Authors: Roger D. Launius. Howard E. McCurdy.
Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication Date: 2008-01-07
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Given the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take?

In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these seemingly fanciful questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and science fantasy to expound upon the possibilities and improbabilities involved in trekking across the Milky Way and beyond. They survey the literature -- fictional as well as academic studies; outline the progress of space programs in the United States and other nations; and assess the current state of affairs to offer a conclusion startling only to those who haven't spent time with Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke: to traverse the cosmos, humans must embrace and entwine themselves with advanced robotic technologies.

Their discussion is as entertaining as it is edifying and their assertions are as sound as they are fantastical. Rather than asking us to suspend disbelief, Robots in Space demands that we accept facts as they evolve.

...

Authors: John Arquilla.
Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: RAND Corporation
Publication Date: 2002-01-25


Reviews :

    Netwar--like cyberwar--describes a new spectrum of conflict that is emerging in the wake of the information revolution. What distinguished netwar is the networked organizational structure of its practitioners and their quickness in coming together in swarming attacks. To confront this new type of conflict, it is crucial for governments, military, and law enforcement to begin networking themselves....

Authors: Alan M. Turing.
Paperback, 622 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2004-11-18


Reviews :

    Alan Turing was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. In 1935, aged 22, he developed the mathematical theory upon which all subsequent stored-program digital computers are modeled.
At the outbreak of hostilities with Germany in September 1939, he joined the Government Codebreaking team at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire and played a crucial role in deciphering Engima, the code used by the German armed forces to protect their radio communications. Turing's work on the version of Enigma used by the German navy was vital to the battle for supremacy in the North Atlantic. He also contributed to the attack on the cyphers known as "Fish," which were used by the German High Command for the encryption of signals during the latter part of the war. His contribution helped to shorten the war in Europe by an estimated two years.
After the war, his theoretical work led to the development of Britain's first computers at the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at Manchester University.
Turing was also a founding father of modern cognitive science, theorizing that the cortex at birth is an "unorganized machine" which through "training" becomes organized "into a universal machine or something like it." He went on to develop the use of computers to model biological growth, launching the discipline now referred to as Artificial Life.
The papers in this book are the key works for understanding Turing's phenomenal contribution across all these fields. The collection includes Turing's declassified wartime "Treatise on the Enigma"; letters from Turing to Churchill and to codebreakers; lectures, papers, and broadcasts which opened up the concept of AI and its implications; and the paper which formed the genesis of the investigation of Artifical Life....

Authors: Michael A. Banks.
Hardcover, 200 pages
Publisher: Apress
Publication Date: 2008-07-21


Reviews :

   

On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders is an absorbing chronicle of the inventive, individualistic, and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free. Michael A. Banks describes how the online population created a new culture and turned a new frontier into their vision of the future.

This book will introduce you to the innovators who laid the foundation for the Internet and the World Wide Web, the man who invented online chat, and the people who invented the products all of us use online every day. Learn where, when, how and why the Internet came into being, and exactly what hundreds of thousands of people were doing online before the Web. See who was behind it all, and what inspired them.

You’ll also find these stories of people and events on the way to the Web:

• CIA agents in search of military hardware for sale online.
• The first online privacy scandal, three decades ago.
• The first instance of online censorship in 1979
• How in 1980 the FBI demanded the ID of a CompuServe user who tried to sell 3,000 M16 rifles online
• Early con artists
• Online romance scams
• Identify theft
• Who really created AOL. (Hint: it wasn’t Steve Case.)
• The wireless Internet that was built in 1978.
• Why the @ sign is used in email addresses.

Who is this book for?

On the Way to the Web is a book that will appeal to all readers, but one that computer enthusiasts will find especially interesting. Most readers will have played a part in the story it tells, and anyone who uses the Internet and Web on a day–to–day basis will find this book an absorbing read.

...

Authors: Paul E. Ceruzzi.
Paperback, 459 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2003-05-01
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five key moments of transition: the transformation of the computer in the late 1940s from a specialized scientific instrument to a commercial product; the emergence of small systems in the late 1960s; the beginning of personal computing in the 1970s; the spread of networking after 1985; and, in a chapter written for this edition, the period 1995-2001. The new material focuses on the Microsoft antitrust suit, the rise and fall of the dot-coms, and the advent of open source software, particularly Linux.

Within the chronological narrative, the book traces several overlapping threads: the evolution of the computer's internal design; the effect of economic trends and the Cold War; the long-term role of IBM as a player and as a target for upstart entrepreneurs; the growth of software from a hidden element to a major character in the story of computing; and the recurring issue of the place of information and computing in a democratic society. The focus is on the United States (though Europe and Japan enter the story at crucial points), on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities....

    This book delivers exactly what its title promises: a straightforward and comprehensive account of the electronic digital computer's first five decades. Starting with the historic ENIAC of 1945, Ceruzzi moves nimbly through one epochal generation of computing technology after another: the gargantuan, vacuum-tube-filled mainframes of the early '50s; the sleeker, transistorized minicomputers of the '60s; the personal computers conjured up by hobbyists in the '70s; and the computer networks that have come to span offices and the globe in the last 10 years.

Ceruzzi places all of these developments in the context of the social phenomena that shaped them: the imperatives of Cold War research, the evolving needs of information-swamped businesses, and the quirks and dreams of counter-cultural computer hackers. But unlike some popular books about computing history, this one refuses to acknowledge any particular individual, group, or institution as its protagonist. The tale it tells is complex: a weave of high-level projects, lowbrow tinkerings, and sweeping socioeconomic transformations, with a crash course in the basics of computer architecture tossed in for good measure. The mix doesn't make for great drama, but it does offer something perhaps more valuable--the sober, subtle feel of real history unfolding. --Julian Dibbell...

Authors: Kirkpatrick Sale.
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 1996-04-16
Edition: Pbk. Ed

Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Mark J. P. Wolf.
Paperback, 223 pages
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication Date: 2002-02
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Over a mere three decades, the video game has become the entertainment medium of choice for millions of people, who now spend more time in the interactive virtual world of games than they do in watching movies or even television. The release of new games or game-playing equipment, such as the PlayStation 2, generates great excitement and even buying frenzies. Yet, until now, this giant on the popular culture landscape has received little in-depth study or analysis.

In this book, Mark J. P. Wolf and four other scholars conduct the first thorough investigation of the video game as an artistic medium. The book begins with an attempt to define what is meant by the term "video game" and the variety of modes of production within the medium. It moves on to a brief history of the video game, then applies the tools of film studies to look at the medium in terms of the formal aspects of space, time, narrative, and genre. The book also considers the video game as a cultural entity, object of museum curation, and repository of psychological archetypes. It closes with a list of video game research resources for further study.

...

Authors:
Hardcover, 480 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 2006-05-04


Reviews :

    The American ENIAC is customarily regarded as having been the starting point of electronic computation. This book rewrites the history of computer science, arguing that in reality Colossus--the giant computer built by the British secret service during World War II--predates ENIAC by two years. Colossus was built during the Second World War at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Until very recently, much about the Colossus machine was shrouded in secrecy, largely because the code-breaking algorithms that were employed during World War II remained in use by the British security services until a short time ago. In addition, the United States has recently declassified a considerable volume of wartime documents relating to Colossus. Jack Copeland has brought together memoirs of veterans of Bletchley Park--the top-secret headquarters of Britain's secret service--and others who draw on the wealth of declassified information to illuminate the crucial role Colossus played during World War II. Included here are pieces by the former WRENS who actually worked the machine, the scientist who pioneered the use of vacuum tubes in data processing, and leading authorities on code-breaking and computer science.
A must read for anyone curious about code-breaking or World War II espionage, Colossus offers a fascinating insider's account of the world first giant computer, the great great grandfather of the massive computers used today by the CIA and the National Security Agency....

Authors: Virgil Moorefield.
Hardcover, 163 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2005-12-01


Reviews :

    In the 1960s, rock and pop music recording questioned the convention that recordings should recreate the illusion of a concert hall setting. The Wall of Sound that Phil Spector built behind various artists and the intricate eclecticism of George Martin's recordings of the Beatles did not resemble live performances—in the Albert Hall or elsewhere—but instead created a new sonic world. The role of the record producer, writes Virgil Moorefield in The Producer as Composer, was evolving from that of organizer to auteur; band members became actors in what Frank Zappa called a "movie for your ears." In rock and pop, in the absence of a notated score, the recorded version of a song—created by the producer in collaboration with the musicians—became the definitive version.

Moorefield, a musician and producer himself, traces this evolution with detailed discussions of works by producers and producer-musicians including Spector and Martin, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Trent Reznor, Quincy Jones, and the Chemical Brothers. Underlying the transformation, Moorefield writes, is technological development: new techniques—tape editing, overdubbing, compression—and, in the last ten years, inexpensive digital recording equipment that allows artists to become their own producers. What began when rock and pop producers reinvented themselves in the 1960s has continued; Moorefield describes the importance of disco, hip-hop, remixing, and other forms of electronic music production in shaping the sound of contemporary pop. He discusses the making of Pet Sounds and the production of tracks by Public Enemy with equal discernment, drawing on his own years of studio experience. Much has been written about rock and pop in the last 35 years, but hardly any of it deals with what is actually heard in a given pop song. The Producer as Composer tries to unravel the mystery of good pop: why does it sound the way it does?...

Authors: Eric Grubbs.
Paperback, 356 pages
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Publication Date: 2008-08-25


Reviews :

    POST is a look at how post-hardcore/emo music developed since its unintentional inception in the mid-1980s. With each chapter broken up by influential band or label, it focuses on a broad style of independent music that developed because of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic. Focusing on bands like Fugazi, Jawbox, Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, Braid, the Promise Ring, Hot Water Music, the Get Up Kids, At the Drive-In, and Jimmy Eat World, as well as labels like Dischord, Jade Tree, and Vagrant, these bands and labels came from the ideas of DIY and sustained them. In turn, they inspired plenty that came after them. Looking at the surroundings and circumstances from where they came, this a look at the bonds that formed and the music that came out. ". . . a gripping, Our Band Could Be Your Life-style narrative," Aaron Burgess, writer for Alternative Press and Revolver....