Book picks similar to
Information, Mechanism and Meaning by Donald M. MacKay


information-theory
nature-science-health
re-read
science

Health Psychology: Biopsychosocial Interactions


Edward P. Sarafino - 1990
    The text integrates contemporary research in biology, psychology, anthropology and sociology, utilizing the biopsychosocial model as the basic explanatory theme for health and health care. Gender, sociocultural and developmental differences in health and related behaviours are also integrated throughout the text. This systems approach is complemented by the integration of life-span development in health and illness in each chapter of the text.

Picnic Comma Lightning: The Experience of Reality in the Twenty-First Century


Laurence Scott - 2018
    He ponders how ubiquitous cameras reframe our private lives (an event only exists once someone posts the video), how mysterious algorithms undermine our attempts at self- definition through their own data- driven portraits, and what happens in those moments when our illusions of reality are ruptured by incontrovertible facts (like the death of a parent or a bolt of lightning).Virtuosic and intellectually delightful, Picnic Comma Lightning is an astounding account of how we have started to make sense of our strange new world.

Database in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners


C.J. Date - 2005
    Database in Depth: The Relational Model for Practitioners goes beyond the hype and gets to the heart of how relational databases actually work.Ideal for experienced database developers and designers, this concise guide gives you a clear view of the technology--a view that's not influenced by any vendor or product. Featuring an extensive set of exercises, it will help you:understand why and how the relational model is still directly relevant to modern database technology (and will remain so for the foreseeable future)see why and how the SQL standard is seriously deficientuse the best current theoretical knowledge in the design of their databases and database applicationsmake informed decisions in their daily database professional activitiesDatabase in Depth will appeal not only to database developers and designers, but also to a diverse field of professionals and academics, including database administrators (DBAs), information modelers, database consultants, and more. Virtually everyone who deals with relational databases should have at least a passing understanding of the fundamentals of working with relational models.Author C.J. Date has been involved with the relational model from its earliest days. An exceptionally clear-thinking writer, Date lays out principle and theory in a manner that is easily understood. Few others can speak as authoritatively the topic of relational databases as Date can.

Sinatra: Up and Running


Alan Harris - 2011
    With this concise book, you will quickly gain working knowledge of Sinatra and its minimalist approach to building both standalone and modular web applications. Sinatra serves as a lightweight wrapper around Rack middleware, with syntax that maps closely to functions exposed by HTTP verbs, which makes it ideal for web services and APIs. If you have experience building applications with Ruby, you’ll quickly learn language fundamentals and see under-the-hood techniques, with the help of several practical examples. Then you’ll get hands-on experience with Sinatra by building your own blog engine. Learn Sinatra’s core concepts, and get started by building a simple application Create views, manage sessions, and work with Sinatra route definitions Become familiar with the language’s internals, and take a closer look at Rack Use different subclass methods for building flexible and robust architectures Put Sinatra to work: build a blog that takes advantage of service hooks provided by the GitHub API

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World


David Deutsch - 2011
    Taking us on a journey through every fundamental field of science, as well as the history of civilization, art, moral values, and the theory of political institutions, Deutsch tracks how we form new explanations and drop bad ones, explaining the conditions under which progress—which he argues is potentially boundless—can and cannot happen. Hugely ambitious and highly original, The Beginning of Infinity explores and establishes deep connections between the laws of nature, the human condition, knowledge, and the possibility for progress.

How Innovation Works: Serendipity, Energy and the Saving of Time


Matt Ridley - 2020
    Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation itself that explains them and that will itself shape the 21st century for good and ill. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen, hard to summon into existence to order, yet inevitable and inexorable when it does happen.Matt Ridley argues in this book that we need to change the way we think about innovation, to see it as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan. Innovation is crucially different from invention, because it is the turning of inventions into things of practical and affordable use to people. It speeds up in some sectors and slows down in others. It is always a collective, collaborative phenomenon, not a matter of lonely genius. It is gradual, serendipitous, recombinant, inexorable, contagious, experimental and unpredictable. It happens mainly in just a few parts of the world at any one time. It still cannot be modelled properly by economists, but it can easily be discouraged by politicians. Far from there being too much innovation, we may be on the brink of an innovation famine.Ridley derives these and other lessons, not with abstract argument, but from telling the lively stories of scores of innovations, how they started and why they succeeded or in some cases failed. He goes back millions of years and leaps forward into the near future. Some of the innovation stories he tells are about steam engines, jet engines, search engines, airships, coffee, potatoes, vaping, vaccines, cuisine, antibiotics, mosquito nets, turbines, propellers, fertiliser, zero, computers, dogs, farming, fire, genetic engineering, gene editing, container shipping, railways, cars, safety rules, wheeled suitcases, mobile phones, corrugated iron, powered flight, chlorinated water, toilets, vacuum cleaners, shale gas, the telegraph, radio, social media, block chain, the sharing economy, artificial intelligence, fake bomb detectors, phantom games consoles, fraudulent blood tests, faddish diets, hyperloop tubes, herbicides, copyright and even – a biological innovation -- life itself.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood


James Gleick - 2011
    The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading.

The Little Schemer


Daniel P. Friedman - 1974
    The authors' enthusiasm for their subject is compelling as they present abstract concepts in a humorous and easy-to-grasp fashion. Together, these books will open new doors of thought to anyone who wants to find out what computing is really about. The Little Schemer introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra; things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme, and interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas. The Seasoned Schemer informs the reader about additional dimensions of computing: functions as values, change of state, and exceptional cases. The Little LISPer has been a popular introduction to LISP for many years. It had appeared in French and Japanese. The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer are worthy successors and will prove equally popular as textbooks for Scheme courses as well as companion texts for any complete introductory course in Computer Science.

The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia #6)


Lewis C. S. (Clive Staples) - 2020
    

Code of War


J.W. Clay - 2021
    She's a skilled hacker, and her focus is Cyber Kinetic Eliminations--remote assassinations conducted with sophisticated computer systems.With a growing success rate, she's given the ultimate target: a Chinese General who's sole responsibility is the reformation of the People's Republican Army.Can Jen Yates are her team assassinate one of China's most influential men? Can they derail the Chinese Communist Party's reform regimen? Even the thought could have disastrous consequences ...

A License to Heal: Random Memories of an ER Doctor


Steven Bentley - 2014
    is an American Board of Emergency Medicine certified ED doctor. His journey began in the mid-1970s, when he chose to pursue a career in medicine. In his youthful perspective, he came to regard doctors as the good guys, the ones who healed people and saved lives. He knew he’d be one of those good guys one day. Now, with a career spanning more than thirty years, he works as an emergency-room physician in North Carolina. In A License to Heal: Random Memories of an ER Doctor, Bentley describes the real world of emergency medicine from the viewpoint of a practicing physician. This memoir is filled with real-life stories of the ER, including life and death, triumph and tragedy. Meet a man named Solomon Darby, who spoke to long-dead relatives during his own near-death experience. Bentley also recalls the heartbreaking story of a young widow who desperately needed to understand and cope with the death of her husband. Amid the grief, there are also episodes of great humor and human comedy. In the dynamic world of emergency medicine, there is a great deal of pain, blood, and tragedy, but there is also hope, compassion, and excitement—for both the patients and the staff."

Triassic


Julian Michael Carver - 2020
    They are unsure of what happened in space or how they crashed into an uncharted planet. Upon exploration of the new world, they soon realize their destination: The Triassic, the first chapter of the Mesozoic Era. A plan is formulated to escape this terrifying landscape plagued with dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts. The survivors soon discover that there may be an even larger threat looming under the trees than just the dinosaurs, threatening to cut their mission short and trap them all forever in the primitive depths of the Triassic.

Steve Jobs Ek Zapatlela Tantradnya (Marathi)


ATUL KAHATE ACHYUT GODBOLE - 2011
    The PCs, the i- phones, the i-pods, the tablet PCs all will be a constant reminder of the genuine and witty ways that Steve handled and fondled. He was always lost in a world of his own. He hugged the glory and the downfalls with equal aloofness. Not once were his beliefs shattered. Throughout his life, he struggled and dared to bring his dreams come true. His dreams had a silvery lining of consistency, persuasion and intention. He was unique in every way. The life threatening disease of cancer could not prevent him from working till his last breath, literally. Though stubborn and dominant by nature he stood as a magician in the field of technology. Here is a simple gesture to pay him respect and honour. A magnificent journey presented authentically.

A Loyal Heart (The Hale Girls #3)


AshleyNicole - 2020
    

In the Land of Winter


Richard Grant - 1997
    When her daughter is stolen from her by bigots and zeealots who have labeled Pippa an unfit parent, Pippa retreats into the dark, wild wood on a transforming inner quest, determined to unlock the strengths she will need to win back her Winterbelle.