Author: Ted Vancleave Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing ISBN: 9780740710254 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 164
Book Description
Totally Absurd Inventions offers the best of the goofy from the millions of patents granted during the past 70 years. Each of the nearly 100 off-the-wall inventions unearthed for this collection features the detailed patent application illustration and a lively description of the bizarre proposed creation. Need to know when your baby's diaper is dirty? You'll want to see the plans behind the Diaper Alarm. Little boys wanting to avoid playground kisses may find just what they need in the Kissing Shield. Want to add a unique Wisconsin twist to your cigarette? The Cheese-Filtered Cigarette might do the trick. Super Trash Man, the Cranium Cooler, the All-Terrain Stroller, and the Pet Toilet are just a few more of the zany but fascinating inventions highlighted in this compendium of creativity.
Author: Stephenie Meyer Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers ISBN: 0316592250 Category : Young Adult Fiction Languages : en Pages : 727
Book Description
#1 bestselling author Stephenie Meyer makes a triumphant return to the world of Twilight with this highly anticipated companion: the iconic love story of Bella and Edward told from the vampire's point of view. When Edward Cullen and Bella Swan met in Twilight, an iconic love story was born. But until now, fans have heard only Bella's side of the story. At last, readers can experience Edward's version in the long-awaited companion novel, Midnight Sun. This unforgettable tale as told through Edward's eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward's past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger? In Midnight Sun, Stephenie Meyer transports us back to a world that has captivated millions of readers and brings us an epic novel about the profound pleasures and devastating consequences of immortal love. An instant #1 New York Times BestsellerAn instant #1 USA Today BestsellerAn instant #1 Wall Street Journal BestsellerAn instant #1 IndieBound BestsellerApple Audiobook August Must-Listens Pick "People do not want to just read Meyer's books; they want to climb inside them and live there." -- Time "A literary phenomenon." -- New York Times
Author: James Barrat Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1250032261 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 142
Book Description
Elon Musk named Our Final Invention one of five books everyone should read about the future—a Huffington Post Definitive Tech Book of 2013. Artificial Intelligence helps choose what books you buy, what movies you see, and even who you date. It puts the “smart” in your smartphone and soon it will drive your car. It makes most of the trades on Wall Street, and controls vital energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. But Artificial Intelligence can also threaten our existence. In as little as a decade, AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies are pouring billions into achieving AI’s Holy Grail—human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine. Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to? “If you read just one book that makes you confront scary high-tech realities that we’ll soon have no choice but to address, make it this one.” —The Washington Post “Science fiction has long explored the implications of humanlike machines (think of Asimov’s I, Robot), but Barrat’s thoughtful treatment adds a dose of reality.” —Science News “A dark new book . . . lays out a strong case for why we should be at least a little worried.” —The New Yorker
Author: Joseph Henrich Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691178437 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.
Author: Ekkehard Kopp Publisher: Open Book Publishers ISBN: 1800640978 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
Making up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics offers a detailed but accessible account of a wide range of mathematical ideas. Starting with elementary concepts, it leads the reader towards aspects of current mathematical research. The book explains how conceptual hurdles in the development of numbers and number systems were overcome in the course of history, from Babylon to Classical Greece, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and so to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The narrative moves from the Pythagorean insistence on positive multiples to the gradual acceptance of negative numbers, irrationals and complex numbers as essential tools in quantitative analysis. Within this chronological framework, chapters are organised thematically, covering a variety of topics and contexts: writing and solving equations, geometric construction, coordinates and complex numbers, perceptions of ‘infinity’ and its permissible uses in mathematics, number systems, and evolving views of the role of axioms. Through this approach, the author demonstrates that changes in our understanding of numbers have often relied on the breaking of long-held conventions to make way for new inventions at once providing greater clarity and widening mathematical horizons. Viewed from this historical perspective, mathematical abstraction emerges as neither mysterious nor immutable, but as a contingent, developing human activity. Making up Numbers will be of great interest to undergraduate and A-level students of mathematics, as well as secondary school teachers of the subject. In virtue of its detailed treatment of mathematical ideas, it will be of value to anyone seeking to learn more about the development of the subject.
Author: Angus Fletcher Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1982135980 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
"A brilliant examination of literary invention through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to Elena Ferrante, showing how writers created technical breakthroughs as sophisticated and significant as any in science, and in the process, engineered enhancements to the human heart and mind"--
Author: Gary Shteyngart Publisher: Random House ISBN: 067960359X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • The Seattle Times • O: The Oprah Magazine • Maureen Corrigan, NPR • Salon • Slate • Minneapolis Star Tribune • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Kansas City Star • Charlotte Observer • The Globe and Mail • Vancouver Sun • Montreal Gazette • Kirkus Reviews In the near future, America is crushed by a financial crisis and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Then Lenny Abramov, son of an Russian immigrant janitor and ardent fan of “printed, bound media artifacts” (aka books), meets Eunice Park, an impossibly cute Korean American woman with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. Could falling in love redeem a planet falling apart?
Author: Thomas More Publisher: e-artnow ISBN: 8027303583 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 105
Book Description
Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.
Author: Edward Niedermeyer Publisher: BenBella Books ISBN: 1948836327 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 225
Book Description
Tesla is the most exciting car company in a generation . . . but can it live up to the hype? Tesla Motors and CEO Elon Musk have become household names, shaking up the staid auto industry by creating a set of innovative electric vehicles that have wowed the marketplace and defied conventional wisdom. The company's market valuation now rivals that of long-established automakers, and, to many industry observers, Tesla is defining the future of the industry. But behind the hype, Tesla has some serious deficiencies that raise questions about its sky-high valuation, and even its ultimate survival. Tesla's commitment to innovation has led it to reject the careful, zero-defects approach of other car manufacturers, even as it struggles to mass-produce cars reliably, and with minimal defects. While most car manufacturers struggle with the razor-thin margins of mid-priced sedans, Tesla's strategy requires that the Model 3 finally bring it to profitability, even as the high-priced Roadster and Model S both lost money. And Tesla's approach of continually focusing on the future, even as commitments and deadlines are repeatedly missed, may ultimately test the patience of all but its most devoted fans. In Ludicrous, journalist and auto industry analyst Edward Niedermeyer lays bare the disconnect between the popular perception of Tesla and the day-to-day realities of the company—and the cars it produces. Blending original reporting and never-before-published insider accounts with savvy industry analysis, Niedermeyer tells the story of Tesla as it's never been told before—with clear eyes, objectivity and insight.
Author: Ted Vancleave
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Author: James Barrat
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Author: Joseph Henrich
Author: Ekkehard Kopp
Author: Angus Fletcher
Author: Gary Shteyngart
Author: Thomas More
Author: Edward Niedermeyer