Plato and the Nerd

Download Plato and the Nerd PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262536420
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Plato and the Nerd by : Edward Ashford Lee

Download or read book Plato and the Nerd written by Edward Ashford Lee and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How humans and technology evolve together in a creative partnership. In this book, Edward Ashford Lee makes a bold claim: that the creators of digital technology have an unsurpassed medium for creativity. Technology has advanced to the point where progress seems limited not by physical constraints but the human imagination. Writing for both literate technologists and numerate humanists, Lee makes a case for engineering—creating technology—as a deeply intellectual and fundamentally creative process. Explaining why digital technology has been so transformative and so liberating, Lee argues that the real power of technology stems from its partnership with humans. Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of—for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation—that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data. Lee argues that the evidence for this is weak, and the likelihood that nature has limited itself to processes that conform to today's notion of digital computation is remote. Lee goes on to argue that artificial intelligence's goal of reproducing human cognitive functions in computers vastly underestimates the potential of computers. In his view, technology is coevolving with humans. It augments our cognitive and physical capabilities while we nurture, develop, and propagate the technology itself. Complementarity is more likely than competition.

The Coevolution

Download The Coevolution PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262043939
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Coevolution by : Edward Ashford Lee

Download or read book The Coevolution written by Edward Ashford Lee and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us? Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet. Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do—be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored—may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a “dataist” faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans—and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.

Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four (The Sports Beat, 1)

Download Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four (The Sports Beat, 1) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yearling
ISBN 13 : 0553494600
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (534 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four (The Sports Beat, 1) by : John Feinstein

Download or read book Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four (The Sports Beat, 1) written by John Feinstein and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2006-06-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein exposes the real “March Madness”—behind the scenes at the Final Four basketball tournament. When Stevie wins a writing contest for aspiring sports journalists, his prize is a press pass to the Final Four in New Orleans. While exploring the Superdome, he overhears a plot to throw the championship game. With the help of fellow contest winner Susan Carol, Stevie has just 48 hours to figure out who is blackmailing one of the star players . . . and why. John Feinstein has been praised as “the best writer of sports books in America today” (The Boston Globe), and he proves it again in this fast-paced novel. “A page-turning thriller and a basketball junkie’s bonanza.” —USA Today

Full House

Download Full House PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674061616
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Full House by : Stephen Jay Gould

Download or read book Full House written by Stephen Jay Gould and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this “full house” of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing.

Postmodern Platos

Download Postmodern Platos PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226993317
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (933 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Postmodern Platos by : Catherine H. Zuckert

Download or read book Postmodern Platos written by Catherine H. Zuckert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-06 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catherine Zuckert examines the work of five key philosophical figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the lens of their own decidedly postmodern readings of Plato. She argues that Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, and Derrida, convinced that modern rationalism had exhausted its possibilities, all turned to Plato in order to rediscover the original character of philosophy and to reconceive the Western tradition as a whole. Zuckert's artful juxtaposition of these seemingly disparate bodies of thought furnishes a synoptic view, not merely of these individual thinkers, but of the broad postmodern landscape as well. The result is a brilliantly conceived work that offers an innovative perspective on the relation between the Western philosophical tradition and the evolving postmodern enterprise.

Digital Communication

Download Digital Communication PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1461531365
Total Pages : 121 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (615 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Digital Communication by : Edward A. Lee

Download or read book Digital Communication written by Edward A. Lee and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This supplement contains worked out solutions to the chapter end problem sets found in Digital Communication, Second Edition, ISBN 0-7923-9391-0.

The Ironic Defense of Socrates

Download The Ironic Defense of Socrates PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139490265
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Ironic Defense of Socrates by : David M. Leibowitz

Download or read book The Ironic Defense of Socrates written by David M. Leibowitz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a controversial interpretation of Plato's Apology of Socrates. By paying unusually close attention to what Socrates indicates about the meaning and extent of his irony, David Leibowitz arrives at unconventional conclusions about Socrates' teaching on virtue, politics, and the gods; the significance of his famous turn from natural philosophy to political philosophy; and the purpose of his insolent 'defense speech'. Leibowitz shows that Socrates is not just a colorful and quirky figure from the distant past but an unrivaled guide to the good life - the thoughtful life - who is as relevant today as in ancient Athens. On the basis of his unconventional understanding of the dialogue as a whole, and of the Delphic oracle story in particular, Leibowitz shows that the Apology is the key to the Platonic corpus, indicating how many of the disparate themes and apparently contradictory conclusions of the other dialogues fit together.

The Black Swan

Download The Black Swan PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0812979184
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Black Swan by : Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Download or read book The Black Swan written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the author's point of view, a black swan is an improbable event with three principal characteristics - It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the 'impossible'.

Introduction to Embedded Systems, Second Edition

Download Introduction to Embedded Systems, Second Edition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262340526
Total Pages : 562 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Introduction to Embedded Systems, Second Edition by : Edward Ashford Lee

Download or read book Introduction to Embedded Systems, Second Edition written by Edward Ashford Lee and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the engineering principles of embedded systems, with a focus on modeling, design, and analysis of cyber-physical systems. The most visible use of computers and software is processing information for human consumption. The vast majority of computers in use, however, are much less visible. They run the engine, brakes, seatbelts, airbag, and audio system in your car. They digitally encode your voice and construct a radio signal to send it from your cell phone to a base station. They command robots on a factory floor, power generation in a power plant, processes in a chemical plant, and traffic lights in a city. These less visible computers are called embedded systems, and the software they run is called embedded software. The principal challenges in designing and analyzing embedded systems stem from their interaction with physical processes. This book takes a cyber-physical approach to embedded systems, introducing the engineering concepts underlying embedded systems as a technology and as a subject of study. The focus is on modeling, design, and analysis of cyber-physical systems, which integrate computation, networking, and physical processes. The second edition offers two new chapters, several new exercises, and other improvements. The book can be used as a textbook at the advanced undergraduate or introductory graduate level and as a professional reference for practicing engineers and computer scientists. Readers should have some familiarity with machine structures, computer programming, basic discrete mathematics and algorithms, and signals and systems.

Plato's Philosophers

Download Plato's Philosophers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226993388
Total Pages : 898 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (269 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Plato's Philosophers by : Catherine H. Zuckert

Download or read book Plato's Philosophers written by Catherine H. Zuckert and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the difficult task of discerning Plato’s true ideas from the contradictory voices he used to express them, scholars have never fully made sense of the many incompatibilities within and between the dialogues. In the magisterial Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert explains for the first time how these prose dramas cohere to reveal a comprehensive Platonic understanding of philosophy. To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional arrangement lays bare a narrative of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. In the drama’s earliest dialogues, for example, non-Socratic philosophers introduce the political and philosophical problems to which Socrates tries to respond. A second dramatic group shows how Socrates develops his distinctive philosophical style. And, finally, the later dialogues feature interlocutors who reveal his philosophy’s limitations. Despite these limitations, Zuckert concludes, Plato made Socrates the dialogues’ central figure because Socrates raises the fundamental human question: what is the best way to live? Plato’s dramatization of Socratic imperfections suggests, moreover, that he recognized the apparently unbridgeable gap between our understandings of human life and the nonhuman world. At a time when this gap continues to raise questions—about the division between sciences and the humanities and the potentially dehumanizing effects of scientific progress—Zuckert’s brilliant interpretation of the entire Platonic corpus offers genuinely new insights into worlds past and present.

Socrates

Download Socrates PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0822240637
Total Pages : 99 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (222 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Socrates by : Tim Blake Nelson

Download or read book Socrates written by Tim Blake Nelson and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SOCRATES is a witty and endlessly fascinating drama about a complicated man who changed how the Western world thought. This powerful play is an intellectual thrill ride from the philosopher’s growing prominence in democratic Athens through the military and social upheavals that led to one of the most infamous executions in Western history. SOCRATES is a passionate tribute to the man who continues to inspire us to question authority and defend freedom of belief.

Plato at the Googleplex

Download Plato at the Googleplex PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307378195
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Plato at the Googleplex by : Rebecca Goldstein

Download or read book Plato at the Googleplex written by Rebecca Goldstein and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2014 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today's debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.

The War Nerd Iliad

Download The War Nerd Iliad PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Feral House
ISBN 13 : 1627310649
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (273 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The War Nerd Iliad by :

Download or read book The War Nerd Iliad written by and published by Feral House. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We recognize the names: Achilles, Odysseus, Zeus, and Apollo. We're taught that The Iliad is a foundational text of civilization. But who has really read the text? Until now, The Iliad was hijacked by academics and used to bludgeon schoolchildren as a boring-yet- mandatory reading. Poet, novelist, essayist, and former teacher John Dolan revisits this ancient tale and restores it to its ancient glory. The Greeks and Trojans are still fighting. The gods are still interfering. But in Dolan's version, you'll be amazed at how funny, raw, and terrifying this doomed world of war really is. He strips away clunky, archaic language to reveal the true meaning and themes that animate this tale of war and futility. John Dolan's work under the nom de guerre "Gary Brecher The War Nerd" has been met with both acclaim and controversy. Dolan's version of The Iliad is sapped of the usual saccharine romance attributed to "heroes" and lets the action tell the story. Regardless of attributed name, Dolan/Brecher is an astute observer of modern warfare who now turns that keen analysis to the most classical of documented battles, The Iliad. John Dolan now works with Mark Ames (of eXile fame) to produce the Radio War Nerd weekly podcast on military matters. Born in Denver, Colorado, Dolan currently lives in Macedonia.

Socrates and the Political Community

Download Socrates and the Political Community PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438414676
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Socrates and the Political Community by : Mary P. Nichols

Download or read book Socrates and the Political Community written by Mary P. Nichols and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1987-07-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a fresh look at Socrates as he appeared to three ancient writers: Aristophanes, who attacked him for his theoretical studies; Plato, who immortalized him in his dialogues; and Aristotle, who criticized his political views. It addresses the questions of the interrelation of politics and philosophy by looking at Aristophanes' Clouds, Plato's Republic, and Book II of Aristotle's Politics—three sides of a debate on the value of Socrates' philosophic life. Mary Nichols first discusses the relation between Aristophanes and Plato, showing that the city as Socrates' place of activity in the Republic resembles the philosophic thinktank mocked in Aristophanes' Clouds. By representing the extremes of the Republic's city, Plato shows that the dangers attributed by Aristophanes to the city are actually inherent in political life itself. They were to be moderated by Socratic political philosophy rather than Aristophanean comedy. Nichols concludes by showing how Aristotle addressed the question at issue between Plato and Aristophanes when he founded his political science. Judging Plato's and Aristophanes' positions as partial, Nichols argues that Aristotle based his political science on the necessity to philosophy of political involvement and the necessity to politics of philosophical thought.

The Digital Mind

Download The Digital Mind PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262535238
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Digital Mind by : Arlindo Oliveira

Download or read book The Digital Mind written by Arlindo Oliveira and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How developments in science and technology may enable the emergence of purely digital minds—intelligent machines equal to or greater in power than the human brain. What do computers, cells, and brains have in common? Computers are electronic devices designed by humans; cells are biological entities crafted by evolution; brains are the containers and creators of our minds. But all are, in one way or another, information-processing devices. The power of the human brain is, so far, unequaled by any existing machine or known living being. Over eons of evolution, the brain has enabled us to develop tools and technology to make our lives easier. Our brains have even allowed us to develop computers that are almost as powerful as the human brain itself. In this book, Arlindo Oliveira describes how advances in science and technology could enable us to create digital minds. Exponential growth is a pattern built deep into the scheme of life, but technological change now promises to outstrip even evolutionary change. Oliveira describes technological and scientific advances that range from the discovery of laws that control the behavior of the electromagnetic fields to the development of computers. He calls natural selection the ultimate algorithm, discusses genetics and the evolution of the central nervous system, and describes the role that computer imaging has played in understanding and modeling the brain. Having considered the behavior of the unique system that creates a mind, he turns to an unavoidable question: Is the human brain the only system that can host a mind? If digital minds come into existence—and, Oliveira says, it is difficult to argue that they will not—what are the social, legal, and ethical implications? Will digital minds be our partners, or our rivals?

The Friendly Orange Glow

Download The Friendly Orange Glow PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1101973633
Total Pages : 642 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Friendly Orange Glow by : Brian Dear

Download or read book The Friendly Orange Glow written by Brian Dear and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers—some of them only high school students—in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers. Not only did PLATO engineers make significant hardware breakthroughs with plasma displays and touch screens but PLATO programmers also came up with a long list of software innovations: chat rooms, instant messaging, message boards, screen savers, multiplayer games, online newspapers, interactive fiction, and emoticons. Together, the PLATO community pioneered what we now collectively engage in as cyberculture. They were among the first to identify and also realize the potential and scope of the social interconnectivity of computers, well before the creation of the internet. PLATO was the foundational model for every online community that was to follow in its footsteps. The Friendly Orange Glow is the first history to recount in fascinating detail the remarkable accomplishments and inspiring personal stories of the PLATO community. The addictive nature of PLATO both ruined many a college career and launched pathbreaking multimillion-dollar software products. Its development, impact, and eventual disappearance provides an instructive case study of technological innovation and disruption, project management, and missed opportunities. Above all, The Friendly Orange Glow at last reveals new perspectives on the origins of social computing and our internet-infatuated world.

A Plague of Giants

Download A Plague of Giants PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Del Rey
ISBN 13 : 0345548612
Total Pages : 582 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (455 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Plague of Giants by : Kevin Hearne

Download or read book A Plague of Giants written by Kevin Hearne and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, a thrilling novel that kicks off a fantasy series with an entirely new mythology—complete with shape-shifting bards, fire-wielding giants, and children who can speak to astonishing beasts “A spectacular work of epic fantasy . . . an absolute delight.”—Shelf Awareness MOTHER AND WARRIOR Tallynd is a soldier who has already survived her toughest battle: losing her husband. But now she finds herself on the front lines of an invasion of giants, intent on wiping out the entire kingdom, including Tallynd’s two sons—all that she has left. The stakes have never been higher. If Tallynd fails, her boys may never become men. SCHOLAR AND SPY Dervan is an historian who longs for a simple, quiet life. But he’s drawn into intrigue when he’s hired to record the tales of a mysterious bard who may be a spy or even an assassin for a rival kingdom. As the bard shares his fantastical stories, Dervan makes a shocking discovery: He may have a connection to the tales, one that will bring his own secrets to light. REBEL AND HERO Abhi’s family have always been hunters, but Abhi wants to choose a different life for himself. Embarking on a journey of self-discovery, Abhi soon learns that his destiny is far greater than he imagined: a powerful new magic thrust upon him may hold the key to defeating the giants once and for all—if it doesn’t destroy him first. Set in a magical world of terror and wonder, this novel is a deeply felt epic of courage and war, in which the fates of these characters intertwine—and where ordinary people become heroes, and their lives become legend. Don’t miss any of Kevin Hearne’s action-packed Seven Kennings series A PLAGUE OF GIANTS • A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS • A CURSE OF KRAKENS (Coming Later!)