The Web is awash in Ruby code that is now virtually impossible to change or extend. This text helps you solve that problem by using powerful real-world object-oriented design techniques, which it thoroughly explains using simple and practical Ruby examples. Sandi Metz has distilled a lifetime of conversations and presentations about object-oriented design into a set of Ruby-focused practices for crafting manageable, extensible, and pleasing code. She shows you how to build new applications that can survive success and repair existing applications that have become impossible to change. Each technique is illustrated with extended examples, all downloadable from the companion Web site, poodr.info. The first title to focus squarely on object-oriented Ruby application design, Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby will guide you to superior outcomes, whatever your previous Ruby experience. Novice Ruby programmers will find specific rules to live by; intermediate Ruby programmers will find valuable principles they can flexibly interpret and apply; and advanced Ruby programmers will find a common language they can use to lead development and guide their colleagues. This guide will help you Understand how object-oriented programming can help you craft Ruby code that is easier to maintain and upgrade Decide what belongs in a single Ruby class Avoid entangling objects that should be kept separate Define flexible interfaces among objects Reduce programming overhead costs with duck typing Successfully apply inheritance Build objects via composition Design cost-effective tests Solve common problems associated with poorly designed Ruby code

    Both endeavours, Edward O. Wilson reveals, have their roots in human creativity—the defining trait of our species.Reflecting on the deepest origins of language, storytelling, and art, Wilson demonstrates how creativity began not ten thousand years ago, as we have long assumed, but over one hundred thousand years ago in the Paleolithic age. Chronicling this evolution of creativity from primate ancestors to humans, The Origins of Creativity shows how the humanities, spurred on by the invention of language, have played a largely unexamined role in defining our species. And in doing so, Wilson explores what we can learn about human nature from a surprising range of creative endeavors—the instinct to create gardens, the use of metaphors and irony in speech, and the power of music and song.Our achievements in science and the humanities, Wilson notes, make us uniquely advanced as a species, but also give us the potential to be supremely dangerous, most worryingly in our abuse of the planet. The humanities in particular suffer from a kind of anthropomorphism, encumbered by a belief that we are the only species among millions that seem to matter, yet Wilson optimistically reveals how researchers will have to address this parlous situation by pushing further into the realm of science, especially fields such as evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and anthropology.With eloquence and humanity, Wilson calls for a transformational "Third Enlightenment," in which the blending of these endeavors will give us a deeper understanding of the human condition and our crucial relationship with the natural world.

    Little Brutus was destined to remain in captivity or, more likely, even euthanized due to overpopulation at the preserve. Anderson, already an expert in animal rescue and rehabilitation, just could not let that happen to Brutus, who looked like a "fuzzy Twinkie." From the beginning it was clear something special existed between the two. And so, Anderson built the Montana grizzly encounter in Bozeman, Montana, especially for Brutus, so that he, and others like him, could grow up "being a bear." And so the love story began.When together, Anderson and Brutus will wrestle, swim, play, and continue to act as advocates for grizzly protection and education, be it through documentaries like Expedition Grizzly, appearances on Oprah or Good Morning America, or in this inspiring book, which promises to be an intimate look into Anderson's relationship with Brutus and a call to action to protect these glorious animals and the natural world they live in.The Story of Brutus proves that love and friendship knows no bounds and that every care must be taken to protect one of nature's noblest creatures.

    Specifically, you’ll learn how a Reactive microservice isolates everything (including failure), acts autonomously, does one thing well, owns state exclusively, embraces asynchronous message passing, and maintains mobility.Bonér also demonstrates how Reactive microservices communicate and collaborate with other services to solve problems. Get a copy of this exclusive report and find out how to bring your enterprise system into the 21st century.Jonas Bonér is Founder and CTO of Lightbend, inventor of the Akka project, co-author of the Reactive Manifesto and a Java Champion. Learn more at: http://jonasboner.com.

    Revising Prose enables students to work on their own at steady, detailed revision. Stressing the importance of the single sentence, The Paramedic Method of revision provides students with an easily learned method of revision to combat the obscurities of meaning that plague The Official Style, and demonstrates how to revise this stilted, dense prose into plain English. This text has been used with success at every level of higher education, in all disciplines, wherever extensive writing is required. An accompanying 30-minute Revising Prose Video, as well as a Set of Interactive Revision Exercises, are available from Rhetorica, Inc. for an additional fee.

    We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It’s easy to say that humans are “wired” for story, but why?In this delightful and original book, Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life’s complex social problems—just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival.Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal. Did you know that the more absorbed you are in a story, the more it changes your behavior? That all children act out the same kinds of stories, whether they grow up in a slum or a suburb? That people who read more fiction are more empathetic?Of course, our story instinct has a darker side. It makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, advertisements, and narratives about ourselves that are more “truthy” than true. National myths can also be terribly dangerous: Hitler’s ambitions were partly fueled by a story.But as Gottschall shows in this remarkable book, stories can also change the world for the better. Most successful stories are moral—they teach us how to live, whether explicitly or implicitly, and bind us together around common values. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.

    Now she turns her keen ear and observant eye toward the workplace—where the ways in which men and women communicate can determine who gets heard, who gets ahead, and what gets done.An instant classic, Talking From 9 to 5 brilliantly explains women’s and men’s conversational rituals—and the language barriers we unintentionally erect in the business world. It is a unique and invaluable guide to recognizing the verbal power games and miscommunications that cause good work to be underappreciated or go unnoticed—an essential tool for promoting more positive and productive professional relationships among men and women.

    Why on earth has the entirely land-loving Eastern mole been named "Scalopus Aquaticus" or the Oxford ragwort been called "Senecio Squalidus" (translation: "dirty old man")? What were naturalists thinking when they called a beetle "Agra Katewinsletae," a genus of fish "Batman," and a trilobite "Han Solo"? Why is zoology replete with names such as "Chloris Chloris Chloris" (the greenfinch) and "Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla" (a species of, well, gorilla)? The Naming of the Shrew will unveil these mysteries, exploring the history, celebrating their poetic nature, and revealing how naturalists sometimes get things so terribly wrong. With wonderfully witty style and captivating narrative, this book will make you see Latin names in a whole new light.

    Pepperberg and Alex, an African Grey parrot who proved scientists and accepted wisdom wrong by demonstrating an astonishing ability to communicate and understand complex ideas. The story is much more than of an incredible scientific breakthrough. It s a poignant love story and an affectionate remembrance of Pepperberg s irascible, unforgettable, and always surprising best friend.

    But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as "biological nutrients" that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be "technical nutrients" that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being "recycled" -- really, downcycled -- into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do as well.

    CREATING ART. is written for people who are living in the intersection of the Christian faith, and the creation of art. By their nature, artists look at a life of faith differently, and that unique journey warrants an exploration of what it means to be a Christ-follower and an artist. The book intentionally veers away from tips and techniques and formulas, while concentrating on the journey, the mystery, and the heart.

    In this narrative, readers experience The Great Hurricane of 1938, the most financially destructive storm on record.

    

    Who Owns the Future? is his visionary reckoning with the most urgent economic and social trend of our age: the poisonous concentration of money and power in our digital networks.Lanier has predicted how technology will transform our humanity for decades, and his insight has never been more urgently needed. He shows how Siren Servers, which exploit big data and the free sharing of information, led our economy into recession, imperiled personal privacy, and hollowed out the middle class. The networks that define our world—including social media, financial institutions, and intelligence agencies—now threaten to destroy it.But there is an alternative. In this provocative, poetic, and deeply humane book, Lanier charts a path toward a brighter future: an information economy that rewards ordinary people for what they do and share on the web.

    He was one of the leading pioneers of the greatest revolution in twentieth-century science: quantum mechanics. The youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, he was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. Through his greatest period of productivity, his postcards home contained only remarks about the weather.Based on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers, Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac's massive scientific achievement while drawing a compassionate portrait of his life and work. Farmelo shows a man who, while hopelessly socially inept, could manage to love and sustain close friendship.The Strangest Man is an extraordinary and moving human story, as well as a study of one of the most exciting times in scientific history.'A wonderful book . . . Moving, sometimes comic, sometimes infinitely sad, and goes to the roots of what we mean by truth in science.' Lord Waldegrave, Daily Telegraph