Trials of an Inventor: Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear

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Trials of an Inventor: Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear
Bradford Peirce
Manufacturer: University Press of the Pacific
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Business | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1410205452

Book Description

Originally published in 1866, shortly after the death of Charles Goodyear, the remarkable history of this great man and his invention of rubber making. In addition to the technical information, this biography provides a fascinating and detailed personal and business history. His was a life of many problems, including pawning his furniture for bread, a stay in a French debtor's prison, and many other troubles.

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Contributors: Amy Cappellazzo, Adriano Pedrosa, Peter Wollen.

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Disappointing.

Sad, but true....

She knows...

This Is Not a Rave: In the Shadow of a Subculture
Tara McCall
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Generation Ecstasy : Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture

Rave Culture, an insider's overview

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ASIN: 1560253959

Book Description

From the Lindy Hop to the Lambada, popular dance has worried the protectors of our public morality. New York City’s notorious cabaret laws are enforced today – it’s common to see "No Dancing Allowed" at your local saloon – and small bars without licenses have been harassed and shuttered for failing to keep their patrons wiggling in their seats. Rave culture is a worldwide phenomenon of unprecedented mass-appeal and, perhaps for that reason, an especial threat to the world’s corporatized wallflowers. Whether because of its catalyst drug, MDMA/Ecstasy, its fashion of defiant adolescence, or its unofficial credo of Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect, rave has elicited an especially punitive response. Tara McCall traces rave’s underground history in Detroit, Ibiza, and London, to the bacchanals that now attract tens of thousands of revelers. In a highly personal tour supplemented by 50 photographs and the voices of hundreds of young dancers who tell their own stories, McCall illuminates the wild fashion, drugs, hypnotic music, and most importantly, the hedonistic dance of a subculture now being driven back underground. This Is Not A Rave will challenge and entertain. It may get you up out of your seat.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing........2005-06-06

For a book that attempts to depict one of the most colorful subcultures in recent times this is spectacularly drab and unenlightening. I was hoping for a detailed history of the rave movement, with in depth research and interviews with key people. Perhaps because the field is so rich the author could not bring herself to do anything more than a superficial description of a few original clubs, some songs and a handful of DJs.

The worst thing was that much of the book was taken up with inane comments from random punters who for the most part had nothing to say and read like so much "filler". Whole paragraphs were shamelessly lifted from internet newsgroups and towards the end of the book a seemingly irrelevant chapter on folk dance was inserted for extra padding. So lacking was this book in graphic and visual content that certain photographs were repeated over and over again. It's particularly disappointing considering the artistry and creativity of 80s and 90s dance party culture. The author missed her opportunity to document the multitudes of musicians, record producers, party promoters, DJs, drug suppliers, artists, writers, zinemakers and designers who were active at the time. Actually the author almost attempts to reduce the "rave" to a few simple behaviours and then ispo facto chronicles the fact that ravers grew bored and moved on. Not everybody wore "phat" jeans or even called them that. A great deal of attention is given to the Canadian scene and if you aren't Canadian yourself this comes across as a little parochial. I was also disappointed that there was little mention of the advocacy taken on behalf of ravers themselves to promote safer practises. A lot of those safety campaigns were highly imaginative and extremely colorful, but they were entirely glossed over.

Is it wrong to compare a movie to a book? I don't know but a film like "24 Hour Party People" provided so much more content about the era than this book. It was that kind of detail and historical depth I was expecting from "This Is Not A Rave" and I was extremely disappointed.

Sad, but true...........2004-04-09

I came across this book by chance and couldn't help but pick it up, even though I've long since hung up my glowsticks and retired my party clothes. I was a part of the East Coast scene, attending parties up and down from 1991 to around 1997. From the history to the present, the clothes, the dancing and most importantly, the people that made the scene seem so pure, Tara McCall touches on just about everything in some way shape or form. The book also outlines the unfortunate reasons why the scene has deteriorated to the mass produced, drug focused debacle that it's become. (Yeah, I'm jaded) This book is for anybody that had the time of their lives back in the day, dancing to the loudest beats for twelve hours straight in some obscure location with complete strangers that somehow, felt like good friends. Or something to that effect....

She knows..........2003-02-08

Back when I was a little candy kid, I would have bought this book, read the part about jaded ravers and vowed that it would never happen to me. I would have been wrong. One of the best parts of this book is the "Jaded Raver" test. It's amusing and sadly, true. This book takes a look at the rave scene as it becomes more mainstream and commercial, rather than glorifying the "good ol' days" of break-in parties, etc. It's a pretty honest look at the scene from 1999 to the present. Though some of us long for a good warehouse party and running from the cops when they raid us, we recognize that raving has become a drug culture, regardless of whether or not it was at its inception. I think anyone who goes to the parties so as to be in an environment where the use of drugs is condoned should read this book. Maybe you'll see what your fellow ravers really think of you...

This Is Not a Rave: In the Shadows of a Subculture

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This Is Not a Rave: In the Shadows of a Subculture
Tara McCall
Manufacturer: Insomniac Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1894663098

Customer Reviews:

Reprinted material (like always from the new TSR).......1999-04-13

Almost all of the spells can already be found in the Forgotten Realms Adventures book so when I bought a book full of spells I already had I was dissapointed. Also the spells are organized horribly. They are seperated into seperate "spellbooks" rather than by level so finding a certain spell can be difficult. Definately not worth the money.

Nothing particularily new here..........1998-12-21

This book features some new spells (most found in the Wizard Spell Compendiums), a couple new creatures and the detailing of some 40 spellbooks including Elminster's Travelling Spellbook and Laeral's Libram, among others. Overall, unless you're really interested in the specifics of these spellbooks the spells alone are not worth the book... even less if you already own one or more Spell Compendiums.

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If you really want to learn how to make things work in Flash, this is the book for you because

Can't recommend

Better books elsewhere... Not for those trying to Learn quickly

Not worth it a nickel

great book, shows how it is done

Macromedia Flash 8 @work: Projects and Techniques to Get the Job Done (@Work)
Phillip Kerman
Manufacturer: Sams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Flash | Web Design | Web Development | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Graphic Design | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Software | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 8 in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself)

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ASIN: 0672328283

Book Description

Phillip Kerman's Macromedia Flash 8 @work: Projects and Techniques to Get the Job Done approaches learning from a different perspective than the typical book on a web graphics application. Rather than simply describing how to use each feature of a product, Macromedia Flash 8 @work introduces key tools in a single chapter and then moves on to what you really want to know -- how to use Macromedia Flash to complete the projects you're likely to face every day on the job.

You'll get step-by-step coverage of how to complete 10 common projects chosen by a panel of Flash users. Plus, tips, tricks, and notes will provide you with the information you need to apply what you learn on these projects to others you'll undoubtedly be asked to create at work.

Customer Reviews:

If you really want to learn how to make things work in Flash, this is the book for you because.......2007-08-03

I have tried to learn Actionscript for around 5 years and bought several books about this theme so far. So, this year I told myself: "You love Flash... So you HAVE TO understand Actionscript because you need to be more professional!". Ok... So I started studying again from the begining searching on the internet for the meaning of terms like variables, events, methods, object, classes, etc... just to check if I had left some important concepts behind. But even knowing those concepts, I still could not find myself writing code from the scratch! This book from Kerman cleared my mind and taught me how to implement code within the scope of a real Flash project. It guided me troughout the whole process of making a Flash application and made me understand how a Flash professional like Kerman deals when facing to everyday's Actionscript's challanges. So that's really a good choice for you to understand how you can implement a Flash project from the basis. Important: read every page carefully. If you dont't undestand a single line, try do do it so. You will realize that you have a priceless book in your hands to really get your job done!

Can't recommend.......2007-06-26

I wouldn't say the book is "totally useless" but the decision the author made to serve up ActionScript without explanation because he thought we "didn't want to get our hands dirty" was a bad one. I see in his reply that he says he never claimed to do otherwise, but you don't realize this until you have read two chapters.

I would prefer it if he had given us less projects but gone over the code in his .as files for us.

Also, the author should understand that no one buys a book to get ready-made projects. We are buying these books to learn how to do these things on our own. If I just wanted a ready-made project I could just Google what I want and find one of the countless FLA examples people are good enough to share online. When I buy a book, its so I can learn to do it myself.

Better books elsewhere... Not for those trying to Learn quickly.......2007-05-14

With all due respect to the author, (who obviously knows his stuff quite well), this book is terrible for learning. The author, however, does not promise to teach you, which is in its way his safeguard. You are not meant to be taught, so do not expect to learn. The information the book contains is mostly lots and lots (and lots) of discussion ABOUT Actionscript put in a way as though Actionscript gurus would sit around discussing functions and classes and whatnot. If you are not up to reading 'about' Actionscript, skip this book. The first 57 pages bored me to tears... I guess I suffer a bit too much from A.D.D. to be able to sit and read 'about' Actionscript. Instead, I want to LEARN Actionscript, so that perhaps one day I, too, can be a guru sitting around, drinking my Red Bull and discussing Actionscript like some people discuss nuclear fission or jet propulsion.

If you are the type who can handle reading and reading and reading in order to learn some minor information regarding a complex scripting language, best of luck to you with this book. However, if you're (obviously) dull minded like myself and cannot learn from reading paragraph after paragraph of stuff like this:

"...although the third-pary product Captionate...is needed to inject Caption and Marker cue points, these cue point types are definitely worth including in this list...." then this book is not for you. For me, however, just tell me WHY and show me HOW.

When will someone write a book which is clear and concise, which demonstrates step-by-step in as few words as possible how to do something (other than tweening and drawing) in Flash? I've got a dozen books from which I've been able to learn a few things, but for the most part I find myself falling asleep reading the same thing over and over again. I don't want theories on how I can write a function and an array; I don't want simplistic examples that leave me wondering how to do something a bit more complicated. I need real world examples, real world learning. Write a complex function and teach me how to do it! Don't tell me I can use XML, show me HOW to use XML. Be creative! Inspire me! I have projects to do, and don't have time to sit and read and read and read... I don't have time to cross reference with the Flash Bible to try to figure out what you're talking about, either.

Lynda publishes some better books, (in particular to learning Actionscript in a real-world example), the Beyond the Basics book is excellent.

Not worth it a nickel.......2007-04-18

I bought this book last month due to some good feedbacks. But when I read, it seems the book is too much unnecessary words just to make it look thick but the actual content is thin. I would suggest to learn from the help section of the flash program itself. It's much more clear and right to the point not like this book. From there then google up and you will find a lot of more better tutorials than this book and best of all, it's free!

great book, shows how it is done.......2007-02-26

I enjoyed this book for the very fact that it was project based, using Flash 8 features as well as traditional uses. As an experienced Flash user I appreciated the format, but this would not be a good book for a novice. I enjoyed the use of XML in projects as it allows users to leverage the capabilities of Flash to a whole new level.

I bought this book as I enjoyed his other book "Macromedia Flash MX 2004 for Rich Internet Applications" as it too explored great but practical uses. There are not enough project based books out there as most Flash books are aimed at novices that offer a general overview, but lack substance that you can really chew on.

Book Description

History in Transit comprises Dominick LaCapra's explorations of relationships he believes have been insufficiently theorized: between experience and identity, between history and various theories of subjectivity, between extreme events and their representation, between institutional structures and the kinds of knowledge produced within them. Taken together, these discussions form a dialogical encounter, positing the links among epistemological questions, historicist ones, and issues pertaining to disciplinary and institutional politics. Reacting against the antitheoretical bias of some prominent historians, LaCapra presents an alternative model of historiographical practice—one in which emphases on plurality and hybridity are combined with the concept of historical experience. For LaCapra experience emerges as a category both theoretically determined and anchored in the facticity of the everyday.

LaCapra tests the assumptions and implications of the way one approaches the past by looking to psychoanalysis to render more self-aware the relationship between the historian and his or her material. He offers criticisms of assumptions held by practicing historians and theorists, placing the study of history at the center of a larger argument about the role of the contemporary university. Contesting both corporatization and claims that the university is in ruins, LaCapra writes, "It is paradoxical that the demand to make the university conform to an ever-increasing extent to a market or business model seems oblivious to the fact that the American university has probably been the most successful of its type in the world, that students from other countries disproportionately desire to study in it."

Customer Reviews:

Are Historians Averse to Theory?.......2007-08-20

According to Dominick LaCapra, historians should spend more time engaging with "theory", defined as "an attempt to understand better what one knows or thinks one know."

His own research on the genocide and post-traumatic experience makes use of concepts borrowed from psychoanalysis. As an example, he refers to transference as "the tendency to repeat in one's own discourse or practice tendencies active in, or projected into, the other or object", such as a ritualistic response to ritual or a fanatical denunciation of religious fanaticism. Or to use another trope, he differentiates between "working through", the positive engagement with trauma that can lead to its ultimate resolution, and "acting out" or compulsively repeating the past.

Engaging with theory also means acquiring a familiar acquaintance with contemporary philosophical texts. This is not an easy task: as the author points out, "one cannot competently read Derrida without having read Freud, Heidegger, Hegel, Husserl, Plato, Aristotle, and quite a few others." Fortunately, younger historians can rely on the work of their predecessors who established bridges between theory and historiography. Besides, according to Dominick LaCapra, the "golden age" of critical theory is now over, and modern authors such as Giorgio Agamben, whose Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive is discussed in one chapter, exhibit a disturbing tendency to move "from high theory to sky-high theory", losing relevance and applicability along the way.

What puzzles me with this book is the aggressiveness of the tone the author uses when discussing authors with whom he disagrees. To take an example with which I am familiar, Dominick LaCapra refers twice to Gerard Noiriel's Sur la "crise" de l'histoire in disparaging terms, accusing him of protecting the French-born Ecole des Annales against foreign and particularly American influences, or even of moving into a direction "in which leftist and neoconservative tendencies may converge." The fact that Noiriel dedicates a chapter to a close discussion of a volume that the author edited two decades ago is not even mentioned, and the detailed critiques formulated by the French historian are left unanswered.

More generally, LaCapra makes a generous use of political labels when discussing academic disciplines and research fields, and he tends to evaluate scholarly contributions through the sole prism of the progressive/reactionary dichotomy ("Moving beyond theory is a specious and even sociopolitically and ethically suspect move", "Analytic philosophy and history are more theoretically conservative than literary criticism"). The bellicose tone and political labeling are serious limits to an otherwise well-written and thoughtful essay.

The sublime triplets of historical consciousness.(On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath)(Stranded in the Present: Modern ... Review) : An article from: Criticism

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The sublime triplets of historical consciousness.(On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath)(Stranded in the Present: Modern ... Review) : An article from: Criticism
Susan A. Crane
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Criticism, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 5412 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The sublime triplets of historical consciousness.(On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath)(Stranded in the Present: Modern Time and the Melancholy of History)(Deja vu: Aberrations of Cultural Memory)(Book Review)
Author: Susan A. Crane
Publication: Criticism (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 46 Issue: 3 Page: 499(12)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Customer Reviews:

Question.......2007-04-28

Is this the English translation of the book published in Jerusalem in 1980? Margarita Aliger was the coauthor of that title, if I recall correctly.

If you know, please reply by responding to this comment. Thanks.

(BTW, haven't read the book, so I've given it five stars uslovno; if it's written by Grossman and Ehrenburg, it's guaranteed to be good, as far as I'm concerned)

The first great witness of the Shoah.......2006-08-31

I take this account from Robert Chandler's article on 'Life and Fate' which appeared in Prospect magazine. Chandler is one of Grossman's translators, and an outstanding interpreter and commentator on his work.

" In 1943, after the German surrender at Stalingrad, Grossman was with the first red army units to liberate the Ukraine. He learned about Babi Yar, where 100,000 people, most of them Jews, were massacred. Soon afterwards, in Berdichev, he learned the details of his mother's death. His story "The Old Teacher" and the article "Ukraine without Jews" are among the first accounts of the Shoah in any language. And Grossman's vivid yet sober "The Hell of Treblinka" (late 1944), the first article in any language about a Nazi death camp, was republished and used as testimony in the Nuremberg trials.

Grossman was the first to research both the massacres in the Ukraine that marked the beginning of the Shoah and the death camps of Poland that were its culmination. The SS tried to destroy all trace of Treblinka, but Grossman interviewed local peasants and the 40 survivors and reconstructed how the camp functioned. He writes perceptively about the role played by deceit, about how the "SS psychiatrists of death" managed "to confuse people's minds once more, to sprinkle them with hope... 'Women and children must take their shoes off... Stockings must be put into shoes ... Be tidy... Going to the bathhouse, you must have your documents, a towel...'"

The official Soviet line, however, was that all nationalities had suffered equally under Hitler; the standard retort to those who emphasised the suffering of Jews was "Do not divide the dead!" Admitting that Jews constituted the overwhelming majority of the dead would have entailed admitting that other Soviet nationalities--and especially Ukrainians--had been accomplices in the genocide; in any case, Stalin was antisemitic. From 1943 to 1946, along with Ilya Ehrenburg, Grossman worked for the Jewish anti-fascist committee on The Black Book, a documentary account of the massacres of Jews on Soviet and Polish soil. It was never published."

Grossman, the great Soviet war correspondent was a heroic man of truth, who followed the Red Army in all the major battles of the war, including Stalingrad. The 'horrors' he saw in the concentration- camps moved him to the writing of this work. His own mother had been murdered in 1941 with thirty- thousand other Jews in the Ukranian town of Berditchev.
Only the realization that Stalin was deliberately persecuting the Jews led Grossman, an assimilated Jew to heroically identify with his own people.
His honesty, his courage in recording the horrible realities of this book are the very qualities which make him such a distinctively great writer.

The totalitarian collision: the complete black book of Russian Jewry.: An article from: Midstream

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The totalitarian collision: the complete black book of Russian Jewry.: An article from: Midstream
Irving Louis Horowitz
Manufacturer: Theodor Herzl Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008II3NU
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Midstream, published by Theodor Herzl Foundation on September 1, 2001. The length of the article is 4149 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The totalitarian collision: the complete black book of Russian Jewry.
Author: Irving Louis Horowitz
Publication: Midstream (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2001
Publisher: Theodor Herzl Foundation
Volume: 47 Issue: 6 Page: 13(4)

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The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry

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The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry
Ilya Ehrenburg
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MUDR26

Book Description

The predecessor of this book, The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand enabled users to identify wild birds seen anywhere in the New Zealand region. That book was in two parts: the first section was an identification guide with colour plates and distribution maps, while the second section gave more detailed information on the biology and ecology of the species described. The Field Guide was 430 pages long and sold for L55 hardback and L27.50 paperback. The current book comprises the first section of the original Field Guide - plates, maps, and short descriptions - with an Introduction, a section on where to see the birds, and an index. A much smaller, cheaper book than the Field Guide, it will be attractive to a wider audience of less serious bird watchers as well as the more serious who want a more portable version.

Customer Reviews:

Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand.......2007-05-20

Useful Field guide with plenty of information on where to watch birds in NZ. Illustrations of the birds I know are good except the Common Mynah. Nice size for walking/touring holidays. Will rereview after visit to NZ in November.

Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand.......2006-03-11

Great book. There are excellent pictures and useful information. Information on where you are likely to find the birds...Fun to read while planning a trip.

The only bird book I carry.......2005-07-26

I had no experience with ornithology or bird-watching and I wanted to learn. I bought every NZ bird book in the store. This is the one I found most usefull, with its detailed descriptions and detailed images. The binding is robust enough to survive being carried in my pack since 2002.

Book Description

The International Symposium on Deer of China centered on the deer of China and included research conducted on deer which are distributed in China. However, the history of management of North American red deer (elk) was also reviewed as a reference, as was the recent status of deer farming in New Zealand.

The main aim of the symposium was to communicate the results of recent research, to determine the direction of future studies and conservation measures, and to discuss ways to encourage further research conducted by international teams. Forty-four oral presentations and 32 poster presentations were given during the symposium. This volume presents 34 of the oral and 9 of the poster presentations, with many of the posters presented here in the form of short communications.

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