Authors: Bernard Diederich.
Paperback, 216 pages
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Publication Date: 2007-11-16
Edition: 0

Reviews :

   

The Dictator Beat, a nonfiction historical thriller by an award-winning foreign correspondent, and set in the second-largest island of the Caribbean, is akin to a Hitchcockian suspense drama. Two side-by-side dictators—Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier in Kreyòl and French-speaking Haiti and Generalissimo Rafael (Chapita) Trujillo Molina in the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic, sharing the island that Columbus named Hispaniola—were in the year 1960 each endeavoring to crush rising dissatisfaction among their peoples.

Though very different in their personas, the two tyrants bore the same contempt for human life, which filled their respective countries with the unmarked graves of their countless victims.

In Haiti, Papa Doc Duvalier, though elected president three years earlier, had assumed virtually absolute power. His murderous “Tontons Macoutes” thugs roamed at will, striking fear into all. On the Dominican side, Trujillo, after nearly three decades in power, was finally losing his grip. Yet his dreaded secret police still cruised the streets at night, reinforcing Trujillo’s long siege of terror. The question was: What would be the fate of these two tyrants themselves? The answer is provided in this mesmerizing book by Author Bernard Diederich, who spent years reporting from both countries.

...

Authors: Margaret Wertheim.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: 1999-04
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Is the Internet the closest thing to heaven on earth? In our day and age cyberspace may seem an unlikely gateway for the soul. But as science commentator Margaret Wertheim argues in this bold new book, cyberspace has more and more become a repository for immense spiritual yearning. Wertheim explores the underpinnings of this mapping of spiritual desire onto digitized space and suggests that the modem today has become a metaphysical escape-hatch from a materialism that many people find increasingly unsatisfying. Proof that we are more than just the atoms of our bodies, cyberspace opens up a collective space beyond the laws of physics-a space where mind rather than matter reigns. And this strange refuge returns us to an almost medieval dualism, with a physical space of body and an immaterial space of mind and psyche. In a remarkable journey through the history of space, Wertheim traces the combined story of physical space and spiritual space from the Middle Ages to the present, and she shows how reality has come to be defined as the exclusive domain of the physical world. It is against this profoundly materialist world picture that Wertheim, with impeccable scholarship, persuades us of the appeal and the ultimate failure of cyberspace to satisfy spiritual needs....

    In Pythagoras' Trousers, science writer and feminist Margaret Wertheim took an astute look at the social and cultural history of physics. She explored how the development of physics became intertwined with the rising power of institutionalized religion, and how both of these predominantly masculine pursuits have influenced women's ability to join the physics community. Now she has turned her attention to virtual reality, looking at similarities between how we view it today and how art and religion was viewed in medieval times. Her assertion is that rather than carrying us forward into new and fabulous other worlds, virtual reality is actually carrying us backwards--to essentially medieval dreams. Beginning with the medieval view, with its definition of the world as spiritual space, Wertheim traces the emergence of modern physics' emphasis on physical space. She then presents her thesis: that cyberspace, which is an outgrowth of modern science, posits the existence of a genuine yet immaterial world in which people are invited to commune in a nonbodily fashion, just as medieval theology brought intangible souls together in heaven. The perfect realm awaits, we are told, not behind the pearly gates but the electronic gateways labeled .com and .net. How did we get from seeing ourselves in soul space (the world of Dante and the late medievals) to seeing ourselves as purely in body space (the world of Newton and Einstein)? This crucial transition and the new shift propelled by the Internet are convincingly described in this challenging book....

Authors: Janet Abbate.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2000-07-31


Reviews :

    Since the late 1960s the Internet has grown from a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States to a network of networks linking millions of computers worldwide. In Inventing the Internet, Janet Abbate recounts the key players and technologies that allowed the Internet to develop; but her main focus is always on the social and cultural factors that influenced the Internet's design and use. The story she unfolds is an often twisting tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players, including government and military agencies, computer scientists in academia and industry, graduate students, telecommunications companies, standards organizations, and network users.

The story starts with the early networking breakthroughs formulated in Cold War think tanks and realized in the Defense Department's creation of the ARPANET. It ends with the emergence of the Internet and its rapid and seemingly chaotic growth. Abbate looks at how academic and military influences and attitudes shaped both networks; how the usual lines between producer and user of a technology were crossed with interesting and unique results; and how later users invented their own very successful applications, such as electronic mail and the World Wide Web....

    History is written by winners, but Bill Gates isn't talking yet. Those interested in how this weird, wonderful World Wide Web--and its infrastructure--came to be should turn to historian Janet Abbate's look at 40 years of innovation in Inventing the Internet.

Peeking behind the curtain to show the personalities and larger forces guiding the development of the Net, from its dawn as a robust military communications network designed to survive multiple attacks to today's commercial Web explosion, Abbate succeeds in demystifying this all-pervasive technology and its creators.

Abbate's survey covers everything from David Baran's work with the RAND corporation to the development of packet-switching theory to CERN's Tim Berners-Lee and his hypertext networking system. She also factors in the influences that caused the Net to evolve such as the Cold War, changing research priorities, and the hacker subculture that pushed existing technologies into new forms, each more and more like today's fast, global communications system.

The research is impeccable, the writing is lively, and the analysis is insightful. (See especially the discussion of the "surprise hit" of ARPANET, a minor function known as e-mail.) Abbate clearly knows her subject and her audience, and Inventing the Internet encapsulates a milestone of modern history. --Rob Lightner...

Authors: Hugh Gregory.
Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Sterling
Publication Date: 1998-12-31


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Joan Baum.
Hardcover, 133 pages
Publisher: Archon Books
Publication Date: 1986-12

Authors: Bo Lojek.
Hardcover, 387 pages
Publisher: Springer
Publication Date: 2006-12-28
Edition: 1

Reviews :

   

When basic researchers started working on semiconductors during the late nineteen thirties and on integrated circuits at the end of the nineteen fifties, they did not know that their work would change the lives of future generations. Very few people at that time recognized the significance of, perhaps, the most important invention of the century. Historians have assigned the invention of integrated circuits to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. In this book, the author argues that the group of inventors was much larger. This richly illustrated account is a personal recollection of the development of integrated circuits and personalities – such as Russell Ohl, Karl Lark-Horovitz, William Shockley, Carl Frosch, Lincoln Derick, Calvin Fuller, Kurt Lehovec. Jean Hoerni, Sheldon Roberts, Jay Last, Isy Haas, Bob Norman, Dave Allison, Jim Nall, Tom Longo, Bob Widlar, Dave Talbert, Frank Wanlass, and Federico Faggin. Here is the first comprehensive behind-the-scenes account of the history of the integrated circuit, the microelectronics industry, and the people closely involved in the development of the transistor and the integrated circuit.

"Your book is going to make a major contribution to semiconductor history. You and I agree that, while the world loves a hero, semiconductor progress depended on the efforts and ideas of a large number of people, and that moving forward depended on contributors going back a few decades in some cases. Also, as is the case with most inventions, a number of people with access to the same pool of common knowledge were working independently at the same time to put it all together and to make the necessary extensions to the existing technology and who realized that the time was right for society to accept the new concepts. Your diligent research points all of this out."

Dr. Jay Last, Former Shockley Laboratories employee, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, co-founder of Amelco Semiconductor, and manager of Fairchild’s group which designed and produced the world first planar integrated circuit.

"Bo Lojek presents a remarkable document of the most important and significant technical development of our times. He describes in astounding detail the engineering efforts of modern microelectronics. He concentrates on the history of silicon semiconductor devices. California’s "Silicon Valley" is the center of attention, together with its ancestry of transistor invention at Bell Laboratories. He has collected a wealth of illustrative documentation, gives incisive insight into the lives of the main actors and shows the often tragic fates of the engineers and businessmen. He does not hide his firm belief in the individual engineer and warns of the retarding influence of present-day political correctness."

Dr. Hans J. Queisser, Former Shockley Semiconductor scientist and retired director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Solids, Stuttgart, Germany.

"The technical history of the semiconductor history rivals the 1849 California Gold Rush as a period filled with excitement and opportunity. Although I cannot first hand validate its complete accuracy, I enthusiastically encourage you to read the collected facts, opinions, and views of an author who was actually part of this amazing period, viewing it as a successful practicing Engineer during this "gold rush" - like hey-day of the semiconductor industry.

For educators and technologists you will find this collection of data, facts, and opinions, collected and observed first hand by the author, fascinating! It is a tough read for others due to the writing experience of the author and its technical focus."

John F. Gifford, Former Fairchild Semiconductor Marketing Manager of Linear Integrated Circuits, co-founder of Advanced Micro Devices, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Maxim Integrated Products.

"Bo Lojek gets it right! There are few industries as dynamic as semiconductors and the history of the semiconductor industry is still unfolding. This book gives the history of people, places and technology that resulted in today’s semiconductor industry. I particularly like the inclusion of many technical pieces in the book."

Robert Dobkin, Former National Semiconductor Director of Advanced Circuit Development and co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Linear Technology Corporation.

...

Authors: David Alan Grier.
Paperback, 424 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Date: 2007-08-27


Reviews :

   

Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. When Computers Were Human represents the first in-depth account of this little-known, 200-year epoch in the history of science and technology.

Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the scientific world.

The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works Progress Administration.

When Computers Were Human is the sad but lyrical story of workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.

...

Authors: Family History Quick Start.
Kindle Edition, pages
Publisher: FamilyHistoryQuickStart.com
Publication Date: 2008-03-29
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Family History and Genealogy work used to involve visiting libraries and searching microfilm. My, how times have changed. Computers have made Genealogy so much easier, but with new technology comes new problems.

Many beginners and veteran genealogists have trouble organizing their family history on their computer. In the Family History Quick Start Guide #1, you'll discover some quick and easy tips on how to better organize your Family History files.

In this, Course 1 of the Family History Quick Start Guide, you'll learn how to:

* Get organized before you begin researching family history

* Store your research on computer and convert paper records to computer records

* Figure out a naming convention for your records for easy lookup

* Understand citing references

* Create a work log.

...

Authors: Roy A. Allan.
Paperback, 528 pages
Publisher: Allan Publishing
Publication Date: 2001-10-03
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    This book is an exciting history of the personal computer revolution. Early personal computing, the "first" personal computer, invention of the micrprocessor at Intel and the first microcomputer are detailed. It also traces the evolution of the personal computer from the software hacker, to its use as a consumer appliance on the Internet. This is the only book that provides such comprehensive coverage. It not only describes the hardware and software, but also the companies and people who made it happen....

Authors: Marshall McLuhan. Quentin Fiore.
Paperback, 190 pages
Publisher: Hardwired
Publication Date: 1997-04


Reviews :

    War and Peace in the Global Village, initially published in 1968, is regarded as a revolutionary work for its depiction of a planet made ever smaller by new technologies. McLuhan's prescient ideas are eerily relevant to recent discussions about the Digital Revolution and about the impact of the Internet on society. Photos & illustrations....