The thrilling sequel to Bot Wars, perfect for fans of Skylanders! Trout St. Kroix can't believe that his half-human/half-robot father is the leader of the Meta-Rise, the robot civil rights movement. Trout can’t even enjoy being a Bot Territory celebrity, because it also puts his whole family in danger. Ratch, a robot and former friend, has found a way to take control of robot Thinkchips, and under Ratch's control, all bots—including Trout's dad—would become Ratch's drones. CanTrout—and his friends Vee and Tellie Rix, along with brother Po—find a way to stop Ratch before Trout loses his father all over again?
With the entire world against him, can Omni fight back or will he fall? Connor Connolly's gambit to defeat Alpha Team worked, but not without significant cost. Those who helped him now find themselves without powers and Bay View City is worse off than ever. Midnight stopped answering his calls and no one has seen Iris in weeks. Connor's metabands may also finally be damaged beyond repair. Even an attempt to stop a nuclear meltdown blows up in his face and turns many throughout the world against him. Meanwhile, life back at the academy isn't going much better. Now that Sarah knows the full truth about Omni she feels betrayed. She's spending time with a mysterious student who has ties to Kaldonia, the hermit kingdom that's banned all metahumans. With the training facility on its last legs, Michelle gives Connor an ultimatum: stop using your metabands or leave the academy. But when he tags along on a surprise field trip to Kaldonia he discovers a secret technology that could impact metahumans worldwide forever. Will these revelations help Connor, or ultimately destroy him? Omni's Fall is the long awaited fourth book in the breakout hit Meta series. Omni's Fall follows Meta, The Second Wave, and Rise of The Circle.
"You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherf*****s on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless." --Robert Christgau A punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!? But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Bluesreally is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind. It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes. It's a record that keeps going around and around.
"Before 'The Battle,' the world had been full of metas, super-powered humans whose amazing abilities came from mysterious wristbands. Since that day one has never been seen again. Now 16 years old, Connor lives in Bay View City with his older brother Derrick, a meta-obsessed blogger, where he's just trying to keep his head down long enough to survive high school. All of that changes the night he attempts to save a girl's life and wakes up to find the first new pair of metabands anyone has seen wrapped around his wrists"--P. [4] of cove
This book examines a key aspect of the post-financial crisis reform package in the EU and UK-the ratcheting up of internal control in banks and financial institutions. The legal framework for internal controls is an important part of prudential regulation, and internal control also constitutes a form of internal gate-keeping for financial firms so that compliance with laws and regulations can be secured. This book argues that the legal framework for internal control, which is a form of meta-regulation, is susceptible to weaknesses, and such weaknesses are critically examined by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. The book discusses whether post-crisis reforms adequately address the weaknesses in regulating internal control and proposes an alternative strategy to enhance the 'governance' effectiveness of internal control.
Heaven Diaz's abuela raised her to be a good Catholic girl, and on the outside, that's exactly what she appears to be. She has a successful career, a lovely home, and she lives in the lap of luxury with her new husband Ricardo, a successful businessman and the love of her life. Then a chance meeting with a sexy and manipulative woman named Gloria rocks Heaven's foundation to the core and almost overnight Heaven finds herself in the centre of a bloody drug war where nothing and no one is who they seem to be, especially not Heaven because when pushed too far, this good girl's wrath is deadly.
Many historical processes are dynamic. Populations grow and decline. Empires expand and collapse. Religions spread and wither. Natural scientists have made great strides in understanding dynamical processes in the physical and biological worlds using a synthetic approach that combines mathematical modeling with statistical analyses. Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics--why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract--this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. Peter Turchin develops hypotheses from a wide range of social, political, economic, and demographic factors: geopolitics, factors affecting collective solidarity, dynamics of ethnic assimilation/religious conversion, and the interaction between population dynamics and sociopolitical stability. He then translates these into a spectrum of mathematical models, investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns. Turchin's highly instructive empirical tests demonstrate that certain models predict empirical patterns with a very high degree of accuracy. For instance, one model accounts for the recurrent waves of state breakdown in medieval and early modern Europe. And historical data confirm that ethno-nationalist solidarity produces an aggressively expansive state under certain conditions (such as in locations where imperial frontiers coincide with religious divides). The strength of Turchin's results suggests that the synthetic approach he advocates can significantly improve our understanding of historical dynamics.
