{"id":772,"date":"2011-10-01T19:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/?p=772"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:12:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T12:12:46","slug":"what-ive-been-reading-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/2011\/10\/01\/what-ive-been-reading-4\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019ve Been Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span><em>Life<\/em> can only be <em>understood backwards<\/em>, <em>but<\/em> it must be <em>lived forwards<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In technology, predicting the future is risky business. Tracing parallels and contrasts between future and old technologies, in the best tradition of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dtc.umn.edu\/~odlyzko\/doc\/research.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Odlyzko\u2019s papers<\/a> on the comparative history of technology, is the only foolproof way to reason about the future, with the only shortcoming of being forewarned that in hindsight, everything is obvious and foreseeable. The following books are the best sources to learn about the rising of past-centuries networks, before the Internet:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><strong>[amazon_link id=\u201c0801846145\u201d target=\u201c_blank\u201d ]Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society[\/amazon_link]. <\/strong>Through the looking-glass of Tom Hughes\u2019 systematizing theory of Complex Systems, the best recollection of the battle of electrical standards (<span class=\"caps\">AC<\/span> vs. <span class=\"caps\">DC<\/span>), full of details of the similarities and differences of electric expansion in Germany, England and United States due to the impact of the state of affairs of each country.<\/li>\n<li><strong>[amazon_link id=\u201c0393061264\u201d target=\u201c_blank\u201d ]Railroaded: the Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America[\/amazon_link]<\/strong>. As the first infrastructure built in capitalism, it transformed the legal-economic system of its day to the current one we live within. Its fact-based approach is the best strength of the narrative, which otherwise should be read with distance and perspective to properly detach from the author\u2019s opinions.<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>[amazon_link id=\u201c0521131855\u201d target=\u201c_blank\u201d ]Energy and the English Industrial Revolution[\/amazon_link].<\/strong> A masterpiece and the best short book on the Industrial Revolution, by one of the most important economic historian. You can get a taste of its content at this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voxeu.org\/index.php?q=node\/6781\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">article<\/a> written by the author itself.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dquo\">\u201c<\/span>Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.\u201d S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard In technology, predicting the future is risky business. Tracing parallels and contrasts between future and old technologies, in the best tradition of Odlyzko\u2019s papers on the comparative history of technology, is the only foolproof way to reason about the future, with&nbsp;[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1628,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/1628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerezo.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}