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Thinking in Systems

Thinking in Systems PDF Author: Donella Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603581480
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
The classic book on systems thinking—with more than half a million copies sold worldwide! "This is a fabulous book... This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."—Forbes "Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."—Hunter Lovins In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet—Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.

Thinking in Systems

Thinking in Systems PDF Author: Donella Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603581480
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
The classic book on systems thinking—with more than half a million copies sold worldwide! "This is a fabulous book... This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."—Forbes "Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."—Hunter Lovins In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet—Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.

Inadequate Equilibria (Draft Version)

Inadequate Equilibria (Draft Version) PDF Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781939311184
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description


The Third Pillar

The Third Pillar PDF Author: Raghuram Rajan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525558330
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Book Description
Revised and updated Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award From one of the most important economic thinkers of our time, a brilliant and far-seeing analysis of the current populist backlash against globalization. Raghuram Rajan, distinguished University of Chicago professor, former IMF chief economist, head of India's central bank, and author of the 2010 FT-Goldman-Sachs Book of the Year Fault Lines, has an unparalleled vantage point onto the social and economic consequences of globalization and their ultimate effect on our politics. In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how these three forces--the state, markets, and our communities--interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane. The "third pillar" of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That's not just myopic, Rajan argues; it's dangerous. All economics is actually socioeconomics - all markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. As he shows, throughout history, technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Eventually, a new equilibrium is reached, but it can be ugly and messy, especially if done wrong. Right now, we're doing it wrong. As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally. Instead, Rajan offers a way to rethink the relationship between the market and civil society and argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest. Rajan is not a doctrinaire conservative, so his ultimate argument that decision-making has to be devolved to the grass roots or our democracy will continue to wither, is sure to be provocative. But even setting aside its solutions, The Third Pillar is a masterpiece of explication, a book that will be a classic of its kind for its offering of a wise, authoritative and humane explanation of the forces that have wrought such a sea change in our lives.

Bikes and Bloomers

Bikes and Bloomers PDF Author: Kat Jungnickel
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1912685434
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
An illustrated history of the evolution of British women's cycle wear. The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women's liberation. Less noted is another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives—cycle wear. This illustrated account of women's cycle wear from Goldsmiths Press brings together Victorian engineering and radical feminist invention to supply a missing chapter in the history of feminism. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were unworkable, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing “rational” cycle wear could provoke verbal and sometimes physical abuse from those threatened by newly mobile women. Seeking a solution, pioneering women not only imagined, made, and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to transform ordinary clothing into cycle wear. Drawing on in-depth archival research and inventive practice, Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the little-known stories of six inventors of the 1890s. Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker of Brixton, registered four patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system built into its seams. Julia Gill, a court dressmaker of Haverstock Hill, patented a skirt that drew material up the waist using a mechanism of rings or eyelets. Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be quickly converted into a fashionable high-collar cape. Henrietta Müller, a women's rights activist of Maidenhead, patented a three-part cycling suit with a concealed system of loops and buttons to elevate the skirt. And Mary Ann Ward, a gentlewoman of Bristol, patented the “Hyde Park Safety Skirt,” which gathered fabric at intervals using a series of side buttons on the skirt. Their unique contributions to cycling's past continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.

Watchmakers

Watchmakers PDF Author: Maxima Gallery
Publisher: Antique Collector's Club
ISBN: 9781851499076
Category : ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Watchmakers: The Masters of Art Horology gathers the work of the most celebrated independent watchmakers in the world. Thirteen artisans, each a legend in the realm of haute horlogerie, tell their stories, describing the traditional working methods and prized watches upon which their reputations have been built. Photographs of the masters in their workshops bring their stories to life, along with detailed sketches and images of their watches in all their brilliant intricacy. Watchmakers also features insightful text from other leading figures of the independent watchmaking world, including Aurel Bacs of the Fondation Haute Horlogerie and Nicholas Faulkes, writer for Vanity Fair, The Telegraph and GQ, and author of the only authorised biography of Patek Philippe"--Provided by publisher

Civilization

Civilization PDF Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101548029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower “A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist “Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal “[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five centuries. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors. Yet now, Ferguson shows how the Rest have downloaded the killer apps the West once monopolized, while the West has literally lost faith in itself. Chronicling the rise and fall of empires alongside clashes (and fusions) of civilizations, Civilization: The West and the Rest recasts world history with force and wit. Boldly argued and teeming with memorable characters, this is Ferguson at his very best.

Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship

Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship PDF Author: Jean-Pierre Jeannet
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030652874
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 579

Book Description
This open access book focuses on Switzerland-based medium-sized companies with a longstanding export tradition and a proven dominance in global niche markets. Based upon in-depth documentation and analysis of 36 Swiss companies over their entire history, an expert team of authors presents several parallels in the pathways and success factors which allowed these firms to become dominant and operate from a high-cost location such as Switzerland. The book enhances these insights by providing detailed company profiles documenting the company history, development, and how their relevant global niche positions were reached. Readers will benefit from these profiles as they compile a diverse selection of industries, mainly active within the B2B sector, with mostly mature companies (60 years to older than 100 years since founding) and different types of ownership structures including family firms. ‘Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship’ brings unique learning opportunities to owners and leaders of SMEs in Switzerland and elsewhere. Findings are based on detailed bottom-up research of 36 companies -- without any preconceived notions. The book is both conceptual and practical. It fosters understanding for different choices in development pathways and management practices. Matti Alahuhta, Chairman DevCo Partners, ex-CEO Kone, Board member of several global listed companies, Helsinki, Finland Start-up entrepreneurs need proven models from industry which demonstrate the various paths to success. “Masterpieces of Swiss Entrepreneurship” provides deep insights highlighting these models and the important trade-offs entrepreneurial teams must consider when choosing the path of high growth or of maximum control, as they are often mutually exclusive. Gina Domanig, Managing Partner, Emerald Technology Ventures, Zurich

How the Irish Became White

How the Irish Became White PDF Author: Noel Ignatiev
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135070695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
'...from time to time a study comes along that truly can be called ‘path breaking,’ ‘seminal,’ ‘essential,’ a ‘must read.’ How the Irish Became White is such a study.' John Bracey, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachussetts, Amherst The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.

Time and a Lifetime

Time and a Lifetime PDF Author: Vincent Calabrese
Publisher: Watchprint.Com Editions
ISBN: 9782940506187
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
-Vincent Calabrese is one of the best-known creative watchmakers in the world, whose famous creations have made a decisive contribution to the revitalization of the Swiss watch industry "It's very easy to please others, but very hard to please yourself." Such is the byword of Vincent Calabrese, one of the best-known creative watchmakers in the world today. Throughout his life he has never stopped trying to surpass himself. His famous creations (including those relating to the tourbillon and the karussel) have made a decisive contribution to the revitalization of the Swiss watch industry, and his watches demonstrate his unparalleled boldness as well as his aesthetic sensitivity. But in these pages the reader will above all meet with a rare personality. Born into a poor family in Naples, Vincent has earned a prominent place in the watchmaking world. It is not just to his innovations, whose secrets he reveals in this book, that he owes his position. Vincent's legacy comes every bit as much from his fierce determination, his philosophical and ethical standards, and his legendary broadsides, directed as much at the profession itself as at the industry as a whole.

Stop Calling Me Beautiful

Stop Calling Me Beautiful PDF Author: Phylicia Masonheimer
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN: 0736978003
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
Publishers Weekly Bestseller "If you’re tired of surface-level teaching and shallow faith, this book will ignite a fire in your soul for a deeper walk with Jesus and draw you into the depths of the Word.” ——Gretchen Saffles, founder of Well-Watered Women Why We Need Jesus More Than Compliments "You're a beautiful daughter of the Most High King." And it's true. But it's not the whole truth. The beauty of being God's daughter has backstory. If you're tired of hearing the watered-down Christian teaching and hungry for a deeper spiritual life—one that gives real answers to your hardest questions—Stop Calling Me Beautiful teaches you how. You will learn how to pursue the truths of who God is and who you are in relationship to Him how to study Scripture, and how your view of God determines how you face life's challenges how legalism, shallow theology, and false teaching keep you from living boldly as a woman of the Word how to experience God's presence in painful circumstances Jesus doesn't offer a powerless salvation. He makes your brokenness part of His whole redemption story—if you allow Him to. Don't settle for a feel-good faith. If you want victory over insecurity, fear, shame, and the circumstances you are facing, it's time to embrace Jesus. All of Him.