Download or read book Transhuman Space Fifth Wave written by John F. Zeigler and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Third Wave was information. The Fourth Wave was biotech. The Fifth Wave is a combination of nanotechnology, memetics, and artificial intelligence, and it's changing mankind more than the first four waves put together. Transhuman Space: Fifth Wave is an overview of our home planet at the end of the 21st century. Most humans (and other sapient life) still live on Earth, doing business, raising families, and fighting wars just as they have always done. Humanity and its partners may be scattering into deep space, but Earth is still the center of the human universe . . . crowded, busy, fast-moving, and still picking up speed. Fifth Wave includes new racial packages, plus rules for cutting-edge technology: virtuality nodes, software for network intrusion and defense, and various land, sea and air vehicles of interest to adventurers. Welcome home. It's different here.

Download or read book Under Pressure written by Constantine Thomas and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2003-09-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Klaus Schwab and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

Download or read book Transhuman Space Powered by Gurps written by David Pulver and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the year 2100. Humans have colonized the solar system. China and America struggle for control of Mars. The Royal Navy patrols the asteroid belt. Nanotechnology has transformed life on Earth forever, and gene-enhanced humans share the world with artificial intelligences and robotic cybershells. Our solar system has become a setting as exciting and alien as any interstellar empire. Pirate spaceships hijacking black holes . . . sentient computers and artificial "bioroids" demanding human rights . . . nanotechnology and mind control . . . Transhuman Space is cutting-edge science-fiction adventure that begins where cyberpunk ends. This Powered by GURPS line was created by David L. Pulver and illustrated by Christopher Shy. The core book, Transhuman Space, opens with nearly one hundred pages of world and background material. This edition includes a customized GURPS Lite - no other books are required to use it, although the GURPS Basic Set for Third Edition and GURPS Compendium I are recommended for GMs.

Download or read book Gurps Bio Tech written by David Morgan-Mar and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future is Alive "Who needs chrome, pal? Meat is where it's at now. Mother Nature always did it best -- she just needed a little help. Get down to the black clinic, old-timer, and you can be 15 again. That is, if you still want to be human at all." It's the technology of the posthuman age: biotech! Upgrade your old body with steroids and smart drugs, transplants, and viral nano . . . or just get a new one. Maybe you don't think being human is so great? Then improve on nature with eugenics and gene-fixing. Or just go parahuman: if you love cats, become one! The technology's changing fast, but you'll have lots of time to get used to it -- death is only a temporary inconvenience with cryonics and immortality drugs. And who needs silicon and steel? Vatbrain biocomputers are where it's really at! But it's not just about the future. GURPS Bio-Tech includes a full range of 19th, 20th, and 21st-century medical equipment, from early vaccines to surgical robots, along with game stats for the world's most deadly diseases. GURPS Bio-Tech also includes a complete set of character templates for biotech professions, rules for biotech magic, and two original campaign settings: an alternate Earth ruled by a clone of Alexander the Great, and a living starship on its way to colonize an alien world! Say goodbye to your old body. Have you upgraded your genetics this year? This is the second edition of GURPS Bio-Tech. It has been revised to the GURPS Fourth Edition rules and expanded to cover medicine, drugs, magic, and new technologies. Some entries were introduced in GURPS Space, GURPS Robots, and the Transhuman Space series.

Download or read book Red Plenty written by Francis Spufford and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous." —The Times (London) Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending. Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.

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 Gurps Cyberpunk written by Loyd Blankenship and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 1990-11-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -- The book that was confiscated by the Secret Service because they thought it contained hacking secrets! (It doesn't) -- Nominated for the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement.

Download or read book The Transhumanist Wager written by Zoltan Istvan and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosopher, entrepreneur, and former National Geographic and New York Times correspondent Zoltan Istvan presents his visionary novel, The Transhumanist Wager, as a seminal statement of our times. Scorned by over 500 publishers and literary agents around the world, his philosophical thriller has been called "revolutionary" and "socially dangerous" by readers, scholars, and religious authorities. The novel debuts a challenging original philosophy, which rebuffs modern civilization by inviting the end of the human species-and declaring the onset of something greater. Set in the present day, the novel tells the story of transhumanist Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology. Fighting against him are fanatical religious groups, economically depressed governments, and mystic Zoe Bach: a dazzling trauma surgeon and the love of his life, whose belief in spirituality and the afterlife is absolute. Exiled from America and reeling from personal tragedy, Knights forges a new nation of willing scientists on the world's largest seasteading project, Transhumania. When the world declares war against the floating city, demanding an end to its renegade and godless transhuman experiments and ambitions, Knights strikes back, leaving the planet forever changed.

Download or read book Why the West Rules For Now written by Ian Morris and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 767 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.

Download or read book Gurps Voodoo written by C. J. Carella and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War takes the myths of the mystical religions known as Voudoun and Santeria and gives them a twist, placing the believers and practitioners of Voodoo in the middle of a cosmic struggle. Voodoo priests and the shamans of many ancients cultures have unique views in how they can shape the world; this supplement includes a magic system to replicate those beliefs. The Shadow War is a conflict fought on many fronts. Voodoo Initiates contend with the Lodges, which consist of European magicians who have kept their occult power hidden and consider themselves the secret masters of the Western world. Beneath that struggle, some Initiates have begun to realize, lies a battle between Humankind and beings that have no use for power or wealth - only destruction. Unlike many "dark" RPGs, Voodoo is not about enduring horror, but fighting it. Human Spirit Warriors, monstrous In-Betweener renegades, and even ghosts can join forces and stop the manipulators and deceivers. The world of the Shadow War needs heroes, however frail or flawed they may be. Your characters may just be those heroes.

Download or read book New Keywords written by Tony Bennett and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams’ Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams’ classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere. Assembles a stellar team of internationally renowned and interdisciplinary social thinkers and theorists Showcases 142 signed entries – from art, commodity, and fundamentalism to youth, utopia, the virtual, and the West – that capture the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society Builds on and updates Raymond Williams’s classic Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last 25 years Includes a bibliographic resource to guide research and cross-referencing The book is supported by a website: www.blackwellpublishing.com/newkeywords.

Download or read book The Spell of the Sensuous written by David Abram and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-17 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the International Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception. For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate." How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth? In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with a passion, a precision, and an intellectual daring that recall such writers as Loren Eisleley, Annie Dillard, and Barry Lopez.

Download or read book Accelerando written by Charles Stross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-07-05 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day. Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother, seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Amber’s son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all of humanity. For something is systematically dismantling the nine planets of the solar system. Something beyond human comprehension. Something that has no use for biological life in any form...

Download or read book Gurps Basic Set Third Edition Revised written by Steve Jackson and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adventure in any world you can think of, with GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System - the most flexible roleplaying system you can use. If you haven't yet upgraded to the Fourth Edition . . . you're a completist . . . or you're looking for a dose of nostalgia, here's the previous edition! It's easy to learn - you can jump right in with the included quick-start rules, pre-designed characters, and an easy-to-play solo adventure. The Basic Set is designed to be "Game Master-friendly," with Table of Contents, Glossary, Appendix, and Index, as well as lots of examples.

Download or read book How to Be a Gurps GM written by Warren "Mook" Wilson and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2017-07-24 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Student's Guide to Ultimate Power GURPS! A game with infinite possibilities. Even those familiar with this award-winning system may not feel they've mastered the fundamentals . . . and those just starting with this game may feel lost amid the possibilities. You want help. You could use a guide. You need How to Be a GURPS GM. For the player, this supplement offers insight into how to create the perfect character to fit your vision, plus three examples of character creation and two new fantasy templates. The chapter dedicated to customizing combat and using various options can be particularly helpful for new and veteran players in making aggressive altercations even more exciting. For the Game Master, the supplement discusses everything needed to run a campaign: how to prepare the game setting, assist the players with the creation of their heroes, create challenging and engaging encounters, and design and run the first adventure. The included overview of the Fourth Edition line, plus recommended resource lists for eight popular genres, can help the GM decide which supplements will be most helpful to craft a new campaign. This supplement also provides canonical insight from Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch, who draws on decades of experience answering questions and providing clarifications as the GURPS Line Editor. Throughout, it follows a group of example players new to GURPS, from when their GM first opens the Basic Set through the starting session of their inaugural adventure. How to Be a GURPS GM is an invaluable aid for getting started with GURPS, bridging the previously perilous step between reading the Basic Set and participating in your first game. Half of power is knowing how to use it. With How to Be a GURPS GM, you'll be on your way to unleashing the full potential of GURPS like never before!

Download or read book The Legion of Time written by Jack Williamson and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: