Ben Hammersley

This is an excellent and easy-to-read run-through of some of the key technological and cultural changes that we are facing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

It is not perfect. His list falters a bit near the end and his short sharp chapters sometimes leave out too much where more on one subject might have been more useful than one of the other 64 - but what he does well is give us a check-list of things that we ought to be more aware of.

Some things are perhaps not directly show more relevant. Others are things that most of us (though not all of us) have already come to terms with. But I will certainly be pricking up my ears for threats and opportunities in such areas as bio-hacking, net neutrality and geo-engineering.

And, although I have little interest in, say, the Quantified Self Movement (which seems like anxious narcissism taken to the nth degree), I have a short-list now of developments that I actively want to know more about, master the jargon and make work for me and mine.

I work in the world of memes professionally but I now know that I have to understand better the semantic web, techno-nomadism, the open data movement and the effects of cyber war. I also need to think, really think, about the internet’s effects on personal freedom and public accountability.

I need to know more about Anonymous, hacker culture, the ‘dark net’ and hacktivism and about artificial intelligence and the (possibly dubious) ‘singularity’. The struggle between States and order on the one hand and an advanced and creative avant-garde has started already.

My world is certainly going to be changed by 3-D printing, improved video conferencing and the internet of things. I am more convinced, if cautiously, that there may be something in the transition town movement, but these latter are all relatively superficial developments compared to the massive and wider cultural and psychological changes under way.

This book is not, and does not claim to be, a book of answers but it does a damn fine job of introducing us to the basic ideas that should, if we have any sense of personal and family survival, force us to ask all the right questions.

Highly recommended, especially for those we elect and the bureaucrats they purport to control and manage on our behalf. show less

Ian kindly went to Borders yesterday and got me a copy of Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom by Ben Hammersley. As with the other O'Reilly Media published books that I keep on hand for reference, it is a well written book. It introduces the technologies by discussing the history and methods in creating the various standards. Then it shows numerous ways on how to use feeds both as a syndicator and as a subscriber.

As I was telling Ian last night, I don't think I would have ended up doing web show more production if we hadn't met. I think I would have been put off by the computers. Programming was something my brother did as a kid, not me. Sixteen years ago I couldn't have imagined relaxing after dinner to read a technical book! But he has always been very encouraging and never doubted me when I said I could something.

While I'm reading the book, I am also retooling what's currently under the hood here at Puss Reboots. I've cleaned up a bunch of old latent code and I will be doing some minor but important changes to how I handle my blogs (specifically my archives). Current blog archives will not be affected by these changes and frankly other than the final switching on of the feed, regular visitors should see no changes to the site. show less

Quite heavy on the history of RSS as a technology rather than the actual using of it. Otherwise good but I have to admit I've sort of given up on this for now. I will return to it though and write a proper review.