The Read Aloud Cloud: An Innocent's Guide to the Tech Inside

by Forrest Brazeal

What is “the cloud”? Is it here or there? Should it be allowed? Should I even care? Have you ever imagined the internet as a giant Rube Goldberg machine? Or the fast-evolving cloud computing space as a literal jungle filled with prehistoric beasts? Does a data breach look like a neo-noir nightmare full of turned-up coat collars and rain-soaked alleys? Wouldn’t all these vital concepts be easier to understand if they looked as interesting as they are? And wouldn’t they be more memorable if we could explain them in rhyme? Whether you’re a kid or an adult, the answer YES! The medicine in this spoonful of sugar is a sneaky-informative tour through the past, present and future of cloud computing, from mainframes to serverless and from the Internet of Things to artificial intelligence. Forrest is a professional explainer whose highly-rated conference talks and viral cartoon graphics have been teaching engineers to cloud for years. He knows that a picture is worth a thousand words. But he has plenty of words, too. Your hotel key, your boarding pass,
The card you swipe to pay for gas,
The smart TV atop the bar,
The entertainment in your car,
Your doorbell, toothbrush, thermostat,
The vacuum that attacked your cat,
They all connect the cloud and you.
Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.   As a graduation gift (call it “Oh the Places You’ll Go” for engineering students), a cubicle conversation starter, or just a delightfully nerdy bedtime story for your kids, “The Read-Aloud Cloud” will be the definitive introduction to the technologies that everyone uses and nobody understands. You can even read it silently if you want. But good luck with that.

Genres: Technology, Stem

176 pages, Paperback

Published September 16, 2020

Reviews

[Akhila Krishna]

Awesome book with a great theme and rhyme .. we are living in the world of cloud knowingly or unknowingly . And if you want to know why all the IT people around you are freaking out about learning cloud and getting into cloud related jobs? This book will give you a good understanding about cloud - what -how and why . Small , to the point and very informative.

[Jason L.]

Great book for anyone in general as an introduction to cloud, a must have on the coffee tables of cloud engineers, solution architects and administrators.

[Christopher Woods]

A fun and easy-to-understand trip through the technology of "the cloud" with great visuals written almost in the rhyming style of Dr. Seuss books. If you're a professional in the field it's a great book to give to curious friends and family members to help them understand better what it is you do for a living. At 150 pages of mostly illustrations and rhyming captions, it only took me about 30 minutes to get through.

[Div Manickam]

A fun technology read - all about the cloud ☁️

[Senthil Kumaran]

It was informative, but not very interesting to me, whose been in the cloud journey for a while.