Patterns II includes ten scholarly essays on a variety of science fiction themes and topics, as presented at ConStellation, the Forty-First World SF Convention, held at Baltimore, Maryland, from September 1-5, 1983. Included are essays by Merritt Abrash, Rosemarie Arbur, Jared Lobdell, Edward A. Boyno, Constance M. Mellott, Lawrence I. Charters, Thomas P. Dunn, Judith B. Kerman, Philip E. Kaveny, and Janice M. Bogstad on such writers as H. G. Wells, Thornton Wilder, David Gerrold, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick, and on the film Blade Runner. Includes a comprehensive Introduction by Hassler.
"At last, we have a book in English from Kotomi Hayashi! 55 Fantastic Knitting Stitches brings us (yes) 55 stitch patterns that will be fun to use in designing and personal knitting. Some are challenging, some are variations on a theme, and all are new and interesting." —Gayle Roehm, knitting teacher, author and translator for the knitting best-sellers Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible and 250 Japanese Knitting Stitches The perfect book for needlework enthusiasts who want to try the unique Japanese style of knitting! Popular and prolific author and knitwear designer Kotomi Hayashi presents 55 innovative stitch designs—specifically for those who have never tried Japanese-style knitting before. These include re-imagined modern variations on traditional stitches as well as Hayashi's own innovative inventions, which incorporate influences from her travels all around the world. These beautiful stitch patterns, influenced by knitting styles from around the world, include: Delightful reversible patterns—you get two garments in one! Patterns with motifs in relief that add dimension and texture to your knitwear Surprising variations on classics such as cables, basketweaves, bobbles and popcorn stitches, among others Patterns and stitches with unusual color combinations, offering endless opportunities for creativity Knitting enthusiasts will find endless inspiration in these pages. Among many others, you'll find innovative criss-cross, rick-rack, openwork, cable, waffle and many other types of stitching, resulting in beautiful textures and strikingly modern uses of color. In addition to the charts typical of Japanese knitting books, step-by-step instructions and diagrams for each stitch are also included. Hayashi shows you how to use these stitch patterns in one or more of the 25 projects she includes in the book, so you can try them out on gloves, cowls, shawls and more. 55 Fantastic Japanese Knitting Stitches is the perfect book for experienced knitters who love knitting the Japanese way, or those who want to give this style of knitting a try for the first time—opening the door to new horizons and the work of creative Japanese knitwear designers.
Offers 40 sewing projects with vintage flair, including a cardigan with an embroidered rose pattern, a tote bag with a starry motif, a strawberry-decked apron and more, in a book with 75 full-color photos. Original.
This book of essays looks at the multitude of texts and influences which converge in Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner, especially the film's relationship to its source novel, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film's implications as a thought experiment provide a starting point for important thinking about the moral issues implicit in a hypertechnological society. Yet its importance in the history of science fiction and science fiction film rests equally on it mythically and psychologically resonant creation of compelling characters and an exciting story within a credible science fiction setting. These essays consider political, moral and technological issues raised by the film, as well as literary, filmic, technical and aesthetic questions. Contributors discuss the film's psychological and mythic patterns, important political issues and the roots of the film in Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, detective fiction, and previous science fiction cinema.
Another selection of fascinating, informal conversations with the creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy, presented exactly as originally published.Here are authentic voices from 1983 through 2002: Peter S. Beagle, Octavia Butler, Philip Jose Farmer, Charles L. Harness, Michael Kandel, R.A. Lafferty, Jack McDevitt Tim Powers, Charles Sheffield, Susan Shwartz, Michael Swanwick, Evangeline Walton, Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, and George Zebrowski."
With recent advances in natural language understanding techniques and far-field microphone arrays, natural language interfaces, such as voice assistants and chatbots, are emerging as a popular new way to interact with computers. They have made their way out of the industry research labs and into the pockets, desktops, cars and living rooms of the general public. But although such interfaces recognize bits of natural language, and even voice input, they generally lack conversational competence, or the ability to engage in natural conversation. Today’s platforms provide sophisticated tools for analyzing language and retrieving knowledge, but they fail to provide adequate support for modeling interaction. The user experience (UX) designer or software developer must figure out how a human conversation is organized, usually relying on commonsense rather than on formal knowledge. Fortunately, practitioners can rely on conversation science. This book adapts formal knowledge from the field of Conversation Analysis (CA) to the design of natural language interfaces. It outlines the Natural Conversation Framework (NCF), developed at IBM Research, a systematic framework for designing interfaces that work like natural conversation. The NCF consists of four main components: 1) an interaction model of “expandable sequences,” 2) a corresponding content format, 3) a pattern language with 100 generic UX patterns and 4) a navigation method of six basic user actions. The authors introduce UX designers to a new way of thinking about user experience design in the context of conversational interfaces, including a new vocabulary, new principles and new interaction patterns. User experience designers and graduate students in the HCI field as well as developers and conversation analysis students should find this book of interest.
This thorough and self-contained introduction to modern optics covers, in full, the three components: ray optics, wave optics and quantum optics. Examples of modern applications in the current century are used extensively.
