Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.Construction of the giant dam was a triumph of human ingenuity, yet the full story of this monumental endeavor has never been told. Now, in an engrossing, fast-paced narrative, Joseph E. Stevens recounts the gripping saga of Hoover Dam. Drawing on a wealth of material, including manuscript collections, government documents, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and personal interviews and correspondence with men and women who were involved with the construction, he brings the Hoover Dam adventure to life.Described here in dramatic detail are the deadly hazards the work crews faced as they hacked and blasted the dam’s foundation out of solid rock; the bitter political battles and violent labor unrest that threatened to shut the job down; the deprivation and grinding hardship endured by the workers’ families; the dam builders’ gambling, drinking, and whoring sprees in nearby Las Vegas; and the stirring triumphs and searing moments of terror as the massive concrete wedge rose inexorably from the canyon floor.Here, too, is an unforgettable cast of characters: Henry Kaiser, Warren Bechtel, and Harry Morrison, the ambitious, headstrong construction executives who gambled fortune and fame on the Hoover Dam contract; Frank Crowe, the brilliant, obsessed field engineer who relentlessly drove the work force to finish the dam two and a half years ahead of schedule; Sims Ely, the irascible, teetotaling eccentric who ruled Boulder City, the straightlaced company town created for the dam workers by the federal government; and many more men and women whose courage and sacrifice, greed and frailty, made the dam’s construction a great human, as well as technological, adventure.Hoover Dam is a compelling, irresistible account of an extraordinary American epic.

    Over the years sports debates have become muddled by many myths that do not match the numbers generated by those playing the games. In The Wages of Wins, the authors use layman's language and easy to follow examples based on their own academic research to debunk many of the most commonly held beliefs about sports.In this updated version of their book, these authors explain why Allen Iverson leaving Philadelphia made the 76ers a better team, why the Yankees find it so hard to repeat their success from the late 1990s, and why even great quarterbacks like Brett Favre are consistently inconsistent. The book names names, and makes it abundantly clear that much of the decision making of coaches and general managers does not hold up to an analysis of the numbers. Whether you are a fantasy league fanatic or a casual weekend fan, much of what you believe about sports will change after reading this book.

    It covers the entire scope of mechanical metallurgy, from an understanding of the continuum description of stress and strain, through crystalline and defect mechanisms of flow and fracture, and on to a consideration of major mechanical property tests and the basic metalworking process. It has been updated throughout, SI units have been added, and end-of-chapter study questions are included.

    Itzik Ben-Gan explains key T-SQL concepts and helps you apply your knowledge with hands-on exercises. The book first introduces T-SQL's roots and underlying logic. Next, it walks you through core topics such as single-table queries, joins, subqueries, table expressions, and set operators. Then the book covers more-advanced data-query topics such as window functions, pivoting, and grouping sets. The book also explains how to modify data, work with temporal tables, and handle transactions, and provides an overview of programmable objects. Microsoft Data Platform MVP Itzik Ben-Gan shows you how to: Review core SQL concepts and its mathematical roots Create tables and enforce data integrity Perform effective single-table queries by using the SELECT statement Query multiple tables by using joins, subqueries, table expressions, and set operators Use advanced query techniques such as window functions, pivoting, and grouping sets Insert, update, delete, and merge data Use transactions in a concurrent environment Get started with programmable objects-from variables and batches to user-defined functions, stored procedures, triggers, and dynamic SQL

    Identity Theft. Corporate Espionage. National secrets compromised. Can anyone promise security in our digital world?The man who introduced cryptography to the boardroom says no. But in this fascinating read, he shows us how to come closer by developing security measures in terms of context, tools, and strategy. Security is a process, not a product – one that system administrators and corporate executives alike must understand to survive.This edition updated with new information about post-9/11 security.

    In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad—that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn’t always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and “natural” cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards—such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed. As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind’s greatest scientific advances—and our greatest need for them—that deal must be renewed.

    Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to fool rather than to inform.

    But to the Martin family, their household robot NDR-113 is more than a trusted friend, a confidant, a member of the family. For through some unknown manufacturing glitch, Andrew has been blessed with a capacity for love and a drive toward self-awareness and devlopment that are almost...human.But almost is not enough. Andrew's dream is to become fully human. Facing human prejudice, the laws of robotics, and his own mechanical limitations, Andrew will use science and law in his quest for the impossible, arriving at last at a terrifying choice: to make his dream a reality, he must pay the ultimate price.

    . . full of intellectual treats and tricks, of whimsy and deep scientific philosophy. It is highbrow entertainment at its best, a teasing challenge to all who aspire to think about the universe." — New York Herald TribuneOne of the world's foremost nuclear physicists (celebrated for his theory of radioactive decay, among other accomplishments), George Gamow possessed the unique ability of making the world of science accessible to the general reader.He brings that ability to bear in this delightful expedition through the problems, pleasures, and puzzles of modern science. Among the topics scrutinized with the author's celebrated good humor and pedagogical prowess are the macrocosm and the microcosm, theory of numbers, relativity of space and time, entropy, genes, atomic structure, nuclear fission, and the origin of the solar system.In the pages of this book readers grapple with such crucial matters as whether it is possible to bend space, why a rocket shrinks, the "end of the world problem," excursions into the fourth dimension, and a host of other tantalizing topics for the scientifically curious. Brimming with amusing anecdotes and provocative problems, One Two Three . . . Infinity also includes over 120 delightful pen-and-ink illustrations by the author, adding another dimension of good-natured charm to these wide-ranging explorations.Whatever your level of scientific expertise, chances are you'll derive a great deal of pleasure, stimulation, and information from this unusual and imaginative book. It belongs in the library of anyone curious about the wonders of the scientific universe. "In One Two Three . . . Infinity, as in his other books, George Gamow succeeds where others fail because of his remarkable ability to combine technical accuracy, choice of material, dignity of expression, and readability." — Saturday Review of Literature

    Others have the knack of unerringly zeroing in on the root cause of a bug. Are they geniuses? Just lucky? No, they've learned the secrets of professional debugging. This book will equip you with the tools, techniques and approaches-proven in the crucible of professional software development-to ensure that you can tackle any bug with confidence. You'll learn how to handle every stage of the bug life-cycle, from constructing software that makes debugging easy, through detection, reproduction, diagnosis and rolling out your eventual fix. If you develop software, sooner or later you're going to discover that it doesn't always behave as you intended. Working out why it's misbehaving can be hard. Sometimes very hard. Debug It! is here to help! All bugs are different: there is no silver bullet. You've got to rely upon your intellect, intuition, detective skills and yes, even a little luck. But that doesn't mean that you're completely on your own-there is much you can learn from those who have gone before. This book distills decades of hard-won experience gained in the trenches of professional software development, giving you a head-start and arming you with the tools you need to get to the bottom of the problem, whatever you're faced with. Whether you're writing Java or assembly language, targeting servers or embedded micro-controllers, using agile or traditional approaches, the same basic bug-fixing principles apply. From constructing software that is easy to debug (and incidentally less likely to contain bugs in the first place), through handling bug reports to rolling out your ultimate fix, we'll cover the entire life-cycle of a bug. You'll learn about the empirical approach, which leverages your software's unique ability to show you what's really happening, the importance of finding a reliable and convenient means of reproducing a bug, and common pitfalls so you can avoid them. You'll see how to use commonly available tools to automatically detect problems before they're reported by customers and how to construct "transparent software" that provides access to critical information and internal state.

    In this book, you'll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You'll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product. After all, your skills themselves are a product. The choices you make about which technologies to focus on and which business domains to master have at least as much impact on your success as your technical knowledge itself--don't let those choices be accidental. We'll walk through all aspects of the decision-making process, so you can ensure that you're investing your time and energy in the right areas. You'll develop a structured plan for keeping your mind engaged and your skills fresh. You'll learn how to assess your skills in terms of where they fit on the value chain, driving you away from commodity skills and toward those that are in high demand. Through a mix of high-level, thought-provoking essays and tactical "Act on It" sections, you will come away with concrete plans you can put into action immediately. You'll also get a chance to read the perspectives of several highly successful members of our industry from a variety of career paths. As with any product or service, if nobody knows what you're selling, nobody will buy. We'll walk through the often-neglected world of marketing, and you'll create a plan to market yourself both inside your company and to the industry in general. Above all, you'll see how you can set the direction of your career, leading to a more fulfilling and remarkable professional life.

    This is a new view of mathematics, not the one we learned at school but a comprehensive guide to the patterns that recur through the universe and underlie human affairs. A Beginner's Guide to Constructing, the Universe shows you: Why cans, pizza, and manhole covers are round.Why one and two weren't considered numbers by the ancient Greeks.Why squares show up so often in goddess art and board games.What property makes the spiral the most widespread shape in nature, from embryos and hair curls to hurricanes and galaxies. How the human body shares the design of a bean plant and the solar system. How a snowflake is like Stonehenge, and a beehive like a calendar. How our ten fingers hold the secrets of both a lobster a cathedral, and much more.

    The 20 stand-alone chapters of this new work describe how technological failures result from the incompatibilities between the way things are designed and the way people actually perceive, think, and act. New technologies will succeed or fail based on our ability to minimize these incompatibilities between the characteristics of people and the characteristics of the things we create and use.This book is the quintessential 'must read' for all those who deal with technology in any fashion. From the frustration of an awkward ATM machine to the threat of accidental, nuclear Armageddon, Casey shows how the same crucial factors come into play told through the very eyes of those people who saw and experienced these things. No student of design, psychology, behavioral science, or technology should be without this book, and neither should any intelligent member of society who wants to know what goes on with the successes and failures of modern technology.Sit ringside to the action where compelling events unfold. The stories in this book will take you to airports and airline cabins, an amusement park, a fertility clinic, a pharmaceutical plant, an emergency dispatch center, the Olympic games, and a bank; to hospitals, spacecraft, ships, and cars. From the coasts of Peru and Monterey, in orbit aboard the International Space Station, the freeways of Southern California and the back roads of France, the battlefields of Afghanistan, and a nuclear fuel plant in Japan this is The Atomic Chef.

    It also presents some of the practical details of how elements of a control system are designed and operated, such as would be gained from on-the-job experience. This middle ground of knowledge enables users to design the elements of a control system from a practical, working perspective, and comprehend how these elements affect overall system operation and tuning. KEY TOPICS: This edition includes treatment of modern fieldbus approaches to networked and distributed control systems. Generally, this guidebook provides an introduction to process control, and covers analog and digital signal conditioning, thermal, mechanical and optical sensors, final control, discrete-state process control, controller principles, analog controllers, digital control and control loop characteristics. MARKET: For those working in measurement and instrumentation and with control systems and PLCs.