You read a book, you recommend it to a friend. That friend tells another friend. And another... until the book becomes this year's word-of-mouth sensation. This is the first to analyze the power of the 'pass-it-on' phenomenon, introducing us to the architects of the mightily efficient, money-spinning model known as the Viral Loop - the secret behind some of the most successful businesses in recent history. Outfits such as Google, eBay, Flickr and Facebook all employ the model at their core; all have seen their stock valuations skyrocket within years of forming. The genius lies in the model's reliance on replication: what's the point of using Facebook if none of your friends can see your profile, or using Flickr if you can't share your photos? Where's the joy in posting a video on YouTube if no one watches it? In creating a viral product that people want, need and desire, growth can, and will, take care of itself. Find out why the Loop will catch us all up, sooner rather than later...

Theresa Pulido introduced her fresh, colorful take on locker hooking in her first book, Hook, Loop & Lock, and in Locking Loops she's back with even more fabulous, original locker hooking projects. Whether you are already a fan of locker hooking or new to it, you're sure to find inspiration in these pages. The book includes new techniques including a new "ruched frames" technique and introduces using new materials.

Issue 2 of Loops, the biannual journal dedicated to music writing from Faber and Domino Records, hosts essays from Andy Miller (Est-ce, est-ce ce bon?: Serge Gainsbourg in the Culture Bunker), Dan Franklin (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Fast: Napalm Death and the Possibility of Life's Destruction) and Frances Morgan on Red Square's Thirty Three and the resonance of re-discovery after the event. And then There's The Man Who Wasn't There, Paul Morley's spectacularly honest and revealing portrait of Michael Jackson and his legacy. So much has been written; so little has been said. Morley unravels and indulges the myth to ask just who he was, how we came to piece him together through our collective desires and fears, and why his destiny so inevitably reflected the dysfunctionality of the culture. This expansive essay takes a sober, brave and imaginative perspective on a story that was written before it was told and mythologised before it was considered. Morley sits alongside Simon Reynolds, Nick Kent, Lavinia Greenlaw, Owen Hatherley, Matt Thorne, Rob Chapman, Rubbish Raver, Miriam Linna, Mark Fisher, Tim Lawrence and Elisa Ambrogio in Loops' second outing.

Argues that the key to understanding ourselves and consciousness is the "strange loop," a special kind of abstract feedback loop that inhabits the brain.

With practical advice and a broad sampling of important algorithms, Inner Loops shows how to design programs that extend the edge of the envelope of PC performance. It provides a thorough review of 32-bit code optimization for the 486, Pentium and Pentium Pro, as well as design tips for writing fast 32-bit software.

This eye-opening narrative journey into the rapidly changing world of artificial intelligence reveals the dangerous ways AI is exploiting the unconscious habits of our minds, and the real threat it poses to humanity: "The best book I have ever read about AI" (New York Times bestselling author Roger McNamee). Artificial intelligence is going to change the world as we know it. But the real danger isn't some robot that's going to enslave us: It's our own brain. Our brains are constantly making decisions using shortcuts, biases, and hidden processes—and we're using those same techniques to create technology that makes choices for us. In The Loop, award-winning science journalist Jacob Ward reveals how we are poised to build all of our worst instincts into our AIs, creating a narrow loop where each generation has fewer, predetermined, and even dangerous choices. Taking us on a world tour of the ongoing, real-world experiment of artificial intelligence, The Loop illuminates the dangers of writing dangerous human habits into our machines. From a biometric surveillance state in India that tracks the movements of over a billion people, to a social media control system in China that punishes deviant friendships, to the risky multiple-choice simplicity of automated military action, Ward travels the world speaking with top experts confronting the perils of their research. Each stop reveals how the most obvious patterns in our behavior—patterns an algorithm will use to make decisions about what's best for us—are not the ones we want to perpetuate. Just as politics, marketing, and finance have all exploited the weaknesses of our human programming, artificial intelligence is poised to use the patterns of our lives to manipulate us. The Loop is call to look at ourselves more clearly—our most creative ideas, our most destructive impulses, the ways we help and hurt one another-so we can put only the best parts of ourselves into the thinking machines we create.