“The result is a veritable pi

    Collected from the series of blog posts starting at: https://bartoszmilewski.com/2014/10/2...Hardcover available at: http://www.blurb.com/b/9008339-catego...

    That's what Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when the Sonoma Stompers, an independent minor-league team in California, offered them the chance to run the team's baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. The Only Rule Is It Has to Work is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read.We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay professional player and the first Japanese manager in American professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance.Will sabermetrics bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their face? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the old folk wisdom really true after all? Will the players be able to maximize their talents and attract the attention of big-league scouts, or will this be a fast track to oblivion?It's a wild ride, as the authors' infectious enthusiasm and feel for the absurd make the Stompers' story one that will speak to numbers geeks and traditionalists alike. And it proves that you don't need a bat or a glove to make a genuine contribution to the game.

    These noteworthy accounts of the lives of David Hilbert and Richard Courant are closely related: Courant's story is, in many ways, seen as the sequel to the story of Hilbert. Originally published to great acclaim, both books explore the dramatic scientific history expressed in the lives of these two great scientists and described in the lively, nontechnical writing style of Contance Reid.

    From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world’s most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

    However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

    If you're a reasonably proficient programmer who can think logically, you have all the background you'll need. Stepanov and Rose introduce the relevant abstract algebra and number theory with exceptional clarity. They carefully explain the problems mathematicians first needed to solve, and then show how these mathematical solutions translate to generic programming and the creation of more effective and elegant code. To demonstrate the crucial role these mathematical principles play in many modern applications, the authors show how to use these results and generalized algorithms to implement a real-world public-key cryptosystem. As you read this book, you'll master the thought processes necessary for effective programming and learn how to generalize narrowly conceived algorithms to widen their usefulness without losing efficiency. You'll also gain deep insight into the value of mathematics to programming--insight that will prove invaluable no matter what programming languages and paradigms you use. You will learn aboutHow to generalize a four thousand-year-old algorithm, demonstrating indispensable lessons about clarity and efficiencyAncient paradoxes, beautiful theorems, and the productive tension between continuous and discreteA simple algorithm for finding greatest common divisor (GCD) and modern abstractions that build on itPowerful mathematical approaches to abstractionHow abstract algebra provides the idea at the heart of generic programmingAxioms, proofs, theories, and models: using mathematical techniques to organize knowledge about your algorithms and data structuresSurprising subtleties of simple programming tasks and what you can learn from themHow practical implementations can exploit theoretical knowledge

    This concept is at the root of the computational worldview, which basically says that very complex systems — the world we live in — have their beginnings in simple mathematical equations. We've lately come to understand that such an algorithm is only the start of a never-ending story — the real action occurs in the unfolding consequences of the rules. The chip-in-a-box computers so popular in our time have acted as a kind of microscope, letting us see into the secret machinery of the world. In Lifebox, Rucker uses whimsical drawings, fables, and humor to demonstrate that everything is a computation — that thoughts, computations, and physical processes are all the same. Rucker discusses the linguistic and computational advances that make this kind of "digital philosophy" possible, and explains how, like every great new principle, the computational world view contains the seeds of a next step.

    This book discuses various major types of financial institutions and financial instruments present along with how and why the system of money and capital markets is changing. It also provides a descriptive explanation of how interest rates and security values are determined.

    Erin recounts her path of achievement starting as a promising young student and athlete and, ultimately, how she allowed her career and its demands to become the center of her life. She sacrificed all other priorities and relationships along the way, throwing work-life balance to the wind. The story reveals the subtleties of the everyday decisions that led collectively to a work-centric existence over a twenty-year career. Set against the backdrop of the dramatic circumstances at Lehman Brothers in 2008, Erin discloses her own struggle as events spiraled out of control. Ultimately, her resignation from her executive role prior to the Lehman bankruptcy resulted in a devastating personal crisis as her career crumbled revealing no foundation beneath it. We learn of the journey back to change her life with a semblance of present day peace and happiness. Full Circle provides a unique inside and emotional perspective of the sacrifices Erin made to achieve extreme career success and the self-awareness required to return to being the fundamentally grounded person she was as a child.

     Limited Time Offer: Buy CompTIA(R) A+ 220-801 and 220-802 Exam Cram and receive a 10% off discount code for the CompTIA A+ 220-801 and 220-802 exams. To receive your 10% off discount code:Register your product at pearsonITcertification.com/registerFollow the instructionsGo to your Account page and click on "Access Bonus Content" CompTIA(R) A+ 220-801 and 220-802 Exam Cram, Sixth Edition is the perfect study guide to help you pass CompTIA's A+ 220-801 and 220-802 exams. It provides coverage and practice questions for every exam topic, including substantial new coverage of Windows 7, new PC hardware, tablets, smartphones, and professional-level networking and security. The book presents you with an organized test preparation routine through the use of proven series elements and techniques. Exam topic lists make referencing easy. Exam Alerts, Sidebars, and Notes interspersed throughout the text keep you focused on what you need to know. Cram Quizzes help you assess your knowledge, and the Cram Sheet tear card is the perfect last minute review. Covers the critical information you'll need to know to score higher on your CompTIA A+ 220-801 and 220-802 exams!Deploy and administer desktops and notebooks running Windows 7, Vista, or XPUnderstand, install, and troubleshoot motherboards, processors, and memoryTest and troubleshoot power-related problemsUse all forms of storage, including new Blu-ray and Solid State (SSD) devicesWork effectively with mobile devices, including tablets and smartphonesInstall, configure, and troubleshoot both visible and internal laptop componentsConfigure Windows components and applications, use Windows administrative tools, and optimize Windows systemsRepair damaged Windows environments and boot errorsWork with audio and video subsystems, I/O devices, and the newest peripheralsInstall and manage both local and network printersConfigure IPv4 and understand TCP/IP protocols and IPv6 changesInstall and configure SOHO wired/wireless networks and troubleshoot connectivityImplement secure authentication, prevent malware attacks, and protect data Companion CDThe companion CD contains a digital edition of the Cram Sheet and the powerful Pearson IT Certification Practice Test engine, complete with hundreds of exam-realistic questions and two complete practice exams. The assessment engine offers you a wealth of customization options and reporting features, laying out a complete assessment of your knowledge to help you focus your study where it is needed most. Pearson IT Certifcation Practice Test Minimum System RequirementsWindows XP (SP3), WIndows Vista (SP2), or Windows 7Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 ClientPentium-class 1 GHz processor (or equivalent)512 MB RAM650 MB disk space plus 50 MB for each downloaded practice exam David L. Prowse is an author, computer network specialist, and technical trainer. Over the past several years he has authored several titles for Pearson Education, including the well-received CompTIA A+ Exam Cram and CompTIA Security+ Cert Guide. As a consultant, he installs and secures the latest in computer and networking technology. He runs the website www.davidlprowse.com, where he gladly answers questions from students and readers.

    This book considers many of those ideas and presents a new solution why three is the magic number.

    His breaking of the German U-boat Enigma cipher in World War II ensured Allied-American control of the Atlantic. But Turing's vision went far beyond the desperate wartime struggle. Already in the 1930s he had defined the concept of the universal machine, which underpins the computer revolution. In 1945 he was a pioneer of electronic computer design. But Turing's true goal was the scientific understanding of the mind, brought out in the drama and wit of the famous "Turing test" for machine intelligence and in his prophecy for the twenty-first century.Drawn in to the cockpit of world events and the forefront of technological innovation, Alan Turing was also an innocent and unpretentious gay man trying to live in a society that criminalized him. In 1952 he revealed his homosexuality and was forced to participate in a humiliating treatment program, and was ever after regarded as a security risk. His suicide in 1954 remains one of the many enigmas in an astonishing life story.

    “They are both brilliantly original and outsiders,” the narrator tells us. “They are both besotted with mathematics. But for all their devotion, mathematics is indifferent, unaltered by any of their dramas . . . Against indifference, I want to tell their stories.” Which she does in a haunting, incantatory voice, the two lives unfolding in parallel narratives that overlap in the magnitude of each man’s achievement and demise: Gödel, delusional and paranoid, would starve himself to death; Turing, arrested for homosexual activities, would be driven to suicide. And they meet as well in the narrator’s mind, where facts are interwoven with her desire and determination to find meaning in the maze of their stories: two men devoted to truth of the highest abstract nature, yet unable to grasp the mundane truths of their own lives.A unique amalgam of luminous imagination and richly evoked historic character and event—A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines is a story about the pursuit of truth and its effect on the lives of two men. A story of genius and madness, incredible yet true.

    "More concretely," the authors explain, "it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems."