Download or read book Computer Related Risks written by Peter G. Neumann and published by Addison-Wesley Professional. This book was released on 1994-10-18 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This sobering description of many computer-related failures throughout our world deflates the hype and hubris of the industry. Peter Neumann analyzes the failure modes, recommends sequences for prevention and ends his unique book with some broadening reflections on the future." —Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate This book is much more than a collection of computer mishaps; it is a serious, technically oriented book written by one of the world's leading experts on computer risks. The book summarizes many real events involving computer technologies and the people who depend on those technologies, with widely ranging causes and effects. It considers problems attributable to hardware, software, people, and natural causes. Examples include disasters (such as the Black Hawk helicopter and Iranian Airbus shootdowns, the Exxon Valdez, and various transportation accidents); malicious hacker attacks; outages of telephone systems and computer networks; financial losses; and many other strange happenstances (squirrels downing power grids, and April Fool's Day pranks). Computer-Related Risks addresses problems involving reliability, safety, security, privacy, and human well-being. It includes analyses of why these cases happened and discussions of what might be done to avoid recurrences of similar events. It is readable by technologists as well as by people merely interested in the uses and limits of technology. It is must reading for anyone with even a remote involvement with computers and communications—which today means almost everyone. Computer-Related Risks: Presents comprehensive coverage of many different types of risks Provides an essential system-oriented perspective Shows how technology can affect your life—whether you like it or not!
Download or read book Beyond the Limits written by Paul E. Ceruzzi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computers and flying machines are two dominant technologies of our time. "Beyond the Limits" shows the ways in which they interact, clearly illustrating the complex issues and devices involved in their mutual evolution. It describes and illustrates how computer technology has affected the theory and practice of the engineering and operations of aircraft and spacecraft from 1945 to the present. Paul Ceruzzi points out that the "revolution" in aerospace technology has been going on for at least forty years. For the first time, he tells how modern flight depends on computers, how this came about, and what its consequences are. He brings to light new facets of the individual stories of aerospace and computing, while also revealing more general themes about the dynamics and evolution of these modern technologies. Spacecraft and fighters make use of leading-edge computer technologies in their design, testing manufacture, navigation and operation; moreover pilots and astronauts rely on computer simulations throughout their training. Ceruzzi describes these technologies and their history. In separate chapters he focuses on Northrop ("midwife of the computer industry"), missile tracking, Whirlwind, Apollo, Minuteman, and the software involved. An appendix discusses the role that on-board and ground computers played in the explosion of the space shuttle "Challenger. Paul Ceruzzi is Associate Curator at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. "Beyond the Limits" was written to accompany the opening of a major new gallery devoted to the subject at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Download or read book The Evening Star written by Henry S. F. Cooper and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Much more is observed than Venus in The Evening Star, a smoothly written account of the Magellan spacecraft... Mr. Cooper is able to convey the sense of excitement felt by the engineers and scientists. But the star of the story is definitely Venus."--New York Times. "The anger and the arguments, the petty feuds, the politics of science, the grubbing for grants, make fascinating reading."--Nature. In size, density, and composition, Venus is almost identical to Earth, yet its nature and history turn out to be as different as close relatives sometimes can be. In The Evening Star Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr., veteran science and space reporter for the New Yorker, tracks the Magellan spacecraft that has been mapping Venus from orbit since August 1990. In eloquent, vivid prose, Cooper introduces us to the engineers who have nursed the spacecraft's fragile electronics and the scientists who have used the spacecraft's data to assemble a picture of this strange new world. An evocative narrative of the people who do science and the challenges that confront them, The Evening Star is an illuminating portrait not only of Venus's character but of Earth's as well, and of the place of the two siblings in the family of planets. "What makes this a particularly gripping story is that the author had extraordinary access to the project scientists. The result is a superb first-hand account of the Magellan scientists grapplingwith the bizarre geology of a world in the grip of a runaway greenhouse effect... Lucid, informative, and entertaining."--Air & Space. "A unique perspective on the Magellan program, seen through the eyes of the engineers and scientists working on it."--Christian Science Monitor.
Download or read book The Computer Revolution written by Edmund C. Berkeley and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.
Download or read book Way Out There In the Blue written by Frances FitzGerald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-02-21 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Way Out There in the Blue is a major work of history by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Fire in the Lake. Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan, the most puzzling president of the last half of the twentieth century. Reagan's presidency and the man himself have always been difficult to fathom. His influence was enormous, and the few powerful ideas he espoused remain with us still -- yet he seemed nothing more than a charming, simple-minded, inattentive actor. FitzGerald shows us a Reagan far more complex than the man we thought we knew. A master of the American language and of self-presentation, the greatest storyteller ever to occupy the Oval Office, Reagan created a compelling public persona that bore little relationship to himself. The real Ronald Reagan -- the Reagan who emerges from FitzGerald's book -- was a gifted politician with a deep understanding of the American national psyche and at the same time an executive almost totally disengaged from the policies of his administration and from the people who surrounded him. The idea that America should have an impregnable shield against nuclear weapons was Reagan's invention. His famous Star Wars speech, in which he promised us such a shield and called upon scientists to produce it, gave rise to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan used his sure understanding of American mythology, history and politics to persuade the country that a perfect defense against Soviet nuclear weapons would be possible, even though the technology did not exist and was not remotely feasible. His idea turned into a multibillion-dollar research program. SDI played a central role in U.S.-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War, and in a different form it survives to this day. Drawing on prodigious research, including interviews with the participants, FitzGerald offers new insights into American foreign policy in the Reagan era. She gives us revealing portraits of major players in Reagan's administration, including George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan and Paul Nitze, and she provides a radically new view of what happened at the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington and Moscow. FitzGerald describes the fierce battles among Reagan's advisers and the frightening increase of Cold War tensions during Reagan's first term. She shows how the president who presided over the greatest peacetime military buildup came to espouse the elimination of nuclear weapons, and how the man who insisted that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire" came to embrace the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and to proclaim an end to the Cold War long before most in Washington understood that it had ended. Way Out There in the Blue is a ground-breaking history of the American side of the end of the Cold War. Both appalling and funny, it is a black comedy in which Reagan, playing the role he wrote for himself, is the hero.
Download or read book High Integrity Ada written by John Gilbert Presslie Barnes and published by Addison-Wesley Professional. This book was released on 1997 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pack introduces the SPARK language and its associated tools and teaches the principles of writing safety-critical software using SPARK, a subset of the Ada 95 language. SPARK was specifically developed to serve industries developing high-integrity, safety-critical software with a language and associated toolset which increase the likelihood of the program behaving as intended.
