Brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler’s dream fulfilled, the Key West Railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” Standiford brings the full force and fury of 1935’s deadly “Storm of the Century” and its sweeping destruction of “the railroad that crossed an ocean” to terrifying life. Last Train to Paradise celebrates a crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition in a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature’s wrath.

    Kai-Fu Lee—one of the world’s most respected experts on AI and China—reveals that China has suddenly caught up to the US at an astonishingly rapid and unexpected pace.In AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee’s opinion, probably not.  But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most importantly, how we can provide solutions to some of the most profound changes in human history that are coming soon.

    It introduces the use of classes; shows how to write ADTs that maximize the perfomance of C++ in creating reusable code; and provides coverage of all important OO functions, including inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation.

    Featuring the imprimatur of bestselling author and New York Times reporter Gina Kolata, one of the nation's foremost voices in science and medicine, and with contributions from Atul Gawande, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Oliver Sacks, among others, The Best American Science Writing 2007 is a compelling anthology of our most advanced, and most relevant, scientific inquiries.

    Marcelo Gleiser explores the shared quest of ancient prophets and today's astronomers to explain the strange phenomena of our skies--from the apocalypse foretold in Revelations to modern science's ongoing identification of multiple cataclysmic threats, including the impact of comets and asteroids on earthly life, the likelihood of future collisions, the meaning of solar eclipses and the death of stars, the implications of black holes for time travel, and the ultimate fate of the universe and time. Presenting insights to cosmological science and apocalyptic philosophy in an "easily accessible" (Library Journal) style, Gleiser is "a rare astrophysicist as comfortable quoting Scripture as explaining formulas" (Booklist). K. C. Cole praises his ability to "[work] the entwined threads of science and religion into a vision of the end' that is strangely comforting and inspiring.

    It has dealt with issues of religious freedom, patriotism, terrorism, genetic engineering, and the ultimate science fiction question: what does it mean to be human? While the re-imagined BSG may not be packed with cool techie tools (the bad guys don't even have laser guns for frak's sake!), this book shows that the science in the series has a lot to say about the use of science and technology in our lives today.What are the principles behind artificial gravity and sublight propulsion? Are Cylons men or machines? How are humanoid Cylons able to interface with computers? By tackling these and other intriguing questions, The Science of Battlestar Galactica takes us billions of miles away from Earth so that we can turn around and see ourselves from a different perspective.Tackles fans' most pressing BSG questions, from how an FTL drive might work to how the 12 colonies of Kobol could co-exist to the principles behind Gaius Baltar's Cylon-detectorFeatures behind-the-scenes anecdotes, quotes from the BSG Series Bible, and over 60 photosIncludes a foreword by BSG co-executive producer, Jane Espenson, and an afterword by actor, Richard Hatch, who played Tom Zarek in the reimagined series and Captain Apollo in the classic seriesCo-written by BSG's scientific advisor and a Wired contributing editorPacked with must-know details and scientific background, this thought-provoking book will help you see Battlestar Galactica as never before.

    Digital technologies—with hardware, software, and networks at their core—will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.In The Second Machine Age MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds—from lawyers to truck drivers—will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age alters how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.

    Maybe before. Exponentially improving technologies such as solar, electric vehicles, and autonomous (self-driving) cars will disrupt and sweep away the energy and transportation industries as we know it. The same Silicon Valley ecosystem that created bit-based technologies that have disrupted atom-based industries is now creating bit- and electron-based technologies that will disrupt atom-based energy industries. Clean Disruption projections (based on technology cost curves, business model innovation as well as product innovation) show that by 2030: - All new energy will be provided by solar or wind. - All new mass-market vehicles will be electric. - All of these vehicles will be autonomous (self-driving) or semi-autonomous. - The new car market will shrink by 80%. - Even assuming that EVs don't kill the gasoline car by 2030, the self-driving car will shrink the new car market by 80%. - Gasoline will be obsolete. Nuclear is already obsolete. - Up to 80% of highways will be redundant. - Up to 80% of parking spaces will be redundant. - The concept of individual car ownership will be obsolete. - The Car Insurance industry will be disrupted. The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of rocks. It ended because a disruptive technology ushered in the Bronze Age. The era of centralized, command-and-control, extraction-resource-based energy sources (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) will not end because we run out of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or uranium. It will end because these energy sources, the business models they employ, and the products that sustain them will be disrupted by superior technologies, product architectures, and business models. This is a technology-based disruption reminiscent of how the cell phone, Internet, and personal computer swept away industries such as landline telephony, publishing, and mainframe computers. Just like those technology disruptions flipped the architecture of information and brought abundant, cheap and participatory information, the clean disruption will flip the architecture of energy and bring abundant, cheap and participatory energy. Just like those previous technology disruptions, the clean disruption is inevitable and it will be swift.

    Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, training and even served in it operationally. Could the ME 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Why did it take so long to come into service and why were hundreds of German pilots sacrificed in developing it? Why did the ME 262 prove not to be the unparalleled success claimed by Goering and why were German cities left dangerously exposed against Allied bombing campaigns? These are only some the important questions this new book answers. Mano Ziegler, born 7 June 1908, had a lifetime fascination with flight. At the age of eight, he wrote to Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the famous "Red Baron", asking to be allowed to fly with him. Richthofen even replied, telling him, "Yes, we'll fly together!". At the age of 21, he took up glider flying. He also pursued his sport of diving and was a core member of Germany's Olympic high-diving team. In 1932 and 1934 he was student world high-diving champion at the world championships in Darmstadt and Turin. When war broke out in 1939 he became a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and from 1943 until the war's end he flew the Me 163 with Erprobungskommando 16 (Operational Test Unit 16) and Jagdgeschwader 400 (Fighter Group 400). After the war he escaped from Russian captivity and - having returned to Berlin - continued to fly and write newspaper articles. In Berlin he guested as a high-wire walker with the Camilla Mayer circus troupe, walking the 24-metre high wire - without any prior training - for a newspaper article. He eventually became editor-in-chief of the Flug-Revue aviation monthly in Stuttgart and, as such, made his first supersonic flight in an English fighter aircraft in the spring of 1960. Hitler's Jet Plane fills an important gap in the history of the Luftwaffe and of aviation in general with new research which dicloses how the first ever military jet plane failed to make its mark on World War II.

    From bone-whittling microgravity to eye-popping profits, the risks and rewards of space settlement have never been so close at hand.More than fifty years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, why is there so little human presence in space? Will we ever reach Mars? What will it take to become a multiplanet species, colonizing the solar system and traveling to other stars?Spacefarers meets these questions head on. While many books have speculated on the possibility of living beyond the Earth, few have delved into the practical challenges or plausible motives for leaving the safe confines of our home planet. Christopher Wanjek argues that there is little doubt we will be returning to the Moon and exploring Mars in the coming decades, given the potential scientific and commercial bonanza. Private industry is already taking a leading role and earning profits from human space activity. This can be, Wanjek suggests, a sustainable venture and a natural extension of earthbound science, business, and leisure. He envisions hotels in low-earth orbit and mining, tourism, and science on the Moon. He also proposes the slow, steady development of science bases on Mars, to be followed by settlements if Martian gravity will permit reproduction and healthy child development.An appetite for wonder will take us far, but if we really want to settle new worlds, we'll need the earnest plans of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Wanjek introduces us to those planners, who are striving right now to make life in space a reality.

    Leading networking authority Douglas Comer presents a wide-ranging, self-contained tour of the concepts, principles, and technologies that enable today's Internet to support applications ranging from web browsing to telephony and multimedia. This Fifth Edition has been thoroughly reorganized, revised, and updated: it includes extensive new coverage of topics ranging from wireless protocols to network performance, while reducing or eliminating coverage of older protocols and technologies. Comer begins by illuminating the applications and facilities offered by today's Internet. Next, he systematically introduces the underlying network technologies and protocols that make them possible: low-level data communications; packet switching, LAN, and WAN technologies; and Internet protocols such as TCP, IP, UDP, and IPv6. With these concepts and technologies established, he introduces several of the most important contemporary issues faced by network implementers and managers, including quality of service, Internet telephony, multimedia, network security, and network management. Comer has carefully designed this book to support both top-down and bottom-up teaching approaches. Students need no background in operating systems, and no sophisticated math: Comer relies throughout on figures, drawings, examples, and analogies, "not" mathematical proofs.

    Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero." Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne. Chuck Yeager was certainly among the fastest, and his determination to push through Mach 1--a feat that some had predicted would cause the destruction of any aircraft--makes him the book's guiding spirit. Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley

    Written for 11- to 15-year-olds and assuming no prior computing knowledge, this book uses the wildly successful, low-cost, credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi computer to explain fundamental computing concepts. Young people will enjoy going through the book's nine fun projects while they learn basic programming and system administration skills, starting with the very basics of how to plug in the board and turn it on. Each project includes a lively and informative video to reinforce the lessons. It's perfect for young, eager self-learners—your kids can jump in, set up their Raspberry Pi, and go through the lessons on their own. Written by Carrie Anne Philbin, a high school teacher of computing who advises the U.K. government on the revised ICT Curriculum Teaches 11- to 15-year-olds programming and system administration skills using Raspberry Pi Features 9 fun projects accompanied by lively and helpful videos Raspberry Pi is a $35/£25 credit-card-sized computer created by the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation; over a million have been sold Help your children have fun and learn computing skills at the same time with Adventures in Raspberry Pi.

    interstate system changed the face of our country. The Big Roads charts the creation of these essential American highways. From the turn-of-the-century car racing entrepreneur who spurred the citizen-led “Good Roads” movement, to the handful of driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work—years before President Eisenhower knew the plans existed—to the protests that erupted across the nation when highways reached the cities and found people unwilling to be uprooted in the name of progress, Swift follows a winding, fascinating route through twentieth-century American life.  How did we get from dirt tracks to expressways, from main streets to off-ramps, from mud to concrete and steel, in less than a century? Through decades of politics, activism, and marvels of engineering, we recognize in our highways the wanderlust, grand scale, and conflicting notions of citizenship and progress that define America.

    Standing on those pillars, humans spent 100,000 years spreading out into the galaxy: warring, exploring, partying — the usual. Then there was the fifth science. And that killed the empire stone dead. The Fifth Science is a collection of 12 stories, beginning at the start of the Galactic Human Empire and following right through to its final days. We’ll see some untypical things along the way, meet some untypical folk: galactic lighthouses from the distant future, alien tombs from the distant past, murderers, emperors, archaeologists and drunks; mad mathematicians attempting to wake the universe itself up. And when humans have fallen back into savagery, when the secrets of space folding and perfect wisdom are forgotten, we’ll attend the empire’s deathbed, hold its hand as it goes. Unfortunately that may well only be the beginning.