A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.
A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.
Read, Sing, and play along with Thomas and his friends. This book includes a fun Thomas tale, five 9-piece puzzles, and five different songs for hours of fun!
Eleven-year-old Zoé Badger, imaginative, carefree and adventurous, lives a transient life, moving with her mother from one town to the next—except for summers, when she stays with her granddad in Tenby, Wales. But when she and her cousin Ian discover a glass puzzle that's been hidden away for decades, ancient forces are unleashed that threaten to change their safe-haven summer town in sinister ways.
The noted expert selects 70 of his favorite "short" puzzles, including such mind-bogglers as The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and dozens more involving logic and basic math. Solutions included.
You’re high—now what? Announcing the perfect companion of puzzles and games for anyone who enjoys getting baked now and then. Here are word searches, including Munchie-Mania (Dude, can you find nachos, Steakumms, cake icing, Doritos?). Mazes, like the Customs Quagmire—can you pilot a van made out of marijuana from Mexico to San Francisco? Fill-in-the-Pictures: Oh no! Cheech just singed off his mustache! Can you draw it back on? Plus the super-simple, super-amusing activity Trace Your Face: Tilt forward from the couch until your face rests in the empty pizza box on the coffee table. Pick up a pencil and, holding the pointy side down, trace your face. This activity is not timed.
No amateur or math authority can be without this ultimate compendium of classic puzzles, paradoxes, and puzzles from America's best-loved mathematical expert. 320 line drawings.
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. -Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four. Pit your wits against the greatest detective of them all with this collection of over 130 fiendish and hugely entertaining puzzles and enigmas.Some involve riddles, some plays on words, and some rely on mathematical principles. Use your powers of logical deduction, and see if you can match the towering intellect of Sherlock Holmes. Not only does this collection include brilliant puzzles to ponder over, but it presents these quandaries within exchanges between Holmes and Watson. In this way, this puzzle book retains the same cosy Victorian charm that Holmes' tales are so loved for. Featuring the original pen and ink illustrations by Sidney Paget and George Hutchinson, this gorgeously designed puzzle book will immerse you in Holmes's mysteries and keep you entertained for hours!
Asserts that Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Phil Gramm and others colluded in the fundamental corruption of the U.S. economic system that led to the financial crisis and sounds the alarm over the Obama administration consulting some of these very same men to fix the problem they created. Original.
