Non-cycling books

[mercalia]

A book anyone concerned with how their data is being used should read this book, that explains how data has been monestised and used to influence what people do. Might be the book of the year on IT and its social ramifications.

The new Capitalism is placing a monetry value on human experience and placing it in the market

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, - Shoshana Zuboff

I was thinking of buying it but my local library, Westminster, has an ebook copy that I borrowed instead. SO worth a look first.

Combining in-depth technical understanding and a broad, humanistic scope, Zuboff has written what may prove to be the first definitive account of the economic – and thus social and political – condition of our age.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/ ... off-review
not very expensive -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N7UERGX/ ... TF8&btkr=1

if you still have a Facebook ( or Pokémon Go...) etc account after reading this more fool you

[mattheus]

A book anyone concerned with how their data is being used should read this book, that explains how data has been monestised and used to influence what people do. Might be the book of the year on IT and its social ramifications.

The new Capitalism is placing a monetry value on human experience and placing it in the market

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, - Shoshana Zuboff

Great book - I bought it on Shoshana's facebook page (via one of those discount affiliate things on Wiggle).

[mercalia]

I suppose a good example of this going on is if you have a Nectar card? so you get a TRIPLE POINTS VOUCHER to encourage you to spend more? Or they give you vouchers with so many extra points if you buy this item. Sainsbury has recently sent me a 150 years Celebration set of vouchers with money off various items some I tend to buy and some I dont - also to encourage me to return to their stores as I tend to use Lidl these days.

I think the Guardian account ( the penultimate paragraph ) may get it a bit wrong suggesting a rather extreme scenario of us becoming automata controlled by these technological systems? I can only think that freewill could be damaged if you limit the information that people have to make decisions on, but thats not new to Capitalism? is how totalitarian states work? ( eg China and the great firewall of china or what Russia is intending to do, to be able to sever Russia from the internet)

I wonder how it all applies to Brexit if at all?

[Mike Sales]

I wonder how it all applies to Brexit if at all?

Has not the EU been some at least restraint on the internet giants? GDPR.

[Cugel]

I suppose a good example of this going on is if you have a Nectar card? so you get a TRIPLE POINTS VOUCHER to encourage you to spend more? Or they give you vouchers with so many extra points if you buy this item. Sainsbury has recently sent me a 150 years Celebration set of vouchers with money off various items some I tend to buy and some I dont - also to encourage me to return to their stores as I tend to use Lidl these days.

I think the Guardian account ( the penultimate paragraph ) may get it a bit wrong suggesting a rather extreme scenario of us becoming automata controlled by these technological systems? I can only think that freewill could be damaged if you limit the information that people have to make decisions on, but thats not new to Capitalism? is how totalitarian states work? ( eg China and the great firewall of china or what Russia is intending to do, to be able to sever Russia from the internet)

I wonder how it all applies to Brexit if at all?

A case can be made that the success of Trump, Farage and several others of their ilk indicates that the techniques of suborning human "will" are very well developed. The birth of the nations began the process of mass subordination of human thinking and the techniques have developed apace along with the development of nations and their mass media. With capitalism of our present kind, the abilities of the mind-manipulators have accelerated of late, as the interweb snares us all. Now there are bigger subordinators than nation-states.......

Our current age can be described in many ways, from many perspectives. The anthropocene is one perspective. Another might be that we're in the age of the meme-wars, in which contentions and aggressions between humans are driven less by the fundamentals of competition for physical resources or status and more by the memetic contentions of various ideologies, conspiracy theories and belief systems of every kind.

There will come a period in which a small number of belief systems once more come to dominate. They're already getting a-hadden of the massed minds, as the Panopticon of the Surveillance Society develops not just very sophisticated means of observation but the corresponding sophisticated armatures of mind control. Look around. The vast majority of human opinion is already formed by near 100% newspap of some kind and hardly at all by the everyday actual experiences of people. Everything is overlaid with a vast system of ideas that very few had for themselves; or can easily reject/ignore.

In China and other more totalitarian states, the mind control of The State is already extremely powerful and gaining in power all the time. In The West, we are all owned by a few large Corporations, who know us better than we know ourselves, as well as how to use that knowledge to make us their puppets. They are cleverer than the Chinese, as part of their control technique is to persuade us that we aren't controlled but "free". Ha ha.

Cugel, trying to slash at the strings and failing

[Cyril Haearn]

By lock and pound
Vivien Bird
Canal travels from Birmingham

Barging into France
Gerard Morgan-Grenville

[Cyril Haearn]

Thesauri or Thesauruses are great fun

[loch eck steve]

The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales by John D Barnes really entertaining ,sometimes moving sometimes very funny . Will appeal to anybody who enjoys the hills . ( Especially people in there 40's and 50's )

[rmurphy195]

Just re-read two books -

"Lead Mining in the Peak District" by Trevor David Ford (Editor), James Hendrik Rieuwerts (Editor) - fascinating insight into this history, some years ago when I first obtained it I ended up walking around the Peak District with this book in one hand (it has some walking routes in it) and my OS map in the other, looking at lumps and bumps in the ground in a new light.

And "War of the Wordls" by H G Wells - just to remind myself how far the recent TV serial is from the original. Or, indeed, the two fillums. On a scathing note, it reminds me of how lacking in imagination some modern storytellers are (if you want a female lead/heroine where there wasn't one, or a completely new character, go and write a new story. If you are going to dramatise something, especially one that is not hugely long or complex, stick to the story, keep the characters as they are, and leave nowt out). On another level, this book was written in 1898 or thereabouts, and like others of that ilk gives an insight into the way people lived and worked (like old SF, where interplenatery spacecraft are controlled by devices using vacuum tubes!)

[hondated]

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, Robert Tressell second time of reading. As relevant today as it was when it was written.
Hopefully one of my grandsons will want to read it after me.

[pete75]

Having read Pirsig's book many times, first when I was at school there is, in my opinion, a better one that explores similiar themes - The Perfect Vehicle by Melissa Holbrook Pierson (pub 1997).

John.

Pirsig's Honda CB77 has just been donated to the Smithsonian Museum https://ridermagazine.com/2019/12/18/ze ... ithsonian/

[Cyril Haearn]

By Lock and Pound
Vivian Bird
Canal travels in middle England in the 1950s, still a lot of tradition, horses were still in use

Reading a second time

[philvantwo]

Library's are closed so installed 'Borrowbow' on my phone. Currently reading a book about the Yorkshire shepherdess who had a series on the tv a while back. Not the same as holding a book but you can make the font bigger and you don't need a bookmark.
When you're finished reading it, just hit the return button!!

[aegelstane]

May I recommend; The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Sear ... prevpage=2 A gripping account of 18 year old Newby's 1939 voyage to Australia and back as an apprentice on board Mushulu. The ship, a steel four masted barque built in Port Glasgow in 1904 was according to Wikipedia the 29th largest sailing ship ever built and, at 3000+ tons three time the size of Cutty Sark. The book wasn't written until 1956 but continued to be published by various organisations until 2014. Hope that the link to Abebooks works - treat yourselves!

[Oldjohnw]

"John Muir - a Miscellany' compiled by Laurie Battle.

His writings are ever relevant.