Културата е свободна, културата е свобода

Психологически портрет на Хитлер, съставен от американските специални служби

2011-10-20T15:01:00.003-07:00

A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler, His Life and Legend
език английски| източник <-- (Nizkor Project)

ЦРУ още го е нямало, както и цялата общност на американските специални служби, ориентирани към чужбина. Имало е само малкото като щат и правомощия Управление на стратегическите служби (от което по-късно ще се роди ЦРУ), създадено през 1942 г., с шеф Уилям Донован. През 1943 г. той привлича психоаналитика Уолтър Лангер, професор от Харвард, да направи оценка на Хитлер от психологическа и психоаналитична гледна точка, както и на начина, по който той води германския народ:

"Ние имаме нужда от реалистична оценка на ситуацията с Германия. Щом Хитлер държи всичко в ръцете си, какъв тип човек е той? Какви са амбициите му? Как го възприемат германците? С какво би искал да го свързват? Какъв е неговият произход и минало? И най-вече, искаме да знаем как се справя с това, което го изкарва от релси? Също така, трябва да знаем какво може да направи, ако нещата се обърнат срещу него."

Лангер се заема сериозно със задачата. Суровият резултат са 11 000 страници извлечения от трудове и речи на Хитлер, както и от интервюта и публикации на хора, които го познават. Те са приложени като "Източници за Хитлер" към крайния психологически профил с прогнози за бъдещото му поведение. И макар впоследствие немалко от аналитичните му обяснения са оспорвани, той се оказва удивително точен в прогнозите, според които:

Хитлер се потапя в бездните на лудостта и или ще инсценира убийството си (което ще реаълизира мита за предадения герой); или ще се затвори и ще се самоубие ефектно.

Сега психологическото профилиране на чуждестранни политически лидери, представляващи интерес за външната политика на САЩ е нормална практика в ЦРУ, но резултатите естествено са секретни. Профилът на Хитлер стана публичен 50 години след написванвето му (следователно Путиновия ние с вас няма да дочакаме ;-) Но за него - по-късно)

Човекът:

Най-интересните за широката публика части от профила (сиреч жълтите) са свързани със сексуалните проблеми на фюрера - импотентността и хомосексуализма му (латентен или реализиран).

Както и да е, предоставям за интересуващите си може би за първи път у нас пълния тест на психологическия профил на Хитлер:

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Banksy - Wall and Piece

2011-08-26T03:11:00.000-07:00

Banksy - Wall and Piece

# Publisher: Random House UK (April 1, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1844137872
# ISBN-13: 978-1844137879

Banksy is a pseudonymous England based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter.

His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.

Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco and the book Home Sweet Home, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass, which maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s and is active today.

Known for his contempt for the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls and even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy's first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie," made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Подробности --> Wikipedia

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Книги на Марк Солонин, последовател на Суворов

2011-06-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

Основные тезы Солонина:

Солонин приводит документы, свидетельствующие, по его мнению, о том, что никакого многократного численного превосходства противника не было. Вермахт лишь несколько превосходил Красную армию по численности за счёт полной отмобилизованности и большей плотности войск. Но и это его превосходство продержалось недолго: к 1 июля было мобилизовано 5,3 млн человек, что означало более чем двукратное увеличение численности армии по сравнению с началом войны. Советская авиация, по его мнению, по качеству примерно соответствовала люфтваффе, многократно превосходя немецкую авиацию численно. Советские танки имели многократное количественное и качественное превосходство. По оснащённости артиллерией и тягачами Красная Армия также не уступала вермахту. Уровень оснащённости армии связью был, по мнению Солонина, вполне приемлемым. Из этого он делает вывод, что причина поражений 1941 года никак не связана с разницей в технике вооружений.

Солонин подверг коренному пересмотру причины разгрома РККА в начале войны. По его мнению, главной причиной поражений 1941 года стал полномасштабный развал армии, выразившийся в массовом дезертирстве и сдаче в плен.

Массовое дезертирство и массовая сдача в плен были одновременно и причиной, и следствием, и главным содержанием процесса превращения Красной Армии в неуправляемую толпу.

Одной из причин этого Солонин называет резко отрицательное отношение большей части населения к Советской власти, которая обманула народ, не выполнив свои лозунги вроде «землю — крестьянам, фабрики — рабочим», фактически превратила колхозников в новых крепостных, устроила раскулачивание и голодомор. Массовые репрессии 1937—1938 годов в армии, по его мнению, «превратили значительную часть командных кадров Красной Армии в смертельно и пожизненно запуганных людей», которые боялись проявить всякую инициативу и были лишь передаточными шестерёнками между войсками и Сталиным. Ещё одной причиной нежелания армии воевать он называет советскую внешнюю политику 1939—1941 годов, когда сначала Гитлер был «поджигателем войны», а потом стал ближайшим союзником.

Тем не менее он неоднократно говорит, что не следует сводить всё к простым формулировкам вроде «армия отказалась воевать за Сталина» и что причины, обусловившие низкий уровень мотивации и квалификации бойцов и командиров Красной Армии, весьма многообразны и имеют глубокие корни в российской истории.

Не будем упрощать. Жизнь многомиллионного человеческого общества бесконечно сложнее любой схемы.

Он называет ряд соединений Красной армии, нанёсших врагу серьёзный ущерб ещё в первые дни войны, таких как 99-я стрелковая дивизия, трижды выбивавшая немцев из пограничного Перемышля или 14-ю армию генерала Фролова, остановившую врага в приграничной полосе и не давшую немцам захватить Мурманск.

Основными причинами перелома он называет «глупую политику Гитлера», выразившуюся в неприятии им идеи создания русской антибольшевистской армии, разгоне национальных правительств, крайне жестоком «новом порядке» и чудовищном отношении к пленным. Все это, по его мнению, привело население к мысли, что при такой власти жить нельзя. А солдаты и офицеры поняли, что плен не является для них спасением от смерти. Тогда, по версии Солонина, и началась Великая Отечественная война советского народа.

* Пиша на руски, защото книгите му са на руски. За съжаление, не се е намерил български издател за тях. А те са не по-малко интересни от тези на Суворов.

- 23 июня. День М (книжка новая, поэтому OCR с не очень качественного носителя выправить не успел, читабельно, но в тексте есть ошибки) в формате DOC.

Новая работа популярного историка, прославившегося своими предыдущими сенсационными книгами "22 июня, или Когда началась Великая Отечественная война?" и "На мирно спящих аэродромах...".
Продолжение исторических бестселлеров, разошедшихся рекордным тиражом, сравнимым с тиражами книг Виктора Суворова.
Масштабное и увлекательное исследование трагических событий лета 1941 года.
Привлекая огромное количество подлинных документов того времени, всесторонне проанализировав историю военно-технической подготовки Советского Союза к Большой Войне и предвоенного стратегического планирования, автор приходит к ошеломляющему выводу - в июне 1941 года Гитлер, сам того не ожидая, опередил удар Сталина ровно на один день...

- 25 июня. Глупость или агрессия? (формат DJVU, качество среднее)
На протяжении многих десятилетий 2-я советско-финская война была, да и по сей день еще остается, "неизвестной", "затерянной" войной.
Совинформбюро не сообщило советским людям ни о начале (25 июня 1941 г.), ни о завершении (19 сентября 1944 г.) войны, которая унесла жизни более 100 тыс. бойцов и командиров Красной Армии и сделала возможной многолетнюю блокаду Ленинграда.
В новой книге известного российского историка М.Солонина рассмотрена "военная составляющая" советско-финляндского противостояния в 1940-1944 г.г. Большая часть использованных автором архивных документов впервые введена в научный оборот. Особое внимание уделено событиям 25 июня 1941 г., т.е. массированному удару советской авиации по объектам Финляндии, который и послужил поводом к развязыванию войны.
Изучение боевых действий на финском фронте дает читателям уникальную возможность взглянуть на Красную Армию образца 1941 года в благоприятнейших для нее условиях: заблаговременно отмобилизованные войска начинают боевые действия в выбранный ими момент, по планам собственного командования, против противника, значительно уступающего в технической оснащенности.
Реальные события выступают в роли своеобразной "машины времени", позволяющей ответить на сакраментальный вопрос советской истории: "А что было бы если бы летом 41-го Сталин смог опередить Гитлера?"

- Весна Победы. Забытое преступление Сталина. (в формате FB2)

Сказать, что в СССР на обсуждение этой темы был наложен строжайший запрет, значит не сказать ничего. Сказать, что этому преступлению были задним числом придуманы нелепые оправдания, значит сказать заведомую неправду. Не было никаких оправданий. Никто ничего и не пытался оправдывать. Народ и партия, отцы и дети, "верхи" и "низы" были едины в категорическом отрицании наличия самого предмета для обсуждения, тем паче - осуждения. Вопросов не было - зато был ответ: несокрушимый, многотонный, на века. В граните и мраморе стоял над Трептов-парком в Берлине советский солдат-освободитель со спасенной немецкой девочкой на руках, и каждую весну к подножию монумента послушно ложились живые цветы. И даже после того, как в первые годы "гласности" стали публиковаться редкие и разрозненные воспоминания о том, что немецкая девочка могла оказаться в руках советского солдата в другой ситуации и с другими для девочки последствиями, эти голоса никто не захотел услышать. Точнее говоря - не смог услышать. Такая правда не вмещалась в сознание нормального советского человека...

- Марк Солонин, раздражитель «патриотов». Интервью «Радио Свобода» 25.06.2009 (в формате FB2)

Гость программы «Поверх барьеров» историк Марк Солонин полагает, что СССР был технически готов к войне с Германией, и если бы он ее начал, возможно, было бы лучше для всех.

- Мозгоимение. Фальшивая история Великой войны (в формате DJVU)

Известный большинству читателей историк-исследователь Марк Солонин после четырех монографий предлагает читателям новую книгу. При минимуме цифр и технических подробностей, опираясь на здравый смысл, четкую логику и неоспоримые факты, автор высмеивает неуклюжие уловки шарлатанов от истории, пытающихся заморочить людям голову преднамеренным и грубым враньем.
На страницах этой книги читатель вновь столкнется с многочисленными советскими и новейшими псевдоисторическими измышлениями. «Генеральное соглашение между НКВД и гестапо», «тайный сталинский сценарий начала войны», «план обороны 41-го года», «сквозная транспортировка частей Красной Армии к Ла-Маншу», «секретные переговоры Сталина с Вольфом в Мценске» и многое, многое другое — вот образчики того феерического бреда, который разоблачает автор.
Марк Солонин уверен, что возникший в последние годы жанр «документальных фальшивок», широкое и беспрепятственное распространение графоманских сочинений очень опасны, а поэтому должны встречать решительный и твердый отпор со стороны научного сообщества. Именно такова цель его новой книги.

- На мирно спящих аэродромах... 22 июня 1941 года (в формате DJVU)

В своей новой работе историк Марк Солонин продолжает начатое в предыдущей сенсационной книге "22 июня, или Когда началась Великая Отечественная война?" исследование реальной картины событий лета 1941 года.
Что в действительности произошло на приграничных аэродромах утром 22 июня?
Была ли советская авиация разгромлена в самом начале войны?
Могли ли "фанерные" И-16 противостоять самолетам Люфтваффе?
Почему застрелился командующий ВВС Западного фронта?
Что скрывается за докладами об "абсолютном господстве в воздухе" немецкой авиации?
Эти и многие другие вопросы автор разбирает одновременно с позиций авиационного инженера и скрупулезного историка-исследователя.

- Три плана товарища Сталина (в формате FB2)

Если Сталин не ожидал немецкого вторжения, то для какой надобности тысячи воинских эшелонов шли к границе, а на базе приграничных округов были развернуты управления фронтов, и уже 19 июня - за два дня до нападения, которого Сталин не ждал - фронтовые управления по приказу из Москвы начали выдвижение на полевые командные пункты?
Двадцать лет назад развернутый ответ на этот вопрос дал Виктор Суворов. Он предположил - и обосновал имевшимися в его распоряжении открытыми советскими публикациями - что Сталин готовился к войне...

- У нас было две войны (в формате FB2)

22 июня — символ слабости тоталитарного государства: защищать и умирать за Родину способен только свободный человек. Причина трагедии 41-го года — не в отсутствии техники или солдат, а в отсутствии мотивации: просто за ТАКУЮ власть не хотели воевать
Великая отечественная: Неизвестная война

- 22 июня, или Когда началась Великая Отечественная война (Бочка и обручи) (в формате FB2)

В сенсационной и скандальной книге Марка Солонина по-новому рассматривается начальный период войны между гитлеровской Германией и сталинским Советским Союзом. На основе данных, извлеченных из ранее засекреченных документов и материалов, а также анализа научно-исторической и мемуарной литературы автор опровергает уже устоявшиеся и новые мифы о причинах катастрофических поражений Красной Армии в первые месяцы войны, дает объективную, глубоко аргументированную трактовку хода военных событий. Первостепенное внимание уделено влиянию «человеческого фактора». Книга предназначена историкам и всем, кто интересуется Второй мировой войной.

- Мозгоимение. Фальшивая история Великой войны. (в формате DJVU)

* Пиша на руски, защото книгите му са на руски. За съжаление, не се е намерил български издател за тях. А те са не по-малко интересни от тези на Суворов.

**Всички книги са в един архив - Solonin Boos.7z - разархивира се както със свободния архиватор 7-zip, така и с WinZip. Книгите във формати djvu и fb2 (руснаците хич не тачат pdf). За djvu препоръчвам WinDjview; за fb2 - AlReader2; и двете са свободни.

***Съжалявам, че ми липсваше време и търпение да кирилизирам имената на файловете, но в архива има файл Список.txt, който ще ви улесни в това.

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2011-04-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

Освен икономическата школа, която изповядват гастролиращите из медиите няколко лица, съществуват и други школи, за които у нас не става и дума. Една от тях е школата на новия институционализъм. Това, че ще я представя чрез руска книга, не значи, че е руска - не можах да намеря във фрисървърите и тракерите на английски.

За който разбира, от от Wikipedia:

New institutional economics (NIE) is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the social and legal norms and rules that underlie economic activity.

Overview

NIE has its roots in two articles by Ronald Coase, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937) and "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960). In the latter, the Coase Theorem (subsequently so termed) maintains that without transaction costs alternative property-right assignments can equivalently internalize conflicts and externalities. Therefore, comparative institutional analysis arising from such assignments is required to make recommendations about efficient internalization of externalities and institutional design, including Law and Economics.

At present NIE analyses are built on a more complex set of methodological principles and criteria. They work within a modified Neoclassical framework in considering both efficiency and distribution issues, in contrast to "old" or "original" institutional economics, which is critical of mainstream neoclassical economics.^[1]

The term 'new institutional economics' was coined by Oliver Williamson in 1975.^[2]

Among the many aspects in current NIE analyses are these: organizational arrangements, property rights,^[3] transaction costs,^[4] credible commitments, modes of governance, persuasive abilities, social norms, ideological values, decisive perceptions, gained control, enforcement mechanism, asset specificity, human assets, social capital, asymmetric information, strategic behavior, bounded rationality, opportunism, adverse selection, moral hazard, contractual safeguards, surrounding uncertainty, monitoring costs, incentives to collude, hierarchical structures, bargaining strength, etc.

Major scholars associated with the subject include Harold Demsetz, Avner Greif, Claude Menard and four Nobel laureates — Ronald Coase,^[5] Douglass North,^[6] Elinor Ostrom^[7] and Oliver Williamson.^[8] A convergence of such researchers resulted in founding the International Society for New Institutional Economics in 1997.

Institutional levels

Although no single, universally accepted set of definitions has been developed, most scholars doing research under the NIE methodological principles and criteria follow Douglass North's demarcation between institutions and organizations. Institutions are the "rules of the game", consisting of both the formal legal rules and the informal social norms that govern individual behavior and structure social interactions (institutional frameworks).

Organizations, by contrast, are those groups of people and the governance arrangements they create to coordinate their team action against other teams performing also as organizations. Firms, Universities, clubs, medical associations, unions etc. are some examples.

Because some institutional frameworks are realities always "nested" inside other broader institutional frameworks, this clear demarcation is always blurred in actual situations. A case in point is a University. When the average quality of its teaching services must be evaluated, for example, a University may be approached as an organization with its people, physical capital, the general governing rules common to all that were passed by the University governing bodies etc. However, if the task consists of evaluating people's performance in a specific teaching department, for example, along with their own internal formal and informal rules, then the University as a whole enters the picture as an institution. General University rules, then, form part of the broader institutional framework influencing people's performance at the said teaching department.

Notes

^ Warren J. Samuels ([1987] 2008). "institutional economics" The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Abstract.
^ Oliver E. Williamson (1975). Markets and Hierarchies, Analysis and Antitrust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization.
^ Dean Lueck (2008). "property law, economics and," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
^ M. Klaes (2008). "transaction costs, history of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
^ Ronald Coase (1998). "The New Institutional Economics," American Economic Review, 88(2), p p. 72-74.
^ Douglass C. North (1995). "The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development," in The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, J. Harriss, J. Hunter, and C. M. Lewis, ed., pp. 17-26.
^ Elinor Ostrom (2005). "Doing Institutional Analysis: Digging Deeper than Markets and Hierarchies," Handbook of New Institutional Economics, C. Ménard and M. Shirley, eds. Handbook of New Institutional Economics, pp. 819 -848. Springer.
^ Oliver E. Williamson (2000). "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, 38(3), pp. 595-613 (press +).

References

Books

Aoki, Masahiko (2001). Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-01187-5. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=8628&ttype=2.
Eggertsson, T. (2005). Imperfect Institutions. Opportunities and Limits of Reform. University of Michigan Press.
Furubotn, Eirik G., and Rudolf Richter, ed. (1991). The New Institutional Economics: A Collection of Articles from The Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics. Mohr Siebeck. Chapter-preview links.
Furubotn, Eirik G., and Rudolf Richter (2005). Institutions and Economic Theory: The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics (Economics, Cognition, and Society). University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Description and Chapter-preview links.
Ménard, Claude, ed. (2004), The International Library of the New Institutional Economics, 7 v., Edwar Elgar. Description and contents.
_____ and Mary M. Shirley, eds. (2005). Handbook of New Institutional Economics. Springer. Preview.
North, D.C. (2005). Understanding the Process of Institutional Change. Princeton University Press.

Articles

Alston, L. J. (2008). "new institutional economics," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
Coase, R. H. (1991). "The Institutional Structure of Production," Nobel lecture.[1]. Repr. in Amer Econ Rev (1992), 82(4), p p. 713-719.
Demsetz, Harold (May 1967). "Towards a Theory of Property Rights". American Economic Review 57 (2): 347–359. http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Demsetz%20Property%20Rights.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
Demsetz, Harold (April, 1969). "Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint". Journal of Law and Economics 12 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1086/466657. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/466657. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
Dixit, Avinash K. (2008). "economic governance," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition, Abstract.
Easterly, William (2001). "Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?" Economic Development and Cultural Change, 49(4), pp. 687-706 (press +).
North, Douglass C. (1993 working paper). "New Institutional Economics and Development".
North, Douglass C. (1997). "Understanding Economic Change", in Transforming Post-Communist Political Economies, Joan M. Nelson, Charles Tilly and Lee Walker, eds., Washington D. C.: National Academy Press. pp. 13–18.
Toboso, F. (2001). "Institutional Individualism and Institutional Change: the Search For a Middle Way Mode of Explanation", Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 25, n.6, November, pp. 765–784.
Toboso, F. and Arias, X.C. (eds.) (2006). "Organizing Governments and Markets. Some Case Studies from a NIE Perspective". PUV-Universitat de València, (Edited jointly with the Universidad de Vigo). (In Spanish)
Roumasset, James. (1978). "The New Institutional Economics and Agricultural Organization" Philippine Economic Journal, 17(3).
Williamson, Oliver E. (2000). "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, 38(3), pp. 595-613 (press +).

External links

Introduction to new institutional economics
ISNIE - International Society for New Institutional Economics.
ESNIE - European School on New Institutional Economics.
Introductory Reading List in New Institutional Economics - The Ronald Coase Institute
IRIS Center - Founded by Mancur Olson, University of Maryland.
Contracting and Organizations Research Center University of Missouri
Economics and Institutions WEBSITE - by prof. F. Toboso, University of Valencia, Spain.

А сега книгата:

Институциональная экономика: Новая институциональная экономическая теория. под ред. Аузан А.А.: Инфра-М, 2006 г. - 415 с.

Учебник институциональной экономики (новой институциональной экономической теории) основан на опыте преподавания этой науки на экономическом факультете Московского государственного университета им. М.В. Ломоносова в 1993-2003 гг. Он включает изложение общих методологических и инструментальных предпосылок институциональной экономики, приложение неоинституционального подхода к исследованиям собственности, различных видов контрактов, рынка и фирмы, государства, рассмотрение трактовок институциональных изменений, новой экономической истории и экономической теории права, в которой предмет, свойственный институциональной экономике, рассматривается на основе неоклассического подхода. Особое внимание уделяется новой институциональной экономической теории как особой исследовательской программе.

Подробности и download:
filesonic.com

Ако линкът не е действащ, пишете ми РМ, ще ви го пратя или действащ линк

Достена Лаверн - Експертите на прехода. Българските think-tanks и глобалните мрежи за влияние

2011-01-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

Достена Лаверн - Експертите на прехода. Българските think-tanks и глобалните мрежи за влияние
издател Изток-Запад ; 2010; ISBN: 9543217270; език - български; хартиени страници: 616

Прежалете 30 левчета - множко са - но няма да съжалявате. Говоря на тези, които четат (за съжаление, стават все по-малко) и специално на тази част от които основни четива не са Гришам, оня с "Шифърът на Леонардо" или всички от жанра " излекувай се от всичко - аз ще ти кажа как, много е просто".

Резюме

Как феноменът „think tank“ се внедри и функционира в български условия?
Как think tanks-ескпертите на българския преход станаха жертва на глобалните мрежи и идеи за демократизация, свободен пазар и гражданско общество?
Защо преходът към демокрация не присъедини България към Западната модерност и не създаде либерални институции и свободна критическа публичност?
Каква е съдбата на институциите, произвеждащи интелектуална автономия в България?
Защо преходът към демокрация в Източните страни изпревари „неолибералния преход“ във Франция и други европейски държави?

Хипер-модерно като тема, но и като анализ, съчетаващ увлекателен литературен стил със сериозен и оригинален научен подход, изследването на Достена Лаверн успява да представи българския казус като огледало на бъдещето на Западния свят. - Никола Гийо, изследовател и програмен директор в „Сошъл Сайънс Рисърч Каунсил“, Ню Йорк

Става дума наистина за едно от първите антропологични проучвания в света, описващи специфичния експертен елит на тези неправителствени организации, включени в глобалните мрежи за износ на демокрация. - Марк Абелес, Директор на „Международен институт по съвременна антропология“, Париж

Изненадана съм от безбройните общи находки и изводи, които свързват изследването на Достена Лаверн с моите проучвания на неформалните мрежи на медиаторските елити в сянка в САЩ, Полша и Русия. - Жанин Ведел, професор, изследовател в „Ню Американ Фаундейшън“, Вашингтон.

Значимо интелектуално събитие не само за България. Свързвайки българския преход, чиято невидима ръка се оказват до голяма степен българските think tanks, с логиките на глобалните мрежи за демократизация в света, авторката разкрива по какъв начин неолибералнната парадигма деконструира институциите на демократичната модерност и публичната сфера както в областта на политиката, така и в полето на социалните науки и медиите.
Лиляна Деянова, доц. по социология в СУ „Климент Охридски“

Цитат от историята на създаването на книгата:

"Всъщност след запознанствата и пробните интервюта, които протичаха под занака на любопитството, отношенията с експертите на think tanks ставаха по-сложни. На този етап по-често мисе случваше да отивам три или четири пъти на среща с някого, да го чакам в кабинета му и все пак да не успея да се срещна с него. Достъпът до срещите и разговорите се затрудняваше, а понякога ставаше и невъзможен. Едно от основните оправдания на представителите на think tanks беше липсата на време: непрекъснати пътувания, конференции, статии или доклади за довършване, и т.н. Понякога ме обхващаха гняв и чувство на унижение, когато дадена среща беше прекъсвана поради мотиви, които според мен имат за цел да ме обезкуражат, като ми подскажат до каква степен работата ми е маловажна в очите на интервюираните. Един кратък пример, откъс от интервю с господин Т.Б. от Центъра за изследване на демокрацията (ЦИД):

Д.Л.: Мислите ли, че Центърът в настоящата си форма е постигнал този американски идеал? [Току-що бяхме говорили за създаването на Центъра за изследване на демокрацията (ЦИД) и за американския модел, който този think tank си е определил като идеал.]

Т.Б.: Другите трябва да кажат.

Д.Л.: Все пак е интересно каква е гледната точка на хората, които работят в него.

Т.Б.: Имам лично виждане, но то е тайна. [Тонът става присмехулен и дори саркастичен.]

Д.Л.: Ако е тайна, няма да настоявам. [Тонът ми остава непроменен, с интонация, която вписва въпрос в твърдението.]

Т.Б.: Не, просто това интервю започва да ме отегчава. Вече ви казах: ще има мач по телевизията и ще го изпусна. [Тонът става откровено обезкуражаващ.]

Въпросите ми, отиващи „по-далеч от предвиденото“, притесняваха някои експерти. И макар че непрекъснато искаха от мен да споделям своите впечатления и заключения, рискувах да не се харесам, ако правя твърде критични и несъобразени с очакванията им (доколкото можех да ги отгатна) анализи."

Който има понятие от тематиката, веднага схваща, че грубиянът е Тихомир Безлов. И в гимназията съученикът ми Тихича бе грубиян - явно статусното му издигане не го е променило в това отношение.

А книгата си струва :-)

Download

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (GEB) = (рус) ГЁДЕЛЬ, ЭШЕР, БАХ: эта бесконечная гирлянда

2011-01-04T05:07:00.001-08:00

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) is a book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by the author as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll".^[1]

On its surface, GEB examines logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, discussing common themes in their work and lives. At a deeper level, the book is a detailed and subtle exposition of concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence.

Through illustration and analysis, the book discusses how self-reference and formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself.

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hofstadter has emphasized that GEB is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how cognition and thinking emerge from well-hidden neurological mechanisms. In the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.

* * *

Не часто приходится держать в руках книгу, которая открывает новые миры, в которой сочетаются глубина мысли и блестящая языковая игра; книгу, которой удалось совместить ничем на первый взгляд не связанные сложные области знания.

Выдающийся американский ученый изобретает остроумные диалоги, обращается к знаменитым парадоксам пространства и времени, находит параллели между картинами Эшера, музыкой Баха и такими разными дисциплинами, как физика, математика, логика, биология, нейрофизиология, психология и дзенбуддизм.

Автор размышляет над одной из величайших тайн современной науки: каким образом человеческое мышление пытается постичь самое себя. Хофштадтер приглашает в мир человеческого духа и "думающих" машин. Это путешествие тесно связано с классическими парадоксами, с революционными открытиями математика Курта Геделя, а также с возможностями языка, математических систем, компьютерных программ и предметного мира говорить о самих себе с помощью бесконечных отражений.

Начав читать эту книгу,вы попадете в волшебные миры, отправитесь в путешествие, изобилующее увлекательными приключениями, путешествие, после которого вы по-иному взглянете на мир и на самого себя.

Переведенная на 17 языков, книга потрясла мировое интеллектуальное сообщество и сразу стала бестселлером. Теперь и русский читатель получил доступ к одной из культовых книг XX века.

Общо представяне на структурата и съдържанието:

[английски]:

Structure

GEB takes the form of an interweaving of various narratives. The main chapters alternate with dialogues between imaginary characters, inspired by Lewis Carroll's "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", in which Achilles and the Tortoise discuss a paradox related to modus ponens. Hofstadter bases the other dialogues on this one, introducing characters such as a Crab, a Genie, and others. These narratives frequently dip into self-reference and metafiction.

Word play also features prominently in the work. Puns are occasionally used to connect ideas, such as "the Magnificrab, Indeed" with Bach's Magnificat in D; "SHRDLU, Toy of Man's Designing" with Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring; and "Typographical Number Theory", or "TNT", which inevitably reacts explosively when it attempts to make statements about itself. One Dialogue contains a story about a genie (from the Arabic "Djinn") and various "tonics" (of both the liquid and musical varieties), which is titled "Djinn and Tonic".

One dialogue in the book is written in the form of a crab canon, in which every line before the midpoint corresponds to an identical line past the midpoint. The conversation still makes sense due to uses of common phrases that can be used as either greetings or farewells ("Good day") and the positioning of lines which, upon close inspection, double as an answer to a question in the next line.

Themes

GEB contains many instances where objects and ideas speak about or refer back to themselves (cf. recursion and self-reference). For instance, TNT is an illustration of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. There is also a phonograph that destroys itself by playing a record titled "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X" (this being an analogy to Gödel's incompleteness theorems), an examination of canon form in music, and a discussion of Escher's lithograph of two hands drawing each other. To describe such self-referencing objects, Hofstadter coins the term "strange loop", a concept he examines in more depth in his follow-up book I Am a Strange Loop.

To escape many of the logical contradictions brought about by these self-referencing objects, Hofstadter discusses Zen koans. He attempts to show the reader how to perceive reality outside the normal confines of their own experience and embrace such paradoxical questions by rejecting the premise — a strategy also called "unasking".

Call stacks are also discussed in GEB, as one dialogue describes the adventures of Achilles and the Tortoise as they make use of "pushing potion" and "popping tonic". Entering a picture in a book would count as "pushing", entering a picture in a book within a picture in a book would have caused a double "pushing", and "popping" refers to an exit back to the previous layer of reality. The Tortoise humorously remarks that a friend of his (a weasel) performed a "popping" while in their current state of reality and has never been heard from since; the implied question is, "Did the friend simply cease to exist, or has the friend achieved a higher state of reality?" Also, since the reader is "pushed" into the world of Tortoise and Achilles, would the friend have ascended to the same level of reality in which the readers of GEB reside? Subsequent sections discuss the basic tenets of logic, self-referring statements, ("typeless") systems, and even programming.

One puzzle (in the dialogue "Aria with Diverse Variations") is a speculation concerning an author who writes a book and chooses to end the story without actually stopping the text. That an author cannot make a sudden ending (with regard to the story) come as a surprise, when the fact that there are only a few pages left in the book is obvious to the reader. Such an author might wrap up the main point, and then continue writing, but drop clues to the reader that the end has already passed, such as wandering and unfocused prose, misstatements, or contradictions. This same dialogue wraps up with a series of misspellings which spell out "end", then continues.

Puzzles

The book is filled with puzzles. An example of this is the chapter titled "Contracrostipunctus", which combines the words acrostic and contrapunctus (counterpoint). In a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise, the author hints that there is a contrapuntal acrostic in the chapter that refers both to the author (Hofstadter) and Bach. This can be found by taking the first word of each paragraph, to reveal: Hofstadter's Contracrostipunctus Acrostically Backwards Spells "J. S. Bach". This is only the acrostic. The counterpoint acrostic is found by taking the first letters of the acrostic (in bold) and reading them backwards to get "J. S. Bach" (as the acrostic itself claims).

Impact

Gödel, Escher, Bach won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.^[4] As of February 2010, Amazon.com reports that it ranked 586th in sales and had been cited by 82 other books.

For Summer 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created an online course for high school students^[5] built around the book.

In its February 19, 2010 investigative summary on the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that Bruce Edwards Ivins was inspired by GEB to hide secret codes based upon nucleotide sequences in the anthrax-laced letters he sent in September and October 2001.^[6] He used bold letters, as suggested on page 404 of the book.^[7] He attempted to hide the book from investigators by throwing it in the trash.

Hans Zimmer read through Gödel, Escher, Bach prior to composing the music for the film Inception, as it combined elements of mathematics and music, similar to what he wanted to do for the film's score.^[8]

[руски]:

Часть I: ГЭБ

Интродукция: Музыко-логическое приношение. Книга начинается с истории Баховского «Музыкального приношения». Бах неожиданно посетил короля Пруссии Фридриха Великого. Король предложил Баху тему для импровизации; результат явился основой этого великого творения. «Музыкальное приношение» и история его создания являются той темой, на которую я «импровизирую» в этой книге, создавая, таким образом, нечто вроде «Мета-музыкального приношения». В интродукции обсуждается автореферент-ность и взаимодействие между различными уровнями у Баха; затем я перехожу к параллельным идеям в рисунках Эшера и Теореме Гёделя. Чтобы поместить последнюю в исторический контекст, дана краткая история логики и парадоксов. Это ведет к обсуждению механистической философии и компьютеров и спора о возможности создания искусственного интеллекта. В заключение я объясняю, как возникла идея этой книги и, в особенности, Диалогов.

Трехголосная инвенция. Бах написал пятнадцать трехголосных инвенций. В этом трехголосном Диалоге Черепаха и Ахилл — главные действующие лица моих Диалогов — «изобретаются» Зеноном (как на самом деле и произошло, для иллюстрации парадоксов Зенона о движении). Этот Диалог совсем коротенький; он дает читателю почувствовать дух последующих Диалогов.

Глава I: Головоломка MU. Представлена простая формальная система, MIU; чтобы ближе ознакомиться с формальными системами, читателю предлагается найти решение некоей головоломки. Вводится несколько основных понятий: строчка, теорема, аксиома, правило вывода, деривация, формальная система, разрешающая процедура, работа внутри и вне системы. Двухголосная инвенция. Бах написал также пятнадцать двухголосных инвенций. Этот двухголосный Диалог был написан не мной, а Люисом Кэрроллом в 1895 году. Кэрролл позаимствовал Ахилла и Черепаху у Зенона, а я, в свою очередь, позаимствовал их у Кэрролла. Тема Диалога — отношения между рассуждениями, рассуждениями о рассуждениях, рассуждениями о рассуждениях о рассуждениях и так далее. В каком-то смысле парадокс Кэрролла параллелен парадоксу Зенона о невозможности движения, путем бесконечного регресса доказывая, что рассуждения невозможны. Этот парадокс очень красив; он упоминается в книге несколько раз.

Глава II: Значение и форма в математике. Вводится новая формальная система (система рг), еще более простая, чем система МШ предыдущей главы. Ее символы, вначале кажущиеся бессмысленными, приобретают значение благодаря форме тех теорем, в которых они находятся. Глубокая связь значения с изоморфизмом — наше первое важное открытие. В этой главе обсуждаются многие темы, связанные со значением: истина, доказательство, манипуляция символами, а также само ускользающее понятие «формы». Соната для Ахилла соло. Диалог, имитирующий сонату Баха для скрипки соло. Ахилл — единственный собеседник, поскольку это запись его реплик в телефонном разговоре с Черепахой. Речь идет о «рисунке» и «фоне» в разных контекстах — например, рисунки Эшера. Сам Диалог — пример такого различия, поскольку реплики Ахилла представляют «рисунок», а соответствующие воображаемые ответы Черепахи — «фон».

Глава III: Рисунок и фон. Различие между рисунком и фоном в изобразительном искусстве сравнивается с различием между теоремами и не-теоре-мами в формальных системах. Вопрос «содержит ли рисунок ту же информацию, что и фон?» ведет к различию между рекурсивно перечислимыми и рекурсивными множествами. Акростиконтрапунктус. Это центральный Диалог книги, поскольку он содержит множество перифразов Гёделева автореферентного построения и теоремы о неполноте. Один из них утверждает: «Для каждого патефона существует запись, которую он не может воспроизвести». Название Диалога — комбинация слов «акростих» и «контрапунктус» — латинское слово, использованное Бахом для названия многих фуг и канонов, составляющих «Искусство фуги». «Искусство фуги» несколько раз упоминается в Диалоге. Сам Диалог содержит хитрые трюки типа акростихов.

Глава IV: Непротиворечивость, полнота и геометрия. Предыдущий Диалог разъясняется настолько, насколько это возможно на данном этапе. Это снова приводит к вопросу, когда и каким образом символы в формальных системах приобретают значение. Для иллюстрации труднообъяснимого понятия «неопределенных термов» используется история эвклидовой и неэвклидовой геометрии. Это ведет к идеям о непротиворечивости различных и, возможно, «соперничающих» геометрий. Это обсуждение разъясняет понятие неопределенных термов и их отношение к восприятию и мыслительным процессам. Маленький гармонический лабиринт. Этот Диалог основан на органной пьесе Баха того же названия. Это забавное введение в понятие рекурсивных — то есть вложенных одна в другую — структур. Основная история, вместо того, чтобы закончиться, обрывается на полпути, так что читатель зависает в воздухе. Одна из историй-матрешек касается модуляций в музыке и, в особенности, в одной органной пьесе, заканчивающейся в неправильной тональности, так что слушатель зависает в воздухе.

Глава V: Рекурсивные структуры и процессы. Идея рекурсии представлена в разных контекстах: музыкальные, лингвистические и геометрические структуры, математические функции, физические теории, компьютерные программы и т. д. Канон с интервальным увеличением. Ахилл и Черепаха пытаются ответить на вопрос: «Где содержится больше информации — в пластинке или в патефоне?» Этот странный вопрос возникает, когда Черепаха описывает пластинку с некоей оригинальной записью. Будучи проиграна на разных патефонах, эта запись воспроизводит две различные мелодии: В-А-С-Н и C-A-G-E. Однако оказывается, что, в некотором смысле, эти две мелодии — «одно и то же».

Глава VI: Местонахождение значения. Подробное обсуждение того, каким образом значение разделено между закодированным сообщением, дешифрующим механизмом и получателем этого сообщения. В качестве примеров приводятся цепочки ДНК, нерасшифрованные старинные надписи и пластинки, затерянные в космосе. Предполагается связь разума с «абсолютным» значением. Хроматическая фантазия и фига. Короткий Диалог, почти ничем, кроме названия, не похожий на Баховскую «Хроматическую фантазию и фугу». Речь здесь идет о том, как правильно манипулировать высказываниями, чтобы они оставались истинными; в частности, обсуждается вопрос, существуют ли правила обращения с союзом «и».

Глава VII: Исчисление высказываний. Обсуждается, как слова, подобные «и», могут управляться формальными правилами. Снова используются идеи изоморфима и автоматического приобретения значения символами в подобной системе. Между прочим, все примеры в этой главе — «дзентенции», суждения, взятые из коанов дзена. Это сделано специально; ирония в том, что коаны дзена намеренно нелогичны. Крабий канон. Диалог, основанный на одноименной пьесе из «Музыкального приношения». Оба названы так, поскольку крабы (предположительно) ходят, пятясь. Краб впервые выходит на сцену в этом Диалоге. Возможно, что это самый насыщенный словесными трюками и игрой разных уровней Диалог в книге. Гёдель. Эшер и Бах тесно переплетены в этом коротеньком Диалоге.

Глава VIII: Типографская теория чисел. Представляет расширенный вариант исчисления высказываний, так называемую «ТТЧ». В ТТЧ теоретико-численные рассуждения могут быть сведены к строгой манипуляции символами. Рассматриваются различия между формальными рассуждениями и человеческой мыслью. Приношение МУ. В этом Диалоге вводятся несколько новых тем книги. Хотя, на первый взгляд, в нем обсуждаются дзен-буддизм и коаны, на самом деле это тонко завуалированное обсуждение теоремности и нетеоремности, истинности и ложности строчек теории чисел. Упоминается молекулярная биология — в особенности, Генетический Код. Сходство с «Музыкальным приношением» здесь только в названии и в автореферентных играх.

Глава IX: Мумон и Гёдель. Разговор идет о странных идеях дзен-буддизма. Центральная фигура — монах Мумон, автор знаменитых комментариев к коанам. В метафорическом смысле, идеи дзена напоминают определенные идеи в современной философии математики. После этого обсуждения вводится основная идея Гёделя — Геделева нумерация, и затем Теорема Гёделя впервые приводится целиком.

Часть II: ЭГБ

Прелюдия... Этот Диалог связан со следующим Оба они основаны на прелюдиях и фугах из Баховского «Хорошо темперированного клавира». Ахилл и Черепаха приносят подарок Крабу, у которого в это время в гостях Муравьед. Подарок оказывается записью «ХТК», и друзья решают сразу же ее прослушать. Во время прелюдии они обсуждают строение прелюдий и фуг, Ахилл спрашивает, каким образом лучше слушать фугу: как одно целое или как сумму разных голосов? Этот спор между холизмом и редукционизмом затем продолжается в «Муравьиной фуге».

Глава X: Уровни описания и компьютерные системы. Обсуждаются разные уровни восприятия картин, шахматных позиций и компьютерных систем Последние затем объясняются подробно; это включает описание машинных языков, языков ассемблера, языков компилятора, операционных систем и так далее. Далее разговор переходит к другим типам сложных систем, таких как спортивные команды, ядра, атомы, погода и так далее. Возникает вопрос, как много существует промежуточных уровней, и существуют ли они вообще. ..и Муравьиная фуга. Имитация музыкальной фуги: каждый голос вступает с одним и тем же замечанием. Рекурсивный рисунок вводит тему Диалога — холизм и редукционизм. Рисунок составлен из слов, которые, в свою очередь, состоят из меньших слов и так далее На четырех уровнях этой странной картинки появляются слова «ХОЛИЗМ», «РЕДУКЦИОНИЗМ» и «МУ». Затем разговор переходит к знакомой Муравьеда; мадам Мура Вейник — разумная муравьиная колония. Обсуждаются разные уровни ее мыслительных процессов. В этом Диалоге есть множество приемов фуги, для подсказки читателю упоминаются те же самые приемы, звучащие в фуге, которую слушает четверка друзей. В конце «Муравьиной фуги», значительно измененные, появляются темы «Прелюдии».

Глава XI: Мозг и мысль. Тема этой главы — «Как физическая аппаратура мозга может порождать мысли?» Сначала описываются крупномасштабные и мелкомасштабные структуры мозга. Затем выдвигается несколько гипотез об отношении понятий к нейронной деятельности. Англо-франко-немецко-русская сюита. Интерлюдия, состоящая из трех переводов знаменитого стихотворения «Jabberwocky» Льюиса Кэрролла.

Глава XII: Разум и мысль. Предыдущие стихотворения естественно подводят к вопросу: «Могут ли языки — или даже сам разум разноязычных людей — быть 'отображены' один на другой?» Как вообще возможна коммуникация между мозгами двух разных людей? Что между ними общего? Может ли мозг, в некоем объективном смысле, быть понят другим мозгом? Для возможного ответа используется географическая аналогия. Ария с различными вариациями. Форма этого Диалога основана на «Гольд-берг-вариациях» Баха, а его содержание имеет отношение к теоретико-численным задачам, подобным Гипотезе Гольдбаха. Основная цель этого гибрида — показать, как гибкость теории чисел опирается на тот факт, что поиски в бесконечном пространстве имеют множество вариантов. Некоторые из них оказываются бесконечными, некоторые — конечными, а другие находятся где-то посередке.

Глава XIII: Блуп, Флуп и Глуп. Это названия трех компьютерных языков. Программы Блупа могут осуществлять только предсказуемо конечный поиск, в то время как программы Флупа способны на непредсказуемый или даже бесконечный поиск. В этой главе я стараюсь объяснить понятие примитивно рекурсивных и общерекурсивных функций в теории чисел, поскольку они очень важны для доказательства Теоремы Гёделя. Ария в ключе G. В этом Диалоге словесно отражена автореферентная конструкция Гёделя. Эта идея принадлежит У. Я. О. Квайну. Диалог служит прототипом следующей главы.

Глава XIV: О формально неразрешимых суждениях ТТЧ и родственных систем. Название этой главы — адаптация заглавия статьи Гёделя 1931 года, где впервые появилась его теорема о неполноте. Тщательно рассматриваются две основные части доказательства. Показано, как из предположения о непротиворечивости ТТЧ вытекает то, что она (или любая похожая система) неполна. Обсуждаются отношения ТТЧ к эвклидовой и неэвклидовой геометрии, и значение теоремы Гёделя для философии математики. Праздничная кантатата... В которой Ахилл не может убедить скептически настроенную Черепаху в том, что сегодня его день рождения. Его повторные неудачные попытки предвосхищают повторяемость Гёделева аргумента.

Глава XV: Прыжок из системы. Обсуждается повторяемость Гёделева аргумента, из чего вытекает, что ТТЧ не только неполна, но и в принципе не-пополнима. Анализируется и опровергается интересный аргумент Лукаса, использующего Теорему Гёделя для доказательства того, что человеческая мысль не может быть механизирована. Благочестивые размышления курильщика табака. В этом Диалоге затрагиваются многие темы, относящиеся к автореферентности и самовоспроизводству. Среди примеров — телевизионные камеры, снимающие сами себя, а также вирусы (и другие подклеточные существа), способные на самосборку. Название Диалога происходит из стихотворения самого Баха, которое цитируется в тексте.

Глава XVI: Авто-реф и Авто-реп. В этой главе обсуждается связь между разными типами автореференции и самовоспроизводящимися объектами (такими, как компьютерные программы или молекулы ДНК). Объясняются отношения между самовоспроизводящимся объектом и внешними механизмами, помогающими этому воспроизводству; особое внимание уделяется отсутствию между ними четкой границы. Тема этой главы — передача информации между различными уровнями подобных систем. Магнификраб в пирожоре. Это название — игра слов; имеется в виду Бахов-ский «Magnificat в ре-мажоре». Речь идет о Крабе, который, по-видимости, обладает магической способностью различать между истиннными и ложными высказываниями теории чисел. Читая их как музыкальные пьесы, он проигрывает их на флейте и определяет, «красивы» ли они.

Глава XVII: Чёрч, Тюринг, Тарский и другие. Фантастический Краб предыдущего Диалога заменен здесь несколькими реальными людьми с удивительными математическими способностями. Тезис Чёрча-Тюринга, связывающий мозговую деятельность с вычислениями, представлен в нескольких версиях. Все они анализируются с точки зрения их последствий для возможности механического подражания мышлению и программирования на компьютере умения чувствовать и создавать прекрасное. Тема связи мозговой деятельности с вычислениями приводит к таким вопросам как Тюрин-гова Проблема Остановки или Теорема Истинности Тарского. ШРДЛУ. Этот Диалог основан на статье Т. Винограда о его программе ШРДЛУ; я изменил только несколько имен. В Диалоге некая компьютерная программа, на довольно впечатляющем языке, беседует с человеком о так называемом «мире кубиков». Кажется, что программа на самом деле понимает тот ограниченный мир, о котором говорит.

Глава XVIII: Искусственный интеллект: краткий обзор. Эта глава начинается с обсуждения знаменитого «теста Тюринга» — предложенного пионером компьютеров Аланом Тюрингом способа определить, «думает» ли машина. Далее мы переходим к краткому обзору истории искусственного интеллекта Обсуждаются программы, до какой-то степени умеющие играть в различные игры, доказывать теоремы, решать задачи, сочинять музыку, заниматься математикой и пользоваться естественным языком (английским). Контрафактус. О том, как мы организуем наши мысли, воображая гипотетические варианты реальности. Это умение приобретает иногда странные формы, — как например, в характере Ленивца, этого страстного любителя блинчиков и ненавистника воображаемых ситуаций.

Глава XIX: Искусственный интеллект: виды на будущее. Предыдущий Диалог затрагивает вопрос о том, как информация представлена на различных уровнях контекста. Это приводит к современной идее «фреймов». Для конкретности дан пример того, как зрительные головоломки решаются «методом фреймов». Затем обсуждается важный вопрос взаимодействия понятий вообще, что приводит к разговору о творческих способностях. В заключение дан список моих собственных предположительных «Вопросов и Ответов» на тему ИИ и разума в общем. Канон Ленивца. Этот Диалог имитирует Баховский канон, в котором один голос повторяет ту же мелодию, что и другой, только «вверх ногами» и вдвое медленнее. Третий голос свободен. Ленивец произносит те же реплики, как и Черепаха, при этом отрицая (с свободном смысле слова) все, что она говорит, и говоря вдвое медленнее. Свободный голос — Ахилл.

Глава XX: Странные Петли или Запутанные Иерархии. Грандиозный водоворот множества идей о иерархических системах и автореферентности. Речь идет о странной «путанице», возникающей, когда система начинает действовать сама на себя, — например, наука, изучающая науку, правительство, исследующее правительственные преступления, искусство, нарушающее законы искусства и, наконец, люди, размышляющие о собственном мозге и разуме. Имеет ли Теорема Гёделя какое-нибудь отношение к этой последней «путанице»? Связаны ли с этой Теоремой свободная воля и самосознание? В заключение Гёдель, Эшер и Бах снова связываются в одно целое. Шестиголосный ричеркар. Этот Диалог — игра, изобилующая многими идеями, которыми проникнута эта книга. Он является повторением истории «Музыкального приношения», с которой начинается книга. В то же время это «перевод» в слова самой сложной части «Музыкального приношения» — «Шестиголосного ричеркара». Подобная двойственность наделяет «Ричеркар» таким количеством уровней значения, какого нет ни в каком другом Диалоге книги. Фридрих Великий заменен здесь Крабом, фортепиано — компьютерами и так далее. Читателя ожидает множество сюрпризов. В Диалоге снова затрагиваются проблемы разума, сознания, свободной воли, искусственного интеллекта, теста Тюринга и так далее. Он заканчивается косвенной ссылкой на начало книги, таким образом превращая ее в гигантскую автороферентную Петлю, одновременно символизирующую музыку Баха, рисунки Эшера и Теорему Гёделя.

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english - Gedel, Escher, Bach. An Eternal Golden Braid
russian - Hofstadter_-_Gedel_Escher_Bsch_Eta_beskonechnaya_girlyanda

Joseph Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces

2010-12-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

Няма данни за издател, година, оригинално заглавие, формат и страници - тъй като е съвсем рядко копие в нета. Но и бе теизи данни е голяма ценност.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this publication, Campbell discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies.

Since publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged a debt to Campbell regarding the stories of the Star Wars films.

Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth. In a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell summarized the monomyth:

“ A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[2] ”

In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or "boon"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon).

Very few myths contain all of these stages - some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. "Departure" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, "Initiation" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way, and "Return" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.

The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the stories of Osiris, Prometheus, the Buddha, Moses, and Christ, although Campbell cites many other classic myths from many cultures which rely upon this basic structure.

While Campbell offers a discussion of the hero's journey by using the Freudian concepts popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the monomythic structure is not tied to these concepts. Similarly, Campbell uses a mixture of Jungian archetypes, unconscious forces, and Arnold van Gennep's structuring of rites of passage rituals to provide some illumination.[3] However, this pattern of the hero's journey influences artists and intellectuals worldwide, suggesting a basic usefulness for Campbell's insights not tied to academic categories and mid-20th century forms of analysis.

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Бенуа Мандельброт, Ричард Л. Хадсон - (Не)послушные рынки. Фрактальная революция в финансах

2010-10-18T04:56:00.000-07:00

Бенуа Мандельброт, Ричард Л. Хадсон - (Не)послушные рынки. Фрактальная революция в финансах

В своей очередной книге "(Не)послушные рынки" плодотворный автор знаменитой "Фрактальной геометрии природы" (1982 год) Бенуа Мандельброт вновь подрывает устои. На сей раз - современной финансовой теории - той самой, которую преподают в самых престижных школах бизнеса мира, и на которой построена глобальная финансовая система. Это совершенно новый, революционный взгляд на финансы, способный перевернуть наши представления о них с ног на голову.

В книге показано, как применимы авторские концепции самоповторения в масштабе, долгосрочной зависимости, бурной случайности, мультифрактального анализа и многие другие к миру бизнеса. Очевидно, "Непослушные рынки" просто обязаны прочесть все, кто причастен к финансам, бизнесу, производству. Но не только: любой человек, интересующийся тем, как устроен наш мир, насколько он упорядочен или хаотичен, надежен или опасен, после прочтения книги посмотрит вокруг себя другими глазами.
"Непослушные рынки" - книга научно-популярная, совершенно не перегруженная математическими выкладками. О глобальных, мировоззренческих вещах рассказано чрезвычайно увлекательно, простым, доступным, с изрядной долей юмора языком.

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Фернан Бродель - Метириальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 3. Время мира

2010-10-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

Фернан Бродель

Материальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 3. Время мира

Civilisation materielle, eeonomie et capitalisme XV-XVIII siecle

Издательство: Весь Мир, 2007 г.
Твердый переплет, 732 стр.
ISBN 978-5-7777-0359-0
Тираж: 4000 экз.
Формат: 60x90/16 (~145х217 мм)

| език: руски | DJVU | 678 pages | 92,9 MB

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Фернан Бродель - Материальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 2. Игры обмена

2010-10-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

Фернан Бродель

Материальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 2. Игры обмена

Civilization materielle, economie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siecle: Tome 2: Les jeux de l'achange

Издательство: Весь Мир, 2006 г.
Твердый переплет, 672 стр.
ISBN 5-7777-0358-5 978-5-7777-0247-0
Тираж: 2000 экз.
Формат: 60x90/16 (~145х217 мм)

| език: руски | DJVU | 634 pages | 86,4 MB

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Фернан Бродель - Материальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 1. Структуры повседневности

2010-10-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

Фернан Бродель

Материальная цивилизация, экономика и капитализм, XV-XVIII вв. Том 1. Структуры повседневности

Civilisation materielle, economie et capitalisme, XV-XVIII siecle: Tome 1: Les structures du quotidity: Le possible et I'impossible

Издательство: Весь Мир, 2006 г.
Твердый переплет, 592 стр.
ISBN 5-7777-0345-3
Тираж: 2000 экз.
Формат: 60x90/16 (~145х217 мм)

| език: руски | DJVU | 623 pages | 204 MB

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Оглашению подлежит. СССР - Германия. 1939-1941. Документы и материалы.

2010-10-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

Оглашению подлежит. СССР - Германия. 1939-1941. Документы и материалы.

Терра-Книжный клуб | 2004 | ISBN: ? | FB2 | 332 pages | 1,17 MB

В течение полувека в строгой тайне в архивах Министерства иностранных дел хранятся важнейшие дипломатические документы по истории советско-германских отношений кануна Великой Отечественной войны. Официальные публикации документов МИД СССР как заговоренные останавливаются на роковой дате - август 1939 года. И не случайно. Именно в этом месяце был подписан пакт о ненападении между Советским Союзом и гитлеровской Германией.

В сборнике публикуются наиболее важные документы и материалы германского министерства иностранных дел, касающиеся советско-германских отношений апреля 1939 - июня 1941 года.

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Kyle William Bishop - American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture

2010-10-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Kyle William Bishop - American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture

McFarland | 2010 | ISBN-10: 0786448067 ISBN-13: 9780786448067| 249 pages | PDF | 2.41 MB

Zombie stories are peculiarly American, as the creature was born in the New World and functions as a reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. The voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and '40s reveal deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity. This book provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting with its origins in Haitian folklore and tracking the development of the subgenre into the twenty-first century. Closely examining such influential works as Victor Halperin's White Zombie, Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie, Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, and, of course, Romero's entire "Dead" series, it establishes the place of zombies in the Gothic tradition.

About the author: Kyle William Bishop is an assistant professor at Southern Utah University, where he teaches American literature and culture, film studies, fantasy literature, and English composition. He has presented and published a variety of papers on popular culture and cinematic adaptation.

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Babylon 8 Pro

2010-10-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

Babylon e мощен онлайн/офлайн речник-преводач, както и енциклопедичен информационен източник --> Wikipedia за програмата

Babylon 8 Pro

Включва:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Concise Oxford English Dictionary
Concise Oxford Thesaurus
Merriam Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus

Babylon 8 features:
- Single Click activation
- Text translation - in 31 languages
- Results from the world's leading publishers
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- Spelling Alternatives
- Technical Requirement

- Single Click Activation
Babylon online dictionary is a simple and intuitive tool operated by a single click. Just click on any text written in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, emails, web pages, instant messages or any other desktop application. A small window will instantly appear containing the translation results, as well as any information or conversion that you require. You can also easily copy/paste to and from Babylon. Actually, once installed in your computer, Babylon will become a powerful and innovative reference tool of easy use that will allow you immediate online access to dictionaries and encyclopedias covering all topics and themes.

- Text Translation
Text translations in 31 languages, all in a single click. Text translation has never been easier; no need for additional browsers or copy/paste. Just click any word in the text you want to translate and Babylon will automatically identify the inserted text p*censored*age and translate it. Despite the fact, that no machine translation is 100% accurate or delivers results equal to human translation, this great new feature, based on the most advanced text translation technology, helps you understand texts in languages you are less familiar with.

Babylon's text translation is available in the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Hebrew, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Russian, Korean, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Polish and Ukrainian.

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Get single click results from the world's leading dictionaries and encyclopedias for a small additional fee. Babylon offers its users a wide range of titles from the world's premier publishing houses: Britannica, Oxford, Merriam Webster, Pons, Larousse, Langenscheidt, Taishukan, Michaelis, Van-Dale and many more. View a list of all the dictionaries and encyclopedias that Babylon offers.

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Babylon online dictionary's single click intuitive technology now offers its users results from Wikipedia, The Web Free Encyclopedia, a multilingual web-based encyclopedia in 13 languages covering more than 2.2 million articles and definitions that are constantly updated according to the current events and science latest innovations. The combined use of online applications such as Babylon and Wikipedia, are today imperative tools for pupils, students and professional translators.

- Translation in more than 75 languages
Babylon's translation and dictionary software offers results from a database of 1,300 sources in more than 75 languages. The database includes 25 professional dictionaries in 31 languages developed by Babylon's own linguistic team: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Hebrew, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Russian, Korean and Swedish. In fact, Babylon has developed a unique instant computerized translation tool that will eventually replace your traditional printed dictionaries, offering an immediate and online access to Internet information sources and a wide range of online dictionaries and glossaries that are constantly updated.

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Babylon converts currencies, measurements and time-units, just click on any value in any desktop application to get instant conversions. Babylon online dictionary will automatically identify the required conversion type, based on unit symbols that appear next to the numbers. There is no more need to contact the bank or surf the web, an advanced conversion technology will allow you to find out online, at a single click, actual timetables and currency values, which are automatically updated on a daily basis.

- Writing Tools for English
In addition to text translation, Babylon online dictionary also offers its users tools for finding the exact word they are looking for and guarantee a correct verbal conjugation. Given that many words may be translated in several ways, Babylon enables its users to see each possible translation with its equivalent translation, in the user's native language. Babylon also shows all possible conjugations, enabling thus the correct usage of the term.

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An automatic spelling feature available in Babylon provides solutions for common typos, misspellings and wording problems.

СИСТЕМНИ ИЗИСКВАНИЯ:
# ОС: Windows 2000/ XP / Vista / Win 7.
# инсталиран Macromedia Flash player installed.
# минимум 128MB RAM
# 50MB свободно пространство на диска; инсталацията на речниците изисква повече

ИНСТАЛАЦИЯ:

1. Разархивирай със 7-Zip (мощна алтернатива на WinRar със свободен код), свали го от http://www.7-zip.org/

2. Инсталирай чрез Babylon8_setup.exe, след това затвори програмата, И СЪЩО я затвори от системния трей.

3. Копирай съдържанието на папката Patch в оригиналната инсталационнна папка, презаписвайки вълрху оригинала по дифолт
за XP - C: Program FilesBabylonBabylon-Pro
за Vista64 - C: Program Files (x86)BabylonBabylon-Pro

4. Инсталирай речниците от папката Contents

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Егор Гайдар - Гибель империи. Уроков для современной России (англ. и рус. ез.)

2009-12-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

Yegor Gaidar - Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia
Brookings Institution Press | 2007) | ISBN: 0815731140 | PDF | 332 pages | 1,3 MB

"Yegor Gaidar has written an outstanding book of great importance. With extraordinary erudition, he warns Russia against following the course of Nazi Germany, focusing on the double trap of post-imperial hangover and the oil curse. Professor Gaidar also shows how profound and manifold the Soviet collapse of 1991 really was." --Anders Ãslund, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

"Yegor Gaidar will be known to history as the architect of Russia's transition to a market economy. But here he shows his other side, as a brilliant economist and historian presenting a compelling explanation of the Soviet Union's collapse: its financial bankruptcy." --Andrei Schleifer, Harvard University and author of A Normal Country: Russia after Communism

"Yegor Gaidar, a hero of Russian reform, has provided a courageous and clear-headed wakeup call for his own people and the world. He argues persuasively that today s Kremlin leaders are heading down the same economic path that led their Communist predecessors to disaster. Combining personal experience, deep analysis and a rare grasp of facts--including from previously classified documents--Gaidar has produced a book of insight and importance. It is must-reading for anyone trying to comprehend what really happened to the Soviet Union, why its system was inherently instable, and why nostalgia for the days of empire fashionable at the highest levels in Russia today--is wrongheaded and dangerous." --George Soros

In today's Russia, nostalgia for the Soviet era is growing. Many Russians reflect wistfully on the passing of an era when the Soviet Union was a superpower, commanding international respect, and they blame its demise on external enemies and foolish changes in policy. In an address to the Russian Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin called the breakup of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. In Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia, however, economic reformer and former prime minister Yegor Gaidar clearly illustrates why such notions are misguided, ill informed, and dangerous. As he explains in the introduction: "My goal is to show the reader that the Soviet political and economic system was unstable by its very nature. It was just a question of when and how it would collapse."

Although the Soviet Union never referred to itself as an empire, it fit Gaidar's definition: "a powerful multiethnic state formation in which the power (or at least the right to vote) is concentrated in the metropolis and its democratic institutions (if they exist), though the power and those institutions do not extend to the entire territory under its control." The U.S.S.R. sat on a shaky foundation of far-flung lands, conquered peoples, centralized authoritarian government, and a command economy overly reliant on natural resources. Gaidar explains why this once-powerful state was doomed to fail eventually, and why Russians should be looking forward rather than backward in building their nation. He worries that Russia is repeating some of its tragic mistakes, including uneven economic development that leaves the nation vulnerable to fluctuations in the energy market.

Gaidar uses the Soviet case as a device for understanding the life cycle of empires, which found themselves at the wrong end of history in the twentieth century. World War I spelled the end for the Hapsburgs, Ottomans, and Romanoffs, for example, and Europe's overseas empires began breaking apart after World War II. In the 1990s, the final remaining territorially integrated empire-the Soviet Union-fell. This is no mere coincidence: "The dissolution of empires in the twentieth century is a component of the process of global change that is called modern economic growth." To reproduce such a flawed model of governance would be a tragic mistake, yet many Russians still look backward through rose-colored glasses as their government centralizes power again. Such misplaced nostalgia defies reality while it imperils the future of Russia and its people.

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И за предпочитащите руския език:

Егор Гайдар - Гибель империи: Уроки для современной России

(РОССПЭН); М. | 2006 | ISBN 5 – 8243 – 0759 – 8 | DOC | 247 стр | 2,43 MB

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Goran Bregović - Alkohol: Šljivovica & Champagne

2009-12-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

Goran Bregović - Alkohol: Šljivovica & Champagne
Year: 2008 | Style: world music, balkan influenced | Country: Jugoslavija | Quality: VBR | Size: 90 MB (5% recovery information included)

Alkohol contains two albums - Sljivovica (Slivovitz) and Sampanjac (Champagne).Both albums were recorded live, Bregovic said, and added that in the part called Sljivovica are songs recorded at the Guca Brass Band Festival - cheerful melodies for hard alcohol.

Tracklist:
1.Jeremija
2.Paradehtika
3.Venzinatiko
4.Na zadnjem sjedistu moga auta
5.Zamisli
6.Soferska
7.Gas Gas (Shantel vs. Bregovic)
8.Ruzica
9.Za Esmu
10.Napile se ulice
11.Kerna mas
12.Na ‘tan Ixara Olikopedo
13.Tis Agap is Sou To Risko

Alkohol contains two albums - Sljivovica (Slivovitz) and Sampanjac (Champagne)

Both albums were recorded live, Bregovic said, and added that in the part called Sljivovica are songs recorded at the Guca Brass Band Festival - cheerful melodies for hard alcohol. Alcohol agreed with me at that stage in Guca. I watched that footage. I was a little drunk. Then I came to an idea to record an album called Alcohol, Bregovic said.

According to Bregovic, some musicians are trying to copy European elements, but if we want to be honest, we have to say that in our music it is important that we can drink while we listen to it. That’s our tradition, he concluded.

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Paul Krugman - The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

2009-06-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

In 1999, in The Return of Depression Economics, Paul Krugman surveyed the economic crises that had swept across Asia and Latin America, and pointed out that those crises were a warning for all of us: like diseases that have become resistant to antibiotics, the economic maladies that caused the Great Depression were making a comeback. In the years that followed, as Wall Street boomed and financial wheeler-dealers made vast profits, the international crises of the 1990s faded from memory. But now depression economics has come to America: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the U.S. financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises and a replay of the 1930s seems all too possible.

In this new, greatly updated edition of The Return of Depression Economics, Krugman shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system set the United States, and the world as a whole, up for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. He also lays out the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis, and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in Krugman's trademark style—lucid, lively, and supremely informed—this new edition of The Return of Depression Economics will become an instant cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to the crisis.

Contents

Introduction
About This Book

1. "The Central Problem Has Been Solved"
Capitalism Triumphant
The Taming of the Business Cycle
Technology as Savior
The Fruits of Globalization
Skeptics and Critics

2. Warning Ignored: Latin America's Crises
Mexico: Up from the 1980s
Argentina's Break with the Past
Mexico's Bad Year
The Tequila Crisis
The Great Rescue
Learning the Wrong Lessons

3. Japan's Trap
Japan as Number One
Bubble, Toil and Trouble
A Stealthy Depression
Japan's Trap
Japan Adrift
Japan's Recovery

4. Asia's Crash
The Boom
July 2, 1997
Meltdown
Contagion
Why Asia? Why 1997?
Epilogue: Argentina, 2002
The Deeper Question

5. Policy Perversity
How the International Monetary System Didn't Evolve
The Speculative Threat
The Confidence Game
Did the IMF Make the Situation Worse?

6. Masters Of The Universe
The Nature of the Beast
The Legend of George Soros
The Madness of Prime Minister Mahathir
The Attack on Hong Kong
The Potemkin Economy
The Panic of 1998

7. Greenspan's Bubbles
The Age of Greenspan
America's Designated Driver
Greenspan's Bubbles
When Bubbles Burst

8. Banking In The Shadows
The History of Banking, Simplified
The Shadow Banking System
Malign Neglect

9. The Sum Of All Fears
The Housing Bust and Its Fallout
The Non-Bank Banking Crisis
The Fed Loses Traction
The Mother of All Currency Crises
A Global Slump

10. The Return Of Depression Economics
What Is Depression Economics?
What to Do: Dealing with the Emergency
Financial Reform
The Power of Ideas

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Michael F. Cohen, John R. Wallace - Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis

2009-06-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

The first comprehensive book written about Radiosity. Features applications from the fields of computer graphics, architecture, industrial design, and related computer aided design technologies. Contains a chapter authored by Pat Hanrahan on the basic concepts of image synthesis and a foreword by Donald Greenberg.

Radiosity is a computer graphics technique which makes use a global illumination model to accurately represent the inter-reflection of light between surfaces. The technique produces view-independent results, so that most of the work is complete before viewing parameters are selected. This allows efficient interactive walk-throughs of simulated environments. However, radiosity is the most computationally expensive image generation technique. Most other image generation techniques make use of local illumination models and give faster image generation times.

The method is based on engineering techniques which were originally used to calculate radiant interchange between surfaces, for applications such as boiler and radiator design. The literature available has expanded rapidly in the past ten years and until now there has been no single comprehensive source describing the available techniques. This book is a comprehensive source and is written by respected names in the field of computer graphics.

The book starts with the derivation of a global illumination model (i.e. maths) and then moves on to finite element methods and domain subdivision (i.e. more maths). The final three chapters briefly deal with image production, extensions to the basic radiosity technique and applications for radiosity, such as architectural and lighting design. The bibliography consists of 274 entries.

In order to make the most of this book you will need a solid background in computer graphics and graduate level maths. The radiosity technique is only a part of the image generation process and to make practical use of the information contained in the book you will need an existing graphics system. This will allow you to attach the radiosity elements described in the book to your existing system, once you've managed to implement them! This is _not_ a type-and-go book, like some of the ray tracing texts available. There is no disc containing a complete ready to run system and the code fragments which are given are in pseudo code. You should be prepared to invest a large amount of time and effort if you intend to produce a working system from the information contained in the book.

There are 16 pages of full colour images and over 100 illustrations to explain the development and show the results of the radiosity method. Results of applications of this new technology from a variety of fields are also included.

If you are a Computer Graphics Student or Professional then this book is something you should look at if you're serious about radiosity; there is nothing else like it available.

About the authors
Michael Cohen has worked in the area of realistic image synthesis since 1983 and was instrumental in the development of the radiosity method. He is currently an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University. John Wallace is a software engineer at 3D/EYE, Inc., where he is the project leader for the development of Hewlett-Packard's ATRCore radiosity and ray tracing library. A chapter on the basic concepts of image synthesis is contributed by Patrick Hanrahan. He has worked on the topic of image synthesis at Pixar, where he was instrumental in the development of the Renderman software. He has also led research on the hierarchical methods at Princeton University, where he is an associate professor of computer science. All three authors have written numerous articles on radiosity that have appeared in the SIGGAPH proceedings and elsewhere.
They have also taught the SIGGRAPH course on radiosity for 5 years.

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Roderick W. Smith - Advanced Linux Networking

2009-06-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

Roderick W. Smith - Advanced Linux Networking
Addison Wesley | ISBN: 0201774232 | 2002 | CHM | 784 pages | 3.23 MB

With an increasing number of networks and mission-critical applications running on Linux, system and network administrators must be able to do more than set up a server and rely on its default configuration. Advanced Linux Networking is designed to help you achieve a higher level of competence. It focuses on powerful techniques and features of Linux networking and provides you with the know-how you need to improve server efficiency, enhance security, and adapt to new requirements.

This book begins with a brief introduction to low-level configuration, including a guide to getting your network up and running. Part II outlines those servers and procedures most likely to be used by the computers on your local network: DHCP servers, Kerberos, Samba, time servers, and network backups, among others. Part III covers Internet servers: DNS, SMTP (sendmail, Postfix, and Exim), Apache, and FTP servers. Part IV examines network security, exploring such topics as using a chroot jail, iptables configuration, and VPNs. Wherever pertinent, the author addresses the differences between Caldera OpenLinux, Debian GNU/Linux, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, and TurboLinux.

Specific topics covered include:

· Configuring small but potentially important servers quickly and easily

· Optimizing Linux network operation

· Using advanced system features effectively

· Using systems and software in alternative ways to reach your goals

· Avoiding possible damage to your system and violations of ISP policies

· Securing your system

Advanced Linux Networking is the single-volume tutorial and reference for Linux networking that will help you achieve expert status.

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Валерия Новодворская - Мой Карфаген обязан быть разрушен. Из философии истории России

2009-06-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

Валерия Новодворская - Мой Карфаген обязан быть разрушен. Из философии истории России
М.: Олимп, 1999 | ISBN 5-7390-0691-0 | 288 с. | DJVU | 1,17 MB

"Она вызовет больше споров, чем знаменитый "Ледокол" Виктора Суворова" - так отозвался о новой книге Валерии Новодворской "Мой Карфаген обязан быть разрушен" депутат Госдумы Константин Боровой, выступивший 1 июня в редакции журнала "Новое время" на презентации издания.

Напомним, в "Ледоколе" автор выдвинул версию о том, что в июле 1941 года Сталин планировал напасть на Германию. Книга Новодворской подобных сенсаций не содержит, она отражает точку зрения автора на известные события российской истории. Выпущенный издательством "Олимп" сборник представляет собой цикл лекций, прочитанных ранее Новодворской в Российском государственном гуманитарном университете.

Сама Новодворская называет себя "катакомбным исследователем". Если же говорить об основной идее книги, то она выражена следующими словами: "В нашей истории дуют жестокие ветры и горят костры, в ней мы, наследники славянской и скандинавской традиций, сражаемся с носителями традиций византийской и ордынской".

Расшифровке этой мысли посвящены авторские размышления. Знаменитое "пришествие варягов" принесло славянам дух свободы, а главное - готовность свободу защищать. Весь менталитет скандинавов, викингов, был направлен именно на это. Их мифология трагична: Зло побеждает, защитники Добра - асы и ваны - погибают. Однако предчувствие мрачного конца не лишало скандинавов мужества и готовности противостоять Злу. Они никогда не сдавались в плен, скандинавов нет на рабских рынках раннего средневековья. Вместе с тем предки датчан, шведов и норвежцев уже тогда закладывали основы демократии. Все вопросы решались на так называемых "тингах", прообразах современных парламентов. Вот и русские князья, потомки скандинавских пришельцев, почитали за правило советоваться со своими приближёнными, не принимать единоличных решений.

Так было на Руси до тех пор, пока не пришла традиция византийская, которая подразумевает полное подчинение подданных власти, жестокое подавление личности.

Что касается начал ордынских, то Новодворская характеризует их следующим образом: "Это традиции совершенно бесполезного, бесплатного, платонического угнетения, платонического захвата. Захвата ради захвата... Уничтожим всё во имя уничтожения. Захватим всех во имя несвободы". Комментируя утверждение историка Льва Гумилёва, который в отличие от своего отца, знаменитого поэта, "западником" не был и считал монголо-русский союз весьма плодотворным, Новодворская замечает, что Лев Николаевич и попал в ГУЛАГ именно потому, что состоялось монголо-татарское нашествие. Ведь большевизм с его идеологией - логическое продолжение психологии ордынской.

Носители же благородной скандинавской традиции не выклянчивали у ханов "ярлыки", то есть разрешение на право властвовать, а боролись за свободу. Примеры чему - Евпатий Коловрат, князь Михаил Тверской, его сын Александр.

Новодворская сурово осуждает тех, в ком нет духа Сопротивления. Не должны были белые армии в 1920 году эвакуироваться из Крыма, а должны были стоять до конца. Тирания побеждает там, где ей не сопротивляются. "Концлагерь состоит из заключённых, которые соглашаются жить по тем законам, что устанавливают для них палачи. Концлагерь - это консенсус между жертвами и палачами, это их взаимное согласие на сотрудничество. Ни один лагерь ГУЛАГа, ни один немецкий концлагерь времён Второй мировой войны не мог бы существовать, если бы жертвы отказывались идти в газовые камеры или на лесоповал... если бы жертвы, которых было больше, чем палачей, просто отбирали бы у них оружие, убивали бы их, ломали бы колючую проволоку и уходили куда-нибудь подальше".

* * *

Из вступления:

"Проблема России - в том, что ее граждане не хотят быть свободными. Они не ценят свободу, не думают о ней - и вообще она в России не котируется. Все это можно было бы свалить на "тысячелетнее рабство", как постоянно и делается - одни указывают на коммунизм, Гулаг и колхозы, другие - на царя и крепостное право, третьи - на монголо-татар - словом, кому что больше нравится. "Не сами, по родителям". Только вот беда: отмазка не канает. Традиция рабства тут ни при чем. Отсутствием интереса - а точнее, любви к свободе - ныне активное поколение обладает само по себе. В самом деле, нынешних россиян никто особенно не притеснял! Взрослели они кто в вегетарианское хрущевско-брежневское время, кто в перестройку, ничего страшнее потешных андроповских рейдов по кинотеатрам не застали, все наблюдали кризис беспомощности позднесоветской и постсоветской власти до состояния почти полной анархии. И на месте "привычного угнетения" обнаруживается - отсутствие у самого обычного, рядового гражданина России иной мотивации, кроме материальной, и страх перед всем и каждым. Все решает действие гражданина, одного гражданина. Монголы и русичи в земле. Крепостники и крепостные в земле. Большевики и белые в земле. Лихие энкеведешники и вохровцы тоже в земле. Все это было, этого больше нет. Здесь и сейчас живем только мы с вами. Действовать должен ныне живущий, но каждый из тех, кто мог действовать, и все они вместе - бездействуют. А это значит, что во всем виноват ты, читающий мои строки. Не общество в целом, а ты. Не столетия крепостного рабства, а ты. Не коммунистический режим - а ты лично. Это в твоей груди - сердце спрута. Сердце жадины. Сердце приспособленца. Сердце труса. Это ты во всем виноват. В России нет демократии потому, что ты ценишь свою жалкую шкуру выше чести. Странно, что ты до сих пор не понял, что спасти шкуру ценой чести нельзя. Выбирающий между жизнью и честью честь получает и жизнь и честь; выбирающий жизнь вместо чести лишается сперва чести, а потом и жизни. Это непреложный закон мира. Это научный факт. Впрочем, зачем я говорю это тебе? Еще столетия назад Бен Франклин сказал: "Меняющие свободу на безопасность не заслуживают ни безопасности, ни свободы". Конечно, в России свято верят каждому, кто называет себя ученым, но поможет ли это? Если Франклину не верят, поверят ли Вельзелю? Страх иррационален. Сердце труса отключает разум. Чтобы стать свободным, надо этого захотеть. Не денег, не власти, не благ мира, которые она якобы принесет с собой - а самой свободы. Не торговаться со своей свободой - "а что я получу взамен" - а просто влюбиться в нее, и она ответит взаимностью."

Об авторе от автора:

Автор этих лекций - катакомбный историк. Это значит - не патентованный, без лицензии и диплома истфака.

До 1991 года ни один честный диссидент не мог учиться или защищаться на историческом, ибо история была мертвой зоной КПСС, КГБ и прочих милых организаций. А до 1991 г. автор успел перечитать всех русских и половину импортных историков из сундуков Иностранки, этого оазиса чистой науки, куда пускали всех и давали все, даже Шпенглера, видно, рассчитывая, что владеющих до такой степени иностранными языками в России или не найдется, или они сбегут за кордон, или просто погоду не сделают. Так что на истфак стало идти незачем. Можно было смело идти и читать лекции юным историкам в РГГУ и других местах. Автор и пошел.

К тому же автор, родившийся в 1950 г., успел впутаться в историю в прямом и переносном смысле, создав в Инязе еще в 1969 г. подпольную студенческую организацию с далеко идущими задачами: свержение власти КПСС вооруженным путем, народное восстание, построение капитализма, ликвидация Варшавского договора, роспуск СССР... Примерно это же и значилось в листовках, которые автор открыто бросал с балкона Дворца Съездов 5 декабря 1969 г., в день Конституции, на опере "Октябрь". Потом, естественно, было Лефортово, статья 70 об антисоветской пропаганде, казанская спецтюрьма... А потом, после 1972 г., было полно столь же детективных историй: контрабандное поступление на иностранный факультет пединститута, его контрабандное окончание, участие в диссидентском движении, тиражирование Самиздата, листовки, листовки, листовки, аресты, аресты, аресты... Горбачевская перестройка 1986 г. застала автора в Лефортово, но благодарности за освобождение бедный Михаил Сергеевич не получил. Далее был создан ДС - Демократический Союз, и все повторилось: митинги, листовки, демонстрации, разгоны, избиения, аресты. ГКЧП автора посадить не смогло: автор уже сидел в Лефортово с мая 1991 г. за предложение опять-таки свергнуть власть КПСС вооруженным путем - после Вильнюса. С тех пор выпущенный окончательно подчистую отовсюду автор ведет оседлый образ жизни, пишет статьи в крутой либеральный еженедельник "Новое время" и даже допущен там в члены редколлегии, но порох держит сухим на случай возвращения коммунистов к власти. Автора больше не сажают, но два года, с 1995 по 1996-ой, судили за нежелательную, непатриотическую, неприемлемую для коммунистов и национал-"патриотов" трактовку русской истории, то есть почти как генетиков и кибернетиков - за лженауку, причем буржуазную. То есть за данный курс лекций. Так что автор - не только участник истории, но и ее соучастник, а книга сия - чуть ли не триллер. По крайней мере, саспенс и боевик. Не хуже Дэвида Линча с его "Твин Пикс".

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Richard Davis - Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics

2009-06-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Richard Davis - Typing Politics: The Role of Blogs in American Politics
Oxford University Press | English | 2009-05-26 | ISBN: 0195373766 | 256 pages | PDF | 1,4 MB

The power of political blogs in American politics is now evident to anyone who follows it. In Typing Politics, Richard Davis provides a comprehensive yet concise assessment of the growing role played by political blogs and their relationship with the mainstream media. Through a detailed content analysis of the most popular political blogs--Daily Kos, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Wonkette--he shows the degree to which blogs influence the traditional news media. Specifically, he compares the content of these blogs to four leading newspapers noted for their political coverage: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Times. He explains how political journalists at these papers use blogs to inform their reportage and analyzes general attitudes about the role of blogs in journalism. Drawing on a national survey of political blog readers, Davis concludes with a novel assessment of the blog audience. Compact, accessible, and well-researched, Typing Politics will be an invaluable contribution to the literature on a phenomenon that has reshaped the landscape of political communication.

"Political blog reading has become a daily activity for a small minority of political activists. One former State Department spokesperson said, “They’re the fi rst thing I read when I get up in the morning and the last thing I read at night.”13 A reporter for the New Republic said he reads ten to fi fteen blogs daily. One likely reason for the increased public awareness of blogs is news
media coverage of the blogging phenomenon. Coverage mushroomed in only fi ve years: there were three newspaper stories about blogs in 1999, 209 in 2001, 1,442 in 2003, and 3,212 in 2004.
A medium that acquires a significant audience and discusses politics constantly is bound to be considered of some political importance. The claims of blogging’s role, present and future, are hardly modest, and the most vocal advocates are bloggers themselves. Liberal bloggers believe they already have altered electoral outcomes. They claim they defeated Senator Joe Lieberman
(D-Connecticut) in the 2006 senatorial primary, although Lieberman, as an Independent, defeated blogger favorite Ned Lamont in the general election that year. Another claimed victory was the Democratic takeover of the U.S...Senate and House of Representatives in 2006. Liberal bloggers take credit for making possible the U.S. Senate wins of senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jon Tester (D-Montana), Jim Webb (D-Virginia), and other Democratic candidates
that year.16 Conservative bloggers point to their own victories as well. They argue that they were instrumental in causing the withdrawal of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. They also point to the early retirement of CBS News anchor Dan Rather after an embarrassing 60 Minutes II scandal as a blog triumph.
But these events are small potatoes compared to what many foresee as the broader role of the blogosphere. Specifi cally, news stories about blogs have emphasized the medium as a new tool for personal empowerment. One journalist opined that blogs have “given the average Jane the ability to write, edit, design, and publish her own editorial product—to be read and responded to by millions of people, potentially—for around $0 to $200 a year.”17 They emphasize
how “Joe Average Blogger” can revolutionize politics through blogging..." -- from Introduction

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How Linux Works

2009-06-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

“ How Linux Works describes the inside of the Linux system for systems administrators, whether you maintain an extensive network in the office or one Linux box at home. Some books try to give you copy-and-paste instructions for how to deal with every single system issue that may arise, but How Linux Works actually shows you how the Linux system functions so that you can come up with your own solutions. After a guided tour of filesystems, the boot sequence, system management basics, and networking, author Brian Ward delves into open-ended topics such as development tools, custom kernels, and buying hardware, all from an administrator's point of view. With a mixture of background theory and real-world examples, this book shows both "how" to administer Linux, and "why" each particular technique works, so that you will know how to make Linux work for you.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Basics

Chapter 2 - Devices, Disks, Filesystems, and the Kernel

Chapter 3 - How Linux Boots

Chapter 4 - Essential System Files, Servers, and Utilities

Chapter 5 - Configuring Your Network

Chapter 6 - Network Services

Chapter 7 - Introduction to Shell Scripts

Chapter 8 - Development Tools

Chapter 9 - Compiling Software From Source Code

Chapter 10 - Maintaining the Kernel

Chapter 11 - Configuring and Manipulating Peripheral Devices

Chapter 12 - Printing

Chapter 13 - Backups

Chapter 14 - Sharing Files with Samba

Chapter 15 - Network File Transfer

Chapter 16 - User Environments

Chapter 17 - Buying Hardware for Linux

Chapter 18 - Further Directions

Appendix A - Command Classification

Bibliography

Index

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Sidebars

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Richard Wolffe - Renegade: The Making of a President

2009-06-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Richard Wolffe - Renegade: The Making of a President
Random House Audio | English | 2009-06-02 | ISBN: 0739385267 | MP3 | 173 MB

Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV ads and the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: a man wrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency, feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring out how to win the biggest prize in politics.

This book is the previously untold and epic story of how a political newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into the world’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimate portrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the Secret Service code name Renegade.

Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate and president, as well as twenty-one months covering his campaign as it traveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yet enduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he?

Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail and before he ran for high office. It explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election learned the personal and political skills to succeed during his youth and early career. With cool self-discipline, calculated risk taking, and simple storytelling, Obama developed the strategies he would need to survive the onslaught of the Clintons and John McCain, and build a multimillion-dollar machine to win a historic contest.

In Renegade, Richard Wolffe shares with us his front-row seat at Obama’s announcement to run for president on a frigid day in Springfield, and his victory speech on a warm night in Chicago. We fly on the candidate’s plane and ride in his bus on an odyssey across a country in crisis; stand next to him at a bar on the night he secures the nomination; and are backstage as he delivers his convention speech to a stadium crowd and a transfixed national audience. From a teacher’s office in Iowa to the Oval Office in Washington, we see and hear Barack Obama with an immediacy and honesty never witnessed before.

Renegade provides not only an account of Obama’s triumphs, but also examines his many personal and political trials. We see Obama wrestling with race and politics, as well as his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. We see him struggling with life as a presidential candidate, a campaign that falters for most of its first year, and his reaction to a surprise defeat in the New Hampshire primary. And we see him relying on his personal experience, as well as meticulous polling, to pass the presidential test in foreign and economic affairs.

Renegade is an essential guide to understanding President Barack Obama and his trusted inner circle of aides and friends. It is also a riveting and enlightening first draft of history and political psychology.

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Stabilizing an Unstable Economy

2009-06-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Hyman Minsky - Stabilizing an Unstable Economy
McGraw-Hill | English | 2008-04-14 | ISBN: 0071592997 | 350 pages | PDF | 5,8 MB

“Mr. Minsky long argued markets were crisis prone. His 'moment' has arrived.” -The Wall Street Journal

In his seminal work, Minsky presents his groundbreaking financial theory of investment, one that is startlingly relevant today. He explains why the American economy has experienced periods of debilitating inflation, rising unemployment, and marked slowdowns-and why the economy is now undergoing a credit crisis that he foresaw. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy covers:

• The natural inclination of complex, capitalist economies toward instability

• Booms and busts as unavoidable results of high-risk lending practices

• “Speculative finance” and its effect on investment and asset prices

• Government's role in bolstering consumption during times of high unemployment

• The need to increase Federal Reserve oversight of banks

Henry Kaufman, president, Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc., places Minsky's prescient ideas in the context of today's financial markets and institutions in a fascinating new preface. Two of Minsky's colleagues, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Ph.D. and president, The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and L. Randall Wray, Ph.D. and a senior scholar at the Institute, also weigh in on Minsky's present relevance in today's economic scene in a new introduction.

A surge of interest in and respect for Hyman Minsky's ideas pervades Wall Street, as top economic thinkers and financial writers have started using the phrase “Minsky moment” to describe America's turbulent economy. There has never been a more appropriate time to read this classic of economic theory.

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What Is Mathematical Logic

2009-06-18T04:26:00.000-07:00

This concise, lively treatment is accessible to nonmathematicians. Topics
include model theory, Godel's theorems, computability and recursive
functions, set theory, and more. Diagrams appear throughout the text.

"The lectures on which this book is based were conceived by Chris Brickhill
and John Crossley. Our aim was to introduce the very important ideas in
modern mathematical logic without the detailed mathematical work which is
required of those with a professional interest in logic. The lectures were given
at Monash University and the University of Melbourne in the autumn
and winter of 1971. Their popularity induced us to produce this book which
we hope will give some idea of the exciting aspects of mathematical logic
to those who have no mathematical training."

J. N. Crossley

Contents:

Introduction

1. Historical Survey

2. The Completeness of Predicate Calculus

3. Model Theory

4. Turing Machines and Recursive Functions

5. Godel's Incompleteness Theorems

6. Set Theory

Some Suggestions for Further Reading

Index

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Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag - The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web

2009-06-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you've finished perusing the volume, you'll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process--from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required).

Dave Shea is the creator and cultivator of the highly influential CSS Zen Garden Web site (www.csszengarden.com). As well as being a member of the Web Standards Project, Dave is the owner and director of Bright Creative, and he writes about all things Web for his daily weblog, mezzoblue.com. With over 6 years of experience working on the Web, Dave is a leader of the new generation of Web designers that believe in responsible Web design.

An author, instructor, and Web designer, Molly E. Holzschlag has written over 27 books related to Web design and development. She's been coined "one of the greatest digerati" and deemed one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web. There is little doubt that in the world of Web design and development, Molly is one of the most fun and vibrant Web characters around. As a steering committee member for the Web Standards Project (WaSP), Molly works along with a group of other dedicated Web developers and designers to promote W3C recommendations. For more about Molly, check out www.molly.com.

Contents

Chapter 1. View Source
An overview of how the CSS Zen Garden came to be and how CSS has evolved over time; discussions of proper markup structure and design.

Chapter 2. Design
Basic design elements and how to apply them on the Web. Color theory, proportions and positioning, relationships between type and photography, and using Adobe Photoshop and CSS harmoniously.

Chapter 3. Layout
The nuts and bolts of building complicated CSS layouts. Columns, floats, and positioning schemes.

Chapter 4, Imagery
Using images to enhance your layouts, and how to generate them. Image replacement, graphic file formats, and how to find imagery source material.

Chapter 5. Typography
All things type; font limitations on the Web and how to work around them. Including font sizing, font-face selection, and image-based type.

Chapter 6. Special Effects
Where to go once you've mastered the basics. Advanced CSS effects to filter style for different browsers, create new and flexible layout techniques, and work around technical limitations with clever code.

Chapter 7. Reconstruction
A peek over the shoulders of six designers to find out how they do it. Selected designs are rebuilt within this chapter, detailing steps along the way. Watch as the principles from the other five chapters of the book come together for the full effect.

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Lian Hearn - Tales of the Otori (1-3 book)

2009-06-07T02:19:00.000-07:00

Lian Hearn - Tales of the Otori (1-3 Books)

It's over seven years since the publication of the first book Across the Nightingale Floor (2002) named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, one of Book magazine's best novels of the year. Since then the Tales of the Otori have been sold into 36 countries and have been world wide best sellers.

The Tales of the Otori trilogy tells the epic story of Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede, the young lovers whose fate is played out in a mythical, feudal, Japanese land, a world both beautiful and cruel, in the midst of an enormous power struggle against a background of warring clans, secret alliances, high honour and lightning swordplay. This journey of fascinating adventure, treachery and passion - whose appeal crosses genres, genders and generations establishes Tales of the Otori as one of the most brilliant and enduring works of modern fiction.

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Book 1
Book 2
Book 3

Ben Casnocha - My Start-Up Life:What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley

2009-06-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

Ben Casnocha discovered he was entrepreneur at age 12 and hasn′t slowed down since. In this remarkably instructive book, Ben dissects the entrepreneurship "gene," explaining that everyone has inherited it if they have an idea to make the world a better place. In Casnocha′s case, he found a better way for city governments to communicate with constituents on the Web. Six years later, Comcate has dozens of municipal clients, a growing staff, and a record of excellence. This book is the story of his start–up, but also a conversation with his mentors, clients and fellow entrepreneurs about how to make a business idea work and how to have the time of your life trying. From Pat Lencioni to Marc Benioff of salesforce.com, Ben has won over the best and brightest of the business world now it′s your turn!

LORD, I loved being 19. If I had the chance to do it all again, I’d start up my life at that age. For most relatively “normal” guys like me, life at 19 is a joyously ephemeral state of being in between. Your adolescence is not quite behind you; your adulthood is not quite at hand. You can appropriate the privileges of a grownup without facing the responsibilities. And if you’re lucky, you can still put it all on your parents’ tab.

Or you can be Ben Casnocha, the 19–year–old author of “My Start–Up Life: What a (Very) Young C.E.O. Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley.” Publishing a book in his teens actually ranks as one of his more modest accomplishments. At 12, he started his first company. At 14, he founded a software company called Comcate Inc. At 17, Inc. magazine named him “entrepreneur of the year.”

Along the way, Ben (I refuse to address him as Mr. Casnocha until he turns 21) was also captain of his high school basketball team and edited the school newspaper. He will be enrolling in Claremont McKenna College this fall.

In the meantime, he’s been taking what he describes as a “year off” to travel the world and to lecture at universities while continuing to serve as chairman of Comcate. So much for being a normal, carefree 19–year–old.

“I don’t want to be normal,” Ben declares in “My Start–Up Life.” “I want to be something else.”

Ben’s book proves that he is indeed something else, and then some. Like its author, “My Start–Up Life” is precocious, informative and entertaining, if not quite fully realized as a grown–up work. But it’s still very much worth reading to gain insight into the mind, manners and ambitions of an American entrepreneur from whom we will almost undoubtedly be hearing again throughout the first half of this century.

Ben organizes his story in chronological order. He recounts the otherwise “routine day” in 2000 when the teachers of his sixth–grade technology class in a San Francisco–area middle school proposed the idea of creating a Web site dedicated to resolving citizen complaints about local government. Unlike his classmates, who abandoned the project as soon as school let out, he spent the summer learning how to write the HTML code necessary to make ComplainandResolve.com a short–lived but functioning entity.

In 2002, Ben transformed that not–for–profit classroom venture into Comcate, a classic Silicon Valley start–up that provides software to enable city managers to track and resolve citizen complaints. He describes days when playing hooky from school started with catching a flight to Los Angeles and ended with basketball practice back in San Francisco. In between, there were sales calls to potential clients, lunches with venture capitalists, and scores of e–mail messages to and from a software programmer in India.

But “My Start–Up Life” is more of an entrepreneurial how–to manual than the autobiography of a whiz kid. The narrative chapters are interspersed with sidebars headlined “Brain Trust” and “Brainstorm” that provide insights from adult business people and share the author’s epiphanies on everything from “redefining the entrepreneurial lifestyle” with proper sleep, nutrition and exercise, to ways to “maximize luck.”

“Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible,” Ben advises. “Attend conferences no one else is attending. Read books no one else is reading. Talk to people no one else is talking to. Who would have thought that giving a speech at a funeral at age 12 would introduce me to a man who would introduce me to my first business contact who would introduce me to several other important people in my life. That’s luck. That’s randomness.”

An appendix offers a “One–a–Day, One–Month Plan to Becoming a Better Entrepreneur.” If some of the daily agenda items are mundane (“Stop watching TV,” “Form an advisory board”), others are both insightful and inspirational.

“Act on incomplete information,” he urges in the context of entrepreneurial risk–taking. He says Gen. Colin Powell “expected his commanders in the field to make decisions when they had 40 percent of the potentially available information. In life–or–death situations. And you think you need more information?”

Unfortunately, “My Start–Up Life” fails to give a coherent account of Comcate’s financing and the current status of the company, which is privately held. In a recent telephone interview, Ben said he withheld those kinds of details for proprietary reasons because his company is a developing enterprise.

With a little prodding, he told me that he raised “about $250,000” to start Comcate, and that the company is now “self–sustaining” with 6 employees, 75 local government clients and anticipated 2007 revenue of $1 million. I just wish he’d put some of this general information in the book.

Apart from its repeated references to the dot–com mania of Silicon Valley, the book lacks political and socioeconomic context. In describing the early days of Comcate, for example, Ben notes that the fall of 2001 was a “busy few months,” without any mention of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. When I asked him about that, he said that “it didn’t really impact the business.”

I also would have liked to read more about Ben’s parents. He duly expresses his gratitude, especially to his father who lent space in his law office for Comcate. But we never get a clear picture of what life was like in the Casnocha household. Talk about risk–taking — nothing takes more wisdom and courage than their kind of entrepreneurial parenting.

In any event, Ben seems to be gaining an ever more acute sense of history and his own mortality as “My Start–Up Life” hits the stores. He told me that he’s already working on a second book, about “America as the world’s greatest start–up.”

He added that he intends to make the most of the time left until his next birthday, in March 2008. “I’ve got another eight months until I’m just another boring 20–year–old,” he said. (New York Times, June 17, 2007)

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Noel Rappin - Professional Ruby on Rails

2009-06-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

Noel Rappin - Professional Ruby on Rails
Wrox | 2008-02-25 | ISBN: 047022388X | 483 pages | PDF | 4,39 Mb

This book bridges the gap between what you'll learn from a typical beginner book about Ruby on Rails and what you'll need to know to create a solid, professional, spectacular, complex web application. Professional Ruby on Rails is a guide to taking a beginner web site and making it great. The book covers topics of interest to a web professional who is trying to develop and deploy a complex application. These topics include:
- Using REST to structure your application cleanly
- How to test and deploy your application for maximum automation with minimal headache
- Protecting your site and your user's data
- Using Rails to create the kinds of interactions that web users are coming to expect

The current Rails books are either beginner books, cookbook-style books, or specifically aimed at Ajax development. This book will fill the void for a book that discusses in-depth the information that a developer would need in order to move from a basic site to a fully featured web application.

Contents

Chapter 1: Building Resources

Chapter 2: Rails Source Control with Subversion

Chapter 3: Adding Users

Chapter 4: Build Tools and Automation

Chapter 5: Navigation and Social Networking

Chapter 6: The Care and Feeding of Databases

Chapter 7: Testing Tools

Chapter 8: Rails - Driven JavaScript

Chapter 9: Talking to the Web

Chapter 10: Internationalizing Your Application

Chapter 11: The Graphic Arts

Chapter 12: Deploying Your Application

Chapter 13: Performance

Chapter 14: Going Meta

Chapter 15: Extending Rails with Plugins

Chapter 16: Replacing Ruby Tools

Appendix A: Things You Should Download

Appendix B: Web Frameworks Inspired by Rails

Index

Download

book + source code

The First Global Financial Crisis of the 21st Century 2 vol.

2009-06-06T02:41:00.000-07:00

The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a registered charity founded in 1983 by Richard Portes, FBA, CBE, is a network of over 700 researchers based mainly in universities throughout Europe, who collaborate through the centre in research and its dissemination. CEPR's office is located in London but CEPR is a Think-Net drawing on academic research across Europe.

The Centre's mission is to promote research excellence and policy relevance in European economics. CEPR network of over 700 Research Fellows and Affiliates are based in over 237 different institutions in 28 countries (90% in the European Union. Because it draws on such a large network of researchers, CEPR is able to produce a wide range of research that reflects a broad spectrum of individual viewpoints and perspectives.

Vol.1 Contents

Preface
Introduction

Section 1 Why Did the Crisis Happen?

The relationship between the recent boom and the current delinquencies in subprime mortgages
Giovanni Dell'Ariccia, Deniz Igan and Luc Laeven

Why bank risk models failed
Avinash Persaud

Blame the models
Jon Danielsson

The subprime crisis: observations on the emerging debate
Charles Wyplosz

The subprime series, part 1: Financial crises are not going away
Stephen G. Cecchetti

The subprime series, part 2: Deposit insurance and the lender of last resort
Stephen G. Cecchetti

The subprime series, part 3: Why central banks should be financial supervisors
Stephen G. Cecchetti

The subprime series, part 4: Does well-designed monetary policy encourage risk- taking?
Stephen G. Cecchetti

The subprime crisis: Greenspan’s Legacy
Tito Boeri and Luigi Guiso

The impact of short-term interest rates on risk-taking: hard evidence
Vasso Ioannidou, Steven Ongena and Jose Luis Peydró

Why did bank supervision fail?
Guido Tabellini

The subprime crisis and credit risk transfer: something amiss
Luigi Spaventa

The crisis of 2007: some lessons from history
Michael D. Bordo

Reflections on the international dimensions and policy lessons of the US subprime crisis
Carmen Reinhart

Section 2 How Is the Crisis Unfolding?

Federal Reserve policy actions in August 2007: frequently asked questions (updated)
Stephen G. Cecchetti

An extensive but benign crisis?
Tommaso Monacelli

Not (yet) a ‘Minsky moment’
Charles W. Calomiris

A B & B future for subprime borrowers?
Willem Buiter

Double counting 101: the useful distinction between inside and outside assets
Willem Buiter

Bagehot, central banking and the financial crisis
Xavier Vives

The financial crisis: why it may last
Angel Ubide

Fallout from the credit crunch
Dennis J. Snower

Four mega-dangers international financial markets face
Dennis J. Snower

Federal Reserve policy responses to the crisis of 2007–8: a summary
Stephen G. Cecchetti

While the ECB ponders, the Fed moves – and cleverly at that
Charles Wyplosz

Section 3 What Can Be Done?

The subprime crisis: Who pays and what needs fixing
Marco Onado

Filling the information gap
Alberto Giovannini and Luigi Spaventa

Lessons from the North Atlantic financial crisis
Willem Buiter

Lessons from Northern Rock: banking and shadow banking
Willem Buiter

Lessons from Northern Rock: how to handle failure
Willem Buiter

Ratings agency reform
Richard Portes

How to avoid further credit and liquidity confidence crises
Guillermo de la Dehesa

The inappropriateness of financial regulation
Avinash Persaud

There is more to central banking than inflation targeting
Paul De Grauwe

Can monetary policy really be used to stabilize asset prices?
Katrin Assenmacher-Wesche and Stefan Gerlach

A missed opportunity for the Fed
Willem Buiter and Anne Sibert

The central bank as the market-maker of last resort: from lender of last resort to market-maker of last resort
Willem Buiter and Anne Sibert

Avoiding disorderly deleveraging
Luigi Spaventa

Chronology
Glossary

Vol.2 Contents

Preface
Introduction

Section 1: The spread of the crisis to the rest of the world

The first casualty of the crisis: Iceland
Jon Danielsson

Iceland: The future is in the EU
Philip Lane

Iceland faces the music
Gylfi Zoega

The collapse of Iceland’s banks: the predictable end of a non-viable business model
Willem Buiter and Anne Sibert:

The fallout from the global credit crisis: Contagion - emerging markets under stress
Helmut Reisen

From capital flow bonanza to financial crash
Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart

Rapid and large liquidity funding for emerging markets
Guilermo Calvo and Ruby Loo-Kung

Stock market wealth effects in emerging market countries
Heiko Hesse

The political economy of debt relief
Andreas Freytag and Gernot Pehnelt

India’s credit crunch conundrum
Arvind Subramanian

Preserving financial sector confidence, not monetary easing, is key
Arvind Subramanian

The folly of the central banks of Europe
Jonh Muellbauer

Crisis management tools for the euro-area
Daniel Gros and Stefano Micossi

A proposal on financial regulation in Europe for the next European Council
Carmine Di Noia

The European response to the crisis: Not quite there yet
Marco Pagano

Finance, market, globalisation: a plot against mankind?
Salvatore Rossi

Can Europe take care of its own financial crisis?
Daniel Gros

The financial crisis may hasten European integration but slow global banking
Avinash Persaud

A call for a European Financial Stability Fund
Daniel Gros and Stefano Micossi

Governance of banks
Luc Laeven and Ross Levine

Finance, redistribution, globalisation
Giuseppe Bertola and Anna Lo Prete

What Next for the Dollar? The Role of Foreigners
Kristin Forbes

Is the US too big to fail?
Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart

Can the IMF save the world?
Barry Eichengreen

Section 2: What is wrong with the traditional economic/financial viewpoint and models?

The financial meltdown is an academic crisis too
Richard Dale

European securitisation and the possible revival of financial innovation
John Kiff, Paul Mills, and Carolyne Spackman

The price of transparency
Marco Pagano

The Panglossian World of Finance
Daniel Cohen

What can be learned from the banking crisis
Hans-Werner Sinn

Do reputational concerns lead to reliable ratings?
Beatriz Mariano

The Financial Economists Roundtable’s statement on reforming the role of SROs in the securitisation process
Charles Goodhart

Liquidity risk and the current crisis
Lasse Heje Pedersen

How risk sensitivity led to the greatest financial crisis of modern times
Avinash Persaud

Transmission of liquidity shocks: Evidence from the 2007 subprime crisis
Nathaniel Frank, Brenda González-Hermosillo, and Heiko Hesse

The lender of last resort of the 21st century
Xavier Freixas and Bruno Parigi

Reason with the messenger; don’t shoot him: value accounting, risk management and financial system resilience
Avinash Persaud

Escaping from a Combined Liquidity Trap and Credit Crunch
Frank Heinemann

Complexity kills
Jon Danielsson

Will the credit crunch lead to recession?
Nicholas Bloom

The credit crunch may cause another great depression
Nicholas Bloom

The procyclical effects of Basel II
Rafael Repullo and Javier Suarez

Central banks’ function to maintain financial stability: An uncompleted task
Charles Goodhart

Let banks be banks, let investors be investors
Alberto Giovannini

Stormy Weather in the Credit Default Swap Market
Virginie Coutert and Mathieu Gex

Why does the spread between LIBOR and expected future policy rates persist, and should central banks do something about it?
Francesco Giavazzi

Section 3: The proper governmental response

Anatomy of the financial crisis
Barry Eichengreen

The subprime turmoil: What’s old, what’s new, and what’s next
Charles Calomiris

An international perspective on the US bailout
Romain Rancière

Not the end of capitalism
Erik Berglöf and Howard Rosenthal

The effectiveness of fiscal policy depends on the financing and monetary policy mix
Giancarlo Corsetti and Gernot Müller

Fiscal policy and the credit crunch: What will work?
Daniel Gros

Episode V: Expectations strike back
Micael Castanheira

Germany needs high wage settlements and a serious fiscal stimulus
Andrea Boltho and Wendy Carlin

Plan B
Luigi Zingales

Why Paulson is (maybe) right
Charles Wyplosz

A (mild) defence of TARP
Luigi Spaventa

The right alternative to Paulson's plan
Avinash Persaud

The Paulson Plan: A useful first step but nowhere near enough
Willem Buiter

From recapitalisation to restructuring and reforms
Viral Acharya

Why Paulson is wrong
Luigi Zingales

A matched preferred stock plan for government assistance
Charles Calomiris

An emerging consensus against the Paulson Plan: Government should force bank capital up, not just socialise the bad loans
Jeffrey Frankel

Banks’ losses and capital: The new version of the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise
Marco Onado

TARP2: A totally alternative relief programme
Ricardo Cesari

Involving European citizens in the benefits of the rescue plan: The political paradoxes of bank socialism
Tito Boeri

What is a reverse auction?
Marco Pagano

‘No recourse’ and ‘put options’: Estimating the ‘fair value’ of US mortgage assets
Daniel Gros

Bringing money markets back to life
Javier Suarez

The other part of the bailout: Pricing and evaluating the US and UK loan guarantees
Viral Acharya and Raghu Sundaram

The beginning of the end game…
Daniel Gros and Stefano Micossi

Financial crisis resolution: It’s all about burden-sharing
Charles Wyplosz

Is the euro area facing a credit crunch or a credit squeeze?
Guillermo de la Dehesa

Global financial crisis: How long? How deep?
Stijn Claessens, M Ayhan Kose and Marco Terrones

The cost of resolving financial crises
Luc Laeven

Financial crisis management: Lessons from Japan’s failure
Keiichiro Kobayashi

And now the Great Depression
Barry Eichengreen

Financial markets and a lender of last resort
Eric Hughson and Marc Weidenmier

Too many bankers?
Esther Duflo

Chronology
Glossary

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Vol.1
Vol.2

J. K. Rowling - Quidditch Through the Ages

2009-06-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

Quidditch Through the Ages is both a fictional book described in the Harry Potter series of novels by the British author J. K. Rowling, and a real book by that author, although her name is only stated in the book as the copyright holder of the "Harry Potter"-name. The real book purports to be a reproduction of a copy of the fictional book held in the Hogwarts library, written by Kennilworthy Whisp.

Within the fictional world of Harry Potter, Quidditch Through the Ages is written by Kennilworthy Whisp, a renowned Quidditch expert.

The book traces the history of Quidditch, as well as the earliest broom-based games. According to Madam Pince, the copy in the Hogwarts library is "pawed about, dribbled on, and generally maltreated" nearly every day, which Albus Dumbledore says is high praise for any book. Harry Potter enjoyed this book. When Severus Snape caught Harry outside the school with this book in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, he invented the rule that no library books were allowed outside the school, and took it.

Although the book predates Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which takes place in 1991, the book contains numerous anachronisms such as comments on the outcome of many matches played, and in particular, an interesting game in 1994.

In the Harry Potter universe, Kennilworthy Whisp is a Quidditch expert and fanatic who has written many books about the sport, including Wigtown Wanderers, He Flew Like a Madman, Beating the Bludgers - A Study of Defensive Strategies in Quidditch, and Quidditch Through the Ages. He lives in Nottinghamshire, where he divides his time with "wherever the Wigtown Wanderers are playing this week." His hobbies include backgammon, vegetarian cookery, and collecting vintage broomsticks as well.

In 2001 Rowling penned two companion books to the Harry Potter series, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for British charity and off-shoot of Live Aid, Comic Relief[2] with all of her royalties going to the charity. As of July 2008, the books combined are estimated to have earned over $30 million for Comic Relief.[3] The two books have since been made available in hardcover.

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J. K. Rowling - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

2009-06-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 book written by English author J. K. Rowling to benefit the charity Comic Relief. Over 80% of the cover price of each book sold goes directly to poor children in various places around the world. According to Comic Relief, sales from this book and its companion Quidditch Through the Ages have raised £15.7 million. In a 2001 interview with publisher Scholastic, Rowling stated that she chose the subject of magical creatures because it was a fun topic for which she had already developed a lot of information. Rowling's name does not appear on the cover of the book, the work being credited under the pseudonym "Newt Scamander".

Fantastic Beasts purports to be a reproduction copy of a textbook owned by Harry Potter and written by magizoologist Newt Scamander, a fictional character in the Harry Potter series of novels. In the series, Magizoology is the study of magical creatures.

Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, provides the Foreword and explains to the reader the purpose of the special edition of this book (the Comic Relief charity). At the end, he tells us Muggles that "...the amusing creatures described hereafter are fictional and cannot hurt you." To his Wizarding community, he says, "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus", which is the Hogwarts motto. The phrase is Latin for "Never Tickle A Sleeping Dragon".

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them contains the history of Magizoology and describes 75 magical species found around the world. Scamander collected most of the information found in the book through observations made over years of travel and across five continents. The fictional author notes that the first edition was commissioned in 1918 by Mr Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books. However, it was not published until 1927. It is now in its fifty-second edition.

The book is a required textbook for first-year Hogwarts students, having been an approved textbook since its first publication. It is not clear why students need it in their first year, as students do not take Care of Magical Creatures until their third year. However, it may be used as an encyclopaedia of Dark creatures studied in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. In his foreword to the book, Albus Dumbledore notes that it serves as an excellent reference for Wizarding households in addition to its use at Hogwarts.

A highlight of the book is the numerous doodles and comments in it by Harry and Ron (and one by Hermione). Based on some of their comments, they were written around the time of the fourth book. These doodles add some extra information for fans of the series, for example the "Acromantula" entry has a comment confirming Hogwarts is located in Scotland.

Integrated in the design, the cover of the book appears to have been clawed by some sort of animal.

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Kevin D. Mitnick - The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers

2009-06-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

Kevin D. Mitnick - The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers

Publisher: Wiley 2005 | ISBN: 0764569597 | PDF | 291 pages | 3,06 mb

It would be difficult to find an author with more credibility than Mitnick to write about the art of hacking. In 1995, he was arrested for illegal computer snooping, convicted and held without bail for two years before being released in 2002. He clearly inspires unusual fear in the authorities and unusual dedication in the legions of computer security dabblers, legal and otherwise. Renowned for his use of "social engineering," the art of tricking people into revealing secure information such as passwords, Mitnick (The Art of Deception) introduces readers to a fascinating array of pseudonymous hackers. One group of friends bilks Las Vegas casinos out of more than a million dollars by mastering the patterns inherent in slot machines; another fellow, less fortunate, gets mixed up with a presumed al-Qaeda–style terrorist; and a prison convict leverages his computer skills to communicate with the outside world, unbeknownst to his keepers. Mitnick's handling of these engrossing tales is exemplary, for which credit presumably goes to his coauthor, writing pro Simon. Given the complexity (some would say obscurity) of the material, the authors avoid the pitfall of drowning readers in minutiae. Uniformly readable, the stories—some are quite exciting—will impart familiar lessons to security pros while introducing lay readers to an enthralling field of inquiry. Agent, David Fugate. (Mar.) (Publishers Weekly, February 14, 2005)

Infamous criminal hacker turned computer security consultant Mitnick offers an expert sequel to his best-selling The Art of Deception, this time supplying real-life rather than fictionalized stories of contemporary hackers sneaking into corporate servers worldwide. Each chapter begins with a computer crime story that reads like a suspense novel; it is a little unnerving to learn how one's bank account is vulnerable to digital thieves or how hackers with an interest in gambling can rake in thousands of dollars in just minutes at a compromised slot machine. The hack revealed, Mitnick then walks readers step by step through a prevention method. Much like Deception, this book illustrates that hacking techniques can penetrate corporate and government systems protected by state-of-the-art security.
Mitnick's engaging writing style combines intrigue, entertainment, and education. As with Deception, information technology professionals can learn how to detect and prevent security breaches, while informed readers can sit back and enjoy the stories of cybercrime. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.--Joe Accardi, William Rainey Harper Coll. Lib., Palatine, IL (Library Journal, January 15, 2005)

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Cory Doctorow - Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

2009-06-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

Cory Doctorow - Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future
Publisher: Tachyon Publications 2008 | ISBN: 1892391813 | PDF | 224 pages | 4,01 mb

Doctorow here proves he’s smart, funny, and good at accessibly boiling down issues he’s passionate about. On topics ranging from fanfic (readers’ additions to their favorite authors’ creations, usually online) to the terrible business model Microsoft presents by treating customers like potential thieves from the beginning, Doctorow moves to the forefront of conversations likely to determine how creators and audiences are able to use new technologies. He compares Internet content-management problems to similar technological snafus—such as the transition from live performance to radio, and from manuscript to printed books—and how the established order of the day reacted, demonstrating his grasp of the ways in which history repeats itself and how we can use the lessons of history to cope with further changes in the exchange of information. Doctorow excels in writing short forms, the essay no less than the short story, making this collection a pleasure to read, not to mention thought-provoking. --Regina Schroeder

Contents

1. Microsoft Research DRM Talk

2. The DRM Sausage Factory

3. Happy Meal Toys versus Copyright: How America Chose Hollywood and Wal-Mart, and Why It’s Doomed Us, and How We Might Survive Anyway

4. Why Is Hollywood Making a Sequel to the Napster Wars?

5. You DO Like Reading Off a Computer Screen

6. How Do You Protect Artists?

7. It’s the Information Economy, Stupid

8. Downloads Give Amazon Jungle Fever

9. What’s the Most Important Right Creators Have?

10. Giving it Away

11. Science Fiction is the Only Literature People Care Enough About to Steal on the Internet

12. How Copyright Broke

13. In Praise of Fanfic

14. Metacrap: Putting the Torch to Seven Straw-Men of the Meta-Utopia

15. Amish for QWERTY

16. Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books

17. Free(konomic) Ebooks

18. The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights

19. When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil

20. Wikipedia: A Genuine HG2G — Minus the Editors

21. Warhol Is Turning in His Grave

22. The Future of Ignoring Things

23. Facebook’s Faceplant

24. The Future of Internet Immune Systems

25. All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites

26. READ CAREFULLY

27. World of Democracycraft

28. Snitchtown

29. About the author

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The Human Resources Glossary, Third Edition: The Complete Desk Reference for HR Executives, Managers, and Practitioners

2009-05-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Human Resources Glossary, Third Edition: The Complete Desk Reference for HR Executives, Managers, and Practitioners
Publisher: CRC Press LLC 2003 | ISBN: 1574443518 | PDF | 840 pages | 3,57 mb

The fast paced world of human resources (HR) management, development, and utilization requires HR professionals to fill many roles and speak many "languages." The Human Resources Glossary answers the demand for a single authoritative source that compiles and explains the vocabulary of HR practitioners. This glossary defines HR terms and explains their context, use, and managerial implications in 56 of the most important HR areas, including benefits, compensation, disability, discipline, employee services, health care, organization development, productivity, hiring practices, employee testing, training, travel management, meeting management, and work measurement.

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Narcis Serra, Joseph E. Stiglitz (Editors)- The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance

2009-05-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

Narcis Serra, Joseph E. Stiglitz (Editors) - The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2008 | ISBN: 0199534098 | PDF | 384 pages | 1,88 mb

This volume brings together many of the leading international figures in development studies, such as 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman, Jose Antonio Ocampo, Dani Rodrik, Joseph Stiglitz, Daniel Cohen, Olivier Blanchard, Deepak Nayyer and John Williamson to reconsider and propose alternative development policies to the Washington Consensus. Covering a wide range of issues from macro-stabilization to trade and the future of global governance, this important volume makes a real contribution to this important and ongoing debate.
The volume begins by introducing the Washington Consensus, discussing how it was originally formulated, what it left out, and how it was later interpreted, and sets the stage for a formulation of a new development framework in the post-Washington Consensus era. It then goes on to analyze and offer differing perspectives and potential solutions to a number of key development issues, some which were addressed by the Washington Consensus and others which were not. The volume concludes by looking toward formulating new policy frameworks and offers possible reforms to the current system of global governance.

Part I The Washington Consensus: From Its Origins to Its Critics

1. Introduction: From the Washington Consensus Towards a New Global Governance
Narcís Serra, Shari Spiegel, and Joseph E. Stiglitz

2. A Short History of the Washington Consensus
John Williamson

3. Inequality and Redistribution
Paul Krugman

4. Is there a Post-Washington Consensus Consensus?
Joseph E. Stiglitz

5. The Barcelona Development Agenda

Part II Analyses of Central Issues in Development

6. A Broad View of Macroeconomic Stability
José Antonio Ocampo

7. The Wild Ones: Industrial Policies in the Developing World
Alice H. Amsden

8. Sudden Stop, Financial Factors, and Economic Collapse in Latin America: Learning from Argentina and Chile
Guillermo A. Calvo and Ernesto Talvi

9. Towards a New Modus Operandi of the International Financial System
Daniel Cohen

10. The World Trading System and Implications of External Opening
Jeffrey A. Frankel

11. The World Trading System and Development Concerns
Martin Khor

12. Reforming Labor Market Institutions: Unemployment Insurance and Employment Protection
Olivier Blanchard

13. International Migration and Economic Development
Deepak Nayyar

Part III Towards a New Global Governance

14. The Future of Global Governance
Joseph E. Stiglitz

15. Growth Diagnostics
Ricardo Hausmann, Dani Rodrik, and Andrés Velasco

16. A Practical Approach to Formulating Growth Strategies
Dani Rodrik

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Kevin D. Mitnick - The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

2009-05-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Mitnick is the most famous computer hacker in the world. Since his first arrest in 1981, at age 17, he has spent nearly half his adult life either in prison or as a fugitive. He has been the subject of three books and his alleged 1982 hack into NORAD inspired the movie War Games. Since his plea-bargain release in 2000, he says he has reformed and is devoting his talents to helping computer security. It's not clear whether this book is a means toward that end or a, wink-wink, fictionalized account of his exploits, with his name changed to protect his parole terms. Either way, it's a tour de force, a series of tales of how some old-fashioned blarney and high-tech skills can pry any information from anyone. As entertainment, it's like reading the climaxes of a dozen complex thrillers, one after the other. As a security education, it's a great series of cautionary tales; however, the advice to employees not to give anyone their passwords is bland compared to the depth and energy of Mitnick's descriptions of how he actually hacked into systems. As a manual for a would-be hacker, it's dated and nonspecific better stuff is available on the Internet but it teaches the timeless spirit of the hack. Between the lines, a portrait emerges of the old-fashioned hacker stereotype: a socially challenged, obsessive loser addicted to an intoxicating sense of power that comes only from stalking and spying.

Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction

Part 1. Behind the Scenes

Chapter 1. Security's Weakest Link

Part 2. The Art of the Attacker

Chapter 2. When Innocuous Information Isn't
Chapter 3. The Direct Attack: Just Asking for it
Chapter 4. Building Trust
Chapter 5. "Let Me Help You"
Chapter 6. "Can You Help Me?"
Chapter 7. Phony Sites and Dangerous Attachments
Chapter 8. Using Sympathy, Guilt and Intimidation
Chapter 9. The Reverse Sting

Part 3 Intruder Alert

Chapter 10. Entering the Premises
Chapter 11. Combining Technology and Social Engineering
Chapter 12. Attacks on the Entry-Level Employee
Chapter 13. Clever Cons
Chapter 14. Industrial Espionage

Part 4 Raising the Bar

Chapter 15. Information Security Awareness and Training
Chapter 16. Recommended Corporate Information Security Policies

Security at a Glance
Sources
Acknowledgments

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

2009-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Publisher: Random House 2007 | 366 Pages | ISBN: 1400063515 | PDF | 7 MB

Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.

Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it’s something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.

The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.

Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."

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Виктор Пелевин - П5. Прощальные песни политических пигмеев Пиндостана

2009-05-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

Виктор Пелевин - П5. Прощальные песни политических пигмеев Пиндостана
Издательство: Эксмо, 2008 | 288 стр. | ISBN: 067232993X | PDF |0,7 MB

Новая книга Виктора Пелевина "П5: прощальные песни политических пигмеев Пиндостана" появилась на книжных прилавках 5 октября - дата, несомненно, продуманная писателем, который каждый свой шаг предварительно раскидывает по И-цзин - ах, все эти неслучайные пятерки. За три недели сборник из пяти рассказов (Зал поющих кариатид, Кормление крокодила Хуфу, Некромент, Пространство Фридмана, Ассасин) не прочитал только ленивый, книга уверенно вытеснила конкурентов с прилавков книжных магазинов, возглавила списки продаж, вызвала предсказуемое жужжание блогосферы, которое, однако, совсем не назовешь восторженным. Новых поклонников у Пелевина поди что и нет, а старые не нашли в его книге ничего для себя нового и слегка разочаровались. Да и о чем разговор - 300 страниц крупным шрифтом, 5 рассказов, ни один из которых не дотягивает даже до повести. Но зато современность так ловко поймана, что уже и сомневаешься, правда ли писатель-затворник творит где-то на вершине Килиманджаро, а не сидит круглосуточно в своем Чертаново, читая новости в гугл-ридере и человеческие глупости в ЖЖ. Потому-то нам все еще нужен Пелевин, хотя время его, как говорят многие, уже прошло.

Духовная близость с инфузорией-туфелькой от Prada

"Что же касается духовной близости с какой-нибудь из этих инфузорий-туфелек от Prada, то о ней мы просто не будем говорить в целях экономии места..."

Пелевин, конечно, принадлежит 90-м, как никакой другой русский писатель, - оглядываясь назад, начинаешь подозревать, что больше никого там и не было. Ну, разве что, Сорокин зимовал - ждал, как и все, конкретных, понятных, нулевых. Такая была особенность эпохи: все непонятно, очень изменчиво и немножко стыдно; в толпе новых людей и странных явлений не находился ни герой, ни дух эпохи. Писатель, как существо чересчур хорошо воспитанное, старательно отворачивался и смотрел куда-то в сторону. На что угодно, только не на то, как Россия, проснувшись от дурного сна, натягивает на голое немытое тело новые ажурные чулки. 90-е ждали, что вот-вот появится автор, которому удастся ухватить за хвост новое время, а Пелевин не писал про время. Он писал про поколение. И в романах "Омон Ра", "Жизнь насекомых", "Чапаев и Пустота", и в завершающей, чуть ли не главной книге десятилетия "Generation П" практически прозрел образ нового человека - существа, стремящегося к духовному прозрению при абсолютной, совершенной внутренней пустоте. О том же - если вчитаться - и новые рассказы: о поисках и обретении рая. И о разнице между раем земным и небесным.

Хорошенькая блондинка Лена из первого рассказа "П5" "Зал поющих кариатид" открывает для себя этот неземной рай - реку в голове богомола. Попадая туда перед смертью, Лена думает: "Интересно, а что во мне? Неужели такое же серое и смрадное? Сейчас вот и узнаем... Нет, не такое. Вот оно. Оно яркое... Светлое... Чистое... Какая все-таки красота...". Вот. Оно. Какой бы ты ни был здесь дурачок, а там лучше. Потому что даже местная dolce vita превратилась в такой ад, что там, по ту сторону, несомненно - рай.

Оставили один пиар

"Самка cardiacephala myrmex ест отрыгиваемую самцом пищу прямо у него изо рта - из этого, кстати, через двести миллионов лет произошел ваш человеческий поцелуй, только люди, как всегда, убрали содержательную часть и оставили один пиар".

В одной из лучших пелевинских книг, "Generation П", писатель нашел крайнего. Это рекламщики в ответе за девальвацию смысла. Это они продают за деньги слоганы типа "Солидный Господь для солидных господ", лишая всякой духовной ценности и господ, и Господа. Реклама - новая религия, ее главная цель - продавать, неважно что: Бога, президента или сережки от Армани. Но главный объект продажи - русская национальная идея, из которой убирается вся содержательная часть - остается один пиар.

У нас есть Сорокин, который пишет о русской метафизике, и Пелевин, которого интересует русская эзотерика. А сердце и той, и другой бьется в Кремле. Пелевинских поклонников возмутила в последней книге именно это - кремлецентричность. Какого черта его вообще потянуло в мир политтехнологов, глянцевых журналов (земной поклон за выражение "православный глянец") и олигархов? Но в стране, где так долго и мучительно строится вертикаль, любого писателя, обладающего каким-никаким чутьем, рано или поздно затягивает в эту воронку. Эта смена места совершенно логична в контексте кремлевского пиар-одурения, в котором живет большая часть населения страны.

Вершина Фудзи

"В будущем каждая улитка попадет на вершину Фудзи на 15 минут".

В чем Пелевин может совершенствоваться до бесконечности - это в своих выдумках и языковых играх. "П5", как и все прочие книги автора, можно смело растаскивать на цитаты. Чего стоит "православный глянец" и издательство "Маргинальный Ад", русский философ Голгофский и математик Рапидшер Вербицкий? А "багряноносный Святой Георгины первый линейный отряд ГИБДД города Москвы"? "Слышите эти раскаты багрового "эр" - прямо как у Пушкина в "Полтаве"?" Единственный минус этой языковой насыщенности - чудовищно от нее в итоге устаешь. Но кто обещал, что будет легко?

Вот оттуда вся эта задушевность и пошла

"Нам потом уже рассказали, что он для этой новой искренности бирманские таблетки жрал, называются "yaa baa", нечто вроде амфетамина, только на органической основе. Они вроде как влияют на дыхательный центр и придают всему, что человек придумывает в этом состоянии, сильную эмоциональную заразительность. Тогда в Москве проходила большая партия, и вся гопота работала только на них. Вот оттуда эта задушевность и пошла".

Про "новую искренность" смешно - тонкая и справедливая издевка над любимым романтическим стилем блоггеров, как-то связанным с эмо-челками, Земфирой и расцветом современной поэзии. Все пелевинские герои продолжают жрать всякую дрянь для прихода к озарениям. Бог знает, для чего они это делают. Но вот Али, герой рассказа-притчи "Ассасин", отказывается от лепешки с гашишом, открывающей ему дорогу в рай земной, ради рая небесного. Это тянет на начало большой новой истории: наряду с искусственным выходом, галлюцинацией от чрезмерного употребления всякой дряни, есть выход настоящий. Но вот до сих пор ни один из пелевинских героев не видел его с той стороны.

Прекрасное и невыразимое

"И пусть на этом пути ваши сердца озарит то прекрасное и невыразимое, что Боря Гребенщиков называет делом мастера Бо, а простые люди вроде меня - трансцендентально-экстралингвистическим императивом".

Как говорят англичане, great minds think alike. У Пелевина есть много соратников в литературах дальнего и ближнего зарубежья. Во Франции - Бегбедер, который всегда рад поиздеваться над обществом потребления, но в самый нужный момент совершенно не к месту пускает слезу и все портит. В Германии - Кристиан Крахт, который вообще-то пишет все то же самое, но с эзотерикой не в ладах. А еще боится, что его воспримут всерьез и перестанут покупать, и переводит все в шутку. Из-за этого от его романов остается только чувство легкого недоумения. Вся английская литература, от шутника Уилла Сэлфа до комика Бена Элтона, занимается метафизикой абсурда. Пелевин от всех них отличается тем, что он все-таки русский писатель, который не может без "духовного", и совсем не постмодернист.

Постмодернизм происходит от открытия, что события и предметы не имеют никакого смысла. Рассыпаясь, вещи обнаруживают свою полую сущность. У Пелевина вещи не полые. Конденсированная ежедневная галиматья, жизнь насекомых, обнаруживает за собой присутствие Бога. Зрячие увидят. Имеющие уши услышат. И это должна была быть радостная новость для поклоняющегося Пелевину офисного планктона: за всем этим копошением еще есть какой-то смысл. Но глянцевый засор мозга настолько не поддается очистке, что пелевинские шуточки уже не лечат, а только еще больше засоряют голову. Человек, отравленный галиматьей, увидит в "П5" только новую галиматью. Таково хитроумное устройство его текстов: в каждой шутке есть доля всего на свете. Пелевин кончится только тогда, когда нам надоест ломать над этим голову.

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Ubuntu Unleashed 2008 Edition: Covering 8.04 and 8.10 (4th Edition)

2009-05-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Andrew Hudson, Paul Hudson - Ubuntu Unleashed 2008 Edition: Covering 8.04 and 8.10 (4th Edition)
Publisher: Sams 2008 | 864 Pages | ISBN: 067232993X | PDF |15 MB

Ubuntu Unleashed 2008 Edition presents comprehensive coverage of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Windows users, Mac users, and Linux enthusiasts have been increasingly turning to Ubuntu for a user-friendly, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

This book provides detailed information on installing, using, and administering Ubuntu. You will learn how to set up a workstation or a server, and you will find complete details on Ubuntu’s easy-to-use desktop and productivity software.

Ubuntu Unleashed 2008 Edition includes a range of coverage: From the software you need in your everyday work, such as the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, to how to configure your Linux desktop to run smoothly using multiple printers, shell scripts, and more.

For the hardcore Linux enthusiast, there is complete coverage of the X Window system, Linux programming, web server administration, and network administration.

Includes a DVD with a full Ubuntu Linux distribution, plus a free upgrade to Ubuntu Linux 8.10 once it is released

Andrew Hudson is a freelance journalist who specializes in writing about Linux. He has significant experience in Red Hat and Debian-based Linux distributions and deployments and can often be found sitting at his keyboard tweaking various settings and config files just for the hell of it. He lives in Wiltshire, which is a county of England, along with his wife, Bernice, and their son, John. Andrew does not like Emacs. He can be reached at andy.hudson@gmail.com.

Paul Hudson is a recognized expert in open-source technologies. He is also a professional developer and full-time journalist for Future Publishing. His articles have appeared in Mac Format, PC Answers, PC Format, PC Plus, and Linux Format. Paul is passionate about free software in all its forms and uses a mix of Linux and BSD to power his desktops and servers. Paul likes Emacs. Paul can be contacted through http://hudzilla.org.

Contents at a Glance

Introduction................................................................... 1

Part I Installation and Configuration
1. Installing Ubuntu......................................................11
2. Post-Installation Configuration .............................25
3. Working with Gnome...............................................51
4. Command Line Quickstart .....................................79

Part II Desktop Ubuntu
5. On the Internet.......................................................113
6. Productivity Applications .....................................133
7. Multimedia Applications .......................................153
8. Printing with Ubuntu ............................................185
9. Games......................................................................197

Part III System Administration
10. Managing Users....................................................209
11. Automating Tasks.................................................233
12. System-Monitoring Tools....................................289
13. Backing Up.............................................................301
14. Networking............................................................325
15. Remote Access with SSH and Telnet.................371

Part IV Ubuntu as a Server
16. File and Print.........................................................381
17. Apache Web Server Management......................407
18. Remote File Serving with FTP............................439
19. Handling Electronic Mail......................................471
20. Proxying and Reverse Proxying .......................489
21. Administering Database Services ......................499
22. LDAP......................................................................525

Part V Programming Linux
23. Using Perl .............................................................537
24. Working with Python ..........................................561
25. Writing PHP Scripts.............................................579
26. C/C++ Programming Tools for Ubuntu........613
27. Mono..........................................................625

Part VI Ubuntu Housekeeping
28. Securing Your Machines .....................................639
29. Performance Tuning.............................................651
30. Command Line Masterclass................................663
31. Managing Software ..............................................689
32. Kernel and Module Management........................701

Part VII Appendixes
A. Ubuntu Under the Hood ........................................727
B. Installation Resources ............................................737
C. Ubuntu and Linux Internet Resources ................759
Index .............................................................................???

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LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell

2009-05-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

You may not have heard of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) or its professional certifications, but they're becoming an important part of proving professional competence in the Linux operating system. That aside, LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell is a fantastic introductory Linux book, well suited to introducing a curious newcomer to the environment and bringing an intermediate user up to expert status.

The book is organized around the LPI's published standards for two Level 1 exams (exams 101, which deals with key commands and file-system concepts, and 102, which places more emphasis on hardware, networking, and shell scripting). The organization works well even if you're not specifically preparing for either exam.

LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell assumes nothing in early chapters, going so far--to cite one example--as to walk readers through the concept of commands with parameters separately from the concept of commands alone. Later, the pace picks up, and strategic advice is substituted (such as how to partition a disk for maximum speed and reliability) for "type-this" instructions.

Throughout, the book makes effective use of O'Reilly's time-tested and remarkably clear format for presenting Unix commands and configuration files. Each chapter concludes with a series of exercises designed to help you discover behaviors on your own, and includes the practice questions you expect in a test-prep aid. --David Wall

Topics covered: The knowledge that's tested on the Linux Professional Institute's exams 101 and 102, which includes everything from basic Linux commands and concepts to installation of the operating system, essential network configuration, and kernel recompilation.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: General Linux Exam 101

Chapter 1. LPI Exams
Section 1.1. Exam 101 Overview

Chapter 2. Exam 101 Study Guide
Section 2.1. Exam Preparation

Chapter 3. Hardware and Architecture (Topic 1.101)
Section 3.1. Objective 1: Configure Fundamental BIOS Settings
Section 3.2. Objective 3: Configure Modems and Sound Cards
Section 3.3. Objective 4: Set Up Non-IDE Devices
Section 3.4. Objective 5: Set Up Different PC Expansion Cards
Section 3.5. Objective 6: Configure Communications Devices
Section 3.6. Objective 7: Configure USB Devices

Chapter 4. Linux Installation and Package Management (Topic 1.102)
Section 4.1. Objective 1: Design a Hard Disk Layout
Section 4.2. Objective 2: Install a Boot Manager
Section 4.3. Objective 3: Make and Install Programs from Source
Section 4.4. Objective 4: Manage Shared Libraries
Section 4.5. Objective 5: Use Debian Package Management
Section 4.6. Objective 6: Use Red Hat Package Manager (RPM)

Chapter 5. GNU and Unix Commands (Topic 1.103)
Section 5.1. Objective 1: Work on the Command Line
Section 5.2. Objective 2: Process Text Streams Using Filters
Section 5.4. Objective 3: Perform Basic File Management
Section 5.5. Objective 4: Use Streams, Pipes, and Redirects
Section 5.6. Objective 5: Create, Monitor, and Kill Processes
Section 5.7. Objective 6: Modify Process Execution Priorities
Section 5.8. Objective 7: Search Text Files Using Regular Expressions
Section 5.9. Objective 8: Perform Basic File Editing Operations Using vi

Chapter 6. Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (Topic 1.104)
Section 6.1. Objective 1: Create Partitions and Filesystems
Section 6.2. Objective 2: Maintain the Integrity of Filesystems
Section 6.3. Objective 3: Control Filesystem Mounting and Unmounting
Section 6.4. Objective 4: Set and View Disk Quotas
Section 6.5. Objective 5: Use File Permissions to Control Access to Files
Section 6.6. Setting Up a Workgroup Directory
Section 6.7. Objective 6: Manage File Ownership
Section 6.8. Objective 7: Create and Change Hard and Symbolic Links
Section 6.9. Objective 8: Find System Files and Place Files in the Correct Location

Chapter 7. The X Window System (Topic 1.1.10)
Section 7.1. An Overview of X
Section 7.2. Objective 1: Install and Configure X11
Section 7.3. Objective 2: Set Up a Display Manager
Section 7.4. Objective 4: Install and Customize a Window Manager Environment

Chapter 8. Exam 101 Review Questions and Exercises
Section 8.1. Hardware and Architecture (Topic 1.101)
Section 8.2. Linux Installation and Package Management (Topic 1.102)
Section 8.3. GNU and Unix Commands (Topic 1.103)
Section 8.4. Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (Topic 1.104)
Section 8.5. The X Window System (Topic 1.110)

Chapter 9. Exam 101 Practice Test
Section 9.1. Questions
Section 9.2. Answers

Chapter 10. Exam 101 Highlighter's Index
Section 10.1. Hardware and Architecture
Section 10.2. Linux Installation and Package Management
Section 10.3. GNU and Unix Commands
Section 10.4. Devices, Linux Filesystems, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
Section 10.5. The X Window System

Part II: General Linux Exam 102

Chapter 11. Exam 102 Overview

Chapter 12. Exam 102 Study Guide
Section 12.1. Exam Preparation

Chapter 13. Kernel (Topic 1.105)
Section 13.1. Objective 1: Manage/Query Kernel and Kernel Modules at Runtime
Section 13.2. Objective 2: Reconfigure, Build, and Install a Custom Kernel and Kernel Modules

Chapter 14. Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels (Topic 1.106)
Section 14.1. Objective 1: Boot the System
Section 14.2. Objective 2: Change Runlevels and Shut Down or Reboot System

Chapter 15. Printing (Topic 1.107)
Section 15.1. An Overview of Printing
Section 15.2. Objective 2: Manage Printers and Print Queues
Section 15.3. Objective 3: Print Files
Section 15.4. Objective 4: Install and Configure Local and Remote Printers

Chapter 16. Documentation (Topic 1.108)
Section 16.1. Objective 1: Use and Manage Local System Documentation
Section 16.2. Objective 2: Find Linux Documentation on the Internet
Section 16.3. Objective 5: Notify Users on System-related Issues

Chapter 17. Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling (Topic 1.109)
Section 17.1. Objective 1: Customize and Use the Shell Environment
Section 17.2. Objective 2: Customize or Write Simple Scripts

Chapter 18. Administrative Tasks (Topic 1.111)
Section 18.1. Objective 1: Manage Users and Group Accounts and Related System Files
Section 18.2. Objective 2: Tune the User Environment and System Environment Variables
Section 18.3. Objective 3: Configure and Use System Log Files to Meet Administrative and Security Needs
Section 18.4. Objective 4: Automate System Administration Tasks by Scheduling Jobs to Run in the Future
Section 18.5. Objective 5: Maintain an Effective Data Backup Strategy
Section 18.6. Objective 6: Maintain System Time

Chapter 19. Networking Fundamentals (Topic 1.112)
Section 19.1. Objective 1: Fundamentals of TCP/IP
Section 19.2. Objective 3: TCP/IP Configuration and Troubleshooting
Section 19.3. Objective 4: Configure Linux as a PPP Client

Chapter 20. Networking Services (Topic 1.113)
Section 20.1. Objective 1: Configure and Manage inetd, xinetd, and Related Services
Section 20.2. Objective 2: Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)
Section 20.3. Objective 3: Operate and Perform Basic Configuration of Apache
Section 20.4. Objective 4: Properly Manage the NFS and Samba Daemons
Section 20.5. Objective 5: Set Up and Configure Basic DNS Services
Section 20.6. Objective 7: Set Up Secure Shell (OpenSSH)

Chapter 21. Security (Topic 1.114)
Section 21.1. Objective 1: Perform Security Administration Tasks
Section 21.2. Objective 2: Set Up Host Security
Section 21.3. Objective 3: Set Up User-level Security

Chapter 22. Exam 102 Review Questions and Exercises
Section 22.1. Kernel (Topic 1.105)
Section 22.2. Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels (Topic 1.106)
Section 22.3. Printing (Topic 1.107)
Section 22.4. Documentation (Topic 1.108)
Section 22.5. Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling (Topic 1.109)
Section 22.6. Administrative Tasks (Topic 1.111)
Section 22.7. Networking Fundamentals (Topic 1.112)
Section 22.8. Networking Services (Topic 1.113)
Section 22.9. Security (Topic 1.114)

Chapter 23. Exam 102 Practice Test
Section 23.1. Questions
Section 23.2. Answers

Chapter 24. Exam 102 Highlighter's Index
Section 24.1. Kernel (Topic 1.105)
Section 24.2. Boot, Initialization, Shutdown, and Runlevels (Topic 1.106)
Section 24.3. Printing (Topic 1.107)
Section 24.4. Documentation (Topic 1.108)
Section 24.5. Shells, Scripting, Programming, and Compiling
Section 24.6. Administrative Tasks (Topic 1.111)
Section 24.7. Networking Fundamentals (Topic 1.112)
Section 24.8. Networking Services (Topic 1.113)
Section 24.9. Security (Topic 1.114)

Part III: General Linux Exam 201

Chapter 25. Linux Kernel
Section 25.1. Objective 1: Kernel Components
Section 25.2. Objective 2: Compiling a Kernel
Section 25.3. Objective 3: Patching a Kernel
Section 25.4. Objective 4: Customizing a Kernel

Chapter 26. System Startup
Section 26.1. Objective 1: Customizing System Startup and Boot Processes
Section 26.2. Objective 2: System Recovery

Chapter 27. Filesystem
Section 27.1. Objective 1: Operating the Linux Filesystem
Section 27.2. Objective 2: Maintaining a Linux Filesystem
Section 27.3. Objective 3: Creating and Configuring Filesystem Options

Chapter 28. Hardware (Topic 2.204)
Section 28.1. Objective 1: Configuring RAID
Section 28.2. Objective 2: Adding New Hardware
Section 28.3. Objective 3: Software and Kernel Configuration
Section 28.4. Objective 4: Configuring PCMCIA Devices

Chapter 29. File and Service Sharing (Topic 2.209)
Section 29.1. Objective 1: Configuring a Samba Server
Section 29.2. Objective 2: Configuring an NFS Server

Chapter 30. System Maintenance (Topic 2.211)
Section 30.1. Objective 1: System Logging
Section 30.2. Objective 2: Packaging Software
Section 30.3. Objective 3: Backup Operations

Chapter 31. System Customization and Automation (Topic 2.213)
Section 31.1. Objective 1: Automating Tasks Using Scripts

Chapter 32. Troubleshooting (Topic 2.214)
Section 32.1. Objective 1: Creating Recovery Disks
Section 32.2. Objective 2: Identifying Boot Stages
Section 32.3. Objective 3: Troubleshooting Boot Loaders
Section 32.4. Objective 4: General Troubleshooting
Section 32.5. Objective 5: Troubleshooting System Resources
Section 32.6. Objective 6: Troubleshooting Environment Configurations

Chapter 33. LPI Exam 201 Review Questions and Exercises
Section 33.1. Linux Kernel (Topic 2.201)
Section 33.2. System Startup (Topic 2.202)
Section 33.3. Filesystem (Topic 2.203)
Section 33.4. Hardware (Topic 2.204)
Section 33.5. File and Service Sharing (Topic 2.209)
Section 33.6. System Maintenance (Topic 2.211)
Section 33.7. System Customization and Automation (Topic 2.213)
Section 33.8. Troubleshooting (Topic 2.214)

Chapter 34. Exam 201 Practice Test
Section 34.1. Questions
Section 34.2. Answers

Part IV: General Linux Exam 202

Chapter 35. Networking Configuration (Topic 2.205)
Section 35.1. Objective 1: Basic Networking Configuration
Section 35.2. Objective 2: Advanced Network Configuration and Troubleshooting

Chapter 36. Mail and News (Topic 2.206)
Section 36.1. Objective 2: Using Sendmail
Section 36.2. Objective 3: Managing Mail Traffic
Section 36.3. Objective 1: Configuring Mailing Lists
Section 36.4. Objective 4: Serving News
Section 36.5. Conclusion

Chapter 37. DNS (Topic 2.207)
Section 37.1. Objective 1: Basic DNS Server Configuration
Section 37.2. Objective 2: Create and Maintain DNS Zones
Section 37.3. Objective 3: Securing a DNS Server

Chapter 38. Web Services (Apache and Squid, Topic 2.208)
Section 38.1. Installing Apache
Section 38.2. Configuring Apache
Section 38.3. Squid: History and Overview
Section 38.4. Squid Authentication
Section 38.5. Squid as Web Accelerator

Chapter 39. Network Client Management (Topic 2.210)
Section 39.1. Objective 1: DHCP Configuration
Section 39.2. Objective 2: NIS Configuration
Section 39.3. Objective 3: LDAP Configuration
Section 39.4. Objective 4: PAM Authentication

Chapter 40. System Security (Topic 2.212)
Section 40.1. Objective 2: Configuring a Router
Section 40.2. Objective 3: Securing FTP Servers
Section 40.3. Objective 4: Secure Shell (SSH)
Section 40.4. Objective 5: TCP Wrappers
Section 40.5. Objective 6: Security Tasks

Chapter 41. Network Troubleshooting (Topic 214)
Section 41.1. Network Troubleshooting Essentials
Section 41.2. Common Troubleshooting Commands
Section 41.3. Hardware Problems
Section 41.4. Network Device Configuration Files
Section 41.5. DNS Errors
Section 41.6. Determining the Cause of Inaccessible Services
Section 41.7. Conclusion

Chapter 42. Exam 202 Review Questions and Exercises
Section 42.1. Networking Configuration (Topic 2.205)
Section 42.2. Mail and News (Topic 2.206)
Section 42.3. DNS (Topic 2.207)
Section 42.4. Web Services (Topic 2.208)
Section 42.5. Answers
Section 42.6. Network Client Management (Topic 2.210)
Section 42.7. System Security (Topic 2.212)
Section 42.8. Network Troubleshooting (Topic 2.214)

Chapter 43. Exam 202 Practice Test
Section 43.1. Questions
Section 43.2. Answers

About the Authors
Colophon
Index

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Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

2009-05-24T02:37:00.000-07:00

Dan Ariely - "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions"
304 pages | HarperCollins 2008 | ISBN: 006135323X | PDF | 4 Mb

Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why cautious people make poor decisions about sex when aroused, why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money. According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior brings a variety of opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice, as well as economic and educational policy. Ariely's intelligent, exuberant style and thought-provoking arguments make for a fascinating, eye-opening read.

Contents

INTRODUCTION. How an Injury Led Me to Irrationality and to the Research Described Here

CHAPTER 1. The Truth about Relativity: Why Everything Is Relative--Even When It Shouldn't Be

CHAPTER 2. The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Why the Price of Pearls--and Everything Else--Is Up in the Air

CHAPTER 3. The Cost of Zero Cost: Why We Often Pay Too Much When We Pay Nothing

CHAPTER 4. The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them

CHAPTER 5. The Influence of Arousal: Why Hot Is Much Hotter Than We Realize

CHAPTER 6. The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control: Why We Can't Make Ourselves Do What We Want to Do

CHAPTER 7. The High Price of Ownership: Why We Overvalue What We Have

CHAPTER 8. Keeping Doors Open: Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective

CHAPTER 9. The Effect of Expectations: Why the Mind Gets What It Expects

CHAPTER 1O. The Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can't

CHAPTER 11. The Context of Our Character, Part I: Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do about It

CHAPTER 12. The Context of Our Character, Part II: Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest

CHAPTER 13. Beer and Free Lunches: What Is Behavioral Economics, and Where Are the Free Lunches?

Thanks
List of Collaborators
Notes
Bibliography and Additional Readings
Index
Index of Ideas

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The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See

2009-05-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

Enormous expanses of the Internet are unreachable with standard Web search engines. This book provides the key to finding these hidden resources by identifying how to uncover and use invisible Web resources. Mapping the invisible Web, when and how to use it, assessing the validity of the information, and the future of Web searching are topics covered in detail. Only 16 percent of Net-based information can be located using a general search engine. The other 84 percent is what is referred to as the invisible Web-made up of information stored in databases. Unlike pages on the visible Web, information in databases is generally inaccessible to the software spiders and crawlers that compile search engine indexes. As Web technology improves, more and more information is being stored in databases that feed into dynamically generated Web pages. The tips provided in this resource will ensure that those databases are exposed and Net-based research will be conducted in the most thorough and effective manner.

About the Author
Gary Price is a reference librarian at George Washington University. He lives in Vienna, Virginia. Chris Sherman is the director of the guide to Web searching on About.com and president of Searchwise, a consulting firm. He is the author of the CD-ROM Handbook and a frequent contributor to Online magazine. He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Invisible Web in a Nutshell
What to Expect from This Book
Boldly Go Where No Search Engine Has Gone Before
About www.invisible-web.net

Chapter 1 - The Internet and the Visible Web
How the Internet Came to Be
Early Net Search Tools
Enquire Within Upon Everything
Weaving the Web
Early Web Navigation
The First Search Engines

Chapter 2 - Information Seeking on the Visible Web
Browsing vs. Searching
Web Directories
How Web Directories Work
Issues with Web Directories
Search Engines
How Search Engines Work
Issues with Search Engines
Search Engines vs. Directories

Chapter 3 - Specialized and Hybrid Search Tools
Targeted Directories and Focused Crawlers
Targeted Directories
Focused Crawlers
Vertical Portals (Vortals)
How to Find Vortals
Metasearch Engines
Issues with Metasearch Engines
Value-Added Search Services
Alternative Search Tools
Browser Agents
Client-Based Search Tools
Web Rings
Fee-Based Web-Accessible Services
Next Stop: The Invisible Web

Chapter 4 - The Invisible Web
Invisible Web Defined
Why Search Engines Can’t See the Invisible Web
Four Types of Invisibility
The Opaque Web
The Private Web
The Proprietary Web
The Truly Invisible Web

Chapter 5 - Visible or Invisible?
Navigation vs. Content Sites
Direct vs. Indirect URLs
The URL Test
Specialized vs. Invisible
Visible vs. Invisible
The Library of Congress Web Site:
Both Visible and Invisible
The Robots Exclusion Protocol

Chapter 6 - Using the Invisible Web
Why Use the Invisible Web?
When to Use the Invisible Web
Top 25 Invisible Web Categories
What’s NOT on the Web—Visible or Invisible
Spider Traps, Damned Lies, and Other Chicanery
Keeping Current with the Invisible Web
Build Your Own Toolkit

Chapter 7 - Case Studies
Case 1 - Historical Stock Quotes
Case 2 - Patent Information
Case 3 - Real-Time Tracking
Case 4 - Locating an Out of Print Book
Case 5 - Telephone Numbers and Zip Codes
Case 6 - Finding Online Images
Case 7 - Investment Research
Case 8 - The Invisible Web Fails to Deliver!

Chapter 8 - The Future: Revealing the Invisible Web
Smarter Crawlers
The Promise and Pitfalls of Metadata
Beyond Text
Delving into Databases
Hypertext Query Languages
Real-Time Crawling
Long Live the Invisible Web

Chapter 9 - The Best of the Invisible Web
Invisible Web Pathfinders
An Invisible Web Directory
Frequently Asked Questions about the Directory
In Summary: The Top 10 Concepts to Understand
about the Invisible Web

Chapter 10 - Art and Architecture
Architecture
Artists
Galleries on the Web
Gateways to Art and Architecture Resources
Reference

Chapter 11 - Bibliographies and Library Catalogs
Bibliographies
Library Catalogs

Chapter 12 - Business and Investing
Company Information and Research
Consumer Resources
Economics—United States
Economics—World
Financial Institutions
General Business Resources
Government Contracts
Industry-Specific Resources
Investment Resources
Jobs and Career Information
Lookup Services
Marketing Resources
Pension Resources
Personal Finances
Philanthropy and Non-Profit Resources
Research and Development
Real Estate
Tariffs and Trade
Trade Shows and Conventions

Chapter 13 - Computers and Internet
Computers and Computing
Internet Resources

Chapter 14 - Education
Classroom and Teacher Support
Directories and Locators
Financial Information and Scholarships
General Education Resources
Statistics

Chapter 15 - Entertainment
Amusements
General Entertainment Resources
Movies and Cinema
Music
Performances and Events

Chapter 16 - Government Information and Data
Directories and Locators
General Government Resources
Government Documents
Government Officials
Government Programs
Politics, Policy, and International Relations
Statistics

Chapter 17 - Health and Medical Information
Diseases and Conditions
Images
Healthcare and Medical Information
Healthcare Professional Resources
Locators
Nutrition
Patient Information and Consumer Resources
Pharmaceutical Drugs
Research
Workplace Health and Safety

Chapter 18 - U.S. and World History
United States History
World History

Chapter 19 - Legal and Criminal Resources
Attorney and Law Firm Locators
Crime and Criminals
Decisions
Documents and Records
General Legal Resources
Intellectual Property
Laws, Codes, and Treaties

Chapter 20 - News and Current Events
Audio
Directories
News Search Resources
Video

Chapter 21 - Searching for People
Famous and Historical People
Genealogy Resources
Group and Affiliation Directories
Online White Pages and Lookup Tools
Veterans and Currently Serving Military

Chapter 22 - Public Records
General Public Records Resources
Location-Specific Public Records

Chapter 23 - Real-Time Information
Environment
Government
Miscellaneous Tracking
Space and Satellite
Stock Quotes
Transportation
Weather

Chapter 24 - Reference
Associations
Awards
Books
Calculators
Consumer Resources
Dictionaries, Glossaries, and Translation Resources
Food and Beverages
General Reference Resources
Journals and Periodicals
Library/Online Searching
Locators
Maps and Geography
Sports
Travel
Weather

Chapter 25 - Science
Agriculture
Biology
Botany
Chemistry
Earth Sciences
Energy
Engineering
Environment
General Science Resources
Mathematics and Physics
Oceanography
Research and Development
Space and Astronomy
Weather and Meteorology

Chapter 26 - Social Sciences
Anthropology
Archaeology
Demographics
Development Resources
General Resources
Gender Studies and Data
Latin America
Military Resources
Psychology
Research and Development
Religion

Chapter 27 - Transportation
Air
Automobile
General Transportation Resources
Maritime
Railroad

Glossary
References
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Пиратская бухта. Последний берег утопии

2009-05-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

Алексей Поликовский - "Пиратская бухта. Последний берег утопии"
The Pirate Bay. The Last Coast of Utopia (rus)
2009|PDF|3.4 Мб

Это книга о процессе над Пиратской Бухтой. Это книга о будущем, которое несут нам высокие технологии. Это книга о завтрашнем дне, который уже наступил.

Это книга о новых вещах. Вы не знаете, что такое Пиратская Бухта? Вы и подумать не могли, что в благопристойной Швеции бывают политические процессы? Вы не задумывались о том, что многие вещи, за которые с нас требуют деньги, на самом деле должны быть бесплатными? Обо всем этом вы можете узнать, скачав эту принципиально-бесплатную книгу.

Это необычное издание с большим количеством иллюстраций распространяется только через Интернет и только через торрент-трекеры ( в виде исключения - на сайте автора). Оно призвано привлечь внимание публики к проблеме копирайта, к достоинствам свободного программного обеспечения, к принципиальным вопросам свободы в Сети.

Книга была выпущена с открытым концом в начале процесса над Пиратской Бухтой. Здесь представлен второй, полный и окончательный вариант, выпущенный в свет после окончания процесса.

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The Best of the Best of Business Card Design

2009-05-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Best of the Best of Business Card Design
Rockport Publishers | ISBN: 1592531849 | 2005-09-01 | 352 Pages | PDF | 64 Mb

A business card is more than a piece of paper with your name on it. It's your calling card; a snapshot of your brand identity, a constant reminder in your client's Rolodexes. Perhaps that's why Rockport's Best of Business Card Design Series is so eagerly anticipated year after year. Now, Rockport brings together the very best examples of innovative, stand-out designs from three of its annual volumes.
In The Best of the Best of Business Card Design, readers will find hundreds of unique and memorable designs for every type of client, and in a broad range of colors, styles, and shapes. Filled with inspiration for designers and their clients around the world, this creative resource shows how any individual or business can make a tiny space speak volumes about who they are, and what they do.

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Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Ultimate Reference Suite

2009-05-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009 Ultimate Reference Suite

For Student and Home Use

When you need the facts, turn to the 2009 Britannica Ultimate Reference DVD for trusted information written by Nobel laureates, historians, curators, professors, and other noted authorities. From the youngest student to the curious adult to the most advanced researcher, users of every level will find what they need. Three age-appropriate encyclopedias; interactive tutorials in math, science, social studies, and other subjects; homework help; and other essential learning tools make it the most complete reference source available.

What's New for 2009

Britannica Biographies: World Leaders
A-Z QuickSearch
Book of the Year Articles
Spanish & English Translation Dictionary
Interactive Tutorials—math, science, & more

Exclusive Offers for Software Customers

Britannica Online 1-Year Trial Membership—simply register your software and enjoy a FREE 1-year trial membership to Britannica Online Premium. A $70 value! Get complete access from anywhere, anytime. With over one million pages online and discounts at the Britannica Store, you are bound to find all the information you need.
Britannica Test Prep—get the premium, customized solution for SAT and ACT test preparation. Enjoy an exclusive 20% discount on all Test Prep packages with your purchase.

Please Note: This product is also called the 2009 Britannica Student & Home Edition DVD.

The 2009 Britannica Ultimate Reference DVD includes:

Encyclopædia Britannica
Access the world's most trusted and authoritative information, featuring over 100,000 articles from the 32-volume Encyclopædia Britannica print set.

Britannica Student Encyclopedia
Find information easily in over 15,800 entries that are tailored to school subjects.

Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia
Instill a look-it-up habit that will stay with students in school and in life.

Book of the Year
Explore notable events in 10,500 articles covering science, politics, sports, and more from 1993 - 2007.

Homework Helpdesk
A collection of useful homework resources including a video subject browse, online learning games and activities, online subject spotlights, and how-to documents on topics such as writing a book review.

Learning Games and Activities
Hundreds of fun and interactive games and activities to help students with subjects like Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Two Complete Dictionaries and Thesauruses from Merriam-Webster®
Together, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® and Student Dictionaries and Thesauruses provide access to 405,000 definitions, synonyms and antonyms.

Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Translation Dictionary
Translate an English word to Spanish and a Spanish word to English with the click of the mouse.

World Atlas
Take a tour of the world through more than 2,600 maps linked to articles about countries, economies, cultures, and national statistics.

Timelines
Watch history unfold with timelines that show the people, events, and discoveries of the past.

Britannica BrainStormer
Discover new ideas and relationships between topics with this interactive tool.

Britannica Classics
Read articles from Britannica's most famous contributors-from Sigmund Freud to Harry Houdini, Marie Curie to Orville Wright.

Explore
Easily browse through Videos, Britannica Classics, Classical Music, and more.

NEW! Britannica Biographies: World Leaders
Over 2,000 insightful biographies of the most influential leaders of all time.

Virtual Notecards
Take and save notes from your articles on a virtual notecard. Notes are printable, which makes your research easier, more productive, and portable.

Britannica Workspace
Save articles, images, video, and more in one convenient location to help keep your research organized.

Rich Multimedia
View vivid illustrations with 31,000 images, video, and audio that bring fascinating topics to life.

Additional Videos, Web Links, and Magazines Online
Link to 166,000 sites you can trust-selected by Britannica editors-plus links to thousands of videos and magazines for a wealth of additional information.

Product Details

Format: Single DVD

Content Counts

103,252 articles/58,051,941 words
- 74,208 Encyclopædia Britannica
- 15,814 Student
- 2,656 Elementary
- 79 Britannica Classics
- 10,495 Britannica Book of the Year (1993-2007)
29,664 photos, illustrations, tables, and special comps
2,618 maps
495 video clips
644 sound clips
171 animations and Shockwave
291 World Data Profiles
1,098 Daily Content
166,000 Web links
275,000 Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary & thesaurus entries
130,000 Merriam-Webster Student Dictionary & Thesaurus entries
7,284 indexed timeline entries
- 4,216 Encyclopædia Britannica
- 2,595 Student
- 473 Elementary
Online learning games and activities
- 219 student activities
- 277 elementary activities
Thousands of magazine articles and videos online

System Requirements

Windows

Microsoft® Windows® XP (with SP2) or Vista
Pentium III® or equivalent processor
512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
1.97 GB free hard-drive space (4.2 GB for Full installation)
DVD-ROM Drive
1024x768 resolution, 16-bit color
Internet access recommended

Macintosh

Mac® OS 10.4.x or 10.5.x w/ Java 1.5
PowerPC G5 or Intel Core processor
512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
1.97 GB free hard-drive space (4.2 GB for Full installation)
DVD-ROM Drive
1024x768 resolution, millions of colors
Internet access recommended

Инсталация

1. Разархивирайте

2. Изпечете получения iso файл

3. В папка Crack e серийният номер

4. Install and enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: 3,30 GB (3.550.756.864 bytes)

Ruby on Rails Power!: The Comprehensive Guide

2009-05-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Aneesha Bakharia, "Ruby on Rails Power!: The Comprehensive Guide"
Course Technology PTR | 2007 | ISBN: 1598632167 | 448 pages | PDF | RAR 9,3 MB

Ruby on Rails is a feature-rich, easy to learn, and powerful web application framework that makes creating sophisticated, full featured web applications a snap. With the intuitive, straightforward nature of Ruby and the development platform provided by Rails, anyone can put together full-fledged web applications quickly, even if they're new to web programming. Ruby on Rails Power! is a comprehensive introduction to both the Ruby language and the Ruby on Rails framework, providing you with everything you need to author the next successful Web 2.0 application. It starts with the basics: installing Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and MySQL, and building a simple application in Rails. Then, since the Ruby on Rails framework is powered by the Ruby language, the book moves on to cover the basics of Ruby, making the learning curve for Ruby on Rails much easier to navigate. From there, the fundamentals everyone needs to develop a robust web application in Rails are covered in depth, from creating an interface to create, retrieve, update and delete records in a database with the Rails scaffold generator, to understanding the Model View Controller paradigm (Active Record, Action Controller and Action View) and using web services, AJAX, and Adobe Flex. By the end of the book, you’ll have created numerous applications in Rails, including a blog, a wiki, and a forum.

даунлоуд

Здрач (Twilight saga)

2009-05-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

Здрач превзе българските класации още с излизането си и повече от 15 седмици е неизменна част от челната тройка; Новолуние дебютира директно на първото място и 8 седмици е едноличен лидер в класациите на родните книжарници; преди 4 дена излезе третата книга от сагата - Затъмнение, след нея се очаква На зазоряване.

Стефани Майър е най-продаваната авторка за 2008 година с над 22 милиона продадени копия само за една година, а Здрач се превърна в най-търсената книга на годината.
Четирите книги, представящи изпепеляващата любов на едно смъртно момиче и един вампир, се задържаха 71 поредни седмици на първо място в класацията на New York Times за най-продаваните книги. Поредицата на Стефани Майър оглавява класациите и във всяка една от страните, в които е издадена.

1. Здрач (Twilight)
doc; 227 стр.; бълг.

2. Новолуние (New Moon)
doc; 254 стр.; бълг.

3. Затъмнение (Eclipse)
doc; 264 стр.; бълг.

4. Зазоряване (Breaking Dawn)
doc; 313 стр.; бълг.

5. Среднощно слънце (Midnight Sun) *
doc; 105 стр.; бълг.

Даунлоуд (rar на 5-те, 1,64 МВ)

* Петата книга от поредицата хронологично е първа книга, но през очите на Едуард Кълън. Книгата е до 12 глава, тъй като все още не е завършена от Стефани Майър. Преводът е направен по публикуваното в Интернет недовършено копие.

Viral Spiral и Copy, Rip, Burn

2009-05-22T04:28:00.000-07:00

David Bollier - Viral Spiral. How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own

pdf; 352 pages; New Press (January 13, 2009); еnglish; ISBN-10: 1595583963 ; ISBN-13: 978-1595583963

A stunning narrative history of the emergence of electronic "free culture," from open-source software and Creative Commons licenses to remixes and Web 2.0—in the tradition of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture.

A world organized around centralized control, strict intellectual property rights, and hierarchies of credentialed experts is under siege. A radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant.
— from Viral Spiral

From free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses, Wikipedia, remix music and video mashups, peer production, open science, open education, and open business, the world of digital media has spawned a new "sharing economy" that increasingly competes with entrenched media giants.

Reporting from the heart of this "free culture" movement, journalist and activist David Bollier provides the first comprehensive history of the attempt by a global brigade of techies, lawyers, artists, musicians, scientists, businesspeople, innovators, and geeks of all stripes to create a digital republic committed to freedom and innovation. Viral Spiral—the term Bollier coins to describe the almost-magical process by which Internet users can come together to build online commons and tools—brilliantly interweaves the disparate strands of this eclectic movement. The story describes major technological developments and pivotal legal struggles, as well as fascinating profiles of hacker Richard Stallman, copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig, and other colorful figures.

A milestone in reporting on the Internet by one of our leading media critics, Viral Spiral is for anyone seeking to take the full measure of the new digital era.

даунлоуд

David M. Berry - Copy, Rip, Burn. The Politics of Open Source

pdf, 280 pages; Publisher: Pluto Press (20 Sep 2008); еnglish; ISBN-10: 0745324142;
ISBN-13: 978-0745324142

Open source technology, like OpenOffice, has revolutionised the world of copyright. From downloading music and movies to accessing free software, digital media is forcing us to rethink the very idea of intellectual property. While big companies complain about lost profits, the individual has never enjoyed such freedom and autonomy in the market. Berry explores this debate in a clear and concise way, offering an ideal introduction for anyone not versed in the legalistic terminology that - up until now - has dominated coverage of this issue. Looking at the impact that the open source movement has had on journalism, printing, music and design, they show how the ideas that inspired the movement have begun to influence wider cultural and political transformations. This is a key text for students of media studies, journalism and anyone interested in new opportunities for creating a truly independent and democratic media.

About the Author
David Berry co-founded the highly acclaimed indymedia newspaper SchNEWS, together with Gibby Zobel, in the early 1990s. David then moved to work for Reuters before returning to academia.

даунлоуд