Don Kasprzak

Latest Read: LikeWar

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 26, 2022

LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media by P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking. LikeWar explores how social media has certainly forever changed war and politics. LikeWar was named an Amazon and Foreign Affairs book of the year and “new and notable” by the New York Times.

Peter Warren Singer is Strategist at New America, a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, and Founder & Managing Partner at Useful Fiction LLC. He previously was Director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution.

He has consulted for the US Military, Defense Intelligence Agency, and FBI, as well as advised a range of entertainment programs, including for Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Universal, HBO, Discovery, History Channel, and the video game series Call of Duty. Peter has previously Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Children at War, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, and finally Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and LikeWar.

Accordingly, Emerson is an analyst of national security policy and a Research Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he has served as an adviser on information warfare to the National Security Council, Joint Staff, and U.S. intelligence community.

2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine

It is remarkable to read LikeWar at this time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. The introduction of how both propaganda and advertising, including the downstream impact of fake news and misinformation) are now more powerful and more abundant via the lack of identity across social media.

Tags Heidi Montag, LikeWar, Peter Singer, Russia, Social Media, Taylor Swift, Ukraine

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Power of Regret

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 13, 2022

The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward
by Daniel H. Pink. This was indeed an interesting learning experience. I have previously read his bestsellers A Whole New Mind, Drive, and When. Daniel is truly a great writer.

For this book Daniel actually launched two research projects, The American Regret Project and The World Regret Survey that collected the regrets of more than 20,000 people from the US and around the world. Pink then categorized these regrets into four core areas—foundation, boldness, moral, and connection regrets—and in the process has shown us what a life well-lived looks like by comparison.

Daniel is certainly establishes why regret is so misunderstood. He writes how how we can learn to use regret to our advantage. In addition, he shares the most common regrets people have. Finally, he teaches us how to become productive when confronting regret.

So, should you regret saying “I have no regrets” to family, friends, and co-workers? Instead, Daniel begins the book with people from across the globe sharing their stories of getting a “no regrets” tattoo for everyone to see. Yet maybe we should think twice about that tattoo as he reveals the tattoo removal industry is a very lucrative profession since the removal costs as much as ten times more than getting inked in the first place.

However, Daniel also addresses issues we confront when we do not handle regret correctly. These misfirings can certainly end up contributing to poor decision making.

Tags Daniel Pink, Regret

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Latest Read: The Future Is Faster Than You Think

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 6, 2022

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler.

Peter is an engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He founded The X Prize Foundation, and executive chairman of Singularity University. Steven is an American author and entrepreneur. He has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angles Times, Wired, Time magazine, GQ, Discover, and Popular Science.

Together they have published a series of books Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World. The Future Is Faster Than You Think is the third and last of this series.

As usual, whenever predictions of the future are written, they are never accurate. It is somewhat difficult to believe it has been thirteen years since reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.We all know, somehow the future gets in the way of….their future. Peter and Steven’s book is not an exception.

So, reading this during the hopefully fading months of the COVID pandemic reveals so much of their hype (including dates) never materialized. It is a shame the published date of their book was less than 60 days before our country went on lockdown.

Tags forecasting, Peter Diamandis, Steven Kotler, Technology, The Future Is Faster Than You Think

3D Printing Blockchain Education Innovation IoT Network Reading Technology

Latest Read: The Internet of Things

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 28, 2022

The Internet of Things By Samuel Greengard. Samuel is a business and technology writer whose work has appeared in Wired, Entrepreneur, and other publications. He holds a degree in journalism from California State University-Northridge and is a past president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

This book is a very lightweight, suitable for a complete novice to technology. However, this content is outside previous MIT Press titles by select content experts. However, every book has an audience and this is perfect for anyone seeking to understand IoT

In fact, beginning with the example when a lamp was merely a lamp. This provides the backdrop to the integration of modern wifi and bluetooth technologies into devices like a lamp, providing lighting controls via a mobile app.

For this reason, Samuel provides how IoT is changing everything in modern society. He helps define the concepts and key terms with mobility as the baseline for all these technologies. However it is the area where he communicates the recent emerging digital technology has now defined IoT. This products now tie services, data, and people. Those models are outlined as Automation, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Edge AI, Analytics, Robotics, 3D Printing, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Blockchain.

Tags Internet of Things, IoT, Samuel Greengard

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Metadata

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 22, 2022

Metadata by Jeffrey Pomerantz. Jeffrey earned his Ph.D. from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He is Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and in addition a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington.

At first glance, one may consider this book is only for Library Science and Information Technology students and professionals. However, today internet publishing and content creators suggests you would be wrong.

In fact, this book is very essential. I found this a very welcoming and informative read. Above all, metadata is addressing traditional data elements: creator, created, modified, name, and related networks.

Jeremy elegantly explains what metadata is and why this is so critical to our society today. Twenty years ago the audience impact was considerably smaller. However, today we are an internet publishing society and this is now second nature to many social media content creators.

Jeremy introduces this key element via the Snowden revelations regarding PRISM. The collection of phone metadata reveals the NSA could identify quite a bit about each cellular call. This was certainly metadata’s aha moment on a global scale. However, this subject really shines in Bruce Schneier’s excellent book Click Here to Kill Everybody. I would also highly recommend reading Surveillance Valley by Yasha Levine.

Tags Dublin Core, Jeffrey Pomerantz, Metadata