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books tagged “technology”
books tagged “technology”
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All the Weyrs of Pernby Anne McCaffreyISBN 0345368932 (0-345-36893-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All the Weyrs of Pern'Book summary:For generations, the dragonriders had dedicated their lives to fighting Thread, the dreaded spores that periodically rained from the sky to ravage the land. On the backs of their magnificent telepathic dragons they flew to flame the deadly stuff out of the air before it could reach the planets surface. But the greatest dream of the dragonriders was to find a way to eradicate Thread completely, so that never again would their beloved Pern be threatened with destruction. Now, for the first time, it looks as if that dream can come true. For when the people of Pern, led by Masterharper Robinton and Flar and Lessa, Weyr-leader and Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr, excavate the ancient remains of the planets original settlement, they uncover the colonists voice-activated artificial intelligence system which still functions. And the computer has incredible news for them: There is a chance a good chance that they can, at long last, annihilate Thread once and for all. When McCaffreys beloved dragons roar and their riders soar upon the beasts mighty backs...fans of Pern will likely be enthralled. Publishers Weekly [via]
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American Godsby Neil GaimanISBN 0380789035 (0-380-78903-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Gods'Book summary:American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.
Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.
More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton [via]
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Blaming Technology: The Irrational Search for Scapegoatsby Samuel FlormanISBN 0312083637 (0-312-08363-7)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Webby Bert Bos, LieISBN 0321193121 (0-321-19312-1)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web'Book summary:Since 1996, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) has been the standard language for describing the layout of Web pages. This classic, fully four-color book explains how to use the latest release of the CSS language, with clear and practical examples for each CSS language element. And more than just the "how," the book also explains the "why" behind the design of each CSS element, ensuring that readers have the understanding they need to create their own CSS libraries.The foreward is written by Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with WebStandards and Taking Your Talent to the Web. [via]
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Catapultby Jim PaulISBN 0380718405 (0-380-71840-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Chariots for Apollo: The Untold Story Behind the Race to the Moonby Charles R. Pellegrino, Joshua StoffISBN 0380802619 (0-380-80261-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chariots for Apollo: The Untold Story Behind the Race to the Moon'Book summary:It began in the depths of the Cold War, with two nations hurtling steel chariots into the atmosphere, each vowing to be the first to the moon. Then, in 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged America -- and from Long Island to Cape Canaveral, Houston to Huntsville, an army of engineers, scientists, bureaucrats and astronauts were swept up into the effort. Somehow, America would put a man on the moon's surface and bring him back safely before the decade was over. But how?
For eight frantic years the engineers would design and redesign, the scientists would argue, and brave men would trust their lives to virtually untested machinery. This dramatic chronicle of the race to the moon takes us behind the scenes of this awesome quest, into the minds of the people whose lives were devoted to it and changed by it, and through the missions themselves -- including the tragedy of Apollo 13. A riveting portrait of ingenuity, determination, and raw human courage, "Chariots for Apollo is the powerful story of how one society came together to reach its goal -- a quarter of a million miles away. [via]
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The Control of Natureby John McPheeISBN 0374522596 (0-374-52259-6)
Softcover, Noonday Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Control of Nature'Book summary:Master how-it-works writer John McPhee has instructed his readers in the arcana of how oranges are commercially graded, how mountains form, how canoes are built and oceans crossed. In The Control of Nature he turns his attention once more to geology and the human struggle against nature. In one sketch, he explores the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' unrealized plan to divert the flow of the Mississippi River into a tributary, the Atchafalaya, for flood control; in another, he looks at the ingenious ways in which an Icelandic engineer saved a southern harbor on that island from being destroyed by a lava flow; in a third, he examines a complex scheme to protect Los Angeles from boulders ejected from mountains by compression and tectonic movement. As always, McPhee combines a deep knowledge of his subject with a narrative approach that is wholly accessible; you may not have thought you were interested in earthquakes and flood control, but he gently leads you to take a passionate concern in such matters. [via]
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The Deltoid Pumpkin Seedby John A. McPheeISBN 0374516359 (0-374-51635-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed'Book summary:Since the explosion of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey, energy-efficient, lighter-than-air ships have given way to gas-guzzling jet aircraft. But in the 1960s, an unusual band of inventors, engineers and investors, again in New Jersey, created the Aereon, a strange, wingless hybrid airplane/dirigible. The Aereon--the Deltoid Pumpkin Seed-- promised to be a safe workhorse of the skies, capable of carrying the payload of entire freight trains with minimal cost.
In this exquisitely crafted tale of back-to-the-drawing-board perseverance, McPhee tells the story not only of the Aereon, but of any product development team. He astutely delineates the team members' personalities and interactions, delves back in time to the origins of lighter-than-air craft and the history of propellers, and in the end, makes us wonder why this promising technology hasn't been perfected. Like Aramis: Or the Love of Technology, this is a splendid book about a potentially superior aircraft which has yet to be adopted. [via]
Dhtml and Css for the World Wide Webby Jason Cranford TeagueISBN 0321199588 (0-321-19958-8)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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The Diagnosisby Alan LightmanISBN 0375725504 (0-375-72550-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diagnosis'Book summary:In the bravura opening chapter of Alan Lightman's novel The Diagnosis, a nameless horror befalls Boston businessman Bill Chalmers in the hubbub of his morning commute. As he jostles his way aboard the train and makes cell-phone calls to check last-minute details on his morning meeting (for Bill is punctilious), a realization surfaces in his brain, "like a trapped bubble of air rising from the bottom of a deep pond." He has forgotten where he's going. All he can remember is his anxious urgency and his company's creed, "The maximum information in the minimum time." Acutely aware that he's got a 9:15 appointment, but recalling only the first six digits of his phone number, Bill helplessly gazes out the window. "Trees flew by like flailing arms.... Railroad tracks fluttered by like matchsticks. Trees, white and gray clapboard houses with paint peeling off, junkyards with stacks of flaccid tires." Lightman's Kafka pastiche is as pitch perfect as his verbal music: note the rhyming x sounds in stacks and flaccid (which is not pronounced "flassid").
Terrifyingly soon, Bill is mad, homeless, beaten, and experimented on by comically evil doctors. He recovers and reunites with his family, but inexorably, mysterious paralysis ensues. Doctors try to diagnose him. Coworkers offer empty condolences and plot to steal his fast-track job. His wife seeks consolation with a passionate virtual lover on the Internet, a professor she's never met in the flesh. His teenage son triumphantly hacks into AOL's Plato Online, and Bill's last days are counterpointed with the trial of Socrates and his troubled, rich inquisitor Anytus. Instead of the real story, we get a second shimmering Lightman fable. Anytus's strife with his rebel son, a Socrates supporter, parallels Bill's grief as his son is distanced from him by illness.
Though I felt glimmerings of understanding from time to time, I never did fully figure out exactly what the Socrates story and Bill's decline have to say about each other, nor what Bill's paralysis says about modern times. I implore a smarter reader to explain it to me in the customer comments below. But I can tell you that every character is resonant, and every sensory particular is exquisitely precise, as in Lightman's biggest hit, the Italo Calvino pastiche Einstein's Dreams. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Disclosureby Michael CrichtonISBN 0345391055 (0-345-39105-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Disclosure'Book summary:"Expertly crafted, ingenious and absorbing." The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The #1 Bestseller by the author of "Jurassic Park." As he did in "Rising Sun," Crichton focuses on a topic as close as today's newspaper headlines: sexual harassment.
Tom Sanders is an up-and-coming executive at the computer firm DigiCom. When his new boss turns out to be a woman who is both his former lover and a business rival, Sanders determines to be professional. But after a closed-door meeting, the woman accuses him of sexual harassment. It's her word against his, and suddenly Sanders finds himself caught in a nightmarish web of deceit in which he is branded as the villian. As he scrambles to save his career and his reputation, Sanders uncovers an electronic trail into DigiCom's secrets . . . and the cynical scheme devised to bring him down. [via] 
Donnerjackby Roger Zelazny, Jane LindskoldISBN 0380770229 (0-380-77022-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Earth, Inc.by R.Buckminster FullerISBN 0385018258 (0-385-01825-8)
Hardcover, Anchor Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Earth, Inc.'Book summary:This book collects some of R. Buckminster Fuller's most important recent writings on the subject of spaceship Earth: the big, interconnected, total system that is "the only one we've got." These articles stress the need for considering our planet as a whole, rather than breaking it into its parts-as most of us continue to do. This theme is crucial to the thinking of Bucky Fuller, who, in addition to his many other appellations, has been called the "godfather" of the Whole Earth Catalog. [via]
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Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The Worldby Jill JonnesISBN 0375758844 (0-375-75884-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World'Book summary:Jill Jonnes's compelling Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World offers a multi-sided tale of America's turn-of-the-20th-century quest for cheap, reliable electrical power. Along the way, the book profiles key personalities in both the science and industry of electrification and dramatizes the transformation of American society that accompanied the technological revolution. As her sub-title suggests, Jonnes's focus is on the three great personalities behind the building of the electricity industry. But, as she makes clear, the electrification of America was much more than a pathbreaking scientific quest. The genius of such poet-scientists as Nikola Tesla depended on the more finely tuned business skills of George Westinghouse and the towering capital of J.P. Morgan to achieve actualization. And even Thomas Edison and Westinghouse--innovative industrial combatants in the war between AC and DC current--were victims of the far more powerful and conservative financial forces of Wall Street. Indeed, for Jonnes, the story of electricity is as much about the legions of patent attorneys and bankers who controlled the flow of industry as it is about the circulation of current. Her sophisticated portrait of Gilded Age science, business, and society brings new light to the forces that underlie technological revolutions. As she reveals, it is not so much the great public men of science who directed the destiny of America's eventual empire of light; rather, the path was solidified by those men behind the scenes who were wise enough (and perhaps ruthless enough) to impose their legal, financial, and political dominance onto the scientific innovation--a valuable message for all eras. --Patrick OKelley [via]
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- Empires of Light : Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World: ISBN 0375507396 (0-375-50739-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Empires Of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World: ISBN 0375758844 (0-375-75884-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- Empires of Light : Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World: ISBN 0375507396 (0-375-50739-6)
Engines of the Mind: A History of the Computerby Joel ShurkinISBN 0393018040 (0-393-01804-0)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutionsby Bobby Woolf, Gregor Hohpe, Jonathan Simon, Kyle Brown, Martin Fowler, Sean Neville, Michael J. Rettig, Conrad F. D CruzISBN 0321200683 (0-321-20068-3)
Hardcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions'Book summary:*Would you like to use a consistent visual notation for drawing integration solutions? Look inside the front cover. *Do you want to harness the power of asynchronous systems without getting caught in the pitfalls? See "Thinking Asynchronously" in the Introduction. *Do you want to know which style of application integration is best for your purposes? See Chapter 2, Integration Styles. *Do you want to learn techniques for processing messages concurrently? See Chapter 10, Competing Consumers and Message Dispatcher. *Do you want to learn how you can track asynchronous messages as they flow across distributed systems? See Chapter 11, Message History and Message Store. *Do you want to understand how a system designed using integration patterns can be implemented using Java Web services, .NET message queuing, and a TIBCO-based publish-subscribe architecture? See Chapter 9, Interlude: Composed Messaging. Utilizing years of practical experience, seasoned experts Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf show how asynchronous messaging has proven to be the best strategy for enterprise integration success. However, building and deploying messaging solutions presents a number of problems for developers.Enterprise Integration Patterns provides an invaluable catalog of sixty-five patterns, with real-world solutions that demonstrate the formidable of messaging and help you to design effective messaging solutions for your enterprise. The authors also include examples covering a variety of different integration technologies, such as JMS, MSMQ, TIBCO ActiveEnterprise, Microsoft BizTalk, SOAP, and XSL. A case study describing a bond trading system illustrates the patterns in practice, and the book offers a look at emerging standards, as well as insights into what the future of enterprise integration might hold. This book provides a consistent vocabulary and visual notation framework to describe large-scale integration solutions across many technologies. It also explores in detail the advantages and limitations of asynchronous messaging architectures. The authors present practical advice on designing code that connects an application to a messaging system, and provide extensive information to help you determine when to send a message, how to route it to the proper destination, and how to monitor the health of a messaging system.If you want to know how to manage, monitor, and maintain a messaging system once it is in use, get this book. 0321200683B09122003 [via]
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Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Changeby Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres, Erich GammaISBN 0321278658 (0-321-27865-8)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change'Book summary:In this second edition of Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck organizes and presents five years worth of experiences, growth, and change revolving around XP. If you are seriously interested in understanding how you and your team can start down the path of improvement with XP, you must read this book.
Francesco Cirillo, Chief Executive Officer, XPLabs S.R.L.The first edition of this book told us what XP wasit changed the way many of us think about software development. This second edition takes it farther and gives us a lot more of the why of XP, the motivations and the principles behind the practices. This is great stuff. Armed with the what and the why, we can now all set out to confidently work on the how: how to run our projects better, and how to get agile techniques adopted in our organizations.
Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers LLCThis book is dynamite! It was revolutionary when it first appeared a few years ago, and this new edition is equally profound. For those who insist on cookbook checklists, theres an excellent chapter on primary practices, but I urge you to begin by truly contemplating the meaning of the opening sentence in the first chapter of Kent Becks book: XP is about social change. You should do whatever it takes to ensure that every IT professional and every IT managerall the way up to the CIOhas a copy of Extreme Programming Explained on his or her desk.
Ed Yourdon, author and consultantXP is a powerful set of concepts for simplifying the process of software design, development, and testing. It is about minimalism and incrementalism, which are especially useful principles when tackling complex problems that require a balance of creativity and discipline.
Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of The Business of SoftwareExtreme Programming Explained is the work of a talented and passionate craftsman. Kent Beck has brought together a compelling collection of ideas about programming and management that deserves your full attention. My only beef is that our profession has gotten to a point where such common-sense ideas are labeled extreme....
Lou Mazzucchelli, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology CouncilIf your organization is ready for a change in the way it develops software, theres the slow incremental approach, fixing things one by one, or the fast track, jumping feet first into Extreme Programming. Do not be frightened by the name, it is not that extreme at all. It is mostly good old recipes and common sense, nicely integrated together, getting rid of all the fat that has accumulated over the years.
Philippe Kruchten, UBC, Vancouver, British ColumbiaSometimes revolutionaries get left behind as the movement they started takes on a life of its own. In this book, Kent Beck shows that he remains ahead of the curve, leading XP to its next level. Incorporating five years of feedback, this book takes a fresh look at what it takes to develop better software in less time and for less money. There are no silver bullets here, just a set of practical principles that, when used wisely, can lead to dramatic improvements in software development productivity.
Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development: An Agile ToolkitKent Beck has revised his classic book based on five more years of applying and teaching XP. He shows how the path to XP is both easy and hard: It can be started with fewer practices, and yet it challenges teams to go farther than ever.
William Wake, independent consultantWith new insights, wisdom from experience, and clearer explanations of the art of Extreme Programming, this edition of Becks classic will help many realize the dream of outstanding software development.
Joshua Kerievsky, author of Refactoring to Patterns and Founder, Industrial Logic, Inc.XP has changed the way our industry thinks about software development. Its brilliant simplicity, focused execution, and insistence on fact-based planning over speculation have set a new standard for software delivery.
David Trowbridge, Architect, Microsoft CorporationAccountability. Transparency. Responsibility. These are not words that are often applied to software development.
In this completely revised introduction to Extreme Programming (XP), Kent Beck describes how to improve your software development by integrating these highly desirable concepts into your daily development process.
The first edition of Extreme Programming Explained is a classic. It won awards for its then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Much has changed in five years. This completely rewritten second edition expands the scope of XP to teams of any size by suggesting a program of continuous improvement based on:
- Five core values consistent with excellence in software development
- Eleven principles for putting those values into action
- Thirteen primary and eleven corollary practices to help you push development past its current business and technical limitations
Whether you have a small team that is already closely aligned with your customers or a large team in a gigantic or multinational organization, you will find in these pages a wealth of ideas to challenge, inspire, and encourage you and your team members to substantially improve your software development.
You will discover how to:
- Involve the whole teamXP style
- Increase technical collaboration through pair programming and continuous integration
- Reduce defects through developer testing
- Align business and technical decisions through weekly and quarterly planning
- Improve teamwork by setting up an informative, shared workspace
You will also find many other concrete ideas for improvement, all based on a philosophy that emphasizes simultaneously increasing the humanity and effectiveness of software development.
Every team can improve. Every team can begin improving today. Improvement is possiblebeyond what we can currently imagine. Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition, offers ideas to fuel your improvement for years to come.
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Fleet of Starsby Poul AndersonISBN 0312860366 (0-312-86036-6)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Usby Rodney A. BrooksISBN 037572527X (0-375-72527-X)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Changes Usby Rodney Allen BrooksISBN 0375420797 (0-375-42079-7)
Hardcover, Pantheon Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Changes Us'Book summary:The world of HAL and Data, of sentient machines, is fast approaching. Indeed, in some ways it has already arrived, as humans incorporate bionic technology and as humanlike machines increasingly take on the work of humans.
Rodney Brooks, a professor of engineering at MIT, has been involved in this transformation for decades. He has helped design robots that reason, at least after a fashion. The machines are as yet primitive, but, Brooks writes, in five years the boundary between what is now fantasy and fact will be breached, and intelligent machines will come into their own. With them will come a host of ethical problems, as we wrestle with the implications of Asimov's laws of robotics and with the very real possibility that we have created a new kind of slave. There's no way of getting around this future, it would seem, and, adds Brooks, our species will change in the bargain: "With all these trends we will become a merger between flesh and machines."
Antitechnologists may shudder at the story line, but readers interested in the gee-whiz possibilities of the digital age will be fascinated by Brooks's vision of what is and what will be. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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Ford: The Men and the Machineby Robert LaceyISBN 0345343123 (0-345-34312-3)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ford : The Men and the Machine'Book summary:Master biographer Robert Lacey tells the fascinating, authoritative account of the ambitious men and glamorous women behind the world's largest family-controlled business empire. From Henry Ford -- the original in every sense of the word -- whose revolutionary standards created a new way of life for America and the world, to Henry Ford II, old Henry's grandson, who rose from a frivolous playboy to become an industrial giant in his own right, to the tragic figure of Edsel Ford, old Henry's son and young Henry's father, smothered by the one and overshadowed by the other, to brash Lee Iacocca, whose visionary plans for the company would put him in conflict with Henry Ford II.
"Richly anecdotal and wonderfully readable . . . irresistable." The Washington Post Book World [via]More editions of Ford: The Men and the Machine:
The Fountains of Paradiseby Arthur C. ClarkeISBN 0345347943 (0-345-34794-3)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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The Future of the Pastby Alexander StilleISBN 0312420943 (0-312-42094-3)
Softcover, Picador USA
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Future War: Non-Lethal Weapons in Modern Warfareby John B. AlexanderISBN 0312194161 (0-312-19416-1)
Hardcover, St. Martin's Press
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Future War : Non-Lethal Weapons in Twenty-First Century Warfareby John B. Alexander, Tom ClancyISBN 0312267398 (0-312-26739-8)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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Grunch of Giantsby Buckminster R. FullerISBN 0312351941 (0-312-35194-1)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grunch of Giants'Book summary:This five-hour long recording is a passionate summary of Bucky's ideas. He reviews his assesment of humanity's most pressing problems, global strategies for solving these problems, and the conclusions from his "56-year experiment." [via]
Harvest of Starsby Poul AndersonISBN 0312852770 (0-312-85277-0)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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Indesign Cs2 for Macintosh And Windowsby Sandee CohenISBN 0321322010 (0-321-32201-0)
Softcover, Peachpit Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Indesign Cs2 for Macintosh And Windows'Book summary:You already know why it makes sense for you to learn Adobe InDesign: because major magazines, newspapers, book publishers, ad agencies, graphic-design firms, and corporate creative groups worldwide use it to increase productivity and refine creative results. And you need to get up to speed on the very newest version--Adobe InDesign CS2--today! Enter Adobe InDesign CS2 for Macintosh and Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. Using the task-based, visual approach that has become the hallmark of Peachpit's popular Visual QuickStart Guides, this volume provides a fast, easy, comprehensive introduction to everything InDesign. You'll learn about all aspects of the InDesign interface, including its tools and palettes, as well as how to create documents and master pages, import and style text and objects, automate your work, manage long documents, use the Bezier pen tools,create interactive PDF elements, and work with color. You'll also learn how to use the new Adobe Bridge file browser to locate, manage, and drag and drop assets easily into your InDesign layouts. Youll find a new chapter on working with InCopy, complete coverage of more advanced topics (like preflighting and advanced text control) and a thorough introduction to all of InDesign's productivity-enhancing features and tools. [via]
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Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolutionby Lisa JardineISBN 0385720017 (0-385-72001-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution'Book summary:Even Einstein had to eat. We seem to forget that scientists live in the same world as the rest of us, and that their work is informed by everything they encounter day to day. Lisa Jardine explores this interconnectedness in the context of the late 17th-century scientific revolution in Ingenious Pursuits, a well-planned journey back in time that delivers precious insight into the lives of those who laid the groundwork for cloning, nuclear weapons, and Internet commerce. Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, and Gian Domenico Cassini are just a few of the multitalented explorers that Jardine profiles through diaries, letters, and scientific records. Taking the time to fully flesh out the lives of these adventurous spirits, she shows the reader that science began as a natural curiosity about the material world, inspired by diverse interests: art, religion, medicine, engineering, and more.
Political meddling in science is nothing new; even 300 years ago rulers competed for knowledge and the status that came from scientific achievement. Jardine expands on this premise to see the colonial expansion of the time as a driving force behind research, responsible for the contemporary explosions in cartography, botany, and optics. While Ingenious Pursuits stays for the most part in the 17th century, it does remind us of our own interwoven scientific and social threads, and that perhaps the next revolutionary breakthrough will come about as much because of telemarketers as National Science Foundation grants. --Rob Lightner [via]
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The Intuitionistby Colson WhiteheadISBN 0385493002 (0-385-49300-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Intuitionist'Book summary:Verticality, architectural and social, is the lofty idea at the heart of Colson Whitehead's odd, sly, and ultimately irresistible first novel. The setting is an unnamed though obviously New Yorkish high-rise city, the time less convincingly future than deliciously other, as it combines 21st-century engineering feats with 19th-century pork-barrel politics and smoky working-class pubs. Elevators are the technological expression of the vertical idea, and Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female elevator inspector, is its embattled token of upward mobility.
Lila Mae's good ol' boy colleagues in the Department of Elevator Inspectors are understandably jealous of the flawless record that her natural intelligence and diligence have earned, and understandably delighted when Number Eleven in the newly completed Fanny Briggs Memorial Building goes into deadly free fall just hours after Lila Mae has signed off on it, using the controversial "Intuitionist" method of ascertaining elevator safety. It is, after all, an election year in the Elevator Guild, and the Empiricists would do most anything to discredit the Intuitionist faction. Everyone on both sides assumes that Number Eleven was sabotaged and Lila Mae set up to take the fall. "So complete is Number Eleven's ruin," writes Whitehead, "that there's nothing left but the sound of the crash, rising in the shaft, a fall in opposite: a soul." Lila Mae's doom seems equally irreversible.
Whitehead evokes a world so utterly involving to its own denizens that outside reality does not impinge on its perfect solipsism. We the readers are taken hostage as Lila Mae strives to exonerate herself in this urgent adventure full of government spies, underworld hit men, and seductive double agents. Behind the action, always, is the Idea. Lila Mae's quest reveals the existence of heretofore lost writings by James Fulton, father of Intuitionism, a giant of vertical thought, whose fate is mysteriously entwined with her own. If she is able to find and reveal his plan for the Black Box, the perfect, next-generation elevator, the city as it now exists will instantly be obsolescent. The social and economic implications are huge and the denouement is elegantly philosophical. Most impressive of all is the integrity of Whitehead's prose. Eschewing mere cleverness, resisting showoff word play, he somehow manages to strike a tone that's always funny, always fierce, and always entirely respectful of his characters and their world. May the god of second novels smile as broadly on him as did the god of firsts. --Joyce Thompson [via]
Jurassic Parkby Michael CrichtonISBN 0345370775 (0-345-37077-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jurassic Park'Book summary:Unless your species evolved sometime after 1993 when Jurassic Park hit theaters, you're no doubt familiar with this dinosaur-bites-man disaster tale set on an island theme park gone terribly wrong. But if Speilberg's amped-up CGI creation left you longing for more scientific background and ... well, character development, check out the original Michael Crichton novel. Although not his best book (get ahold of sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain for that), Jurassic Park fills out the film version's kinetic story line with additional scenes, dialogue, and explanations while still maintaining Crichton's trademark thrills-'n'-chills pacing. As ever, the book really is better than the movie. --Paul Hughes [via]
The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Spaceby Don Davis, Eugene CernanISBN 0312263511 (0-312-26351-1)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Life After Televisionby George GilderISBN 0393033856 (0-393-03385-6)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Making a Movie With Windows Xp: Visual Quickproject Guideby Jan OzerISBN 0321278453 (0-321-27845-3)
Softcover, Peachpit Pr
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Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the Worldby Simon GarfieldISBN 0393020053 (0-393-02005-3)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World'Book summary:In 1856, while trying to synthesize artificial quinine, 18-year-old chemistry student William Perkin instead produced a murky residue. Fifty years later, he described the event: he "was about to throw a certain residue away when I thought it might be interesting. The solution of it resulted in a strangely beautiful color." Perkin had stumbled across the world's first aniline dye, a color that became known as mauve.
"So what?" you might say. "A teenager invented a new color." As Simon Garfield admirably points out in Mauve, the color really did change the world. Before Perkin's discovery all the dyes and paints were colored by roots, leaves, insects, or, in the case of purple, mollusks. As a result, colors were inconsistent and unpredictably strong, often fading or washing out. Perkin found a dye that would always produce a uniform shade--and he pointed the way to other synthetic colors, thus revolutionizing the world of both dyemaking and fashion. Mauve became all the rage. Queen Victoria wore it to her daughter's wedding in 1858, and the highly influential Empress Eugénie decided the color matched her eyes. Soon, the streets of London erupted in what one wag called the "mauve measles."
Mauve had a much wider impact as well. By finding a commercial use for his discovery--much to the dismay of his teacher, the great August Hofmann, who believed there needed to be a separation between "pure" and "applied" science--Perkin inspired others to follow in his footsteps: "Ten years after Perkin's discovery of mauve, organic chemistry was perceived as being exciting, profitable, and of great practical use." The influx of bright young men all hoping to earn their fortunes through industrial applications of chemistry later brought significant advances in the fields of medicine, perfume, photography, and even explosives. Through it all, Garfield tells his story in clever, witty prose, turning this odd little tale into a very entertaining read. --Sunny Delaney [via]
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The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Stepsby Marshall T. SavageISBN 0316771635 (0-316-77163-5)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Minority Reportby Philip K. DickISBN 0375421874 (0-375-42187-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Minority Report'Book summary:In the world of The Minority Report, Commissioner John Anderton is the one to thank for the lack of crime. He is the originator of the Precrime System, which uses "precogs"--people with the power to see into the future--to identify criminals before they can do any harm. Unfortunately for Anderton, his precogs perceive him as the next criminal. But Anderton knows he has never contemplated such a thing, and this knowledge proves the precogs are fallible. Now, whichever way he turns, Anderton is doomed--unless he can find the precogs's "minority report"--the dissenting voice that represents his one hope of getting at the truth in time to save himself from his own system.
A film version of The Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise, will be released this summerfurther proof of the enduring appeal of Philip K. Dick's visionary fiction. [via]More editions of The Minority Report:
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Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolutionby Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter LovinsISBN 0316353000 (0-316-35300-0)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution'Book summary:In Natural Capitalism, three top strategists show how leading-edge companies are practicing "a new type of industrialism" that is more efficient and profitable while saving the environment and creating jobs. Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins write that in the next century, cars will get 200 miles per gallon without compromising safety and power, manufacturers will relentlessly recycle their products, and the world's standard of living will jump without further damaging natural resources. "Is this the vision of a utopia? In fact, the changes described here could come about in the decades to come as the result of economic and technological trends already in place," the authors write.
They call their approach natural capitalism because it's based on the principle that business can be good for the environment. For instance, Interface of Atlanta doubled revenues and employment and tripled profits by creating an environmentally friendly system of recycling floor coverings for businesses. The authors also describe how the next generation of cars is closer than we might think. Manufacturers are already perfecting vehicles that are ultralight, aerodynamic, and fueled by hybrid gas-electric systems. If natural capitalism continues to blossom, so much money and resources will be saved that societies will be able to focus on issues such as housing, contend Hawken, author of a book and PBS series called Growing a Business, and the Lovinses, who cofounded and directed the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank. The book is a fascinating and provocative read for public-policy makers, as well as environmentalists and capitalists alike. --Dan Ring [via]
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The New Yankee Workshopby Norm Abram, Tim SnyderISBN 0316004545 (0-316-00454-5)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Only the Paranoid Survive : How to Achieve a Success That's Just a Disaster Awayby Andrew S. GroveISBN 0385482582 (0-385-48258-2)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Companyby Andrew S. GroveISBN 0385483821 (0-385-48382-1)
Softcover, Doubleday
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Php and Mysql for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual Quickpro Guideby Larry UllmanISBN 0321186486 (0-321-18648-6)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Php and Mysql for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual Quickpro Guide'Book summary:When static HTML pages no longer cut it, you need to step up to dynamic, database-driven sites that represent the future of the Web. In PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide, the author of best-selling guides to both the database program (MySQL) and the scripting language (PHP) returns to cover the winning pair in tandemthe way users work with them today to build dynamic sites using Open Source tools. Using step-by-step instructions, clearly written scripts, and expert tips to ease the way, author Larry Ullman discusses PHP and MySQL separately before going on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. A companion Web site includes source code and demonstrations of techniques used in the volume. If you're already at home with HTML, you'll find this volume the perfect launching pad to creating dynamic sites with PHP and MySQL. [via]
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Php And Mysql: Visual Quickpro Guide For Dynamic Web Sitesby Larry UllmanISBN 0321336577 (0-321-33657-7)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Php And Mysql: Visual Quickpro Guide For Dynamic Web Sites'Book summary:It hasn't taken Web developers long to discover that when it comes to creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites, MySQL and PHP provide a winning open source combination. Add this book to the mix, and there's no limit to the powerful, interactive Web sites that users can create. With step-by-step instructions, complete scripts, and expert tips to guide readers, veteran author and database designer Larry Ullman gets right down to business: After grounding readers with separate discussions of first the scripting language (PHP) and then the database program (MySQL), he goes on to cover security, sessions and cookies, and using additional Web tools, with several sections devoted to creating sample applications. This guide is indispensable for Web designers who want to replace their static sites with something more dynamic. The companion Web site includes source code, support forums, and extra tutorials. In addition to being updated for the most recent releases of MySQL and PHP, this new edition offers 25% new material, including updated examples for improved clarity and comprehension and new installation instructions for PHP, MySQL, and other related technologies. [via]
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The Pinball Effect: How Rennaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburator Possibleby James Burke, Geoffrey KloskeISBN 0316116106 (0-316-11610-6)
Softcover, Back Bay Books
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The Playful World: How Technology Is Transforming Our Imaginationby Mark PesceISBN 0345439430 (0-345-43943-0)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Playful World: How Technology Is Transforming Our Imagination'Book summary:Are Furbies avatars of future pets? Mark Pesce, Chair of USC's Interactive Media Program and creator of VRML, thinks that technological development and recreational activity inform each other and are converging into a strange new immersive environment. The Playful World: Interactive Toys and the Future of Imagination is a thoughtful peek into the guts of toys like Lego Mindstorms and Sony's PlayStation 2; by extrapolation, Pesce sees them driving research in nanotechnology and virtual reality, but nobly refuses to succumb to the temptation to make precise predictions.
Looking at the history of play and taking care to knock down whatever resistance we might have left to considering it less worthwhile than other activities, the book shows that play is a form of learning--perhaps the most natural form. Toy tech is catching up with current research very rapidly; many households have more powerful computers playing Crazy Taxi with the kids than working on budgets with parents. The presumption that we are creating new ways of learning, knowing, and being that are rapidly overtaking our means to understand and control them could be frightening if explored by an author less familiar with the technology and its users. Rather than "game over", Pesce says, we should get ready to "play again". --Rob Lightner [via]
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Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems And Machines Inspired by Living Thingsby Robert FrenayISBN 0374113270 (0-374-11327-0)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactorby Ken SilversteinISBN 037550351X (0-375-50351-X)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor'Book summary:On June 26, 1995 the people of Golf Manor, Michigan returned from work to find a federal EPA crew dismantling a potting shed in Patty Hahn's back yard. In subsequent days, the crew, wearing protective suits, carted away the refuse in sealed barrels emblazoned with radiation symbols. The EPA workers refused to disclose what was happening, only offering vague reassurance that everything was ok. Ken Silverstein shows that things in Golf Manor were not, in fact, ok. David Hahn, a 17-year-old aspiring Eagle Scout, had constructed the rudiments of a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard and had contaminated himself and the immediate area with potentially deadly radioactive material. In his brief, briskly-paced account of the events, Silverstein weaves together science, history, and testimony from David and his family in a tale both frightening and tragic.
For David to get so far, Silverstein shows, he had to be the victim of carelessness and neglect at all levels of society. David Hahn's parents were divorced, and David used the separate households to conceal the magnitude of his work. His school teachers paid little heed when David, nicknamed Glow Boy by fellow students, suggested he was collecting radioactive substances. Most alarmingly, corporations and government agencies blithely supplied David with the materials and information he needed to expand his work to dangerous levels. Interspersed with his account of David, Silverstein exposes the culture of deceit surrounding the history of nuclear power, a culture that easily seduced an aspiring young scientist. David was left with little in the way of mentorship other than such one-sided testaments to the benefits of science as his trusted Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments.
The book, which grew out of Silverstein's 1998 story in Harper's Magazine reads like a suspense novel blended with breezy accounts of America's history with the atom. It is, in some ways, a coda for the nuclear age. In his final pages, Silverstein shows that power production from nuclear reactors has slowly ebbed over the last decades, breeder reactors world-wide have been shut down, and public apprehension has finally out-stripped naïve scientific exuberance for atomic energy. But is the danger truly receding? Surprisingly, The Radioactive Boy Scout does not address any changes in security that have evolved from David's incident. In fact, Silverstein hints that David himself may still be dabbling with radioactive materials. In the post 9/11 era, the prospect is even more frightening. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineeringby Henry PetroskiISBN 0375700242 (0-375-70024-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering'Book summary:Engineers, Henry Petroski observes, are sometimes their own worst enemies, at least so far as communicating their work to the general public is concerned. Some engineers, of course, have been exceptions. One of the unlikely heroes of Petroski's Remaking the World, an entertaining foray into some of engineering's finest (and, on occasion, less exalted) moments, is Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, who combined a great talent for design and engineering with a keenly practiced flair for self-promotion. Another is Washington Gale Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel, who concocted several dangerous eyesores before arriving at the design familiar to amusement-park patrons.
Successful at explaining themselves or not, engineers are largely responsible for the world as we know it, and Petroski examines their work to discuss how good design and technology combine to produce the desired results. That combination involves much trial and error, and, as Petroski writes, "artifacts from paper clips to steamships evolve by removing some real or perceived failure of their ancestors to achieve unqualified success." Drawing on examples from past and present, Petroski offers an up-close view of how engineers do their work, and his history is full of surprises and pleasures. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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The Salmon of Doubtby Douglas AdamsISBN 0345455290 (0-345-45529-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Salmon of Doubt'Book summary:On Friday, May 11, 2001, the world mourned the untimely passing of Douglas Adams, beloved creator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, dead of a heart attack at age forty-nine. Thankfully, in addition to a magnificent literary legacywhich includes seven novels and three co-authored works of nonfictionDouglas left us something more. The book you are about to enjoy was rescued from his four computers, culled from an archive of chapters from his long-awaited novel-in-progress, as well as his short stories, speeches, articles, interviews, and letters.
In a way that none of his previous books could, The Salmon of Doubt provides the full, dazzling, laugh-out-loud experience of a journey through the galaxy as perceived by Douglas Adams. From a boys first love letter (to his favorite science fiction magazine) to the distinction of possessing a nose of heroic proportions; from climbing Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume to explaining why Americans cant make a decent cup of tea; from lyrical tributes to the sublime pleasures found in music by Procol Harum, the Beatles, and Bach to the follies of his hopeless infatuation with technology; from fantastic, fictional forays into the private life of Genghis Khan to extended visits with Dirk Gently and Zaphod Beeblebrox: this is the vista from the elevated perch of one of the tallest, funniest, most brilliant, and most penetrating social critics and thinkers of our time.
Welcome to the wonderful mind of Douglas Adams.
From the Hardcover edition. [via] -
Scientific American : How Things Work Todayby Marshall Editions Ltd. Staff, Michael Wright, M. N. PatelISBN 0375410236 (0-375-41023-6)
Hardcover, Crown Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Scientific American : How Things Work Today'Book summary:"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," wrote Arthur C. Clarke. The technology that surrounds us now, at the dawn of the 21st century, can seem very advanced: a plethora of black (or light grey) boxes, doing who knows what to send voices through the air, see pictures in crystal tubes, fly like a bird. We're calling spirits from the deep, and they really come.
If you'd prefer not to do magic, though, this is the book for you. How does a GPS receiver know where you are? What's inside the "not user serviceable" parts of a laser printer? What's the difference between scanning and transmission electron microscopes? The explanations and diagrams in this volume are in Scientific American's distinctive style, clear and simple without being oversimplified. It's not as cute or congenial as David Macauley's The New Way Things Work, but the multicolored pictures are easier to follow and the volume is more information-dense. If you like your technology slightly drier, more technical, and less magical than Macauley provides, How Things Work Today is an excellent guide. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Seaby Gary KinderISBN 0375703373 (0-375-70337-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea'Book summary:The facts speak for themselves. In 1857, the Central America, a sidewheel steamer ferrying passengers fresh from the gold rush of California to New York and laden with 21 tons of California gold, encountered a severe storm off the Carolina coast and sank, carrying more than 400 passengers and all her cargo down with her. She then sat for 132 years, 200 miles offshore and almost two miles below the ocean's surface--a depth at which she was assumed to be unrecoverable--until 1989, when a deep-water research vessel sailed into the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, fat with salvaged gold coins and bullion estimated to be worth one billion dollars.
Author Gary Kinder wisely lets the story of the Columbus-America Discovery Group, led by maverick scientist and entrepreneur Tommy Thompson, unfold without hyperbole. Kinder interweaves the tale of the Central America and her passengers and crew with Thompson's own story of growing up landlocked in Ohio, an irrepressible tinkerer and explorer even in his childhood days, and his progress to adulthood as a young man who always had "7 to 14" projects on the table or spinning in his head at any given moment. One of those projects would become the preposterous recovery of the stricken steamer, and the resourcefulness and later urgency with which the project would proceed is contrasted poignantly with the Central America's doomed battle in 1857 to stay afloat.
Thompson, who spent nearly a decade planning and organizing his recovery effort, emerges as one of the great unsung adventurers of these times (the technical innovations alone required for such a task produced a windfall for the scientific community and defined a new state of the art for deep-sea explorers and treasure hunters), and the story of the steamer's sinking is compelling enough to make any reader wonder why the Central America sinking isn't synonymous with shipwreck in this Titanic-happy age. --Tjames Madison [via]
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A Short History of Nearly Everythingby Bill BrysonISBN 0375432000 (0-375-43200-0)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'Book summary:One of the worlds most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.
In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the worlds most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining. [via]More editions of A Short History of Nearly Everything:
Spirits In The Wiresby Charles De LintISBN 0312869711 (0-312-86971-1)
Softcover, Tor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Spirits In The Wires'Book summary:Charles de Lint's Newford novels, loosely linked "tales" with overlapping characters set in an imaginary modern North American city, are tales of magic and myth afoot on today's city streets. But at the center of every de Lint story is the miracle of the human heart.[via]
And at the heart of Spirits in the Wires are Saskia Madding and Christiana Tree, both of whom are tied to perennial Newford character, the writer Christy Riddell. Are either Saskia or Christiana real? Christy's girlfriend, Saskia, believes she was born in a Web site, while Christiana is Christy's "shadow-self"--all the parts of him that he cast out when he was seven years old.
At a popular Newford on-line research and library Web site called the Wordwood, a mysterious "crash" occurs. Everyone visiting the site at the moment of the crash vanishes from where they were sitting in front of their computers. Saskia disappears right before Christy's eyes, along with countless others.
Now Christy and his companions must journey into Newford's otherworld, where the Wordwood, it transpires, has a physical presence of its own...to rescue their missing friends and loved ones and to set this viral spirit right before it causes further harm.-
Star Fleet Technical Manualby FranzISBN 0345270509 (0-345-27050-9)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Star Fleet Technical Manual'Book summary:Everything you ever wanted to know about the technical specs for the Enterprise. Filled with diagrams, illustrations and descriptions of key systems aboard the Enterprise. [via]
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Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manualby Franz JosephISBN 0345495861 (0-345-49586-1)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual'Book summary:OFFICIAL USE ONLY
MARK R5PC
STARFLEET COMMAND
STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS
UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
FRANZ JOSEPH
UNITED FEDERATION REPRESENTATIVE
STARDATE 7512.02
To: Ballantine Books
Planetary Agents, NA, USA, 10019
1. A printed Terran version of the Starfleet Technical Manual was approved by the Federation Council for release to civilians and civilian auxiliaries on your planet. We have reviewed copies of this version as printed by you, and wish to assure you and the others that these copies are precisely correct and complete as authorized. We believe some of your civilians are confused because they are unfamiliar with the system and arrangement of Technical Orders, therefore, we offer the following by way of clarification.
2. The print-out version of the Starfleet Technical Manual, as used by the Starfleet Academy, is a collection of only those Technical Orders necessary to the indoctrination of new cadets until such time as they become experienced in the use of the data read-out stations of Mastercom/SFHQ. Further, the Terran version contains even fewer Technical Orders because of the prohibition of the Prime Directive. Neither version is a book of pages as the questioners seem to thinknor do they contain all of the technical information stored in the data banks of Mastercom/SFHQ. Your civilians must understand these technical data banks contain all the knowledge presently known to the United Federation of Planets from all the member planets. If it were to be published in book form, the sum total would amount to more books than you now have stored in your libraries. Obviously, this cannot be done. It is equally obvious that you cannot have the galactic knowledge of future centuries given to your planet as a gift; you must earn it by your own efforts just as others have done.
3. In the Terran version, the General Index summarizes the subject area groupings by Technical Order number blocks as a part of the total system of classification. It does not give the total classification system, nor does it indicate whether or not such subject matter is available. The Introduction (T.0:00:00:06) for instance, is not included because it has not been authorized for release at this time. Each Section Index lists the Technical Orders currently approved for
each section, and shows the correct issue by authentication date (and amendment codeif required). Thus a Section Index shows whether or not a particular manual contains the correct issues. Those listed with an asterisk may become available in a future print-out from Mastercom/SFHQ. Other Technical Order numbers that are missing do not appear by reason of the prohibition of the Prime Directive, or they have not been approved for release at this time.
4. In as gentle and as diplomatic a manner as we may, we would like to point out that this confusion is just another example of the many primitive attributes of your planet that prevents its acceptance into the United Federation of Planets at this time in your current calendar. But be patient, the day will come when your planet will have finally overcome these obstacles, and take its place in the intergalactic community of intelligent life forms.
Live long and prosper. [via]More editions of Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual:
Steamboats Come True: American Inventors in Actionby James Thomas FlexnerISBN 0316286087 (0-316-28608-7)
Hardcover, Book Sales
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Technical Communicationby Michael MarkelISBN 0312441975 (0-312-44197-5)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
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- Technical Communications: ISBN 0312115199 (0-312-11519-9)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins - Technical Communication: ISBN 0312248903 (0-312-24890-3)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins - Technical Communciation: ISBN 0312403380 (0-312-40338-0)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins - Technical Communication: ISBN 0312441975 (0-312-44197-5)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
- Technical Communications: ISBN 0312115199 (0-312-11519-9)
Technical Communication: Update 2002by Mike MarkelISBN 0312400675 (0-312-40067-5)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
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Technical Communications: Situations and Strategiesby Michael H. MarkelISBN 0312170874 (0-312-17087-4)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
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Technology and the Futureby Albert H. TeichISBN 0312116128 (0-312-11612-8)
Softcover, Thomson Learning
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Terrors and Marvels: How Science and Technology Changed the Character and Outcome of World War 11by Tom ShachtmanISBN 0380978768 (0-380-97876-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Seach Engine Two Centuries of Innovatorsby Harold Evans, Gail Buckland, David LeferISBN 0316013854 (0-316-01385-4)
Softcover, Back Bay Books
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True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontierby James Frenkel, Vernor VingeISBN 0312862075 (0-312-86207-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontierby Vernor VingeISBN 0312944446 (0-312-94444-6)
Softcover, Tor Books
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War in the Modern Worldby Theodore RoppISBN 0313228442 (0-313-22844-2)
Hardcover, Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated
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We Reach the Moonby John N. WilfordISBN 0393063747 (0-393-06374-7)
Hardcover, Norton
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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poorby David S. LandesISBN 0393040178 (0-393-04017-8)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor'Book summary:Professor David S. Landes takes a historic approach to the analysis of the distribution of wealth in this landmark study of world economics. Landes argues that the key to today's disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world stems directly from the industrial revolution, in which some countries made the leap to industrialization and became fabulously rich, while other countries failed to adapt and remained poor. Why some countries were able to industrialize and others weren't has been the subject of much heated debate over the decades; climate, natural resources, and geography have all been put forward as explanations--and are all brushed aside by Landes in favor of his own controversial theory: that the ability to effect an industrial revolution is dependent on certain cultural traits, without which industrialization is impossible to sustain. Landes contrasts the characteristics of successfully industrialized nations--work, thrift, honesty, patience, and tenacity--with those of nonindustrial countries, arguing that until these values are internalized by all nations, the gulf between the rich and poor will continue to grow. [via]
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Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogsby Biz StoneISBN 0312330006 (0-312-33000-6)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs'Book summary:[via]Blogs--or weblogs--are a huge phenomenon on the internet. From ultra-personal diary entries to specialized information on a wide variety of subjects (teen ranting to presidential campaigns), blogs are the new way to create a virtual community that can effect real-world change. It's not hard to set up a blog, but it can be difficult adjusting to life in the "Blogosphere."
One of the first blogging experts, who helped found the weblog community Xanga, Biz Stone will help readers:
--learn the origins of blogging
--discover why blogging is so popular
--explore the ettiquette of the blogosphere
--bring traffic to a blog
--make money by blogging
--use a blog to become influential in any industry
--maintain a blog and keep it fresh
With internet heavies like AOL, Microsoft, and Google already providing weblog software, blogging is moving out of indie geek culture and into the mainstream. Who Let the Blogs Out? is a next generation blogging book for anyone who wants to get started or anyone who wants to keep their blog blooming.More editions of Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs:
Wired : A Romanceby Gary WolfISBN 0375502904 (0-375-50290-4)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Writing on the Job: A Norton Pocket Guideby John C. Brereton, Margaret A. MansfieldISBN 0393039692 (0-393-03969-2)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Webby Molly E. Holzschlag, Dave SheaISBN 0321303474 (0-321-30347-4)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web'Book summary:Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you've finished perusing the volume, you'll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process--from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required). [via]
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