In this fascinating look at the computer's brain and the people who designed it, Kohanski assesses the programmer's trade, including the demands, limitations, and challenges of creating computer systems, and defines the important role they play in the modern world. of photos.
"For two decades now I've been awaiting a book explaining computers and their social consequences to literate readers without using any unnecessary jargon or pedantry--or math. I wanted such a book to lend to all those friends who've pestered me about computers and to all the computer science students who've asked me about computers over the years. I particularly wanted a book that I could buy for my father, who's an accountant of the old school, to explain something of the mysterious world I live in." Gregory Rawlins, who teaches artificial intelligence at Indiana University, got tired of waiting for that book and decided to write it himself. In Moths to the Flame he takes us on a humorous yet thought-provoking tour of the world wrought by modern technology, a technology, he points out, that is rooted deep inside the military: a technology that when applied to everyday life, may have startling results. Unlike space technology, today's technological race won't simply bring us Tang-flavored Velcro. Rawlins educates by entertaining. His stories and anecdotes enliven and surprise us while increasing our awareness of technology itself as a player in the political and commercial climate of our times. In our headlong rush toward networked humanity Rawlins raises serious concerns about our future jobs and our future wars: we can figure out what kind of job to get today if we know where technology is taking us tomorrow. The book's first four chapters explore the worlds of privacy, virtual reality, publishing, and computer networks, while the last four focus on social issues such as warfare, jobs, computer catastrophes, and the future itself. Throughout unusual, eye-opening analogies and historical comparisons--from Egyptian hieroglyphics to the sewing machine to the codebreakers of World War II--give us a context for the computer age, showing how new technologies have always bred intertwined hope and resistance. Provocative yet balanced and sophisticated, Moths to the Flame is an indispensable guidebook to the future: a Baedeker for the Brave New World. A Bradford Book
The moth snowstorm, a phenomenon Michael McCarthy remembers from his boyhood when moths “would pack a car’s headlight beams like snowflakes in a blizzard,” is a distant memory. Wildlife is being lost, not only in the wholesale extinctions of species but also in the dwindling of those species that still exist. The Moth Snowstorm is unlike any other book about climate change today; combining the personal with the polemical, it is a manifesto rooted in experience, a poignant memoir of the author’s first love: nature. McCarthy traces his adoration of the natural world to when he was seven, when the discovery of butterflies and birds brought sudden joy to a boy whose mother had just been hospitalized and whose family life was deteriorating. He goes on to record in painful detail the rapid dissolution of nature’s abundance in the intervening decades, and he proposes a radical solution to our current problem: that we each recognize in ourselves the capacity to love the natural world. Arguing that neither sustainable development nor ecosystem services have provided adequate defense against pollution, habitat destruction, species degradation, and climate change, McCarthy asks us to consider nature as an intrinsic good and an emotional and spiritual resource, capable of inspiring joy, wonder, and even love. An award-winning environmental journalist, McCarthy presents a clear, well-documented picture of what he calls “the great thinning” around the world, while interweaving the story of his own early discovery of the wilderness and a childhood saved by nature. Drawing on the truths of poets, the studies of scientists, and the author’s long experience in the field, The Moth Snowstorm is part elegy, part ode, and part argument, resulting in a passionate call to action.
In "Moths to the Flame", Rawlins took lay readers on a tour of the exciting and sometimes scary world to which computers are leading us. Written in an accessible, anecdotal form, his newest book is for those who are new to computers and want to know what is "under the hood".
The Tiger Moth is one of the major aviation success stories in the history of British aviation. Developed by Geoffrey de Havilland and flown for the first time on October 26 1931, the biplane became the most important elementary trainer used by Commonwealth forces. More than 1,000 Tiger Moths were delivered before WWII, and subsequently around 4,000 were built in the UK with an extra 2,000 being manufactured in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Following the end of WWII, pilots could buy and modify a Tiger Moth for recreational use or agricultural crop spraying and use it relatively cheaply. This, combined with its popularity within the aero club movement, provided employment for the Tiger Moths until the late fifties when the more modern closed cockpit aircraft began to force them into retirement. This new edition provides a comprehensive account of the aircraft's origins and its development as a trainer of Commonwealth pilots in times of peace and war. It also looks at some of the other roles which this versatile little aeroplane performed such as a crop duster, glider tug, aerial advertiser, bomber, coastal patrol plane and aerial ambulance. Technical narrative and drawings, handling ability and performance as seen through the eyes of the pilots combine to make The Tiger Moth Story the most comprehensive book of the aircraft.
A fascinating account of the world's most famous disease-polio- told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard of disease began paralyzing so many children-usually starting in their legs, sometimes moving up through their abdomen and arms. For an unfortunate few, it could paralyze the muscles that allowed them to breathe. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors? Why were animals so often paralyzed during the early epidemics when it was later discovered most animals could not become infected? The Moth in the Iron Lung is a fascinating biography of this horrible paralytic disease, where it came from, and why it disappeared in the 1950s. If you've never explored the polio story beyond the tales of crippled children and iron lungs, this book will be sure to surprise.
It is about this very bit of Indiana that Mrs. Porter has written her book,"Moths of the Limberlost," and it is the most unusual and interesting nature book ever imagined. It is a story of the "Moths" of the Limberlost which every reader of "A Girl of the Limberlost" will remember. Mrs. Porter pictures and describes the moth, hunted by Elnora, and in these chapters there is one oi the landscapes over which she hunted, much of the swamp, and the very bridge under which she was working to cut loose a cocoon when Philip came up the stream, fishing. There is also the log cabin in which Elnora lived. The text is just scientific enough to give the name and description of each moth, cocoon and caterpillar; the remainder is a fascinating record of personal experiences in finding or raising the specimens. This is the fully illustrated edition.