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S'està carregant… The Information: A History, a Theory, a Floodde James Gleick
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» 4 més No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. This was not what I was expecting. From the description given during our book club meeting and the bits of blurb I read, I thought this would be about the flood of information coming our way via the information superhighway. And maybe it would have some thoughts on how to deal with it. Instead, this tells the history of Information, rather than the information superhighway (although it does include a bit about how we got the latter and what it may mean). And by history, I mean back to the days before writing. It is a very long, and often interesting, tale about the evolution of writing and human thought from the earliest days to the present. The earlier parts of the book work better than the latter. This may be partially due to being more grounded in technology that is accessible to most people: speaking, writing, telegraph, telephone. Here the sidebars are easy to access and forgive. Later on, the subjects become deeper, more theoretical and harder to follow. I found myself wishing the author would stay more focused and help me understand it better, rather than telling more anecdotes about the scholars and scientists. Even so, I found the book to be thought provoking, although not provocative. If you ever saw the BBC television show Connections with James Burke, this will seem familiar. If you haven't see that show, but like this book, go and find the show. You will likely find it informative and entertaining. I really enjoyed this book, even though it took me quite a while to finish. What I like best about it is how each focus area gave me insights into things I hadn't before considered. What I liked least (and why not 5 stars) was how tricky it was to read more than a couple of pages before needing to stop and think, process. More my fault than Gleick's! A bit tedious at the beginning, with an excessivley detailed history of failed telegraph systems. Runs out of steam towards the end, when am unnecessary description of the internet (c'mon, we all use it) drifts from the core topic of information theory. Other than that, a fine work, and a bit of a rarity -- a layman's guide to information theory. I still think John Pierce's [b:An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise|433443|An Introduction to Information Theory Symbols, Signals and Noise|John Robinson Pierce|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328868592s/433443.jpg|422386] is a better treatment of the subject, but Gleick's coverage extends far beyond the original theory and is in a better position to determine the long-term impact of Shannon's theory.
The heart of Gleick’s book is his treatment of the new information theory that Shannon — and computer scientist and mathematician Alan Turing, noisily brilliant pioneer Norbert Stuart Wiener and many others — created in the middle decades of the 20th century. But Gleick loops backward to discuss early efforts at messaging and storage, from drum messages to dictionaries, and forward to make clear the massive consequences of what Shannon and the others wrought. ... Gleick is a technological determinist, in a moderate way. He argues elegantly that the telegraph promoted everything from the weaving of networks to the building of skyscrapers and the creation of a new “telegraphic” style of communication. It seems a pity, accordingly, that he does not say more about the ways in which information theory and its technical progeny have changed our ways of reading and writing, doing research and listening to music. ... A highly ambitious and generally brilliant effort to tie together centuries of disparate scientific efforts to understand information as a meaningful concept. For a society that believes itself to live in an information age, the subject could hardly be more important. That the project doesn't fully succeed has more to do with the limits of our understanding than with Gleick's efforts. Bestselling science and technology writer Gleick (Genius) gives a brilliant, panoramic view of how we save and communicate knowledge-from ancient African drumming to alphabets, the telegraph, radio, telephone and computers-and provides thrilling portraits of the geniuses behind the inventions. Pertany a aquestes col·leccions editorialsImeline Teadus (19) PremisDistincionsLlistes notables
From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood "talking drums" of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He also provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information, including Charles Babbage, Ada Byron, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, and Claude Shannon. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Debats actualsCapCobertes populars
![]() GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)020.9Information Library and Information Sciences Library Science Biography And HistoryLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:![]()
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Несмотря на достаточно сухую тему, книга не лишена чувствительности, в некоторых главах автор искусно описывает борьбу великих умов с парадигмом мышления предыдущих поколений и цену, которую они заплатили за это.
Последние несколько глав неоднозначны, автор пытается найти смысл или инструмент для борьбы с растущим кол-вом информации в мире. Книга была написана в 2011 г. в ИТ мире многое уже изменилось, люди стали лучше фильтровать и воспринимать поток растущий поток информации.
Особенно понравилось переплетение образов литературных произведений магического реализма с существующими онлайн сервисами. (