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ENIAC
- The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer
- Narrated by: Adams Morgan
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
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Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the 20th century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society and dazzling the likes of Mark Twain with his electrical demonstrations. An astute self-promoter and gifted showman, he cultivated a public image of the eccentric genius.
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A detailed examination of Tesla's work
- By Jean on 02-01-14
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Prediction Machines
- The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
- By: Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Artificial intelligence does the seemingly impossible - driving cars, trading stocks, and teaching children. But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
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Not sure what I was expecting, but underwhelmed
- By William J Brown on 09-27-18
By: Ajay Agrawal, and others
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The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide
- How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
- By: John Sonmez
- Narrated by: John Sonmez
- Length: 20 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Technical knowledge alone isn't enough - increase your software development income by leveling up your soft skills Early in his software developer career, John Sonmez discovered that technical knowledge alone isn't enough to break through to the next income level - developers need "soft skills" like the ability to learn new technologies just in time, communicate clearly with management and consulting clients, negotiate a fair hourly rate, and unite teammates and coworkers in working toward a common goal.
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The Complete Bro-grammer's Career Guide
- By Leels on 09-18-19
By: John Sonmez
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The Master Switch
- The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
- By: Tim Wu
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information? Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate.
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Great Read
- By Roy on 11-12-10
By: Tim Wu
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Algorithms of Oppression
- How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
- By: Safiya Umoja Noble
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Run a Google search for “black girls” - what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls”, the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why black women are so sassy” or “why black women are so angry” presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities.
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Read this book. Tell everyone you know about it.
- By Joshua Daniel-Wariya on 06-06-19
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Social Media Marketing Workbook: 2024 Edition - How to Use Social Media for Business
- By: Jason McDonald PhD
- Narrated by: Michael Goodrick
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Learn social media marketing in plain English—step by step! Buy the workbook used at Stanford Continuing Studies to teach social media marketing for business. The 2023 updated edition—all info verified and a new chapter on TikTok, plus revisions on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other major platforms....
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Great SM Reference
- By Anne on 12-31-18
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Super Pumped
- The Battle for Uber
- By: Mike Isaac
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Isaac
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic rise and fall of Uber, set against the rapid upheaval in Silicon Valley during the mobile era. Based on hundreds of interviews with current and former Uber employees, along with previously unpublished documents, Super Pumped is a pause-resisting story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior, that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic 12-month periods in American corporate history.
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A forced narrative and a bad version of Bad Blood
- By Benji on 09-09-19
By: Mike Isaac
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Surveillance Valley
- The Secret Military History of the Internet
- By: Yasha Levine
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fascinating book, investigative reporter Yasha Levine uncovers the secret origins of the Internet, tracing it back to a Pentagon counterinsurgency surveillance project. With deep research, skilled storytelling, and provocative arguments, Surveillance Valley will change the way you think about the news - and the device on which you read it.
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Profound look at the internet and surveillance
- By stuartjash on 04-06-18
By: Yasha Levine
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Must read for senior+ software engineers
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JFK and the Unspeakable
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At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy's change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence.
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One Book EVERY AMERICAN Needs to Read
- By Peter on 06-09-12
What listeners say about ENIAC
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Glenn
- 12-16-02
Fascinating history...
Everyone who assumes that von Neumann invented the computer (as I once thought) really owes it to themselves and the true inventors a listen to this fascinating retelling of the tale. Not overly "geeky," but not overly simplified either, this (audible) book finds the right balance to fill in the missing pieces of the invention of the computer. The *only* criticism that I have of the reading is the author's raised pitch when reading quotes from women. It sounds silly and somewhat demeaning, and isn't necessary to get the quote across. Otherwise the reader articulates well and is easy on the ears.
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23 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Chen
- 04-23-04
excellent book on history and ideas of computing
Except for the first dozen minutes that repeat what we all know about the computers of today, the rest of the book is a fascinating account of the background, the people, and the critical events in the early days of computing. I have never seen a more complete and comprehensive account of how the science, the technology, the engineering, the war effort, and most interestingly, the people came together to give birth to ENIAC. I learned for the first time the commercial efforts after the invention and before the dominance of IBM. Except for the beginning part, I find the content highly informative not only because of the detailed account of historical events but also because of the description of many of the early technical problems and solutions. As a college professor teaching computer science, I highly recommend this book for any one who is interested in learning the history and the basic elements of computing.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- William
- 02-07-03
A well told story about unheralded giants
As an It executive I was ashamed to realize that I did not now the names of the inventors of the first electronic computer. Nor did I know that they actuall held the patent to the computer. I loved every minute of this salute to these pioneers.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- D. Littman
- 10-11-04
Good overview of how computers came to be
This is an outstanding title, so long as you understand what it does & what it doesn't focus on. This is a book that is more about the personalities involved in inventing the first "general purpose" computer, and the business aspects; and less about the technicalities associated with that computer. The author does a very good job making you feel what it was like to be there, the stresses & the frustrations & the triumphs of the inventors. The author also shows how inventing something that is memorable decades later is more about business than it is about fundamental innovation. Without the money, contacts, marketing organization & so forth, the computer would not have come to be, or at least as soon as it came to be. It turns out that the inventors did not have any of these attributes, but those who came after them (in competition with them, patent-wise) did.
The narration of this book is also outstanding.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- GpeG
- 09-08-03
This is about litigation
I was deeply disappointed. I expected to know about the ups and downs of the technological experience of building this landmark machine. Instead, I mostly heard of lawsuits, greed, libel and vexation. I should have known better.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- John
- 08-03-11
Not as advertised or expected, but informative
This is an interesting book on the early history of the modern electronic computer. The main flaw as I see it is that the story of ENIAC is largely outlined in the first third of the book. The rest of the slender tome goes on to detail the extended battles over patent rights. Plenty of print is spent on the creators' battles with themselves, the marketplace, and the powers that seemed to conspire to deny them their proper place in computing history well after ENIAC was retired. I have read only a little heretofore about the intellectual property battles detailed in the book. The author clearly has written the book to take up the cause of Mauchley and Eckert as not only the driving force behind ENIAC, but to laud them as the actual inventors of the modern electronic computer. I'm not inclined to argue - I was just more interested in the actual history and capabilities of the ENIAC itself, and apparently that wasn't worth the whole of the book. Even later, as the author and the inventors move on to found the "world's first computer company" and struggle to create the more powerful successor the UNIVAC, McCartney seems more interested in detailing Mauchley and Eckert's poor business decisions, deteriorating personal lives, and extended legal battles rather than expounding on what UNIVAC could do and how much better it was than ENIAC. Having said that, I did enjoy the book and found it quite interesting. I very much liked how the author detailed the various hurdles the ENIAC team faced and how they overcame them. I apreciated how he put the efforts to build the ENIAC into the context of the ebb and flow of the 2nd World War. The U.S. Army funded the development of ENIAC and it's demands, yoked to the innovative solutions of Mauchley and Eckert, created systems and architectures that literally launched the computer age. Strange Note: The narrator actually reads the footnotes for the book - making a modest listen even shorter!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Qbook
- 01-08-05
A Great Intro To Computer History
A nice history of the creator of the modern electronic computer, and perfect for anyone who doesn't know where computers come from (my university students once guessed that the first electronic computer was made in 1886). McCartney does the basic job of covering the start of the computer age in this book, but he never really gets very deep. What surprised me was how much the author felt the need to include explanations of contextual situations, as when he mentioned the supply of gas ration coupons--the whole reason for such rationing had to be explained. This always gave the book a feeling that its target audience is ten year old school kids (and I am going to get my kids to read it). I also got the feeling that this ground has already been covered and it is so far from the event now that there is not much new to uncover.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Seymour
- 06-19-04
Errors turn a fascinating subject into a bore
The combination of the reader's limited expressive range and the focus of the book on personalities instead of technologies, plus the glaring technical errors of the author made this a bore. My favorite: right after a section where the author goes on at length about Eniac being the first programmable computer, he then notes how remarkable it was that the team didn't hire any experienced programmers to work on the project but trained people from scratch. Where, exactly, did the author think the builders of the FIRST programmable computer would find experienced programmers? The Future? Sheesh...
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Overall
- Layla
- 12-06-03
A gripping, fascinating story--highly recommended!
Did you know that the first "computers" were actually women who computed artillery tables during WWII, & the machine was named after them? That the first real computer programmers were also women? Or that if the U.S. hadn't been desperate for a way to compute more artillery tables for the War, ENIAC would probably never have been built?
As a computer science student trying to improve my general background knowledge about computer hardware & history, I loved this book! Somehow the class I took on Computer Architecture made alot more sense when talking about complex computer fundamentals in terms of cables and vacuum tubes rather than integrated circuits and D flip-flops. If you work in IT, want to better understand hardware, or are a computer and history junky, this book is for you! Also, Mauchly & Eckert may have been great inventors, but they were terrible businessmen. This book is a fabulous case study on how great innovation without business savvy can be taken to the cleaners.
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Overall
- Donald
- 03-30-10
Short but very interesting
I was hoping to hear even more about this history. The quality of the audio wasn't as good as other audible books, but I loved the content.
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