Context

Cory Doctorow

• Publisher: Tachyon Publications
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781616960780
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Popular Culture
• Index: Social Sciences

One of the Web's most celebrated high-tech culture mavens returns with this second collection of essays and polemics. Discussing complex topics in an accessible manner, Cory Doctorow's visions of a future where artists have full freedom of expression is tempered with his understanding that creators need to benefit from their own creations. From extolling the Etsy makerverse to excoriating Apple for dumbing down technology while creating an information monopoly, each unique piece is brief, witty, and at the cutting edge of tech. Now a stay-at-home dad as well as an international activist, Doctorow writes as eloquently about creating real-time Internet theater with his daughter as he does while lambasting the corporations that want to profit from inherent intellectual freedoms.

Praise for Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century

“As we live in the future going faster miles an hour, I’m thankful that Cory Doctorow has given thought to the modern joys and dangers making our collective head spin. We all need to make time to have the conversations Cory starts in this book.”

—Penn Jillette, co-star of Penn & Teller

“I can’t say this about many authors, but I can say it about Cory, and without hesitation: Anyone who considers themselves smart, strategic, or even informed about where our digital economy is going (and I hope that’s you) must read him. And this book is a great place to start.”

—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

“Reading Context, I felt like there should be a sticker on the cover, much like the one on Cracker Jacks, which promises us ‘a prize in every box’ or perhaps the old slogan for Lay’s Potato Chips, ‘bet you can’t eat just one!’ These bite-sized clusters of observations are munchable and easy to digest, but inside, they carry thoughts that can wake you up in the middle of night. The topics here range across intellectual property, science fiction, technological innovation, media policy, and electronic publishing, but he is often at his best when he pulls things down to the human level, describing the pleasures of being a parent in the digital age, or that guy he knew long ago who wore his sweaters inside out.”

—Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

“Cory Doctorow thinks about lots of things, and he writes about lots of things, and he does both in a way that sends some folks right over the edge. It’s not that Cory is being outrageous to be outrageous—it’s that he realizes that the context of our lives is change. That’s a message some people don’t want to hear. Well, I want to hear it. I don’t always agree with Cory 100%—who agrees with anyone else all the time?—but I never get tired of reading what he’s thinking about next.”

—John Scalzi, author of Old Man’s War and Fuzzy Nation

“See the emerging world of electronic books, iPad apps, cloud computing, and more through the eyes of possibly the most productively opinionated commentator of our day. Any complacency you have about the digital everyday will not survive unscathed.”

—Mizuko Ito, Professor and MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning, University of California, Irvine

Praise for Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

“Doctorow here proves he’s smart, funny, and good at accessibly boiling down issues he’s passionate about...a pleasure to read, not to mention thought-provoking.”

—Booklist

“...more than just insightful, brilliant, and to the point—it’s also funny and fun to read.”

—Electronic Frontier Foundation

“If you want to know what’s happening at the sharp end of digital publication and new ideas about the relationships between authors and their readers—do yourself a favour and listen to what he has to say.”

—Mantex Online

tachyon / san francisco

context

cory doctorow

Context: Further Selected Essays on Productivity, Creativity, Parenting, and Politics in the 21st Century

Copyright © 2011 by Cory Doctorow

This entire work (with the exception of the Foreword by Tim O’Reilly) is copyright 2011 by Cory Doctorow and released under the terms of a Creative Commons U.S. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/). Some Rights Reserved.

The foreword is copyright 2011 by Tim O’Reilly and released under the terms of a Creative Commons U.S. Attribution-NonCom...

Table of contents

• Context_frontmatter
• 00_Foreword
• 01_Jackandtheinterstalk
• 02_TeenSex
• 03_NaturesDaredevils
• 04_BeyondCensorware
• 05_WritingintheAgeofDistraction
• 06_ExtremeGeek
• 07_HowtoStopYourInbox
• 08_WhatIDo
• 09_WhenImDead
• 10_RadicalPresentism
• 11_CosmopolitianLiterature
• 12_WhenLoveIs
• 13_ThinkLikeaDandelion
• 14_DigitalLicensing
• 15_NewYorkMeetSilicon
• 16_WithaLittleHelpThePrice
• 17_YouShouldntHavetoSellYourSoul
• 18_NetNeutrality
• 19_ProprietaryInterest
• 20_IntellectualProperty
• 21_SayingInformationWantstobeFree
• 22_ChrisAndersonsFree
• 23_WhyEconomicsCondemms3D
• 24_NotEveryCloudHasASilver
• 25_WhyIWontBuyAnIpod
• 26_CanYouSurvive
• 27_CuratedComputing
• 28_DoctorowsFirstLaw
• 29_ReportsofBloggingsDeath
• 30_StreamingWillNever
• 31_SearchIsTooImportant
• 32_CopyrightEnforcersShouldLearn
• 33_WarningToAllCopyrightEnforcers
• 34_ForWhomTheNetTolls
• 35_HowDoYouKnowIfCopyright
• 36_NewsCorpKremlinology
• 37_PersistencePaysParasites
• 38_LikeTeenagersComputers
• 39_PromotingStatisticalLiteracy
• 40_PersonalDataIsAsHot
• 41_MomentoMori
• 42_LoveTheMachine
• 43_UntouchedByHumanHands
• 44_CloseEnoughForRockNRoll