Against The Web

Michael Brooks takes on the new "Intellectual Dark Web." As the host of The Michael Brooks Show and co-host of the Majority Report, he lets his understanding of the new media environment direct his analysis of the newly risen conservative rebels who have taken YouTube by storm. Brooks provides a theoretically rigorous but accessible critique of the most prominent "renegades" including Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Brett Weinstein while also examining the social, political and media environment that these rebels thrive in. 'A brilliant critique of the Right with very sharp insight on some of the shortcomings of the Left, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand how dishonest actors spread their propaganda.' Ana Kasparian, Host and Executive Producer of The Young Turks

Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate “Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now, Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind”—from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer—Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. Building on the insights of thinkers from Plato to McLuhan, Carr makes a convincing case that every information technology carries an intellectual ethic—a set of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and intelligence. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources. Its ethic is that of the industrialist, an ethic of speed and efficiency, of optimized production and consumption—and now the Net is remaking us in its own image. We are becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming, but what we are losing is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. Part intellectual history, part popular science, and part cultural criticism, The Shallows sparkles with memorable vignettes—Friedrich Nietzsche wrestling with a typewriter, Sigmund Freud dissecting the brains of sea creatures, Nathaniel Hawthorne contemplating the thunderous approach of a steam locomotive—even as it plumbs profound questions about the state of our modern psyche. This is a book that will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

Activism on the Web examines the everyday tensions that political activists face as they come to terms with the increasingly commercialized nature of web technologies and sheds light on an important, yet under-investigated, dimension of the relationship between contemporary forms of social protest and internet technologies. Drawing on anthropological and ethnographic research amongst three very different political groups in the UK, Italy and Spain, the book argues that activists’ everyday internet uses are largely defined by processes of negotiation with digital capitalism. These processes of negotiation are giving rise to a series of collective experiences, which are defined by the tension between activists’ democratic needs on one side and the cultural processes reinforced by digital capitalism on the other. In looking at the encounter between activist cultures and digital capitalism, the book focuses in particular on the tension created by self-centered communication processes and networked-individualism, by corporate surveillance and data-mining, and by fast-capitalism and the temporality of immediacy. Activism on the Web suggests that if we want to understand how new technologies are affecting political participation and democratic processes, we should not focus on disruption and novelty, but we should instead explore the complex dialectics between digital discourses and digital practices; between the technical and the social; between the political economy of the web and its lived critique.

Don’t miss one of America’s top 100 most-loved novels, selected by PBS’s The Great American Read. This beloved book by E. B. White, author of Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan, is a classic of children's literature that is "just about perfect." Illustrations in this ebook appear in vibrant full color on a full-color device and in rich black-and-white on all other devices. Some Pig. Humble. Radiant. These are the words in Charlotte's Web, high up in Zuckerman's barn. Charlotte's spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, who simply wants a friend. They also express the love of a girl named Fern, who saved Wilbur's life when he was born the runt of his litter. E. B. White's Newbery Honor Book is a tender novel of friendship, love, life, and death that will continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. It contains illustrations by Garth Williams, the acclaimed illustrator of E. B. White's Stuart Little and Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, among many other books. Whether enjoyed in the classroom or for homeschooling or independent reading, Charlotte's Web is a proven favorite.

Rigorously test and improve the security of all your Web software! It’s as certain as death and taxes: hackers will mercilessly attack your Web sites, applications, and services. If you’re vulnerable, you’d better discover these attacks yourself, before the black hats do. Now, there’s a definitive, hands-on guide to security-testing any Web-based software: How to Break Web Software. In this book, two renowned experts address every category of Web software exploit: attacks on clients, servers, state, user inputs, and more. You’ll master powerful attack tools and techniques as you uncover dozens of crucial, widely exploited flaws in Web architecture and coding. The authors reveal where to look for potential threats and attack vectors, how to rigorously test for each of them, and how to mitigate the problems you find. Coverage includes · Client vulnerabilities, including attacks on client-side validation · State-based attacks: hidden fields, CGI parameters, cookie poisoning, URL jumping, and session hijacking · Attacks on user-supplied inputs: cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and directory traversal · Language- and technology-based attacks: buffer overflows, canonicalization, and NULL string attacks · Server attacks: SQL Injection with stored procedures, command injection, and server fingerprinting · Cryptography, privacy, and attacks on Web services Your Web software is mission-critical–it can’t be compromised. Whether you’re a developer, tester, QA specialist, or IT manager, this book will help you protect that software–systematically.

Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. Three New Chapters! Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims "I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book. In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards

Many serious leftists have learned to distrust talk of logic and logical fallacies, associated with right-wing "logicbros". This is a serious mistake. Unlike the neoliberal technocrats, who can point to social problems and tell people "trust us", the serious Left must learn how to argue and persuade. In Give Them an Argument, Ben Burgis arms his reader with the essential knowledge of formal logic and informal fallacies.

Between the decline of the labor movement, the aftershocks of the falls of so-called "actually existing socialism," and the long exile of even social democrats from the levers of real power, we have gotten far too used to thinking of leftism as a performative exercise in expressing our political commitments rather than a serious effort to achieve left-wing goals in the real world. Cancelling Comedians While the World Burns calls for a smarter, funnier, more strategic left.