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You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 10:17 am
by Bram
I'm gonna re-do my review:

This is a book about the trade-offs we under go when using technology, particularly computers:

the loss of privacy

the loss of peoples ability to generate money off of their intellectual creations (such as music and writing) due to piracy and the movement towards making information free

the surprising fact that when you build a computer program it can become a foundation for other programs and you can't remove the original (MIDI is his prime example, a cool tool at first but now we are stuck with simplistic notation on our phones and electronic devices), thereby limiting future potential

and the mind-set change of making computers more special and humans less so.

It's wordy, unnecessarily complex at times, but I like the unique voice of the author.

Recommended for people interested in technology, for those who wonder about the effects of social networking and also anyone pondering what the future might hold for us as we enter deeper into a blind contract with machines and computers.

Re: You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:31 pm
by TerryB
sounds terrible

Re: You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:03 pm
by Bram
Protobuilder is a rude poster, but his response is to my original review, and it prompted me to re-write it.