What We Are Reading Today: ‘Understanding the Digital World’

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Updated 09 November 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Understanding the Digital World’

  • Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more

Author: BRIAN W. KERNIGHAN

In this updated edition of “Understanding the Digital World,” Brian Kernighan explains how computer hardware, software, and networks work.

Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is; how the Internet and web operate; and how all of these affect security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues.

Kernighan touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers, and new sections in the book explore Python programming, big data, and much more.

 


What We Are Reading Today: Long Problems

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Updated 45 sec ago
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What We Are Reading Today: Long Problems

  • In this pathbreaking book, Thomas Hale examines the politics of climate change and other “long problems”

Author: Thomas Hale

Climate change and its consequences unfold over many generations. Past emissions affect our climate today, just as our actions shape the climate of tomorrow, while the effects of global warming will last thousands of years.

Yet the priorities of the present dominate our climate policy and the politics surrounding it. Even the social science that attempts to frame the problem does not theorize time effectively. In this pathbreaking book, Thomas Hale examines the politics of climate change and other “long problems.”

He shows why we find it hard to act before a problem’s effects are felt, why our future interests carry little weight in current debates, and why our institutions struggle to balance durability and adaptability.