Hidden In Plain Sight 9: The Physics Of Consciousness


Andrew H. Thomas - 2018
    Can a computer think? Why is your consciousness like Bitcoin? Will there be an artificial intelligence apocalypse?

The New Hot: Cruising Through Menopause with Attitude and Style


Meg Mathews - 2020
    Rejecting the idea that we should live in fear, suffer silently, or medicate ourselves unnecessarily through this hormonal shift, Mathews set out to get answers and advice from the medical establishment, alternative therapists, and her many friends in the midst of "the change." When she launched the Megs Menopause website, it quickly became the trending online destination for pre- and menopausal women all over the world.Now, in The New Hot, Mathews offers the results of all her research and discussions: the latest information about hormone treatments (hormone replacement therapy and bioidentical hormone therapy), her best tips and techniques for coping with menopausal symptoms (there are officially thirty-four possible symptoms; Mathews has dealt with thirty-two!), and dishy, girlfriend-to-girlfriend advice about what to really expect when you're aging. Entertaining, stylish, and informative, The New Hot will be the resource women everywhere are talking about, learning from, and recommending to one another.

The MAF Method: A Personalized Approach to Health and Fitness


Philip Maffetone - 2020
    

Faster: Demystifying the Science of Triathlon Speed


Jim Gourley - 2013
    The gear you select and how you use it can mean big results—or bigger disappointment.FASTER takes a scientific look at triathlon to see what truly makes you faster—and busts the myths and doublespeak that waste your money and race times. In this fascinating exploration of the forces at play in the swim-bike-run sport, astronautical engineer and triathlete Jim Gourley shows where to find free speed, speed on a budget, and the gear upgrades that are worth it.FASTER offers specific, science-based guidance on the fastest techniques and the most effective gear, answering questions like: •    Which wetsuit is best for me? •    What’s the best way to draft a swimmer? •    Should I buy a lighter bike? •    Deep dish or disc wheels? •    Are lighter shoes faster? •    Who’s right about running technique? Gourley reviews published studies in peer-reviewed journals to show what scientists have learned about swim drafting, pacing the bike leg, race strategy for short and long-course racing, and the fastest ways to handle transitions.FASTER will change how you think about your body, your gear, and the world around you. With science on your side, you'll make the smart calls that will make you a better, faster triathlete.

Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit


Loren C. Steffy - 2010
    . . . Steffy meets the burden by demonstrating that corporate behemoth BP (formerly British Petroleum) could have prevented the 11 deaths on April 20, 2010, aboard the Deepwater Horizon. . . . The deaths and the gigantic oil spill following the sinking of Deepwater Horizon will surely become a landmark of corporate ineptness and greed for the remainder of human history, thanks in part to Steffy's remarkable account." San Antonio Express-News "Steffy has produced a fascinating, gripping, revealing account. . . . The book details events aboard the Deepwater Horizon in April of 2010 to start, but it digs deeper into what is revealed as a culture of cost-cutting boiling over within BP. Steffy documents years of incidents and poor management decisions, detailing the rise of key characters like John Browne and Tony Hayward alongside riveting outlines of horrifying events in Texas City and at other BP locations. . . . The book reads like fiction at times, with the author's heavily-detailed accounts of explosions and conversations creating vivid, nearly fantastical images. The tragic history of BP is all-too-real, though, as the lost lives and environmental damage certainly attest to.. . . Steffy is a thorough, straightforward author. His concerns largely lie with the loss of life and the general culture of cost-cutting of BP, painting an apt and terrifying picture of rampant, steady, costly neglect." Seattle Post Intelligencer "Steffy provides valuable insight and crucial corporate context in explaining how so much oil ended up in the Gulf of Mexico." BusinessWeek "[Steffy's] investigations reveal a corporate culture of cost-cutting initiatives that put profits ahead of workers' lives and the environment, with repeated safety violations and an abysmal accident history. . . . Steffy details how, in the context of BP's record, the disaster was just part of a pattern of poor decision making in the relentless pursuit by BP to become the largest and most profitable oil company in the world." Booklist About the BookAs night settled on April 20, 2010, a series of explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, the immense semisubmersible drilling platform leased by British Petroleum, located 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The ensuing inferno claimed 11 lives, and it would rage uncontained for two days, until its wreckage sank to a final resting place nearly a mile beneath the waves. On the ocean floor, the unit's wellhead erupted. Over the next ten weeks, as repeated attempts to cap the geyser failed, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil--the equivalent of 20 Exxon Valdez spills--spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually lapping up on beaches as far away as Florida.Drowning in Oil, by award-winning Houston Chronicle business reporter and columnist Loren Steffy--considered by many to be the writer with the best access to the story--is an unprecedented and gripping narrative of this catastrophe and how BP's winner-take-all business culture made it all but inevitable.Through never-before-published interviews with BP executives and employees, environmental experts, and oil industry insiders, Steffy takes us behind the scenes of 100 years of BP corporate history. Beginning with the conglomerate's early gambits in the Middle East to its recent ascent among energy titans, Steff unearths the roots of the Gulf oil spill in the unwritten bargain between oil producers and consumers, whose insatiable appetites drive the search for new supplies faster, farther, and deeper.Beyond this, the Deepwater Horizon disaster took place after a history of cost cutting in pursuit of profits, particularly under the guidance of its two most recent ex-CEOs, John Browne and Anthony Hayward.Exhaustively researched and documented, Drowning in Oil is the first in-depth examination of how a lack of corporate responsibility and government oversight led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. It is an objective, no-punches-pulled account of the energy industry: its environmental impact and the intense competition among stakeholders in today's oil markets.This book puts all the pieces together, offering a definitive account of BP's pursuit of outsized profits as the industrial world awakens to the grim realities of Peak Oil."They fumbled around the darkened room and found an instruction manual. By flashlight, they read the starting procedures. They were doing everything right. After five or six futile tries, they gave up and headed back toward the bridge. Back on the bridge, alarms were shrieking and the captain knew they were running out of time. The subsea engineer had hit the emergency disconnect for the well, and although the control panel showed the rig should be free, it wasn't. The hydraulics were dead. Fire continued to shoot from the top of the derrick. The rig had no power, and without power, it had no pumps for the firefighting equipment, no way to shut off the flow of gas from the well, and no way to disconnect the rig from the flaming umbilical that had it tethered to the wellhead." --from Drowning in Oil

Really Interesting Stuff You Don't Need to Know: 1,500 Fascinating Facts


David Fickes - 2019
    geography, U.S. presidents, and world geography. For example: The classic film It’s a Wonderful Life originated from a Christmas card. Philip Van Doren Stern had written a short story, The Greatest Gift, and had unsuccessfully tried to get it published. He sent it out as a 21-page Christmas card to his closest friends; a producer at RKO Pictures got hold of it and purchased the movie rights. The Bible doesn't say how many wise men there were. It says wise men and mentions the gifts; there is no indication of how many wise men. Today's British accent first appeared among the British upper class about the time of the American Revolution. Before that, the British accent was like Americans. The video game company Nintendo was founded in 1889; it originally produced handmade playing cards. Frances Folsom Cleveland is the youngest U.S. first lady ever. She was 21 when she married Grover Cleveland in the White House; he was 49. No witches were burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials; 20 were executed, but most were hung, and none were burned. Roman gladiator fights started as a part of funerals; when wealthy nobles died, they would have bouts at the graveside. All the bacteria in an average human body collectively weigh about four pounds. In the song “Yankee Doodle”, the term macaroni means stylish or fashionable. In late 18th century England, the term macaroni came to mean stylish or fashionable; in the song, it is used to mock the Americans who think they can be stylish by simply sticking a feather in their cap. George Bernard Shaw and Bob Dylan are the only two people to win both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar. George Bernard Shaw won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1925 and the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Pygmalion in 1936; Bob Dylan won the Best Original Song Oscar for “Things Have Changed” from Wonder Boys in 2000 and the Nobel Literature Prize in 2016. Neil Armstrong didn't say “one small step for man” when he set foot on the Moon. He said, “one small step for a man”; that is what Armstrong claims he said, and audio analysis confirms it. It has been misquoted all these years. Tsutomu Yamaguchi is the only recognized person in the world to survive both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts. He was in Hiroshima on business for the first bomb and then returned home to Nagasaki. Please note: This book has substantial overlap with What's the Best Trivia Book? combined with new trivia that doesn't fit well in a question and answer format. It is designed for people who prefer trivia as interesting facts rather than a test yourself quiz format. This is book 1 of my Really Interesting Stuff series; I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, look for other books in the series.

Beyond His Control (Memoir of a Disobedient Daughter)


Linda Hale Bucklin - 2007
    Was it suicide or homicide?Standing up to her father, heir to the Broadway/Hale Department Store fortune, Linda is disinherited, then ostracized from the family she loves. When her father marries his mistress, Denise Minnelli, stepmother to Liza Minnelli, the family unravels.Once a child of privilege, Linda recounts, in vivid detail, her extraordinary life—summers on the family's 10,000 acre ranch in Northern California, hunting trips to Africa and Alaska, high society vignettes of a fourth-generation San Francisco family, and her father's final decision: to leave the entire family fortune to Minnelli.But amid the ashes, Linda finds a new strength: the strength to forgive the one who started it all.REVIEWS:"...a jolting memoir." ~The New York Post"...a book you won't be able to put down." ~David Patrick Columbia, New York Social DiaryMEET LINDA HALE BUCKLIN:Linda feels blessed to be surrounded by her three grown sons, two daughters-in-law and two grandchildren. A fourth-generation San Franciscan, she now lives with her husband in Mill Valley, CA.

Into the Darkness: The Harrowing True Story of the Titanic Disaster: Riveting First-Hand Accounts of Agony, Sacrifice and Survival


Alan J. Rockwell - 2017
    No human being who stood on her decks that fateful night was alive to commemorate the event on its 100th anniversary. Their stories are with us, however, and the lessons remain. From the moment the world learned the Titanic had sunk, we wanted to know, who had survived? Those answers didn’t come until the evening of Thursday, April 18, 1912―when the Cunard liner Carpathia finally reached New York with the 706 survivors who had been recovered from Titanic’s lifeboats. Harold Bride, “Titanic’s surviving wireless operator,” relayed the story of the ship’s band. “The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while still we were working wireless when there was a ragtime tune for us. The last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing ‘Autumn.’ How they ever did it I cannot imagine.” There were stories of heroism―such as that of Edith Evans, who was waiting to board collapsible Lifeboat D, the last boat to leave Titanic, when she turned to Caroline Brown and said, “You go first. You have children waiting at home.” The sacrifice cost Evans her life, but as Mrs. Brown said later, “It was a heroic sacrifice, and as long as I live I shall hold her memory dear as my preserver, who preferred to die so that I might live.” There was mystery. There was bravery. There was suspense. There was cowardice. Most men who survived found themselves trying to explain how they survived when women and children had died. But mostly, there was loss. On her return to New York after picking up Titanic’s survivors, Carpathia had become known as a ship of widows. Rene Harris, who lost her husband, Broadway producer Henry Harris, in the disaster, later spoke of her loss when she said, “It was not a night to remember. It was a night to forget.” Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and diaries as well as interviews with survivors and family members, veteran author and writer Alan Rockwell brings to life the colorful voices and the harrowing experiences of many of those who lived to tell their story. More than 100 years after the RMS Titanic met its fatal end, the story of the tragic wreck continues to fascinate people worldwide. Though many survivors and their family members disappeared into obscurity or were hesitant to talk about what they went through, others were willing to share their experiences during the wreck and in its aftermath. This book recounts many of these first-hand accounts in graphic, compelling detail.

The Reluctant RV Wife


Gerri Almand - 2019
    He wanted to go; she wanted to stay. They both learn, grow, and change as a new level of freedom evolves.This book is light-hearted and humorous but at the same time serious. While not a How-To book, it gives lots of basic information about RVing. And while not a travelogue, it touches upon many travel destinations in the United States and Canada. On deeper levels, the book is about marital relationships, retiring and getting old, and finding a new kind of freedom through a minimalistic lifestyle.After reading this book, you’ll never again look at one of those huge monstrosities driving down the road in quite the same way. The book answers questions for non-RVers and triggers chuckles of recognition from experienced RVers.What Others Are Saying:When his RV dream rear-ends her perfectly mapped-out retirement, navigating through their travails and travels - in life and on the road - spins a romantic and humorous adventure. - Doreen Orion, author of Queen of the Road

Heaven Is A Real Place: True Stories Of The Afterlife From A Psychic Medium


Gaynor Carrillo - 2016
    Here she reveals how her ability to see and communicate with Spirit has helped her to pass on Spirit messages to thousands of people from around the world, sharing her understanding of what it’s really like in the Spirit world.Gaynor has answered questions about Spirit and the Afterlife in her usual honest and down to earth way.What happens when we die?Is there really such thing as life after death?Where is Heaven?Are our Spirit loved ones happy?Do we meet our pets in Heaven?Do angels exist?Is Heaven a real place?This book will give you the answers to these questions and many more, along with a guided view of life after death and a clearer understanding of the place some call Heaven.

365 More Things People Believe That Aren't True


James Egan - 2014
    Some mammoths were smaller than children. Owls are the dumbest birds in the world. Very few people with Tourette's syndrome swear. You can't get a six-pack from doing sit-ups. King Arthur's sword wasn't called Excalibur. Milk doesn't make your bones strong. There's no bones in your fingers. The Bible states that humans can't become angels. Humans have more than two nostrils. It's impossible to slide down a bannister. At a wedding, the bride doesn't walk down the aisle. Ties were invented for war, not fashion. Most Disney classics made almost no money. Slavery has only been illegal in the UK since 2010. George Washington wasn't the first American President. Velcro doesn’t exist. Nobody knows why we sleep.

The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19


Tim Flannery - 2020
    Although Australia’s prompt, science-led response to COVID-19 has not been perfect, it has saved tens of thousands of lives. But for decades, governments have ignored, ridiculed or understated the advice of scientists on the climate emergency.Now, in the wake of the megafires of 2020, a time of reckoning has arrived. In The Climate Cure renowned climate scientist Tim Flannery takes aim at those responsible for the campaign of obfuscation and denial that has already cost so many Australian lives and held back action on climate change.Flannery demands a new approach, based on the nation’s response to COVID-19, that will lead to effective government policies. The Climate Cure is an action plan for our future. We face a fork in the road, and must decide now between catastrophe and survival.

Collins Complete Guide to British Birds


Paul Sterry - 2004
    It is the most complete photographic guide to British birds ever published and the only one to be designed to give everything that you need on each spread in a simple-to-use format. Every text entry covers identification of adults and juveniles, songs and calls, and where they are most likely to be found.Illustrated with specially commissioned photography and maps to show where in Britain the birds are found and at what time of year, this accessible guide also features cross-references to similar-looking species, containing everything a birdwatcher needs to know in one, easy-to-use, portable volume. It is the perfect photographic field guide for the birdwatching beginner.

Exodus, Revisited: My Unorthodox Journey to Berlin


Deborah Feldman - 2021
    She was determined to find a better life for herself, away from the oppression and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And in Exodus, Revisited she delves into what happened next--taking the reader on a journey that starts with her beginning life anew as a single mother, a religious refugee, and an independent woman in search of a place and a community where she can belong. Originally published in 2014, Deborah has now revisited and significantly expanded her story, and the result is greater insight into her quest to discover herself and the true meaning of home. Travels that start with making her way in New York expand into an exploration of America and eventually lead to trips across Europe to retrace her grandmother's life during the Holocaust, before she finds a landing place in the unlikeliest of cities. Exodus, Revisited is a deeply moving examination of the nature of memory and generational trauma, and of reconciliation with both yourself and the world.

Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir


Jami D. Brown Martin - 2020
    The photo looks completely out of place on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list where it’s been since December, 8, 2007. For eight of those years, Jason appeared directly beside Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is long gone, but Jason is still wanted for armed robbery and murder.For years, his sister, Jami D. Brown Martin has watched the true crime programs and read the amateur investigative blogs devoted to Jason, his crime, and the efforts to apprehend him knowing the story wasn’t as simple, nor was it just Jason’s. To be the sister, brother, or relative of one of the world’s most wanted men is to live every day with the horrible truth and many consequences of his brutal act.CENTER OF ATTENTION is the story of a former Mormon missionary turned murderer. It is also a riveting look behind the facade of the genetically blessed, seemingly prominent and pious Brown family of Laguna Beach, California. It is a tale of the family patriarch, John Brown, who disappeared without a trace ten years before his son. More important, it is the gripping and ultimately hopeful story of the sister of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and her journey to accept that despite being a product of the same crazy environment as her brother, her life and path are her own.