Marvel at colorful murals in Riomaggiore, rent a boat in Sestri Levante, or explore the Church of the Cappuccin Monks in Monterosso al Mare. You'll get Rick's firsthand advice on the best sights, eating, sleeping, and nightlife, and the maps and self-guided tours will ensure you make the most of your experience. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves Snapshot guide is a tour guide in your pocket.Rick Steves' Snapshot guides consist of excerpted chapters from Rick Steves' European country guidebooks. Snapshot guides are a great choice for travelers visiting a specific city or region, rather than multiple European destinations. These slim guides offer all of Rick's up-to-date advice on what sights are worth your time and money. They include good-value hotel and restaurant recommendations, with no introductory information (such as overall trip planning, when to go, and travel practicalities).

    It will show you the way to become more than the body and the way to bloom - how not to remain a seed but to become a golden flower. What, in India, they call the one thousand-petalled lotus, in China they call the golden flower. It is a symbol that represents perfection, totality. Moreover, the flower represents the actualisation of the potential - the beauty, the grandeur, the splendour of being.This treatise, The Secret of Secrets, is very ancient - possibly one of the most ancient treatises in the world - at least twenty-five centuries old. But twenty-five centuries can be traced back very easily. And this treatise is also, uniquely, a great synthesis of all the great religions. The Bible belongs to the Christians, the Talmud belongs to the Jews, the Vedas belong to the Hindus, the Dhammapada to the Buddhists, the Tao Te Ching to the Taoists. But this small book, The Secret of Secrets, belongs to no one in particular, or it belongs to all.It is heavily based on Taoist teachings, a flowering of the Taoist approach to life and existence. But it is not only that - Zarathustra has played a role; his teachings are incorporated within it. Buddhist teachings have also been integrated, and a certain esoteric school of Christians, the Nestorians, have played their part. It is one of the most synthetical approaches.

    THE MULTIPLAYER CLASSROOM: DESIGNING COURSEWORK AS A GAME is your detailed guide to designing any structured learning experience as a game. Written for professional educators or those learning to be educators, here are the tools to engage and excite students by using principles learned in the development of popular video games. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, the book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. Yet, you will learn how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject. Bring your classroom into the 21st century!

    Our polarized, divisive culture seems to be without heroes and role models. We are adrift in a dark sea of disillusionment and distrust and we need "human lighthouses" to give us hope and direct us back to the goodness in each other and in our own hearts. Steve Pemberton found a lighthouse in an ordinary man named John Sykes, his former high school counselor. John gave Steve a safe harbor after Steve escaped an abusive foster home and together they navigated a new path that led to personal and professional success. Through stories of people like John and several others, you will identify how the hardships you have overcome equip you to be a "human lighthouse," inspiring those around you. The humble gestures of kindness that change the course of our lives can shift the course for America too. With a unique vision for building up individuals and communities and restoring trust, The Lighthouse Effect opens your eyes to those who are quietly heroic. You will reflect on the lighthouses in your own life and be reminded that the greatest heroes are alongside us--and within us.

    You’ll learn principles and practices for crafting games that generate emotionally charged experiences—a combination of elegant game mechanics, compelling fiction, and pace that fully immerses players.In clear and approachable prose, design pro Tynan Sylvester also looks at the day-to-day process necessary to keep your project on track, including how to work with a team, and how to avoid creative dead ends. Packed with examples, this book will change your perception of game design.Create game mechanics to trigger a range of emotions and provide a variety of playExplore several options for combining narrative with interactivityBuild interactions that let multiplayer gamers get into each other’s headsMotivate players through rewards that align with the rest of the gameEstablish a metaphor vocabulary to help players learn which design aspects are game mechanicsPlan, test, and analyze your design through iteration rather than deciding everything up frontLearn how your game’s market positioning will affect your design

    Even games that are well-received at launch may fail to engage players in the long term due to issues with the user experience (UX) that they are delivering. That's why makers of successful video games like Fortnite and Assassin's Creed invest both time and money perfecting their UX strategy. These top video game creators know that a bad user experience can ruin the prospects for any game, regardless of its budget, scope, or ambition.The game UX accounts for the whole experience players have with a video game, from first hearing about it to navigating menus and progressing in the game. UX as a discipline offers guidelines to assist developers in creating the optimal experience they want to deliver, including shipping higher quality games (whether indie, triple-A or "serious" games) and meeting business goals -- all while staying true to design vision and artistic intent.At its core, UX is about understanding the gamer's brain: understanding human capabilities and limitations to anticipate how a game will be perceived, the emotions it will elicit, how players will interact with it, and how engaging the experience will be. This book is designed to equip readers of all levels, from student to professional, with cognitive science knowledge and user experience guidelines and methodologies. These insights will help readers identify the ingredients for successful and engaging video games, empowering them to develop their own unique game recipe more efficiently, while providing a better experience for their audience."The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design"Is written by Celia Hodent -- a UX expert with a PhD in psychology who has been working in the entertainment industry for over 10 years, including at prominent companies such as Epic Games (Fortnite), Ubisoft, and LucasArts.Major themes explored in this book: Provides an overview of how the brain learns and processes information by distilling research findings from cognitive science and psychology research in a very accessible way. Topics covered include: "neuromyths", perception, memory, attention, motivation, emotion, and learning. Includes numerous examples from released games of how scientific knowledge translates into game design, and how to use a UX framework in game development. Describes how UX can guide developers to improve the usability and the level of engagement a game provides to its target audience by using cognitive psychology knowledge, implementing human-computer interaction principles, and applying the scientific method (user research). Provides a practical definition of UX specifically applied to games, with a unique framework. Defines the most relevant pillars for good usability (ease of use) and good "engage-ability" (the ability of the game to be fun and engaging), translated into a practical checklist. Covers design thinking, game user research, game analytics, and UX strategy at both a project and studio level. This book is a practical tool that any professional game developer or student can use right away and includes the most complete overview of UX in games existing today.

    The story is not only engaging and inspiring but also informs readers of the struggles many people face with international adoptions. The Marvelous Journey Home is the perfect blend of realism and invention. The reader is given unique insight into the perspectives of several players in the adoption process including adoptive parents, the children and adoption officials and supervisors. The story also carefully touches on another journey elusive to many, the journey of death. The author makes an enlightening association between the two journeys to help the reader better understand and accept death.

    Composers of video game music must master an array of specialized skills not taught in the conservatory, including the creation of linear loops, music chunks for horizontal resequencing, and compositional fragments for use within a generative framework. In A Composer's Guide to Game Music, Winifred Phillips--herself an award-winning composer of video game music--provides a comprehensive, practical guide that leads an aspiring video game composer from acquiring the necessary creative skills to understanding the function of music in games to finding work in the field.Musicians and composers may be drawn to game music composition because the game industry is a multibillion-dollar, employment-generating economic powerhouse, but, Phillips writes, the most important qualification for a musician who wants to become a game music composer is a love of video games. Phillips offers detailed coverage of essential topics, including musicianship and composition experience; immersion; musical themes; music and game genres; workflow; working with a development team; linear music; interactive music, both rendered and generative; audio technology, from mixers and preamps to software; and running a business.A Composer's Guide to Game Music offers indispensable guidance for musicians and composers who want to deploy their creativity in a dynamic and growing industry, protect their musical identities while working in a highly technical field, and create great music within the constraints of a new medium.

    S. Lewis is part of a larger collection, C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems, C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. Within this audiobook is a treasure trove of Lewis' reflections on diverse topics.This volume includes:1. Learning in War-Time2. Bulverism, or The Foundation of Twentieth-Century Thought3. The Founding of the Oxford Socratic Club4. My First School5. Democratic Education6. Blimpophobia7. Private Bates8. Meditation in a Toolshed9. On the Transmission of Christianity10. Modern Man and His Categories of Thought11. Historicism12. The Empty Universe13. Interim Report14. Is History Bunk?15. Before We Can CommunicatePublic Domain (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

    Provides diagrams and detailed instructions for performing more than three hundred magic tricks, including tricks with cards, money, ropes, handkerchiefs, and cups and balls.

    Matthieu Ricard presents a clear description of how to create lasting happiness and change the way we think of ourselves and our relationship with the wider world.

    A collection of uplifting quotations from some of mankind’s most important philosophers, scientists, writers, and even comedians, THE INSPIRATIONAL ATHEIST will be a treasured daily companion for the growing demographic of humanists who  believe that life has meaning when we live it meaningfully, independent of the existence of a higher power. With words from Carl Sagan, D. H. Lawrence, Julia Child, Douglas Adams, Charlotte Bronte, Bertrand Russell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Carlin, Joan Didion, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Jefferson and dozens of others on topics ranging from Love and Nature to Wisdom and Beauty, this book is a celebration of the sublime without the divine.

    At best he is viewed as the founder of a new religion which for millennia was hostile to Judaism. At worst he is seen as the source of world's anti-Semitism, with the charge that the Jews were responsible for his death being the impetus for the murder of countless Jews throughout the ages. But the historical Jesus is also foreign to most Christians who are oblivious to the life he lived as a Jew, his real mission in ancient Judea, the source of most of his celebrated teachings, and his firm attachment to his people. Now, in a remarkable new book, the man universally known as 'America's Rabbi' and whom Newsweek Magazine calls 'the most famous Rabbi in America, ' best-selling author Shmuley Boteach offers us a breathtaking new view of Jesus, based on Jewish and Christian sources, that will serve as a bridge between two faith communities too long parted by...

    For twelve years, educators have turned to Jana Echevarria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah Short for an empirically validated model of sheltered instruction. In the Third Edition of this best-seller, the authors include new research findings and studies on the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP(R)) Model, which offers school administrators, teachers, teacher candidates, coaches, university faculty, and field experience supervisors a tool for observing and quantifying a teacher's implementation of quality sheltered instruction. Ringing Endorsements "A framework that will engage, support, and increase the academic achievement of our culturally and linguistically diverse students. The SIOP Model went] from good to great ""--Socorro Herrera, Kansas State University" "Readability, organization, and practicality The SIOP addresses precisely the needs that my beginning teachers face...the CD for SIOP...makes it all understandable. I love the book ""--Danny Brassell, California State University, Dominguez Hills" Take a Glimpse Inside the Third Edition: New, user-friendly format of the SIOP(R) protocol. Background Sections include descriptions of the eight components and thirty features of the SIOP(R) Model, and are updated to reflect recent research and best practices to help readers plan and prepare effective sheltered lessons. Practical Guidelines to help readers develop effective language and content objectives. Discussion Questions have been rewritten and are appropriate for portfolio development in pre-service and graduate classes, for professional development workshops, or for teacher reflection and application. A groundbreaking CD-ROM with video clips, interviews of the authors, and reproducible resources (e.g., lesson plan formats), make this the perfect professional development asset for any grade level or content area teacher

    A companion work to Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's textbook Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, The Game Design Reader is a classroom sourcebook, a reference for working game developers, and a great read for game fans and players.Thirty-two essays by game designers, game critics, game fans, philosophers, anthropologists, media theorists, and others consider fundamental questions: What are games and how are they designed? How do games interact with culture at large? What critical approaches can game designers take to create game stories, game spaces, game communities, and new forms of play?Salen and Zimmerman have collected seminal writings that span 50 years to offer a stunning array of perspectives. Game journalists express the rhythms of game play, sociologists tackle topics such as role-playing in vast virtual worlds, players rant and rave, and game designers describe the sweat and tears of bringing a game to market. Each text acts as a springboard for discussion, a potential class assignment, and a source of inspiration. The book is organized around fourteen topics, from The Player Experience to The Game Design Process, from Games and Narrative to Cultural Representation. Each topic, introduced with a short essay by Salen and Zimmerman, covers ideas and research fundamental to the study of games, and points to relevant texts within the Reader. Visual essays between book sections act as counterpoint to the writings.Like Rules of Play, The Game Design Reader is an intelligent and playful book. An invaluable resource for professionals and a unique introduction for those new to the field, The Game Design Reader is essential reading for anyone who takes games seriously.