New media thrives on cycles of obsolescence and renewal: from celebrations of cyber-everything to Y2K, from the dot-com bust to the next big things--mobile mobs, Web 3.0, cloud computing. In Programmed Visions, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun argues that these cycles result in part from the ways in which new media encapsulates a logic of programmability. New media proliferates "programmed visions," which seek to shape and predict--even embody--a future based on past data. These programmed visions have also made computers, based on metaphor, metaphors for metaphor itself, for a general logic of substitutability. Chun approaches the concept of programmability through the surprising materialization of software as a "thing" in its own right, tracing the hardening of programming into software and of memory into storage. She argues that the clarity offered by software as metaphor should make us pause, because software also engenders a profound sense of ignorance: who knows what lurks behind our smiling interfaces, behind the objects we click and manipulate? The less we know, the more we are shown. This paradox, Chun argues, does not diminish new media's power, but rather grounds computing's appeal. Its combination of what can be seen and not seen, known (knowable) and not known--its separation of interface from algorithm and software from hardware--makes it a powerful metaphor for everything we believe is invisible yet generates visible, logical effects, from genetics to the invisible hand of the market, from ideology to culture.
Price : $22.85
$22.85
Show Detail »
Ideal for babies and toddlersWacky characters and funny rhymesTouch and feel, light and sound
Price : $9.10
$9.10
Show Detail »
Toffler argues that while headlines focus on shifts of power at the global level, equally significant shifts are taking place in our everyday world--supermarkets, hospitals, banks, television, and politics. As old antagonisms fade, Toffler identifies where the next, far more important world division will arise . . . between the "fast" and the "slow." "Thought-provoking on every page."--Newsday. HC: Bantam.
Price : $7.99
$7.99
Show Detail »
An exploration of the fundamentals and safety design calculations and practices used to design and maintain safe chemical plants.* provides extensive illustrations and examples.
Price : $105.00
$105.00
Show Detail »
A tribute to the everyday rewards of rural living. The authors record the rhythms of their work and days, along the way providing advice and instruction on dozens of traditional country arts and crafts. 250 full-color photos.
Price : $38.88
$38.88
Show Detail »
Michael Lewis was supposed to be writing about how Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, was going to turn health care on its ear by launching Healtheon, which would bring the vast majority of the industry's transactions online. So why was he spending so much time on a computerized yacht, each feature installed because, as one technician put it, "someone saw it on Star Trek and wanted one just like it?" Much of The New New Thing, to be fair, is devoted to the Healtheon story. It's just that Jim Clark doesn't do startups the way most people do. "He had ceased to be a businessman," as Lewis puts it, "and become a conceptual artist." After coming up with the basic idea for Healtheon, securing the initial seed money, and hiring the people to make it happen, Clark concentrated on the building of Hyperion, a sailboat with a 197-foot mast, whose functions are controlled by 25 SGI workstations (a boat that, if he wanted to, Clark could log onto and steer--from anywhere in the world). Keeping up with Clark proves a monumental challenge--"you didn't interact with him," Lewis notes, "so much as hitch a ride on the back of his life"--but one that the author rises to meet with the same frenetic energy and humor of his previous books, Liar's Poker and Trail Fever. Like those two books, The New New Thing shows how the pursuit of power at its highest levels can lead to the very edges of the surreal, as when Clark tries to fill out an investment profile for a Swiss bank, where he intends to deposit less than .05 percent of his financial assets. When asked to assess his attitude toward financial risk, Clark searches in vain for the category of "people who sought to turn ten million dollars into one billion in a few months" and finally tells the banker, "I think this is for a different ... person." There have been a lot of profiles of Silicon Valley companies and the way they've revamped the economy in the 1990s--The New New Thing is one of the first books fully to depict the sort of man that has made such companies possible. --Ron Hogan
Price : $21.80
$21.80
Show Detail »
Get carried away with the Friz and her class as they take a whirlwind journey into the world of butterflies!Hi, I'm Phoebe, one of the kids in Ms. Frizzle's class. When we started our unit on butterflies, I figured I would get to see a live butterfly - but I never thought I would get to be one. But when Ms. Frizzle took us on our butterfly field trip, she accidentally turned us all into butterflies! But being a butterfly wasn't all fun and games. We had to battle all kinds of things: wind, birds, even people! We knew we had to win this Butterfly Battle -- before things got carried away!
Price : $4.99
$4.99
Show Detail »
The beginning of the twenty-first century will be remembered, Friedman argues, not for military conflicts or political events, but for a whole new age of globalization - a 'flattening' of the world. The explosion of advanced technologies now means that suddenly knowledge pools and resources have connected all over the planet, levelling the playing field as never before, so that each of us is potentially an equal - and competitor - of the other. The rules of the game have changed forever - but does this 'death of distance', which requires us all to run faster in order to stay in the same place, mean the world has got too small and too flat too fast for us to adjust? Friedman brilliantly demystifies the exciting, often bewildering, global scene unfolding before our eyes, one which we sense but barely yet understand."The World is Flat" is the most timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and its discontents, powerfully illuminated by a world-class writer. In his new chapters: 'If It's Not Happening, It's Because You're Not Doing It' and 'What Happens When We All Have Dog's Hearing?' the author explores both the benefits and disadvantages of the very latest developments in global communication. The emergent popularity of blogging, pod-casting, "YouTube and MySpace" enable the modern world citizen to broadcast their views to a potential audience of billions, and the proliferation of Internet access to even the poorest communities gives everyone who wants to the tools to address issues of social injustice and inequality.On the other hand the technology that seems to improve communication on a global scale causes it to deteriorate on a local scale. Identifying ours as 'The Age of Interruption', Friedman discusses the annoyance and dangers of BlackBerrys in meeting rooms, hands-free kits in conversation and using a phone or iPod whilst driving. In an age when we are always 'connected' via email or mobile phone how can we hope to concentrate on one thing without interruption? As expected the author has revitalised this new edition of "The World is Flat" with timely insights into the nature of our flat world.
Price : $9.39
$9.39
Show Detail »
Updated and revised with the latest data in the field, The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture, Third Edition is a comprehensive resource that addresses all of the necessary organization and architecture topics, yet is appropriate for the one-term course. This best-selling text correlates to the 2008 ACM-IEEE Computer Science Curriculum update and exposes readers to the inner workings of a modern digital computer through an integrated presentation of fundamental concepts and principles. The authors present real-world examples and focus on practical applications, thus encouraging students to develop a "big picture" understanding of how essential organization and architecture concepts are applied in the world of computing.
Price : $91.67
$91.67
Show Detail »
Like most other human artifacts, the common pencil, made and sold today by the millions, has a long and complex history. Henry Petroski, who combines a talent for fine writing with a deep knowledge of engineering and technological history, examines the story of the pencil, considering it not only as a thing in itself, but also as an exemplar of all things that are designed and manufactured. Petroski ranges widely in time, discussing the writing technologies of antiquity. But his story really begins in the early modern period, when, in 1565, a Swiss naturalist first described the properties of the mineral that became known as graphite. Petroski traces the evolution of the pencil through the Industrial Revolution, when machine manufacture replaced earlier handwork. Along the way, he looks at some of pencil making's great innovators--including Henry David Thoreau, the famed writer, who worked in his father's pencil factory, inventing techniques for grinding graphite and experimenting with blends of lead, clay, and other ingredients to yield pencils of varying hardness and darkness. Petroski closes with a look at how pencils are made today--a still-imperfect technology that may yet evolve with new advances in materials and design. --Gregory McNamee
Price : $16.38
$16.38
Show Detail »
Top Search
Last Search
