Mens Et Opera - Reloaded

Resquiescat in pace ‏. We had a chance to comment on this great scientist here

My wife Florinda gave birth on Sunday to our first child, Francis Maria Arpaia. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

I confess I am not a fan. Notwithstanding, I consult Wikipedia for "indisputable" material like maths, geography, dates of birth, movies release...you got the flavour, right? That's fine and practical. Things get hotter when there’s a general agreement and when there’s widespread disagreement on values or facts, as with, say, the origins of communism; you get both sides. Not optimum, though, because both sides are forced to make their point by emphasizing the contrast with the other side. As a result, it is not a reliable source. Instead,  buy a good book, read a good article or just follow a great blog. The trouble comes when one side is right and the other side is wrong and neither are aware of it. The Shakespeare authorship page and the Shroud of Turin page or Global Warming vs. Sckeptics are scenes of constant conflict and are packed with unreliable or inaccurate information. Arguably, this can be seen as democracy at work. I personally think this is pure and intra...

Here is the first in an intermittent series of posts on some recommended reading for those interested in the social impact of IT and other related issues. I will not attempt to be exhaustive, but will focus on works which are in some way particularly noteworthy or useful. From time to time, I will post reading recommendations vis-à-vis specific subject areas like cloud computing, project management, business intelligence, etc. Let's start with a classic: Being digital, Nicholas Negroponte I recently re-read it and I found some interesting intuitions that I didn't spot in the first reading. Over the years, the author has developed a techno-utopian tendency that makes the whole lot uninteresting. The book is worth reading, though. On the other side of the spectrum, the works of Nicholas Carr put a great emphasis on the shift in computing. The main idea is that computing is becoming a commodity. Buy and read the following: Does IT matter? The big switch - Rewiring the...