Category: Book Review

Your kids are watching Streampunks while YouTube watches everyone.

November 8, 2017

“Streampunks: Youtube and the Rebels Remaking Media” covers the rise of a new class of media stars: Youtubers. Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s cheif business officer, authored the book with the help of Maany Peyvan, Google’s lead writer. It’s an authoritative, fascinating, well-written and entertaining book. If you’re over 30 and you’ve blinked, then you may have missed the media revolution that YouTube sparked and is continuing to lead. But since current Google employees wrote the book, it’s not surprising that it sometimes seems like an infomercial that occasionally acknowledges some of YouTube’s less desirable impacts. If you work in the media business, then read this book. … More Your kids are watching Streampunks while YouTube watches everyone.

Read “Introducing Ethereum and Solidity” to get your feet wet with smart contracts.

October 5, 2017

“Introducing Ethereum and Solidity: Foundations of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Programming for Beginners” is a light introduction to Ethereum and its built-in scripting language, Solidity. At 179 pages, this book is not a comprehensive tutorial about building decentralized apps (also called DAPPS). The book does, however, provide a very brief overview of developing and deploying smart contracts on Ethereum. … More Read “Introducing Ethereum and Solidity” to get your feet wet with smart contracts.

Utopia, Dystopia, or Both? The Master Algorithm is Coming.

April 8, 2017

“The Master Algorithm” gives readers an overview of the current state of machine learning, The book’s hypothesis is that there can be one general purpose algorithm that’s able to learn anything. The book reviews the philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses of each of the “five tribes” of machine learning, and in the process, readers learn the history of artificial intelligence (AI). The Master Algorithm concludes with some thoughts about a future when computers surpass the capabilities of the human brain for tasks that previously required conscious beings. Will learners solve all of our problems and bring about technological singularity, or will our future learning machines become our overlords in a Skynet-like dystopia? … More Utopia, Dystopia, or Both? The Master Algorithm is Coming.

“The Internet of Money” Will Take You On a Tour of Important Bitcoin Topics

January 19, 2017

Andreas Antonopoulos is a heck of a smart cookie, a great speaker, and one of the world’s leading bitcoin experts. The eleven chapters that make up his book, The Internet of Money, are the transcripts of selected presentations Andreas gave over the past few years. The publisher edited the transcripts to improve readability and to correct inadvertent errors. … More “The Internet of Money” Will Take You On a Tour of Important Bitcoin Topics

“Digital Gold” Tells the Story of Bitcoin from Outlaws and Anarchists to Wall Street and Winklevoss

December 10, 2016

Digital Gold tells the story of Bitcoin from Satoshi Nakamoto’s 9-page 2008 white paper through 2015. It’s fun to read. The characters in this true story are the ideologues, outlaws, millionaires, entrepreneurs, power brokers, geeks and a few oddballs who made Bitcoin the first viable, global and digital currency. Nathaniel Popper, a New York Times columnist, wrote Digital Gold. It was difficult for me to put the book down. … More “Digital Gold” Tells the Story of Bitcoin from Outlaws and Anarchists to Wall Street and Winklevoss

“Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies” Will Teach You how Bitcoin Works

December 7, 2016

If you want to learn how Bitcoin works on a technical level, then read Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies. If you’re a nerd, you’ll love it. Princeton University hosts the book’s web page, which provides links to video lectures for each chapter. From that web page, you can also download Java programming assignments and a free pre-publication version of the book. Coursera has an online course (currently free) that’s based on the book. … More “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies” Will Teach You how Bitcoin Works

Cut the Crap: Read “Writing Without Bullshit”

December 6, 2016

You should read “Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean” before you send another email or write your next blog post. This book focuses on business writing, but you can apply its recommendations to less formal writing, too. The book repeatedly stresses the Iron Imperative: Treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own. In this post I discuss the most important lessons I learned from Writing Without Bullshit. … More Cut the Crap: Read “Writing Without Bullshit”

There’s Big Money in Big Data

November 1, 2016

The term “big data” has come to represent the technologies, software tools, methodologies, and even the organization structures, that are designed to manage and analyze the new massive and complex data sets that businesses are creating. Proponents argue that companies that master the challenges of big data will crush their competitors that don’t. This post reviews a book, entitled “From Big Data to Big Profits.” … More There’s Big Money in Big Data

BOOK REVIEW – Will the Blockchain Change the World?

September 22, 2016

The blockchain is the technology underlying the Bitcoin digital currency. It is a distributed ledger that you can use to record anything of value and importance. Renowned futurists Don and Alex Tapscott believe that the blockchain will have a greater impact on our lives than any other technology that exists today. … More BOOK REVIEW – Will the Blockchain Change the World?