A realistic guide to becoming an Astronaut at a young age.

    this is one of those rare books that will change your beliefs - and in doing so will change your life. tHE ANt AND tHE FERRARI offers readers a clear, navigable path through the big questions that confront us all today. What is the meaning of life? Can we be ethical beings in today's world? Can we know if there is life after death? Is there such a thing as Absolute truth? What caused the Big Bang and why should you care?

    Cambridge International AS and A Level Physics covers all the material required for the Cambridge syllabus. The accompanying Student's CD-ROM includes many more questions linked to each chapter, including multiple choice, how to tackle the examinations, and animations, a glossary and summaries. A Teacher's Resource CD-ROM is also available and includes answers to all questions in the Coursebook, together with worksheets describing practical work linked to each chapter in the book.

    Whatever your circumstances, you can create the life you desire by following simple, counterintuitive steps; not the steps society wants you to follow. Unfortunately, you cannot even trust yourself when it comes to creating the life that you desire, because you’re programmed by your past, an accumulation of hundreds of thousands of years, a mind still adapted for a hunter-gatherer time period. What does this mean? It means every day you’re battling your emotions, logic versus emotion. Logically, you want to do one thing, but emotionally, you are drawn to something else. First, if this sounds familiar, then great, because it means you are human. But, if you’re going to win the game of life, you cannot sit around and wait for things to happen, because you’ll be living a life of supreme comfort and sameness; ultimately, a great sin. You are destined for great things, capable of forging dreams and living your aspirations. Maybe you’ve forgotten about this truth: that you are capable, worthy, and ready. Maybe you’ve been beaten into the ground by life, a teacher who doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, weak or strong, ready or not, because life will continue forward regardless, waiting for no one. Fortunately, there’re things you can do to set yourself apart from the millions that will ultimately suffer and fail. One such thing, perhaps the most powerful of all, is by studying the great, people who have succeeded and who have gone beyond what is humanly thought possible. When it comes to studying someone great, there’s one name that stands tall, Stephen Hawking, a person who has persevered and flourished. Not only has he conquered great adversity, but he has inspired millions around the world with his brilliant mind. There is a reason why people compare him with the once living Albert Einstein, the genius. What follows are Stephen Hawking’s greatest life lessons, gems of wisdom that you can easily apply to your own life, which will help you live a more abundant, stronger life. If you’re in need of inspiration, a boost of confidence, or just a friendly reminder of the wonders in life, you’ve come to the right place. See for yourself why millions study his work and regard him as a genius. Scroll up and grab your copy today.*** Limited time offer ***

    Nor do you need to be a great scientist to appreciate the exciting discoveries and intriguing mysteries of our universe. Dr. Robert piccioni brings the excitement of modern scientific discoveries to general audiences. He makes the key facts and concepts understandable without "dumbing" them down. He presents them in a friendly, conversational manner and includes many personal anecdotes about the people behind the science. With 33 images and over 100 graphics, this book explains the real science behind the headlines and sound bites. Learn all about:our universe: how big? how old? what came before?the big bang, black holes and supernovaequantum mechanics and uncertaintyhow the immense and the minute are connectedwhat is special about general relativityhow mankind can become earth's best friend

    Her lifelong friend, Ingrid, has asked her to do the impossible -- authenticate the painting from a photograph. The photograph in question was passed down to Ingrid by her grandfather, Klaus Rettke a key member of the German Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the Nazi organization appointed to confiscate art from the Jews. Obscure references in Klaus Rettke's diary convince Maggie that Rettke stole the painting from the Nazis. Now she must use science to verify that the painting in the photo is genuine, something that has never been done before. From the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to the Musee du Jeu de Paume in Paris, Maggie searches for answers. Finally, she confronts the possibility that there is not one painting, but the original and several forgeries. With tens of millions of dollars at stake and a killer at large, she is determined to find the authentic Van Gogh. To do so, Maggie must stay alive . . . something that's proving difficult to do.

    Right?! Machine Learning is a branch of computer science that wants to stop programming computers using a detailed list of commands to follow blindly. Instead, their aim is to implement high-level routines that teach computers how to approach new and unknown problems – these are called algorithms. In practice, they want to give computers the ability to Learn and to Adapt. We can use these algorithms to obtain insights, recognize patterns and make predictions from data, images, sounds or videos we have never seen before – or even knew existed. Unfortunately, the true power and applications of today’s Machine Learning Algorithms remain deeply misunderstood by most people. Through this book I want fix this confusion, I want to shed light on the most relevant Machine Learning Algorithms used in the industry. I will show you exactly how each algorithm works, why it works and when you should use it. Supervised Learning Algorithms K-Nearest Neighbour Naïve Bayes Regressions Unsupervised Learning Algorithms: Support Vector Machines Neural Networks Decision Trees

    From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.

    In a body of work spanning over a half-century, he was variously a draughtsman, a printmaker, a sculptor and a painter. This short book is both a biography and a guide to his art. It focuses on the extraordinary works that Henri Matisse made during the last period of his life - the large-scale cut-outs on coloured paper, including his famous Blue Nudes, The Snail and Large Composition with Masks.

    Topics range from expressive hand gestures to patron saints, pasta, parmesan, shoes, opera, the Vespa, the Fiat 500, gelato, gondolas, and more. History, folklore, superstitions, traditions, and customs are tossed in a delicious sauce that also includes a wealth of factual information for the sophisticated traveler:• why lines, as we know them, are nonexistent in Italy• why a string of coral beads is often seen around a baby’s wrist• what the unlucky number of Italy is (it’s not thirteen, unless seating guests at a table, when it IS thirteen–taking into account the outcome of the Last Supper)• why red underwear begins to appear in shops as the New Year approaches In addition to the lyrical and poetic, Italianissimo provides useful and indispensable information for the traveler: deciphering the quirks of the language (while English has only one word for “you,†in Italy there are three), the best place to find balsamic vinegar (in Modena, of course), the best gelato (in Sicily, where they first invented it using the snow from Mount Etna). There are also recommendations for little-known museums and destinations (the Bodoni museum, the Pinocchio park, legendary coffee bars).This is a new kind of guidebook overflowing with enlightening and hilarious miscellaneous information, filled with luscious graphics and unforgettable photographs that will decode and enrich all trips to Italy–both real and imaginary.

    In The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, established Watson-Guptill author and noted instructor/painter Suzanne Brooker presents the fundamentals necessary for mastering landscape oil painting, breaking landscapes down into component parts: sky, terrain, trees, and water. Each featured element builds off the previous, with additional lessons on the latest brushes, paints, and other tools used by artists. Key methods like observation, rendering, and color mixing are supported by demonstration paintings and samples from a variety of the best landscape oil painters of all time. With The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, oil painters looking to break into landscape painting or enhance their work will find all the necessary ingredients for success.

    

    Maybe they’re even suspicious of it. John Coltrane’s saxophonic flights of fancy, Jimi Hendrix’s feedback drenched guitar solos, Ravi Shankar’s sitar extrapolations—all these sounds seem like so much noodling or jamming, indulgent self-expression. “Just” improvising, as is sometimes said. For these music fans, it seems natural that music is meant to be composed. In the first book of its kind, John Corbett’s A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation provides a how-to manual for the most extreme example of spontaneous improvising: music with no pre-planned material at all. Drawing on over three decades of writing about, presenting, playing, teaching, and studying freely improvised music, Corbett offers an enriching set of tools that show any curious listener how to really listen, and he encourages them to enjoy the human impulse— found all around the world— to make up music on the spot.           Corbett equips his reader for a journey into a difficult musical landscape, where there is no steady beat, no pre-ordained format, no overarching melodic or harmonic framework, and where tones can ring with the sharpest of burrs. In “Fundamentals,” he explores key areas of interest, such as how the musicians interact, the malleability of time, overcoming impatience, and watching out for changes and transitions; he grounds these observations in concrete listening exercises, a veritable training regime for musical attentiveness. Then he takes readers deeper in “Advanced Techniques,” plumbing the philosophical conundrums at the heart of free improvisation, including topics such as the influence of the audience and the counterintuitive challenge of listening while asleep. Scattered throughout are helpful and accessible lists of essential resources—recordings, books, videos— and a registry of major practicing free improvisors from Noël Akchoté to John Zorn, particularly essential because this music is best experienced live.           The result is a concise, humorous, and inspiring guide, a unique book that will help transform one of the world’s most notoriously unapproachable artforms into a rewarding and enjoyable experience.

    It was to be an age of post-Impressionistic color, form and wonderment that the art world discovered only after the master's death. Bouts of anxiety, mental illness and epilepsy may have tormented him and brought about his suicide at the age of 37. But they may also have been catalysts for emotionality and vibrance in his art that reveal a turbulent search for grace.The compilation of Vincent Van Gogh's 500 finest color paintings in this online volume comes to you in a digitally restored state: the eye-popping brilliance and vitality are just as on the day Van Gogh finished them. Unless noted otherwise, all of them were originally oil paintings on canvas or wood (the few exceptions are watercolors). The arrangement is by genre (see the list below) and is chronological within each genre section. There are a few duplicates, that is, some paintings from one genre are also shown within the scope of another genre in order to emphasize their "dual nature." This is especially true for the images in "Skyscapes," many of which are reprised from "Landscapes" or other relevant genres to afford you, the viewer, with a fresh perspective on a different aspect of the composition.Technical Note: All 500 images are in color -- they render beautifully in optimized gray-scale tones for black-and-white e-book readers, but exhibit even more stunningly in full color with color readers and inside Kindle apps for color-enabled computers and portable or hand-held devices.The masterpieces are organized into the following genres (with the tally of images in each):PORTRAITS (24)SELF-PORTRAITS (18)CHARACTER AND ACTION STUDIES (31)LABORERS (37)TOWNSCAPES: FROM A DISTANCE (17)TOWNSCAPES: FROM INSIDE THE TOWN (30)BUILDINGS: FROM AN EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE (35)BUILDINGS: INTERIOR DESIGN (17)BIRDS (2)ANIMALS (7)FLOWERS AND GARDENS: LIVING AND GROWING (20)FLOWERS: FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS (29)STILL LIFE (45)TREES (50)LANDSCAPES (50)WATERSCAPES: THE SEA (6)WATERSCAPES: RIVERS, CANALS AND BRIDGES (23)SKYSCAPES (38)NIGHTSCAPES: AT SUNSET (14)NIGHTSCAPES: BY MOONLIGHT (3)NIGHTSCAPES: STARRY NIGHTS (5)NIGHTSCAPES: AT SUNRISE (1)

    Like an Art of War for design, this slim volume contains guidance, inspiration, and reassurance for all those who labor with the user in mind. If you work on the web, in print, or in film or video, this book can help. If you know someone working on the creative arena, this makes a great gift. Funny, too.Look for fresh aphorisms on our Facebook page.