NOW READING

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If You want to know more about fragility of Life and Dreams, I highly recommend to read Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe. "The novel tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo, and his life spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress."
One of my favorite novels.

When you know that your time is close at hand
Maybe then you'll begin to understand
Life down here is just a strange illusion

This Maiden's quote totally fits the novel.
I would really like the band to create a song based on this book. Believe me, it fits Steve.
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I am currently on a two-week sick leave so I am catching up on books that I always wanted to read or had no time for. I have already read "Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World", "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" and two books about Cambridge Analytica. Now I'm starting the Thrawn trilogy from Star Wars Legends - I didn't know it was THAT good.
 
Meliegree said:
I am currently on a two-week sick leave so I am catching up on books that I always wanted to read or had no time for. I have already read "Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World", "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power" and two books about Cambridge Analytica. Now I'm starting the Thrawn trilogy from Star Wars Legends - I didn't know it was THAT good.
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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power- I read this as well and found it terrifying. I was never on any of the social media platforms- now I can be the 'I told you so' stick in the mud. But the shitstorm is still one to be dealt with.
 
Courbet said:
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power- I read this as well and found it terrifying. I was never on any of the social media platforms- now I can be the 'I told you so' stick in the mud. But the shitstorm is still one to be dealt with.
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There's a docu-movie on Netflix about what social media has become and how dangerous it is. What sucks is, you CAN be the "I told you so" stick in the mud, BUT the really scary thing is.... It's not going away. Pandora's Box has been open and all we can do now is really how to mitigate it. What's really good about it is that many of the people on it are the ones that created this monster and now regret it.
 
Onhell said:
There's a docu-movie on Netflix about what social media has become and how dangerous it is. What sucks is, you CAN be the "I told you so" stick in the mud, BUT the really scary thing is.... It's not going away. Pandora's Box has been open and all we can do now is really how to mitigate it. What's really good about it is that many of the people on it are the ones that created this monster and now regret it.
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I watched that just the other day. It is scary because it stitched together so many different thoughts ive had over the years regarding social media. Its cliche to say, but its like a black mirror episode.

Over the years (after reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism) I have tried to explain to people close to me the dangers- but they are just in the mode of 'if I aint got nothing to hide, its a good trade'. Most people are so quick to trade their privacy for convenience and distractions.

What a resource to be translated to money! Have people provide the content for free, the data for free. In that netflix show they equate ones privacy to trees and resources that are mined and harvested, but problem I have seen is those around me do not see their privacy as a resource. Then when asked to think if it as such the answer is 'so what?'

:facepalm:
 
I work in digital marketing so I deal with this every day. I can collect information on what days of the week ie. men aged 25-35 most often set up accounts on our website, how many visits they needed before creating an account and what their path looked like (e.g. they started contacting the website from facebook, then they received an email, then two times they came to the site and finally created an account). This is how I create and target marketing messages to groups such as "men <45 years old, from big cities most active on Tuesdays on mobile phones, who were last on the site two weeks ago" and based on that change in real time content of pages that the are viewing or fragments of articles they are reading (for example if I know that user is a man from city > 30 000 I will put image of businessman on a page but if this is women < 30yo I can put image of mother with small child in same place - even if they're viewing page at same time they will see it differently). The plus is that for two years I haven't seen any marketing agencies that would be able to do it, so generally - knowledge and skills in this area of data use are quite small.
 
Meliegree said:
I work in digital marketing so I deal with this every day. I can collect information on what days of the week ie. men aged 25-35 most often set up accounts on our website, how many visits they needed before creating an account and what their path looked like (e.g. they started contacting the website from facebook, then they received an email, then two times they came to the site and finally created an account). This is how I create and target marketing messages to groups such as "men <45 years old, from big cities most active on Tuesdays on mobile phones, who were last on the site two weeks ago" and based on that change in real time content of pages that the are viewing or fragments of articles they are reading (for example if I know that user is a man from city > 30 000 I will put image of businessman on a page but if this is women < 30yo I can put image of mother with small child in same place - even if they're viewing page at same time they will see it differently). The plus is that for two years I haven't seen any marketing agencies that would be able to do it, so generally - knowledge and skills in this area of data use are quite small.
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Thats interesting- but you say 'I will put an image' isnt this done en mass and done with algorithms?
 
Finished reading The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett. Novel belongs to Discworld's Night Watch series. The Watch investigates the theft of the replica Scone of Stone from the Ankh-Morpork Dwarf Bread Museum. Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, is sent to the remote region of Überwald as an ambassador to participate in the coronation of the dwarf King. Politics and diplomacy. Dwarfs, Vampires and Werewolves... oh, and the Igors :applause:
First third of the book was little bit unfocused, but when Sir Vimes arrived to Überwald things changed for the better. I like dwarfs maybe the most among all fantasy races, so it was very interesting to read about their society and their habits. Oh, and Sir Vimes is one of the best Discworld characters... Funny and witty read, I enjoyed it very much.
“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”
“You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?”
“I assure you I will not kill you," said Inigo.
"I know that," said Vimes. "But will you try?”
“Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people.”
 
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Azas said:
Finished reading The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett. Novel belongs to Discworld's Night Watch series. The Watch investigates the theft of the replica Scone of Stone from the Ankh-Morpork Dwarf Bread Museum. Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, is sent to the remote region of Überwald as an ambassador to participate in the coronation of the dwarf King. Politics and diplomacy. Dwarfs, Vampires and Werewolves... And humour.
First third of the book was little bit unfocused, but when Sir Vimes arrived to Überwald things changed for the better. I like dwarfs maybe the most among all fantasy races, so it was very interesting to read about their society and their habits. Oh, and Sir Vimes is one of the best Discworld characters... Funny and witty read, I enjoyed it very much.
“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”
“You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?”
“I assure you I will not kill you," said Inigo.
"I know that," said Vimes. "But will you try?”
“Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people.”
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On my wedding ring I have engraved 'the other one snores'.
 
John James, Votan and other novels
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Contains Votan (read it earlier this month), Not For All the Gold in Ireland (deep into it), and Men Went to Cattraeth (next week probably).
Heartily recommended, a hidden gem, to quote a fellow Maidenfan and compatriot; why it's not more famous is beyond me, frankly.
Knowing your Norse and Celtic myths, as mentioned by Neil Gaiman in his Introduction, certainly helps appreciating the adventures of Photinus the Greek in the North and the West (no Photinus in the third novel though, apparently), and some (very basic - as in, just a brief read of the relevant Wiki articles) idea of the grammar of Celtic languages would give you an insight of why some characters speak the way they speak, but you don't really need either of these to enjoy those books, written very cleverly, with a twisted, dry and dark humour which sometimes reminds me of Barry Hughart's Master Li and Number Ten Ox books - not in style or language but rather in the way of seeing the world.
Also, if, like me, you have the filthy habit of reading several books in parallel, reading Votan and Gold, and the earlier books in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories / Warrior Chronicles / Last Kingdom or whatever the name of the series is currently, might result in some very interesting echos, reflections and interplays, up to the point when you're not really sure if you read a thing in one or the other, or none, and just dreamed of it.
 
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Not quite as shocking as Fear or Rage so far, but I’m only about 1/4 of the way through it.
 
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