Download or read book Information written by Ann Blair and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 902 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Information technology shapes nearly every part of modern life, and debates about information--its meaning, effects, and applications--are central to a range of fields, from economics, technology, and politics to library science, media studies, and cultural studies. This rich, unique resource traces the history of information with an approach designed to draw connections across fields and perspectives, and provide essential context for our current age of information. Clear, accessible, and authoritative, the book opens with a series of articles that provide a narrative history of information from premodern practices to twenty-first-century information culture. This section focuses on major developments in the creation, storage, search, exchange, management, and manipulation of information, as well as the many meanings and uses of information over time. Coverage spans Europe, North America, and many other places and periods, including the medieval Islamic world and early modern East Asia, as well as the emergence of global networks. A second, alphabetical section includes more than 100 concise articles that cover specific concepts (e.g., data, intellectual property, privacy); formats and genres (books, databases, maps, newspapers, scrolls, social media); people (archivists, diplomats and spies, readers, secretaries, teachers); practices (censorship, forecasting, learning, surveilling, translating); processes (digitization, quantification, storage and search); systems (bureaucracy, platforms, telecommunications); technologies (algorithms, cameras, computers), and much more. The book concludes with an informative glossary, defining terms from "analog/digital" to "World Wide Web.""--

Download or read book Super Volcanoes What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond written by Robin George Andrews and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exhilarating, time-traveling journey to the solar system’s strangest and most awe-inspiring volcanoes. Volcanoes are capable of acts of pyrotechnical prowess verging on magic: they spout black magma more fluid than water, create shimmering cities of glass at the bottom of the ocean and frozen lakes of lava on the moon, and can even tip entire planets over. Between lava that melts and re-forms the landscape, and noxious volcanic gases that poison the atmosphere, volcanoes have threatened life on Earth countless times in our planet’s history. Yet despite their reputation for destruction, volcanoes are inseparable from the creation of our planet. A lively and utterly fascinating guide to these geologic wonders, Super Volcanoes revels in the incomparable power of volcanic eruptions past and present, Earthbound and otherwise—and recounts the daring and sometimes death-defying careers of the scientists who study them. Science journalist and volcanologist Robin George Andrews explores how these eruptions reveal secrets about the worlds to which they belong, describing the stunning ways in which volcanoes can sculpt the sea, land, and sky, and even influence the machinery that makes or breaks the existence of life. Walking us through the mechanics of some of the most infamous eruptions on Earth, Andrews outlines what we know about how volcanoes form, erupt, and evolve, as well as what scientists are still trying to puzzle out. How can we better predict when a deadly eruption will occur—and protect communities in the danger zone? Is Earth’s system of plate tectonics, unique in the solar system, the best way to forge a planet that supports life? And if life can survive and even thrive in Earth’s extreme volcanic environments—superhot, superacidic, and supersaline surroundings previously thought to be completely inhospitable—where else in the universe might we find it? Traveling from Hawai‘i, Yellowstone, Tanzania, and the ocean floor to the moon, Venus, and Mars, Andrews illuminates the cutting-edge discoveries and lingering scientific mysteries surrounding these phenomenal forces of nature.

Download or read book Ponderings II VI written by Martin Heidegger and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ponderings II–VI begins the much-anticipated English translation of Martin Heidegger's "Black Notebooks." In a series of small notebooks with black covers, Heidegger confided sundry personal observations and ideas over the course of 40 years. The five notebooks in this volume were written between 1931 and 1938 and thus chronicle Heidegger's year as Rector of the University of Freiburg during the Nazi era. Published in German as volume 94 of the Complete Works, these challenging and fascinating journal entries shed light on Heidegger's philosophical development regarding his central question of what it means to be, but also on his relation to National Socialism and the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1930s in Germany. Readers previously familiar only with excerpts taken out of context may now determine for themselves whether the controversy and censure the "Black Notebooks" have received are deserved or not. This faithful translation by Richard Rojcewicz opens the texts in a way that captures their philosophical and political content while disentangling Heidegger's notoriously difficult language.

Download or read book Other Birds written by Sarah Addison Allen and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller From the acclaimed author of Garden Spells comes an enchanting tale of lost souls, lonely strangers, secrets that shape us, and how the right flock can guide you home. Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It’s called The Dellawisp and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors including a girl on the run, a grieving chef whose comfort food does not comfort him, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written. When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she is thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there. She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. To find their way they have to learn how to trust each other, confront their deepest fears, and let go of what haunts them. Delightful and atmospheric, Other Birds is filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Download or read book The Uninhabitable Earth written by David Wallace-Wells and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

Download or read book A Consequential President written by Michael D'Antonio and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to criticism and disappointment from the Left, A Consequential President offers a bold assessment of the lasting successes and major achievements of President Obama. Had he only saved the U.S. economy with his economic recovery act and his program to restore the auto industry, President Obama would have been considered a successful president. He achieved so much more, however, that he can be counted as one of our most consequential presidents. With The Affordable Care Act, he ended the long-running crisis of escalating costs and inadequate access of treatment that had long-threatened the well-being of 50 million Americans. His energy policies drove down the cost of power generated by the sun, the wind, and even fossil fuels. His efforts on climate change produced the Paris Agreement, the first treaty to address global warming in a meaningful way, and his diplomacy produced a dramatic reduction in the nuclear threat posed by Iran. Add the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the normalization of relations with Cuba, and his “pivot” toward Asia, and President Obama's triumphs abroad match those at home. Most importantly, as the first African-American president, he navigated race relations and a rising tide of bigotry, including some who challenged his citizenship, while also fighting a Republican Party determined to make him one-term president. As a result, Obama's greatest achievement was restoring dignity and ethics to the office of the president, proof that he delivered his campaign promise of hope and change.

Download or read book The Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

Download or read book Cultured written by Katherine Harmon Courage and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing look at the 300 trillion microorganisms that keep us healthy—and the foods they need to thrive These days, probiotic yogurt and other "gut-friendly" foods line supermarket shelves. But what's the best way to feed our all-important microbiome—and what is a microbiome, anyway? In this engaging and eye-opening book, science journalist Katherine Harmon Courage investigates these questions, presenting a deep dive into the ancient food traditions and the latest research for maintaining a healthy gut. Courage’s insights include: • Meet your microbiome: What it is, how it works, and why it's essential for our immune system--and overall health • Gut-friendly food traditions: A guided tour of artisanal makers of yogurt, kimchi, kefir, kombucha, olives, cocoa, and other vibrant, ancient foods from around the world that feed our microbiome (along with simple recipes for curious at-home cooks) • Cutting-edge science: A first-hand look at some of the top lab facilities where microbiologists are working to better understand the human gut and how to feed it for good health Equal parts science explainer, culinary investigation, and global roadmap for healthy eating, Cultured offers a wealth of information for anyone interested in making smart food choices in our not-so-gut-friendly modern world.

Download or read book Some Assembly Required written by Neil Shubin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exciting and accessible new view of the evolution of human and animal life on Earth. From the author of national bestseller, Your Inner Fish, this extraordinary journey of discovery spans centuries, as explorers and scientists seek to understand the origins of life's immense diversity. “Fossils, DNA, scientists with a penchant for suits of armor—what’s not to love?”—BBC Wildlife Magazine Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened. We have now arrived at a remarkable moment—prehistoric fossils coupled with new DNA technology have given us the tools to answer some of the basic questions of our existence: How do big changes in evolution happen? Is our presence on Earth the product of mere chance? This new science reveals a multibillion-year evolutionary history filled with twists and turns, trial and error, accident and invention. In Some Assembly Required, Neil Shubin takes readers on a journey of discovery spanning centuries, as explorers and scientists seek to understand the origins of life's immense diversity.

Download or read book Stop Staring at Screens written by Tanya Goodin and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology was designed to make our lives easier, and yet it's one of the biggest drivers of family rifts and stress. Making healthy and realistic decisions about when and where you really need technology can be tricky but is essential for restoring harmony in your home. Stop Staring at Screens has the answers you need. * Find sanity-saving solutions and practical tips * Follow diagnostic quizzes * Identify key triggers * Address common issues * Learn what works best for you and your family

Download or read book Introduction to Academic Writing written by Alice Oshima and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 2007 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book helps "students to master the standard organizational patterns of the paragraph and the basic concepts of essay writing. The text's time-proven approach integrates the study of rhetorical patterns and the writing process with extensive practice in sentence structure and mechanics." - product description.

Download or read book Good Economics for Hard Times written by Abhijit V. Banerjee and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it. Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change--these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there--what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable. In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.

Download or read book Slaughterhouse Five written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Dial Press Trade Paperback. This book was released on 1999-01-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.

Download or read book Destinations of a Lifetime written by National Geographic Society (U.S.) and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Plan where, when, and how to plot your adventure with National Geographic's worldwide network of travel experts and insider tips from locals"--Cover.

Download or read book Nothing Happened written by Susan A. Crane and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past is what happened. History is what we remember and write about that past, the narratives we craft to make sense out of our memories and their sources. But what does it mean to look at the past and to remember that "nothing happened"? Why might we feel as if "nothing is the way it was"? This book transforms these utterly ordinary observations and redefines "Nothing" as something we have known and can remember. "Nothing" has been a catch-all term for everything that is supposedly uninteresting or is just not there. It will take some—possibly considerable—mental adjustment before we can see Nothing as Susan A. Crane does here, with a capital "n." But Nothing has actually been happening all along. As Crane shows in her witty and provocative discussion, Nothing is nothing less than fascinating. When Nothing has changed but we think that it should have, we might call that injustice; when Nothing has happened over a long, slow period of time, we might call that boring. Justice and boredom have histories. So too does being relieved or disappointed when Nothing happens—for instance, when a forecasted end of the world does not occur, and millennial movements have to regroup. By paying attention to how we understand Nothing to be happening in the present, what it means to "know Nothing" or to "do Nothing," we can begin to ask how those experiences will be remembered. Susan A. Crane moves effortlessly between different modes of seeing Nothing, drawing on visual analysis and cultural studies to suggest a new way of thinking about history. By remembering how Nothing happened, or how Nothing is the way it was, or how Nothing has changed, we can recover histories that were there all along.

Download or read book Why Don t Students Like School written by Daniel T. Willingham and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-06-10 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Easy-to-apply, scientifically-based approaches for engaging students in the classroom Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham focuses his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His book will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn. It reveals-the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences. Nine, easy-to-understand principles with clear applications for the classroom Includes surprising findings, such as that intelligence is malleable, and that you cannot develop "thinking skills" without facts How an understanding of the brain's workings can help teachers hone their teaching skills "Mr. Willingham's answers apply just as well outside the classroom. Corporate trainers, marketers and, not least, parents -anyone who cares about how we learn-should find his book valuable reading." —Wall Street Journal

Download or read book The Blackbird Girls written by Anne Blankman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER A SYDNEY TAYLOR MIDDLE GRADE HONOR BOOK Like Ruta Sepetys for middle grade, Anne Blankman pens a poignant and timeless story of friendship that twines together moments in underexplored history. On a spring morning, neighbors Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work--Chernobyl--has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna. In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person. Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother's secret, one that could put all their lives in danger. And both of them discover something they've wished for: a best friend. But how far would you go to save your best friend's life? Would you risk your own? Told in alternating perspectives among three girls--Valentina and Oksana in 1986 and Rifka in 1941--this story shows that hatred, intolerance, and oppression are no match for the power of true friendship.