Some people collect stamps. Other people collect coins. Carol Otis Hurst's father collected rocks. Nobody ever thought his obsession would amount to anything. They said, "You've got rocks in your head" and "There's no money in rocks." But year after year he kept on collecting, trading, displaying, and labeling his rocks. The Depression forced the family to sell their gas station and their house, but his interest in rocks never wavered. And in the end the science museum he had visited so often realized that a person with rocks in his head was just what was needed. Anyone who has ever felt a little out of step with the world will identify with this true story of a man who followed his heart and his passion.
A neurologist explores the very real world of psychosomatic illness. Most of us accept the way our heart flutters when we set eyes on the one we secretly admire, or the sweat on our brow as we start the presentation we do not want to give. But few of us are fully aware of how dramatic our body's reactions to emotions can sometimes be. Take Pauline, who first became ill when she was fifteen. What seemed at first to be a urinary infection became joint pain, then food intolerances, then life-threatening appendicitis. And then one day, after a routine operation, Pauline lost all the strength in her legs. Shortly after that her convulsions started. But Pauline's tests are normal; her symptoms seem to have no physical cause whatsoever. Pauline may be an extreme case, but she is by no means alone. As many as a third of men and women visiting their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained. In most, an emotional root is suspected and yet, when it comes to a diagnosis, this is the very last thing we want to hear, and the last thing doctors want to say. In It's All in Your Head consultant neurologist Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan takes us on a journey through the very real world of psychosomatic illness. She takes us from the extreme -- from paralysis, seizures and blindness -- to more everyday problems such as tiredness and pain. Meeting her patients, she encourages us to look deep inside the human condition. There we find the secrets we are all capable of keeping from ourselves, and our age-old failure to credit the intimate and extraordinary connection between mind and body.
How to Reduce Code Complexity and Develop Software More Sustainably "Mark Seemann is well known for explaining complex concepts clearly and thoroughly. In this book he condenses his wide-ranging software development experience into a set of practical, pragmatic techniques for writing sustainable and human-friendly code. This book will be a must-read for every programmer." -- Scott Wlaschin, author of Domain Modeling Made Functional Code That Fits in Your Head offers indispensable, practical advice for writing code at a sustainable pace and controlling the complexity that causes projects to spin out of control. Reflecting decades of experience helping software teams succeed, Mark Seemann guides you from zero (no code) to deployed features and shows how to maintain a good cruising speed as you add functionality, address cross-cutting concerns, troubleshoot, and optimize. You'll find valuable ideas, practices, and processes for key issues ranging from checklists to teamwork, encapsulation to decomposition, API design to unit testing. Seemann illuminates his insights with code examples drawn from a complete sample project. Written in C#, they're designed to be clear and useful to anyone who uses any object-oriented language including Java , C++, and Python. To facilitate deeper exploration, all code and extensive commit messages are available for download. Choose mindsets and processes that work, and escape bad metaphors that don't Use checklists to liberate yourself, improving outcomes with the skills you already have Get past “analysis paralysis” by creating and deploying a vertical slice of your application Counteract forces that lead to code rot and unnecessary complexity Master better techniques for changing code behavior Discover ways to solve code problems more quickly and effectively Think more productively about performance and security If you've ever suffered through bad projects or had to cope with unmaintainable legacy code, this guide will help you make things better next time and every time. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
Whether we realize it or not, we think of our brains as computers. In neuroscience, the metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined the field for much of the modern era. But as neuroscientists increasingly reevaluate their assumptions about how brains work, we need a new metaphor to help us ask better questions. The computational neuroscientist Daniel Graham offers an innovative paradigm for understanding the brain. He argues that the brain is not like a single computer—it is a communication system, like the internet. Both are networks whose power comes from their flexibility and reliability. The brain and the internet both must route signals throughout their systems, requiring protocols to direct messages from just about any point to any other. But we do not yet understand how the brain manages the dynamic flow of information across its entire network. The internet metaphor can help neuroscience unravel the brain’s routing mechanisms by focusing attention on shared design principles and communication strategies that emerge from parallel challenges. Highlighting similarities between brain connectivity and the architecture of the internet can open new avenues of research and help unlock the brain’s deepest secrets. An Internet in Your Head presents a clear-eyed and engaging tour of brain science as it stands today and where the new paradigm might take it next. It offers anyone with an interest in brains a transformative new way to conceptualize what goes on inside our heads.
"When I was a teenager, I had a nervous breakdown. Battling OCD and an eating disorder tested my sanity to its very limits, but I survived. And then I thrived. And now I've written this book, full of the things healthcare professionals can't tell you. Supported by Dr Radtha (from BBC Radio 1's The Surgery), this is a book about how to live well with a mixed up mind."--Back cover.
Instant National Bestseller! Wall Street Journal bestseller; USA Today bestseller; Publishers Weekly bestseller; international bestseller. An inspirational book by self-made musical superstar, Russ, reminding you that it starts with YOU, to believe in yourself, and to get out of your own way. Twenty-seven-year-old rapper, songwriter, and producer Russ walks his own path, at his own pace. By doing so, he proved that he didn’t need a major label to surpass over a billion streams on Spotify/Apple Music, get on Forbes’ 2019 “30 Under 30,” make the Forbes‘ “30 Under 30 Cash Kings” at number 20 for most earned, sell out arenas across the U.S. and around the globe, and become one of the most popular and engaged rappers right now. His method was simple: love and believe in yourself absolutely and work hard no matter what. In this memoir, Russ inspires readers to walk to their individual rhythms and beat their biggest obstacles: themselves. With chapters named after his most powerful and popular songs, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD will reflect on the lessons he’s learned from his career, family, and relationships. He’ll push readers to bet on themselves, take those leaps of faith, and recognize struggles as opportunities. With illustrations throughout consistent with the brand Russ has built and his fan base loves, IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD will give readers an inside-look at the man and the motivation behind the music. A lover of books like The Alchemist and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Russ delivers a short, potent, inspirational, raw, and honest book that gives readers a way to find self-belief and unlock their potential. Fans already rely on Russ as an inspiration of confidence; now, he is taking it to the next level with this book, which will contain lyrics from his music and visuals that reflect his inimitable style.
His mother calls him a worthless halfwit while his fellow drunks at the local bar ensure he's the butt of all their jokes. He spends his days whittling wood, counting pigeons and adding his own name to the list on the town war memorial. So how could Germain possibly anticipate what a casual encounter on a park bench with eighty-five-year old Margueritte might mean? In this touchingly comic tale of an unusual friendship, that first conversation opens a door into a world Germain has never imagined—the world of books and ideas—and gives both him and Margueritte the chance of a happiness they thought had passed them by.
Linked by an unlikely accident, four strangers characters grapple with loneliness, memory, and the mysteries of art. Ray Eccles is a man who dislikes unpredictability and the messiness of social interaction, to such extent that his co-workers’ habit of gathering around the Xerox machine it’s his job to run makes even that regular task unbearable. When a misunderstanding leads to unexpected time off from work, Ray takes a day trip to nearby East Beach on what happens to be his fortieth birthday. As he gazes at the sea, a distant woman turns to face him—and a seagull falls from the sky, knocking him unconscious. He awakens compelled to paint her image, using whatever materials come to hand: jam, ketchup, even the walls of his home. Enter George and Grace Zoob, collectors of Outsider Art, whose endorsement rockets Ray to fame in the art world and beyond. Soon even small-town newspapers are covering his work—which is how Jennifer, the woman on the beach, discovers she’s the sole subject of the paintings that have set the world on fire, leading her to wonder if a man she’s never met is the only person who has ever really seen her. Lyrical, elegant and quietly profound, Harriet Paige’s Man With a Seagull on His Head captures the small, shared moments where our lives overlap, making artistry out of the everyday.
Essays on great figures and important issues, advances and blind alleys—from trepanation to the discovery of grandmother cells—in the history of brain sciences. Neuroscientist Charles Gross has been interested in the history of his field since his days as an undergraduate. A Hole in the Head is the second collection of essays in which he illuminates the study of the brain with fascinating episodes from the past. This volume's tales range from the history of trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull) to neurosurgery as painted by Hieronymus Bosch to the discovery that bats navigate using echolocation. The emphasis is on blind alleys and errors as well as triumphs and discoveries, with ancient practices connected to recent developments and controversies. Gross first reaches back into the beginnings of neuroscience, then takes up the interaction of art and neuroscience, exploring, among other things, Rembrandt's “Anatomy Lesson” paintings, and finally, examines discoveries by scientists whose work was scorned in their own time but proven correct in later eras.
