Bits And Bytes The Digital Stranglehold

The Book deals with digital technology. It explains how the digits ‘0’ and ‘1’ have permeated into all walks of our lives and the importance of information. Discussed are the different methods of communication through the ages. Manual and sound signals Analogue and digital signals. Numbering systems. Natural numbers, whole numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers. Binary systems, ASCII, the Hexadecimal system. Boolean logic and logic gates. Combinational logic, and digital electronic elements. Development of Transistors. The first digital computer – ENIAC. Digital electronic functional circuits and different forms of memory systems. The evolution of ICs, microprocessors and microcontrollers digital timers. Memories: mechanical, magnetic, electronic – RAM, ROM, pen drives. The Analogue world versus the digital world. Hardware and software. The nature of software languages. Artificial Intelligence, natural intelligence, the human brain. The computer brain and various types of robots. The Internet, the cell phone, the GPS, the Internet of Things, diagnostic systems and drones. The different digital systems are mentioned and the question of what happens if digital technology closes down. Finally, the present situation is highlighted – how we are being strangled by only two digits – 0s and 1s.

'Blown to Bits' is about how the digital explosion is changing everything. The text explains the technology, why it creates so many surprises and why things often don't work the way we expect them to. It is also about things the information explosion is destroying: old assumptions about who is really in control of our lives.

The oil and gas industry is at a crossroads. Recent low prices, rapidly growing alternative fuels like renewables, the permanent swing from peak oil to super abundance, shifting consumer preferences, and global pressures to decarbonize suggest a challenged industry for the foreseeable future. Digital advances offer ways to lower costs of production, improve productivity, reduce carbon emissions, and regain public confidence. A wait-and-see attitude to digital innovation has failed many industries already, and the leaders of oil and gas urgently need guidance on how digital both disrupts and enhances their industry. Written by the world's leading experts on the intersection of digital technologies and the oil and gas industry, Bits, Bytes, and Barrels sets out the reasons why adoption is slow, describes the size and scale of both the opportunity and the threat from digital, identifies the key digital technologies and the role that they play in a digital future, and recommends a set of actions for leaders to take to accelerate the adoption of digital in the business. Providing an independent and expert perspective, Bits, Bytes, and Barrels addresses the impacts of digital across the breadth of the industry--from onshore to offshore, from upstream to midstream to integrated--and outlines a roadmap to help the decision-makers at all levels of the industry take meaningful action toward promising and rewarding digital adoption.

This book brings together a group of internationally-reputed authors in the field of digital literacy. Their essays explore a diverse range of the concepts, policies and practices of digital literacy, and discuss how digital literacy is related to similar ideas: information literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, functional literacy and digital competence. It is argued that in light of this diversity and complexity, it is useful to think of digital literacies - the plural as well the singular. The first part of the book presents a rich mix of conceptual and policy perspectives; in the second part contributors explore social practices of digital remixing, blogging, online trading and social networking, and consider some legal issues associated with digital media.

Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, their theories hang in suspension. They cannot explain the process that matters most – the accumulation of capital. This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape – or creorder – their society. Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power’ and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power’.

The ultimate book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists collectively known as Anonymous—by the writer the Huffington Post says “knows all of Anonymous’ deepest, darkest secrets” “A work of anthropology that sometimes echoes a John le Carré novel.” —Wired Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption (before Anonymous shot to fame as a key player in the battles over WikiLeaks, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street). She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside–outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book. The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters—such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu—emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, including imprisoned activist Jeremy Hammond and the double agent who helped put him away, Hector Monsegur, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little understood facets of culture in the Internet age, including the history of “trolling,” the ethics and metaphysics of hacking, and the origins and manifold meanings of “the lulz.”

If you've ever made a secure purchase with your credit card over the Internet, then you have seen cryptography, or "crypto", in action. From Stephen Levy—the author who made "hackers" a household word—comes this account of a revolution that is already affecting every citizen in the twenty-first century. Crypto tells the inside story of how a group of "crypto rebels"—nerds and visionaries turned freedom fighters—teamed up with corporate interests to beat Big Brother and ensure our privacy on the Internet. Levy's history of one of the most controversial and important topics of the digital age reads like the best futuristic fiction.