Author: James Howard Kunstler File Type: pdf With his classics of social commentary The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler has established himself as one of the great commentators on American space and place. Now, with The Long Emergency, he offers a shocking vision of a post-oil future. The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind. But the oil age is at an end. The depletion of nonrenewable fossil fuels is about to radically change life as we know it, and much sooner than we think. As a result of artificially cheap fossil-fuel energy we have developed global models of industry, commerce, food production, and finance that will collapse. The Long Emergency tells us just what to expect after we pass the tipping point of global peak oil production and the honeymoon of affordable energy is over, preparing us for economic, political, and social changes of an unimaginable scale. Are we laboring under a Jiminy Cricket syndrome when we tell ourselves that alternative means of energy are just a few years away? Even once they are developed, will they ever be able to sustain us in the way that fossil fuels once did? What will happen when our current plagues of global warming, epidemic disease, and overpopulation collide to exacerbate the end of the oil age? Will the new global economy be able to persevere, or will we be forced to revert to the more agrarian, localized economy we once knew? Could corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonalds, built on the premise of cheap transportation, become a thing of the past? Will the misguided experiment of suburbia--considered a birthright and a reality by millions of Americans--collapse when the car culturebecomes obsolete? Riveting and authoritative. The Long Emergency is a devastating indictment that brings new urgency and accessibility to the critical issues that will shape our future, and that we can no longer afford to ignore. It is bound to become a classic of social science.

Author: Toby Segaran File Type: pdf Want to tap the power behind search rankings, product recommendations, social bookmarking, and online matchmaking? This fascinating book demonstrates how you can build Web 2.0 applications to mine the enormous amount of data created by people on the Internet. With the sophisticated algorithms in this book, you can write smart programs to access interesting datasets from other web sites, collect data from users of your own applications, and analyze and understand the data once youve found it. Programming Collective Intelligence takes you into the world of machine learning and statistics, and explains how to draw conclusions about user experience, marketing, personal tastes, and human behavior in general--all from information that you and others collect every day. Each algorithm is described clearly and concisely with code that can immediately be used on your web site, blog, Wiki, or specialized application. This book explains ullCollaborative filtering techniques that enable online retailers to recommend products or media l lMethods of clustering to detect groups of similar items in a large dataset l lSearch engine features--crawlers, indexers, query engines, and the PageRank algorithm l lOptimization algorithms that search millions of possible solutions to a problem and choose the best one l lBayesian filtering, used in spam filters for classifying documents based on word types and other features l lUsing decision trees not only to make predictions, but to model the way decisions are made l lPredicting numerical values rather than classifications to build price models l lSupport vector machines to match people in online dating sites l lNon-negative matrix factorization to find the independent features in adataset l lEvolving intelligence for problem solving--how a computer develops its skill by improving its own code the more it plays a game lulEach chapter includes exercises for extending the algorithms to make them more powerful. Go beyond simple database-backed applications and put the wealth of Internet data to work for you. Bravo! I cannot think of a better way for a developer to first learn these algorithms and methods, nor can I think of a better way for me (an old AI dog) to reinvigorate my knowledge of the details. -- Dan Russell, Google Tobys book does a great job of breaking down the complex subject matter of machine-learning algorithms into practical, easy-to-understand examples that can be directly applied to analysis of social interaction across the Web today. If I had this book two years ago, it would have saved precious time going down some fruitless paths. -- Tim Wolters, CTO, Collective Intellect About the AuthorToby Segaran is a software developer and manager at Genstruct, a computational systems biology company. He has written free web applications for his own use and put them online for others to try, including tasktoy, a task management system Lazybase, an online application that lets users design, create and share databases of anything they like and Rosetta Blog, an online tool for practicing Spanish and French by reading blogs along with their translations and lists of common words. Each of these has several hundred regular users.

Author: Suisheng Zhao File Type: pdf No description availableAbout the AuthorSuisheng Zhao is Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation and a Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, USA. A founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, he is the author and editor of eight books, including Debating Political Reform in China Rule of Law versus Democratization, and A Nation-State by Construction Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism Chinas emergence in the 21st century to the status of great power has significant implications for its relationship with the United States, the sole superpower in the post-Cold War World. Now that China is rising as an economic, political, and military power and has expanded its diplomatic activism beyond Asia into Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, its rise has profoundly transformed its relationship with the US and compelled leaders in both countries to redefine their positions toward each other. This book, written by leading scholars and policy analysts from both the US and China, explores the transformation and multifaceted nature of US-China relations, including how the political elite in both countries have defined their strategic objectives in response to Chinas rise and managed their relations accordingly. It provides an up-to-date analysis on the policy adjustments of the last decade, and covers all the important issue areas such as security, nuclear deterrence, military modernization, energy, trade and economic interaction, and Asia-Pacific power reconfiguration. It does not seek to confirm either an alarmist or optimistic position but presents different views and assessments by foreign policy specialists with the hope that leaders in Washington and Beijing may make positive adjustments in their policies to avoid confrontation and war. It will also be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of US and Chinese politics, international relations and comparative politics.About the AuthorSuisheng Zhao is Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation and a Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver, USA. A founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, he is the author and editor of eight books, including Debating Political Reform in China Rule of Law versus Democratization, and A Nation-State by Construction Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism

Author: Kersey Graves File Type: pdf ReviewFirst published in 1875, this is a popular discussion of the Saviors, Messiahs, or Sons of God preceding the Christian era, and the rituals and religious which surrounded them. It is a vigorous criticism of the orthodox Christian position...This book has been a clandestine best seller for nearly a century. -- Leslie ShepardIs the Bible true? Ever since Tom Paines daring Age of Reason at the end of the eighteenth century, Freethinkers have sought a rational, non-mystical view of the universe, and their arguments against dogmatic Christianity have often been reinforced by appeals to pagan religions which contain myths paralleling the New Testament stories and throwing doubt on their priority or historicity. Freethinkers aggressive attacks on dogma. Nowadays the cause of literary freedom and tolerance demands that the Freethought case be properly heard. THE WORLDS SIXTEEN CRUCIFIED SAVIORS is a Freethought classic. It is a popular discussion of the Saviors, Messiahs, or Sons of God preceding the Christian era, and the rituals and religions which surrounded them. It is a vigorous criticism of the orthodox Christian position. -- Leslie Shepard, London, 1970Startling and extraordinary revelations in religious history, which disclose the oriental origin of all the doctrines, principles, percepts, and the miracles of the Christian new Testament and furnishing a key for unlocking many of its sacred mysteries, besides comprising the history of 16 Heathen Crucified Gods. -- PublisherAbout the AuthorKERSEY GRAVES was born in 1813 at Richmond, Indiana, where he spent much of his life. He was born of Quaker parents and brought up in their faith. He had a humble background and once claimed that he was graduated in a pole-cabin schoolhouse. It seems, however, that he also had some further education. His family and friends wanted him to become come a preacher, but his faith in the divine call was shaken by observing that it was sometimes opposed by others who claimed to be moved by same divine power to oppose the preaching. He concluded that he did not have a call. As a young man he read widely and avidly and was particularly drawn to the pseudo-sciences of his day like Phrenology and Spiritualism. He became a phrenologist and lectured on the subjecttraveling all over the western states examining heads. He gradually came to doubt the dogmas of religious orthodoxy, since it seemed to him that mens minds and actions corresponded with the conformation and character of their brain and that divine agency had little to do with the matter. He developed into a liberal thinker and embraced Spiritualism, convinced from his observations that there was much truth in it. Soon he broadened the scope of his lectures to advocate leading reforms of the day-temperance, anti-slavery, anti-capital punishment, and labor reform, as well as Phrenology and Spiritualism. Freethinking was an inevitable consequence of his broad-mended secularism. In 1844 he married Lydia Michener, cousin of Edward M. Stanton (Secretary of War in Lincolns cabinet). He had two sons and two daughters. He gained a great reputation as an earnest, logical, and forceful speaker, with the gift of an excellent memory. He could master all his facts and authorities in a short while and deliver extempore lectures with the same precision that he could recall a lecture word for word hours after, and even present it in reverse order, citing the final conclusions and working backward to the beginning! He took part in many public debates and was renowned as a formidable adversary. He claimed to have spent an exemplary life without falling victim to any of the common vices of society such as profane swearing, drinking, gambling, or even smoking, and never had a personal combat with any man.