Résultats lu par "L. J. Ganser" dans Toutes les catégories

In a sweeping narrative that takes listeners from the production of Stone Age axes, to the invention of chocolate chip cookies, to the experience of Burning Man, Philip Auerswald argues that the key driver of human history is the advance of code. At each major stage in the advance of code over the span of centuries, shifts in the structure of society have challenged human beings to reinvent not only how we work, but who we are. We are at one of those stages now.

It was a hard sell, but Cameron had convinced Heather to return to the exoplanet Sang-Morang - where he had hoped they could experience the wonder of this majestic corner of the universe, together. The spacecraft Primion was flight-ready and the immense creature - the Minal Loth - seemed content to follow him wherever he went. And he still had the old Ford pickup truck, gassed up, and ready to explore more of that alien landscape. But Cameron’s well-intentioned plan turns out to be one of his very worst.

Anthony Fokker: The Flying Dutchman Who Shaped American Aviation tells the larger-than-life true story of maverick pilot and aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker. Fokker came from an affluent Dutch family. Despite not receiving a traditional education, he stumbled his way into aviation as a young stunt pilot in Germany in 1910. He survived a series of spectacular crashes and rose to fame. A combination of industrial espionage, luck, and deception then propelled him to become Germany's leading WWI aircraft manufacturer. When the German Revolution swept the country, Fokker made a spectacular escape to the US.

Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?

Weapon of the Dark Queen Against a darkened cloud it comes, framed by thunder and lightning, soaring over the ravaged land: the flying citadel, mightiest power in the arsenal of the dragon highlords. In an age of war, an evil wizard learned the secret of creating these castles in the air and sought to use them to gain power over all Krynn. Against him were ranged a red-robed magic-user, a cleric, an ancient warrior, and -- naturally -- a kender. Their battle shook the skies of Krynn.

Dr. Ed's head is spinning: a long-lost "son" has just been sent over to his office by the temp agency, his shopping-addicted wife seems to have disappeared, and the clinical trial that he is running for a revolutionary new anti-depressant might well be going off the rails. But Dr. Ed is in control of everything, including himself.

First Contact: Assess humans with the flawed, rudimentary, mind … Unbeknownst to simpleton Cuddy Perkins, his dependable, uneventful, life was about to be turned completely upside down. It’s a moonless summer night when a severely damaged intergalactic spacecraft enters Earth’s upper orbit. The alien pilot is desperate. Needs to hold up long enough to make repairs—before his pursuers find him.

The first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution—known as the Bill of Rights—include the guarantee that no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Yet this soaring vision of human rights was written by enslavers who deprived others of these rights. The struggle to resolve this paradox continues to the present day. With thought-provoking text, Rebels, Robbers, and Radicals explores how our rights have evolved as the nation grew and changed.

A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O'Rourke on subjects ranging from government to fishing to apps, to be published on what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday.

Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II. Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan.

The Craing War is now over, the enemy defeated. As planetary systems around the galaxy try to bring normalcy back to their existence, one thing becomes crystal clear: Without the Craing around to keep everyone in line, space has become a far more dangerous place. As more requests for prompt Allied assistance come in from the farthest reaches of outer space, Admiral Perry Reynolds is compelled to introduce a new stellar over-watch program. With his own career winding down, one of his final directives will be in the formation of a special intergalactic marshaling service…Star Watch.

In the spring of 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson boarded a train in Concord, Massachusetts, bound for a month-and-a-half-long tour of California—an interlude that became one of the highlights of his life. Based on original research employing newly discovered documents, The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson maps the public story of this trip onto the private story of Emerson's final years. Engaging and compelling, this travelogue makes it clear that Emerson was still capable of wonder, surprise, and friendship, debunking the presumed darkness of his last decade.

When Jack Knight takes off in his biplane from North Platte, Nebraska, in 1921, hundreds of people crowd the airstrip. Is Jack transporting a famous passenger? Is he ferrying medicine for a sick child? Nope—Jack has six sacks of mail. For the past few years, biplanes like Jack's have been flying the mail only during daylight hours. Flying after dark is risky and crashes are too common, so lawmakers decide to cut funding for the US Air Mail Service. Outraged officials and pilots want to prove that flying the mail is best, so they concoct a plan—a coast-to-coast race.

On the eve of the Sino-American great power competition General Mattis challenged America to move forward at the speed of relevance. To compete effectively America needed to excel in its AI capacity. The call fell on deaf ears—and years later the nation found itself sliding towards a state of irrelevance on the global stage. A series of blunders contributed to what President Biden calls American AI's "failing and falling behind." This is the story of American AI's fall from grace.

David Auerbach’s exploration of the phenomenon he has identified as the meganet begins with a simple, startling revelation: There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives: from corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming to government systems such as China’s Social Credit System and India’s Aadhaar.

Captain Jason Reynolds and his team—Billy, Rizzo, and the rhino-warrior, Traveler—must attempt to rescue Ricket and Gaddy, still held captive aboard the impregnable Dreathlor prison barge. Only then can Jason return to The Lilly, his highly advanced Caldurian vessel. The elusive Admiral Ot-Mul, leader of the Craing Drac-Vin forces, has not only survived, but thrived, in the far, outer-reaches of space. With hundreds of thousands of warships under his command, Ot-Mul’s combined fleets are on the move. But in truth, he cares about little else than making one man suffer….

After destroying much of Jhardon and the Mau planet of Carz-Mau, an elite Vanguard fleet of seven Craing dreadnaughts, planet killers, enters Earth’s orbit. Captain Jason Reynolds and the crew aboard his Caldurian ship, The Lilly, are once again pulled into action to fend off what just might be their most ruthless and powerful adversary yet. In an unanticipated turn of events, thousands of molt weevils are unleashed on Earth, swarming insectoid aliens with one intent…kill every man, woman, and child on the surface of the planet.

My name is Collin Frost. I’m a fairly unpopular 17-year-old high school student. This is my story…one that chronicles how my already-dredge-of-a-life went from miserable to totally and irreversibly jacked. I guess I should start at the beginning…right before we were shanghaied-up into that alien spaceship. It all started on the way back from the game. I’m the kicker. We lost. It was because of me. Big surprise. But everything started to really go south when the school bus pulled up at another railroad crossing in just one more hicksville small town in rural Texas.

After pulling off their latest train robbery, outlaw leader C. C. Ellis and his unruly gang of long riders set their sights on a new target—a rich mining operation. There are only two men who can stand in their way: Sheriff Max Boyd, a lawman who doesn’t always play by the rules, and Colonel Randolph Doss, the brutal security chief of the Colorado Western Express R.R. Co. Doss pursues Ellis like Ahab pursued the white whale, while Boyd pursues his aim of keeping the town standing … and even some of C.C.’s gang are secretly pursuing their own agendas.

In this audiobook Newman and Hotchner recount the picaresque saga of their own nonmanagement adventure. In alternating voices, playing off one another in classic “Odd Couple” style, they describe how they systematically disregarded the advice of experts and relied instead on instinct, imagination, and mostly luck. They write about how they hurdled obstacle after obstacle, share their hilarious misadventures, and reveal their offbeat solutions to conventional problems.