Eco Rama » Books http://eco-rama.net Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:41:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 Content, huh? Ha! Wheres the container? http://eco-rama.net/content-huh-ha-wheres-the-container/ http://eco-rama.net/content-huh-ha-wheres-the-container/#comments Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:26:38 +0000 Ramana Reddy Print VersionsCory Doctorow, our renegade information plumber, is launching his first collection of essays on everything form copyright and DRM to the layout of phone-keypads, the fallacy of the semantic web, the nature of futurism, the necessity of privacy in a digital world, the reason to love Wikipedia, the miracle of fanfic, and many other subjects. [...]]]> Cory Doctorow, our renegade information plumber, is launching his first collection of essays on everything form copyright and DRM to the layout of phone-keypads, the fallacy of the semantic web, the nature of futurism, the necessity of privacy in a digital world, the reason to love Wikipedia, the miracle of fanfic, and many other subjects.

Print Versions

Print Versions
Print Versions

As expected from Cory, the new book (Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future) digital versions are available, without charge, at the same time that the print versions are published. He is innovating on reward models, so if you want to donate something you can do so by buying a copy for a librarian or teacher and teachers and librarians can request a copy for their institution.

The book was designed by typography legend John D Berry, and presents a fine introduction from our good friend John Perry Barlow (photo), which I found provocative enough for me to publish it here.

John Perry Barlow
San Francisco Seattle Vancouver San Francisco
Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Perhaps these words appear to you on the pages of a book, a physical object that might be said to have contained the thoughts of my friend and co-conspirator Cory Doctorow as they were transported in boxes and trucks all the way from his marvelous mind into yours. If that is so, I will concede that you might be encountering content. (Actually, if thats the case, Im delighted on Corys behalf, since that means that you have also paid him for these thoughts. We still know how to pay creators directly for the works they embed in stuff.)

But the chances are excellent that youre reading these liquid words as bit-states of light on a computer screen, having taken advantage of his willingness to let you have them in that form for free. In such an instance, what contains them? Your hard disk? His? The Internet and all the servers and routers in whose caches the ghosts of their passage might still remain? Your mind? Corys?

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]]> http://eco-rama.net/content-huh-ha-wheres-the-container/feed/ 0 The Black President Before Obama http://eco-rama.net/the-black-president-before-obama/ http://eco-rama.net/the-black-president-before-obama/#comments Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:08:20 +0000 Rallapalli Largest PopulationThe sweeping Obama phenomenon has caught Brazil, and it comes as no surprise in the country with the worlds largest population of African descendants. Blogs are commenting on all things Obama, from his stand on ethanol to the rumors of his appraisal of Brazils free software policies. An especially notable thread is the one reporting [...]]]> The sweeping Obama phenomenon has caught Brazil, and it comes as no surprise in the country with the worlds largest population of African descendants. Blogs are commenting on all things Obama, from his stand on ethanol to the rumors of his appraisal of Brazils free software policies. An especially notable thread is the one reporting on the resurgence of a weirdly interesting 1928 Brazilian sci-fi novel The Black President that predicted a US election matching a black, a feminist, and a conservative candidate in the then remote year of 2228.

Largest Population

Largest Population
Largest Population

The author, Monteiro Lobato, is very famous in Brazil for his tales for children and teens. The set of books Yellow Woodpecker Ranch was turned into popular TV series that reigned supreme on Brazilian tubes through 5 different remakes the first in 1952, and most recently in 2001. But, in this case, the book is an obscure and rare incursion of Lobato into adult science fiction. The resurgence of interest in it now is totally connected with what stands out as an incredible intuitive guesswork on what has come to be our present situation, but 80 years ago (!) almost unimaginable.

Most of the Brazilian readers of Monteiro Lobato (1882-1948) know him for the episodes of the Yellow Woodpecker Ranch series, and few are acquainted with his adult piece Originally published in 1926 as a feuilleton in the newspaper A Manh, (but then titled as The Clash of Races, which today stands as the subtitle), The Black President is a doubly curious book: first for being a science fiction piece, an uncommon genre among Brazilian writers, and second because the plot anticipates the current scientific and intellectual debate during the first decades of the 20th century.Monteiro Lobatos Black President ALPHARRBIO por Viegas Fernandes da Costa

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