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Tuesday 26 February 2013

Tech Books worth reading

By Adrian Brucie


Technology teaches us to forget the past. Last year's tech news seems like it has no use whatsoever. Thankfully, historians beg to differ, and they have begun to preserve the history of the tech industry as it becomes more and more important to the evolution of our lives and world.

On physical computing: "It is difficult today to realize how bold an innovation it was to introduce talk about paper tapes and patterns punched in them into discussions of the foundations of mathematics."-Max Newman. Long before computational systems-which is coming to mean all systems-long before such systems were virtual, Turing took the abstract, invisible conditions of mathematical logic and formalized it into the physical: first as text, then as mechanics, later as electrons.

But that upswing in reading-through-technology is also taking place as parents are worried that students aren't doing enough reading for fun. Just 47 percent of parents said they were satisfied with the amount of time their children spent reading for fun, down from 58 percent two years ago. And when children read for pleasure, they usually aren't doing it with e-books. Eighty percent of children surveyed said they rely on print books for fun reading, as opposed to just 20 percent who either read through e-books or a combination of e-books and print.

Everything beckons to us to perceive it. My appreciation of a contemporary text is an appreciation of the network: will this text link me to further texts which will, knowingly or unknowingly, connect me to other texts that will expand or heighten my appreciation, not of it or the other text, but holistically, will raise the network value of texts and experiences in general. And the texts want this too: they are longing for the network.

This list includes books that have stood the test of time and are worth a look for the history lover. And it includes new books, such as Walter Isaacson's tome on Steve Jobs, that are likely to be the new classics. It doesn't, however, include any tech textbooks. My focus is on books that deliver not just a technical understanding of how something works today, but hard-earned wisdom.




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