Gno Schitt

FeedTheDog and I were discussing this book at lunch today, and Kyro seemed interested. I said I would put it up here, as I think it's a book that more GnoSchitters would like. It is available in many formats at the link in the title for free, as it is distributed under one of the Creative Commons licenses. I very highly recommend it.

It's a book about a high school kid. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ends up being accused as a terrorist. It discusses the loss of freedoms that the community goes through after a terrorist attack, and this technologically literate student rebelling against that. It's a very interesting read. All the technologies used in the book are accurate as well. There is a How-to (here) that explains how to create some of the homemade devices, or do a lot of the things done in the book. This includes things like discovering pinpoint cameras for extremely cheap, blocking/killing RFID chips, and removing camera specific noise from pictures. Very cool stuff for the people who want to secure their things to the extreme.

Some of the critics have compared it to Orwell's 1984. It is also classified as a Young Adult book, so the reading level is pretty easy. It's a book you can start, and finish, pretty easily in a week or two. Downside is it's all digital, so if you don't have a nice device to read on, you may need to pay for 200 pages of printing, or read off a computer monitor. Not a big deal for some (like me) but hopefully that doesn't scare you away from this great book.

Stop reading this post, and start reading the book.