Unplugging the City

Unplugging the City

Author: Fábio Duarte

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-16

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 131552323X

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Modernity has entrusted technology with such power that it is treated as an autonomous entity, with its own manners and morals. Technological disruptions are also socially disruptive: technological failures reveal both the constituents of the technology itself and the social fabric woven by this technology. Cities are the quintessential technological arrangement, not only materially but also as a conceptual framework: the ubiquity of technology makes us think and plan cities mostly in terms of technological arrangements. Unplugging the City: The Urban Phenomenon and its Sociotechnical Controversies proposes a conceptual and methodological framework for analyzing certain urban phenomena as a technological assemblage. It demonstrates, through multiple case studies, the sociotechnical complexities involved in the stabilization and disruption of urban technological arrangements. Examples range from the urban phantasmagorias portrayed in science-fiction movies to the urban proposals of Brasilia and Masdar, from the book of bike-sharing systems to pervasive global surveillance systems. Written by Fábio Duarte and Rodrigo Firmino, based on their original research and publications, this is an essential resource for those interested in the theory and study of technology and its inextricable influence on the city.


24/6

24/6

Author: Tiffany Shlain

Publisher: Gallery Books

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1982116862

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Winner of the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award Entrepreneur’s 12 Productivity and Time-Management Books to Read “I’m won over to a day with people, not screens….I tried Shlain’s idea. I highly recommend it.” —The New York Times “Tiffany Shlain is a modern-day prophet, brilliant and incredibly funny in equal measure...24/6 is timeless and timely wisdom.” —Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author This “wise, wonderful work” (Publishers Weekly starred review) demonstrates how turning off screens one day a week can work wonders on your brain, body, and soul. Do you wish you had more time to do what you love, think deeply, and focus on the people and things that matter most? By giving up screens one day a week for over a decade, Internet pioneer and renowned filmmaker Tiffany Shlain and her family have gained more time, productivity, connection, and presence. Shlain takes us on a thought-provoking and entertaining journey through time and technology, introducing a strategy for flourishing in our 24/7 world. Drawn from the ancient ritual of Shabbat, living 24/6 can work for anyone from any background. With humor and wisdom, Shlain shares her story, offering the accessible lessons she has learned and providing a blueprint for how to do it yourself. “Bolstered with fascinating and germane facts about neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and the history of the concept of a day of rest” (Publishers Weekly), 24/6 makes the case for incorporating this weekly reset into our 24/7 lives, issuing a call to rebalance ourselves and our society.


Doug Unplugged: Read & Listen Edition

Doug Unplugged: Read & Listen Edition

Author: Dan Yaccarino

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Published: 2013-02-12

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 0449817008

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**Check out the Doug Unplugs animated series on Apple TV!** It's easy being a robot, if you play by all the rules—but when Doug gets curious, he decides to unplug and forge his own path. And he discovers a whole world of what's possible. Doug is a robot. His parents want him to be smart, so each morning they plug him in and start the information download. After a morning spent learning facts about the city, Doug suspects he could learn even more about the city by going outside and exploring it. And so Doug . . . unplugs. What follows is an exciting day of adventure and discovery. Doug learns amazing things by doing and seeing and touching and listening—and above all, by interacting with a new friend. Dan Yaccarino's funny story of robot rebellion is a great reminder that sometimes the best way to learn about the world is to go out and be in it. Praise for Doug Unplugged: "A gentle robotic rebellion." —USA Today A sweet tale . . . Yaccarino [is] especially good at slipping in the small, nourishing details that are savored upon repeated readings." —The New York Times


Media Choices

Media Choices

Author: Phillip Telfer

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9781511636322

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The digital age emerged suddenly on the world's timeline and has drastically changed the shape of culture. Consequently, today's entertainment has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks to spiritual growth and family health in our nation. Parenting teens was a noble challenge long before society became surrounded by captivating screens, and navigating life as a teen had plenty of difficulties and distractions long before the game changing technology of the smartphone. The bottom line is that parents and teens are both in need of help! Our generation is faced each day with an all-you-can-eat media buffet. It has a huge influence on how we think, how we spend our time, and how we relate to others. It can also affect our relationship with God. Christians have been eager to keep up with the sweeping changes but have fallen far behind in Biblical wisdom. There is a growing need for media discernment in the light of following Jesus. Very few authors have broached the topic of media literacy from a Christian worldview. Phillip Telfer handles this challenging subject deftly with story-driven analogies that serve as a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. While this does not conclude with a call to be anti-media or anti-technology, it does raise concerns about the unchecked enthusiasm regarding media and entertainment, which are often consumed without discretion. This book will help you discover the Biblical principles that can inspire reasonable convictions. Learn how God's word addresses the unique challenges we face today. This book can help parents and teens discover how and why to guard their hearts and find freedom in this media captive culture.


The Unplugging

The Unplugging

Author: Yvette Nolan

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781770911321

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In this tale of survival, two women are exiled from their post-apocalyptic village because they have passed their child-bearing years.


The New Companion to Urban Design

The New Companion to Urban Design

Author: Tridib Banerjee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-19

Total Pages: 894

ISBN-13: 1351400614

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The New Companion to Urban Design continues the assemblage of rich and critical ideas about urban form and design that began with the Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2011). With chapters from a new set of contributors, this sequel offers a more comparative perspective representing multiple voices and perspectives from the Global South. The essays in this volume are organized in three parts: Part I: Comparative Urbanism; Part II: Challenges; and Part III: Opportunities. Each part contains distinct sections designed to address specific themes, and includes a list of annotated suggested further readings at the end of each chapter. Part I: Comparative Urbanism examines different variants of urbanism in the Global North and the Global South, produced by a new economic order characterized by the mobility of labor, capital, information, and technology. Part II: Challenges discusses some of the contemporary challenges that cities of the Global North and the Global South are facing and the possible role of urban design. This part discusses spatial claims and conflicts, challenges generated by urban informality, explosive growth or dramatic shrinkage of the urban settlement, gentrification and displacement, and mimesis, simulacra and lack of authenticity. Part III: Aspirations discusses some normative goals that urban design interventions aspire to bring about in cities of the Global North and the Global South. These include resilience and sustainability, health, conservation/restoration, justice, intelligence, access and mobility, and arts and culture. The New Companion to Urban Design is primarily intended for scholars and graduate students interested in cities and their built environment. It offers an invaluable and up-to-date guide to current thinking across a range of disciplines including urban design, planning, urban studies, and geography.


The Smart City Transformations

The Smart City Transformations

Author: Amitabh Satyam

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-07-03

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 9386643022

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A handbook for the practitioners, this book is a complete treatise on the topic of Smart, covering: 1. A comprehensive framework with the needed definitions, concepts, strategies, approaches, and technologies to develop and manage a greenfield or brownfield Smart city. 2. Integrating economics, developmental concepts, engineering, environment and governance that sets the definitive foundation of the Smart framework. 3. Technologies that are powering the Smart movement. Extensive case-studies. 4. Societal and Political research, and progress made by the academia. 5. Specific methodology of measuring Smart elements of a city. Introduction to the concepts of Smart Map and Smart Index. 6. A structured approach to transformation, setting priorities, execution, financing and governance. The new structure and market dynamics of the Smart industry.


Cities and Metaphors

Cities and Metaphors

Author: Somaiyeh Falahat

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-04-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1317916638

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Introducing a new concept of urban space, Cities and Metaphors encourages a theoretical realignment of how the city is experienced, thought and discussed. In the context of ‘Islamic city’ studies, relying on reasoning and rational thinking has reduced descriptive, vivid features of the urban space into a generic scientific framework. Phenomenological characteristics have consequently been ignored rather than integrated into theoretical components. The book argues that this results from a lack of appropriate conceptual vocabulary in our global body of scholarly literature. It challenges existing theories, introduces and applies the concept of Hezar-tu (‘a thousand insides’) to rethink the spaces in historic cores of Fez, Isfahan and Tunis. This tool constructs a staging post towards a different articulation of urban space based on spatial, physical, virtual, symbolic and social edges and thresholds; nodes of sociospatial relationships; zones of containment; state of intermediacy; and, thus, a logic of ambiguity rather than determinacy. Presenting alternative narrations of paths through sequential discovery of spaces, this book brings the sensual features of urban space into the focus. The book finally shows that concepts derived from local contexts enable us to tailor our methods and theoretical structures to the idiosyncrasies of each city while retaining the global commonalities of all. Hence, in broader terms, it contributes to a growing awareness that urban studies should be more inclusive by bringing the diverse global contexts of cities into the body of our urban knowledge.


(Re)Generating Inclusive Cities

(Re)Generating Inclusive Cities

Author: Dan Zuberi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-20

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 1315463717

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As suburban expansion declines, cities have become essential economic, cultural and social hubs of global connectivity. This book is about urban revitalization across North America, in cities including San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Vancouver, New York and Seattle. Infrastructure projects including the High Line and Big Dig are explored alongside urban neighborhood creation and regeneration projects such as Hunters Point in San Francisco and Regent Park in Toronto. Today, these urban regeneration projects have evolved in the context of unprecedented neoliberal public policy and soaring real estate prices. Consequently, they make a complex contribution to urban inequality and poverty trends in many of these cities, including the suburbanization of immigrant settlement and rising inequality. (Re)Generating Inclusive Cities wrestles with challenging but important questions of urban planning, including who benefits and who loses with these urban regeneration schemes, and what policy tools can be used to mitigate harm? We propose a new way forward for understanding and promoting better urban design practices in order to build more socially just and inclusive cities and to ultimately improve the quality of urban life for all.


Unplugging the Plug-in Drug

Unplugging the Plug-in Drug

Author: Marie Winn

Publisher: Penguin Group

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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Filled with practical advice from children, parents, and teachers, this book explains TV addiction and how to fight it.