《Homeland》Bibliography
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This section is dedicated to Powell's Books, the legendary "City of Books" in Portland, Oregon. Powell's is the largest bookstore in the world, an endless, multi-storey universe of papery smells and towering shelves. They stock new and used books on the same shelves -- something I've always loved -- and every time I've stopped in, they've had a veritable mountain of my books, and they've been incredibly gracious about asking me to sign the store-stock. The clerks are friendly, the stock is fabulous, and there's even a Powell's at the Portland airport, making it just about the best airport bookstore in the world for my money!
Powell's: W Burnside, Portland, OR 97209 USA +1 800 878 7323
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When I was a kid, facts were hard to come by. If you wanted to know how to hack a pay phone, you'd have to find someone else who knew how to do it, and get them to teach you. Or you'd have to find operating manuals for pay phones and pore over them until you came up with your own method. There's nothing wrong with either of these solutions, except that they're slow and can be tedious.
Today, facts are cheap. As I type this in early 2012, a Google search for "How to hack a pay phone" gives back a full screen of detailed YouTube videos full of fascinating and often practical advice on getting pay phones to dance to your will. So if you know or suspect that a thing is possible, it's easy to discover whether someone has managed it, and how they did it. Just bear in mind Arthur C. Clarke's first law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." If you're trying to do something that everyone on the net swears is impossible, it may still be worth a go on your own in case you think of something they've never imagined.
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With Homeland -- and in Little Brother -- I've tried to give you some scenarios and keywords that might expand your impression of what is and isn't possible, to give you the search terms you'll need to educate yourself and get yourself doing cool stuff. So, for example, if you google "hackerspaces" you'll find that places like Noisebridge are very real and have spread all over the world (Noisebridge is also real!). You can join your local hackerspace. If it doesn't exist yet, you can start it. Just google "how do I start a hackerspace?" And while you're searching, try "drone" and "tor project" and "lawful intercept." You'll be amazed, scared, energized, and empowered by what you find there.
Wikipedia is an amazing place to do research, but you have to know how to use it. Your teachers have probably told you that Wikipedia has no place in your education, and I'm sorry to say that I think that this is a lazy and dumb approach. There are two secrets to doing amazing research on Wikipedia:
1. Check the sources, not the article.
In an ideal world, all the factual assertions in a Wikipedia article will have a citation to a source at the bottom of the article. Wikipedia hasn't achieved this ideal state (yet -- that's what all those [citation needed] marks in the articles are about) but a surprising number of the facts in a Wikipedia article will have a corresponding source at the bottom. That's where your research should take you when you're reading an article. Wikipedia is where your research should start, not where it should end.
2. Check the "Talk" link.
Every Wikipedia article has a "Talk" link that goes to a page where everyone who cares about the article discusses its state. If someone has a weird idea about a subject and finds a source somewhere on the net to support it, they might just stick it into the Wikipedia article. But chances are that this will spark a heated debate on the Talk page about whether the source is "reputable" and whether its facts belong in an encyclopedia.
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Armed with the original sources and the informed discussion about whether those sources are good ones, you can use Wikipedia to get an amazing education.
Beyond Wikipedia, there are some other sites you should really have a look at if you want to learn more about the material in this book. First Codecademy (www.codecademy.com), which contains step-by-step lessons to learn how to program, starting from no knowledge. You can even get them by email, one page at a time. While you're chewing on that, check out the Tor Project (www.torproject.org) and find out how to run your own darknet projects. If you're looking to use an operating system that lets you control your whole computer, down to the bare metal, then you want GNU/Linux. I like the Ubuntu flavor best (www.ubuntu.com). It runs on any and every computer, and is really easy to get started with. And if you have an Android phone, get jailbreaking! The CyanogenMod project (www.cyanogenmod.com) is a free/open version of the Android operating system, with all kinds of excellent features, including several that will help you protect your privacy.
Now, all this stuff is well and good, but only if the Internet stays free and open. If your country acquires the same awful censorship and surveillance used in China and Middle Eastern dictatorships, you won't be able to get at this stuff and learn to use it. There are lots of threats to this freedom, and every country has groups devoted to stopping them. In the United States and Canada (and wordwide!) there's the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org), where I used to work. In the UK, there's the Open Rights Group (www.openrightsgroup.org), which I helped to found. In Australia, there's Electronic Frontiers Australia (www.efa.org.au). In New Zealand, there's Creative Freedom (creativefreedom.org.nz). There are also global groups like Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org) and groups with lots of local affiliates like The Pirate Party (www.pp-international.net).
There are lots of thinkers on this stuff whom I have a lot of respect for. If you want to know about teens, privacy, and networked communications, read danah boyd's blog (‹http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts)›. For more on Anonymous, 4chan and /b/, read Gabriella Coleman's blog and papers (‹http://www.gabriellacoleman.org/blog/)›. For the future of news and newspapers, read Dan Gillmor (‹http://www.dangillmor.com)›, especially his excellent recent book, Mediactive (‹http://www.mediactive.com)›. For the relationship of leaks to the news, follow Heather Brooke (www.heatherbrooke.org) and read her history of Wikileaks, The Revolution Will Be Digitised. To understand how the net is changing the world, read Clay Shirky (‹http://www.shirky.com)›, and his latest book, the kick-ass { Here Comes Everybody } ‹http://boingboing.net/2008/02/28/clay-shirkys-masterp.html›. If you want to fight for free and fair elections in America without undue influence from power and money, read Lawrence Lessig (‹http://www.twitter.com/lessig)› and join Rootstrikers (‹http://www.rootstrikers.org)› where activists are making it happen.
Finally, if you want to understand randomness, information theory, and the strange world at the center of mathematics, run, don't walk, and get a copy of James Gleick's 2011 book The Information. It's where I got all the good stuff about Godel and Chaitin from.
There's plenty more -- more than would ever fit between the covers of a book, so much that you need the whole net for it. I write on a daily website called Boing Boing (‹http://www.boingboing.net)›, where I keep up to date on the latest stuff. I hope to see you there.
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Palus Somni
It is the final days after the end of the world and you only have one month left before the last sanctuary erupts into chaos. There's a dead body hanging from a tree and cadaverous giants watch you sleep at night. The end is already here, you just don't know it yet. Now rated in the top 3% of all novels on Royal Road! Palus Somni (‘Marsh of Sleep’) is a worldbuilding webnovel about what happens when your God forsakes you. Inspired by gothic horror and mingled with British myth and folklore, join the Alucinari nuns as they struggle with day-to-day life after the world has ended. Every night when the sun sets the monstrous Gol, colossal beings with too many teeth, awaken and roam the marshlands. Only those with a faithful heart will be spared. Young acolyte Wille has never seen the walls fail, but when a fellow nun is murdered within their sanctum the very safety of the monastery is thrown into question. Did the Gol find a way to breach their defences, or is there a human traitor amongst them? The answer lies both far in the past and deep beneath the earth, through the maze of ancient catacombs. With a cast of over thirty different characters, watch as your friends and enemies spiral into inevitable madness at the hands of a callous and unforgiving world. Discover the secrets of Palus Somni through letters, diary entries and notes found scattered across the monastery. Uncover the mystery of the grotesque giants that stalk the night and bring your challenge to the Gods themselves. Each character has their own handmade pixel art, and every update includes a music recommendation for a dark atmospheric dungeon synth album that you can listen to while you read. Slice of life meets cosmic abomination: Palus Somni is a collection of intertwining stories, some chapters are stand-alone tales while others feed into the overarching narrative. It is an exploration into a community, and rather than focusing on any one character the story meanders through the convent, exposing the hopes and fears of its inhabitants. Story updates every full moon.
8 54New Resident of 5th Apartment
Gone to another world with bang and returned to earth with another BANG! She decided to continue her ordinary life with little of help of her power. But seems like even back here there is are still work for someone like her.
8 204Yet Another RimWorld (Dropped)
*Fanfiction based on the game RimWorld*A more realistic take of RimWorld, where we follow the pawns that must struggle to survive in yet another Rimworld. Their stories, guided by a particularly playful narrator, will tell the tales of survival, defeat, gains, losses, triumph, and ultimately ruin. Trials faced by people, in places of various circumstances, will be observed and presented to its audience. What will be presented here are insignificant snippets of history, merely few of the innumerable tales and prospects to be found across this wide galaxy; The things we discover from these pawns, so many yet so few. Ultimately, they are just more drama meant for enjoyment, albeit in a twisted way. A/N:This is a fanfiction, based on the game "RimWorld". Using my personal gameplays as a basis for this fanfiction, in addition to some embellishments here and there. Unlike the silly antics that caused grave consequences if you had ever played RimWorld, my rendition will (hopefully) stay more grounded to reality, whereby no one will go beserk and dig up corpses if they can't eat on a table for 3 days in a row. That's all I need to say, you get the point. I'm writing this for fun. So please expect me to be inconsistent. Lastly, I am incredibly grateful to Tynan Sylvester for the game he created, "RimWorld", which is loved by many across the world and it will always remain a special place in my heart. For without his game, my work would not exist.
8 207Day of Wrath [Doom 2016/Eternal rewrite]
A hundred years ago, the mysterious Phobos Event occurred. Classified by the UAC as a "mining accident," Phobos is now permanently quarantined while Deimos is just gone. No bodies or survivors were ever found.The year is 2149, and the UAC holds dominion as the undisputed superpower in the Solar System, leader in the fields of energy, aerospace, and defense. Their crowning achievement, Argent Power, has revolutionized physics and brought clean renewable energy to a world in crisis.But that is about to change. Deep in the heart of the UAC Mars Base, recovered directly from a prison tomb in Hell itself, is a lone stone sarcophagus. Containing not artifacts, not demon, but a man. A living human being in perfect hibernation. The man has been identified as a long-lost Space Marine, the only known survivor of the Phobos Event. "Day of Wrath" is primarily located on SpaceBattles. Don't forget to check out our Discord, and I (regrettably) have a Twitter which I use EXCLUSIVELY to post story updates!
8 130Letters from Sledgegrass
The Old King is dead, and with his death, his secrets have come alive. Wrapped up in understanding magics unknown, the Old King deployed scribes to all corners of the world and charged them with recording tales of strange happenings. The following represents a compilation of the letters discovered in the Old King's chambers, collected from his outposts across the Sledge.
8 123To End All Wars
A world where war is righteous, and death in it glorious. Caspar Hahn is deemed sick by his father and is forced to join the army to 'correct' him. But contrary to his father's belief, Caspar thrived in the military. Join Caspar as he fights against the enemies that want to do him and his country harm, as he fights against his father and the public to gain recognition and acceptance, and most importantly fights against himself to discover who he really is. Also Posting this on Webnovel Cover photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash
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