Watch out: Keen-Bubble!

Posted : 1 month, 1 week ago on 13 June 2008 05:57 (A review of The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture)

A month ago, I went to Felix Meritis in Amsterdam, where Andrew Keen held a debate about his book "The Cult of the Amateur". I heard of him before, and consulted his blog a number of times, which did not draw my attention very much. I thought he made a point through exaggeration, and nothing wrong with it if, at least, there is some data and reasonable argumentation backing his statements. I was quite interested if he would convince me, because I thought it was good to hear something about the negative side of Web 2.0. And negative it was.

It turned out to be pretty disappointing, both the lecture of Keen, which was somewhat engaging, using many examples and being very enthusiastic and cynical, and the reply by the other persons who were invited. Although examples can be engaging and create more understanding about a subject, you can hardly generalize them into always-true statements, since.. well, they are examples. But that was exactly what Keen was doing, examples prove his point of view.. a pretty childish way of argumentation, which he used extensively in his book as well.

Andrew Keen is an angry man. He is angry at anything that resembles Web 2.0, he despises creations of amateurs online, filesharing, remixing of content, and he embraces everything that came before Web 2.0. In his anger, it must have been very hard for him to follow a consistent line of reasoning. The argumentation in the book is so lousy, I think I have never seen such lousy reasoning. And I don't get it. Although he admires and continuously points out the advantages and necessity of cultural gatekeepers, working at traditional media companies, it seems like he had not had any editor at all. This was exactly the point made by Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, in his very funny review about the book.

The basic argument in the book is that Web 2.0, or the ability of anyone able to contribute anything (from news to videos to music) online, diminishes the traditional structures and organizations in the media industry. This will damage our culture and in the end ruin it. Because anyone can put anything online, the quality is becoming less reliable of what you read and see, and more intertwined with commerce etc. There are so many flaws in this piece of rubbish, that it seems a Sisyphean task trying to document them. Maybe.... in a collective effort we could do that, as has been intended by Lawrence Lessig.

Although the book flaws in a substantial way (factual errors & bad argumentation), the basic point made in the book has some significance: quality of information and trust in people and information is decreasing in an ever-expanding online information space. There is a lot of rubbish online, and maybe, it has become less easy for kids and adults to distinguish high quality from low quality. Still, technology also enables people to overcome these problems. PEERS is one of these technologies that enables information to be linked (back) to persons, persons with reputations and the ability to judge and evaluate information and people. This will create a dynamic hierarchy, in which people and information can be better found and trusted.

All in all.. don't bother reading the book.. just pick up the main message, which has some truth in it. As technology creates problems, don't forget it can also solve them. When I get hold of a book that offers a more substantiated critique and better advice in how to deal with the egalitarian characteristics of the Internet, I will post it here as well.

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Manual Prático De Delinquência Juvenil review

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 9 June 2008 02:46 (A review of Manual Prático De Delinquência Juvenil)

O Manual traz relatos de uma gama de ações que utilizam de terrorismo poético, arte sabotagem, teatro secreto, contra-cultura, arte-sabotagem, ativismo estético etc. feitas por Ari Almeida e o grupo de Delinqüentes ao qual pertence(ou pertencia).

Se esses relatos são verdadeiros ou não, isso não pode ser respondido com certeza. Talvez Ari Almeida seja só um garoto com grande imaginação por trás de um PC, mas isso pouco importa. O que realmente importa é que o motivo que o levou a publicar.



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New Moon Review

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 8 June 2008 09:17 (A review of New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2))

Just like the first one in the series (Twilight) I found this to be a very fast, absorbing light read. It carried on from the first pretty well with showing more of Bella’s vulnerabilities and introducing more of Jacob. Something I felt was, although a surprising turn of events (yes I was surprised and somewhat pissed off too), a good turn of events. I think if the story had of carried on from twilight in the same vein it would have become too monotonous and as a result really boring.
Mind you after the turn of events in the beginning it still became predictable and it also showed just how daft the main character is which could at times be a tad frustrating seeing as you can figure it all out before the main character gets it together. Obviously the character can never seem to see the forest for the trees and yet for some odd reason I got over that pretty quickly. You just can’t help it with a character like Bella. I really think the daftness is just part of her charm.

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Vietnam Preacher Teaches the "slower folk"

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 8 June 2008 11:21 (A review of Hocus Pocus)

This is another great of Vonnegut's! A story transpires of a hedonistic yet Vietnam war vet attempting to inculcate the feeble minded of society and all the bumps and bruises he encounters. I good read of the odd nature which is what I love about Vonnegut.

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A look through computer game history

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 8 June 2008 02:49 (A review of Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic)

While I've grown up around computers since before I could remember I never really got into games until around 1999 and reading Dungeons and Dreamers makes me wish I had gotten into them sooner.

The book basically starts with a small story of how the original game that most geeks play, Dungeons and Dragons, and gives the backdrop to Richard Garriott life and how he helped create the first successful RPG, the Ultima series.

Later on in the book, as Garriott was continuing to develop Ultima sequels, starts to shine the light on the guys at Softdisk, which some of them would continue on to start id Software and create DOOM and Quake and shake up the computer gaming culture.

The rest of the book continues with both companies and the community that started around their games and what has happened up until 2001.

The whole book was a good read, giving a glimpe of gaming history and see what I missed years before and seeing how some things started and how they're perceived today. But for me the book wasn't as totally engaging as I hoped for when I first picked up the book but might be because the book is now dated.

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Pretty Good Start To A Vampire Series

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 6 June 2008 03:24 (A review of Twilight (Twilight, Book 1))

When books and movies become popular and a fad I usually shy away from them until the curiosity gets the better of me. Which is pretty much years down the track for a movie or at the end of a book series. Curiosity won out far earlier then I was expecting and I'm glad I gave in.
This isn't exactly a masterpiece, it's not ingenious writing, it's not even crammed with detail but it was very absorbing and extremely hard to put down. You can't help but warm to these characters. Especially when the main one is such an endearing, although sometimes slightly daft, klutz.
The vampires also aren't your typical vampires which is fine by me because although I like my typical vampires I also like a bit of a twist and this offered that. Plus there's presenting vampires with moral conscience which could always work out wrong but it worked out fine in this story.
The romance aspect of it was quite unrealistic especially seeing as this is a young adult novel and impressionable minds and all... but as long as you chalk it up to fairy tale it's pretty easy to ignore.

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The Subtle Knife Review

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 6 June 2008 03:11 (A review of The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials))

A far faster and lighter read then the first one in the trilogy (Northern Lights), I didn't realise why until I'd finished and compared it to the first one. It was far less detailed then the first but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Rather then spending all that time reading into and absorbing the details you could really get into the story. Although it was a bit more predictable.
I enjoyed the introduction of Will but I didn't like how Lyra was portrayed. Something about her character seemed a bit off putting which left me not liking her as much. A thing I don't think is very good when it's one of the main characters. The dialogue that involved her was better though and so was some of the punctuation.


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Cheap.

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 5 June 2008 03:18 (A review of The Gold Shoe (Tyndale House Publs) (Grace Livingston Hill))

A really sappy romance novel. I can't believe I wasted my time reading this book.

Grace Livingston Hill has done some fairly good books in her lifetime, but this is by far her worst.
Cheesy, romance scenes, a terrible story line, and Hill's bratty, prissy and extremely irritating main character, all helped me to come to a deeper understanding of a very bad book.


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Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey review

Posted : 1 month, 3 weeks ago on 4 June 2008 06:51 (A review of Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey)

The thing about Palahniuk, is that no topic is sacred. He touches on absolutely everything in this novel, sometimes leaving you cringing, other times laughing... but always leaving you wanting more.

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Wow

Posted : 1 month, 3 weeks ago on 4 June 2008 02:08 (A review of How To Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge, More Gentle Revolution)

We used the information in Glenn Doman's books and Wow!! The teaching method is based on playing with your baby using huge cards with information large enough a baby's eyes can identify it.

My daughter started crawling and walking very early. She was running at nine months old. Before she could walk she would find the cards and bring them to me in the morning before I was awake, telling me she wanted to play! She loved playing and never knew she was learning "Encyclopedic Knowledge!"

The basic rule is never teach unless you are able to play with love and joy.

It can be easy to prepare the basic cards and challenging to get more and more information ready to teach, (there are also some available to purchase) Just remember, what ever you teach with love is better than nothing.

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