Viktor Mayer-Schönberger: Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · facebook, internet, memory, myspace, privacy, surveillance, web 2.0
Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we’ve searched for and when. The digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten, and this has profound implications for us all.
In Delete, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger traces the important role that forgetting has played throughout human history, from the ability to make sound decisions unencumbered by the past to the possibility of second chances. The written word made it possible for humans to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology and global networks are overriding our natural ability to forget–the past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse. Mayer-Schönberger examines the technology that’s facilitating the end of forgetting–digitization, cheap storage and easy retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software–and describes the dangers of everlasting digital memory, whether it’s outdated information taken out of context or compromising photos the Web won’t let us forget. He explains why information privacy rights and other fixes can’t help us, and proposes an ingeniously simple solution–expiration dates on information–that may.
Delete is an eye-opening book that will help us remember how to forget in the digital age.
Publisher Princeton University Press, 2009
ISBN 0691138613, 9780691138619
237 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-9-23)
Comments (6)Barry Blesser, Linda-Ruth Salter: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · acoustics, architecture, listening, sound, sound recording
We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and “hear” the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.
The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture’s attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to “see” objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling.
Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.
Publisher MIT Press, 2007
ISBN 0262026058, 9780262026055
437 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)
Comment (1)Gerd Leonhard: Music 2.0 (2008)
Filed under book | Tags: · business, filesharing, music, p2p, web 2.0
Music2.0 is a hard-hitting, provocative and inspiring collection of essays and blog posts on the future of the music industry. The book continues and expands on the ideas and models presented in the book “The Future of Music”, which has become a must-read work within the music industry.
Music2.0 describes what the next generation of music companies will look like and the new principles that will define the next iteration of the music business.
Music2.0 presents the best of Gerd’s writings from the past four years. As you move from 2003 to 2007 in the book, the evolution of various ideas and expressions can clearly be observed.
cc Gerd Leonhard, 2008
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