Cory Doctorow makes a clear case for the dangers of DRM, its roots in a copyright paradigm that privileges the interests of publishers over creators, and the prospects and requirements for creators in the internet age to be compensated for their creative work. The power of Doctorow’s argument (similar to the power of Schneier’s argument in Data and Goliath which I also read recently) is that he is not simply a copyright denialist, but a proponent of reform based on a historically contextualized understanding of where the interests of copyright have been obscured.
WorldCat » Amazon »This iteration of the Boss Fight Books series presents a collection of essays mostly around the social dynamics of World of Warcraft. I played WoW for a very short time and was into it from an exploration standpoint. Once that interest wore off, I quickly lost interest in the treadmill grinding. For Lisi, it was clearly primarily a social experience (as it probably was for the vast majority of players), and it was interesting to see how empty the game felt for even so high-level and dedicated a player in the absence of that social element. Includes several citations of Alex Golub’s work on WoW which I have been meaning to check out since we published him on mana as a videogame mechanic in The Appendix.
WorldCat » Amazon »Uses the work of Pierre Bouguer as a framind device for the rationalization and professionalization of ship building in the navies of Northern and Western Europe roughly during the scientific revolution. The focus is heavily on surveying the evolution of specific theoretical concerns and on tracing the influence of specific scholars and practitioners. Detailed and rigorous, it’s useful as a reference for connecting maritime technological innovation to larger trends in the history of early modern science.
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