Authors: Sam Williams.
Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Publication Date: 2002-03-01


Reviews :

    Free as in Freedom interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. It examines Stallman's unique personality and how that personality has been at turns a driving force and a drawback in terms of the movement's overall success. Free as in Freedom examines one man's 20-year attempt to codify and communicate the ethics of 1970s era "hacking" culture in such a way that later generations might easily share and build upon the knowledge of their computing forebears. The book documents Stallman's personal evolution from teenage misfit to prescient adult hacker to political leader and examines how that evolution has shaped the free software movement. Like Alan Greenspan in the financial sector, Richard Stallman has assumed the role of tribal elder within the hacking community, a community that bills itself as anarchic and averse to central leadership or authority. How did this paradox come about? Free as in Freedom provides an answer. It also looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have diminished Stallman's leadership role in some areas while augmenting it in others. Finally, Free as in Freedom examines both Stallman and the free software movement from historical viewpoint. Will future generations see Stallman as a genius or crackpot? The answer to that question depends partly on which side of the free software debate the reader currently stands and partly upon the reader's own outlook for the future. 100 years from now, when terms such as "computer," "operating system" and perhaps even "software" itself seem hopelessly quaint, will Richard Stallman's particular vision of freedom still resonate, or will it have taken its place alongside other utopian concepts on the 'ash-heap of history?'...

Authors: Owen Bowcott. Sally Hamilton.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 1992-05-21

Authors: Robert A. van de Geijn.
Paperback, 214 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 1997-03-15


Reviews :

    PLAPACK is a library infrastructure for the parallel implementation of linear algebra algorithms and applications on distributed memory supercomputers such as the Intel Paragon, IBM SP2, Cray T3D/T3E, SGI PowerChallenge, and Convex Exemplar. This infrastructure allows library developers, scientists, and engineers to exploit a natural approach to encoding so-called blocked algorithms, which achieve high performance by operating on submatrices and subvectors. This feature, as well as the use of an alternative, more application-centric approach to data distribution, sets PLAPACK apart from other parallel linear algebra libraries, allowing for strong performance and significantly less programming by the user.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to all the components of a high-performance parallel linear algebra library, as well as a guide to the PLAPACK infrastructure.

Scientific and Engineering Computation series...

Authors: Jason Olim. Matthew Olim. Peter Kent.
Paperback, 236 pages
Publisher: Top Floor Publishing
Publication Date: 1999-01


Reviews :

    Learn how CDnow founders Jason Olim and Matthew Olim turned a small investment into a big business on the Internet, beating MCI, Blockbuster and Tower Records. Readers will also learn the tricks of the trade from these two successful Internet entrepreneurs, and discover how to apply the techniques to their own businesses....

Authors: Aidan Mackey.
Paperback, 37 pages
Publisher: Ihs Press
Publication Date: 2009-04-01

Authors: Mark Prendergast.
Hardcover, 368 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: 2001-01-24


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Robert X. Cringely.
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Harperbusiness
Publication Date: 1993-02


Reviews :

    Insider Look at Silicon Valley Scheduled for Updated Paperback

Robert X. Cringely paints a witty, irreverent, and revealing portrait of the personal computer industry in the updated paperback edition of Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date. Cringely's astute analysis of the PC business is the subject of a 3- hour PBS Television miniseries titled "Triumph of the Nerds." Hosted by Cringely himself, the miniseries, like the book, reveals the circumstances that allowed a major industry to grow up largely by accident under the guidance of a group of inexperienced nerds, misfits, and social outcasts.

According to Cringely, former gossip columnist for the computer trade weekly InfoWorld, one of America's largest industries has been shaped by the quirks and insecurities of its leading figures, from Steve Wozniak's invention of the Apple to impress his friends in the Homebrew Computer Club, to Microsoft founder Bill Gates' single-minded quest for monopoly over all aspects of the fledgling industry. Cringely describes the engineers who launched the computer revolution as insecure and socially inept "nerds," with little or no business experience. They made up their rules as they went along, resulting in Silicon Valley's notoriously laid-back corporate culture, but also in companies that frequently reflect the shortcomings of their founders.

Cringely describes these erratic, but often brilliant, amateurs with sympathy, insight and illuminating anecdotes. In the process, he also traces the history of the industry, from its initial outgrowth from the semiconductor industry, to the astounding innovations of the Xerox PARC research group (most of which the copy machine giant failed to follow up on), to the growth of such key companies as Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe, to the dramatic claim by Larry Ellison of Oracle Systems that the personal computer is merely a transitional technology. Cringely's appreciation of the eccentricities of individuals is matched by his grasp of the dynamics of the industry as a whole....

    Robert X. Cringely manages to capture the contradictions and everyday insanity of computer industry empire building, while at the same time chipping away sardonically at the PR campaigns that have built up some very common businesspeople into the household gods of geekdom. Despite some chuckles at the expense of all things nerdy, white, and male in the computer industry, Cringely somehow manages to balance the humor with a genuine appreciation of both the technical and strategic accomplishments of these industry luminaries. Whether you're a hard-boiled Silicon Valley marketing exec fishing for an IPO or just a plain old reader with an interest in business history and anecdotal storytelling, there's something to enjoy here....

Authors: Mark Leibovich.
Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall Press
Publication Date: 2002-01-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Up close and personal with the New Economy’s business tycoons

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, AOL-Time Warner’s Steve Case, Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Cisco’s John Chambers–they’re business titans of the 21st century. We know their names well enough, but what do we really know about these men beyond the multitudes of short-hand mythologies and soundbites that currently exist. How were they able to muster the savvy and confidence to create such empires of wealth and power? What do the paths they took say about the economic realm they came to conquer? Were they true visionaries or creations of a unique moment in time? Drawing from his Pulitzer Prize-nominated series of articles in The Washington Post, Mark Leibovich provides particularly personal and in-depth profiles on these larger-than-life moguls. Presenting five whirlwind tours through five gale-force lives, this extraordinary book traces the formative events and influences in each man’s early life to explain how they came to dominate in this bizarre, revolutionary world. In addition to unprecedented access to each man himself (a privilege afforded very few reporters), Leibovich interviewed over 400 friends, childhood mentors, family members, former bosses, classmates, colleagues, and rivals who have known these uniquely driven souls at various stages of their lives.

Exclusive facts and details: • Gates spoke of breaking into tears during a Microsoft board meeting at the height of the anti-trust trial • Ellison showed the author the $100 million Japanese-style compound he’s building in Silicon Valley (no journalist had ever seen it) • A friend of Case described him boasting about his long-sought takeover of Time-Warner • Cisco Chairman John Morgridge complained that Chambers was spending too much time hobnobbing with politicians and not enough time tending to his struggling company

Topics rarely--if ever--discussed: • Gates speaking about the pain of losing his childhood best friend • Ellison reflecting on the recurring scorn he received from his father • Bezos talking about never knowing his natural father • Chambers explaining the pain of his childhood dyslexia • Case speaking about his rivalry with his AOL co-founder

After it’s all broken down, from the dazzle of the new technology to the titillation of overnight wealth and cautionary tales of subsequent loss, the New Economy can be distilled to these five cults of personality. Sure to be the season’s most compulsive read, this comprehensive work gives readers the most definitive look ever into the lives of the New Economy’s signature pioneers....

    If you use a personal computer or automated teller machine, make purchases online, or consume media of any kind, your life is directly impacted by the five digital-age visionaries profiled in The New Imperialists. Reams have already been written, of course, about Microsoft's Bill Gates, AOL-Time Warner's Steve Case, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, and Cisco's John Chambers. But Mark Leibovich, national technology reporter for The Washington Post, digs deeper here to present insightful individual portraits of these "generals of the networked world's ruling empires" that reveal what has really driven them to the leading edge of today's business universe. Based on some 400 interviews with relatives, friends, associates, and adversaries, in addition to one-on-one sessions with its usually more reticent subjects, the book offers a very readable account of key formative events and subsequent reactions that are not typically part of such titans' shared résumés. From the personal experiences that helped shape their generally serene youth--Ellison "had difficulty telling the truth," for example, while Chambers "battled dyslexia and for a time believed he was stupid"--to the public manifestations that now affect millions, Leibovich presents eye-opening accounts recommended for anyone drawn to the human stories behind our day's most ubiquitous corporate names. --Howard Rothman ...

Authors: Virginia LEAPER.
Paperback, 324 pages
Publisher: 1st World Publishing
Publication Date: 2008-04-29


Reviews :

    If you have New England in your blood, you will enjoy these vignettes about hurricanes, clambakes at the farm, walks by the sea and reminiscences about the Fourth of July and Christmas past. Virginia Leaper's work is not all about bygone days, however. Included are her pithy, thoughtful and often controversial pieces on current events and world affairs. These pieces have often evoked both pro and con response from readers....

Authors: Arild Stubhaug.
Hardcover, 600 pages
Publisher: Springer
Publication Date: 2002-01-10
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Sophus Lie (1842-1899) is without doubt one of Norway's greatest scientific talents. His mathematical works have made him famous around the world no less than Niels Henrik Abel. The terms Lie groups and Lie algebra are today part of the standard mathematical vocabulary.
In his comprehensive biography the author Arild Stubhaug let us come close to both the person Sophus Lie and his time. We follow him through childhood at the vicarage in Nordfjordeid, his growing up in Moss, school and studying in Christiania, travelling in Europe and his contacts with the leading mathematicians of his time. The academic and scientific career brought Lie from Christiania to Leipzig as professor, before the attempt to call him back to Norway, when she stood on the threshhold to national sovereignty, was successful....