Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This is a dystopian novel set in the year 2044.  You could also call it a quest novel, a coming of age novel, or near future science fiction.  It melds many different themes into a unique, funny, and exciting story.  The one common theme that seems to unite all of it is geek culture, video games, and the 1980s.

Wade Watts the main character, is a geeky kid who spends most of his time in the virtual world of OASIS.  Virtual reality in this setting is extremely realistic.  Wade Watts even goes to school in the virtual world.  The virtual world he escapes into is infinitely better than his horrific, crowded, dangerous trailer park existence in the real world. The theme of bits versus atoms pervades this book.  In the real world, even virtual money is worth more than most national currencies.

The story is centered around a contest to gain control of the world wide virtual world called OASIS.  To do this, the entrants must solves riddles that were part of the creator of the virtual world's childhood.  The childhood is a kind of super fanboy and geek festival filled with 1980s references; everything from Duran Duran to Star Trek to the video game Joust.  It is very funny.  It reminds me a bit of my own childhood.

The book adds in many tropes: a love interest, an evil corporation, and plenty of action.  It moves very quickly from scene to scene and makes you want to find out what happens next.  The book made me laugh and smile while I was reading it.  It is lot of fun especially if you are nostalgic about the 1980s, liked roleplaying games, video games, comics, and listened to rock music.

Ernest Cline has a website http://www.ernestcline.com/  .  The book Ready Player One is coming out in August of 2011.  I was reading an advanced reading copy sent to me by Library Journal   I think this book will cross reading genres and be appealing to a wide audience.

Content Strategy Meetup, January 25,Tuesday, 7 p.m. (Winter Social Session)

Content Management Meetup, January 25, Tuesday, 7 p.m., Winter Social

The meetup was kind of interesting.  I went there to learn more about the profession of content strategy.  It is an emerging profession.

First we met and introduced ourselves. I am hoping I remember most of the people there. There was Peter Gallo who was information architect. Brian E. Kirby was one of the organizers. He works for AIG as a managing editor for web content. He explained his job is more to decide what people are going to do with content than editing. Another of the organizers was Anna Svahn who works for an advertising agency. There was also Elena Melendy who was an independent contractor, Lynn Bernstein who works as an independent consultant, and Liz Weintrob who works for Saatchi and Saatchi as a managing editor and John who works as a technology person.

The atmosphere was quite comfortable. The first thing that they mentioned was a conference called Confab 2011 http://www.confab2011.com/ Anna Svahn was planning on going. It is in Minneapolis on May 9-11.

I asked about content strategy and what it was. They told me that it can mean a lot of different things. The field was relative new. It was about two years old. There is some relation between content strategy and content curation. It is more strategy than data management.

I asked about books which you could read. The first thing they suggested was that I look at Joe Pulizzi who is establishing the Content Management Association. He has a book called Get Content, Get Customers.

Several other books were talked about including; The Content Strategy Bible by Paul Sheffield. This book gives a good introduction to the field. Anne Rockley also wrote Managing Enterprise Content, A Unified Content Strategy. On the more technical side, they mentioned the book, Content Management Bible by Bob Boiko. It is a technical book on how to build a content management system including building, implementing, running, and managing a CMS.

For something a bit simpler, they suggested reading Paul Krug's book about usability, Don't Make Me Think. I mentioned two books, Curation Nation aby Steven Rosenbaum and Letting Go of Words by Ginny Redish. It was interesting hearing about these books.

Most of the people were focused on corporate and advertising data. Liz Weintrob came from a publishing background and worked with Saatchi and Saatchi.

The field is very new. It is about two years old. When I mentioned that I was a librarian they suggested I might be interested in information architecture. I said, no, I am more interested in what goes into a website than the structure, I do collection development.

They described that they were dealing with enterprise content, not smaller systems like Drupal which they use in our library.

I was especially interested in some of the ideas about metadata. They only told me that they are often hired to go in and cleanup existing services which have inadequate descriptors for their records. The search engines and indexes are often not user focused. They are also involved in data mapping and data planning which means they plan out maps of all the data they are going to put in.

I think it was Lynn Bernstein who talked about how she often had to create descriptors for the records from museums and film which had not been properly labeled. It was often a focus on individual records being described. Their objective was to make it easy for the user not the creator. She mentioned three questions.

What do we have?

What are we doing?

What are we going to do with it?

There was an analogy that data was put into a cup. Then the content strategist asks who is going to drink from the cup?

It was a very interesting evening. I learned quite a bit.  As always, feel free to correct me, comment, and think on what was said. Please don't mind my functional, if somewhat personal grammar.

What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly




Kevin Kelly views technology as a natural organic living process. He calls it the technium. He views it as being part of human evolution. I found the ideas to be fascinating but overly anthropomorphic. He gave living qualities to stone, steel, spoons, bricks, and computers. There is both a humanizing and a dehumanizing aspect to this writing.



The humanizing aspect is a view of increased possibilities, more opportunities to create greater freedoms and greater choice. The author shows how machines improve our lives and expand our possibilities. He also includes systems of thought like science, art, and law as part of technology. He describes how technology evolved as we evolved from the stone age to modern cities.



Where it fails and seems a bit dehumanizing is his taking a picture of nature that seems very utilitarian. He describes that eventually there will be no waste with biophilic technology. I think this lessens nature and makes it machine like. He even claims the Amish are part of the technium because of how they use technology. This was a bit far fetched to me. I don't like to think of myself as evolving in a similar way to a machine.



The unabomber, Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology views are gone into. This was quite daring to do. Kevin Kelly does not shy from tackling some opposing view points. He even talks about primitivism. This makes the book different.


There is a deeply philosophical bent to the writing. I can recognize some of the philosophy. Some of it is very much at the edge of high technology. He seems to be trodding a slightly different path than transhumanism where the idea is that we will become more than human when we integrate with machines. Kevin Kelly also does not argue for the singularity where machines become smarter than humans. Machines are a different kind of intelligence than human intelligence. His ultimate goal is to open infinite games for people, more choice, more freedom, more opportunities through technology.



Read this book it will open your mind to new ideas. It makes you think. Kevin Kelly helped launched Wired Magazine. His website is http://www.kk.org/



The book is fairly dense reading. It includes notes, an annotated reading list, black and white photographs, charts, and an index. It is very much a popular science title.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld

This book is an introductory text on information architecture for the internet.  The information in this book clarified and defined many ideas from this emerging profession.  It is quite relevant to librarians.  According to this book 40% of information architects come from a library science background.

Many of the concepts that were being described came right out of library school.  I remember reading about search engines, indexes, and classification in my cataloging class.  This book takes it one step further and describes how information on the web is turned into metadata, controlled vocabularies, and labeling systems. It also describes how indexes and search engines are designed.

It is more than just information systems, it is also the language of the nonvisible parts of websites.  It describes things which a chief information officer or a senior developer might talk about; web blueprints, taxonomy, wireframes, and content maps.  This is the planned architecture of enterprise websites.

The reader also learns the vocabulary and professional interests in education, strategy, and selling the profession.  Reading this was eye opening.  It gave me a description of how enterprise websites are created like evolt.org or the MSWeb intranet.

After reading this, I am beginning to get a context of how complex websites are put together.  There is the content strategist who puts in all the different kinds of content in the site, and the information architect who creates the framework on which an enterprise website is built..

This was an incredibly useful book.  It helped me understand the internet in ways which I had not done before.  I would highly recommend this to people who are interested in technology.

You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier

You Are Not A Gadget A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier is making a statement against the current state of the internet. He was one of the original creators of virtual reality and proponents for creative commons. He is arguing that the internet has become dehumanizing, mob ruled, economically destructive, and poorly designed. This book is an argument for a different kind of internet; a single payer web, a place with less anonymity, a place where authors are acknowledged for their work, and a place where humans are more important than systems and codes.

The book is very much focused on a humanistic view of computing. The computer serves the individual to help them become more creative. It is against many network oriented ideologies. He thinks large computer networks threaten individual freedom and the idea of a singularity or the point where machines become smarter than humans is counterproductive.

There is a very nice reminder to not be fragmentary and try not to be anonymous. I feel that I need a little bit of anonymity to present some of my views. Jaron Lanier wants people to bring back a degree of civility to the computer world. In his view, the point of networks and social networks is to connect with other people. People are more important than networks.

Social networks are a way to connect with people. I am going to be at Book Expo America and the Bookbloggers Convention as part of this. Networks are not just disembodied voices. If you are using networks correctly, you will be invited to events in the real world like the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art receptions, librarian meetups, conventions, or lunches.

Some of the ideas he is talking about are front and center. There is currently a copyright war that is about digital rights. Central to this idea is who is the author. If there is no acknowledged author which people respect for creative works, the author cannot make a living. Very few people can make money selling knick knacks or speaking. He is correct on this. The internet has disenfranchised many authors, newspeople, and musicians. Acknowledge where you get your content from.

This is an excellent counterpoint to authors like Chris Anderson who talk about the wonderful new opportunities on the web. It is a counterargument against the impersonality of Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and other new media darlings.

The writing is eclectic. It touches on some surprising subjects; cephalopod intelligence, the circle of empathy, theories of computation, music, virtual reality, the noosphere, and the singularity are just a few of the subjects.

If you want to read a very creative personal manifesto about the way the internet is heading, you will find this different. It is a humanistic and individualistic counter to many of the prevailing ideas. Some of it is a little far fetched, but still worth thinking over. I liked reading it.

Got Game How The Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade

Got Game How The Gamer Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade

This book identifies the strengths which computer gamers have to help business. Through surveys they identify the attitudes which gamers have which will help them succeed in business; an urge to win, a willingness to fail then move on, the ability to try again, the urge to be on top, and immersion in a computerized environment.

The authors tend to mention, but gloss over some of the less desirable traits which many gamers exhibit, a tendency to not read manuals, be a little sloppy, be very egocentric, and demand high compensation. There is very little which talks about how to solve these problems. The surveys given to gamers also seem to be very simplistic at times.

Instead of focusing on problems, the book looks to aim at bringing out leadership traits. It points out the strategy involved in many computer games as well as the focus on team work and exploration in some of the larger virtual worlds.

I found quite a bit in common with what many of the surveys which they did asked. I could identified many of my own personal characteristics in this book. I think Got Game would be particularly useful for business people to read who work in computer or high technology industries. It is aimed at managing gamers.

Some people will have a hard time with this book. Many people do not see any value in playing computer games. They find them counterproductive. There is quite a bit on the value of playing games.

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

This book is about measuring people. It visits the companies and individuals that are creating the mathematics to measure and track people. IBM is seeking to track all of its 50,000 workers using complex social networking software. The company, Umbria, has created software to track blogs. Casinos are trying to find cheats in the least intrusive way possible.

The Numerati tells the story of how you are a statistic which can be broken down into a category then tracked using mathematical algorithms. These algorithms see if you are a productive white collar worker, what you buy, how you vote, and what you write in your blog.

In addition, these numbers can become intrusive and be used to determine if you are terrorist or criminal, what your medical problems are, and who you might fall in love with. As they say, the only way to really insure your privacy is to not put it online or over a cell phone.

You have value as a mathematical commodity to many people. You get a supermarket discount card so the retailer can track what you buy filling up your cart with your weekly groceries. You receive a constant stream of junk mail based on what you buy online or over the phone. I regularly receive mailers from Haband because I buy from them online.

People exist in what is called the, "attention economy". Your attention has value. You might even pay money to a search engine optimization company to make your blog more visible on the web so more people will pay attention to it. I constantly ping my blog to make sure places like Technorati and Google know it has been updated.

What you do at work and on the web are monitored. There are now thousands of security cameras everywhere; in supermarkets, at the job, and on street. The government and private industry is both protecting and surveilling you. It has become an age of ubiquitous tracking.

This surveillance can be beneficial as well as harmful. In healthcare, it can monitor alzheimers patients, and check for future health problems. As things improve, you might live in a house with built in circuitry that checks your physical condition constantly.

I found this book insightful. It reminded me that I need to keep some control over where I spend my money and who I give my information to. I don't take surveys over the phone. Often, I will make purchases with cash. One of the reasons I often use the library is the records of what I read and watch are purged regularly. Library records can be supinaed. Making choices of how you are recorded is paramount in an attention economy.

I enjoyed reading this book. There is very little complex math in it. It also maintains a very neutral tone and does not sensationalize the subject. This makes the writing very accessible.

Good Afternoon, Future of the Internet, Solar Concentrating

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Google DC Talks: The Future of the Internet

Good Afternoon

Good afternoon, I am not going to post a huge amount today. I started reading a bit of The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain. This book is about the excesses of the internet like Web 2.0, iPhones, Opensource, and various other slightly incomprehensible things. This book is attempting to suggest a practical way to deal with these things. Making these things seem practical is rather impractical to me, but it should be rather interesting reading.

I also learned something kind of interesting by following my stock, Capstone Turbine. They are working with a company called HelioFocus to develop a hot air powered turbine where the air is heated by solar concentrators. The concept is quite interesting.

http://www.capstoneturbine.com/news/story.asp?id=476

Mostly, I have been resting today and getting some extra sleep. I'll probably go drive around this afternoon a bit after I take a long nap.

Between the zinc tabs, the vitamin c, the tylenol, and napping, I sm starting to feel a lot better. My head doesn't ache as much.

I took a short drive on both the highway and the city streets. I think the car will pass inspection now. I drove down to Circuit City and looked at the computers. I still have an inkjet printer. Now, they sell these printers with a fas, scanner, copier, and printer all built into one unit for about $150.00. Also, I still don't have a flatacreen, which I can get for about $200.00. I have a big old clunky monitor. To tell you how old my computer is, there is a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive in it.

It still works. I keep on promising myself, I will get an upgrade. If I got the cheapest computer from Dell, it would still outperform my current computer. I have the patience to look for a package deal, computer, monitor, and printer as a bundle.

I do have a cable modem however. Fiber optic is much faster. I might look at Verizon which just got the right to sell fiber optic around New York.

I feel like I fell off the tracks today. I seem to be losing focus right now on this blog. I think I will be back on point tomorrow.

Changing The Fonts and Background, Ordering Computer Books

Changing Fonts And Background

I changed the fonts and background color to make my sidebar more visible. Someone recently complained about the way my blog looked. It was not readable enough. I hope this looks much better. The links were hard to see.

Ordering Computer Books

I spent more time ordering computer books today. I spoke with the person in charge of the Cybercorner where people can sign up to use the computers for free. She told me that she thought that the Complete Idiots Guides and The For Dummies series of books were about the right speed for our library. She also mentioned that we needed a lot of very basic books on computers: email, PCs, internet, computer repair, routers, ebay, windows vista, and digital photography. There were not a whole lot of books on routers. I always try and get input from other staff members when I am doing ordering lists.

I also spent a bit of time going through the current computer books to see if there were any publishers imprints I had missed. There was a series called The Absolute Beginners Guides which covered basic issues with computing. As part of looking, I discarded a few of the computer guides.

We cannot discard a lot of the older books because of the problem of legacy computing. What happens is that some businesses keep their old software for many years and do not upgrade it. The stores stop selling the older books about computers, but the businesses still maintain the older systems. We get questions about Windows 95, SAP, Wordstar, DBase IV, and similar systems which can no longer be purchased in the bookstores. The library becomes the de facto repository for books on legacy programs.

I took a few minutes to look at PC Magazine and Computers In Libraries. Computers In libraries had two interesting books listed, The Accidental Webmaster by Julie Stills, and Social Software In Libraries by Meredith Farkas. There were a few gadgets that I had forgotten to consider in PC Magazine, the Smart Phone, Blackberry, and Palm devices.

While I was looking at Amazon and plugging in various categories, I also came across another interesting book, The Future of the Internet And How To Stop It by Jonathan Ziffrain. It is a fascinating title, but I don't think we are going to stop the internet any time soon.

Comparing Computers, Ordering Job Books

Don't you just wish you could do this to your computer sometimes.

This morning because of the computer debacle last night, I am going to look at purchasing a new computer. I am going to use the comparables method I learned while I was working as a real estate appraisers assistant before I became a librarian. What I am going to do is look at three different sources of information on computers, cnet, pc magazine, and consumer reports. I am going to take down the information on three computers which I like then I am going to compare the different features to see which one I will buy. Dell created a problem when I bought it last time, the hard drive did not last very long. I am thinking about possibly getting a Gateway because I need a media computer more than I need a business computer. This is my morning project.

I looked at CNET and I looked at PC Magazine online. They both rate HP Pavilion systems and Dell computers highly. HP Pavilion seems to be the most popular and highest rated system right now.

I am looking at Consumer Reports. They have a very nice free article on the best way to buy a computer.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/computers/computer/desktop-computers/desktop-pcs-mac-computers-sub/how-to-choose/desktop-pcs-mac-computers-how-to-choose.htm

Unfortunately, the ratings on their site are not free. I am going to look at the magazine to see the ratings in print for free at the library. The June 2008 Consumer Reports Magazine has the latest ratings for computers. So, it is very up to date.

I looked through Consumer Reports. The top two rated are Gateway FX computers and HP Pavilion computers. The problem with HP Pavilion computers is that they have poor customer service. Consumer reports rates Hewlett Packard's support poorly. This leaves me with a choice between Gateway FX and Dell computers.

After looking at the Gateway website, the Gateway deal for the DX442S which includes a 19" lcd monitor looks quite good.

This morning while I was on the train, I read some more of Hot Text Web Writing That Works. This book is going to take me several days to read properly still. I am on page 286 right now, about two thirds of the way through the book. It is quite information dense.

Today, I have spent several hours looking at and ordering job books. I have $1500 to spend. The career counselor who comes on Tuesdays, brought a list of recently ordered career books from another library. The list covered new books from 2005-2008. We also talked about what she needed to help her job. She travels from branch to branch, going to different libraries in our library cooperative.

The way resource sharing works is that in the county, we are a library cooperative. Every library has its own resources and budget, however, the catalog, the interlibrary loan, and some other things are shared through a central resources building.

She told me she needed more books on jobs and interviewing for ex-offenders, women returning to the workplace, being unemployed, working from home, and nursing resume books.

I also took a look at a variety of publishers; Arco Books, Barron Books, Ten Speed Press, Career Press, and the American Management Assocation for career books.

I picked out a few graphic novels for the summer reading display for summer loan. This allows people to take out books and bring them on vacation. Summer loan allows people to take out books for two months during the summer, but they must have a copyright on or before 2005. A few of the titles were Plastic Man On The Lam by Kyle Baker, The Magic Flute illustrated and adapted by P. Craig Russell, Age of Bronze The Story of the Trojan War, and Captain America Winter Soldier.

Rambling On. Electric Morning

I feel a little rambunctious this morning. I have been reading more of Hot Text which is turning out to be very insightful. I wish I had read it earlier. It offers some interesting insights about how to write for the web.

I checked Locus Magazine and Science Fiction site this morning. I put House of Many Ways by Diana Wynn Jones on hold. This is something I am looking forward to read. Diana Wynn Jones has a really excellent sense of humor and does a very good job describing the fantastic.

Another book I am requesting is Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams.

The Library At Night by Alberto Manguel also just came here. It hasn't been processed yet. The cover has a very nice black and white image on the front.

After looking at http://cromely.blogspot.com, I took a little test which he had linked to on his site.

You Are a Little Negative...

You can be negative from time to time, but you rarely go overboard. You have a realistic view of the world, and most people appreciate your honest insights. Like everyone else, you have your darker moods. But when you're feeling super negative, you keep your feelings to yourself.

Are You Too Negative?

I had a rather interesting experience this morning. While I was leaving, the fuse blew in the area of the computer room. Apparently, my computer somehow managed to overload the wiring. Iam not completely sure of this. I have to be careful when writing this. There was no brownout according to Con Ed. It only affected the front of my apartment. According to Con Edison people have been using a lot more energy in my area.

I am thinking about getting a battery device for my computer so it can power down properly if there is another brownout. I am lucky I had a functional surge protector which needed to be reset.

I am thinking I may need a new computer which can handle the web better and process things better. My computer is not that new, I upgraded it twice with new components, ram and programs. I am rather surprised it has lasted this long with the way I use it. The hard drive died earlier, but it was under warranty, so they sent me a new one.

I don't like spending money unless I know I will get something considerably better. I don't like Windows Vista. Right now, I have not decided what kind of computer to get. I think I'll get something soon...

The Big Switch Rewiring the World From Edison to Google-- Nicholas Carr-- Essay

The Big Switch Rewiring the World From Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr is a book about the change from small scale computing to utility scale comping. It is a book which I cannot be neutral about. There is a lot said in here which will affect my profession and my future in surprising ways. I think the book is eye opening. So, I am going to include a lot of my experiences with what is being written in this book.

Nicholas Carr compares the transformation of electricity from small power plants to large scale centralized power plants to what is happening with computing today. He posits that we are moving from individual scale computers to large utility scale data centers and application service providers. He claims it is easier and cheaper to centralize computer applications into offsite management.

For example, I find many of Yahoo's services to be superior to using my home computer. I sometimes backup files on http://briefcase.yahoo.com/ . I also keep a separate list of my favorite online sites on http://www.backflip.com/ . These are both remote functions.

I have always wondered why I could not simply log into an application service provider and do all the work I needed from anywhere. Google has recently created a suite of business applications called Google Apps. For $50 per person per year, you can get the advertisement free version of business applications to use to run a business. This is run from Google's giant data centers.

There are other utility scale computer companies that manage programming remotely for much cheaper than having an in house service; salesforce.com, Savvis, Amazon S3 Computer services, and Savvis. Microsoft is preparing to virtualize its services and programs.

This is not necessarily a good thing for the middle class. As services move from in house technology departments to outsourced IT data centers, less people are required to do the same job. Not only are less people required. These centers can be built in a wide variety of places around the world. This creates shrinkage in the amount of knowledge jobs available. I have seen this happening in the profession of librarianship in every sector, academic, public, school, and special libraries.

Also the larger centralized data centers have more computing power and a greater variety of programming power than most in house technology departments. These data centers can provide services like Flickr, Blogger, Youtube, Wordpress, and other programs which can be used with minimal computer skills. It is very easy to join "the horde" of users that have become invested in these services. For example, I am a member of Entrecard, which on closer inspection uses Amazon S3 partially, a service which provides virtual computing.

One of the current features of "the horde" as it is sometimes called is that entrepreneurs can tap the horde to create free wealth for them. They are not paying us for our labor in creating blogs, posting amateur photographs, or sharing music. For example, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen sold Youtube to Google for $1.65 billion. Youtube employed sixty people. It is a situation where those producers who succeed get a massive jackpot.

Because the labor is free, however, it hollows out the traditional middle class jobs. The reward which people are getting is one of status, or hits on a computer screen. There is little money attached to this status. For example if someone creates a service where thousands of people try to answer a question for free, it challenges my job. This is happening with journalism a lot. Someone reports an event as it is happening on their blog and it appears on the news. The bloggers often are not being paid for this.

Wikipedia is a classic example of this. The majority of people who provide information to Wikipedia are volunteers. Yet, it has provided a direct challenge to the encyclopedia companies. There are articles which claim that Wikipedia is as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. The unrealized problem is one where Wikipedia is replacing more than one paid for service.
http://www.news.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

At the same time this concentration of wealth is happening for the "producers", the amount of jobs in technology are shrinking. People cannot rely on a "gift economy" or an economy based on popularity to live. There is a real divorce from reality in how people are promised lots of money from advertising on their blog, or selling affiliate nick nacks. It simply does not happen most of the time. Problogger said it beautifully, it takes 10,000 hits a day to make approximately $50,000 a year if you use advertising and affiliate programs on your blog.

The author calls this phenomenon, The WWC, the worldwide computer. It is a much better name than Web 2.0 which means essentially nothing in my book. I think this phenomenon creates too much power for business and government. Instead of "Big brother is watching you," we are getting "Mega-marketer is selling you." He gives the excellent example of "personalization" where companies collect your information so they can make their product more suitable for you.

My opinions are not necessarily the same as the authors. However, many of the things he says in this book really hit a nerve with me. It helped explain a lot of the things which are happening with computers today. The idea of computing as a utility is an interesting one. The authors promotional site for the book is at http://www.bigswitch.com/