2017 Roundup and list of Books Reviewed

This year I continued daily posts, which I have done for just under four years now.  Overall, traffic to the blog was up about 18% over 2016.

As always, the coverage is mainly review and commentary on topics of interest to me, including “the new way of work”, robots, dinosaurs, cryptocurrency/blockchain, quantum cryptography, internet of too Many things, computer software in general, and so on.

This year I continued weekly posts noting and commenting on books I have read.  Most of the books were recently published, with a few older ones.   (Listed below.)

Throughout the year, I offered a number of “great names for a band”, in tribute to Dave Barry who pioneered the genre.  Most of these are “sciency”, inspired by technical articles I read and commented on.

Countershading
Banded tail
Dinosaur bandit mask
Paleocoloration
Beryllium hydride
Biomimetic Robotic Zebrafish
Chicxulub    [Note:  pronounced ( /ˈtʃiːkʃʊluːb/; Mayan: [tʃʼikʃuluɓ])]
The Chicxulub Event
We Are Children of Chicxulub
Thanks to Chicxulub
Brought to You By Chicxulub
Service Office Industry
Comfortable edgy fit outs
As Greenland Darkens
Recent Mass Loss
Larsen C
My Raptor Posse
A Rip of Raptors
Personal Raptor
The Robot Raptor Revue
Final Five Orbits
Kuiper Belt & Braces
A Belt of Kuiper
The Grand Finale Toolkit
Fog World Congress
Penguin Guano
Adelie Census
Fog Orchestra
Shape Changing Fog Screen
The Fog and the Eye
First Ringplane Crossing
Grand Finale Dive #2
The Grand Finale Toolkit
Last View of Earth
Final – and Fateful – Titan Flyby
Robots On Europa
Gay Robots on Europa

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Books Reviewed in 2017

Overall I posted 79 book reviews, 58 fiction and 21 non-fiction.

In fiction, these include old favorites (Donna Leon, Charles Stross, Thomas Perry, Tim Dorsey, Ian McDonald, Gregory Maguire, Tom Holt).

Some new favorites include Richard Kadrey,  Viet Thanh Nguyen, Emma Straub.

I really liked Robin Sloan’s Sourdough, and Touch by Courtney Maum, but my best reads for the year have to be

Joe Ide,  IQ and Righteious.  <<links>> Righteous by Joe Ide

In non-fiction, I liked Weird Dinosaurs by John Pickrell and Eugenia Chengs Beyond Infinity.  How America Lost Its Secrets by Edward Jay Epstein is both good and important.

<<links>>

But at the top, I’d probably pick

The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness by Paula Poundstone

List of Books Reviewed

Q4

Fiction

First Person Singularities by Robert Silverberg
The Adventurist by J. Bradford Hipps
Artemis by Andy Weir
Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire
Willful Behavior by Donna Leon
A Selfie As Big As The Ritz by Lara Williams
Righteous by Joe Ide
Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Border Child by Michel Stone
Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
The Muse by Jessie Burton
Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Non-fiction

Napoleon in Egypt by Paul Strathern
After Piketty edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong, and Marshall Steinbaum

Books Reviewed In Q3 2017

Fiction

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
The Answers by Catherine Lacey
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki
The Management Style of Supreme Beings by Tom Holt
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
Shiver Hitch by Linda Greenlaw
Dichronauts by Greg Egan
Killing is My Business by Adam Christopher
The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess
Standard Hollywood Depravity by Adam Christopher
Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher
Will Save Galaxy For Food by Yahtzee Croshaw
Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
Arlington Park by Rachael Cusk
Transition by Rachael Cusk
Death at La Fenece by Donna Leon
A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon

Non Fiction

Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
Weird Dinosaurs by John Pickrell
Made With Creative Commons by Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson
How Not To Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg
Beyond Infinity by Eugenia Cheng

Books Reviewed Second Quarter

Fiction

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente
Touch by Courtney Maum
Mother Land by Paul Theroux
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
Startup by Doree Shafrir
Off Rock by Kieran Shea
The Wrong Dead Guy by Richard Kadrey
Earthly Remains by Donna Leon
The Underwriting by Michelle Miller
Luna: Wolf Moon by Ian McDonald
Huck Out West by Robert Coover

Non-Fiction

Half-Earth by Edward O. Wilson
The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams
Solve For Happy by Mo Gawdat
The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness by Paula Poundstone
Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale
The Spider Network by David Enright
Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton

Books Reviewed Q1 2017

Fiction

Revenger by Alistair Reynolds
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Girls by Emma Cline
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
The People’s Police by Norman Spinrad
IQ by Joe Ide
Clownfish Blues by Tim Dorsey
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
Empire Games by Charles Stross
The Cold Eye by Laura Anne Gilman
Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
The Golden Gate by Robert Buettner
The Old Man by Thomas Perry
Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson

Non Fiction

The Caliphate by Hugh Kennedy
The New Better Off or Reinventing the American Dream by Courtney E. Martin
How America Lost Its Secrets by Edward Jay Epstein
Valley of the Gods by Alexandra Wolfe
Wonderland by Steven Johnson
Measure for Measure by Thomas Levenson

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That’s all for 2017!  Happy New Year!

 

Roundup: Books Reviewed In Q3 2017

This quarter saw a few interesting ideas about coworking, ever weirder computer security threats, and the rapid approach of Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography.

Dinosaurs and birds remain interesting.

There was a never ending drum of dubious Blockchain technology, dubious Internet of Things technology.

And, as usual regular book reviews.

Fiction

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
The Answers by Catherine Lacey
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki
The Management Style of Supreme Beings by Tom Holt
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross
Shiver Hitch by Linda Greenlaw
Dichronauts by Greg Egan
Killing is My Business by Adam Christopher
The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess
Standard Hollywood Depravity by Adam Christopher
Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher
Will Save Galaxy For Food by Yahtzee Croshaw
Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
Arlington Park by Rachael Cusk
Transition by Rachael Cusk
Death at La Fenece by Donna Leon
A Sea of Troubles by Donna Leon

Non Fiction

Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
Weird Dinosaurs by John Pickrell
Made With Creative Commons by Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson
How Not To Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg
Beyond Infinity by Eugenia Cheng

Finally, I suggests a bunch of “great names for a band”.

“Service Office Industry”
“Comfortable edgy fit outs”
“As Greenland Darkens”
“Recent Mass Loss”
“Larsen C”
“My Raptor Posse”
“A Rip of Raptors“
“Personal Raptor”
“The Robot Raptor Revue“
“Final Five Orbits”
“Kuiper Belt & Braces”
“A Belt of Kuiper ”
“The Grand Finale Toolkit”
“Fog World Congress”

Book review: “Made With Creative Commons” by Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson

Made With Creative Commons by Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson

The Creative Commons (CC) has been around for a while now (since 2002, which is several eons in Internet years), and has to be considered very successful, at least in its initial ambitions. Creative Commons licenses are widely known and used, and they solve the technical problem they were created to solve: they are a universally recognized standard for controlled sharing of intellectual property.

I have always admired the clear sighted way CC laid out and explains their licenses. “There is no one right way.” ([1], p. 41) But they have worked out a range of very sensible alternatives, which make it easy to do what you mean to do in a standard way.

If nothing else, CC has given the world an array of possibilities. No one is forced to share via CC, but the multiple CC licenses lay out ways that you can share if you want to. Do you want to share, but always preserve your credit (Attribution)? Do you want to preserve your creation whole, or allow people to modify it (No Derivatives)? Do you want to preserve rights to make money (No Commercial)? Do you want to share, with the provision that everyone who uses the work must also share what they do (Share Alike)? Just asking myself these questions, inspires me to want to try it out!

Of course, Creative Commons has always been about more than license language,. The overall goal is to foster global culture and to use the Internet as the repository of shared, common information. The Commons, for the benefit ao all humankind.

In recent years, CC has been moving to new directions, and this book is a part of the new direction.

Basically, the “strategy” aims at three goals:

“We need to talk about sharing,”
“Towards a vibrant, usable commons,” and
“Let’s light up our global commons.”

Boiling these down, CC is moving to try to make it easier to share, and generally to get a lot more sharing going on. I note that the essential accomplishments of CC’s first decade is succinctly summed up in only two and a half pages of this book, Chapter 3. The rest of the book is the new stuff.

One aspect of this new project is to consider financial models. The global commons may be powered by “joy and gratitude”, but people need to eat.

Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson’s new book, Made With Creative Commons, is all about this topic–economic viability. As they say, the original notion was to document successful “business plans” that use CC. But the “open business plans” they found are not really about the money, they are about how to succeed in a very broad sense.

“What we didn’t realize was just how misguided it would be to write a book about being Made with Creative Commons using only a business lens.” (p.20)

To this end, the book includes short but useful chapters that define “commons”, particularly the “digital commons”, and the challenges of navigating commons in a world of markets and states.

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Even though this book is about how to make money using CC, it’s not about money. It can’t be, because it’s about values.

“Sharing work with Creative Commons is, at its core, a moral decision.” (p.20)

“Being Made with Creative Commons is not just about the simple act of licensing a copyrighted work under a set of standardized terms, but also about community, social good, contributing ideas, expressing a value system, working together. “ (p. 30)

“sharing with a Creative Commons license is a symbol of how you want to interact with the people who consume your work” (p. 20)

Stacey and Hinchli suggest that using CC is beneficial in a variety of ways.

First, CC can be very valuable with ‘Problem Zero: getting discovered’. Specifically,

• CC can help grow audience, gain name recognition, differentiate
• CC can be a marketing tool (loss leader)
• CC can foster “hands on engagement”—tinkering creates demand, and committed followers

CC can be used in business models that make money in a variety of ways. These concepts aren’t especially novel, but CC can play a valuable role. Many creators or companies share part or all of their work, and sustain themselves viaL

• Selling other services. E.g., Sell in-person version (e.g., live concerts). Advertising. Help or other consulting.
• Charging some users (e.g., charge content providers for uploads)
• Memberships, pay-what-you-want, crowdfunding

But, by sharing via CC,  “Rather than simply selling a product or service, they are making ideological, personal, and creative connections with the people who value what they do.“ (p. 30)

The authors consider that sharing is also a personal connection between a creator and the people who consume their work.

“the common strategies that creators, companies, and organizations use to remind us that there are humans behind every creative endeavor. To remind us we have obligations to each other. To remind us what sharing really looks like. (p.31)

This seems to require more than a commercial relationship. It is a human relationship.

• Be human (“But it can’t be a gimmick. You can’t fake being human. “ p.31
• Be open and accountable
• Design for the good actors
• Treat humans as humans
• State you principles and stick to them
• Build community
• Give more than you take….
• Involve people

Clearly, there is much more to CC than digital rights.

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The bulk of the book is 24 case studies, ranging from ‘Arduino” to “Wikimedia”. These cases reveal a great variety of ways to do it. For that matter, there are quite a variety of “its” to do. There is a common theme, throughout:

“Regardless of legal status, they all have a social mission. Their primary reason for being is to make the world a better place, not to pro t. Money is a means to a social end, not the end itself.” (p. 14-15)

I am familiar with some of the cases, though I did not necessarily understand their business models. (‘Open source’ means that users do not need to know how you make money!)

The enterprises studied are mainly digital, but some have substantial “analog” components. Even in cases that offer similar products and services, there are different approaches to making money.

The cases in this book examine some of the business models for these enterprises.

• Grants
• Charging for uploads and publication
• Custom implementations for institutions
• Crowdfunding
• Value added (e.g., metrics, tools for assessment)

Pretty much every business model you can think of is represented except purely commercial ownership and slavery.

The enterprises include:

Individual creators (e.g., writers and musicians): Fans are your friends, friends share. CC lets creators retain credit, allow reuse or not, and reserve commercial rights.

Media distribution: digital images, music, etc. – Individual creators benefit from large markets that attract users and expose their work. CC licenses protect the interests of creators who wish to share, while allowing services to make enough money to operate.

Journalism – The purpose of journalism is to share information, but it must be available to everyone, and it must be authoritative. CC licenses let journalists share while protecting the integrity of the product, through Attribution, controlling Derivatives, and controlling commercial use.

Knowledge Enterprises: Libraries, Archives, Journals, Textbooks, etc. – The vast common heritage of humankind needs to be shared by all. This includes school books, science journals, cultural museums, and lots of other kinds of knowledge. CC licenses make it possible to share widely with the people who need the information, which protecting the interests of creators and sustaining the services that make the sharing possible.

Things: design and know-how for building – The vast common heritage of humankind include making. CC isn’t limited to digital artifacts, and these days “how to” is usually represented in digital materials including plans, software, tutorials, and consulting.

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While sharing is “a moral decision” (p. 20), this book surveys all the ways that people manage to both freely share and accrue enough resources to continue to share. Whether formally “for-profit” or “not-for-profit”, the main point is not to make money, it is to make enough money to continue the mission.

The business models described in these case studies are surprisingly diverse, ranging from conventional grants, sponsorship, and advertising, through a variety of user fees and “extra” products, and ultimately the “pay-what-you-want” model (essentially, digital busking). Many operations use a combination of approaches.

The book documents the ways that CC helps these enterprises accomplish their goals. A CC license is the clearest possible signal that the creator wants to share, as well as a universal declaration of the rules that apply in each case.

This signal is used by creators to publicize their own values, and to define a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with their audience and consumers. For most of the cases, these values and relationships are the social capital that is the very core of the enterprise.

It’s hard to know the ultimate importance of these kinds of enterprises in the grand scheme. The world economy seems to be dominated by a mixture of restrictive property rights and uncontrolled appropriation. I think that CC offers an interesting middle way.

This book helps make the case that sharing is both a morally and economically rational.

Very interesting, and highly recommended.

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1. Paul Stacey and Sarah Hinchli Pearson, Made With Creative Commons, Copenhagen, Ctrl+Alt+Delete Books, 2017. https://creativecommons.org/made-with-cc/

 

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