update books

content/books/index.gmi

@@ -1,17 +1,24 @@
 # In progress
 
-=> ./you-are-not-a-gadget.gmi                   You Are Not A Gadget
+=> ./to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars.gmi To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
+=> ./how-to-not-be-wrong.gmi        How To Not Be Wrong
 
 # Next Up
 
 * Le Voyage d'Hector: ou la recherche de bonheur
+* Women and Power
 * Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism
 * Dune
 * Rimworld
 * The First Men in the Moon
+* The Time Machine
+* War of the Worlds
 
 # Finished
 
+=> ./seymour-an-introduction                    Seymour: An Introduction
+=> ./the-future-starts-here.gmi                 The Future Starts Here
+=> ./you-are-not-a-gadget.gmi                   You Are Not A Gadget
 => ./raise-high-the-roof-beam-carpenters.gmi    Raise High the Root Beam, Carpenters
 => ./un-cafe-dans-l'espace.gmi                  Un Cafe Dans l'Espace
 => ./moonrise.gmi                               Moonrise (A collection of stories and mythology about the Moon)

content/books/raise-high-the-roof-beam-carpenters.gmi

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 # Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
 > J. D. Salinger
 
-Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is a work by J. D. Salinger of Fear and Loathing fame. I read Fear some years ago, and appreciated its feverish waltz through something which had an urgent yet paradoxically non-specific sense of plot. Carpenters has a similar feel - the protagonist makes his way through situation quite wholly out of his control, and constantly expresses such to the reader. The general setting of wartime, midsummer New York and its oppressive heat and the protagonist's ailing cough add to the gruelling pace and tension.
+Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is a work by J. D. Salinger of Fear and Loathing/Catcher in the Rye fame. I read Fear some years ago, and appreciated its feverish waltz through something which had an urgent yet paradoxically non-specific sense of plot. Carpenters has a similar feel - the protagonist makes his way through situation quite wholly out of his control, and constantly expresses such to the reader. The general setting of wartime, midsummer New York and its oppressive heat and the protagonist's ailing cough add to the gruelling pace and tension.
 
-Ostensibly, the plot happens entirely elsewhere, and the reader is instead presented with a single conversation discussing it, preceded and interspersed by various bits of exposition. However, the characters' world feels immeasurably larger as they discuss individuals not present, relationships between them, and come into conflict aplenty on the behavioural nuances of those they discuss. Though there's little outright hostility between characters - they hardly have time to cover more than the basics of what seems an immeasurably deep social drama - they are able to discuss in depth the makings and continuings of the plot and their immediate surroundings.
+Ostensibly, the plot happens entirely elsewhere: the reader is instead presented with a single conversation discussing it, preceded and interspersed by various bits of exposition. However, the characters' world feels immeasurably larger as they discuss absent individuals and the relationships between them, and come into conflict aplenty over the behavioural nuances of those they discuss. Though there's little outright hostility between characters - they hardly have time to cover more than the basics of what seems a well-developed social drama - they are able to discuss in depth the makings and continuings of the plot and their immediate surroundings.
 
 Salinger's command of simile works well to rapidly convey at once the events of the story and the protagonist's feeling of them. For example, "[A] familiar voice" derisively denotes the speaking of a character the protagonist has, chronologically speaking, only just met, but has been somewhat opposed in conversation to the entire time, and is most certainly wearing thin on patience with.
 
-Though I think a lot of the piece's value come from the protagonist's inner monologue and absurd view on the situation, I think would like to see this piece presented as a short play.
+Though I think a lot of the piece's value come from the protagonist's inner monologue and absurd view on the situation, I think it would be interesting to see this presented as a short play.

content/books/you-are-not-a-gadget.gmi

@@ -7,7 +7,11 @@ This is an interesting book written a decade ago, forecasting much of the digita
 
 In the first part of the book Lanier outlines a school of thought he names "cybernetic totalism" - in essence, the surrender of human experience to the "noosphere", the meta-entity formed from the sum of all human interaction with the net. Cybernetic totalists believe in the power of the cloud, the "hive mind" and the power of technology to ultimately improve the lives of everyone, through the folding in of everyone to this digital existence. The more human experience is brought online, the more connected they can become, the more effective crowd-sourced algorithms may become. Since these algorithms operate on data from everyone, and operate for everyone, this is the ultimate in experience-sharing and will beckon in a more communal, understanding future because we will simply have so much raw data - the fuel these algorithms need to work.
 
-This struck me as eerily similar to Yuval Harari's "dataism", outlined in _Homo Deus_. Harari uses the examples of digital maps, which navigate more effectively through a bustling city across chaotic modes of transport better than a lone human mind could be able to, dating applications which can scan more people than an individual user could ever meet in their lifetimes for a more perfect match, and music recommendation services, among plenty of others. Harari appears to have a broadly optimistic understanding of the idea.
+This struck me as eerily similar to Yuval Harari's "dataism", outlined in _Homo Deus_. Harari uses the examples of digital maps, which navigate more effectively through a bustling city across chaotic modes of transport better than a baseline human being. It does this by having access to vast quantities of information, update in real-time, which no human could hope to acquire and process themselves, notwithstanding having also acquired telepathy.
+
+Harari extrapolates that dating applications - which can scan more people than an individual user could ever meet in their lifetimes - are therefore more capable of finding a truly perfect match, and music recommendation services, among plenty of others. Harari appears to have a broadly optimistic understanding of the idea.
+
+
 
 Lanier's cybernetic totalism is a distinctly more cynical perspective, and one that I must admit I am much more in accordance with. Though I can appreciate the utility of a network-driven map which can inform me ahead of time of service disruption, or present a route previously unbeknownst to me, I find it difficult to believe that digital representations of our reality are "better" in any way beyond their immediate availability.