Country Dreams: Your Guide to Saving Time and Money, While Still Getting What You Want and Need in Country Property!

Book Description

For more than 50 years, beloved artist Bob Artley has delighted us with his distinctive, folksy recording of farm history. In Bob Artley’s world, every moment of farm life--from chores to walking to school--is an opportunity to impart his wisdom and insight into the rural way of life. His wonderful artwork and stories reflect his sense of pride about the country and farm heritage and speak to anyone with a farming background, or to those who yearn for simpler times. Bob Artley’s Book of Farm Chores is a delightful look at the farm chores facing a kid--many of them Artley’s own remembrances. From milking cows to baling hay, Artley presents farm life with just the right amount of whimsy, nostalgia, and wisdom.

Book of Chores: As Remembered by a Former Kid

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Book of Chores: As Remembered by a Former Kid
Bob Artley
Manufacturer: Iowa State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Household Hints | How-to & Home Improvements | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0813810698

Book Description

"The best traditions of community and urban sociology come alive in this fantastic work of participant observation. Sherri Grasmuck shows us the people, narrates their lives, and links them to as sophisticated a take on race and class to be found in any contemporary urban ethnography. She is a beautiful writer with that rarest of gifts—a sober critical voice, an unrelenting systematicity, the wisdom of personal experience, and a sense of humor that comes together in a deep act of interpretation and explanation. Janet Goldwater's fantastic photographs merge with the text to produce a documentary account of how we live today in multicultural America, one that takes its place among the finest firsthand studies."—Mitchell Duneier, Princeton University, author of Sidewalk and Slim's Table

"Based on skillful ethnographic research, and deploying a creative and evocative narrative voice, Protecting Home gives us fresh insights into the ways that youth baseball shapes race, gender, and class relations in a changing community. With this elegant piece of research, Grasmuck has connected and gone deep."—Michael A. Messner, author of Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports

"An inspired and inspiring look at the rhythms of life in and around urban youth baseball. . . . Sherri Grasmuck shatters our stereotypes surrounding gender, class, and race."—Kathleen Gerson, author of No Man's Land: Men's Changing Commitments to Family and Work

Through a close exploration of a boys' baseball league in a gentrifying neighborhood of Philadelphia, sociologist Sherri Grasmuck reveals the accommodations and tensions that characterize multicultural encounters in contemporary American public life.

Chapters explore coaching styles, parental involvement, institutional politics, parent-child relations, and children's experiences. Grasmuck identifies differences in the ways that the mostly white, working-class "old-timers" and the racially diverse, professional newcomers relate to the neighborhood.

Through an innovative combination of narrative approaches, this book succeeds both in capturing the immediacy of boys' interaction at the playing field and in contributing to sophisticated theoretical debates in urban studies, the sociology of childhood, and masculinity studies.

Customer Reviews:

A state-of-the-art work..........2005-05-08

It's all here: beginning with one baseball field this book examines parenting, gender roles, urban race relations, gentrification and social class in the contemporary US city. But the most amazing part about it is its personal approach and style. We're right in there with dads (and moms) and especially with kids learning how to live through the kids' baseball league. Beautiful color photos show the joy and pain, the triumph and tragedy of an "ordinary" scene that is also truly epic. Grasmuck is a highly talented sociologist who finds in everyday life the political, moral, and spiritual struggles and lessons of our time and place. A unique achievement.

Book Description

Make your Appliqué a Work of Art

Now you can develop amazing expertise in hand appliqué with guidance from a master. Achieve flawless results with these simplified techniques for preparing, marking, assembling, and stitching appliqué fabrics. Detailed, step-by-step instructions for 16 gorgeous, original blocks guarantee the ultimate in beauty and accuracy.

· Appliqué beautiful 9" blocks filled with glorious flowers, birds, leaves, wreaths, and vines

· Discover new methods for appliquéing tricky points and curves, narrow stems and vines, and even the tiniest of pieces with precision

· Learn expert tips for using color and composition to create extraordinary effects in your quilts

From basic appliqué techniques to innovative touches and surprise elements, Artful Appliqué will inspire you to stretch your creativity and achieve truly artful results.

Customer Reviews:

excellent.......2007-08-28

Another excellent book by Jane Townswick. I am looking forward to expressing my artistic side in beautiful artwork. This book is very helpful with tools needed and forms of application. I am very impressed.

Townswick.......2007-07-17

This is a must buy book for those interested in applique. I have many applique books and count this among the very best.

Excellent and realistic.......2001-04-30

Over 130 pages of great instruction and realistic photos that show that anyone who takes the time can do applique. Not only are the designs that you can Xerox for patterns crisp, but the instruction is easy to read and follow. And the photos are exact size, so you see what you will get when you are done.

I liked the book because it also says that we can choose our own material, which suits our own desires, where some books say you have to have this or that type of material made by this ir that maker, and you end up running all over the place and come home discouraged and throw your hands up and say *&%#@+ and vow never to try and do applique again.

This is the book that can help you become less discouraged and a success at a wonderful art form.

Superb introduction to easy applique techniques & projects........2000-08-06

Make your applique a work of art through Artful Applique The Easy Way which features detailed project instructions for sixteen blocks filled with flowers, birds, and wreathes. The focus on easy applique includes tips for streamlining and patterns for quick use. Superb introduction to easy applique techniques & projects.

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Artful Applique The Easy Way
Jane Townswick
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LO32FK

Book Description

One of the challenges of administering and supporting Microsoft® Outlook 2003 is that it stores settings in so many different places - in the Windows registry, as files in the users profile folders, and in the information store itself. Configuring Microsoft® Outlook 2003 pulls together in one volume the information that administrators in organizations of all sizes need to understand, deploy, and manage settings for Microsoft Outlook 2003. It covers configuration issues for environments where Microsoft Exchange is the mail server and also for those using IMAP4 or POP3. The book gives special attention to security issues, including recommended configuration of Outlooks built-in security features and methods for locking down Outlook with Group Policy Objects and other techniques.

Readers will learn how to:

* Configure the new Cached Exchange mode and RPC over HTTP connections in Outlook 2003
* Discover undocumented settings for Microsoft Exchange Server and use them to deploy or modify Outlook mail profiles
* Migrate both user data and settings to a new machine
* Use tools such as MFCMAPI and Outlook Spy to explore Outlook's data and settings
* Configure an archive .pst file in the new Unicode format that supports up to 20GB of data
* Use scripts to handle challenging configuration tasks such as granting Reviewer access to a Calendar folder, or adding a second Exchange mailbox to an Outlook profile

Customer Reviews:

Just as the title describes, this book hits the mark.......2005-09-14

In her typically superb fashion, Sue has crafted an indispensable reference that digs into the internals of Outlook. A few topics discussed: How Outlook stores data, User Profiles, PRF files (what are those? Buy the book to find out) security, and more.

One of the things that really stood out to me in this book was the Appendixes where you'll find details on policy settings, outlook registry settings and even how to disable various portions of the Outlook user interface.

Another excellent resource is chapter 5 that deals with Exchange connectivity. Outlook has steadily added new ways to talk to Exchange, all with their own set of Pro's and Con's. Personally, I think many companies have overlooked some of the options. Sue will help you navigate the various options and pick the right way to connect to Exchange.

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Making History: An Introduction to the Practices of History

Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Historiography | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
Reference | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Practicing History: New Directions in Historical Writing (Rewriting Histories)

From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods

The Pursuit of History (4th Edition)

Whig Interpretation of History

After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)

ASIN: 041524255X

Book Description

Making History is a comprehensive textbook which explores the practice of history, historical tradition and the theories which surround it. Discussing the development and growth of history as a discipline and of the profession of the historian, the book encompasses a huge diversity of influences, and is organized around the following themes:

* The Professionalization of History : A study of the institutionalization and organization of history, including methodology, 'scientific' history and the problem of objectivity, and the primacy of political history
* Challenges to the Statist Paradigm: An assessment of the most significant movements in historical scholarship in the last century, including the Annales School, and the development of social and economic history
* Interdisciplinarity: An enquiry into the increasingly interdisciplinary trends in scholarship, revealing the interconnections between history, archaeology, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, and literature; scholars fromnon-historical disciplines have contributed to provide a unique approach to a controversial debate
* Social Movements and Theory into History: An investigation into the penetration of theory into historical practice, examining the social movements and ideologies that propelled the change, including Marxism, post-modernism and gender history.
* Beyond the Academy: An exploration of the changes in historical practice with reference to film, 'amateur' history, heritage and popular culture.

With a conclusion that draws these issues together in an assessment of the relationship between history, power and politics, Making History offers a clear and indispensable guide to the subject for students of historiography, and theory and method in history.

Customer Reviews:

Concise and very useful.......2007-09-14

I have found this book to be a great source to get an informative summary of another countries history and politics.

POLITICAL HANDBOOK OF THE WORLD: 2005 - 2006.

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POLITICAL HANDBOOK OF THE WORLD: 2005 - 2006.
Arthur S. et al. (editors). Banks
Manufacturer: CQ Press,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N7GFAO

Amazon.com

What must it do to the human male ego to find out that the young woman who just handily won an online game of checkers is actually a sleek piece of software with no real understanding of the game's rules? Evolutionary programmers David B. Fogel and Kumar Chellapilla learned this and many other lessons in their quest to build a problem-solver divorced from human expertise. Fogel's book Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI captures their spirit of good-natured questioning of the received wisdom of traditional checkers playing and AI research.

The writing is surprisingly engaging, coming from a software researcher; even readers with little interest in checkers will follow Fogel's many game analyses with rising interest as his neural networks increase in prowess. Ever the scientist, he includes a laundry list of fairly harsh critiques of his work--with rebuttals--as an appendix. Devotees of cutting-edge AI, online psychology, or tournament-level checkers will find plenty of interest in the exploits of Blondie24. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

Blondie24 tells the story of a computer that taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators ever could by using a program that emulated the basic principles of Darwinian evolution--random variation and natural selection-- to discover on its own how to excel at the game.

Unlike Deep Blue, the celebrated chess machine that beat Garry Kasparov, the former world champion chess player, this evolutionary program didn't have access to strategies employed by human grand masters, or to databases of moves for the endgame moves, or to other human expertise about the game of chekers. With only the most rudimentary information programmed into its "brain," Blondie24 (the program's Internet username) created its own means of evaluating the complex, changing patterns of pieces that make up a checkers game by evolving artificial neural networks---mathematical models that loosely describe how a brain works.

It's fitting that Blondie24 should appear in 2001, the year when we remember Arthur C. Clarke's prediction that one day we would succeed in creating a thinking machine. In this compelling narrative, David Fogel, author and co-creator of Blondie24, describes in convincing detail how evolutionary computation may help to bring us closer to Clarke's vision of HAL. Along the way, he gives readers an inside look into the fascinating history of AI and poses provocative questions about its future.

* Brings one of the most exciting areas of AI research to life by following the story of Blondie24's development in the lab through her evolution into an expert-rated checkers player, based on her impressive success in Internet competition.
* Explains the foundations of evolutionary computation, simply and clearly.
* Presents complex material in an engaging style for readers with no background in computer science or artificial intelligence.
* Examines foundational issues surrounding the creation of a thinking machine.
* Debates whether the famous Turing Test really tests for intelligence.
* Challenges deeply entrenched myths about the successes and implication of some well-known AI experiments
* Shows Blondie's moves with checkerboard diagrams that readers can easily follow.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting 20k foot view of GA and NN application.......2006-07-02

This book is an interesting (i.e. light, not too technical) introduction to Genetic Algorithms, Neural Networks, and potential applications of both. The book covers an appropriate amount of history, and a pretty extensive set of notes for those that care to dive deeper. The core of the story is about applying GA and NN to the game of checkers and creating a computer program (NN) that can play checkers without any pre-learned (human) knowledge about how "best" to play the game.

Overall it was a good read. The author argues that the current exmaples of AI success (e.g. DeepBlue in chess) are actually failures as they are brute-force solutions to specific problems with no true "learning" taking place. I would agree, but am also not sure that NN+GA represent "learning" either. They are another method for searching a solution space [in my VERY simple/humble opinion]. All the "learning" happens through solution mutation from generation to generation. Once the mutation/generation process is halted the "learning" also stops.

Anyway, worth the read if you are interested in NN and/or GA, but not already well-educated on the topics.

Great book, Great program.......2005-10-28

I've read Blondie24 more than twice. It's a great and inspirational book about what the future of artificial intelligence is going to be like when computers teach themselves how to figure things out. I was prompted to write here because of a review claiming that Blondie24's playing strength is exaggerated in the book and that it is based only on the ratings of people on a checkers website. On the contrary, the book is straight and upfront about the playing capability of the program. Blondie24 is a great story about how David Fogel and Kumar Chellapilla created a program that learned how to play checkers using very little checkers information. Like, where are the pieces, and what are they. The program learned by playing against itself. Blondie made it to the top 500 of people rated on www.zone.com, but Fogel didn't stop there and claim that Blondie was an expert. Instead, he competed Blondie against a version of Chinook, the world champion program, that played at the expert (so-called "novice") level and won 2, lost 4, and drew 4 games with it. Coincidently, Blondie24's rating after those 10 games was about the same as it was on the website (an expert level). Chinook's web site has a "hall of fame" of people who have beat it at this level. Fogel's name is on that list because Blondie24 beat it. (Probably it should be Blondie24's name on the list.) Funny thing is that Fogel treated the objection about ratings on [...] directly in the book. It's "Objection #12" in the objections section on pages 315-317.

Not only did Blondie24 advance from being basically a random player into playing at the level of experts (but not masters or grand masters, and Fogel never claimed that it was a master), it achieved this without using an endgame database of moves or opening book moves. Imagine how good the combination of human knowledge and Blondie24 could be. I understand that Fogel and others have now moved on to learning in chess, achieving results that are at the grand master level.

Good Book, Bad Program.......2005-10-24

Dr. Fogel did serious work in a true scientific manner, and the book is just fine, but potential readers should be aware that the playing strength of Blondie24 is greatly exaggerated. While it will beat the average checker player, that is no accomplishment; and to say it is an "expert" or "master" player based on ratings at some of the larger on-line sites means almost nothing.

In testing against other checker playing computer programs Blondie24 is completely undistinguished and cannot play an even match with any sort of serious checker program.

This points to the fallacy of the implied premise of the book. In fully deterministic games, neural networks to date have been a remarkable failure. In probabalistic games such as Backgammon, on the other hand, they have been an incredible success, as the world's top Backgammon programs are based on neural nets.

But there is all the difference in the world between a probabalistic game and a deterministic one and I don't believe the book "comes clean" on this.

Computer Program Plays Checkers On Internet.......2005-09-30

Checkersjock logged in for his daily internet game of checkers and saw a new player. "Hmmm," he thought, "Blondie24 (yrs old), described as a grad student in math who is athletic...yea, I'd like to play her."

Blondie enticed many players. Unbeknownst to them, Blondie was a computer program administered live by the author of this book, David Fogel, and his crew. They played internet checkers for over a year, letting Blondie learn by doing. Unlike "Big Blue" for chess which processed massive amounts of information fed into it by programmers, Blondie was programmed with 3 layers of parallel circuitry and feedback loops, mimicking the human brain. Through trial and error, Blondie taught herself how to play checkers.

As Blondie progressed up the ladder to compete with the best players, Fogel & crew learned how to flirt, reject dates and deal with trash talk online, tweaking the software during downtime. They kept meticulous records and followed rigorous rules so as to satisfy the demands of the scientific method.

For anyone interested in AI, this is your book. For those just interested in a good story, skip the programming & neuroscience shoptalk. This is a dynamic and enchanting memoir appropriate for both AI experts and the general public. Recommended.

A True Technology Adventure.......2004-03-31

I started reading David Fogel's "Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI" on a recent flight more or less to better my professional knowledge. I also had a `fun' book. However, once I started reading Blondie24 I could not put it down. It is a true technology adventure that describes the development of an innovative program that teaches itself to play checkers. And it did this with no expert input or help. Rather it just plays a second version of itself. The two versions independently `evolve' to determine winning positions and strategies. As Fogel describes, in short order the program can easily beat its creator. And not long there after 99% of the people participating on a checkers playing website. That's amazing. And I do this sort of stuff for a living.

David Fogel is a world renowned expert and innovator in the development of evolutionary learning techniques described in Blondie24. His work is the state of the art, well known and respected by all in the field. The program and its implications are not only fascinating but extremely important and I believe a real look into the future for the development of `intelligent' systems.

I highly recommend Blondie24 to anyone even mildly interested in current AI technologies and the future of computing and intelligent systems. It's a great book.

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