Book Description

More and more technology-based organizations are moving towards having an in-house employee write their user documentation. This book provides readers with a step-by-step strategy to writing and describing technical procedures.Designed to support professionals working on a project, this book includes complete programs for readers to work on and a full set of project tracking forms as well as a broad range of examples, including Windows-style pages and screens and award-winning examples from Technical Communication competitions.This is an ideal reference and learning tool for professionals who are required to write user documentation. Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication, edited by Sam Dragga (Texas Tech University). ... Read more

Reviews (3)

This book needs an editor
I was required to read this book for a technical writing class. I was amazed that a book that boasts it can teach technical documentation could have so many glaring errors in grammar and spelling. (Maybe that's why so many people don't read manuals.)
While the book does well as a step-by-step approach, most of the information is in other books. I would not recommend this book.

Great in-depth book for the new Tech Writer
I got this book through an online cetification class for writing user manuals and reference guides. I never would have found this book had it not been for that class. This book is great in that it takes you through the 7 steps of documentation. I'd recommend this book for those getting started in the technical writing field and those who are senior members. The author also chunks the information in a way that is easily understandable. Great book!

Well-organized, clear, and to the point
This is *the* book a new technical writer should read. Barker really knows his stuff--and he presents it in truly usable form. I especially liked his 3-category approach: writing to teach (for eager learners), to guide (for reluctant users of the product), or to provide a reference (for experts who need only occasional support). ... Read more

Book Description

This riveting work of investigative reporting and history exposes classified government projects to build gravity-defying aircraft--which have an uncanny resemblance to flying saucers.

The atomic bomb was not the only project to occupy government scientists in the 1940s.Antigravity technology, originally spearheaded by scientists in Nazi Germany, was another high priority, one that still may be in effect today.Now for the first time, a reporter with an unprecedented access to key sources in the intelligence and military communities reveals suppressed evidence that tells the story of a quest for a discovery that could prove as powerful as the A-bomb.

The Hunt for Zero Point explores the scientific speculation that a "zero point" of gravity exists in the universe and can be replicated here on Earth.The pressure to be the first nation to harness gravity is immense, as it means having the ability to build military planes of unlimited speed and range, along with the most deadly weaponry the world has ever seen.The ideal shape for a gravity-defying vehicle happens to be a perfect disk, making antigravity tests a possible explanation for the numerous UFO sightings of the past 50 years.

Chronicling the origins of antigravity research in the world's most advanced research facility, which was operated by the Third Reich during World War II, The Hunt for Zero Point traces U.S. involvement in the project, beginning with the recruitment of former Nazi scientists after the war.Drawn from interviews with those involved with the research and who visited labs in Europe and the United States, The Hunt for Zero Point journeys to the heart of the twentieth century's most puzzling unexplained phenomena. ... Read more

Reviews (49)

Very entertaining
If you enjoy "X Files", "Roswell", even "Star Trek" for the entertainment value (as I do) you will probably like this book. If you are a passionate believer, or disbeliever, you won't. In "The Hunt for Zero Point" Nick Cook has crafted a very readable, entertaining novel around a subject for which there is little hard evidence, historical or current. And in a field which is rife with conspiracy theories and theorists he manages to underplay this aspect - as a respectable journalist should.

My father-in-law turned me on to this book. He is a taciturn fellow; his comment to me was "there is not a lot here, but you might enjoy it." He was right on both counts, and my guess is he should know. He was an electrical engineer, drafted into the Army during WWII, worked for ARPA, was posted to Germany towards the end of hostilities to help "clean up" after the Wehrmacht, and then went back to DARPA until he retired as a full colonel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both of his sons work for large defense contractors managing "confidential" engineering projects.

So, regarding that conspiracy theory stuff? Hey, humans hide things from each other - you aren't telling your friends that you dress up in a tutu, suck your thumb and cry while your spouse spanks you, are you? We have our reasons. Our governments have their reasons (security) and our industries do too (to protect revenue).

Imagine trillions of dollars invested in a world-wide infrastructure, millions of people directly employed and many millions more indirectly, large profits and tax revenue generated, and maybe even a belief in the manifest destiny of humankind to fully utilize the resources that God has provided. Along comes a technology that will render the infrastructure obsolete, put all those people out of work, and destroy the profits and tax revenue - overnight. What do you do? You sit on the new technology until the resources are depleted (or until the asteroid strike). That's not a conspiracy, that's just common sense.

Recommended. Buy this book, and enjoy it. Then get on the web and find out that maybe it is not all smoke after all.

Great Read!
This book is great example of someone writing with a passion for searching for the truth. Well documented, the author takes us back to the early days of rocket development to search out if indeed we truly have man-made UFOs and the secret of anti-gravity.

HOW TO LEARN TO LOVE THE BOMB, PART II
How does one develop and exploit technology that can provide tunable "death rays," great anti-missile, anti-arty, anti-meteor defense, unlimited cheap energy, "flying saucer" spacetime travel, unlimited supplies of potable water, remediate nuclear pollution, enrich nuclear material, alter atomic structure, manipulate massenergy (i.e. increase or reduce gravitational/inertial mass, alter the weather, create seismic disturbances, "tractor beams," etc.), see through walls, and offer instantaneous, secure communications, among other things, but also provide a weapon that can sufficiently disrupt spacetime to destroy an entire planet? One needs a secret international, if not intra-galactic, extra-governmental military-industrial complex control group of some really stand-up guys. Or, let's at least hope they're "stand-up" since we don't exactly elect them. Let's also hope that all that power does not go to their heads! This book will help you understand a very small part of this story, namely what some of the sons of Adam figured out and built in massive underground complexes in Nazi-occupied Central Europe some six decades ago and how, with the help of the OSS at the fall of the Third Reich, a certain thoroughly evil genius for organization and intrigue named Hans Kammler, came west with the fruits of this technology after killing as many people who worked on it as possible. Think he might have taught us anything? If I have any fault with this book, it is that I could not help but suspect that the author, Nick Cook, editor of Janes Defence - Aviation, is not entirely the uninformed, naive, outside investigator that he protrays himself.

Not what you'd think
"Antigravity" is too restrictive a subtitle. It implies the author is focusing on gravity. In fact, he focuses on a search for technology that allows flight based on principles other than chemistry and aerodynamics. He chronicles his hunt for clues to alternative technologies hinted at in the footnotes of recent history. These technologies are based upon unusual phenomena, observed and partly tamed but not understood. He believes that significant advances were made in WWII Germany and continue to be developed today in "black" government programs. There are many intriguing hints of the existence of this technology and its direction, but the description of theoretical possibilities such as "zero point energy" seem only uninformed speculation. The author is severely hampered by a lack of technical training or mindset. Yet, this is an interesting tale with lots of diverse threads woven into an intriguing picture.

In and Out of the Shadows
In this shadowy world of antigravity, there is deliberate deception and false stories pointing to UFO's, and then ridiculing that possibility by others. People are whipped around by propaganda worthy of "1984". Nick Cook writes an excellent undercover book in The Hunt for Zero Point, but I am left wondering if he is participating in truth-telling, or deception, or both? It's well written, intriguing, and I cannot see any reason why anyone wouldn't like this book. But....at the end, is it true? My opinion is that antigravity is a deep black program and a lot of UFO sightings are sightings of already flying disc craft of human origin. ... Read more

Book Description

Twenty five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.

In the 1960's, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture. ... Read more

Reviews (47)

Great intro. to the Internet,
I'm reading a series of technology-history books at the moment, this one, 'The Triumph of Ethernet' and 'how the Web was born'. This is definitely the place to start - a clear, fast paced tale of the various characters behind networked computers in late 1960's and 70's. Essentially this book describes the origin of human computer interfacing which became networking theory in the North East United States in the late 1950's and '60s.
The first computer network was called ARPANET, an outcome of inspired technology-development policy from ARPA -the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a part of the Defense Dept. The story is laid out chronologically without too much techspeak, and brings up a number of questions.
One question that seemed clearer to me at the end of the book was that ARPANET was the first mover towards internetworked computers, but from the story it is clear that it was a series of hardware computers which acted as 'routers' of information and that the heartbeat of the internet, as we have come to know it, is the communications protocol [called TCP/IP, specified by Vint Cerf, among others] which allowed the various messages to be interpreted by the different computers. TCP/IP and Cerf are almost incidental to this book, which is a pity.
Other topics covered are the initiation and development of E-mail and how the non-hierarchical, informal communications process among academics came to be the spirit of communications in the internet as a whole - something which is not altogether obvious from its origins in the Defense Dept. For me, the other big revelation was the speed of the adoption of the internet (even in days before the World Wide Web) and how the originators of the ARPANET were happy to allow it to be made obsolete by technological development. No one mentioned in this book seemed to want to (or know how to) commericialize the technology which they were working so feverishly to implement.
For those of a technical persuasion there are plenty of references to the various papers which moved the various technologies forward. This book is a great first taste for those who want to dip into the subject, gives a realistic description of the 'wizards' who had the weird and wacky ideas which we now rely on , and the text includes enough 'beef' to indicate how to dig deeper into the detail.

Enthralling History of the Internet's Origin
This book gives you the complete story behind the conception and birth of the internet. The story focuses on the work done by BBN to pioneer and develop all of the protocols and designs that are the internet. The book does a good job of laying the foundation of where the state of computing was when these initial developments were being made and what outside social and economic trends effected and encouraged the internet's development. The authors do a very good job of focusing on the personalities, anecdotes and larger issues without getting bogged down in minutiae. At 265 pages, the book is packed and makes for a very quick read. The writing style of Ms. Hafner and Mr. Lyon is outstanding, which greatly increases the quality of the book.

There are some very interesting aspects of the development that are related. I was very interested in the origins of BBN, their background in acoustics, and the zeal with which they pursued the original DARPA contract. Of equal interest was the method in which the teams were managed, and the way that the development was not pursued with large teams and brute force, but rather with smaller teams that were headed by the best possible people and given all of the resources that they needed. The creation of the internet is an awe-inspiring event, and the text offers several subtle management lessons that are too important to be overlooked. The book also does a splendid job of showing some of the theory that was used in the development of the necessary software and how the developers did such a good job of bridging theory and practical engineering development. In this light the book does a much better job discussing theory than two other recent books on the history of the Computer, "Engines of the Mind" by Shurkin and "Computer" by Campbell-Kelly and Aspray. These are just some of the interesting stories told, the whole text is packed cover to cover with similar stories.

I highly recommend this book.

Great book on the history of the internet
This was an excellent account of how the internet was created and how both ARPA and distributed networking has shaped what we use now everyday.. This book provided an excellent account of what the founders of the internet had to deal with in order to design what we have today..

This is a great read and provides a great reference for all who use and depend on the internet...

A good book about the history of the net
This book tells about how the Internet as we know it today has come into existence.

In February 1966 Bob Taylor who was employed by the Advanced Research Project Agency located in the Pentagon, was in charge of three non-networked computer terminals, each terminal running a different operating system. Communications between the terminals was at that point in time impossible. Taylor set out to explore a way to get the three computers to talk to each other.

The political climate at the time was such that the Russians have launched sputnik into space (1957). President Eisenhower began ARPA as a research and development agency to rival the Soviet's advances in technology.

ARPA's mission was to find a way for (government-sensitive) information withstand an attack (from the Soviets) on the Pentagon.

Paul Baran joined ARPA. He was working on a way "to build communications structures whose surviving components could continue to function as a cohesive entity if the other pieces were destroyed."

Baran diagramed 3 kinds of networks in a paper he wrote. The three networks were, centralized, de-centralized and distributed.

Baran had another idea. To send information over the network, he suggested that the messages themselves be fractured. This was formulated into packet-switching.

Special computers had to be constructed in order to uses packet-switching. The software form these computers was build by a company called BBN. The hardware of the machines known as IMPs was built by Honeywell.

In the beginning there were four nodes on the network. Over time the amount of nodes grew to 115 - until senstive government nodes claimed their own network, MIILNET.

Through funding, the National Science Foundation helped get many more colleges and universities on the network.

MOST EXCELLENT FOR NON-WONKS
Lots of information is conveyed with excellent editing making this book a very fast read. But AT&T's 6-year opposition to distributed processing is as appropriately treated -- without comment -- as the telegram sent by Senator Edward Kennedy's office to Boston-based BBN Corportation when the latter landed ARPA's contract for the Interface Message Processor: "Congratulations on your contract to build the Interfaith Message Processor."

This book's a beauty. ... Read more

Book Description

America's Hundred Thousand covers in detail the eleven U.S. fighter aircraft types produced just before and during World War II - with a combined production total of just over 100,000 aircraft. Covered are the Army Lockheed P-38 Lightning, P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk/Kittyhawk/Warhawk, P-47 Thunderbolt, North American P-51 Mustang, Northrop P-61 Black Widow, and the Navy F2A - Buffalo, F4F - Wildcat, F4U - Corsair, and F6F - Hellcat fighters. The text is supplemented by more than 650 photographs, and 200 tables and graphs. Fighter production figures are also included. After an introduction of each type, a heavily illustrated overview of earlier inter-war production from 1920-on, along with a discussion and illustration of wartime experimental types, is provided. A lengthy section considering several technical factors affecting fighter performance follows. These include engine models, supercharger types, propellers, aerodynamic thrust, lift and drag, aircraft weight, balance, stability and control, and armament. America's Hundred Thousand also provides details of each U.S. World War II production fighter in terms of models and changes, numbers produced, and major engine and aircraft performance aspects - in tabular and graphical form - details of weights, discussion of handling qualities and general comments, along with detailed descriptions containing many illustrations of aircraft structures and systems showing the technology of that time. In addition a comprehensive week-to-week and month-to-month chronology of development and wartime combat operational life for each fighter is provided, including many photos. This study concludes with comparisons of the eleven types in terms of program milestones, aircraft drag, power available at various altitudes, speed, climb, rolling and turning, acceleration, and diving performance, as well as general evaluations by World War II pilots., over 1,000 b/w photographs, graphs, charts, 8 1/2" x 11" ... Read more

Reviews (5)

the planes we built, and how we built them
This isn't a book for couch potatoes. It contains no tales of derring-do ("Erik dropped out of the sky upon the unsuspecting Zero") and it could do you an injury if you dozed off.

Rather, it presents the best collection of facts, figures, drawings, photos, and anecdotes about U.S. World War II fighters that I have ever seen, and a whole lot more. For openers, Dean sketches American fighters of the 1920s and 1930s, along with the planes that might have fought in World War II but didn't make the grade, often because they were too goofy to be believed. He also talks about the elements that enable a fighter to fight, including a wonderfully lucid explanation of aircraft stability.

The main text is given over to the 11 planes that actually went to war, including the Brewster F2A Buffalo (509 delivered, mostly to desperate foreigners) and the humungous Northrop P-61 Black Widow (706 delivered, late in the war). Any kid with a yen for model airplanes or Combat Simulator can name the rest: the shark-faced Curtiss P-40, the rotund Grumman F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat, the burly Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, the incomparable North American P-51 Mustang. . . . From 1939 to 1945, U.S. manufacturers built 100,090 combat-worthy fighters. "Today," Dean notes, "no one could pay for that number even if they were desired."

In the Schiffer tradition, photograph is piled upon drawing, table upon graph--74 for the Brewster Buffalo alone, which U.S. pilots flew in just one engagement, defending Midway on June 4, 1942. The drawings are generally taken from pilot's manuals and the like, giving a pleasantly retro look to the pages.

Among such wonders, I was disappointed to find countless errors of spelling and punctuation, notably "Kittihawk" for the British Kittyhawk version of the big-jawed P-40. Never mind! Just as nobody will ever build so many fighters again, nobody is likely to attempt another such labor of love, so we'll have to be content with this one.

Dean's remarkable effort is a technical tour de force!
There are a few books that the World War Two aviation enthusiast absolutely must have in their collection. America's One Hundred Thousand is certainly one of those books. Any compilation of WWII works would be the lesser for not including this monumental volume. Having offered up this rather strong statement, I can assure the reader that Dean's book measures up to this standard of approbation.

To this writer's knowledge, no other book produced comes close to America's 100k in depth nor in scope. Dean presents the major American fighter types with the goal of defining every aspect of the aircraft's history, design, construction and performance. In his quest, the author has been successful in the extreme.

Mr. Dean covers the following types: The Air Corps' P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51, P-61 and P-63. For the Navy and Marine Corps, Dean presents the F2A, F4F, F4U and the F6F.

From the title page on, America's 100k displays the finest period photography available. Much of these wonderful images come from Mr. Dean's extensive personal collection. In addition, Dean has enlisted Pete Bowers and his huge library of photos and negatives. If the book was no more than a photographic history, it would worth every penny. However, there is much more here than the outstanding photography.

There are hundreds of charts, stats and manufacturer's drawings. Each system and sub-system of the eleven featured fighters are described in great detail. As are the individual flying qualities, design and construction of each type. Yet, Dean does not stop here. His accompanying text is rich with details and a wealth of data. Virtually every one of the 606 pages is jammed with the kind of information that most aviation enthusiasts tend to drool over.

In terms of design and layout, the book is impeccable. America's 100k is structured in a manner that allows for easy reading and research. Paper quality is first rate and typical of Schiffer's recent top-notch efforts. The binding is excellent and the dust jacket is remarkably attractive as one can see above. Indeed, this may very well be the best investment you will ever make in an aviation book.

Corey C. Jordan, Editor The Planes and Pilots of WWII Internet Magazine

This book brings useful data for WWII aircraft's nuts.
Thank you Mr.Dean for this magnificent book.There's b&w pictures and the drawings are great ! I recommend this book for those who loves WWII american fighters such modelers or historians.I regard this book as a treasure in my WWII collection.

Absolutely Wonderful!
I would have to agree with the good Prof. above (whose books are also excellent, btw). This one is truly a definitive work. Among other wonders, the author explains "compressability" in a few short sentences in a way that is instantly comprehensible -- that's a subject I've seen butchered in dozens of books. I guess being a retired avation engineer helps.

This book isn't just large and comprehensive -- it's really good. It's well-written, well-organized, and just thoughtful on every level. Granted, you have to be sort of a maniac to buy a 600-page $60 book on WW II fighters. But if you're that kind of maniac, buy it now!

An indispensable book for WWII aviation enthusiasts.
I have been writing about and studying modern military history for fifteen years and it is very rare to discover a book that genuinely deserves the term "definitive." Francis Dean's _America's Hundred Thousand_ is one of them. Table top books or pictorial essays about various WWII fighters are common. Dean's work, however, is a long (nearly 600 pages and large format) and detailed study of the ten most important US fighter aircraft of the war. It includes solid data on every major subsystem as well as overall aircraft performance. Crammed with graphs and charts, Dean analyzes the crucial but often neglected fine points that made the difference between life and death in air combat. Lastly, he does a long and extremely interesting comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the various planes. Throughout the work are comments from WWII pilots who knew the craft first hand. Dean, a former Boeing engineer and well known aviation writer, spent six years researching this work and it shows. This book belongs on the bookshelf of every serious student of the air operations so crucial to the Second World War. Highest possible recommendation. ... Read more

Book Description

Discussions of the basic structural, nanotechnology, and system engineering principles, as well as an introductory overview of essential concepts and methods in biotechnology, will be included.  Text is presented side-by-side with extensive use of high-quality illustrations prepared using cutting edge computer graphics techniques.  Includes numerous examples, such applications in genetic engineering.  Represents the only available introduction and overview of this interdisciplinary field, merging the physical and biological sciences.  Concludes with the authors' expert assessment of the future promise of nanotechnology, from molecular "tinkertoys" to nanomedicine.  David Goodsell is author of two trade books, Machinery of Life and Our Molecular Nature, and Arthur Olson is the world's leader in molecular graphics and nano-scale representation. ... Read more

Book Description

The Behavior-Based Safety Process Since the behavior-based approach to accident prevention was launched in 1980 by the author and his associates, safety performance is increasingly prominent on the agendas of many companies. Several powerful factors contribute to this trend. The widespread reorganization of personnel into work-groups that are leaner and more self-directed, the increasing importance of international competition, the growing awareness of critical environmental issues—these and related factors highlight the value of any mechanism that promotes continuous improvement in safety performance. Detailing a step-by-step approach to just such a mechanism for continuous improvement, The Behavior-Based Safety Process is a path-breaking guide that represents an important resource for anyone concerned with performance related issues in the workplace. As the title indicates, the focus is on process versus programs. The reason is simple: off-the-shelf safety imposed from the top down does not meet the safety needs of most organizations. This fact has been abundantly demonstrated in facility after facility throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In genuinely meeting the need for continuous improvement in safety performance, the behavior-based approach presents many parallels with the quality improvement process. Both of these approaches use scientific methods to identify, measure, and provide feedback on upstream factors of excellence. In the case of the behavior-based approach to safety, these upstream factors are critical behaviors that are the leading indicators of safety performance in the organization, targeting areas of concern in advance of even first-aid incidents. For an in-depth treatment of how to integrate behavioral and statistical methodologies, see the authors companion volume from Van Nostrand Reinhold: Employee-Driven Systems for Safe Behavior. In addition to presenting these parallels with quality. The Behavior-Based Safety Process also provides powerful techniques aimed at implementation issues: organizational development, trainer-training, and employee involvement. The author and his associates developed these techniques over a decade of consultation with a variety of industries, working closely in that time with such safety leaders as Monsanto, Shell Chemical Company, ARCO Chemical, ALCOA, Rohm and Haas, Scott Paper Company, Georgia Gulf Corporation, The Pillsbury Company, and Chevron U.S.A. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Best job investment I have ever made
This is a must book to anyone that is frustrated with injury rates. Once I picked the book up I couldn't put it down. It not only explains things well but gives examples, charts and figures to refer back to. I can't wait to get the new program going at work.

An Overview of BBS
I use the book for my course in Behavioral safety at Western Michigan University, and I recommend it. Strengths: broad coverage of issues invoved in BBS; examples of it practice; some coverage of scientific principles behind the techniques. Weaknesses: It could be organized to make it more user-friendly; written at a rather advanced level; not a very good "how-to" book (T. McSween's "The Values-Based Safety Process" book is better at "how to" - I also use that one.) ... Read more

Reviews (4)

of course some people wouldn't like this book
i loved this book: it questions the idea of repeatability, which means that it questions the religion of science (as practiced by amateurs)and it shows you how language has served the impulse towards duplicity. the book also has a certain tongue-in-cheek wit about it, and that makes the ideas more interesting to read.

i can see where latour would make people nervous if they were fully invested in a point of view not fully understood. but, until the government takes down the bill of rights, diversity in thinking is still allowed and maybe even encouraged.

enjoy this book. it is fun.

Interesting, but hard to read
I'd like to think I'm not a dummy, but this was hard to read. It looks to me like the book was translated to English by someone who might know more about Anthropology than written communication. There were times when I felt that maybe it had been run through Babblefish.

Dissing of the translator aside, the author assumes the reader is completely knowlegable of all the apparently pretty divisions and differences in opinions between one group of scientists and another. Man I could care less, unless it leads to an advancement of a science, and I wasn't convinced. But maybe because I didn't care.

There were times where I felt that a greater service would have been done if the soap opera would have been skipped.

That said, the book contains some insightful and thought provoking ideas on how societies view each other and themselves. I found some concepts a powerful catalyst in my design efforts.

It only takes a French accent...
Anglophone readers probably don't realise that Latour meant this book as a tongue-in-cheek exercise to capture the postmodern social theory market in his own country by using a postmodern style to show what an illusion postmodernism has always been. But, as fate would have it, when someone sneezes in Paris, an Anglophone is felled with pneumonia. It's hard to believe that anyone with a firm grasp of the history of the last 250 years of Western culture would find this book anything more than a diversion worthy of maybe a couple of arguments in the pub. It's telling that historians of science, who are really the people who are in a position to hold Latour accountable to anything he says here, have given the book a chilly reception. Classify this one under 'Pseud's Corner'.

a great, new work; serious social theory for scientists too
For this reader, Bruno Latour's book is one of the most ambitious, original, and important reformulations of social theory since 1989. It is getting lots of attention among scholars, and deserves a wider public. The press reviews here don't do this book justice.

Latour, for those of you who don't know him, has been at the forefront of the emerging field of "science studies", the history and sociology of science, for the past 15 years. He's also a rather bizarre fellow. His "Aramis" is a book of real sociology that is told in the form of a novel, in which the metro car of a failed Parisian public transportation project becomes one of a series of narrators. In "We Have Never Been Modern," he conscisely summarizes the theoretical basis of his work, and stakes out ground that is genuinely new. The book should excite humanisitic academics, scientists, and intellectually adventurous people from all walks of life with a taste for theory.

The thesis -- the basis for the "we have never been modern" part -- is that the "great divide" between nature and human, subject and object, science and society, was never real. Instead, he says, this subject/object divide was the great dirty fiction of the "modern" world.

To give you the gist of the argument as briefly as possible: the separation of nature and human, that has marked Western intellectual life since the 17th century, allowed both science and the humanities to make their own claims for absolute truth. This divide was the basis for our image of "modern western man."

But these claims hid the fact that "hybrids" were springing up all the while. Modernity also spawned technological "quasi-objects" that blur the line between the natural and the human. The tremendous multiplication of these "quasi-objects" (Latour's neologism)in our times has finally forced us to the point where we are at a startling conclusion: the divorce of man from nature never really took place.

What we thought of as scientific Western man was never real. Latour wants us, the generation left with the consequences of this revelation, to exhume this past of hybridity, and seek out a new relationship between nature and culture. In short, he wants to both humanize science and render the humanities more scientific.

This brief bastardization does not do justice to the work. Latour elegantly and convincingly lays out his thesis, and the results are dazzling and compelling. He's also sharp and witty, and fans of the like of Baudrillard and Derrida will see their idols tossed about a bit.

On the other hand, the book is immensely ambitious in its theoretical claims, and has a tendency to pretend that complex and difficult ideas are obvious truth. One wonders at times if he is practicing the French intellectual's habit of making our heads spin for the sheer thrill of watching the confusion. But he's not, and most readers, I think, will finish the book that Latour is ultimately both a sensible man and a humane one.

As a graduate student in the humanities, I know that this book is getting a growing audience in academia. I hope that some non-academic visitors to amazon.com (especially science buffs who enjoy the likes of Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennet) will treat themselves to this intellectual adventure. It's a truly original book, not much over 100 pages, reasonably priced, and well worth the experience. ... Read more

Book Description

The most impressive idea to emerge from the recent World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland: a new approach to identifying and managing the world's twenty most pressing problems.

In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits? In High Noon, J. F. Rischard challenges us to take a new approach to the twenty most important and urgent global problems of the twenty-first century. Rischard finds their common thread: we don't have an effective way of dealing with the problems that our increasingly crowded, interconnected world creates. Our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them belong to the past.

Rischard proposes new vehicles for global problem-solving that are startling and persuasive. With its clear-eyed urgency and refreshing specificity, High Noon is an agenda-setting book that everyone who cares about the future must read. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Straight-Forward, Understandable, URGENT, "Strong Buy"

Having read perhaps 20 of the best books on global issues and environmental sustainability, water scarcity, ocean problems, etc, over the past few years (most reviewed here on Amazon) I was prepared for a superficial summary, political posturing, and unrealistic claims. Not this book--this book is one of the finest, most intelligent, most easily understood programs for action I have ever seen. The book as a whole, and the 20 problem statements specifically, are concise, illustrated, and sensible.

The author breaks the 20 issues into 3 groups. Group one (sharing our planet) includes global warming; biodiversity and ecosystem losses, fisheries depletion, deforestation, water deficits, and maritime safety and pollution. Group two (sharing our humanity) includes massive step-up in the fight against poverty, peacekeeping-conflict prevention-combatting terrorism, education for all, global infectuous diseases, digital divide, and natural disaster prevention and mitigation. Group three (sharing our rule book) includes reinventing taxation for the 21st century, biotechnology rules, global financial architecture, illegal drugs, trade-investment-competition rules, intellectual property rights, e-commerce rules, and international labor and migration rules.

The author's core concept for dealing with these complex issues intelligently, while recognizing that "world government" is not an option, lies with his appreciation of the Internet and how global issues networks could be created that would be a vertical complement to the existing horizontal elements of each national government.

The footnotes and index are professional, but vastly more important, the author's vision is combined with practicality. This is a "doable-do" and this book is therefore my number one reading recommendation for any citizen buying just one book of the 360+ that I have recommended within Amazon. Superb.

Great intro to 20 global issues
J.F. Rischard does a fabulous job of compiling his knowledge into a great introduction of twenty global issues that the world is currently facing. As the subtitle indicates, these issues are steadily becoming problems that we, as a global community, must reckon with. Rischard says that they must be solved in the coming twenty years.

Most of the twenty problems are not surprises, but some are. The author spends time mentioning that his list is not all-inclusive, and that certainly other issues could have been added (or taken off). But his list is all-encompassing and includes the following classifications and then the actual problems:

Sharing our planet: Issues involving the global commons
1. Global warming
2. Biodiversity and ecosystem losses
3. Fisheries depletion
4. Deforestation
5. Water deficits
6. Maritime safety and pollution

Sharing our humanity: Issues requiring a global commitment
7. Massive step-up in the fight against poverty
8. Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism
9. Education for all
10. Global infectious diseases
11. Digital Divide
12. Natural disaster prevention and mitigation

Sharing our rulebook: Issues needing a global regulatory approach
13. Reinventing taxation for the 21st century
14. Biotechnology rules
15. Global financial architecture
16. Illegal drugs
17. Trade, investment, and competition rules
18. Intellectual property rights
19. E-commerce rules
20. International labor and migration rules

Yes, this list is QUITE long and extensive! But Rischard does a wonderful job of giving a brief (3-5 pages) introduction on each issue. If you are looking for a more in depth study of these issues, then you should look elsewhere. But note that the footnotes are great places to look for sources on these issues!

In the end, the purpose of the book is to present a brief summary of these problems, then propose a method for world leaders to use in solving the issues. The author's method is a good one, and he does a nice job explaining it simple terms with "pretty" pictures, charts, and graphs. My only complaint is that -- although the method is somewhat sound -- the book left me wondering what I could do (an average American citizen) to help solve these problems. I would have liked a chapter on what types of careers -- or even small daily tasks -- can be pursued to help fight these issues on a grander scale.

This book is recommended to any individual interested in economics, finance, environment, health, etc. on the global scale. ... Read more

Book Description

The eight-step strategy presented in this book takes the mystery out of writing effective training courses. Practical templates, checklists, assessments, and examples streamline your effort and eliminate writer's block. You'll discover how to make the most of limited time, money, and human resources to:

—Develop training lessons that make a difference.
—Customize off-the-shelf training to meet the needs of your target audience.
—Repurpose existing documentation.
—Globalize your training for culturally diverse learners or tailor lessons to meet specific needs of a limited audience.
—Recognize dead-end paths that can undermine the success of your project.
—Incorporate ready-to-use CGI, Java, and HTML scripts into lessons. Learn when to use them, where to find download sites, and how to tailor them to your training objectives and learners.

This systematic approach has helped thousands of writers like you create training programs that deliver what they promise. In just hours, you can learn techniques and time-savers that others have learned only through hard-won experience and costly mistakes.

Keep this book handy. You'll reach for it often for real-world advice about every phase of your project from initial planning to troubleshooting. Better than a mentor, it's a must-have for every successful training or user-education professional. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Terrific for Planning from the Ground Up!
I just can't say enough about this book. I am developing a training program for the first time and it has added outstanding depth to my process. It is simple to use. If you go step by step everything just seems to fall in to place.

It is a life saver!

Very applicable
I read this book in 5 hours. After that, I had all the tools I needed to start developing a training course for a subject matter I still knew little about. Great book for someone who has a short time to develop a training course. Great reference for anyone who needs new approaches to their training development. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (8)

Learn from the master
It might not be a bad idea to make this book compulsory reading at all military academies...and then ban it in Iraq while America still has the authority to do so.

I think Mao intended this essay to be another one of his theoretical Marxist works (Mao thought of himself as a first-class Marxist theoretician). But without question it also served as an instruction manual for his ragtag Red Army while fighting among the tortuous terrain in northwestern China, in part against Japan, in part against Chiang. Considering his success as a practitioner of guerrilla warfare, one would have to be insane to ignore this work.

I'm struck how short that chapter is on guerrilla wars in history. Mao was widely read in Chinese and world history and it would have been his style to display this knowledge in a work like this had he chosen to do so.

Americans should not think of themselves as only at the receiving end of guerrillas. Washington learned this kind of fighting during the French and Indian Wars, and he put some of this experience to good use against a British army better armed, better trained, and greater in numbers than the Continentals. He exploited geography, made surprise raids, used mobility and patience to wear out the red coats - all hallmarks of guerrillas. The all-important Battle of Trenton was such kind of unconventional warfare: an Indian raid, essentially. But it sure got results. Regular or conventional battles like Yorktown only came later, when British impatience was at the breaking point.

Mao really could have done better than just cite Russian resistance to Napoleon as an example. (Never mind his other Chinese examples. for the moment.) Apart from Washington, the Spaniards also tore the Grand Armee to pieces with guerrillas - in fact, Spain's where the word came from. Of course, another great example of guerrilla warfare was Stalingrad. But always, to my mind, the Teutoberg forest was where guerrillas first made their greatest name in Western history. (I know little Greek history to comment further.) Octavian lost three Roman legions thanks to the German barbarians, and Rome hadn't suffered a panic quite like this since Spartacus.

Believe it or not, Mao got his inspiration not from Lenin (though he paid much lip service to him), not even from Sun Tsu (whom he read only when his military career was over), but from the classic historical novels of ancient China, especially The Water Margins and Three Kingdoms. That he didn't cite these is understandable enough: he always insisted on learning truths from facts, and novels don't provide facts though they do generate interest in the motivated reader. And Mao was nothing if not motivated.

Griffith's extraordinary credentials are not worth repeating here. His intro is excellent. He is dead right that guerrillas thrive anywhere: from the dense jungle of Vietnam to the flat deserts of Iraq. Where there are men willing to fight, and a will to win, and patience, all it takes is a little hard thinking to make them great guerrillas. Let us learn from the master, not by regurgitating his rules, which he would never have done himself, but by thinking critically and philosophically through his logic.

Nothing secret
I read this in high school in the late 1980s and asked myself, "Why wasn't this mandatory reading at West Point in the late 1950s and 1960s?"
This book, in conjunction with Ho Chi Min's writings on the use of guerrilla warfare, is the absolute basic understanding of the Viet Nam War from back BEFORE the French Foreign Legion were fighting for their colony. EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING, in this book is used in the fight against the French right up to Dien Bien Phue, and continued up until the fall of Saigon in 1975. EVERYTHING. Why did America lose the Viet Nam War? Read this. How could America have been so wrong to back Ho Chi Min, Chaing Chi Chek, and Kim Il Song, in the Second World War? Read this.
You will say, "Wow" many times throughout the book, and in the end you will ask, "When was this first printed? How the bleep could we have been so wrong?"

The Treatise on Guerrilla Warfare
Stanley B. Griffiths work is timeless, relevant, and is a must read for those seriously exploring the Western use of joint, interagency, and multinational force to counter guerrilla activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Colombia, etc.. Griffith's 1961 introduction alone is worth the price of the book. His recommendation to study guerrilla warfare in 1940 and again in 1961 was on the mark. He cites examples of successful guerrilla operations (Frances Marion; the Spanish against Napoleon; the Russians against Napoleon; the Russians against Hitler; the Vietnamese against the French, Castro in Cuba) and the value of these historical examples to further study. He cites ten key factors worth comparing to determine which side has the advantage in a guerrilla war. His discussion of the three phases of guerrilla war, and the warning to stop them before they they advance beyond phase one is sage advice. His recommendation to locate, isolate, and eradicate is a simple pattern for developing an effective counterguerrilla strategy. He does warn that countering guerrilla operations is not solely a military activity--the political arm is the key. Perhaps it is his conclusion that historically, there has not been a counter to revolutionary guerrilla warfare which gives one pause when addressing world events in 2003. Griffith comes to these conclusions by laying out Mao's thought in simple, clear writing. Essentially, Mao recognized the fundamental disparity between agrarian and urban societies, he advocated unorthodox strategies that converted deficits into advantages: using intelligence provided by the sympathetic peasant population; substituting deception, mobility, and surprise for superior firepower; using retreat as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants on the ideological basis of the struggle. This radical approach to warfare, waged in the mountains by mobile guerrilla bands closely supported by local inhabitants, has been adopted by other revolutionary leaders throughout the world. The challenge for those studying guerrilla warfare is still on the table: what do you do about it? A start, is reading Mao's writings which provide the first documented, systematic study of the subject.

Surprising
Before reading this book, I thought guerilla warfare consisted of a farmer firing off his shotgun at passing helicopters. Mao's text reveals a great deal more planning, thought and organization must go into conducting a successful insurgency. Short and to the point, this book is a surprising modern account of employing guerilla warfare against a more powerful enemy. Some, though not all, of these strategies can be seen in America's intervention in Iraq.

One thing worth noting: this text is by and large theoretical. This was Mao's intention it seems, so those who expect to see indepth analysis of real battles might be disappointed. Through the text, Mao does reference several campaigns that buttress his arguments, but chances are they will be unfamiliar to a non-military history buff. It will require your own effort and thinking to observe these guerilla tactics in battles familiar to Americans, such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

See the Roadmap for the Terrorists Right Here
I first read this book in Nam as a young Marine Sniper. I served two tours there and have written about it in my book. When Sept 11 happened and I heard all this stuff about the new tactics and new war and how we've never faced this stuff I pulled this book off my shelves and read some pieces to my wife without telling her what it was from and she thought I was reading what they were saying on tv. (...) Worth reading folks. ... Read more

Book Description

Praise for Technology Valuation Solutions

"R&D is a risky investment, but the returns could be very high. Through practical examples Boer teaches proven methodologies to value R&D projects for most any stage of development and investment."
–Barry B. Siadat, Managing Director, Arsenal Capital Partners

"F. Peter Boer’s extensive experience as a senior executive, board member, and technical advisor have provided the opportunity for him to participate in the development of hundreds of prospects and numerous successful technical strategies. Here he provides readers with case material from a vast range of real-world situations while adding his own strong personal insights, making this book an important read for those interested in both technical and business decision making."
–Jeffrey M. Lipton, President & CEO, NOVA Chemicals

"If you like numbers, formulas, analyses, strategies, and real-life case studies, you will love this book. Boer provides a number of additional tools for the R&D leader in judging risk for them to benefit in this highly competitive, rapidly changing world of technology."
–Charles F. Larson, President Emeritus, Industrial Research Institute, Inc.

"Good case studies in industrial R&D are very hard to come by. Academics may have the analytical rigor with which the examples should be analyzed, but seldom do they have the facts at the level of detail required. Case studies provided by industrial practitioners often have the inverse problem: facts and stories but no academically rigorous analysis. F. Peter Boer’s book is in a category above both of those situations. Technology Valuation Solutions is a uniquely interesting, beautifully written, and well-referenced book that is suitable for business schools as a textbook, for academics as a rich source of factual information on the development of complex industrial technologies, and for industrial management as high-quality training material."
–Louis Hegedus, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, ATOFINA Chemicals

"Boer is a thoughtful and well-informed analyst of technology-based innovations, and has a good nose for the kinds of problems people run into in valuing new and improved technologies. This book deals well with a whole series of challenges involving the interaction of technology and business issues. Written in simple and accessible prose, the illustrative case examples will appeal greatly to technology managers as well as other business professionals who are looking for a counterweight to the flood of purely ‘numbers driven’ valuation literature that is now so fashionable."
–G. Sam Samdani, PhD, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology, and Chemicals Expert, McKinsey & Company

"This book is a must-read for any current or aspiring CTO. Through just enough theory and relevant cases, Boer provides insight into what to request from the R&D financial and strategic planners. In addition to building understanding of the value of these analyses, the text clearly lays out the hazards of relying exclusively on such without a thorough understanding of both the input and other nonfinancial risk factors."
–Dr. F. M. Ross Armbrecht Jr., President, Industrial Research Institute, Inc.

"Today, companies are under increasing pressure to manage their R&D project portfolios in a disciplined and value-creative manner. An assortment of different theories and methods has been proposed to help management with different aspects of this challenge. In this book, Boer presents the practitioner with a comprehensive approach to R&D portfolio management integrating the latest financial techniques with the specific issues of the field. Drawing on his extensive experience, the author introduces the material in a pragmatic, user-friendly way through a series of actual cases. This book will be a great help for the executive interested in practical solutions to the problems of R&D management."
–Vladimir Antikarov, Monitor Group, and coauthor of Real Options: A Practitioner’s Guide ... Read more

Book Description

This new edition of The Ultimate Security Survey has been revised and updated to include more topics than the original 1994 edition. The book and its accompanying disk have been completely overhauled and now address the current electronic information security environment.

Contains more than 3,000 questions for security professionals to use in designing their own security surveys
An accompanying disk allows users to create surveys without typing
Completely up-to-date ... Read more

Book Description

Prevent electrical accidents

Each year hundreds of people are killed or injured by electrical energy.Many, if not most, of these accidents could be prevented by the use of appropriate electrical safety techniques and equipment. Electrical Safety Handbook, Second Edition is a must-have, accident-avoiding prescription for personnel working on or near electrical circuits at any voltage level. Electricians, electrical system designers, inspectors, and engineers will find crucial protective safety strategies in industrial and commercial systems.

You get detailed guidelines for setting up effective safety programs…medical emergency procedures…and examples and case studies throughout. This new second edition covers the latest OSHA, NEC NESC, NFPA regulations. You’ll also find increased coverage of safety procedures; expanded material on safety audits; and more guidance on establishing in-house training programs. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Useful and User-Friendly Facts from Highly Qualified Sources
This is a very useful and user-friendly book. I am especially impressed by the qualifications of the authors. One is a Certified Plant Engineer and longtime member of the Association for Facilities Engineering, one is a Registered Professional Enginer, and one is a Medical Doctor (board-certified as a physician in general preventive medicine and public health.) The book covers a wide range of topics; the illustrations are very compelling, too. All 12 chapters were dense with facts yet easy to follow.

Very comprehensive job by highly qualified authors
This is an exceptionally useful and user-friendly handbook. I am particularly impressed by the authors' credentials -- one of them is a Certified Plant Engineer, one is a Registered Professional Engineer, and one of them is a Medical Doctor (board-certified as a physician in general preventive medicine and public health). The illustrations supplement the text very well, too. ... Read more

Book Description

Dark Tide is the definitive account of America"s most fascinating and surreal disaster." —John Marr, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston"s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles an hour. Dark Tide tells the compelling story of this man-made disaster that claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals and caused widespread destruction.

"Narrated with gusto . . . [Puleo"s] enthusiasm for a little-known catastrophe is infectious." —The New Yorker

"Compelling . . . Puleo has done justice to a gripping historical story." —Ralph Ranalli, Boston Globe

"Thoroughly researched, the volume weaves together the stories of the people and families affected by the disaster . . . The cleanup lasted months, the lawsuits years, the fearful memories a lifetime." —Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press

"Giving a human face to tragedy is part of the brilliance of Stephen Puleo"s Dark Tide . . . Until they were given voice in this book, the characters who drove the story were forgotten." —Caroline Leavitt, Boston Sunday Globe ... Read more

Reviews (18)

A second look at the 1970 classic with 20/20 hindsight.
If you are old enough, think back to the year 1970. There were no pocket calculators, home VCRs, personal computers or electronic digital watches. Households in which both parents --particularly mothers-- worked were uncommon. Home satellite television systems did not exist.This was the environment in which Alvin Toffler wrote "Future Shock".The book is an excellent study in how humans deal with rapid technological and social change in the late twentieth century. Many of the devices and conditions we deal with on a daily basis in the 1990's were foretold by Toffler in this brilliant work. Toffler concluded that millions of people will find it increasingly difficult to cope with the rate of change in the future. Well, the future which Toffler described is now. "Future Shock" is well worth another look for those of us who wish to see how far we have progressed. And how far we need to go

The Future Shock that's NOW !
Few times in life one gets the chance to be in such a position in which at the same time it is possible to speculate on the future outcome of social change, and yet at the same time be able to test such ideas against the hard facts of real life. Alvin Toffler's Future Shock is a book that allows us all to do just that; in simple yet imagination-capturing terms this is a classic 20th-century sociological masterpiece that will take you from the ideas of an ever changing world, to the analysis of the instability of rapid shifting institutions, from a technologically overstimulating environment, to the social impact of the throw-away society. Throughout the book (originally published in 1970) Toffler will guide the neophyte and the erudite alike in a fascinating vision of a future few of us are ready to assimilate, and that at the same time we all seem destined to confront just as we read the book. Of course, this is not an actual attempt to describe a single must-happen-this-way vision of the future, but no doubt that from the vantage point of most societies today, it is astonishingly easy to find actual parallelisms between our every day lifes and Toffler's paradigm. This is definitely a must-read ......have you had some Future Shock lately ?

Plausible in 1970, but dated now........
I read this book in 1975 while in 7th grade and thought it was awesome. However, the future "Shock" has failed to materialize as predicted.

Almost all of the technological changes that really changed society happenned from 1850-1950. If you took a person from the developed world in 1950 (let alone 1970, the date of this book) and plopped them in 2004, they'd have little trouble adapting. Air travel, telephones, radio, TV, etc. would all be completely familair......... Even much ballyhooed technology such as the Internet or cell phones are easily understood and refinements of older technologies.....

Now take someone from 1850 and drop them in 1950.....That would be a Future Shock!

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
The world has changed in many of the ways predicted by Toffler.
We are now in the throes of the super-industrial society
he spoke of in the early 1970s. For instance, computing power
has grown exponentially. There is a computer on every work
desk in most corporate offices. Children work with computers
at school. A growing number of people work at home. Electronics
has permeated virtually every part of society from home
calculators/computers to electronic panels in automobiles to super-stereo systems and advanced training systems in industry
and academe. Even childrens' games reflect the growing
sophistication of the super-industrialized world economy.
The internet has become the central repository of data.
Very few of these changes were imaginable from the perspective
of the early 1970s. The super industrial society will progress
technologically. Our challenge will require translating
the industrial progress into the creation of incremental
wealth for every segment of the society. Job re-design and
organizational dynamics have displaced workers and forced
re-training on the continued basis predicted by Toffler.
In fact, a central thesis of his book involved the fast rate
of change and its displacement of technical matter taught in primary school, high school and college. The super-industrialized
society will progress very much the way Toffler envisioned.
Our challenge will be to manage the change and utilize it to
improve the quality of our lives in every aspect previously
unattainable.

bookreport
title,rule of the characters,setting,plots,summary,moral lesson,contribution to the event,reaction. ... Read more

Book Description

An illustrated history of American innovators--some well known, some unknown, and all fascinating-- by the author of the bestselling The American Century. ... Read more

Book Description

Whether playing at defending their own castle or simply chucking pumpkins over a fence, wannabe marauders and tinkerers will become fast acquainted with Ludgar, the War Wolf, Ill Neighbor, Cabulus, and the Wild Donkey-ancient artillery devices known commonly as catapults. Re-creating these simple yet sophisticated machines introduces fundamentals of math and physics using levers, force, torsion, tension, and traction. Instructions and diagrams illustrate how to build seven authentic working model catapults, including an early Greek ballista, a Roman onager, and the apex of catapult technology, the English trebuchet. Additional projects include learning how to lash and make rope and how to construct and use a hand sling and a staff sling. The colorful history of siege warfare is explored through the stories of Alexander the Great and his battle of Tyre; Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and the Third Crusade; pirate-turned-soldier John Crabbe and his ship-mounted catapults; and Edward I of England and his battle against the Scots at Stirling Castle. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great Book for those with a Backyard
I was really impressed with this book while sitting sipping a cup of coffee. Wondering to myself, how could I use this to have fun with my family if we lived in a space with, of all things, space.

This book not only shows how to make catapults of various types. It goes into the history of how the catapult was made or as it transformed throughout history. There are short vignettes about various historical subjects surrounding seizes throughout time and what types of catapults were used, what they looked like and how to build something like it using easy to but materials.

This is a fun book for the hobbyist who likes to tinker with things and how has a flair for fun projects (or projectiles for that matter.) I will buy this book when I get a place and I hope it sells for those who want to work with their kids on a fun project.

The Art of the Catapult is a fun romp....if you liked Lord of The Rings, you will like this book, putting catapults in perspective.

A note from the Author
Here is some additional information for prospective readers and buyers of Art of the Catapult, from the book's author.

This book has been written for readers aged 9 to adult, although younger readers will enjoy many of the projects if they have adult assistance.

Note: Adults will enjoy this book as well. As of the time this note is written, Amazon describes this book as written for readers aged 9 to 12. This is not correct, as adult readers will find it written for them as well.

The largest catapult project is a traction powered (human powered) catapult that can throw a water balloon or similar item a very long way! Most of the projects are somewhat smaller. Buy this book and enjoy throwing your weight around! ... Read more

Book Description

Mathematicians and scientists have been closely tied to many famous disasters. The Challenger explosion, the failure of the Mars Orbiter, and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse all involved thinking errors. This book presents the ten things our future mathematicians and scientists must know to prevent these kinds of tragedies from occurring. Because science and mathematics instruction is often dominated by facts and calculation, children are rarely exposed to these important concepts. Over 50 stories are included that show children the strong connections between mathematics and science and the real world.

a)Sister Elizabeth Kenny discovered an effective treatment for polio, but it was ignored by the medical establishment for 30 years.

b)Engineers tried to stop the Challenger launch because of concerns that the o-rings might fail in the cold temperatures. They were ignored.

c)Dr. Semmelweis discovered why thousands of women who gave birth at hospitals were dying and a simple way to stop the deaths. His colleagues ignored his discovery and thousands of women continued to die.

d)How a simple design mistake led to 114 deaths when a walkway collapsed at the Kansas City Regency Hotel.

Questions are included at the end of each chapter to test the reader’s understanding of each concept. ... Read more