A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer


George Johnson - 2003
    Such a device would operate under a different set of physical laws: The laws of quantum mechanics. Johnson gently leads the curious outsider through the surprisingly simple ideas needed to understand this dream, discussing the current state of the revolution, and ultimately assessing the awesome power these machines could have to change our world.

The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times


Mohamed ElBaradei - 2011
    Unique in maintaining credibility in the Arab world and the West alike, ElBaradei has emerged as a singularly independent, uncompromised voice. As the director of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, he has contended with the Bush administration's assault on Iraq, the nuclear aspirations of North Korea, and the West's standoff with Iran. For their efforts to control nuclear proliferation, ElBaradei and his agency received the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.Now, in a vivid and thoughtful account, ElBaradei takes us inside the international fray. Inspector, adviser, and mediator, ElBaradei moves from Baghdad, where Iraqi officials bleakly predict the coming war, to behind-the-scenes exchanges with Condoleezza Rice, to the streets of Pyongyang and the trail of Pakistani nuclear smugglers. He dissects the possibility of rapprochement with Iran while rejecting hard-line ideologies of every kind, decrying an us-versus-them approach and insisting on the necessity of relentless diplomacy. Above all, he illustrates that the security of nations is tied to the security of individuals, dependent not only on disarmament but on a universal commitment to human dignity, democratic values, and the freedom from want.Probing and eloquent, The Age of Deception is an unparalleled account of society's struggle to come to grips with the uncertainties of our age.

The Waite Group's Turbo C Programming for the PC


Robert Lafore - 1987
    Assuming no prior knowledge of C, this introductory-level book demonstrates and explains how to write useful and marketable programs in Turbo C on the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC/Z computers.

Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity


Lawrence Lessig - 2004
    Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can't do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine.

Backtrack 5 Wireless Penetration Testing Beginner's Guide


Vivek Ramachandran - 2011
    Every new attack is described in the form of a lab exercise with rich illustrations of all the steps associated. You will practically implement various attacks as you go along. If you are an IT security professional or a security consultant who wants to get started with wireless testing with Backtrack, or just plain inquisitive about wireless security and hacking, then this book is for you. The book assumes that you have familiarity with Backtrack and basic wireless concepts.

Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine


Erika Janik - 2014
    Facing such horrors, many patients ran with open arms to burgeoning practices that promised new ways to cure their ills. Hydropaths offered cures using “healing waters” and tight wet-sheet wraps. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby experimented with magnets and tried to replace “bad,” diseased thoughts with “good,” healthy thoughts, while Daniel David Palmer reportedly restored a man’s hearing by knocking on his vertebrae. Lorenzo and Lydia Fowler used their fingers to “read” their clients’ heads, claiming that the topography of one’s skull could reveal the intricacies of one’s character. Lydia Pinkham packaged her Vegetable Compound and made a famous family business from the homemade cure-all. And Samuel Thomson, rejecting traditional medicine, introduced a range of herbal remedies for a vast array of woes, supplemented by the curative powers of poetry.   Bizarre as these methods may seem, many are the precursors of today’s notions of healthy living. We have the nineteenth-century practice of “medical gymnastics” to thank for today’s emphasis on regular exercise, and hydropathy’s various water cures for the notion of regular bathing and the mantra to drink “eight glasses of water a day.” And much of the philosophy of health introduced by these alternative methods is reflected in today’s patient-centered care and holistic medicine, which takes account of the body and spirit. Moreover, these entrepreneurial alternative healers paved the way for women in medicine. Shunned by the traditionalists and eager for converts, many of the masters of these new fields embraced the training of women in their methods. Some women, like Pinkham, were able to break through the barriers to women working to become medical entrepreneurs themselves. In fact, next to teaching, medicine attracted more women than any other profession in the nineteenth century, the majority of them in “irregular” health systems.   These eccentric ideas didn’t make it into modern medicine without a fight, of course. As these new healing methods grew in popularity, traditional doctors often viciously attacked them with cries of “quackery” and pressed legal authorities to arrest, fine, and jail irregulars for endangering public safety. Nonetheless, these alternative movements attracted widespread support—from everyday Americans and the famous alike, including Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and General Ulysses S. Grant—with their messages of hope, self-help, and personal empowerment.   Though many of these medical fads faded, and most of their claims of magical cures were discredited by advances in medical science, a surprising number of the theories and ideas behind the quackery are staples in today’s health industry. Janik tells the colorful stories of these “quacks,” whose oftentimes genuine wish to heal helped shape and influence modern medicine.

The Hobbyist's Guide to the RTL-SDR: Really Cheap Software Defined Radio


Carl Laufer - 2014
    The RTL-SDR is a super cheap software defined radio based on DVB-T TV dongles that can be found for under $20. This book is about tips and tutorials that show you how to get the most out of your RTL-SDR dongle. Some projects described in this book are also compatible with other wideband SDRs like the HackRF, Airspy and SDR Play. What's in the book Learn how to set up your RTL-SDR with various free software defined radio programs such as SDR#, HDSDR, SDR-Radio and more. Learn all the little tricks and oddities that the dongle has. A whole chapter dedicated to improving the RTL-SDR's performance. Dozens of tutorials for fun RTL-SDR based projects such as ADS-B aircraft radar, AIS boat radar, ACARS decoding, receiving NOAA and Meteor-M2 weather satellite images, listening to and following trunked radios, decoding digital voice P25/DMR signals, decoding weather balloon telemetry, receiving DAB radio, analysing GSM and listening to TETRA signals, decoding pagers, receiving various HF signals such as ham radio modes, weatherfax and DRM radio, decoding digital D-STAR voice, an introduction to GNU Radio, decoding RDS, decoding APRS, measuring filters and SWR with low cost equipment, and many many more projects! Guide to antennas, cables and adapters. This book is updated every 3-4 months to ensure information is fresh and up to date. Updates are available for free for all customers. Note: To update the book you must manually contact Kindle support and request the update. Last updated to edition 4.1 on 15 June 2015.

Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas


Seymour Papert - 1980
    We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers.

How Linux Works: What Every Superuser Should Know


Brian Ward - 2004
    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.

Machines that Think: Everything you need to know about the coming age of artificial intelligence (New Scientist Instant Expert)


New Scientist - 2017
    So are we on the edge of an AI-pocalypse, with super-intelligent devices superseding humanity, as predicted by Stephen Hawking? Or will this herald a kind of Utopia, with machines doing a far better job at complex tasks than us? You might not realise it, but you interact with AIs every day. They route your phone calls, approve your credit card transactions and help your doctor interpret results. Driverless cars will soon be on the roads with a decision-making computer in charge. But how do machines actually think and learn? In Machines That Think, AI experts and New Scientist explore how artificial ingence helps us understand human intelligence, machines that compose music and write stories - and ask if AI is really a threat.--

A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks


Clifford D. Conner - 2005
    This history is made up of long periods of ignorance and confusion, punctuated once an age by a brilliant thinker who puts it all together. These few tower over the ordinary mass of people, and in the traditional account, it is to them that we owe science in its entirety. This belief is wrong. A People's History of Science shows how ordinary people participate in creating science and have done so throughout history. It documents how the development of science has affected ordinary people, and how ordinary people perceived that development. It would be wrong to claim that the formulation of quantum theory or the structure of DNA can be credited directly to artisans or peasants, but if modern science is likened to a skyscraper, then those twentieth-century triumphs are the sophisticated filigrees at its pinnacle that are supported by the massive foundation created by the rest of us.

Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think


Marian Petre - 2016
    Expert software designers have specific habits, learned practices, and observed principles that they apply deliberately during their design work. This book offers sixty-six insights, distilled from years of studying experts at work, that capture what successful software designers actually do to create great software.The book presents these insights in a series of two-page illustrated spreads, with the principle and a short explanatory text on one page, and a drawing on the facing page. For example, "Experts generate alternatives" is illustrated by the same few balloons turned into a set of very different balloon animals. The text is engaging and accessible; the drawings are thought-provoking and often playful.Organized into such categories as "Experts reflect," "Experts are not afraid," and "Experts break the rules," the insights range from "Experts prefer simple solutions" to "Experts see error as opportunity." Readers learn that "Experts involve the user"; "Experts take inspiration from wherever they can"; "Experts design throughout the creation of software"; and "Experts draw the problem as much as they draw the solution."One habit for an aspiring expert software designer to develop would be to read and reread this entertaining but essential little book. The insights described offer a guide for the novice or a reference for the veteran--in software design or any design profession.A companion web site provides an annotated bibliography that compiles key underpinning literature, the opportunity to suggest additional insights, and more.

The Complete Guide to High-End Audio


Robert Harley - 1995
    With this book, discover how to get the best sound for your money, how to identify the weak links in your system and upgrade where it will do the most good, how to set up and tweak your system for maximum performance, and how to become a more perceptive and appreciative listener. Just a few of the secrets you will learn cover high-end sound on a budget, how to do it cheap and still do it right; five system set-up mistakes and how to avoid them; how to make your speakers sound up to 50% better, at no cost; how to choose and set up a computer-based music system; how to find the one speaker in 50 worth owning; and why all 100-watt amplifiers don't sound the same. Since the first edition's publication in 1994, The Complete Guide to High-End Audio has been considered the essential reference on high-quality music reproduction, with more than 150,000 copies sold in five languages.

Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb


William Poundstone - 1992
    Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner's dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann--father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century--to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery.Called the prisoner's dilemma, it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. Introduced shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb, the prisoner's dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann and Bertrand Russell joined military and political leaders in rallying to the preventive war movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the United States entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy--alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them.A masterful work of science writing, Prisoner's Dilemma weaves together a biography of the brilliant and tragic von Neumann, a history of pivotal phases of the cold war, and an investigation of game theory's far-reaching influence on public policy today. Most important, Prisoner's Dilemma is the incisive story of a revolutionary idea that has been hailed as a landmark of twentieth-century thought.

The Spatial Web: How Web 3.0 Will Connect Humans, Machines, and AI to Transform the World


Gabriel Rene - 2019
    Blade Runner, The Matrix, Star Wars, Avatar, Star Trek, Ready Player One and Avengers show us futuristic worlds where holograms, intelligent robots, smart devices, virtual avatars, digital transactions, and universe-scale teleportation work together perfectly, somehow seamlessly combining the virtual and the physical with the mechanical and the biological. Science fiction has done an excellent job describing a vision of the future where the digital and physical merge naturally into one — in a way that just works everywhere, for everyone. However, none of these visionary fictional works go so far as to describe exactly how this would actually be accomplished. While it has inspired many of us to ask the question—How do we enable science fantasy to become....science fact? The Spatial Web achieves this by first describing how exponentially powerful computing technologies are creating a great “Convergence.” How Augmented and Virtual Reality will enable us to overlay our information and imaginations onto the world. How Artificial Intelligence will infuse the environments and objects around us with adaptive intelligence. How the Internet of Things and Robotics will enable our vehicles, appliances, clothing, furniture, and homes to become connected and embodied with the power to see, feel, hear, smell, touch and move things in the world, and how Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies will secure our data and enable real-time transactions between the human, machine and virtual economies of the future. The book then dives deeply into the challenges and shortcomings of the World Wide Web, the rise of fake news and surveillance capitalism in Web 2.0 and the risk of algorithmic terrorism and biological hacking and “fake-reality” in Web 3.0. It raises concerns about the threat that emerging technologies pose in the hands of rogue actors whether human, algorithmic, corporate or state-sponsored and calls for common sense governance and global cooperation. It calls for business leaders, organizations and governments to not only support interoperable standards for software code, but critically, for ethical, and social codes as well. Authors Gabriel René and Dan Mapes describe in vivid detail how a new “spatial” protocol is required in order to connect the various exponential technologies of the 21st century into an integrated network capable of tracking and managing the real-time activities of our cities, monitoring and adjusting the supply chains that feed them, optimizing our farms and natural resources, automating our manufacturing and distribution, transforming marketing and commerce, accelerating our global economies, running advanced planet-scale simulations and predictions, and even bridging the gap between our interior individual reality and our exterior collective one. Enabling the ability for humans, machines and AI to communicate, collaborate and coordinate activities in the world at a global scale and how the thoughtful application of these technologies could lead to an unprecedented opportunity to create a truly global “networked” civilization or "Smart World.” The book artfully shifts between cyberpunk futurism, cautionary tale-telling, and life-affirming call-to-arms. It challenges us to consider the importance of today’s technological choices as individuals, organizations, and as a species, as we face the historic opportunity we have to transform the web, the world, and our very definition of reality.