The Value Added Tax: International Practice and Problems

Book Description

This book is an examination of VAT. It looks at problems and theoretical options and potential impacts, as well as detailing the practical aspects of implementing new tax structures. The author advances arguments for and against alternative policies and illustrates his study with international examples from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. He suggests that countries can learn from each other's experiences with VAT.

Customer Reviews:

It is worth each cent........2001-06-21

This book is thought for people that works in the government administration of taxes, for economists of public finances or perhaps for the bureaus of lawyers as a complement to the legal point of view. There are discussiosn about most of the controversial topics of the VAT and which have been the solutions adopted in different countries that apply it. A recomendation : Discard it if you want to learn how to fill tax forms or determine taxes.

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you must buy this book!!

The experiment in "Mo"nogamy continues...

Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out for
Alison Bechdel
Manufacturer: Firebrand Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out for

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ASIN: 1563410672

Customer Reviews:

you must buy this book!!.......1998-11-20

wonderfully detailed and expressive drawings paired with intelligent, articulate, original (and funny!!) characters. could you expect anything less from an oberlin grad?

The experiment in "Mo"nogamy continues..........1997-02-26

Bechdel continues to send the reader to the lighter side of lesbian culture. In this collection we watch Mo, the Heroine, in relationships, at work and play (i.e. "whine and kvetch)

Book Description

Nine has fought against incredible odds and won countless battles across the globeyet, her heart may be the enemy she cannot defeat! Shes fallen for the one person who could compromise the entire Ultimate Blue mission to capture a vindictive bomberShingo, the boy shes sworn to protect. Can this teenaged super agent deny her feelings long enough to complete her mission? Or will the consequences be too great?

Book Description

This is a comprehensive reference work to the people, studios, technical companies and terms associated with silent film comedy. For people, there is a capsule biography, with birth and death rates and a summary of their contribution to the genre. For studios and companies, there is a brief history, focusing on their work in silent film comedy. For terms, a full definition is given.

Book Description

Now available for the first time in paperback, Discovering American Folklife is a classic sampling of Don Yoder's massive body of work in Folklife studies. The essays cover folk religion, folk medicine, sectarian costume, traditional cookery, and the Folklife of the Pennsylvania Dutch, specifically Harvest Home, witch tales, Fraktur, and sauerkraut for New Year's.

Customer Reviews:

wo ho.......1999-02-27

awesom

The Mixers (Mega Man, Kirby, Mario, and Robo Trek).......1999-02-01

I think Mega Man is the Bomb! Altough they won't do diddly squat about making a mix videogame movie in 3D, both companys are my heros. So what I'm trying to do is encourage Enix, Capcom, HAL labs, and Nintendo to team up! The idea Wizzer

Book Description

Welcome to the world of 3D animation with SOFTIMAGE|XSI 5! Covering everything from modeling to animating, rendering, compositing, and even grooming hair, this official guide is designed to make the complexities of the XSI features accessible to beginning animators. After initial discussion of the fundamental concepts of 3D applications, you'll quickly move on to more advanced topics that allow you to take advantage of each amazing feature of XSI 5. Full of tutorials designed to allow you to test each new skill, this book is your hands-on guide to the amazing possibilities of 3D animation with XSI 5.

Customer Reviews:

One would expect more..........2007-01-11

...from a book called "The official guide". I would name it "Beginner's guide", better. It has everything one would need to start with xsi, but if you want more, you won't find it in this book.

I regret buying this book, because xsi guides inside the program are far more comprehensive!

Lot's of information for beginners..........2006-03-23

... but i should have been told that this book is the latest "xsi illuminated" book. since mesmer.com is no more, there's a need for publishing this manual on other channels. it's pretty decent, but if you already own a mesmer "xsi illuminated" book... you'll probably don't need this one. i've got the v2.0 version of mesmer's book and all what's new in this one is hair and rigid bodies... hmmm, too sad rossano is still happy with the old soft-keysetting and behavior of the old si3d. xsi settings just rock and you can handle the whole app pretty fast! lot's of new or renew tutorials, especially for beginners of xsi a must!!! ...ah! one more thing, i was missing arima-san. his "toro the happy tuna" was changed to "toro the ravenous"...

anyway, have fun with xsi!!!

Good book, needs better production values.......2006-03-09

First of all let me start off with first impressions. Not Much.
The paper stock is thin and cheap, it looks recycled. The pages are predominately black and white with very small graphics. Compared to the Official Guide for 4.0 this one looks like junk. But...

This version does have an accompanying CD that contains the samples you will need to work your way through the tutorials. And the tutorials are good and very helpful. I don't like the procedure step's layout very much but I understand the reason. I don't have the book with me right now or I would give an exact example.

Basically each "step" is written as a paragraph such as " Step 1: Get x from the polygons in the render menu. From there set U to 15 and V to 22 then do something else. Select by raycast the face in the top view. Once you have selected the face open the MCM and change the name to `panel switch' and close the MCM menu. Step 2:..." This method saves space and helps keep the publishing cost down. It also doesn't freak out the user when they see a task that is 20 steps instead of 100, but it's not as clear as having each task separate such as:
#1 Get x from the polygons in the render menu.
#2 From there set U to 15 and V to 22.
#3 Do something else.
#4 Select by raycast the face in the top view.
#5 Once you have selected the face open the MCM.
#6 change the name to `panel switch.'
#7 close the MCM menu.

As an absolute newbie with no other 3-D experience. I found myself missing some essential step and thinking that the book was not edited for technical accuracy. Later after CAREFUL reading I realized that most of the time the problem was user error. I've found reading the paragraph and numbering each step myself with a pencil helps me get though it better without mistakes.

And again, let me say that the book is good. It covers a wide breath of tasks in a short time. The CD samples are great and make it so much easier to jump right in and get started. This is particularly useful if you want to skip around. That is the reason I gave it 4 stars. It didn't get 5 because of the reasons I've mentioned. I recommend this book on its own merit and because there really aren't any others for XSI 5.

By the way, I did order XSI #4 after receiving this book. And it is such a beautiful book but it does not come with a CD of sample files. I haven't gone through it yet though. By the time I received it I understood this one better and so I'm working my way through the steps SLOWLY.

By the way for a general 3-d book not software dependent I recommend 3D Graphics & Animation (With CD-ROM) ISBN: 0735712433. It's meant to explain concepts and not steps. It's a little 3D max centric but it's chocked full of useful tips. Here is an example of one of the "throw-away" tips:

On a layer that you can hide, create a floor and wall grid that is scaled (each square=1 foot) include a polygon that is 5' 8" (average human height) and a 3' yard stick with ruler marks for reference - Taking this further I have created polygon blocks of average table and chair heights. All this makes it easier to make sure your models are all scaled the same so as you build your library you can grab your models and know they will fit into the scene without scaling adjustments.

comprehensive and up to date XSI v5 guide........2006-02-16

Softimage/XSI has made several impressive changes over the last few years in regards to how artists and programmers can both approach their software to work together in creating world class images for video games and film. Version 5 is the next step in bringing these two groups together with a common language and this guide is their Rosetta stone.

I work for a major motion picture company that exclusively uses the XSI software package for production. Most production companies are lucky to have even half of their new hires be proficient in any one software package and having this book on hand has been instrumental in bridging the "where is the button" gap for Maya and Max users.

This guide breaks down the "basics" for the beginners and ties together concepts for the intermediate user to bring their ideas to screen. I own it. I use it.

A good overview of XSI.......2006-01-22

If you are a new or an intermediate user of Softimage/XSI, you will find a lot of good, useful information in this book. This book is a general, high-level overview of the core features of XSI, accompanied by tutorials covering most of those features. Although I am very familiar with most of the information presented, there were still enough tidbits of cool info to make the book worth the price for me.

If you are an advanced user - or looking to examine any of XSI's features in depth, however, you will probably be disappointed. A number of the exercises and tutorials come from the older Mesmer XSI series of books (also by Mr Rossano)- which have been updated to be compatible with V5.

SOFTIMAGE | XSI 5 for a Future Animation Studio Boss: The Official Guide to Career Skills with XSI

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Fantastic

SOFTIMAGE | XSI 5 for a Future Animation Studio Boss: The Official Guide to Career Skills with XSI
George Avgerakis
Manufacturer: Course Technology PTR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1592008461

Book Description

You've seen the amazing possibilities offered by XSI. With this official SOFTIMAGE|XSI guide, you're ready to not only create animation using this powerful software, but also to create a career. SOFTIMAGE|XSI 5 for a Future Animation Studio Boss: The Official Guide to Career Skills with XSI addresses both the technical and business sides of being a professional 3D animator, teaching you how to use the technology of SOFTIMAGE|XSI to earn a living as a 3D animator and studio owner.Working through several hands-on tutorials, you'll use the SOFTIMAGE|XSI software to learn 3D animation skills necessary to obtain an internship or entry level position. Hone your career skills with tips on writing a resumé, pricing an animation project, and identifying and approaching potential clients. Get ready to take your first step toward success in the professional animation industry.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic.......2006-07-03

Fantastic. Inspiring. All the motivation you need to kickstart you career. From getting your first job to starting your own business.
To break things up, every second chapter has tutorial on using XSI.

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Softimage Xsi 5 the Official Guide
Anthony Rossano
Manufacturer: COURSE TECHNOLOGY @
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N6321U

Amazon.com

In the tradition of small books that try to explain a lot (think How the Irish Saved Civilization), John Man's Alpha Beta is an excellent survey on the history of letters. They may have played a more dramatic role in the advancement of Western culture than most people realize: "The Greeks, so this argument runs, would not have been so influential but for the invention that fixed their writings, the invention that they named after its first two signs, alpha and beta--the alphabet." This opinion will no doubt ruffle a few feathers in the classics departments at universities, which have instructed students on the intellectual and literary achievements of the Greeks for generations. Man seems to challenge the idea that the Greeks offered something inherently worthwhile. "Possibly nothing of their oral genius would have been preserved but for a piece of astonishing good fortune. They just happened to live near one of the cultures that had stumbled on the alphabet, and they just happened to be at a crucial state in social evolution that made them open to its adoption." This is a fascinating argument, and Man makes it a compelling one, although it's also possible to believe the Greeks had the additional good fortune of producing a storyteller as good as Homer.

Most of the book is a well-told tale that runs a course from the first symbols pressed into clay tablets to the advent of the Internet--the Greeks are just a piece of it. The book covers the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Etruscans, and several other cultures in some detail. One of the most interesting sections discusses the Koreans, creators of "an alphabet that is about as far along the road towards perfection as any alphabet is likely to get." Man is a colloquial writer; reading Alpha Beta is like listening to a popular college professor lecture on his favorite topic. The complex and controversial scholarship on the alphabet becomes instantly accessible to nonexpert readers on these pages. Anyone interested in the power of words and the history of civilization will find Alpha Beta irresistible. --John Miller

Book Description

Praise for Alpha Beta
"This book comes at the perfect momentas we rediscover the importance in early reading of cracking the alphabetic code. The story of how that code came into being is a fascinating one, and Man is the ideal writer to tell it." Times Educational Supplement

"A richly absorbing exploration, from B.C. to PCs, of the evolution of the most fundamental characters of our cultural history, the alphabet we so much take for granted. John Man writes with a compellingly restless curiosity and immediacy. The ever surprising, exotically detailed narrative in his informative book makes it as undryly enjoyable as a successful archaelogical dig of one of Alan Mooreheads colorful histories of African exploration." Â-David Grambs, author of The Describers Dictionary and The Endangered English Dictionary

"Text that is crisp, taut, and as clear as a bell.... A fascinating story with many a beguiling subplot along the way." New Scientist

"Letter perfectthe best histories and mysteries of our ABCs!" Jeff McQuain, author of Never Enough Words and Power Language

Customer Reviews:

Who is John Man?.......2006-06-24

The book provides a clear enough pathway along the history--at least, the author's version of the history--of the roman alphabet. Obviously, a book published by Barnes and Noble will be geared toward a popular rather than academic audience, and Man recognizes this, but he seems uncomfortable drawing a boundary. For example: leading off the first chapter with a story about his headmaster in boarding school, who only had one eye, then the seventh chapter with, "at this point in my research, I began to wonder what was going on." On page 204, while discussing the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet by the Greeks, he says that "some classicists would rather Zeus is pronounced 'Zday-us,' to the confusion of non-specialists like me." Why would you read a book written by someone who's not a specialist in the topic they're writing about? Couldn't this book have been better written by someone who's actually made a career of studying it, rather than just reading up for an assignment? Also puzzling and distracting are his frequent anecdotes from his field work among the Waorani Indians in Ecuador (hard to get less relevant than Ecuador), his irritating habit of filling in historical information with first person narration, and the yarn about the time he shot a hole in the wall after his Uncle Stephen left a rifle loaded in his cabin. In sum, he never reaches the balance between actual scholarly work (which is good, by and large) and awkward attempts to identify with what he must imagine to be an ADD-inflicted reader, making this book unsatisfying for readers with either a casual or a serious interest.

Great Read!.......2005-12-04

I love this book, and I think anyone with a passing interest in linguistics and language evolution (as well as art history) will as well. Man does delve into minutiae, as other reviewers have suggested, but I enjoy minutiae, myself. I think the book was cleverly and humorously written, making it an easy read, and I look forward to Man's next project.

Quite interesting indeed........2003-10-30

I was indeed quite surprised to find so many negative comments about this book from other readers' reviews. Indeed personally I found this book quite interesting, just to mention how the author proposed the interesting theory of the evolution of the character "a" in the chapter of "Letters in the Wilderness". And I like the chapter of "Into Sinai" which proposed another theory of how a biblical figure (Mose) was created. I have no way to tell if his theories are with or without facts, but it's interesting to read.

Neither style nor substance as easy as ABC!.......2003-10-07

You would be hard pressed not to agree with other reviewers who seem near unanimous in their sense of frustration with the author's meandering style which unfortunately obscures some interesting points. Instead of holding up and walking us through a clear thesis, the author continually digresses into various minutiae about ancient Mediterranean history, archaeology, and linguistics, coupled with an awkardly placed chapter, two-thirds into the book, compariong and contrasting the dynamics of biological and cultural evolution.

This being said, I feel it only fair to tell you what the book attempts to convey. John Mann sees the alphabet (by which he really means the modern Roman alphabet used widely in western civilizations) as a peculiar artifact of human invention and whose origin and spread were hardly accidental. According to him, the evolution of the alphabet was shaped by dynamics similar to those which cause heridity, variation, and selection of genetic traits among species. His foil is the work of Yale classics scholar Eric Havelock whom Mann characterizes as holding up the ancient Greek alphabet as the paragon of literary perfection and the underpinning of Greek genius.

Mann then proceeds to dismantle this image of the ancient Greek alphabet, showing the debt the Greeks owed to older civlizations, notably the Phoenicians, through a complex process of evolution initally shaped by the needs of recording trade transactions in a mechanism more efficient than Egyptian hieroglyhpics or Sumerican cuneiform, and later by the needs of an emerging culture (the Hebrews) whose ideology required literacy under a strogn charismatic leader (Moses).

It would be neither fair nor accurate to represent John Mann's arguments on the origins of the alphabet as based on biblical claims. In fact, he is cautious to point out the such claims are generally not substianted by available evidence, much of which however was gathered by archaeological expeditions exploring such claims. Unfortunately, the discussion of this topic is too full of digression from the book's purported central thesis to be worthy of the few interesting insights it does bring.

Having described the archaeological finds around the "Asiatic" script which was contemporary with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mann shows links between this script and that developed in the mysterious eastern Mediterranean state of the second millenium known from Egyptian sources as Ugarit, one of several~~ rival Phoenician ports of that ancient period. Again, the central thesis in the book gets lost amidst a welter of minutiae, albeit not uninteresting, about this civlization.

In the next step towards completing the jigsaw puzzle he presents, Mann shows the links between the Phoenicians who had their alphabet around 1200 BC and the ancient Greeks whose early alphabet is not evidenced till 800 BC. But before leaping into this discussion, Mann inserts the seventh chapter of the book whose title "The Selfish Alphabet" takes off from biologist Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" and in which he develops a curious argument about the evolution of cultural artifacts as language and religion which he likens to the so-called memes, the famous term that Dawkins coined in his 1976 book. Mann admits his own struggle in seeking his "Grand Unified Theory of Culture" and does humbly invite the uniterested reader to proceed to the next chapter where he continues his exposition on the transmission of the alphabetic tradition from the Phoenicians to the Greeks.

Lest you think that Mann has a narrow focus on Western civilization, you might be interested to discover his special interest in Mongolian culture and history. In fact, his fifth chapter provides an absoluting fascinating account of the development in fifteenth century Korea of an alphabet which Mann, quoting British linguist Geoffrey Sampson, describes as QUOTE one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind UNQUOTE

With this chapter,in which he shows this Korean script drew from the Mongols, Mann tries to butress what seemed to me to be one of his key points: that the invention of the alphabet was a rare intellectual achievement whose impact was independent of technology and which has linked many civilizations. Referring to the thirteenth century adoption by Mongolian leader Chingis Khan of the alphabet of the Naiman people he had conquered, Mann proclaims grandly QUOTE He [Chingis Khan] ordered his staff to adopt the script of the newly conquered Naiman tribe, who wrote taking a system from the Uighurs, who inherited ot from an Iranian culture, Sogdian, who had taken it over from Aramaic, who had it from old Hebrew: in effect, the script familiar to the Israelites 3000 years earlier UNQUOTE Full circle back to his argument on the origins of the alphabet.

The appendices provide some interesting set of transliterations across different alphabets, a historical timeline, and a fairly extensive biobliography. I was truly sorry to find this intriguing book handicapped by its cumbersome style, let alone some likely questions about the scholarship.

GOOD TOPIC, HAPHAZARD GISTS.......2003-01-22

The motive of this book is very fine, but its factual presentation is the exact opposite.
Starting with the first chapter, John Man's intention to initiate his audience into the ancient Chinese writings brought confusion to both himself and his audience. Information about the ancient Egyptian writings are not better. They were presented in hazy haphazard manner. It is easy to lose patience with the very first part.
The author had scarcely understood his topic before rushing into teaching his audience.
Nevetheless, I must add that if the needed homework is accomplished, Mr Man would come up with a better book: a very interesting piece. But as regards the current situation, most readers would get lost in this book. It is that confusing!

Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World

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Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World
John Man
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MWWYPK

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Alpha Beta How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World
Man John
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UF9006

Book Description

Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists--all geniuses--who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues or contentious rivals. As Cropper captures their personalities, he also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, since scientists in a particular field often inspire those who follow, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline--mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and so on--each section beginning with a historical overview. Thus in the section on quantum mechanics, readers can see how the work of Max Planck influenced Niels Bohr, and how Bohr in turn influenced Werner Heisenberg. By sequencing the biographies in this way, Cropper gives us an overall portrait of each field. Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries, starting with Galileo and his telescope and stretching to Stephen Hawking's work on black holes and cosmology. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way.

Customer Reviews:

Highly recommended.......2006-08-21

This is an excellent book. Cropper must have put an enormous effort into researching and writing this 500 page, large format paperback, which has been nicely printed on white paper. At its current price of $12.97 an incredible bargain.

At first glance this book appears to be sort of a strange hybrid of biography and science, but the combo works. Cropper generally starts a chapter on a scientist with a few page biographical sketch followed by a longer, clearly written, physics section. I would estimate that the book is about 70% physics and about 30% biographical. The biographical sections are well done and interesting, but the book really shines in its overview of the physics.

Cropper covers 30 scientists with many of them in thermodynamics and atomic physics. Reading these sections you not only get a good overview of the science at a moderate technical level (a notch or two above the usual popular science writing level since Cropper is not afraid of using equations), but also you get an historical understanding of who did what and how their contributions fit together. Another plus is that Cropper will often describe in some detail how a key experiment has been done.

As a technical person (like a previous reviewer, I am an engineer), not only did I learn a lot from this book about how many of the secrets of this world have been discovered, but some of the gaps in my physics knowledge were filled in. Cropper set himself a big task to write an overview of much of physics, but he has pulled it off with style.

Great Book!.......2004-01-28

This is the best book I have read about the human side of physicists. Although, I have a Masters degree in physics, you don't need to be a practicing scientist to throughly enjoy the contents of this wonderful work. Cropper did an outstanding writing job.

What a wonderful book!.......2002-08-19

I've picked up many books over the years telling the stories of great scientists, but this is the only book of this type that I couldn't put down. I am a degreed engineer, now working in computers, with physics as a hobby. The coverage of Thermodynamics, which I have studied extensively, was fascinatingly rich and accessible. The complexity of other topics, such as nuclear physics, of which I know little, was surprizingly clear.

My curiosity attracts me to picking up compilations such as this, but I usually find them disjunct and uninteresting. Mr. Cooper has done an amazing job of weaving a coherent story of the lives of these fascinating characters spanning a history of 400 years.

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Great Physicists: The Life And Times Of Leading Physicists From Galileo To Hawking
William H. Cropper
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKCGBM

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