Archive for Books
My Tech-Book 2011. Wired for War.
Dezember 27th, 2011 • Books
Tags: Books, Politics, Robots, Wired for War
Best-of-lists of the past year are something like an overarching blogger topic as a year ends. There are lots of great-books-I-read-in-2011 or great-articles-I-read-in-2011 lists out there (go check out Neil Perkin’s wonderful reading list 2011) and I definitely do not want to add another one.
What I want to do is to recommend one of the most insightful tech-books I have read this year: P.W. Singer’s ‘Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century’. Singer’s book is almost two years old and in the meantime has become something like a modern classic on the military use of robotics. Why do I recommend this book on davaidavai even though this topic sounds – ummm – a bit off topic? Simply because ‘Wired for War’ shows once again what a revolution data linking triggered.
Far beyond the revolution in marketing, Drone Warfare is about to redefine how wars are fought, how soldiers think about war, how we legally understand war from now on and many other things, simply because of the use of less and less remote controlled and more and more completely autonomous machines in armed conflicts.
The strength of Singer’s book is his widespread lack of interest in the actual technology of killer drones like the Predator or multi-purpose bots like Packbot. Instead he primarily focuses on new questions arising out of the usage of drones.
Do soldiers get emotionally attached to ‘their’ bots as they would when fighting with humans? Is a drone pilot steering a drone from a base in Nevada actually a soldier fighting in a war? If we are trying to develop autonomous, intelligent robots that – in the future – will have more computing power than a human brain…isn’t that Skynet?
These are the questions that make Wired for War the outstanding non-fiction tech-thriller that it is. And thanks to Mister Singer’s ability to tell exciting stories it is also a book that simply is a great read. As one commenter wrote on amazon: “It is the only book in my reading experience that quotes Immanuel Kant and Biggie Smalls with equal enthusiasm.” If I have to recommend one book at the end of 2011 that really made me better understand the implication of our tech-driven world beyond what I personally experience in Marketing every day, then it is: Wired for War.
No joke. This book exists.
November 30th, 2010 • Books
Tags: Books, Diy, Funny, Microsoft, windows, World
The tech industry never ceases to amaze me. The book pictured below is an actual book by O’Reilly. Even though Win 7 makes me quite happy I do remember horrible experiences with WinXP and Vista. Oh the horror. Get it on amazon.
Alledaags. A year in the life of an Amsterdam Expat.
Juli 9th, 2010 • Books, Friends
Tags: Amsterdam, Books, Cool, Creativity, Friends, Ideas, Underway, World
Just a quick personal note and a recommendation for my fellow Amsterdamers.
As I am still a fresh expat in Amsterdam, I found this interesting book project that will finally see the light of day on Saturday, 10th of July, at the American Bookcenter, Amsterdam. They’re hosting a book launch/signing with Toby Morris from 2 to 5pm. Toby Morris is a New Zealand born illustrator who started his Amsterdam life at W&K. He has now created ‘Alledaags’, a collection of illustrations recording a year in the life of an ex-pat in Amsterdam (some of you probably know what he is talking about 
In January 2009 Toby Morris began a daily sketchbook diary documenting his life and his observations of his adopted city. Alledaags collects 333 of the drawings and covers everything from canal boats, hair gel and the madness of Queen’s Day to Vondelpark picnics, Zwarte Piet and blunt Dutch service.
Looks like a very interesting little book project. Go there if you happen to be in Amsterdam on Saturday. Check out the book if
you’re not. Learn more on Toby’s blog.
Good books. Designing Social Interfaces.
November 22nd, 2009 • 7 comments Books
Tags: Books, Design Patterns, Interfaces, Social Influence Marketing, UX, visual
‘Designing Social Interfaces’
Most people who work as creatives in a digital agency or as freelancers know the problem: Certain challenges will haunt you for the rest of your life. They simply return again, again and again. Let’s take i.e. a registration form. You won’t win a Cannes Lion by designing one. But you can make such an aweful lot of usability mistakes that none of your users will finally be able to use it. Design patterns are there to make your life easier when it comes to standard problems. Login forms, registration forms, movie player interfaces…these types of objects are well known and don’t have to be redesigned every time you meet one of them (think in learned, proven usability here). And to collect all of these UX best practice cases, Yahoo has published its great Yahoo! Design Pattern Library a couple of years ago – a standard in UX resources, created by the two usability experts who have just published the book I want to recommend now.
Designing Social Interfaces
No matter wether we talk about sharing options, online forums, or member interaction in brand communities – digital assets must be social nowadays to stay relevant. It’s no secret that social can mean pretty much everything. But as the title says: ‘Designing Social Interfaces’
- Understand the overarching principles you need to consider for every website you create
- Learn basic design patterns for adding social components to an existing site
- Rein in misbehaving users on an active community site
- Build a social experience around a product or service and invite people to join
- Develop a social utility without having to build an entirely new infrastructure
- Enable users of your site’s content to interact with one another
- Offer your members the opportunity to connect in the real world
- Learn to recognize and avoid antipatterns: emergent bad practices in the social network and social media space
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