The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google PDF Download

Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393333949
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 287

View

Book Description
"Future Shock for the Web-apps era.... Compulsively readable—for nontechies, too."—Fast Company Building on the success of his industry-shaking Does IT Matter? Nicholas Carr returns with The Big Switch, a sweeping look at how a new computer revolution is reshaping business, society, and culture. Just as companies stopped generating their own power and plugged into the newly built electric grid some hundred years ago, today it's computing that's turning into a utility. The effects of this transition will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. The Big Switch provides a panoramic view of the new world being conjured from the circuits of the "World Wide Computer." New for the paperback edition, the book now includes an A–Z guide to the companies leading this transformation.

Author: Saul Griffith
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1743822375
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 238

View

Book Description
An inspiring, practical plan to transform Australia’s energy system and supercharge our response to the climate crisis Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now – but what? Australian visionary Saul Griffith has a plan. In The Big Switch, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint – optimistic but feasible – for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future. ‘I’m a scientist, inventor and father who wants to leave my kids a better world. The data convinces me that it is still rational to have hope.’ —Saul Griffith 'About f*cking time we have an actual plan written down that can be executed and financed. In a decarbonised world, Australia is a winner. The opportunity now is ours for the taking.' -Mike Cannon-Brookes 'Griffth argues that electrification is the path forward to mitigate climate change while creating jobs.' -Rose Mary Petrass, The Fifth Estate '...an engaging, optimistic, and persuasive perspective on the huge opportunities in front of us.' -Benjamin Powell, Westender Community News

Author: Pam Pollack
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780439449472
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 64

View

Book Description
As Dexter gets ready to introduce the Virtual Identity Teleporter to the scientific world, his sister Dee Dee pulls the switch on his invention, turning Dexter into a boy genius ballerina.

Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 0345491874
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 450

View

Book Description
In 1941 Winston Churchill was Hitler’s worst enemy. Then a Nazi secret agent changed everything. What if Neville Chamberlain, instead of appeasing Hitler, had stood up to him in 1938? Enraged, Hitler reacts by lashing out at the West, promising his soldiers that they will reach Paris by the new year. Instead, three years pass, and with his genocidal apparatus not fully in place, Hitler barely survives a coup, while Jews cling to survival, and England and France wonder whether the war is still worthwhile. The stage is set for World War II to unfold far differently from the history we know—courtesy of Harry Turtledove, wizard of “what if?,” in the continuation of his thrilling series: The War That Came Early. Through the eyes of characters ranging from a brawling American serving with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain to a woman who has seen Hitler’s evil face-to-face, The Big Switch rolls relentlessly forward into 1941. As the Germans and their Polish allies slam into the gut of the Soviet Union in the west, Japan pummels away in the east. Meanwhile, in the trenches of France, French and Czech forces are outmanned but not outfought by their Nazi enemy. Then the stalemate is shattered. In England Winston Churchill dies suddenly, leaving the gray men wondering who their real enemy is. And as the USSR makes peace with Japan, the empire of the Rising Sun looks westward—its war with America about to begin.

Author: Chip Heath
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 030759016X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

View

Book Description
Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly. In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results: • The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients • The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping • The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

Author: Nicholas G. Carr
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422129527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 222

View

Book Description
Over the last decade, and even since the bursting of the technology bubble, pundits, consultants, and thought leaders have argued that information technology provides the edge necessary for business success. IT expert Nicholas G. Carr offers a radically different view in this eloquent and explosive book. As IT's power and presence have grown, he argues, its strategic relevance has actually decreased. IT has been transformed from a source of advantage into a commoditized "cost of doing business"--with huge implications for business management. Expanding on Carr's seminal Harvard Business Review article that generated a storm of controversy, Does IT Matter? provides a truly compelling--and unsettling--account of IT's changing business role and its leveling influence on competition. Through astute analysis of historical and contemporary examples, Carr shows that the evolution of IT closely parallels that of earlier technologies such as railroads and electric power. He goes on to lay out a new agenda for IT management, stressing cost control and risk management over innovation and investment. And he examines the broader implications for business strategy and organization as well as for the technology industry. A frame-changing statement on one of the most important business phenomena of our time, Does IT Matter? marks a crucial milepost in the debate about IT's future. An acclaimed business writer and thinker, Nicholas G. Carr is a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Author: David Andrew Warner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781459688193
Category : Boys
Languages : en
Pages : 110

View

Book Description
Meet Little Davey Warner. He lives in Sandhill Flats with his mum and dad and his brother Steve - and his stinky dog Max. Davey and his schoolmates - even Max - are MAD for cricket. All they want to do is play ... but there's always something getting in their way. In this first book in the series, Davey and his friends have a big game coming up against Shimmer Bay, their arch rivals in the local comp. They need to practise, and spend all their free time at school - in the morning and at lunchtime - making sure they'll be ready. But disaster strikes. Davey and his friends find out their new teacher is Mr Mudge, a strict grump who HATES cricket even more than he hates Year 6 boys, and thanks to bully Mo Clouter, they find themselves on detention. Which means no cricket. The boys are desperate. They're going to need to pull something special out of the bag to win against Shimmer Bay. Davey's mates have some ideas, one that could really get them into trouble, but it means getting around Mo, who seems to be everywhere they turn. But Davey has an idea that he thinks may just work ... he just needs to practise. Will he pull it off in time for the game against Shimmer Bay?

Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393079368
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293

View

Book Description
Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393254550
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 320

View

Book Description
A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy is “Carr’s best hits for those who missed the last decade of his stream of thoughtful commentary about our love affair with technology and its effect on our relationships” (Richard Cytowic, New York Journal of Books). Carr draws on artists ranging from Walt Whitman to the Clash, while weaving in the latest findings from science and sociology. Carr’s favorite targets are those zealots who believe so fervently in computers and data that they abandon common sense. Cheap digital tools do not make us all the next Fellini or Dylan. Social networks, diverting as they may be, are not vehicles for self-enlightenment. And “likes” and retweets are not going to elevate political discourse. Utopia Is Creepy compels us to question the technological momentum that has trapped us in its flow. “Resistance is never futile,” argues Carr, and this book delivers the proof.

Author: Gregg Clunis
Publisher: Center Street
ISBN: 154608276X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 149

View

Book Description
Achieve your goals and crush procrastination with these practical personal development strategies based on the hit podcast Tiny Leaps, Big Changes by Gregg Clunis. In today's world, we are constantly overloaded with positive messages, such as "follow your passion," or "dream big," that are supposed to spark change and accomplishments in our lives. But why doesn't anyone ever give practical advice on how exactly to achieve those lofty goals? Tiny Leaps, Big Changes explores the reality behind personal development -- that all big changes come from the small decisions we make every day. Using scientific and psychological research, Gregg Clunis shows you what hidden factors drive our behavior and gives you the tools to form helpful, daily habits to accomplish your goals. After reading Tiny Leaps, Big Changes, you'll know how to crush procrastination, double your productivity, and lessen the gap between what you want for your life and how you get it.