Reviews (1)

Solid scholarship, cogent argument
As the guy in the subtitle, I might be expected to have all kinds of eye-rolling cavils with Turner's book, but I don't.I'm impressed by the thoroughness of his research and his astonishingly accurate depiction of the many brief historical contexts in which his story unfolds.That is hard to do even for people who were there.
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Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Computers - General Information    3. Computers and civilization    4. Counterculture    5. History    6. History: American    7. Information Technology    8. Popular Culture - Counter Culture    9. Social Aspects - General    10. Sociology - General    11. United States    12. United States - 20th Century    13. Cultural studies    14. Social Science / Sociology / General    15. USA   

Reviews (7)

Image Analysis Book Review
I found the book to be very informative and I acquired several ideas from reading it. But, I repeatedly found myself searching the book for definitions of some of the terms it uses throughout its text. Practical Algorithms for Image Analysis will introduce new terms without any hint of their meaning, assuming that the reader already knows all they need to know about the subject matter (which would negate the need to buy the book!). This book sorely needs a glossary.

It's just great
The book is just great! I used the source code from the CD-ROM for various image processing projects. The algorithms are also very practical if you have to deal with images. The code is neat and ready to compile and run. Luis J Gutierrez
Excelente libro.hace un tiempo que he estado estudiando y desarrollando estrategias para la implementaci�n de sistemas de vision computarizada. Este libro es de una gran claridad pr�ctica sin abandonar la necesaria base teorica. Muy buenos ejemplo, informaci�n adicional, ejemplos y aplicaciones.Para cualquier investigador en el �rea debe ser considerado como un recurso indispensable. (if you want my comments in english please send me an e-mail to innovacl@vtr.net) ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Algorithms    2. Algorithms (Computer Programming)    3. Computer Books: Database    4. Computers    5. Data Transmission Systems - General    6. Data processing    7. Digital Image Processing    8. Digital techniques    9. Discrete Mathematics    10. General    11. Image analysis    12. Image processing    13. Imaging Systems    14. Mathematics    15. Applied optics    16. Image processing--Digital techniques    17. Science / History   

Reviews (14)

GROOVY!
In this book Barry Miles captures the Hippie Age perfectly, in word and image.For a fictional dramatization of this incredible time, have a look at "Life Boiling Over" by Jon Michael Miller.Both authors were apparently there.I was, too.Miller's brilliant novel deals with a couple who go through the hippie scene together, starting in middle America and ending up in Woodstock and San Francisco.It follows the turbulent events that culminate in the campus turmoil that led to four student deaths at Kent State.Through passion, folly, joy and love, the couple struggles to understand their relationship and ultimately themselves.Their struggle comes to triumphant conclusions that will startle you.It's by far the best book I've ever read about the hippie generation.

Hippie:A Memoir
I'm an old ex-hippie from the day--in fact, I'm almost one of the originals. I hung out with Abbie Hoffman on the Lower East Side and attended both the Chicago police riots of l968 and the Woodstock Festival. Some think of the hippies as "happy go lucky", but it was a revolution--"a war, with LSD as the ammunition as Grady L. McMurtry described it. There were places where if you looked like a hippie, you would not only be beaten, but killed. You had to know who you were and what you believed, because everywhere there was harassment and threats by the self-appointed "members of the Establishment". This book is a "celebration" of all the different currents that came together to produce "hippies", which was not something you joined and got a membership card in, but something you found yourself being. I disagree with Barry Miles that feminism began with the hippies--the original hippie idea was quite sexist and backward, and feminist activism actuslly helped put nails in the hippie coffin. What is lacking in this book is the description of how the hippie movement collapsed. Rock stars died, fine, rock stars are still ODing and dying, but how did the movement fall apart and perish? That was a terrible time, and I hope I never go through such a time again, but the very sad story needs to be told. Where were you when the hippie culture collapsed? That is my question for Mr. Miles, who otherwise has produced quite a history.

Great photos, Good Quotes, "Blah" text
First of all, the 3 stars are all for the pictures in this book, which are excellent. I love the layout of the book and the design is great. The photos have great colour and context. There are a lot of great quotes from important people of the era as well. I think really what's lacking here is the actual text of it. None of the articles are really that great or in-depth and you don't come out of it feeling like you learned much, sorry. That's what disappoints me about this book, especially since i didn't get to actually LIVE in that era. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Counter culture    2. England    3. Essays    4. Hippies    5. History    6. History - U.S.    7. Minority Studies - General    8. Modern - 20th Century    9. Popular Culture - Counter Culture    10. Social History    11. Sociology    12. Subculture    13. U.S. History - 1960s    14. United States    15. United States - 20th Century/60s    16. COMPUTERS - INTERNET TRD PB    17. History / Modern / 20th Century   

Reviews (4)

Foremost book in the field
I had the previous version of this book as my text at USC. This version is a huge improvement over the last one. This one covers all the new advances and adds emphasis on the use of coding to communications channels. A complaint I had of the last version was that it under-emphasized coding gains and Eb/N0 vs. BER performance figures. This book has overcome many of those difficulties. It is still a bit ponderous in places but then it is the only book that covers the material in this much detail, truly a Bible of the field. It is a great graduate level text and a must-have book for any comm engineer. Charan Langton complextoreal.com

very useful for both beginners and experts
a very detailed book for getting into Galois field arithmetics, cyclic codes, convolutional codes, ... As a very beginner I had no big problems understanding the content. I am not the type of guy who could understandjust by reading the theory - this book gives a lot of very useful examples,so you could call it fun reading it!

Excellent applications-based approach to Error Correction
Lin and Costello produced an excellent text which is targeted towardsengineers as opposed to mathematicians. The mathematics behind errorcorrection can be extremely intensive and, with other texts, I quicklybecome lost in complex proofs. Lin and Costello present error correction inmethod, with plenty of good examples, which those who need to know how toapply it can understand and the gory details of the theory are not asimportant. I used this book as my introduction to error correction and itcontinues to be a great reference book. The only drawback in it is since itwas published in '82, it stops at convolutional coding and does not covertrellis-coded modulation or turbo codes. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - General Information    2. Computers - General Information    3. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    4. Error-correcting codes (Inform    5. General    6. Information Theory    7. Questions & Answers    8. Science/Mathematics    9. History of ideas, intellectual history    10. Technology / Telecommunications   

Reviews (55)

Too much Conversation Text & Less photos
this book always showed up while i search about "Games History". no inside sample. too much text. i prefer more photos

When a journalist attempts to be a historian...
This has been the third book on history of video games I have read. This time, the author or, more probably, the editor went far calling this the "ultimate" history of such an underestimated field of culture as videogames are. If I buy a book allegedly "Ultimate" in anything, I definitely have to have high expectations. And this is what I expected.
The Best "History" Book Ever
Since before videogames to the release of the X-box, the Ulitimate History of videogames tells it all. A book fit for a classroom however it doesn't read like a boring textbook. There are hundrededs of fun facts and interesting stories about the people and the companies involved in the making of a multibillion dollar industry. The book is also filled with interesting quotes from the author's interviews with the people he talks about. If you've ever wanted to know how it happened or just wanted to relive it, the Ulitimate history of Videogames is for you. Well worth the price. The first time i started reading it, i didn't want to put it down. An exellent book, if you are a fan of videogames, interested in pop culture, or just a history buff this book is for you.
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Subjects:  1. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    2. Games/Puzzles    3. History    4. Popular Culture - General    5. Social Science    6. Video & Electronic - General    7. Video games    8. Computer games    9. Social Science / Popular Culture   

Reviews (6)

A very concise, to-the-point text.....
This is an exhaustive text on practically every known technique used in practical error correction/detection. Every individual technique is outlined in a seperate chapter, with a lot of stress on the practical implementation issues, though it does go heavy on the computational nuances at some places. Beginners... Don't waste your money
In contradiction to an earlier post which expressed this was a good bookfor beginners, I would highly recommend beginners and those with desire forpractical implementation to buy Lin and Costello's book. This book lacks inthe quality and quantity of its examples. It may serve as a good referencefor the more theoretically motivated person (e.g., those in the academicpublishing community) but if you want to own just one book, don't get thisone.

Well written by already outdated
The book is very well written specially as an introductory book.However, some important derivations & discussions are missing. Twoexamples:(1) there is a whole chapter on BCH and Reed Solomon decodingwithout the derivation of the Berlekamp-Massey decoding algorithm, not evenin the appendeix. (2) When discussing different decoding algorithm, noeffort is spent in quantifying the complexity of different algorithms. So,the reader has to take the author's word that algorithm X is simpler thanalgorithm Y. Current hot topics such as Soft decoding of BCH and ReedSolomon codes is not discussed, except for the traditinal erasure decodingalgorithm. Similarly, iterative decoding is not discussed; instead we havethe outdated Fano and Stack algorithms that are usually covered in olderbooks. Read more

Subjects:  1. Digital communications    2. Digital modulation    3. Engineering - Electrical & Electronic    4. Error-correcting codes (Inform    5. Error-correcting codes (Information theory)    6. Information Processing (Computer Science)    7. Science/Mathematics    8. Software Quality Control    9. Technology    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. Telecommunications    12. Communications engineering / telecommunications    13. Technology / Telecommunications   

Editorial Review

The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done--just look at today's news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, Read more

Reviews (47)

The Machine Must Start
At the dawn of a disingenuous New Age in which dystopia is cool and atheists are morons Tracy Kidder equipts free thinkers with a book that, like Borg nanotech, insinuates itself into their brains and stays there, semi-
A true journalistic classic. Buy it and Read it!
`The Soul of a New Machine' is a landmark journalistic book-length essay by then `Atlantic Monthly' writer, Tracy Kidder exploring the development of a new computer in those pre-microcomputer days of 1978. I am delighted to find this book issued as a `classic', as I have read it many times and have been meaning to do a review of it for some time. I cannot think of a better occasion than with the release of this new edition.
Surprised and pleased
I'd never heard of 'Soul' or Tracy Kidder or Tom West until my class with University of Phoenix.Something compelled me to purchase it and read it and I was very happy about it.It was a relatively fast read, technically informative but not too much so...and that's what I wanted.I wish there were more historical accounts of extraordinary things that have more diverse people in them.It was never mentioned but I'm pretty positive there wasn't a black person among that whole group.Black people are not 'let in' to those kinds of circle...special and extraordinary things; given an opportunity to stretch, given a chance to grow into something.Black people have to have 'credentials and experience' before a special project is even offered to us.I couldn't help but know - instinctively - that there were none.Good story though. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computers - General Information    2. General    3. History    4. Science/Mathematics    5. Technology    6. Technology / General   

Reviews (31)

A trip down memory lane
A really fun book ... and one that conjures memories of the old days of video gaming. I had forgotten some of the games and graphics of those early years, and it was fun and interesting to read and see them again. This book is as much about the photos and graphic layout as the text, but make sure to read it ... the text is insightful, well-researched, and thorough. I can relate to Van Burnham's personal recollections and her weaving of those experiences into the history of videogaming makes this book memorable and remarkable. Gotta go ... I've got to figure out how to get my Colecovision hooked up to a plasma for a round of Mr. Do!

An Affable Arcade Tome
Great for a trip down memory lane, but certainly not a "scholarly" approach to the videogame era.Still searching for a book that takes the most academic approach to this medium, but this one is certainly appealing if a bit irreverent in terms of its overall presentation.

Supercade SuperNostalgia
Whatever they say about poor snapshot graphics, this is definitively a great book.
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Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General    2. Computer Games    3. Computer Literacy    4. Computers    5. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords    6. General    7. History    8. Pictorial works    9. Video & Electronic - General    10. Video games    11. Games / Video & Electronic    12. History of specific subjects   

Subjects:  1. Computer Science    2. Computer simulation    3. History & Philosophy    4. Mathematical optimization    5. Mathematics    6. Probability & Statistics - General    7. Programming Languages - General    8. Programming languages (Electro    9. Programming languages (Electronic computers)    10. Science/Mathematics    11. Mathematics / Applied    12. Optimization   

Reviews (7)

a great book about a revolution in education
Mindstorms is not just about the programming language called Logo. It is about Turtle Graphics and it's application to education. The author explains Turtle Graphics which is combination of programming and geometry. He then puts Turtle Graphics to use explaining how to do draw complicated shapes with it. Finally the author explains the theory behind his insights which is built on the contributions of Piaget a important researcher into the way children understand the world. I greatly enjoyed this book. Papert explains how to combine the process of programming with the process of learning. He shows how to make what is cerebral into a concrete process that children can understand.

Children direct collaborative learning with computers.
This is a book that anyone interested in present-day education of children everywhere should find time to read. For a few weeks, in the summer of 2001, I introduced teenagers in the W. E. B. DuBois Scholars' Program, held on the campus of Princeton University, to the Logo computer programming language invented by the author of this book, MIT professor, Seymour Papert. A leader in the DuBois program sought me out to congratulate me and quoted the students as having repeated over and over that they were ecstatic about what they were learning in my class and that it alone was worth their live-in participation. Indeed, I saw the glow in their eyes and a strong desire to be explorers with Turtle Graphics. Ditto for when I joined fellow volunteers from the MIT Alumni Club of New York City to employ Lego to guide the learning of robotics at Hunter College Elementary School for gifted students in upper Manhattan.
A Classic
This book provides an introduction to Papert's thinking concerning the learning and teaching of math.Prior to developing the LOGO language described in this book, Papert worked closely with Piaget in Switzerland for 5 years.While in Switzerland, Papert observed many of Piaget's experiments with children and the development of their understanding of mathematical concepts.Following Piaget, Papert believed that the math learning that the child comes to know best and that stays with the child always comes from experience and cognition, not from explicit teaching or rote practice.He noted, however, that there were certain mathematical concepts that children should come to know, but that they wouldn't ordinarily learn from experience alone because they might not come across these ideas in ordinary life.This is why he invented the programming language LOGO--a toy that children could play with, experiment with, manipulate, and through doing so, gradually come to call their own the mathematical concepts needed for their games.
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Subjects:  1. Computer-Aided Instruction (General)    2. Computer-assisted instruction    3. Computers & Technology    4. Education    5. Education / Teaching    6. General    7. History & Philosophy    8. Mathematics    9. Psychology    10. Study and teaching    11. Educational resources & technology    12. High level programming languages    13. History of engineering & technology    14. Social history   

Reviews (9)

An epic disappointment
Having enjoyed Arthurian legend in modern retelling, I thought it behove me to go back to an early source. If you are expecting a rousing good story in the style of Mists of Avalon, or Mary Stewarts quartet, or even the Once and future king/The sword in the Stone, you will be quite let down. If you want bare, basic recitation of events (mostly repeating in pattern) then the book is what to expect.
Oh, dear...
If you want to read about hundreds of duels, in a forest, between knights on horseback while they fight each other following the same scenario, duel after duel for more than 1000 (!) pages, following the same pattern while nothing changes but the color of their armor, then this book should be your cup of tea.
A Good Read...
Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur is the culmination of twenty one smaller books written by Malory while incarcerated during the late fifteenth century.Little else in known about Malory himself, however, this romance of Old England draws its material from accounts and legends of chivalrous English Kings, and today inspires and entertains creative minds of all backgrounds.Legend has it that the adult King Arthur is based on a Roman General who claimed lordship over the Anglicans after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire.Verifiable facts regarding the historical origins of King Arthur and his knights, if there are any, are very scarce.For this reason, as well as speculation regarding how much of Malory's work is factually based, it is near impossible to discern fact from fiction in Arthurian Legend.This same conundrum holds true for other anonymous or unknown Arthurian authors as well.
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Subjects:  1. Europe - Great Britain - General    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: World    5. 16th to 18th century fiction    6. COMPUTERS - Persnl Comptg TRD PB    7. History / Great Britain    8. Other prose: classical, early & medieval    9. United Kingdom, Great Britain   

Editorial Review

Author Edsger W. Dijkstra introduces Read more

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Reviews (8)

How to loop.
This book shows by example that iterative algorithms can be derived - you don't need a lucky inspiration to discover them. If you have ever vacillated between putting something in the initialization or body of a loop; or written a loop that doesn't terminate in some cases; this will change your whole approach to coding.

excellent
This is an excellent book in reasoning about programs.It is fairly rigorous and requires a bit of math maturity, and the reader should be warned that formal methods of computer science have evolved quite a bit since 1976.By this I refer to axiomatic program verification and semantics.The key characteristic of this book is that it is built around discussing real world algorithms.This makes the practical consequences of the analysis more evident than in a typical textbook format.

Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there
I really wanted to get my hands on this book and now that i have (via interlibrary loan) i want to warn folks that this is not light reading.I found a majority of this book very boring and all but impenetrable.I like Dijkstra's English prose, but when he embarks on the math I wish he'd state the point of each set of formulae above them. It would have also helped if he stressed practical uses of his insights vis-a-vis an actual programming language.This "just shows how much I know" I'm sure, but I suspect many people will feel similarly. FYI: My background is Bachelor's in C.S. with a C.S. GPA of 3.87/4.0.A depressing indictment of U.S. education, Dijkstra would say :) ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - General Information    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer programming    4. Computers - General Information    5. Information Theory    6. Questions & Answers    7. Computers / Information Theory    8. History of ideas, intellectual history   

Reviews (2)

Fun to read
A sequel to his prior book, "the evolution of cooperation". Great Companion to'The Evolution of Cooperation'
This books covers what Robert Axelrod been up to since "The Evolution of Cooperation." Extensions to the original "Prisoner's Dilemma" have required new agent behaviors for stable solutions. Read more

Subjects:  1. Adaptability (Psychology)    2. Adjustment (Psychology)    3. Competition    4. Conflict management    5. Cooperativeness    6. History & Theory - General    7. Personal Growth - Success    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Politics/International Relations    10. Social Science    11. Sociology - General    12. Computer modelling & simulation    13. Economics    14. Political Science / History & Theory    15. Political Science and International Relations    16. Social research & statistics   

Reviews (4)

The history of soil erosion
By the 1990s, U.S miners moved about 4 billion tons of rock per year, and the world figures was about five times that."All this mining corroded the lithosphere with a warren of underground shafts and chambers, and after the appearance of the requisite earth-moving machinery, pockmarked the earth's surface with thousands of huge open pits, mainly in the United States, Russia, Germany, and Australia.
What bird's eye?
I love ambitious books, and today's world needs big perspectives. But this book is rooted more in current American values than in historical facts. A major work for general readers
W.H. McNeill has written several of the top 20 works for specialists and general audience on general history. This work is a breathtaking overview of world history seen in the context of environment.Read more

Subjects:  1. Social Science    2. Sociology    3. Sociology - General    4. World Wide Web (WWW)    5. World history   

Reviews (3)

A fascinating subject
The word `ergodic' is very familiar in mathematics and physics, where in the former it designates measure-preserving transformations and in the latter an equivalence between time and space averages. To see the term appear in literary analysis is therefore interesting, and instigates curiosity as to its role there. The author of this book is the first one to refer to `ergodic literature' and he therefore gives the reader insight into the subject that perhaps cannot be obtained anywhere else. As a whole the book is very interesting, even though at times it might appear that the author is skating to close to the `deconstructive' school of literary criticism.
Just get it
... what else is necessary to say. This book will spur so many thoughts and ideas that you will be reading it for ever after. It is a must for any serious hypertext/cybertext scholar.

THE book on interactive narrative studies
Aristotle is alive and he is norwegian! Finally here is the lost book of Poetics. If you are one of the rare race of people that like to think about videogames rather than play with them, you will love this book. Maybe many scholars won't pay Aarseth much attention, but time will speak by itself. This is the most intelligent, visionary and interesting book available about interactive fiction/narrative/drama/or-whatever-name-you-like. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Communication and technology    2. Data processing    3. Discourse analysis, Literary    4. Literary Criticism    5. Literature - Classics / Criticism    6. Literature and technology    7. Semiotics & Theory    8. Computing and Information Technology    9. History / Ancient / General    10. Literary studies: general   

Reviews (9)

Good WWII Uniform Reference
For anyone needing a good, general, reference to German uniforms - complete with pictures, this one will definitely work. I can see this being extremely useful for reactors; particularly for those doing later war impressions.
problem solution for modeler
if you are a modeler,this book could give you away out for details colour in german soldier uniform. and most of all not only the uniform but also like straps and buckles there are explanation about the color ( not like we thought that it always painted in metal colour).
GERMAN SOLDIERS OF WORLD WAR TWO
Nice book. Big pictures with detail of other items such as canteens, pistol belts, suspenders, boots, and pouches. Perfect for the military modeler. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Computers    2. Data Modeling & Design    3. History    4. History - Military / War    5. Military    6. Military - World War II    7. European history: Second World War    8. Germany    9. History / Military / World War II    10. Second World War, 1939-1945    11. Uniforms & insignia   

Reviews (5)

must-read critical intro to information society theories
This book is a college graduate-level (perhaps precocious upper undergrad) critical introduction to various information society theories. The author admits early on that he does not believe we have entered a new "information age" even as he concedes various points--sometimes quite important points--that there have been big changes in society because of changes in technology, networks, and information flows. As a result of his stated biases, he sometimes comes across as more critical of those he doesn't agree with (Bell, Castells, etc.) than those he does (Giddens, etc.), although in each chapter he does try to show a critical perspective of each scholars' theories.
A sociologist looks at mythsof the information revolution
This book by an Oxford sociologist may bring tears, if not frustration, to Internet geeks, and information policy wonks alike. Be forewarned!