Many of us love to tell them, and even dream of making a living from it too. But what is a story? Hundreds of books about screenwriting and storytelling have been written, but none of them ask 'Why?' Why do we tell stories? And why do all stories function in an eerily similar way? John Yorke has been telling stories almost his entire adult life, and the more he has done it, the more he has asked himself why? Every great thinker or writer has their theories: Aristotle, David Hare, Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, Gustav Freytag, David Mamet, Christopher Booker, Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and Aaron Sorkin - all have offered insightful and illuminating answers. Here, John Yorke draws on these figures and more as he takes us on a historical, philosophical, scientific and psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling.What he reveals is that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative - one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within. Much more than a 'how to write' book, Into the Woods is an exploration of this fundamental structure underneath all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing. With astonishing detail and wisdom, John Yorke explains to us a phenomenon that, whether it is as a simple fable, or a big-budget 3D blockbuster, most of us experience almost every day of our lives.

    And they did it without fanfare or recognition from their employer. Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning provides a fascinating look at technohistory that sets the record straight. In Dealers of Lightning, Hiltzik describes the forces and faces behind the revolution that the Xerox PARC team single-handedly spawned. The Xerox PARC group was composed solely of top technical minds. The decision was made at Xerox headquarters to give the team complete freedom from deadlines and directives, in hopes of fostering a true creative environment. It worked — perhaps too well. The team responded with a steady output of amazing technology, including the first version of the Internet, the first personal computer, user-friendly word-processing programs, and pop-up menus. Xerox, far from ready for the explosion of innovation, failed to utilize the technology dreamed up by the group. Out of all the dazzling inventions born at Xerox PARC, only a handful were developed and marketed by Xerox. However, one of these inventions, the laser printer, proved successful enough to earn billions for the company, therefore justifying its investment in the research center. Most oftheteam's creations would go on to be developed and perfected by other companies, such as IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Drawing from interviews with the engineers, executives, and scientists involved in the Xerox PARC, Dealers of Lightning chronicles an amazing era of egos, ideas, and inventions at the dawn of the computer age.

    So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back-end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values.Grounded in both practice and scientific research, Bill Buxton s engaging work aims to spark the imagination while encouraging the use of new techniques, breathing new life into user experience design. Covers sketching and early prototyping design methods suitable for dynamic product capabilities: cell phones that communicate with each other and other embedded systems, "smart" appliances, and things you only imagine in your dreamsThorough coverage of the design sketching method which helps easily build experience prototypes-without the effort of engineering prototypes which are difficult to abandonReaches out to a range of designers, including user interface designers, industrial designers, software engineers, usability engineers, product managers, and othersFull of case studies, examples, exercises, and projects, and access to video clips that demonstrate the principles and methods"

    I did the basic research for my PhD in about twelve months, then spent two years writing up the results - and producing possibly too much. It succeeded, but I think I might have made a better job of it if I had read a book like this first. But they didn't exist in those days." Mantex This book looks at things the other books don’t tell you about doing a PhD - what it’s really like and how to come through it with a happy ending! It covers all the things you wish someone had told you before you started: What a PhD is really about, and how to do one well The "unwritten rules" of research and of academic writing What your supervisor actually means by terms like "good referencing" and "clean research question" How to write like a skilled researcher How academic careers really work An ideal resource if someone you care about (including yourself!) is undergoing or considering a PhD. This book turns lost, clueless students back into people who know what they are doing, and who can enjoy life again.

    It is essential reading for designer, critic, and straight-up rank 'n' file gamer alike." --Robin D. Laws, creator of HeroQuest and Feng Shui Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball think a lot about games. At their commentary website, Gameplaywright.net, they think out loud about what it means to play games, make games, sell games, and love games. They are gamers. Here, with fellow game designers and notable game players, they think out loud on paper in the first Gameplaywright book. Things We Think About Games collects dozens on dozens of bite-sized thoughts about games. From the absurd to the magnificent, the demonstrable to the dogmatic, this collection spans both the breadth of games--board, card, roleplaying and more--and the depth of gaming, offering insights about collecting, playing, critiquing, designing, and publishing.

    This book helps students, academics and nonfiction writers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward. The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in the business of reading, thinking and writing. Instead of wasting your time searching for notes, quotes or references, you can focus on what really counts: thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing. It does not matter if you prefer taking notes with pen and paper or on a computer, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. And you can start right away.

    It should be labelled 'start here'." --Pieter Jan Stappers, ID-StudioLab, Delft University of Technology

    Not only are all of our business, scientific, and government transactions now computerized, but the widespread use of digital cameras, publication tools, and bar codes also generate data. On the collection side, scanned text and image platforms, satellite remote sensing systems, and the World Wide Web have flooded us with a tremendous amount of data. This explosive growth has generated an even more urgent need for new techniques and automated tools that can help us transform this data into useful information and knowledge.Like the first edition, voted the most popular data mining book by KD Nuggets readers, this book explores concepts and techniques for the discovery of patterns hidden in large data sets, focusing on issues relating to their feasibility, usefulness, effectiveness, and scalability. However, since the publication of the first edition, great progress has been made in the development of new data mining methods, systems, and applications. This new edition substantially enhances the first edition, and new chapters have been added to address recent developments on mining complex types of data- including stream data, sequence data, graph structured data, social network data, and multi-relational data.A comprehensive, practical look at the concepts and techniques you need to know to get the most out of real business dataUpdates that incorporate input from readers, changes in the field, and more material on statistics and machine learningDozens of algorithms and implementation examples, all in easily understood pseudo-code and suitable for use in real-world, large-scale data mining projectsComplete classroom support for instructors at www.mkp.com/datamining2e companion site

    Adobe Photoshop CS6 Classroom in a Book

    So what, then, is play? In Play Matters, Miguel Sicart argues that to play is to be in the world; playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and a way of engaging with others. Play goes beyond games; it is a mode of being human.We play games, but we also play with toys, on playgrounds, with technologies and design. Sicart proposes a theory of play that doesn't derive from a particular object or activity but is a portable tool for being—not tied to objects but brought by people to the complex interactions that form their daily lives. It is not separated from reality; it is part of it. It is pleasurable, but not necessarily fun. Play can be dangerous, addictive, and destructive.Along the way, Sicart considers playfulness, the capacity to use play outside the context of play; toys, the materialization of play--instruments but also play pals; playgrounds, play spaces that enable all kinds of play; beauty, the aesthetics of play through action; political play--from Maradona's goal against England in the 1986 World Cup to the hactivist activities of Anonymous; the political, aesthetic, and moral activity of game design; and why play and computers get along so well.

    Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.

    New JVM-based languages like Groovy, Scala, and Clojure are redefining what it means to be a Java developer. The core Standard and Enterprise APIs now co-exist with a large and growing body of open source technologies. Multicore processors, concurrency, and massive data stores require new patterns and approaches to development. And with Java 7 due to release in 2011, there's still more to absorb.The Well-Grounded Java Developer is a unique guide written for developers with a solid grasp of Java fundamentals. It provides a fresh, practical look at new Java 7 features along with the array of ancillary technologies that a working developer will use in building the next generation of business software.

    The Sociology Book takes on some of humankind's biggest questions: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, coworkers, and rivals? The Sociology Book profiles the world's most renowned sociologists and more than 100 of their biggest ideas, including issues of equality, diversity, identity, and human rights; the effects of globalization; the role of institutions; and the rise of urban living in modern societyEasy to navigate and chock-full of key concepts, profiles of major sociological thinkers, and conversation starters galore, this is a must-have, in-a-nutshell guide to some of the most fascinating questions on earth.The Sociology Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas Simply Explained series, designed to distill big ideas and elusive theories into graspable, memorable concepts, using an approachable graphic treatment and creative typography.

    It's packed with everything you need to do your best on the test--and move toward your graduate or business school degree.Only ETS can show you exactly what to expect on the test, tell you precisely how the test is scored, and give you hundreds of authentic test questions for practice That makes this guide your most reliable and accurate source for everything you need to know about the GRE revised General Test.No other guide to the GRE revised General Test gives you: Four complete, real tests--two in the book and two on CD-ROM Hundreds of authentic test questions--so you can study with the real thing In-depth descriptions of the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning measures plus valuable tips for answering each question type Detailed overview of the two types of Analytical Writing essay tasks including scored sample responses and actual raters' comments Everything you need to know about the test, straight from the test makers

    But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In "Designing with the Mind in Mind," Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling "GUI Bloopers," provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow. * The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.