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Books

How to Win Friends and Influence People book review

What a title for a book. The book was recommended by Joel Spolsky, he calls the book mandatory for what managers in his Fog Creek Software should read. That was what peaked my curiosity at first, then I read that the book is from 1936 and I was really intrigued. So I thought I’d order the book and see what all the fuss was about. And glad I did! The book is full of interesting anecdotes and advice that still rings as true today as the day they were written. It’s funny to read examples from the 1899, but that really doesn’t make them less true, on the contrary, it just shows that he was onto something fundamental in the human nature. The book touches many aspects of life, from business, to family to friends.  On wikipedia all the advices are summed up, but I really recommned that you read it for yourself. It’s worth it.

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Small review of Cory Doctorow’s Content

Content, is a new book by Cory Doctorow filled with small essays. Essays ranging from 2 to 10-15 pages in length, so they are quickly read but still takes some time to digest because of the depth. Cory knows his stuff and it really shows. The book includes the now infamous DRM talk at Microsoft. Not that they have learned much from it it seems 🙂 And a lot of other good stuff, including stories on how he deals with copyright in an internet age using Creative Commons.

The good thing about the short stories is that they are easy to go through, so I found myself just wanting to read one more. The bad side of putting that many short stories in there is that the stories can be a little tiring when many of them are about the same subject.

The whole book can be downloaded from here (CC licensed) in a variety of formats.

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Little Brother

I finished reading the new book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow tonight. It’s a really exciting book, one that leaves you wanted to read just a few more chapters before you fall a sleep. The book is about a not-so-distant future in which San Francisco is attacked by terrorists. And how the whole system is turned upside down because of the event. Besides the main story which is really good, the book is sprinkled with reference to geeky stuff like Tor, Electronic Frontier Foundation and crypto. The book is also stuck full of good humor, like the following quote:

the only person who’d spoken to me was a Jehovah’s Witness and a Scientologist, both trying to convert me. It felt gross, like being hit on by a pervert.

I was a little sceptical about the book at first, since I’ve read some his earlier works and I wasn’t that big of a fan of Down and Out in a Magic Kingdom. So I downloaded the book for free (CC-licensed) and started reading it on my laptop. After the first chapters the book really caught me, and I ordered the book on amazon, thinking I would read the rest of it when it got here in physical form. Of course I couldn’t let go of the book and finished it of before the amazon order has arrived. That doesn’t mean I’ll cancel my order, the book is really good and Cory deserves the praises he has been getting for this book.

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Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy

Just finished reading Lessig’s latest book. I’ve been widely fascinated by his earlier work, but this one falls short compared to his other work on the subject of copyright in modern society. The first two parts is more or less just rehashing of old ideas, while the last part, about the future, is where the book really shines. More specifically it mentions five ways in which we can actually change copyright to make it better suited for the world we live in now.

He presents an interesting story about the problems they had in the southern states of America with racial discrimination. The problem was that if stores opened their doors to African Americans then they would be seen as pro-black and loose a lot of their original business. So in 1964 (!) a law was passed that made discrimination in public restaurants and other related establishments a felony. This changed the game completely. This reminds me of a law that was passed not that long ago in Denmark, that made smoking in the same kind of places a felony.