It also explores the circumstances surrounding the true-life event of my grandmother's gift of a concubine to my grandfather on his birthday to enhance the chance of an heir to the Family.

    This text explores the relationship between second language teaching practice and what is known about the process of second language acquisition and summarizes the current state of second language acquisition theory.-- Draws general conclusions about the application of theory to methods and materials and describes the characteristics that effective materials should include.-- Concludes that language acquisition occurs best when language is used for the purpose for which it was designed: communication.

    While those in power have been distracted and disorderly, China has waged a six-front war on America's economy, military, diplomacy, technology, education, and infrastructure--and they're winning. It's almost too late to undo the shocking, though nearly invisible, victories of the Chinese.In Stealth War, retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding reveals China's motives and secret attacks on the West. Chronicling how our leaders have failed to protect us over recent decades, he provides shocking evidence of some of China's most brilliant ploys, including:- Placing Confucius Institutes in universities across the United States that serve to monitor and control Chinese students on campus and spread communist narratives to unsuspecting American students.- Offering enormous sums to American experts who create investment funds that funnel technology to China.- Signing a thirty-year agreement with the US that allows China to share peaceful nuclear technology, ensuring that they have access to American nuclear know-how.Spalding's concern isn't merely that America could lose its position on the world stage. More urgently, the Chinese Communist Party has a fundamental loathing of the legal protections America grants its people and seeks to create a world without those rights.Despite all the damage done so far, Spalding shows how it's still possible for the U.S. and the rest of the free world to combat--and win--China's stealth war.

    Through classical art, traditional proverbs, and superb research, this exquisitely designed volume takes a look back into the origins and history of these notorious “shadow warriors.” Explore their traditions and guiding philosophy, their weapons and martial-arts skills, their mystique as stealthy black-clad assassins, and their enduring appeal as icons of popular culture. A timeline goes back beyond even the very first ninjalike figure, and follows the movement right through the 1800s, when the final ninja mission ever was recorded: the attempt to infiltrate Commodore Perry’s “black ships” off Japan.

    You no longer use HTML and XHTML as design tools, but strictly as ways to define the meaning and structure of web content. And Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to page layout. When you follow the standards, both the site's design and underlying code are much cleaner. But how do you keep all those HTML and XHTML tags and CSS values straight? Jennifer Niederst-Robbins, the author of our definitive guide on standards-compliant design, Web Design in a Nutshell, offers you the perfect little guide when you need answers immediately: HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference. This revised and updated new edition takes the top 20% of vital reference information from her Nutshell book, augments it judiciously, cross-references everything, and organizes it according to the most common needs of web developers. The result is a handy book that offers the bare essentials on web standards in a small, concise format that you can use carry anywhere for quick reference. This guide will literally fit into your back pocket. Inside HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference, you'll find instantly accessible alphabetical listings of every element and attribute in the HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 Recommendations. This is an indispensable reference for any serious web designer, author, or programmer who needs a fast on-the-job resource when working with established web standards.

    Git tasks displayed on two-page spreads provide all the context you need, without the extra fluff. Get up to speed on Git right now with Pragmatic Guide to Git. Task-oriented two-page spreads get you up and running with minimal fuss. Each left-hand page dives into the underlying implementation for each task. The right-hand page contains commands that focus on the task at hand, and cross references to other tasks that are related. You'll find what you need fast. Git is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard for the open source community. Its excellent merging capabilities, coupled with its speed and relative ease of use, make it an indispensable tool for any developer. New Git users will learn the basic tasks needed to work with Git every day, including working with remote repositories, dealing with branches and tags, exploring the history, and fixing problems when things go wrong. If you're already familiar with Git, this book will be your go-to reference for Git commands and best practices. You won't find a more practical approach to learning Git than Pragmatic Guide to Git.

    Lee's intense curiosity led him to accumulate this knowledge and expose the limitations of strict adherence to tradition, which inspired him to develop his cosmopolitan "way of no way."The Tao of Gung Fu includes insights into various Chinese martial arts and training methodologies, sketches of martial arts techniques, Lee's personal scrapbook of his famous thesis, "The Tao of Gung Fu." Witness Lee's personal cultivation of excellence in martial arts. His application of philosophy to physical movements epitomizes the unification of mind and body—a genuine way of living for the martial artist.Chapters include:What is Gung Fu?—An Introduction to Chinese Gung Fu, On Yin and Yang, and Bridging the Gap of Yin and YangSome Techniques of Gung Fu—The Fundamentals of Gung Fu, The Basic Striking Points of Gung Fu, Introducing the Wing Chun Straight Punch, and The Practice of FormsTaoism in the Chinese Art of Gung Fu—On Wu-Hsin (No-Mindedness), On Wu Wei (Nondoing), and Centered ThoughtsIdeas and Opinions—Traditions and Histories of Chinese Gung Fu, The Question of Psychic Center, and Bruce's view on Gung FuAppendices—Bruce Lee's gung fu background at the time he wrote this book, Gung Fu terminology, and Letters and gung fu scrapbookThis Bruce Lee Book is part of the Bruce Lee Library which also features:Bruce Lee: Striking ThoughtsBruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden DragonBruce Lee: Artist of LifeBruce Lee: Letters of the DragonBruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human BodyBruce Lee: Jeet Kune Do

     Stories have the power to captivate listeners and to ignite their imaginations. Our brains crave stories - it's how history was recorded before people learned how to write - but what makes a great story? How can you create and deliver stories which keep your listeners transfixed? Based on Intensive Research on Brain Science, Storytelling, Screenwriting and Public Speaking I spent the last four years studying and evaluating thousands of speakers - some great ones, and others who (to put it mildly) needed a lot of help. I read over two hundred books on the art of public speaking, storytelling and screenwriting, attended countless seminars on the subject and devoured every piece of information I could get on the art of presenting. This book is the result of my intensive research. In it, you will find powerful storytelling and speaking techniques that are used by some of the world’s best speakers to help win audiences over to their way of thinking. If you want to master the art of public speaking, you must master the art of storytelling. In this book, you will discover the public speaking and storytelling techniques used by some of the best public speakers in the world. More specifically, you will learn how to: •Create an opening that instantly hooks your audience into your speech •Keep your audience on the edge of their seats with a spellbinding story •Use the suspended story to keep your audience intrigued •Bring your characters to life •Turn your stories into mental movies for your audience •Create and deliver a speech your audience will remember and talk about for years •Keep ratcheting up the suspense by increasing the intensity of your conflicts •Customize your speech (and your story) for your audience •Add organic humor to your speeches and stories without resorting to jokes •Use anchors to make your points memorable •Use tough-watch logic to inspire your audience •Create smooth transitions to ensure your speech flows logically •Create analogies and metaphors to make your message memorable •Give your audience dialogue to build rapport with them •Add a you-focused check-in to relate with your audience •Use vocal variety to spice up your speech •Create a memorable and repeatable catch-phrase using “the rule of opposites” •Add credibility to your speeches and stories •Take an element out of your story and put it into your audience’s lives •Creatively summarize your main points •Tell a story and deliver a speech that your audience will remember and talk about for years What Makes This Book Different? This book is unlike most books on the subjects of public speaking and storytelling.

    Hundreds of thousands of Python developers around the world rely on Python for general-purpose tasks, Internet scripting, systems programming, user interfaces, and product customization. Available on all major computing platforms, including commercial versions of Unix, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, Python is portable, powerful and remarkable easy to use.With its convenient, quick-reference format, "Python Pocket Reference," 3rd Edition is the perfect on-the-job reference. More importantly, it's now been refreshed to cover the language's latest release, Python 2.4. For experienced Python developers, this book is a compact toolbox that delivers need-to-know information at the flip of a page. This third edition also includes an easy-lookup index to help developers find answers fast!Python 2.4 is more than just optimization and library enhancements; it's also chock full of bug fixes and upgrades. And these changes are addressed in the "Python Pocket Reference," 3rd Edition. New language features, new and upgraded built-ins, and new and upgraded modules and packages--they're all clarified in detail.The "Python Pocket Reference," 3rd Edition serves as the perfect companion to "Learning Python" and "Programming Python."

    This is the undisputed go-to guide to Rust, written by two members of the Rust core team, with feedback and contributions from 42 members of the community. The book assumes that you’ve written code in another programming language but makes no assumptions about which one, meaning the material is accessible and useful to developers from a wide variety of programming backgrounds.Known by the Rust community as "The Book," The Rust Programming Language includes concept chapters, where you’ll learn about a particular aspect of Rust, and project chapters, where you’ll apply what you’ve learned so far to build small programs.The Book opens with a quick hands-on project to introduce the basics then explores key concepts in depth, such as ownership, the type system, error handling, and fearless concurrency. Next come detailed explanations of Rust-oriented perspectives on topics like pattern matching, iterators, and smart pointers, with concrete examples and exercises--taking you from theory to practice.The Rust Programming Language will show you how to: Grasp important concepts unique to Rust like ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes Use Cargo, Rust’s built-in package manager, to build and maintain your code, including downloading and building dependencies Effectively use Rust’s zero-cost abstractions and employ your ownYou’ll learn to develop reliable code that’s speed and memory efficient, while avoiding the infamous and arcane programming pitfalls common at the systems level. When you need to dive down into lower-level control, this guide will show you how without taking on the customary risk of crashes or security holes and without requiring you to learn the fine points of a fickle toolchain.You’ll also learn how to create command line programs, build single- and multithreaded web servers, and much more.The Rust Programming Language fully embraces Rust’s potential to empower its users. This friendly and approachable guide will help you build not only your knowledge of Rust but also your ability to program with confidence in a wider variety of domains.

    He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.

    He worked for the Australian Financial Review in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth before being posted as a correspondent to Jakarta and Shanghai. Andrew is currently a senior business journalist for the Australian in Perth, where he has covered the WA mining boom since 2006. He won the business prize at the West Australian media awards in 2006 and 2009.

    This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises. In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.

    Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves.The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently. Each pattern describes the circumstances in which it is applicable, when it can be applied in view of other design constraints, and the consequences and trade-offs of using the pattern within a larger design. All patterns are compiled from real systems and are based on real-world examples. Each pattern also includes code that demonstrates how it may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Smalltalk.

    This comprehensive guide is THE industry standard driving manual. Learn how to get the most enjoyment from your driving with the correct skills, attitude and behaviour.