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An optimistic--but realistic and feasible--action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment: electrify everything.Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now―but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint―optimistic but feasible―for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith’s plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future. Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-f

The first English translation of a nonfiction work by Stanisław Lem, which was "conceived under the spell of cybernetics" in 1957 and updated in 1971.In 1957, Stanisław Lem published Dialogues, a book "conceived under the spell of cybernetics," as he wrote in the preface to the second edition. Mimicking the form of Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Lem's original dialogue was an attempt to unravel the then-novel field of cybernetics. It was a testimony, Lem wrote later, to "the almost limitless cognitive optimism" he felt upon his discovery of cybernetics. This is the first English translation of Lem's Dialogues, including the text of the first edition and the later essays added to the second edition in 1971. For the second edition, Lem chose not to revise the original. Recognizing the naivete of his hopes for cybernetics, he constructed a supplement to the first dialogue, which consists of two critical essays, the first a summary of the evolution of cybernetics,

How companies can adapt in an era of continuous disruption: a guide to responding to such acute crises as COVID-19.When COVID-19 hit, businesses had to respond almost instantaneously--shifting employees to remote work, repairing broken supply chains, keeping pace with dramatically fluctuating customer demand. They were forced to adapt to a confluence of multiple disruptions inextricably linked to a longer-term, ongoing digital disruption. This book shows that companies that use disruption as an opportunity for innovation emerge from it stronger. Companies that merely attempt to "weather the storm" until things go back to normal (or the next normal), on the other hand, miss an opportunity to thrive. The authors, all experts on business and technology strategy, show that transformation is not a one-and-done event, but a continuous process of adapting to a volatile and uncertain environment. Drawing on five years of research into digital disruption--including a series of interviews with b

The truth about robots: two experts look beyond the hype, offering a lively and accessible guide to what robots can (and can't) do.There’s a lot of hype about robots; some of it is scary and some of i

How engineered materials and machines powered by living biological cells can tackle technological challenges in medicine, agriculture, and global security.You are a biological machine whose movement is powered by skeletal muscle, just as a car is a machine whose movement is powered by an engine. If you can be built from the bottom up with biological materials, other machines can be as well. This is the conceptual starting point for biofabrication, the act of building with living cells--building with biology in the same way we build with synthetic materials. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Ritu Raman offers an accessible introduction to biofabrication, arguing that it can address some of our greatest technological challenges. After presenting the background information needed to understand the emergence and evolution of biofabrication and describing the fundamental technology that enables building with biology, Raman takes deep dives into four biofabrication

An accessible guide to cybersecurity for the everyday user, covering cryptography and public key infrastructure, malware, blockchain, and other topics.It seems that everything we touch is connected to the internet, from mobile phones and wearable technology to home appliances and cyber assistants. The more connected our computer systems, the more exposed they are to cyber attacks--attempts to steal data, corrupt software, disrupt operations, and even physically damage hardware and network infrastructures. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, cybersecurity expert Duane Wilson offers an accessible guide to cybersecurity issues for everyday users, describing risks associated with internet use, modern methods of defense against cyber attacks, and general principles for safer internet use. Wilson describes the principles that underlie all cybesecurity defense: confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, authorization, and non-repudiation (validating the

How we became so burdened by red tape and unnecessary paperwork, and why we must do better.We've all had to fight our way through administrative sludge--filling out complicated online forms, mailing i

An accessible introduction to a concept often considered impossibly abstruse, demonstrating its power as a conceptual tool in the twenty-first century.This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a clear and concise introduction to a topic often considered difficult and abstruse: deconstruction. David Gunkel sorts out the concept, terminology, and practices of deconstruction, not to defend academic orthodoxy, or to disseminate the thought of Jacques Derrida--the fabricator of the neologism and progenitor of the concept--but to provide readers with a powerful conceptual tool for the twenty-first century. Gunkel explains that deconstruction is not simply the opposite of construction--the "deconstructed" jacket hanging in your closet is not, strictly speaking, accurately named--or synonymous with destruction. It is a way to think beyond the construction/destruction dichotomy and all other conceptual dichotomies and logical oppositions. After describing what deconstructio

An accessible explanation of the technologies that enable such popular voice-interactive applications as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.Have you talked to a machine lately? Asked Alexa to play a song, asked Siri to call a friend, asked Google Assistant to make a shopping list? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a nontechnical and accessible explanation of the technologies that enable these popular devices. Roberto Pieraccini, drawing on more than thirty years of experience at companies including Bell Labs, IBM, and Google, describes the developments in such fields as artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding that allow us to outsource tasks to our ubiquitous virtual assistants. Pieraccini describes the software components that enable spoken communication between humans and computers, and explains why it's so difficult to build machines that understand humans. He explains speech recognition technology

More than eighty designs--iconic, archaic, quotidian, and taboo--that have defined arc of human reproduction.While birth often brings great joy, making babies is a knotty enterprise. The designed obje

The story of the most abundant substance on Earth, from its origins in the birth of stars billions of years ago to its importance in the living world.Water is so ubiquitous in our lives that it is easy to take for granted. The average American uses ninety gallons of water a day; nearly every liquid we encounter is mostly water--milk, for example, is 87 percent water. Clouds and ice--water in other forms--affect our climate. Water is the most abundant substance on Earth, and the third-most abundant molecule in the universe. In this lavishly illustrated volume, science writer Jack Challoner tells the story of water, from its origins in the birth of stars to its importance in the living world. Water is perhaps the most studied compound in the universe--although mysteries about it remain--and Challoner describes how thinkers from ancient times have approached the subject. He offers a detailed and fascinating look at the structure and behavior of water molecules, explores the physics of wat

Writings by thinkers ranging from Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain to Bruno Latour that focus on the interconnections of technology, society, and values.Technological change does not happen in a vacuum; decisi

A guided tour of the rapidly evolving networked world of connected devices, objects, and people that is changing the way we live and work.Since the publication of the original edition of this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, the Internet of Things (IoT) has evolved from a novelty (look! my phone connects to my lamp!) to a mainstream technology framework that we rely on every day to accomplish many tasks. This revised and updated edition reports on the latest developments in this rapidly evolving networked world of connected devices, objects, and people that is changing the way we live and work. Business and technology writer Samuel Greengard takes us on a guided tour of the IoT, describing smart lightbulbs, sensors in phones that trigger earthquake warnings, 3D headsets that connect users to business expos through completely immersive virtual reality environments, and more. He offers a clear explanation of the technology that builds and manages the IoT and examines t

An examination of the contradictions within a form of expression that is both public and private, specific and abstract, conventional and countercultural. Snapshots capture everyday occasions. Taken by amateur photographers with simple point-and-shoot cameras, snapshots often commemorate something that is private and personal; yet they also reflect widely held cultural conventions. The poses may be formulaic, but a photograph of loved ones can evoke a deep affective response. In Snapshot Photography, Catherine Zuromskis examines the development of a form of visual expression that is both public and private. Scholars of art and culture tend to discount snapshot photography; it is too ubiquitous, too unremarkable, too personal. Zuromskis argues for its significance. Snapshot photographers, she contends, are not so much creating spontaneous records of their lives as they are participating in a prescriptive cultural ritual. A snapshot is not only a record of interpersonal intimacy but also

How Brazilian postwar avant-garde artists updated modernism in a way that was radically at odds with European and North American art historical narratives. Brazilian avant-garde artists of the postwar era worked from a fundamental but productive out-of-jointness. They were modernist but distant from modernism. Europeans and North Americans may feel a similar displacement when viewing Brazilian avant-garde art; the unexpected familiarity of the works serves to make them unfamiliar. In Constructing an Avant-Garde, S廨gio Martins seizes on this uncanny obliqueness and uses it as the basis for a reconfigured account of the history of Brazil's avant-garde. His discussion covers not only widely renowned artists and groups--including H幨io Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Cildo Meireles, and neoconcretism--but also important artists and critics who are less well known outside Brazil, including M嫫io Pedrosa, Ferreira Gullar, Am璱car de Castro, Lu疄 Sacilotto, Antonio Dias, and Rubens Gerchman. Martins argue

A general formal theory of causal reasoning as a logical study of causal models, reasoning, and inference.In this book, Alexander Bochman presents a general formal theory of causal reasoning as a logical study of causal models, reasoning, and inference, basing it on a supposition that causal reasoning is not a competitor of logical reasoning but its complement for situations lacking logically sufficient data or knowledge. Bochman also explores the relationship of this theory with the popular structural equation approach to causality proposed by Judea Pearl and explores several applications ranging from artificial intelligence to legal theory, including abduction, counterfactuals, actual and proximate causality, dynamic causal models, and reasoning about action and change in artificial intelligence. As logical preparation, before introducing causal concepts, Bochman describes an alternative, situation-based semantics for

Can we change the minds of science deniers? Encounters with flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, coronavirus truthers, and others."Climate change is a hoax--and so is coronavirus." "Vaccines are bad for you." These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed--they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don't believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it's important to do so. Science denial can kill. Drawing on his own experience--including a visit to a Flat Earth convention--as well as academic research, McIntyre outlines the common themes of science denialism, present in misinformation campaigns ranging from tobacco companies' denial in the 1950s that smoking c

A concise overview of machine learning--computer programs that learn from data--the basis of such applications as voice recognition and driverless cars.Today, machine learning underlies a range of app

In 1937, H. G. Wells proposed a predigital, freely available World Encyclopedia to represent a civilization-saving World Brain.In a series of talks and essays in 1937, H. G. Wells proselytized for wha

A prominent critic and theorist considers the criteria of value for collecting and storing works of art.In the world of contemporary art, serious art is produced primarily with the aim of being collec

A comprehensive introduction to the mathematical foundations of movement and actuation that apply equally to animals and machines.This textbook offers a computational framework for the sensorimotor st

The industry bible for communication design and illustration professionals, with updated information, listings, and pricing guidelines.Graphic Artists Guild Handbook is the industry bible for communic

Images and text capture the astonishing beauty of the chemical processes that create snowflakes, bubbles, flames, and other wonders of nature.Chemistry is not just about microscopic atoms doing inscru

How conflicting ideas of nature threaten to fracture America's identity.Amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties: American invest much of their national identity in sites of natural beauty. And yet American lands today are torn by conflicts over science, religion, identity, and politics. Creationists believe that the Biblical flood carved landscapes less than 10,000 years ago; environmentalists protest pipelines; Western states argue that the federal government's land policies throttle free enterprise; Native Americans demand protection for sacred sites. In this book, David Nye looks at Americans' irreconcilably conflicting ideas about nature.A landscape is conflicted when different groups have different uses for the same location—for example, when some want to open mining sites that others want to preserve or when suburban development impinges on agriculture. Some landscapes are so degraded from careless use that they become toxic “anti-landscapes.” Nye traces these conflicts t

How to understand a media environment in crisis, and how to make things better by approaching information ecologically.Our media environment is in crisis. Polarization is rampant. Polluted information

Exploring more than seventy-five well-known paradoxes in mathematics, philosophy, physics, and the social sciences showing how reason and logic can dispel the illusion of contradiction.Paradox is a so

Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color--reimagine library and information science through the lens of critical race theory.In Knowledge Justice, Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color scholars use c

A leading cancer specialist tells the compelling stories of three adult leukemia patients and their treatments, the disease itself, and the drugs developed to treat it.When you are told that you have

A general organismic-causal theory that explicates working memory and executive function developmentally, clarifying the nature of human intelligence.In The Working Mind, Juan Pascual-Leone and Janice

Why simple technological solutions to complex social issues continue to appeal to politicians and professionals who should (and often do) know better.Why do we keep trying to solve poverty with techno

Quantum computing explained in terms of elementary linear algebra, emphasizing computation and algorithms and requiring no background in physics.This introduction to quantum algorithms is concise but

A key text by a leading figure in Italian socialist feminism that remains relevant today, addressing the exploitation of women in the workplace and at home.Anna Kuliscioff (c. 1854-1925) was a promine

An investigation of hate speech: legal approaches, current controversies, and suggestions for limiting its spread.Hate speech can happen anywhere--in Charlottesville, Virginia, where young men in khak

An introduction to annotation as a genre--a synthesis of reading, thinking, writing, and communication--and its significance in scholarship and everyday life.Annotation--the addition of a note to a te

In the bestselling tradition of Stuff Matters and The Disappearing Spoon: a clever and engaging look at materials, the innovations they made possible, and how these technologies changed us.In The Alch

A rigorous and comprehensive textbook covering the major approaches to knowledge graphs, an active and interdisciplinary area within artificial intelligence.The field of knowledge graphs, which allows

The new edition of a comprehensive, accessible, and hands-on text in historical linguistics, revised and expanded, with new material and a new layout. This accessible, hands-on textbook not only introduces students to the important topics in historical linguistics but also shows them how to apply the methods described and how to think about the issues. Abundant examples from a broad range of languages and exercises allow students to focus on how to do historical linguistics. The book is distinctive for its integration of the standard topics with others now considered important to the field, including syntactic change, grammaticalization, sociolinguistic contributions to linguistic change, distant genetic relationships, areal linguistics, and linguistic prehistory.

How we can harness cutting-edge biology and manufacturing to fight waste and pollution.In Nature, there is little chemical waste; nearly every atom is a resource to be utilized by organisms, ensuring

The history and controversial roots of the social design movement, explored through the life and work of its leading pioneer, Victor Papanek.In Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World, Alison Clar

An authoritative and unbiased guide to nuclear technology and the controversies that surround it.Are you for nuclear power or against it? What's the basis of your opinion? Did you know a CT scan gives