Download or read book Rock Breaks Scissors written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to outguessing everything from multiple-choice tests to the office football pool to the stock market. People are predictable even when they try not to be. William Poundstone demonstrates how to turn this fact to personal advantage in scores of everyday situations, from playing the lottery to buying a home. ROCK BREAKS SCISSORS is mind-reading for real life. Will the next tennis serve go right or left? Will the market go up or down? Most people are poor at that kind of predicting. We are hard-wired to make bum bets on "trends" and "winning streaks" that are illusions. Yet ultimately we're all in the business of anticipating the actions of others. Poundstone reveals how to overcome the errors and improve the accuracy of your own outguessing. ROCK BREAKS SCISSORS is a hands-on guide to turning life's odds in your favor.
Download or read book Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2012-01-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.
Download or read book Rock Paper Scissors written by Alice Feeney and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Feeney lives up to her reputation as the “queen of the twist”...This page-turner will keep you guessing.” —Real Simple Think you know the person you married? Think again... Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts--paper, cotton, pottery, tin--and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after. Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget. Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.
Download or read book The Doomsday Calculation written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.
Download or read book How Would You Move Mount Fuji written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2003-05-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, employers are using tough and tricky questions to gauge job candidates' intelligence, imagination, and problem-solving ability -- qualities needed to survive in today's hypercompetitive global marketplace. For the first time, William Poundstone reveals the toughest questions used at Microsoft and other Fortune 500 companies -- and supplies the answers. He traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays jigsaw puzzles as a competitive sport), the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly led one job seeker to smash a forty-third-story window), and the bizarre excesses of today's hiring managers (who may start off your interview with a box of Legos or a game of virtual Russian roulette). How Would You Move Mount Fuji? is an indispensable book for anyone in business. Managers seeking the most talented employees will learn to incorporate puzzle interviews in their search for the top candidates. Job seekers will discover how to tackle even the most brain-busting questions, and gain the advantage that could win the job of a lifetime. And anyone who has ever dreamed of going up against the best minds in business may discover that these puzzles are simply a lot of fun. Why are beer cans tapered on the end, anyway?
Download or read book How Do You Fight a Horse Sized Duck written by William Poundstone and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to succeed at interview mind games and win job offers at A‑list companies, with more than eighty difficult and devious questions, puzzles, and brain teasers Each year about 28 million Americans begin a search for a new job. Many more live in the age of the permanent job search, their online profiles eternally awaiting a better offer. Job seekers are more mobile and better informed than ever, aspiring to work for employers offering an appealing culture, a robust menu of perks, and opportunities for personal fulfillment and advancement. The result is that millions of applications stream to the handful of companies that regularly top listings of the best companies to work for: Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alphabet, Disney, SpaceX, Oracle, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, and others. Tesla has received as many as 200 applications for each open position. How do selective employers choose which people to hire? It’s through interviews asking uniquely demanding questions testing imagination, persistence, and creativity, like: Can an astronaut throw a baseball so it hits Earth? If you had $2,000, how would you double it in 24 hours? How is a milk carton like a plane seat? Chicken McNuggets come in boxes of 6, 9, and 20. What’s the largest number of McNuggets that McDonald’s can’t sell you? How many dogs in the world have the exact same number of hairs? How Do You Fight a Horse-Sized Duck? explores the new world of interviewing at A-list employers. It reveals more than eighty notoriously challenging interview questions and supplies both answers and a general strategy for creative problem-solving.
Download or read book Rock Paper Scissors written by Matty Dalrymple and published by William Kingsfield Publishers. This book was released on with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Dalrymple has written a fast-paced, complex thriller that can keep a reader engaged and off-kilter until its foreboding conclusion. ... A deadly game involving a dangerous girl that does have a winner: the reader.” —Kirkus Reviews “Not since Carrie have we seen a character excite such fear in those forced to learn her terrible secret the hard way.” —Robert Blake Whitehill, Bestselling Author of The Ben Blackshaw Series “Not since Stephen King’s 'Firestarter' has someone like Lizzy Ballard come along, a young woman who fears herself even more than she fears others.” —Suzanne Chazin, Author of the Jimmy Vega Mystery Series She was born with an extraordinary ability … and while she tries to hide it, others seek to control it. Who will win this deadly zero-sum game? Rock breaks scissors. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers rock. The rules are simple—except when it's people's lives at stake. When Lizzy’s parents discover the damage she can do with her mind, they hide her away, trying to save her from life as a human lab rat … and trying to save others from her power. But they can't hide her forever. Little do they know that professed friends are actually enemies who will eliminate anyone who gets in the way of their goal of turning Lizzy’s power to their own ends. As her protectors are picked off one by one, will Lizzy be able to escape this deadly zero-sum game? Find out in this first installment of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers Trilogy!
Download or read book Head in the Cloud written by William Poundstone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips. You might think that we are better-informed than ever, but there’s one thing we can’t ask Google: ‘What should I be googling?’ The way we consume information in the digital age has been blamed for driving political polarisation and leaving us unable to agree on basic facts. It’s also making us stupider. Personalised news feeds and social media echo chambers narrow our potential knowledge base. By now, we don’t even know what we don’t know. In Head in the Cloud, William Poundstone investigates the true worth of knowledge. An entertaining manifesto underpinned by big data analysis and illustrated by eye-opening anecdotes, it reveals the surprising benefits of broadening your horizons and provides an unnerving look at the consequences of being ill-informed.
Download or read book Labyrinths of Reason written by William Poundstone and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sharply intelligent, consistently provocative book takes the reader on an astonishing, thought-provoking voyage into the realm of delightful uncertainty--a world of paradox in which logical argument leads to contradiction and common sense is seemingly rendered irrelevant.
Download or read book Energizing Brain Breaks written by David Sladkey and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fastest way to keep your students engaged It′s an all too familiar sight: that glazed look in your students′ eyes. They′ve been sitting or listening for too long. What they need is an Energizing Brain Break--a quick physical and mental challenge that′s like hitting the refresh button on your computer, but for your students. This practical full-color flip book contains 50 highly effective, classroom-tested brain breaks that you can put to immediate use across the grades. No preparation or supplies are required; just one to two minutes of your time when you see a need. You′ll find pictures, directions, and online videos for activities such as: Slap Count Letters: students alternate slapping each other′s hands while spelling a word Rock, Paper, Scissors, Math: partners reveal a certain number of fingers to each other, and the first person to add them together wins Bizz-Buzz: groups of students count from 1 to 40 using a combination of numbers and words There′s no better way to help students remain sharp and alert, reenergized to take on the next task of learning!
Download or read book Rock Manning Goes for Broke written by Charlie Jane Anders and published by . This book was released on 2018-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Priceless written by William Poundstone and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prada stores carry a few obscenely expensive items in order to boost sales for everything else (which look like bargains in comparison). People used to download music for free, then Steve Jobs convinced them to pay. How? By charging 99 cents. That price has a hypnotic effect: the profit margin of the 99 Cents Only store is twice that of Wal-Mart. Why do text messages cost money, while e-mails are free? Why do jars of peanut butter keep getting smaller in order to keep the price the "same"? The answer is simple: prices are a collective hallucination. In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate "fair" prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn't taken long for marketers to apply these findings. "Price consultants" advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, "sale" ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.
Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?* The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery--from the Big Bang through the end of time. *Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.
Download or read book Why Things Break written by Mark Eberhart and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know— • It took more than an iceberg to sink the Titanic. • The Challenger disaster was predicted. • Unbreakable glass dinnerware had its origin in railroad lanterns. • A football team cannot lose momentum. • Mercury thermometers are prohibited on airplanes for a crucial reason. • Kryptonite bicycle locks are easily broken. “Things fall apart” is more than a poetic insight—it is a fundamental property of the physical world. Why Things Break explores the fascinating question of what holds things together (for a while), what breaks them apart, and why the answers have a direct bearing on our everyday lives. When Mark Eberhart was growing up in the 1960s, he learned that splitting an atom leads to a terrible explosion—which prompted him to worry that when he cut into a stick of butter, he would inadvertently unleash a nuclear cataclysm. Years later, as a chemistry professor, he remembered this childhood fear when he began to ponder the fact that we know more about how to split an atom than we do about how a pane of glass breaks. In Why Things Break, Eberhart leads us on a remarkable and entertaining exploration of all the cracks, clefts, fissures, and faults examined in the field of materials science and the many astonishing discoveries that have been made about everything from the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger to the crashing of your hard drive. Understanding why things break is crucial to modern life on every level, from personal safety to macroeconomics, but as Eberhart reveals here, it is also an area of cutting-edge science that is as provocative as it is illuminating.
Download or read book Erosion written by Terry Tempest Williams and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timely and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist In Erosion, Terry Tempest Williams's fierce, spirited, and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert. She sizes up the continuing assaults on America's public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of democracy. She asks: "How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?" We know the elements of erosion: wind, water, and time. They have shaped the spectacular physical landscape of our nation. Here, Williams bravely and brilliantly explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. She examines the dire cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument—sacred lands to Native Peoples of the American Southwest; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry that has led to a panorama in which "oil rigs light up the horizon." And she testifies that the climate crisis is not an abstraction, offering as evidence the drought outside her door and, at times, within herself. These essays are Williams's call to action, blazing a way forward through difficult and dispiriting times. We will find new territory—emotional, geographical, communal. The erosion of desert lands exposes the truth of change. What has been weathered, worn, and whittled away is as powerful as what remains. Our undoing is also our becoming. Erosion is a book for this moment, political and spiritual at once, written by one of our greatest naturalists, essayists, and defenders of the environment. She reminds us that beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone.
Download or read book Scissors and Rock written by Manfred J. Holler and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-22 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces readers to basic game theory as a tool to deal with strategic decision problems, helping them to understand the complexity of such problems – to extract a solution, if possible – and to manage the complexity by revising the game if appropriate. The authors discuss basic decision situations modeled as Prisoners’ Dilemma, Chicken Game, and Stag Hunt Game, as well as concepts like the Nash equilibrium, Trembling Hand Perfectness, Rationalizable Strategies and the Theory of Moves to introduce game theoretic thinking. Further, the book presents pioneers of strategic thinking, e.g., Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Goethe, and includes cases of conflict and cooperation to illustrate practical applications. Readers learn to apply game theory in business and in daily life – to manage their decision problems and to better understand the decision problems of others.
Download or read book The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide written by Douglas Walker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-10-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rock Paper Scissors (RPS), the ultimate decision-making tool, is played the world over. By the late twentieth century, however, the sport's illustrious governing body, the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, had fallen on hard times. It was then that brothers Douglas and Graham Walker boldly took up the challenge to restore the World RPS Society to its former glory, and now they bring you the ultimate strategy guide to this time-honored game. The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide covers the whole RPS scene from the school yard to the pro level, including RPS culture around the world, the personality behind each throw, and secrets of the RPS masters. Learn how to intimidate your opponent and anticipate his next move. Get the answers to burning questions such as "Does Rock crush Scissors, or are Scissors dulled by Rock?" and "Who invented RPS?" Forget about flipping a coin or consulting your Magic 8 Ball -- Rock Paper Scissors is the only decision-making tool anyone needs.
