An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths by Glenn Reynolds
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
On page 36 there is a quote about Athens, GA where I live about a wireless network downtown anyone can use. When I first moved here, there was something like this, but I had to have a university account to make use of it. Also, I did not recognize Blue Sky Coffee, the coffee shop mentioned. So I looked up the article quoted, “Urban Renewal: The Wireless Way” and the coffee shop. Blue Sky Coffee closed less than a month after the article mentioned it. The wireless network four years later.
The Blue Sky Coffee closure should have been pretty obvious to the author or editor. Except that I lived in the city mentioned, I would have not stumbled on it. Because I did, everything else suffered a more skeptical analysis. And there was plenty of cherry picked examples with just dismissive mentions of counter evidence. So even though for the most part I agree with the conclusions, I was disappointed with how we arrived there.
The worst part is the predictions. Authors really should stay away from them unless they can ensure the writing will not be read after the predicted event.
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