Geek Book Club

[Asian Steev]

Hey friends,

We're finally doing it!  The Geek Book Club (name not finalized) is kicking off in November with the book Makers by Cory Doctorow.  The book came out in October, so I'd say a vast majority of us haven't read it yet.  The book is freely available by way of Creative Commons in a ton of formats and Morris Book Shop will give us a 10% discount on Book Club Books (Hardcover is $25).  Respond to this e-mail if you're interested in ordering a copy or just reading along with your pdf or txt.  I'll place our order with Morris on Wednesday morning.

We'll spend until the end of December on this book, and we'll probably meet two or three times throughout the course of the reading to discuss stuff.

You can download the book here... http://craphound.com/makers/download/

and below I'll paste the synopsis from the author (spoiler alert?).

Wooh!

-steev

From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother, a major novel of the booms, busts, and further booms in store for America

Perry and Lester invent things—seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent entirely new economic systems, like the “New Work,” a New Deal for the technological era. Barefoot bankers cross the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal mini-startups like Perry and Lester’s. Together, they transform the country, and Andrea Fleeks, a journo-turned-blogger, is there to document it.

Then it slides into collapse. The New Work bust puts the dot.combomb to shame. Perry and Lester build a network of interactive rides in abandoned Wal-Marts across the land. As their rides, which commemorate the New Work’s glory days, gain in popularity, a rogue Disney executive grows jealous, and convinces the police that Perry and Lester’s 3D printers are being used to run off AK-47s.

Hordes of goths descend on the shantytown built by the New Workers, joining the cult. Lawsuits multiply as venture capitalists take on a new investment strategy: backing litigation against companies like Disney. Lester and Perry’s friendship falls to pieces when Lester gets the ‘fatkins’ treatment, turning him into a sybaritic gigolo.

Then things get really interesting.

[Todd Willey]

A related project:

http://github.com/collexion/Makers

to curate a collection of remixes and associated works that are
released under a Creative Commons license is underway as well. If you
want to make alternative cover art that would be freely reproducible,
or make a variant of the existing pdfs, post it up. Want to turn the
whole thing into a graphic novel? I say do it, and add it to the
repository.

-todd[1]

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[b. vandgrift]

started reading today, thanks to Stanza. good so far. Kettlebelly
reminds me of Bigend from Pattern Recognition, though.

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b.vandgrift (@gmail.com)
http://www.flowmingle.com/
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"talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one
else can see." -- schopenhauer

[Paul Eberhart]

+1 on joining in, I'm not sure if I'll be getting a paper copy or just
ebooking it.
as for the last posting, anything that evokes William Gibson is
pointed in the right direction.

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[Ashley]

Yes, me too! Going digital...

For those that finish early, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a
fun read too.

[MikeD]

Seconding Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom!

I've been reading Makers on tor.com for the past few months and it's
really good as well. I'm excited to hurry up and finish it (they're
still on installment 52 our of 81 on tor). Has anyone seen a print
copy for sale in town? Am I just making a lame assumption that it
isn't popular enough to carry? I try to pick up a dead tree copy of
every Cory book I read.

[Asian Steev]

they have copies in stock at morris bookshop and collexion bookclub members (just mention it) get 10% off.  i picked mine up yesterday.
-steev

[MikeD]

I haven't been at meetings so...

How far is everyone on Makers?
Is there a set date to be finished by?
What then?

On Nov 6, 3:52 pm, Asian Steev <asianst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> they have copies in stock at morris bookshop and collexion bookclub members
> (just mention it) get 10% off.  i picked mine up yesterday.
> -steev
>

[Asian Steev]

I have not made it far at all.  really not far.
the plan is to finish at the end of dec.  we're also supposed to have a meeting/discussion around the end of november about the first half.  i'll try to catch up by then.
-steev

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[Chris Stieha]

I'm on part three, cruising through, will probably skim back over the parts we will talk about and make sure to be spoiler free, especially when I want to make comments about why Perry or Lester is really someone's favorite.

Are we going to discuss halves or parts? 
If parts:
November ends in a week.  I think the best bet would be to meet the first week of December (2nd or 3rd?), sometime around the middle (16th through the 18th?), then finally meet early January.
If halves:
We need to decide a half point.  We could then discuss the first half early December (around the 10th?) and the second half in January (again around the 10th?).
-chris

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Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:06:05 -0500
Subject: Re: Geek Book Club
From: asian...@gmail.com
To: coll...@googlegroups.com

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Bing brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. Try it now.

[Paul Eberhart]

I made it to section 3 ebooking it on flights, which sort of surprised
me. Enjoying the hell out of it though. Looking forward to chatting
about it. I'm for discussing sections even though it doesn't make
sense for the rate I'm reading; the tone changes a lot between
sections.

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[b. vandgrift]

finished it. moved on to 'rainbow's end' by vernor vinge.

[Allen Cook]

I finished it in one weekend but I tend to get obsessive about
finishing books. The different sections will make it easy to break it
up, they're pretty varied between sections. Great book though,
looking forward to discussing it!

Allen Cook

On Nov 23, 4:56 pm, Paul Eberhart <pappp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I made it to section 3 ebooking it on flights, which sort of surprised
> me.  Enjoying the hell out of it though.  Looking forward to chatting
> about it.  I'm for discussing sections even though it doesn't make
> sense for the rate I'm reading; the tone changes a lot between
> sections.
>

> On 11/23/09, Asian Steev <asianst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > I have not made it far at all.  really not far.
> > the plan is to finish at the end of dec.  we're also supposed to have a
> > meeting/discussion around the end of november about the first half.  i'll
> > try to catch up by then.
> > -steev
>

> >> collexion+...@googlegroups.com<collexion%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups .com>

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> Paul Selegue Eberhart (PAPPP) -http://www.engr.uky.edu/~pseber0/
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