“OMFG, I nearly up and died from laughter when I read Flatscreen. This is the novel that every young turk will be reading on their way to a job they hate and are in fact too smart for.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story Indie-lit star and Faster Times editor Adam Wilson delivers the gleefully absurd, effortlessly heartwarming story of one young man’s struggle to shake off the listless, sexless, stoned mantle of suburban teenage life and become something better. Fortunately (maybe) for Eli, his apathetic quest finds a catalyzing agent in one Mr. Seymour J. Kahn, a paraplegic sex addict and two-bit silver screen star who initiates a mad decent into debasement and (of course) YouTube stardom—a transformation from which there will be no going back.
Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Liquid crystals had a controversial discovery at the end of the 19th century but were later accepted as a 'fourth state' of matter, and finally used throughout the world in modern displays and new materials. This book explains the fascinating science in accessible terms, and puts it into social, political, and historical perspectives.
In 1968 a team of scientists and engineers from RCA announced the creation of a new form of electronic display that relied upon an obscure set of materials known as liquid crystals. At a time when televisions utilized bulky cathode ray tubes to produce an image, these researchers demonstrated how liquid crystals could electronically control the passage of light. One day, they predicted, liquid crystal displays would find a home in clocks, calculators—and maybe even a television that could hang on the wall. Half a century later, RCA’s dreams have become a reality, and liquid crystals are the basis of a multibillion-dollar global industry. Yet the company responsible for producing the first LCDs was unable to capitalize upon its invention. In The TVs of Tomorrow, Benjamin Gross explains this contradiction by examining the history of flat-panel display research at RCA from the perspective of the chemists, physicists, electrical engineers, and technicians at the company’s central laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. Drawing upon laboratory notebooks, internal reports, and interviews with key participants, Gross reconstructs the development of the LCD and situates it alongside other efforts to create a thin, lightweight replacement for the television picture tube. He shows how RCA researchers mobilized their technical expertise to secure support for their projects. He also highlights the challenges associated with the commercialization of liquid crystals at RCA and Optel—the RCA spin-off that ultimately manufactured the first LCD wristwatch. The TVs of Tomorrow is a detailed portrait of American innovation during the Cold War, which confirms that success in the electronics industry hinges upon input from both the laboratory and the boardroom.
Recycling of waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) traditionally focuses on large quantities of waste materials such as plastics. However, some product groups in the WEEE contain hidden treasures in the form of critical metals. This project assesses the critical metals’ waste handling as part of five selected product groups, in the Nordic region. The environmental and economic benefits from the recycling of these metals currently and in the near future is quite substantial, mainly due to the presence of significant quantities of gold in the selected products.In order to contribute further to the circular economy concept, the Nordic countries should pay attention not only to quantitative but also to qualitative aspects of recycling, in order to capture recyclable materials that, although in small quantities, their recycling brings a high economic and environmental value.
New York in 2040 is a city of the lost. A good place to work in Missing Persons. But business is not quite good enough for Hal Halliday to forget his sister, burned alive when only child all those years ago. And now VR offers the chance of bringing her back, the future may yet allow Hal to live in the past. If he can survive the next job ...
Bankers prowl Brooklyn bars on the eve of the stock market crash. A debate over Young Elvis versus Vegas Elvis turns existential. Detoxing junkies use a live lobster to spice up their love life. Students on summer break struggle to escape the orbit of a seemingly utopic communal house. And in the title story, selected for The Best American Short Stories, two film school buddies working on a doomed project are left sizing up their own talent, hoping to come out on top—but fearing they won't. In What's Important Is Feeling, Adam Wilson follows the through-line of contemporary coming-of-age from the ravings of teenage lust to the staggering loneliness of proto-adulthood. He navigates the tough terrain of American life with a delicate balance of comedy and compassion, lyricism and unsparing straightforwardness. Wilson's characters wander through a purgatory of yearning, hope, and grief. No one emerges unscathed.
Bash Nadir was a promising young guitarist in Austin, Texas who dreamt of having a successful career in the music business. His dreams were shattered when he lost his arm in a motorcycle accident. Working as the sound engineer for a rock band, the Zeniths, Bash and the band move into an old house in the country where no one expects the strange and dark events awaiting them, events that will lead Bash to revelation, redemption, and the love of his life.
Two hundred years ago, Adela de Montgarde, the brilliant astrophysicist, conceived the centuries-long plan to forestall the death of Earth's sun, thus preserving the original genetic material of the Empire of the Hundred Worlds-and of the Emperors who enabled her visionary plan. Now Adela emerges from cold sleep to oversee the final stages of her great work. She awakens to an Empire transformed: her son Eric is Emporer, faster-than-light travel has finally been achieved, and humanity has spilled out to innumerable new planets, far beyond the Empire's Hundred Worlds. In the twilight of the Empire, human and alien factions vie for advantage, while Adela's awesome feat of stellar engineering approaches its final fruition: the preservation and re-invigoration of the fearsome light at the heart of humanity's first solar system...the saving of Earth's Sun. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
