Authors:
Paperback, 424 pages
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Publication Date: 2007-08-30


Reviews :

    This brand new addition to the acclaimed "History Highway" series is essential for anyone conducting historical research on North, Central, or South America. Complete with a CD with live links to sites, it directs users to the best and broadest, most current information on U.S., Canadian, and Latin American history available on the Internet. "The American History Highway": provides detailed, easy-to-use information on more than 1,700 websites; covers all periods of U.S., Canadian, and Latin American History; features new coverage of Hispanic American and Asian American History; includes chapters on environmental history, immigration history, and document collections; all site information is current and up-to-date; includes a CD of the entire contents with live links to sites - just install the disc, go online, and link directly to the sites; and, also provides a practical introduction to web-based research for students and history buffs of all ages....

Authors: Stephen Segaller.
Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: TV Books
Publication Date: 1999-11-01


Reviews :

    The companion to the documentary series premiering on PBS in November 1998. A romp through the development of the "Information Superhighway" from the people who brought you "Triumph of the Nerds." Nerds 2.0.1 is the first light-hearted but comprehensive account of how the Internet developed from a medium for academic geeks, hackers, and policy wonks into a billion-dollar vehicle for communication and commerce. The brand names Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, Intel, Novell, AOL, 3Com, Java, Sun, Amazon, Yahoo!, and Excite are known worldwide, but for every one of these success stories lie a multitude of wrecked businesses by the side of the road.

Based on four years of research and interviews with the founders of the successful companies who started in their parents' garages with credit card advances and with the venture capitalists who supported them, as well as with the unlucky engineers who missed the patent deadlines and key phone calls, Stephen Segaller tells the human story behind the Internet. From the start of the Pentagon's ARPAnet in the 1960s, through the work of physicist Tim Berners-Lee and a young programmer named Marc Andreessen (who wrote the code for the Internet browser "Mosaic") on to the bazillionaires and their companies today, Nerds is a warm and engaging tale of billionaires rising from the development of a communications medium that one in three Americans uses but nobody owns.

The companion documentary series is hosted by the author of the best-selling Accidental Empires: How The Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date....

    Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet presents the development of the Web as a product of colliding, dualistic forces: the individuality of the personal computer and the universality of a global network. Along the way, other complementary opposites arise, such as the intersection of the "computer lib" hippie hacker and the IBM or Pentagon bureaucrat. The biographies of these visionaries, and the magnificent changes their ideas induced, make Nerds 2.0.1 compelling reading.

Nerds 2.0.1 is a unique computer-history book, in that it is really a history of networking. Author Stephen Segaller covers all the current heavy hitters of the technology industry in depth: Novell, 3Com, and Cisco. In particular, the story of the creation of Cisco--and the ousting of the original founders by the sponsoring venture capitalist--shows the high-level stakes and intrigue this billionaire world holds. Segaller also chronicles the failures of companies who didn't realize what their programmers had made available to them. IBM, Xerox, and, some would say, Microsoft are big players in this part of Segaller's tale.

The author puts technological developments in a helpful context: the infamous 100-hour Silicon Valley workweek, the "dog-year" life span of an Internet start-up, and the managerial shufflings of a sponsoring venture capitalist firm all make sense in the world he describes. --Jennifer Buckendorff...

Authors: Charles J. Bashe. Lyle R. Johnson. Emerson W. Pugh. John H. Palmer.
Hardcover, 744 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 1985-12-03


Reviews :

    In describing the technical experiences of one company from the beginning of the computer era, this book unfolds the challenges that IBM's research and development laboratories faced, the technological paths they chose, and how these choices affected the company and the computer industry. It chronicles the transformation of IBM into a computer company in a remarkably few years, discussing projects that ended in frustration as well as the more successful ones, and providing a sense of the atmosphere, the people, and the decision-making processes involved during the company's rapid technological transformation.

IBM's Early Computers is a unique contribution to the modern history of computers. It focuses on engineering alternatives rather than business and general management considerations and reveals the significance of imaginative solutions to problems in design and technology, from initial experiments with electronics in digital machines to the threshold of the System 360 era. This fair and balanced account of IBM's role in shaping today's electronic revolution identifies the individuals (both inside and outside the company) whose pioneering work influenced developments at IBM.

The book's fourteen chapters briefly survey the card machine era and then cover electronic calculation, the magnetic drum calculator, the Defense Calculator and other first-generation products, ferrite core memories, magnetic tape, and disk storage development, programming, transistors, "Project Stretch" (which involved disappointments but led to one of IBM's greatest successes) high-speed printers, research, and new-product-line considerations.

Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and Emerson W Pugh are senior members of the staff at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, each with many years of technical and managerial experience in the developments they describe. IBM's Early Computers is included in the History of Computing Series, edited by I. Bernard Cohen and William Aspray....

Authors: Peter Christian.
Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: National Archives of England
Publication Date: 2005-09-01
Edition: Enlarged 3rd

Reviews :

    There is a wealth of data on the Web for those researching a family tree. However, the sheer volume of information and diversity of websites can make starting your search confusing and time-consuming. Help is at hand with this clear and authoritative guide from The National Archives. The Genealogist's Internet starts by explaining how the internet works for the beginner. It continues by detailing the major sources of primary data available to family historians on-line and highlights the most helpful directories and gateways. Use it to contact others with the same surname or to access the numerous forums, discussion groups, mailing lists and newsgroups focusing on genealogy. This edition includes new information on fully-updated URLS as well as covering: * developments in the indexes to births, marriage and deaths on-line * the expansion in the census and wills data available on-line * the new websites of the National Archives and General Register Office * new sites with historical maps and photographs * the Online Parish Clerk schemes (for putting parish data on the Web) * lottery-funded projects relating to historical material which have come to fruition since the previous edition * sites on the use of DNA testing in genealogy and DNA surname studies * genealogy blogs, a type of on-line journal which has become popular * major changes in the world of search engines * future developments in on-line genealogy * a timeline of on-line genealogy resources for the British Isles The Genealogist's Internet is accompanied by its own website with updates on all the information covered in the book....

Authors: William Bechtel. Adele Abrahamsen.
Paperback, 424 pages
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Publication Date: 2002-01-28
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    Connectionism and the Mind provides a clear and balanced introduction to connectionist networks and explores theoretical and philosophical implications. Much of this discussion from the first edition has been updated, and three new chapters have been added on the relation of connectionism to recent work on dynamical systems theory, artificial life, and cognitive neuroscience.

Read two of the sample chapters on line:

Connectionism and the Dynamical Approach to Cognition:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/bechtel.pdf

Networks, Robots, and Artificial Life:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/bechtel2.pdf...

    Neural network theory is shaking up fields as disparate as philosophy and ecology: the paradigm shift is here. The second edition of Connectionism and the Mind: Parallel Processing, Dynamics, and Evolution in Networks has been rewritten and restructured to accommodate the profound changes wrought during the '90s burst of research in the field. Authors William Bechtel and Adele Abrahamsen present their material clearly and accessibly, asking of their readers only a familiarity with algebra and formal logic. Covering the basics of representation, architecture, and rules, they move on to deep and exciting questions about connectionism's implications for artificial intelligence and neuroscience--thought-provoking reading for nearly everyone. The text is stimulating and offers hundreds of routes to further study through its well-integrated bibliography. Connectionism and the Mind is essentially a progress report on a very young discipline; its readers will see the future a little more clearly. --Rob Lightner ...

Authors: Brett Weiss.
Hardcover, 316 pages
Publisher: McFarland
Publication Date: 2007-07-06


Reviews :

    This thoroughly researched reference work provides a comprehensive guide to popular and obscure video games of the 1970s and early 1980s, covering virtually every official United States release for programmable home game consoles of the pre-Nintendo NES era. Included are the following systems: Adventure Vision, APF MP1000, Arcadia 2001, Astrocade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Fairchild Channel F, Intellivision, Microvision, Odyssey, Odyssey2, RCA Studio II, Telstar Arcade, and Vectrex.

Organized alphabetically by console brand, each chapter includes a history and description of the game system, followed by substantive, encyclopedia-style entries for every game released for that console, regardless of when the game was produced. Each video game entry includes publisher/developer information and the release year, along with a detailed description and, frequently, the author's critique. A glossary provides a helpful guide to the classic video game genres and terms referenced throughout the work. An appendix lists a number of "homebrew" titles that have been created by fans and amateur programmers and are available for download or purchase....

Authors: Michael Grant.
Paperback, 344 pages
Publisher: Phoenix Press
Publication Date: 2000-08


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Julian Havil.
Hardcover, 307 pages
Publisher: Springer
Publication Date: 2007-03
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

Jeder kennt die Kreiszahl p = 3,14159…, viele kennen auch e = 2,71828…, die Basis der natürlichen Logarithmen, und die imaginäre Einheit i. Und dann? Die "viertwichtigste" Konstante ist die Eulersche Zahl g = 0,5772156…, benannt nach dem genialen Leonhard Euler (1707-1783). p und e sind transzendent, aber bis heute ist unbekannt, ob g eine rationale Zahl ist.

Das Buch lotet diese "obskure" Konstante aus. Die Reise beginnt mit Logarithmen und der harmonischen Reihe. Es folgen Zeta-Funktionen und Eulers wunderbare Identität, Bernoulli-Zahlen, Madelungsche Konstanten, Fettfinger in Wörterbüchern, elende mathematische Würmer und Jeeps in der Wüste. Harmonien in der Geometrie, in der Musik und bei Primzahlen!

Unterwegs begegnen wir Euklid und Tschebyschew, Napier und Kepler, Gauß und Riemann, Hardy und Littlewood, den Hilbertschen Problemen, Hadamard und dem Primzahlsatz, Erdos und von Mangoldts expliziter Formel. Die Krönung ist die Riemannsche Vermutung, das bedeutendste ungelöste Problem der Mathematik.

Besser kann man nicht über Mathematik schreiben, als dies Julian Havil in seinem Buch über Gamma, die Euler-Konstante, tut. Wohl jeder Mathematikstudent kennt diese Zahl, aber was Havil an Zusammenhängen in den verschiedensten Mathematikgebieten dazu zu sagen hat ist spektakulär, und die Darstellung ist exzellent.

Jeder Mathematik- und Physikstudent sollte dieses Buch lesen, und auch professionelle Mathematiker werden in dem Buch viel Neues finden.

...

Authors: Michael G. H. Scott.
Hardcover, 208 pages
Publisher: Tab Books
Publication Date: 1985-10
Edition: 1st

Authors:
Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Imprint Academic
Publication Date: 2004-04-18


Reviews :

    Dedicated to the life and work of Heinz Von Foerster, this is a double issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing"....