CharlesJones

Writing Down the Jones

Archive for the ‘52 Books’ Category

June 27
The Mother Tongue
Tagged

No. 7

My Review

As fascinated as I’ve always been with language, particularly old ones (I took 2 years of Latin in high school and 3 years of Greek in college), I know almost nothing of how English came to be. I thought I knew plenty, of course, but then Bill Bryson pointed out how much I had to learn, and how much of what I had thought wasn’t much more than semi-educated guessing.

I’m no linguist, and I’m not widely read on the subject, so I can’t vouch for the truth of Bryson’s tale – and it is a tale containing almost as much legend and mystery as fact – but I can say that it’s great fun.

He starts by describing English as the world’s language, not just as the one choice for communicating across language barriers, but as a language that is penetrating other areas culturally and linguistically. Not only is English the choice of most international relations, but its words are being expropriated all over the world:

Already Germans talk about ein Image Problem and das CashFlow, Italians program their computers with il software, French motorists going away for a weekend break pause for les refueling stops, Poles watch telewizja, Spaniards have a flirt…and the Japanese go on a pikunikku.

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September 22
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Tagged

No. 20: The Shallows

My Review

I hadn’t read Nick Carr’s Atlantic article (“Is Google Making Us Stupid”) when I picked up The Shallows, though I knew about the question. I expected one of two possible answers:

  1. Technological advances are neither good nor bad, but they have a message about what we find important and how we should think that we need to be aware of.
  2. Technology is changing us, but it’s making our brains better.

What was his answer?

As it turns out, Carr argues that intellectual technologies, particularly the computer, which are characterized by distraction (think popup windows, OS notifications, email chimes, and instant messaging…all running at once), are changing our brains, and it’s bad for us. We lose the ability to read and think deeply, as more of our brain power is given to processing new and constantly active stimuli, and we become accustomed to consuming tiny bits of info (tweets, status updates, and incredibly brief blog posts) and skimming longer pieces of writing. As a result we are no longer able to understand or produce sustained arguments or even give focused attention.

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September 22
Posted in 52 Books, Books
Tagged

Writing Reviews is Hard

Last week I posted review number 19 of 2010. Last night I finished book number 27. There’s a small gap, and the main problem is that writing reviews is hard.

I enjoy the process of thinking through the book, discussing it with others who have and haven’t read it, and developing my own arguments around the issues discussed. But writing them down and editing them for posting is time consuming. It’s become worse as the number of finished but unreviewed books increases; it becomes more intimidating with each one to try to close the gap, and harder to remember what was in the book when I try.

So I’ve decided not to try. I’m no longer going to try to write an in-depth review of everything I read, only those that spark me sufficiently to do so. I’ll post short comments for those that I choose not to engage for a full review. Coming up: short reviews of The Shallows (longer commentary can be found at Christ and Pop Culture), The Last Colony, and The Andromeda Strain. I’ll post full comments about Technopoly, and Endangered Minds. I haven’t decided about Codex yet, and my comments on The Grace Awakening and He That Is Spiritual will be combined.

September 10
The Long Tail
Tagged

No. 19: The Long Tail

My Review

In 2006, Chris Anderson described for the masses a novel concept of the market. The basic concept of “long tail” markets is by now intuitive: the “infinite shelf space” available online means you can offer anything. In addition, once initial development cost is covered, sales of digital goods are (virtually) all profit. There is much more detail about the form and function of such markets, and many examples of different ways it is being executed. But that all seemed like “old hat”. What I found much more interesting were the way Anderson explained these trends historically, and the social changes that led to and result from The Long Tail.

The Development of the Long Tail

The long tail distribution seems new, but it was actually started back in 1886 when a jeweler mistakenly sent a box of watches to a local dealer who didn’t want them. A railway agent named Richard Sears bought them, sold them to other agents, turned a fair profit, and decided to start a watch distribution company. He partnered with Alvah C. Roebuck, who repaired the defective watches, and by 1893 they’d founded Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and started moving beyond watches.

Sears pioneered catalog sales, massive distribution centers, customizable products, assembly lines, standardized shipping, and the “superstore.” From that astounding model, the grocery store, catalogs as we know them today. Eventually, Amazon.com and online shopping developed as a result of the innovations by a railway agent and horologist.

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August 25
The Ghost Brigades
Tagged

No. 18: The Ghost Brigades

My Review

In the follow-up to Old Man’s War we find something that is both more and less than a sequel. It is it’s own story, no longer following the travails of John Perry, but many secondary characters and the established universe are present. It’s said to be comprehensible as a standalone novel, but I can’t imagine why you’d want to read it without reading its predecessor. For one, it is impossible even to explain the premise of The Ghost Brigades without offering up spoilers to Old Man’s War (I won’t try).

Scalzi continues to use this universe to address issues of youth, death, purpose, identity, and what it means to be human. There are some key differences, though.  OMW had a strong element engaging issues of integrating what Nick Carr would term “intellectual technologies” into our established patterns, but Ghost focuses on what it’s like to be born and raised with such technologies already integrated. These two approaches to examining some of the effects of these technologies has dovetailed nicely into the discussions found in The Shallows, and Endangered Minds.

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