Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? Why does any material look and behave the way it does? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik a globally-renowned materials scientist has spent his life exploring In this book he examines the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor and the graphite in his pencil to the foam in his sneakers and the concrete in a nearby skyscraper.

    It wasn’t even the long list of scandals exposed to a horrified nation — charging fees to dead people, blatant conflicts of interest, and taking $1 billion from customers in fees that banks were never entitled to.What made it so fascinating, so heart-breaking, and so enraging was the procession of faces through the witness box, and the team of counsel gazing into the dark heart of banking.Tearful victims, blank-faced executives, hapless regulators, and a couple of utter charlatans all had their day in court, watched by an audience of millions, and revealing — in their stories — the material to justify re-shaping the multi-trillion dollar financial services industry that forms a pillar of Australian life.A Wunch of Bankers covers not just the big shocks, but the small moments — lost in the flurry of daily reporting — that reveal how companies have used the law, limp enforcement, and basic human behaviour to take advantage of customers.Is there a phrase that judges how much life-insurance spruikers in call centres can terrify you about your impending death — and the grief-stricken ruins of an estate you’ll leave for your bereaved family — while still being legal?Yes, there is.Was there a meeting in which a bank’s executives ignored a warning of “Extreme” from its chief risk officer, to embark on an illegal scheme that accrued $3.6 billion in funds?There was.Mixed among the testimony are snippets from life on the road as the World’s Oldest Debuting TV Reporter — not just driving five hours one-way to talk to a man who almost blew his brains out over a bank nabbing his $22 million estate, but explaining how journalism can only ever give you a glimpse inside complex issues.In A Wunch of Bankers, Danel Ziffer bring out the colour and grit of the royal commission’s proceedings, and explores broader issues raised by the testimony. A mixture of analysis, reportage, and observations, it is densely researched and compellingly written.

    You’ll learn how each of these platform-agnostic patterns work, when they might be useful in the cloud, and what impact they’ll have on your application architecture. You’ll also see an example of each pattern applied to an application built with Windows Azure.The patterns are organized into four major topics, such as scalability and handling failure, and primer chapters provide background on each topic. With the information in this book, you’ll be able to make informed decisions for designing effective cloud-native applications that maximize the value of cloud services, while also paying attention to user experience and operational efficiency.Learn about architectural patterns for:Scalability. Discover the advantages of horizontal scaling. Patterns covered include Horizontally Scaling Compute, Queue-Centric Workflow, and Auto-Scaling.Big data. Learn how to handle large amounts of data across a distributed system. Eventual consistency is explained, along with the MapReduce and Database Sharding patterns.Handling failure. Understand how multitenant cloud services and commodity hardware influence your applications. Patterns covered include Busy Signal and Node Failure.Distributed users. Learn how to overcome delays due to network latency when building applications for a geographically distributed user base. Patterns covered include Colocation, Valet Key, CDN, and Multi-Site Deployment.

    

    He needs Thorne's help to steal a painting from an art gallery and he isn't just asking.Unless Thorne agrees, bad things will happen to the woman he loves.The heist is a disaster and soon a young cop lies dead. As the gang flee the scene, Thorne realizes that Blake plans to target the painting's owner, and kidnap his wife.Thorne will stop at nothing to save them.Explosive thriller, perfect for fans of Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and Gregg Hurwitz.What Amazon readers are saying about Night Passenger:★★★★★ 'A pacy novel with lots of action - gives Jack Reacher stories some competition.'★★★★★ 'If you're only taking one book on holiday, take this one. Packed full of action and would make a really good movie.'★★★★★ 'Fun read, good characters, action and storyline. Just pure entertainment, no politics thank goodness. Looking forward to the next one.'★★★★★ 'This book was pretty much nonstop action. Thorne is between a rock and hard place throughout. This book kept my interest from the first page to the end. I enjoyed it very much.'★★★★★ 'This was a great read. I didn't want to put it down. Looking forward to more from this author.'★★★★★ 'This debut novel grabbed me from the start. It read like a cable mini-series with multiple crescendos and interesting characters. Looking forward to the next adventure with Thorne.'★★★★★ 'Great book, can't wait for the next. Fast paced, exciting and some tender moments. Well developed characters. Definitely a not put downable.'What Goodreads readers are saying about Night Passenger:★★★★★ 'This is the best thriller novel I have read in the last 10 years.'★★★★★ 'An impressive first novel, with a good story line and fast pace.'★★★★★ 'Couldn't put this down. Fast-paced from the beginning.'

    This book is about, what some may call, the alternative explanation.Picked up by a larger publisher--the retitled, second, and final edition of the cult hit, Spent Shell Casings.Created as a counterweight for all the politicized and ghost-written books about the Global War on Terror, No Joy is the transgressive memoir to set the record straight! Dark. Hilarious. Disturbingly Honest—this collection of short stories from your average frustrated American teen turned one of its most elite brand of warriors, No Joy rips the veneer off the thank-you-for-your-service Boy Scout façade.Centered on the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, this mosaic of meditation and madness asks the necessary question: what really draws modern young men to war?

    To forget the pain, the fear and forget the man that helped her through all of it, then disappeared.Kane Bledsoe is finally healed, his scars serving as a reminder of his time in captivity. But all he can think about is the blue-eyed woman that saved him. She had saved them all and left him with a burning hope.A chance meeting and an attack prove Macy is still in danger. Kane pushes himself into the investigation, doing what he can to provide protection.The enemy is clear, he wants Macy.Kane will have to decide just how far he’s willing to go to protect her. Can he sacrifice himself when the time comes?

    You'll also learn tips and tricks to help you unlock the true potential of your device.Here are just some of the essentials you'll learn from this book:- Master the settings of your Kindle Fire HD device- Drastically reduce charge time & boost battery life - Setting up and using wireless networks- Utilizing security features to safeguard your device- Increase productivity: Skype, Email, Cloud Storage, Reading Documents, File Explorer- Sync your Kindle Fire HD to your computer, transfer your music and video seamlessly - Enhance your shopping and entertainment experience on Amazon and more... Kindle Fire HD Manual: The Complete Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Your Kindle Device is a comprehensive step-by-step, no fluff guide to help you master your device in no time. Get it while it's still available at this low price! **Scroll to the top of the page and click the buy button on the right to download this book now!**

    

    She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations?Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including:* How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included) * When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway * How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss * Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answersWhether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.

    Updated and revised for iPhone SDK 3, many of the discussions in the original book have been clarified to make some of the more complex topics easier to understand. In addition, all of the projects have been rebuilt from scratch using the SDK 3 templates.Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, this book offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone and iPod touch programming. The book starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and installing Apple's free iPhone SDK, and then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. From there, you'll learn to integrate all the interface elements iPhone users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. The confusing art of table building will be demystified, and you'll see how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You'll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone's built-in database management system. In addition, you'll also learn about Core Data, an important persistence mechanism that has just been added with SDK 3.And there's much more! You'll learn to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES, add multitouch gestural support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the camera, photo library, accelerometer, and built-in GPS. You'll discover the fine points of application preferences and learn how to localize your apps for multiple languages. You can discover more about this book, download source code, and find support forums at the book's companion site, at www.iphonedevbook.com.The iPhone 3 update to the best-selling and most recommended book for iPhone developers Packed full of tricks, techniques, and enthusiasm for the new SDK from a developer perspective The most complete, useful, and up-to-date guide to all things having to do with Apple's iPhone SDK

    In this inspirational, instructive, highly entertaining book, Ben Collins uses his super-charged experience of racing, stunt-work and cutting-edge scientific knowledge to tell you all of the things you didn't learn on your test - and in the process will make your driving safer, more economical and a lot more enjoyable. The skills described here, from skid control to gear changes that are as smooth as a cashmere codpiece, have been honed on racing tracks by the greatest drivers in the world. This is the stuff your instructor missed, your dad forgot and your mates pretend to know ...but don't. Packed with illustrations, gobsmacking driving anecdotes, humour and wisdom, this is the ultimate book for anyone who wants to be better at something they do every day of their life. The world population of motor vehicles exceeded a billion a couple of years ago. Let's make sure their owners understand how to use them.

    The Lean Startup movement is very promising, but for many teams it ends up translating into an important question: ”Yeah, but what to build ?” “In ThoughtWorks, our response has been a process called an inception. We gather together a good sample of the people who will be affected by the product and have an intensive session to set an initial direction, using a series of exercises focusing on collaboration and the capture of broad goals. We don't attempt a detailed specification, as that is exactly the kind of thing that becomes out of date as soon as code hits production. But we do want to understand what kind of outcomes we are hoping for, the features that we think will drive these outcomes, and how to assess the effectiveness of our product. With The Lean Inception, Paulo has captured his experience in running these inceptions over the last decade. In particular it's focused on his work to boil the inception down to its essence, concentrating the activity on a single, if very intensive, week of work. Paulo shares how he makes this work, through writing a product vision, capturing personas, understanding the user journeys, and developing high-level features. The result isn't a detailed plan of work, which we find quickly rots into irrelevance. It is a guiding set of goals to set us off in the right direction. It doesn't plan out a final product, with all the features that our users will need, instead it focuses on an initial product that we can release and learn from - the Minimum Viable Product. “ – Martin Fowler, Chief Cientist at ThoughtWorks

    A focus is placed on the principles and practices of decomposing a complex problem space as well as the implementation patterns and best practices for shaping a maintainable solution space.

    Vaughn Vernon couples guided approaches to implementation with modern architectures, highlighting the importance and value of focusing on the business domain while balancing technical considerations.Building on Eric Evans’ seminal book, Domain-Driven Design, the author presents practical DDD techniques through examples from familiar domains. Each principle is backed up by realistic Java examples–all applicable to C# developers–and all content is tied together by a single case study: the delivery of a large-scale Scrum-based SaaS system for a multitenant environment.The author takes you far beyond “DDD-lite” approaches that embrace DDD solely as a technical toolset, and shows you how to fully leverage DDD’s “strategic design patterns” using Bounded Context, Context Maps, and the Ubiquitous Language. Using these techniques and examples, you can reduce time to market and improve quality, as you build software that is more flexible, more scalable, and more tightly aligned to business goals.