kids she knows. The media goes into a frenzy when the disease turns contagious, and then deadly, and the doctor who gave it to them disappears. Aislyn must find a way to stop it, before it's too late. Part medical thriller, part social justice commentary, Charisma will have readers on the edge of their seats.
Download or read book The Accidental Time Machine written by Joe Haldeman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-07-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW IN PAPERBACK-FROM THE AUTHOR OF MARSBOUND Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself-or so he thinks.
Download or read book Charismatic Chaos written by John F. MacArthur and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1993-07-10 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charismatic Chaos thoughtfully and carefully shines the light of Scripture on teaching that is not only gaining massive and loyal television followin, but also leading to disunity on a worlwide scale and promising to fuel controversy for years to come.
Download or read book Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University written by William Clark and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the transformation of early modern academics into modern researchers from the Renaissance to Romanticism, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University uses the history of the university and reframes the "Protestant Ethic" to reconsider the conditions of knowledge production in the modern world. William Clark argues that the research university—which originated in German Protestant lands and spread globally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—developed in response to market forces and bureaucracy, producing a new kind of academic whose goal was to establish originality and achieve fame through publication. With an astonishing wealth of research, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University investigates the origins and evolving fixtures of academic life: the lecture catalogue, the library catalog, the grading system, the conduct of oral and written exams, the roles of conversation and the writing of research papers in seminars, the writing and oral defense of the doctoral dissertation, the ethos of "lecturing with applause" and "publish or perish," and the role of reviews and rumor. This is a grand, ambitious book that should be required reading for every academic.
Download or read book The Hype Machine written by Sinan Aral and published by Currency. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical insights into the social media trends of the 2020 election and beyond “The book might be described as prophetic. . . . At least two of Aral’s three predictions have come to fruition.”—New York NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED • LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD Social media connected the world—and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. It is paramount, MIT professor Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsize effect social media has on us—on our politics, our economy, and even our personal health—in order to steer today’s social technology toward its great promise while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart. Drawing on decades of his own research and business experience, Aral goes under the hood of the most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse. He shows how the tech behind social media offers the same set of behavior influencing levers to everyone who hopes to change the way we think and act—from Russian hackers to brand marketers—which is why its consequences affect everything from elections to business, dating to health. Along the way, he covers a wide array of topics, including how network effects fuel Twitter’s and Facebook’s massive growth, the neuroscience of how social media affects our brains, the real consequences of fake news, the power of social ratings, and the impact of social media on our kids. In mapping out strategies for being more thoughtful consumers of social media, The Hype Machine offers the definitive guide to understanding and harnessing for good the technology that has redefined our world overnight.
Download or read book Love Machine written by Kendall Ryan and published by Kendall Ryan. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A best-friends-to lovers standalone romance from New York Times bestselling author Kendall Ryan. She says she needs some help ... in the bedroom. Come again? No, really come again. Sweet, nerdy, lovable Keaton. She's my best friend and has been for years. Sure she likes numbers and math, and thinks doing other people's taxes is fun. And I like ... none of that stuff. She's obsessed with her cat and reads novels I'll never understand, and yet we just click. There's no one I'd rather share breakfast burritos with or binge watch hours of Netflix. She's my person. And so when she takes off her glasses and asks me to help her improve her skills in the bedroom, I barely have to think about it. Of course I'll help her. There's no one better for the job. I've been there for her through everything, why should this be any different? But what happens when she's ready to take her new-found confidence and move on?
Download or read book Networking Peripheries written by Anita Say Chan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-05-21 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the diverse experiments in digital futures as they advance far from the celebrated centers of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. In Networking Peripheries, Anita Chan shows how digital cultures flourish beyond Silicon Valley and other celebrated centers of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. The evolving digital cultures in the Global South vividly demonstrate that there are more ways than one to imagine what digital practice and global connection could look like. To explore these alternative developments, Chan investigates the diverse initiatives being undertaken to “network” the nation in contemporary Peru, from attempts to promote the intellectual property of indigenous artisans to the national distribution of digital education technologies to open technology activism in rural and urban zones. Drawing on ethnographic accounts from government planners, regional free-software advocates, traditional artisans, rural educators, and others, Chan demonstrates how such developments unsettle dominant conceptions of information classes and innovations zones. Government efforts to turn rural artisans into a new creative class progress alongside technology activists' efforts to promote indigenous rights through information tactics; plans pressing for the state wide adoption of open source–based technologies advance while the One Laptop Per Child initiative aims to network rural classrooms by distributing laptops. As these cases show, the digital cultures and network politics emerging on the periphery do more than replicate the technological future imagined as universal from the center.
Download or read book The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler written by Laurence Rees and published by Random House. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader âe" fuelled by hate, incapable of forming normal human relationships, unwilling to debate political issues âe" and yet he commanded enormous support. So how was it possible that Hitler became such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the important question at the core of Laurence Reesâe(tm) new book. The Holocaust, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the outbreak of the Second World War âe" all these cataclysmic events and more can be laid at Hitlerâe(tm)s door. Hitler was a war criminal arguably without precedent in the history of the world. Yet, as many who knew him confirm, Hitler was still able to exert a powerful influence over the people who encountered him. In this fascinating book to accompany his new BBC series, the acclaimed historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitlerâe(tm)s appeal, and reveals the role Hitlerâe(tm)s supposed âe~charismaâe(tm) played in his success. Reesâe(tm) previous work has explored the inner workings of the Nazi state in The Nazis: A Warning from History and the crimes they committed in Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution. The Charisma of Adolf Hitler is a natural culmination of twenty years of writing and research on the Third Reich, and a remarkable examination of the man and the mind at the heart of it all.
Download or read book The Promise of Access written by Daniel Greene and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better. Why do we keep trying to solve poverty with technology? What makes us feel that we need to learn to code--or else? In The Promise of Access, Daniel Greene argues that the problem of poverty became a problem of technology in order to manage the contradictions of a changing economy. Greene shows how the digital divide emerged as a policy problem and why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better.
Download or read book The Aesthetic Imperative written by Peter Sloterdijk and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wide-ranging book, renowned philosopher and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk examines art in all its rich and varied forms: from music to architecture, light to movement, and design to typography. Moving between the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, his analyses span the centuries, from ancient civilizations to contemporary Hollywood. With great verve and insight he considers the key issues that have faced thinkers from Aristotle to Adorno, looking at art in its relation to ethics, metaphysics, society, politics, anthropology and the subject. Sloterdijk explores a variety of topics, from the Greco-Roman invention of postcards to the rise of the capitalist art market, from the black boxes and white cubes of modernism to the growth of museums and memorial culture. In doing so, he extends his characteristic method of defamiliarization to transform the way we look at works of art and artistic movements. His bold and original approach leads us away from the well-trodden paths of conventional art history to develop a theory of aesthetics which rejects strict categorization, emphasizing instead the crucial importance of individual subjectivity as a counter to the latent dangers of collective culture. This sustained reflection, at once playful, serious and provocative, goes to the very heart of Sloterdijk’s enduring philosophical preoccupation with the aesthetic. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and aesthetics and will appeal to anyone interested in culture and the arts more generally.
Download or read book The Man Who Died Twice written by Richard Osman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instant New York Times bestseller! The second gripping novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Murder Club series, soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment “It’s taken a mere two books for Richard Osman to vault into the upper leagues of crime writers. . . The Man Who Died Twice. . . dives right into joyous fun." —The New York Times Book Review Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim—the Thursday Murder Club—are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper’s Chase, their posh retirement village. But they are out of luck. An unexpected visitor—an old pal of Elizabeth’s (or perhaps more than just a pal?)—arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he’s seriously on the lam. Then, as night follows day, the first body is found. But not the last. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a ruthless murderer who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can our four friends catch the killer before the killer catches them? And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn’t that be a bonus? You should never put anything beyond the Thursday Murder Club. Richard Osman is back with everyone’s favorite mystery-solving quartet, and the second installment of the Thursday Murder Club series is just as clever and warm as the first—an unputdownable, laugh-out-loud pleasure of a read.
