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 333 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 Linguistics For Dummies written by Rose-Marie Dechaine and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-08 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating, fun, and friendly way to understand the science behind human language Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics students study how languages are constructed, how they function, how they affect society, and how humans learn language. From understanding other languages to teaching computers to communicate, linguistics plays a vital role in society. Linguistics For Dummies tracks to a typical college-level introductory linguistics course and arms you with the confidence, knowledge, and know-how to score your highest. Understand the science behind human language Grasp how language is constructed Score your highest in college-level linguistics If you're enrolled in an introductory linguistics course or simply have a love of human language, Linguistics For Dummies is your one-stop resource for unlocking the science of the spoken word.

Download or read book Natural Language Processing with Python written by Steven Bird and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2009-06-12 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a highly accessible introduction to natural language processing, the field that supports a variety of language technologies, from predictive text and email filtering to automatic summarization and translation. With it, you'll learn how to write Python programs that work with large collections of unstructured text. You'll access richly annotated datasets using a comprehensive range of linguistic data structures, and you'll understand the main algorithms for analyzing the content and structure of written communication. Packed with examples and exercises, Natural Language Processing with Python will help you: Extract information from unstructured text, either to guess the topic or identify "named entities" Analyze linguistic structure in text, including parsing and semantic analysis Access popular linguistic databases, including WordNet and treebanks Integrate techniques drawn from fields as diverse as linguistics and artificial intelligence This book will help you gain practical skills in natural language processing using the Python programming language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) open source library. If you're interested in developing web applications, analyzing multilingual news sources, or documenting endangered languages -- or if you're simply curious to have a programmer's perspective on how human language works -- you'll find Natural Language Processing with Python both fascinating and immensely useful.

Download or read book Counseling Content Providers in the Digital Age written by Kathleen Conkey, Elissa Hecker and Pamela C. Jones and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Fireman written by Joe Hill and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman. The fireman is coming. Stay cool. No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child. Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged. In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

Download or read book Masks of the Illuminati written by Robert A. Wilson and published by Dell. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This American underground classic is a rollicking cosmic mystery featuring Albert Einstein and James Joyce as the ultimate space/time detectives. One fateful evening in a suitably dark, beer-soaked Swiss rathskeller, a wild and obscure Irishman named James Joyce would become the drinking partner of an unknown physics professor called Albert Einstein. And on that same momentous night, Sir John Babcock, a terror-stricken young Englishman, would rush through the tavern door bringing a mystery that only the two most brilliant minds of the century could solve . . . or perhaps bringing only a figment of his imagination born of the paranoia of our times. An outrageous, raunchy ride through the twists and turns of mind and space, Masks of the Illuminati runs amok with all our fondest conspiracy theories to show us the truth behind the laughter . . . and the laughter in the truth. Praise for Masks of the Illuminati “I was astonished and delighted . . . Robert Anton Wilson managed to reverse every mental polarity in me, as if I had been pulled through infinity.”—Philip K. Dick “[Wilson is] erudite, witty, and genuinely scary.”—Publishers Weekly “A dazzling barker hawking tickets to the most thrilling tilt-a-whirls and daring loop-o-planes on the midway to a higher consciousness.”—Tom Robbins “Wilson is one of the most profound, important, scientific philosophers of this century—scholarly, witty, hip, and hopeful.”—Timothy Leary

Download or read book The Sound of Music Story written by Tom Santopietro and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fans of The Sound of Music will find plenty to please them in [this] history of the sweeping musical.” —Kirkus Reviews On March 2, 1965, The Sound of Music was released in the United States and the love affair between moviegoers and the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical began. Rarely has a film captured the love and imagination of the moviegoing public the way The Sound of Music did as it blended history, music, stunning Austrian locations, heartfelt emotion—and the yodeling of Julie Andrews—into a monster hit. Now, Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate book for fans with behind the scenes stories of the filming, new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others, photographs, and more. He looks back at the real life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox. He reveals the actors who were also considered for the roles of Maria and Captain von Trapp, and provides a historian’s critical analysis of the careers of director Robert Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman. He also takes a look at the critical controversy that greeted the movie, its relationship to the turbulent 1960s, and the superstardom that engulfed Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music Story is for everyone who cherishes this American classic.

Download or read book The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age written by Delia Chiaro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this accessible book, Delia Chiaro provides a fresh overview of the language of jokes in a globalized and digitalized world. The book shows how, while on the one hand the lingua-cultural nuts and bolts of jokes have remained unchanged over time, on the other, the time-space compression brought about by modern technology has generated new settings and new ways of joking and playing with language. The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age covers a wide range of settings from social networks, e-mails and memes, to more traditional fields of film and TV (especially sitcoms and game shows) and advertising. Chiaro’s consideration of the increasingly virtual context of jokes delights with both up-to-date examples and frequent reference to the most central theories of comedy. This lively book will be essential reading for any student or researcher working in the area of language and humour and will be of interest to those in language and media and sociolinguistics.

Download or read book The Language of Jokes written by Delia Chiaro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-12-05 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly readable and thought-provoking book, Delia Chiaro explores the pragmatics of word play, using frameworks normally adopted in descriptive linguistics. Using examples from personally recorded conversations, she examines the structure of jokes, quips, riddles and asides. Chiaro explores degrees of conformity to and deviation from established conventions; the `tellability' of jokes, and the interpretative role of the listener; the creative use of puns, word play and discourse. The emphasis in her analysis is on sociocultural contexts for the production and reception of jokes, and she examines the extent to which jokes are both universal in their appeal, and specific to a particular culture.

Download or read book Wright for America written by Robin Lamont and published by . This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pryor Wright's ultra-conservative radio show has millions of devout fans who are sure that the slurs and wild accusations fired at the liberal left prove him a true patriot. But when his venomous rantings catch Maren Garrity's twin brother in the crossfire, the struggling actress pursues her own style of justice and enlists a troupe of fellow unemployed actors to teach Wright just how powerful words can be.

Download or read book False Impression written by Jeffrey Archer and published by Pan. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When an aristocratic old lady is brutally murdered in her country home the night before 9/11, it takes all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the connection between her and the possible motive for her death - a priceless Van Gogh painting. It's a young woman in the North Tower when the first plane crashed into the building who has the courage and determination to take on both sides of the law and avenge the old lady's death. Anna Petrescu is missing, presumed dead, after 9/11 and she uses her new status to escape from America, only to be pursued across the world from Toronto to London, to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bucharest, but it is only when she returns to New York that the mystery unfolds. Why are so many people willing to risk their own lives and others' to own the Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear?

Download or read book About Face written by Dorothy Ponedel and published by . This book was released on 2018-02-25 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinners and saints without greasepaint make for memorable close-ups. Enjoy Dottie's confidential revelations about Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Joan Blondell, Paulette Goddard, Barbara Stanwyck, and others.

Download or read book Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Entertainments written by Martin Gardner and published by American Mathematical Soc.. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games columns in Scientific American inspired and entertained several generations of mathematicians and scientists. Gardner in his crystal-clear prose illuminated corners of mathematics, especially recreational mathematics, that most people had no idea existed. His playful spirit and inquisitive nature invite the reader into an exploration of beautiful mathematical ideas along with him. These columns were both a revelation and a gift when he wrote them; no one--before Gardner--had written about mathematics like this. They continue to be a marvel. This is the original 1986 edition and contains columns published from 1972-1974.

Download or read book Animal Minds written by Donald R. Griffin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Animal Minds, Donald R. Griffin takes us on a guided tour of the recent explosion of scientific research on animal mentality. Are animals consciously aware of anything, or are they merely living machines, incapable of conscious thoughts or emotional feelings? How can we tell? Such questions have long fascinated Griffin, who has been a pioneer at the forefront of research in animal cognition for decades, and is recognized as one of the leading behavioral ecologists of the twentieth century. With this new edition of his classic book, which he has completely revised and updated, Griffin moves beyond considerations of animal cognition to argue that scientists can and should investigate questions of animal consciousness. Using examples from studies of species ranging from chimpanzees and dolphins to birds and honeybees, he demonstrates how communication among animals can serve as a "window" into what animals think and feel, just as human speech and nonverbal communication tell us most of what we know about the thoughts and feelings of other people. Even when they don't communicate about it, animals respond with sometimes surprising versatility to new situations for which neither their genes nor their previous experiences have prepared them, and Griffin discusses what these behaviors can tell us about animal minds. He also reviews the latest research in cognitive neuroscience, which has revealed startling similarities in the neural mechanisms underlying brain functioning in both humans and other animals. Finally, in four chapters greatly expanded for this edition, Griffin considers the latest scientific research on animal consciousness, pro and con, and explores its profound philosophical and ethical implications.

Download or read book Honor s Shadow written by Voula Grand and published by . This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honor and Madalena were rivals for the love of Thomas when they were young. Now middle aged, their paths have crossed again, awakening old feelings of rivalry and vengeance. Both women struggle to maintain control, as their lives become intertwined once more. A series of events have awakened disturbing memories in Honor.

Download or read book City of Immortals written by Carolyn Campbell and published by Goff Books. This book was released on 2019-10-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first-person account of a legendary necropolis will delight Francophiles, tourists and armchair travelers, while enriching the experience of taphophiles (cemetery lovers) and aficionados of art and architecture, mystery and romance. Carolyn Campbell's evocative images are complemented by those of renowned landscape photographer Joe Cornish. "City of Immortals" celebrates the novelty and eccentricity of Père-Lachaise Cemetery through the engrossing story of the history of the site established by Napoleonic decree along with portraits of the last moments of the cultural icons buried within its walls. In addition to several "conversations" with some of the high-profile residents, three guided tours are provided along with an illustrated pull-out map featuring the grave sites of eighty-four architects, artists, writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers and actors, including Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison of the Doors. Frédéric Chopin, Georges Bizet, Edith Piaf, Maria Callas, Isadora Duncan, Eugène Delacroix, Gertrude Stein, Amedeo Modigliani, Sarah Bernhardt, Simone Signoret, Colette and Marcel Proust.

Download or read book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Includes 77 of Dennett's most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders.O