Authors: Ted Nield.
Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 2007-11-15


Reviews :

   

To understand continental drift and plate tectonics, the shifting and collisions that make and unmake continents, requires a long view. The Earth, after all, is 4.6 billion years old. This book extends our vision to take in the greatest geological cycle of all--one so vast that our species will probably be extinct long before the current one ends in about 250 million years. And yet this cycle, the grandest pattern in Nature, may well be the fundamental reason our species--or any complex life at all--exists.

This book explores the Supercontinent Cycle from scientists' earliest inkling of the phenomenon to the geological discoveries of today--and from the most recent fusing of all of Earth's landmasses, Pangaea, on which dinosaurs evolved, to the next. Chronicling a 500-million-year cycle, Ted Nield introduces readers to some of the most exciting science of our time. He describes how, long before plate tectonics were understood, geologists first guessed at these vanishing landmasses and came to appreciate the significance of the fusing and fragmenting of supercontinents.

He also uses the story of the supercontinents to consider how scientific ideas develop, and how they sometimes escape the confines of science. Nield takes the example of the recent Indian Ocean tsunami to explain how the whole endeavor of science is itself a supercontinent, whose usefulness in saving human lives, and life on Earth, depends crucially on a freedom to explore the unknown.

(20071001)...

Authors: Richard Weston.
Paperback, 232 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: 2004-10-30


Reviews :

    THIS BOOK PROVIDES the essential data for landmark buildings of modern architecture. Arranged chronologically for purposes of comparison, each building is represented by color photographs as well as accurate scale drawings prepared for use by students and professionals. Succinct text gives the history of each building and shows why it is innovative and important. An accompanying CD-ROM contains all the drawings, allowing readers to examine them in detail and to resize them for use in their own work. An opening essay gives a brief overview of the history of architecture in the twentieth century, highlighting key developments. Among the architects included are Frank Lloyd Wright, Antoni Gaudi, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe. Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Gunnar Asplund, Charles and Ray Eames, Jorn Utzon, Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, Robert Venturi, Norman Foster, Mario Botta, Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and many more....

Authors: David Leavitt.
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Publication Date: 2006-11-20


Reviews :

    A "skillful and literate" (New York Times Book Review) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer.

To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide.

With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—and elegantly explains his work and its implications....

Authors: Van Burnham.
Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2003-10-01


Reviews :

    It was a time when technology was king, status was determined by your high score, and videogames were blitzing the world...

From Pong to Pac-Man, Asteroids to Zaxxon—more than fifty million people around the world have come of age within the electronic flux of videogames, their subconscious forever etched with images projected from arcade and home videogame systems.

From the first interactive blips of electronic light at Brookhaven National Labs and the creation of Spacewar! at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to the invention of the TV Game Project and the myriad systems of Magnavox, Atari, Coleco, and Mattel that followed; through the rise of the Golden Age of videogames and forward into the imagination of millions, Supercade is the first book to illustrate and document the history, legacy, and visual language of the videogame phenomenon.

Exuberantly written and illustrated in full color, Supercade pays tribute to the technology, games, and visionaries of one of the most influential periods in the history of computer science—one that profoundly shaped the modern technological landscape and helped change the way people view entertainment.

Supercade includes contributions from such commentators and particpants as Ralph Baer, Julian Dibbell, Keith Feinstein, Joe Fielder, Lauren Fielder, Justin Hall, Leonard Herman, Steven Johnson, Steven Kent, Nick Montfort, Bob Parks, Carl Steadman, and Tom Vanderbilt....

Authors: Gordon Laing.
Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Sybex
Publication Date: 2004-09-21


Reviews :

    The late Seventies to the early Nineties was a completely unique period in the history of computing. Long before Microsoft and Intel ruled the PC world, a disparate variety of home computers, from an unlikely array of suppliers, were engaging in a battle that would shape the industry for years to come.

Products from established electronics giants clashed with machines which often appeared to have been (or actually were) assembled in a backyard shed by an eccentric inventor. University professors were competing head to head with students in their parents' garages.

Compatibility? Forget it! Each of these computers was its own machine and had no intention of talking to anything else. The same could be said of their owners, in fact, who passionately defended their machines with a belief that verged on the religious.

This book tells the story behind 40 classic home computers of an infamous decade, from the dreams and inspiration, through passionate inventors and corporate power struggles, to their final inevitable demise. It takes a detailed look at every important computer from the start of the home computer revolution with the MITS Altair, to the NeXT cube, pehaps the last serious challenger in the personal computer marketplace. In the thirteen years between the launch of those systems, there has never been a more frenetic period of technical advance, refinement, and marketing, and this book covers all the important steps made on both sides of the Atlantic. Whether it's the miniaturization of the Sinclair machines, the gaming prowess of the Amiga, or the fermenting war between Apple Computer, "Big Blue," and "the cloners," we've got it covered. Digital Retro is an essential read for anyone who owned a home computer in the Eighties....

Authors: Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier. Bradford S. Jones.
Paperback, 232 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 2004-03-29


Reviews :

    Here is an accessible, up-to-date guide to event history analysis for researchers and advanced students in the social sciences. The foundational principles of event history analysis are discussed and ample examples are estimated and interpreted using standard statistical packages, such as STATA and S-Plus. Recent and critical innovations in diagnostics are discussed, including testing the proportional hazards assumption, identifying outliers, and assessing model fit. The treatment of complicated events includes coverage of unobserved heterogeneity, repeated events, and competing risks models. The authors point out common problems in the analysis of time-to-event data in the social sciences and make recommendations regarding the implementation of duration modeling methods....

Authors: John Sellers.
Paperback, 160 pages
Publisher: Running Press
Publication Date: 2001-08


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: George G. Morgan.
Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Publication Date: 2004-03-18
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Anyone interested in discovering their family genealogy should carry a copy of this book everywhere. Written by internationally recognized expert, George G. Morgan, this book is an irreplaceable resource for beginner to expert knowledge gatherers. Not only does Morgan explain how to get the search started – creating a family tree, locating and evaluating documents, selecting the appropriate hardware and software for the search – he goes steps further and dedicates an entire section to research methods and strategies where he discusses, among other topics, getting past “dead ends,” and organizing possible research travel....

Authors:
Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 2005-11-15
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    The term "new media" rose to prominence in the 1990s, superseding "multi-media" in business, art, and culture. The phrase obstinately portrays other media as old or dead. But what, if anything, is truly unique or revolutionary about new media?

New Media, Old Media is a comprehensive anthology of original and classic essays that explore the tensions of old and new in digital culture. Leading international media scholars and cultural theorists interrogate new media like the Internet, digital video, and MP3s against the backdrop of earlier media such as television, film, photography, and print. The essays provide new benchmarks for evaluating all those claims--political, social, ethical--made about the digital age. Committed to historical research and to theoretical innovation, they suggest that in the light of digital programmability, seemingly forgotten moments in the history of the media we glibly call old can be rediscovered and transformed. The many topics explored in provocative volume include websites, webcams, the rise and fall of dotcom mania, Internet journalism, the open source movement, and computer viruses.

New Media, Old Media is a foundational text for general readers, students, and scholars of new media across the disciplines. It is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the cultural impact of new media....

Authors: HUBERT DREYFUS.
Paperback, 136 pages
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: 2001-05-18
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    On the Internet is a sharp and stimulating discussion of the promises of the internet. Going beyond the hype of the cybercrowd, Dreyfus, a celebrated writer on philosophy and technology, asks whether the internet can really bring humanity to a new level of community and solve the problems of mass education. Drawing on a diverse array of thinkers from Plato to Kierkegaard, On the Internet is one of the first books to bring philosophical insight to the debate on how far the internet can and cannot take us. In discussing recent studies on the isolation experienced by many internet users, Dreyfus shows how the internet's privatization of experience ignores essential human capacities such as trust, moods, risk, shared local concerns and commitment....