Ged Carroll

Category: culture | 文明 | 미디어와 예술 | 人文

Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.

Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.

Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.

Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.

Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.

More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.

  • Boa + more stuff

    Boa server hack

    Hackers breach energy orgs via bugs in discontinued web server – state-backed Chinese hacking groups (including one traced as RedEcho) targeted multiple Indian electrical grid operators, compromising an Indian national emergency response system and the subsidiary of a multinational logistics company. The attackers gained access to the internal networks of the hacked entities via Internet-exposed cameras on their networks as command-and-control servers. – The software being hacked is the Boa web server. Boa was originally written by university student Paul Phillips. Phillips became CTO of Go2Net.

    One Nation Under CCTV

    Go2Net ran several websites including 100Hot – a website ranking service; payment processing service Authorize.Net, metasearch engine Dogpile, Haggle Online who provided online auction and PlaySite who ran multiplayer games.Prior to being acquired by InfoSpace Go2Net touted their technology behind these sites and selling services to customers.

    Boa’s afterlife on IoT systems

    So having a CTO who had written a small footprint web server like Boa made a lot of sense. At some point, Phillips stopped working on Boa. Instead maintenance was handed over Larry Doolittle and Jon Nelson who maintained the code for three years or so. Since then, Boa has not been maintained. Its small size made it very popular with Internet of Things products including CCTV systems. Which is the reason why Boa server software has been repeatedly hacked.

    China

    Carmakers try to frustrate US push to cut China from EV supply chain | Financial Times – the US government’s biggest challenge is quisling companies wedded to shareholder value above all else

    Consumer behaviour

    Gen Z networking | Wunderman Thompson Intelligence

    How you treat the ‘non-elite’ is key to beating populism | Financial Times – Middle-status people, social scientists have shown, are more conservative and cautious than the poor (who can afford to take risks because they have so little to lose) and elites (whose privilege allows them to bounce back from failures). They show more respect for authority for a simple reason: being “disruptive” may be highly valued among Silicon Valley elites but, in blue- or pink-collar jobs, it merely gets you fired

    Ethics

    Kanye West Used Porn, Bullying, ‘Mind Games’ to Control Staff – Rolling Stone – West looked down at his foot, stared up at the woman, and told her, “I want you to make me a shoe I can fuck.” Adidas representatives — including a vice president involved in the apparel giant’s billion-dollar licensing partnership with West’s influential brand — did not confront West about his alleged remark, the two attendees claim. The woman took a leave of absence before moving to a job elsewhere at Adidas (in an email, she declined to comment and requested that her name be withheld from this article.) Former Yeezy and Adidas employees, however, point to the alleged incident as one of many experiences — over the course of a decade — in which, they say, West used intimidation tactics with the staff of his fashion empire that were provocative, frequently sexualized, and often directed toward women. – what were Adidas doing and why the sudden change of conscience now, when all this was going on for the best part of a decade?

    Hong Kong

    6 former senior staff of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily plead guilty to collusion charge in national security case – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – basically they held an editorial meeting

    Innovation

    The airport of the future is the airport of today — and that’s not good. – Papers, Please! 

    Japan

    Metabolism and the capsule building were a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. Its a much more expansive vision of manufactured housing than post war pre-fab housing in the west.

    The weak yen is an opportunity – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion 

    Korea

    Amazing retail and exhibition space in Korea’s second city, Busan: HYUNDAI MOTORSTUDIO BUSAN

    Luxury

    Rolex Is Reportedly Building a New $1 Billion Factory – Robb Report – it sounds like a large amount of money. However tooling on a car production line would be 150+ million pounds alone. Rolex makes everything on site, rather than relying on a range of supplier partners. 1 Billion dollars almost sounds cheap.

    Media

    Zuckerberg says WhatsApp business chat will drive sales sooner than metaverse | Reuters 

    ‘We’re mandating its use’: Estée Lauder turns to TikTok marketing after reach on Instagram stalls – Digiday – When Estée Lauder’s reach on Instagram started to slow across EMEA, its marketers turned to TikTok.  Obviously, there’s more to it. The early success of the brand’s global TikTok account, for one. But the crux of the brand’s decision to be on TikTok came down to Instagram. Estée Lauder’s marketers realized that no matter how big they tried to go in terms of reaching more people on the Meta-owned social network, they were stuck talking to a limited part of its desired audience, said Lubna Mohsin, the social media and content manager for Estée Lauder. Moreover, it was the same core people in the same cohort who were being reached over and again

    The tragic romance of China and Hollywood – The China Project – “Beijing offered up access to its market in exchange for a decade-long tutorial from Hollywood on how to replicate its filmmaking process.” Now that China has caught up (somewhat), there’s less incentive to collaborate. Beijing-based director Daniel Zhao agrees, with a caveat. “The overarching policy of the central government now is to build a self-reliant ecosystem (自循环 zìxúnhuán), but I do see gaps where China still needs to import international technology and personnel,” Zhao told The China Project. He has worked in China’s film industry for over a decade, including a stint with Fenton’s company DMG. China’s film industry has made great strides, thanks in part to its Hollywood’s partnerships. It is now home to some of the largest production sites in the world. China is rapidly developing new virtual production capabilities and improving its 3-D animation quality. In recent years, China has demonstrated that it can pioneer fresh aesthetics and produce domestic successes without Hollywood’s guidance.

    Amazon plans to invest $1B a year in movies for theaters – BNN Bloomberg 

    Online

    How retailers are reshaping the advertising industry | Financial Times – shopper marketing for e-tailing. Interesting how this budget would likely have been previously spent on paid placement in Google Shopping etc. and yet now in the shift to mobile Google (and other search engines) are now losing out on the opportunity for product search. Part of this is them re-optimising around local search like where’s the nearest coffee shop with free wifi and CBD infused kombucha? Meanwhile online retail destinations like eBay and Amazon became product search engines

    Evernote’s Next Move: Joining the Bending Spoons Suite of Apps | Evernote Blog – that looks like a sad end for an interesting app

    Which 3rd-Party Traffic Estimate Best Matches Google Analytics? – SparkToro – TL;DR none of them provide great results but SEMRush seems to do the best on balance. All of them have massive variances

    What about the layoffs at Meta and Twitter? Elon is crazy! WTF??? | I, Cringely – I first arrived in Silicon Valley in 1977 — 45 years ago. I was 24 years old and had accepted a Stanford fellowship paying $2,575 for the academic year. My on-campus apartment rent was $175 per month and a year later I’d buy my first Palo Alto house for $57,000 (sold 21 years later for $990,000). It was an exciting time to be living and working in Silicon Valley. And it still is. We’re right now in a period of economic confusion and reflection when many of the loudest voices have little to no sense of history. Well my old brain is crammed with history and I’m here to tell you that the current situation — despite the news coverage — is no big deal. This, too, shall pass – vintage Bob Cringely

    Technology

    Google’s Open Source Hardware Dreams – by Jon Y 

    Web of no web

    Defence industry catches up with the civil aviation world’s use of augmented reality to aid in aircraft maintenance and repair.

    Is Alexa working? — Benedict Evans and Amazon Is Gutting Its Voice Assistant Alexa | Business Insider – Alexa skills from Uber, Disney and Dominos Pizza failed to get engagement. Developer community was declining as well. I know that they focused on hospitality and healthcare like care homes later on

    Ways to think about a metaverse — Benedict Evans 

  • Michelin Snow Sock + more things

    Michelin Snow Sock

    The Michelin Snow Sock or to give it its proper name SOS GRIP(R) Evolution does a similar job to studded tyres or snow chains (often called RUD Chains after the German company RUD Ketten – a famous manufacturer of snow chains).

    snow sock

    The Michelin Snow Sock looks much easier to store and fit than snow chains and is likely to be less damaging to road surfaces. This new Michelin Snow Sock seems to rely on the black bands across the face of the tyre.

    A key difference is that snow chains can also be used in really muddy conditions and can be used to protect the tyres in hard surfaces such as quarries and mines – although this is usually the domain of a specialist product. You can’t doe these things with the Michelin Snow Sock.

    Inspecting a car before purchase

    Interesting tips on inspecting a car that you are interested in buying. Its interesting how democratised specialist tools have become.

    Twitter

    Professor Scott Galloway talks to Christiane Amanpour about the current economy and the rollercoaster moves at Twitter. My favourite quote from this, describing the recession as a ‘Patagonia vest’ recession affecting knowledge workers the most so far.

    Junya Watanabe Menswear Fall/Winter 2022

    I am about 10 months late to this, but Junya Watanabe did a menswear collaboration with Jay Kaye from Jamiroquai mirroring his mid-to-late 1990s style. Its a mix of indigenous wear that was popular from gap year students (or people who wanted that boho look), rave culture and Goa trance, sports wear and technical outdoor clothing.

    Here is the mini video look book that Junya Watanable made for the menswear collection.

    Here is the original video for Virtual Insanity

    Behind the scenes on how the Virtual Insanity video was made. How the effect was achieved was quite surprising.

    Shakatak

    I didn’t realise how popular jazz fusion group Shakatak was in Japan. To me there where pre-house UK dance music. I found this Japanese festival performance by them.

    The Tokyo Crossover Festival was was originally organised by the Kyoto Jazz Massive member Shuya Okino.

    It was April 2002. I was invited to the Future Jazz Festival held at Zagreb, Croatia. The well select lineup for this 3-days event was Victor Davies, Jessica Lauren, Rainer Truby, Azymuth, Zero dB and many more. The huge success all owed to Eddy & Duss and their incredible local support attracted 1500 enthusiastic people each day! Frankly, and forgive my ignorance, I was quite shocked. This was Zagreb, Croatia. The media that I was exposed to depict the negative image of an on-going civil war for all what I remember. Needless to say, I was inspired and at the same time wondered why Japan never had such festivals. Sure we have money-flowing mainstream Rock Festivals and Techno Festivals but nothing such as Deep House or Future Jazz festivals – which is surprising especially when Japan holds the biggest market share for such music. What is more depressing is that the “traditional” Jazz summer festival seems to be loosing its energy every year… I waited. I thought someone would eventually do the future-jazz festival here in Japan. There were few attempts but did not leave strong impact. Waited few more years…and thought it was time for me to take some action. I called it “Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival”! This is the first year and I am treating it as an introduction or presentation for the successful year to come. Therefore, it will not be a gigantic outside “typical” festival but the main purpose for this first festival is to cause Crossover Jazz awareness and for artists who have same music vision to gather together. Of course, I am aiming for the fan-pleasing exciting showcases. We have a good “crossover” jazz scene in Japan and I want the fans, all over the world, to know. In the future, the festival will feature artists from Jazz, Techno, Hip- Hop, House and the music will cross all over – the ideal festival that I keep visioning and working hard for! At the end though, all I want for everyone and myself is to…have a good time!

    Shuya Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive)

    Internet explained in five levels of difficulty

    I showed this to my Dad and he loved it. So I thought I would share it here too.

  • DJ Vertigo+ more things

    DJ Vertigo

    Back to 1992 with DJ Vertigo. I knew DJ Vertigo or to call him is proper name Steve from my time shopping at 3Beat Records where he worked behind the counter. His Grin tapes brought a steady stream of non-record buyers into the store. Weekends saw him DJ’ing across the north of England in the early 90s including big nights at the time like Maximes in Wigan, Ark and The Gallery which were both in Leeds and The Orbit @ Morley in the greater Leeds area. At the time 3 Beat was having its status THE record store was being challenged by Probe Records that was around the corner at 9 Slater Street. There was a new manager who got in some amazing house and techno alongside Probe’s usual material. Down on Matthew Street you had the Groover Record Bar with Rusty, Les Calvert and Dave Graham.

    Over time, DJ Vertigo’s legacy got cemented as tapes were passed on, copied or transferred to digital. The other names faded away in terms of their cultural relevance.

    Last I heard DJ Vertigo was playing regular ‘old school’ club nights in Leeds for middle aged people to relive their youth and young people to hear the sounds that had excited their gen X peers.

    The Peripheral

    Amazon Studios have adapted William Gibson’s book The Peripheral, which I enjoyed reading when it came out. I look forward to each new episode. Here’s the trailer

    You can find out more about The Peripheral here.

    Porsche 911 Dakar

    Porsche have built a homage to the Safari Rally, Oman Rally and Paris-Dakar Rally cars that Dave Richards (of Prodrive fame) used to build on Porsche 911 SC RS cars.

    Porsche 911 SC Paris-Dakar 1984

    I personally would want it jacked up a bit more for ground clearance and portal axles a la a Mercedes Unimog. There’s also no mud flaps, but otherwise its an interesting looking car.

    DJ Kenta

    What I have been listening to this week. Japanese DJ, DJ Kenta. Its kind of like an upbeat version of a Giles Patterson set. More here.

    Kherson offensive

    William Spaniel does a good job of providing an analysis of the Ukrainian effort to take back Kherson.

    A more nuanced view on the Ukraine invasion in the air from a RUSI analyst.

  • Thirtysomething & more things

    Thirtysomething

    I remember catching Thirtysomething in between working and DJing on a weekend and during my evenings. What caught my eye at the time is that the show felt ‘bigger’ than other shows on TV at the time. It was down to Thirtysomething having talented directors and really good script writers who managed to tease the drama and storytelling out of everyday life events. It was the first show where I watched and learned how it was being created rather than being merely entertained by it. I had already taken a similar attitude to film thanks to Alex Cox’s Moviedrome series.

    30something
    Promotional artwork for the series

    Thirtysomething dealt with issues like ‘selling out’, having career disappointment and becoming a ‘corporate being’. The storylines included episodes where cast members were killed off or had cancer. It was also unashamedly aspirational; they were all university educated. Two of the main characters ran an advertising agency together, that would be later bought out – which brought its own troubles. Others were a successful artist, a successful photographer and a college lecturer.

    In many respects Thirtysomething was a forerunner for the BBC’s This Life, which was the younger, hipper British cousin. There is something very ‘HBO’ about the feel of Thirtysomething despite the fact that it was shot for the network ABC.

    The people went on to work on big Hollywood projects:

    Looking back at Thirtysomething you realise that the problems that middle class America worry about have grown. Thirtysomething came from a middle class that was still striving and unashamedly white as was the later Friends. This Life had it easier being set in multicultural London rather than Thirtysomething which was set in Philadelphia. Thirtysomething had a limited release as a box set in the US. It is unavailable for streaming in the US or UK and doesn’t have the kind of following it would likely deserve, given the quality of the storytelling and the script writing involved. Much of this seems to be down to issues with music rights, which makes sense when you see tracks by The Who being replaced on the DVD releases of the original TV series of CSI.

    Tracker software

    In the early 1990s, tracker software packages that ran on the Commodore Amiga inspired a number of music producers, mostly bedroom producers. Some prominent producers used this set-up, notably drum and bass pioneer Micky Finn.

    Tracker software is the grandparent of modern DAW software like Cubase which has replaced most outboard studio equipment.

    Making Leatherman multi-tools

    This video looks at the Leatherman multi-tool factory and the legacy of engineer Tim Leatherman who founded the company in 1983. In a globalised world, Leatherman is unusual in continuing American manufacturing.

    Miles Davis covers Michael Jackson’s Why

  • AI and creativity

    Why AI and creativity?

    This post on AI and creativity was inspired by experiments being done at work by a member of our design department. They had been using Midjourney to create images within a minute of receiving an initial set of words as creative prompts.

    For example we created this surreal image which fits somewhere between Christian kitsch familiar to catholic households around the world and a touch of Syd Mead‘s visual futurism. This comes from the prompt. 

    Jesus fighting alongside the US Air Force
    https://flic.kr/p/2nSGwLB

    Other efforts weren’t successful, we had faces featuring eyes with two pupils and when it tried to render round shapes, it didn’t know when to stop. The hands would go on and on as a twisted mass of flesh. This could be resolved by creating a human character in a service like MetaHuman and uploading that to Midjourney as a base model instead.

    How neural networks drive AI and creativity?

    Midjourney works using two neural networks. The first works to render an image. The second compares the processing image to exemplars from a data bank of images. There is a back and forth exchange between the two networks until a number of variants are rendered. At this point the human operator is given a choice, or they can choose to have other variations created if the originals don’t meet their requirements.

    These images can be rendered in high resolution allowing for an amazing level of detail.

    Dystopian vibes

    The dystopian feel of the use of AI and creativity is down to a few different factors.

    The first reason is that dystopia is at the centre of our cultural zeitgiest in the west. Documentary maker Adam Curtis covers it really well in this discussion with with the Joe Politics channel on YouTube. This zeitgeist affects the type of imagery that the AI has available to draw upon and the kind of prompts that people use to create AI images.

    Secondly, the use of AI to ‘create’ something lacks the feeling and collective emotional experiences of a real person. Those elements can’t be captured in prompts which is why images land with the sensation of a dead fish.

    What does AI and creativity mean for agencies?

    Concepting

    The most immediate impact could be in rapid concepting, analogous to how rapid prototyping for manufacturing design. Creative teams would still need to conceive of ideas but concepts could then be brought to live in minutes.

    It’s as far away from the black marker and pad that creative directors traditionally used; as paste up graphic design techniques from the use of desktop publishing software that started to impact the design world in the mid to late 1980s.

    News illustrations and graphic novels show the way

    One of the first areas that is really shaken up by AI and creativity has been the world of the political cartoonist and news illustrator. At the moment newspapers and news magazines pay skilled artists to develop and conceptual designs that convey a political concept.

    A good example of this is the covers of The Economist magazine. However things are starting to change. US political publication The Bulwark has already started using AI generated illustrations processed by Midjourney. Midjourney has also been used to create graphic novels.

    One could easily see how this might be extended into business-to-business marketing for intangible products like software and services.

    Production

    The hyper-realistic effects that AI can produce is likely to inspire a desire in clients to use them more often for cost effective production costs. At the moment however, the results can be very hit and miss. There is a problem with hands, faces, interlocking round shapes and a ‘dead’ look to the work.

    Social implications

    At first we had a discussion about what happens to designers? Were they doomed? Should there be a universal income for them or should they march in the streets to ? How could the technology be stopped?

    I wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine in this discussion. I pointed out that over the past few centuries, capital won out over labour every time. So people only kept their jobs if they cost less than the process to automate their tasks.

    Globalisation versus automation

    London like a few other cities have ad agency work done that is designed for global audiences. At the moment I work on campaigns designed for markets including: the UK and Ireland, Spain, Italy, the US, Vietnam and Japan. Globalisation seems to have benefited hub cities rather than moved the work to cheaper locales.

    This in sharp contrast to what happened to British manufacturing. Whole sectors largely disappeared:

    • Steel making
    • Textile mills
    • Shipbuilding
    • Car manufacturing
    • Chemical industry
    • Pharmaceutical manufacturing
    • Engineering and fabrication

    Where capacity was spared, it was largely down to the UK being a good point of entry into the European Union. As the number of countries expanded new manufacturing jobs moved east; and workers moved west to fill workforce needs in established UK factories depressing salaries.

    Research shows that globalization only accounts for 13 percent of job loss in US manufacturing while 88 percent of losses were from automation including robotic manufacturing. In fact, availability of ever-cheaper automation options combined with uncertainty in the global supply chain has led to a resurgence in “onshoring” manufacturing.

    Debunking the Myths: Job Loss, Globalization and Automation by Greg Council Parascript (April 14, 2017).

    Automation has been the quiet destructor of roles. During the 1960s businesses had typing pools and secretaries. Many of these roles disappeared due to desktop computers, office productivity software and the democratisation of touch typing as a skill.

    The Technium

    Even if labour won out over capital in the UK, there is no guarantee that they would be able to stop the march of technology. Kevin Kelly in his book What Technology Wants shares the idea of ‘The Technium’. The idea behind The Technium is that technology has a momentum of its own building on previous progress. Kelly goes as far to describe it as a super organism of technology. He believes that it exerts a force that is partly cultural with technology influencing and being in turn being influenced by technology. All of which means adaption and accommodation are likely to be the way forward for now.

    Adaptation

    While people don’t realise it, you’ve been using what could be termed AI for decades:

    • Autofocus on a camera
    • Losing ‘shake’ in camcorder and smartphone video
    • Programmes in a microwave the attempt to cook a casserole or baked potato
    • Predictive text (although it seems to have become more stupid over time)
    • Siri, Alexa and Google’s various search functions

    In the case of a designer it would also include tools like the ‘lasso’ function in Photoshop that automatically cuts around objects including frizzy hair on a model. So it’s a bit late in the day for people to get squeamish about AI and creativity. Dominant creative software company Adobe sees the place of AI and creativity more as a technology to augment designers in their work rather than replace them. Much of the current Adobe focus seems to be on lowering the on-ramp for new users of their software packages.

    There will be more of a challenge for supporting professions like photographers. Fashion brand Hugo Boss is looking to 3D AI powered design to aid in product design and 3D rendering threatening product photography for websites, look books and catalogues.

    Limitations of AI and Creativity

    One of the things that my colleagues said which really struck with me was ‘if an AI told the world’s funniest joke’ would it know that it was funny? Software is being used to track emotional response, but it wouldn’t necessarily know why something was funny.

    The AI can’t be coded with a summation of life experiences, it can analyse emotions, but as far as we know doesn’t experience them yet. This probably explains why Studio Ghibli and Disney animation feels like it has much more life in it than the best AI renders.

    Is it art?

    Auction houses have sold works generated using AI, but is the art in the creation of the work, or in the decision to use an AI to do the work and thinking of the artist behind that idea? AI can produce works as they have existed before and mash-up genres and ideas, but it wouldn’t be able (at the moment) to create something completely novel through a leap of abstraction, such as a concept like Marcel Duchamp’s sculpture ‘Fountain‘.

    AI images can be nice, but do they involve an illusion of creativity? Everything that appears in an AI image is depended on the inputs that the AI receives and the content in image banks that it uses as a reference – which is the reason why AIs often sign works with an indecipherable script.

    Do artist styles have to be better protected as part of their IP as well as their works?

    IP issues goes beyond artists. We created an artistic rendering of Pokemon character ‘Pikachu’ on Midjourney using the prompt

    Definitely not a pikachu

    In conclusion

    If you’re a creative we eventually managed to get to four thoughts from the discussion:

    1. In the grand scheme of things, change is the only constant
    2. AI has been changing things and will continue to do so
    3. It is inevitable that there willl be some automation and augmentation happening in the creative professions such as design
    4. In the words of Douglas Adams book Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy ‘Don’t Panic’ – but be prepared to adapt and learn new skills and develop new areas of expertise

    Suggested reading

    AI-generated images open multiple cans of worms | Axios 

    AI-generated digital art spurs debate about news illustrations | Axios 

    AI Makes 1993 Video Game Look Photorealistic 

    The Push of a Button – by David OReilly – Reminders 

    DALL-E now allows anyone to cash in on AI art, but ownership gets complicated | Quartz

    GitHub – microsoft/AI-For-Beginners: 12 Weeks, 24 Lessons, AI for All! 

    Inceptionsim : Going Deeper into Neural Networks

    The Golden age of AI-generated art is here. It’s going to get weird – FT Online

    Novo Nordisk wins over doctors with AI email subject lines — and a human touch – Endpoints News 

    MAX Sneaks – by Kevin Hart & Bria Alexander, Adobe, Inc.

    Demo of AI ad copywriting and art direction for online ads 

    Books

    Harvard Business Review – Artificial Intelligence: The Insights that you need to know (HBR Insights Series)

    Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky

    Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology by Steven Levy

    Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date – Robert X. Cringely

    Inevitable & What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

    The Quest for Artificial Intelligence: A History of Ideas and Achievements by Nils J Nilsson

    8vo: On The Outside by Mark Holt & Hamish Muir

    Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy