This introduction to the life of the past as revealed through fossils includes:-Descriptions of the typical plants and animals of major geological eras-Maps showing where fossils can be found-The history of the development of life on earthFull-color illustrations and concise information make this an invaluable and enjoyable guide to a fascinating subject.

    Experienced birders use the most easily observed characteristics — size, structure, behavior, and general color patterns — to identify birds even before looking carefully at plumage details. Now birders at all levels can learn how to identify shorebirds quickly and simply. This guide includes more than 870 stunning color photographs, starting with a general impression of the species and progressing to more detailed images of the bird throughout its life cycle. Quiz questions in the captions will engage and challenge all birders and help them benefit from this simplified, commonsense approach to identification.

    You'll get in-depth coverage of the C language and function libraries as well as all the newest C features, including restricted pointers, inline functions, variable-length arrays, and complex math. This jam-packed resource includes hundreds of examples and sample applications.

    "Doc Travis" Taylor and best-selling ebook author Darrell Bain have combined talents to produce a new science fiction thriller. Several alien lifeboats make it to earth in widely separated spots after their interstellar spaceship malfunctions. One of the aliens comes down near the home of Kyle Leverson, a former army intelligence officer and now a widowed science journalist. The aliens think they can never go home but they are able to convert their bodies into duplicates of human beings over a period of time. Kyle helps the alien during the process as it becomes a human female, yet retains its previous knowledge and abilities, including a powerful perceptive sense unlike anything known to humans. What Kyle doesn't realize is that the alien intends to become a human female in every aspect, with him as the teacher. How does one instruct an alien from a wildly different culture in every characteristic of human behavior, including sex? It's a chore far harder than Kyle Leverson ever imagined, especially since he and his alien guest have to contend with the other aliens, who are being instructed (or in a couple of cases, captured and abused) by different groups of people in several other nations. Their outlook on what it means to be human is different from Kyle's and the results will be evident when the aliens have to fight each other, even though they've never done such things before. Fortunately for Kyle, his alien is a fast learner. But it also becomes such a compatible and beautiful human female that he finds himself falling in love. A truly thoughtful and sophisticated science fiction novel, by Travis S. Taylor, the author of Warp Speed, The Quantum Connection and Von Neuman's War (in collaboration with John Ringo) and Darrell Bain, the multiple award-winning author of Alien Infection, Strange Valley, Savage Survival and The Melanin Apocalypse.

    Developers are instantly productive, picking up all the benefits of the Ruby-based Rails framework without giving up any of the power of Java.Grails in Action is a comprehensive look at Grails for Java developers. It covers the nuts and bolts of the core Grails components and is jam-packed with tutorials, techniques, and insights from the trenches.The book starts with an overview of Grails and how it can help you get your web dev mojo back. Then it walks readers through a Twitter-style social networking app-built in Grails, of course-where they implement high-interest features like mashups, AJAX/JSON, animation effects, full text search, rounded corners, and lots of visual goodness. The book also covers using Grails with existing Java technology, like Spring, Hibernate, and EJBs.Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

    Very few in the industry can show you the ins and outs of CSS like Eric Meyer and inside Smashing CSS Eric provides techniques that are thorough, utterly useful, and universally applicable in the real world. From choosing the right tools, to CSS effects and CSS3 techniques with jQuery, Smashing CSS is the practical guide to building modern web layouts.With Smashing CSS you will learn how to:Throw elements offscreen/hide them Create body/HTML backgrounds in XHTML Usemore than 15 layout techniques including clearfix, two/three simple columns, faux columns, One True Layout, Holy Grail, em-based layout, fluid grids, sticky footers, and more Use a variety of CSS effects including CSS popups, boxpunching, rounded corners, CSS sprites, Sliding Doors, Liquid Bleach, ragged floats, and more Apply CSS table styling including using thead, tfoot, and tbody, row headers, column-oriented styling (classes); styling data tables with jQuery, tables to graphs, tables to maps; and more Use CSS3 elements including rounded corners, multiple backgrounds, RGBA, using jQuery to do CSS3 selections and so much more. Eric Meyer is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, and has been working on the Web since 1993. Smashing CSS is for developers who already have some experience with CSS and JavaScript and are ready for more advanced techniques.Smashing Magazine (smashingmagazine.com) is one of the world's most popular web design sites. True to the Smashing mission, the Smashing Magazine book series delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers.

    Significant numbers of poorly designed programs have been created by less-experienced developers, resulting in applications that are inefficient and hard to maintain and extend. Increasingly, software system professionals are discovering just how difficult it is to work with these inherited, non-optimal applications. For several years, expert-level object programmers have employed a growing collection of techniques to improve the structural integrity and performance of such existing software programs. Referred to as refactoring, these practices have remained in the domain of experts because no attempt has been made to transcribe the lore into a form that all developers could use... until now. In Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Software, renowned object technology mentor Martin Fowler breaks new ground, demystifying these master practices and demonstrating how software practitioners can realize the significant benefits of this new process.

    Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices--and hundreds of new code samples--illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking--and help you build the highest quality code. Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you: Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity Reap the benefits of collaborative development Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors Exploit opportunities to refactor--or evolve--code, and do it safely Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project Debug problems quickly and effectively Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project

    Part I asks: Is evolving Nature all there is – self-generated, self-sustaining, self-contained? Are human beings, as the topmost outgrowth of Nature, responsible to none other but themselves? That is the stance of naturalist and atheist Richard Dawkins. Or is evolving reality derived from, and dependent on, a transcendent Source and Destiny, to whom humans are accountable and whose benevolence reaches out to humans as persons because humans are persons? That is the conviction of the Christian faith. Part II shows that Dawkins’ interpretation of religion is deficient even in evolutionary terms and lacks the objectivity and impartiality of genuine science.Backed with in-depth study and thorough research, Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion: A repentant refutation is a masterfully written work that attempts to provide answers to believers and non-believers by presenting scientific and religious reasoning.

    

    Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Raistlin Majere. This volume also features an original Eberron tale by Keith Baker, creator of that world of magic-fueled technology and action-packed intrigue.

    Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help. In The Non-Designer's Design Book, 2nd Edition, best-selling author Robin Williams turns her attention to the basic principles of good design and typography. All you have to do is follow her clearly explained concepts, and you'll begin producing more sophisticated, professional, and interesting pages immediately. Humor-infused, jargon-free prose interspersed with design exercises, quizzes, illustrations, and dozens of examples make learning a snap—which is just what audiences have come to expect from this best-selling author.

    While it's practically required reading in the geek community, xkcd fans are as varied as the comic's subject matter. This book creates laughs from science jokes on one page to relationship humor on another.xkcd: volume 0 is the first book from the immensely popular webcomic with a passionate readership (just Google "xkcd meetup").The artist selected personal and fan favorites from his first 600 comics. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.The book is published by Breadpig, which donates all of the publisher profits from this book to Room to Read for promoting literacy in the developing world.

    Then one day, the World was born anew. . . .

    ENTANGLEMENT. REALITY. Books containing these three words are typically fluff or incomprehensible; this one is not. "Q is for Quantum" teaches a theory at the forefront of modern physics to an audience presumed to already know only basic arithmetic. Topics covered range from the practical (new technologies we can expect soon) to the foundational (old ideas that attempt to make sense of the theory). The theory is built up precisely and quantitatively. Deceptively vague jargon and analogies are avoided, and mysterious features of the theory are made explicit and not skirted. The tenacious reader will emerge with a better technical understanding of why we are troubled by this theory than that possessed by many professional physicists.