- Table View
- List View
Shopkeeping: Stories, Advice, and Observations
by Peter MillerA love letter to the small shop, and shop owners everywhere, by beloved bookseller Peter Miller.For more than four decades, Peter Miller has run a design bookshop that shares his name in Seattle. He has also written three of his own books, manuals about cooking and about food and about eating together. In Shopkeeping, Miller writes for the first time about his other love: shopkeeping."There is a tradition of shopkeeping, a tradition of codes, etiquette, and customs. For the most part, it is an oral history, passed along, person to person. You learn to be a retailer—not by going to college, but by going to work. You learn from people who have learned how to run a shop." [from the Introduction]Over ten chapters, Miller crafts stories from the bookshop floor with wry humor and skillful storytelling. Readers will laugh out loud as they come to understand along the way that small shops characterize our towns and cities, making them unique, special, and worth visiting and living near. An essay collection for book and bookshop lovers, small business owners, and Seattle natives, transplants, and visitors, Shopkeeping captures the art and heart of running a local shop cherished by the community that surrounds it.
The Shut Up and Shoot Video Production Guide: A Down & Dirty DV Production
by Anthony Q. ArtisAnthony Q. Artis is a 30-year veteran of the fi lm and TV industry whose features and TV shows have screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the IFP Market, as well as on MTV and the Independent Film Channel. Anthony works professionally as a producer, director, and cinematographer at MightyAntMedia.com and has taught video production at New York University for two decades now. He is the author of the bestselling Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide (2014), The Shut Up and Shoot Freelance Video Guide (2011), and numerous fi lmmaking courses on LinkedInLearning.com . Accessible and comprehensive, this book is a great introduction on how to make movies and video projects with limited resources, time, or experience. Artis will teach readers the “Down and Dirty” filmmaking mindset, which forces fi lmmakers to be creative with their resources, do more with less, and result in a better, faster, and less expensive product. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Artis covers such wide-ranging topics as composition, lens choice, smartphone filmmaking, audio equipment, lighting and grip basics, and much more. With more than 500 full-color pictures, tips from pros, checklists, and case studies, readers will be well prepared to apply their knowledge to their shoots. Written by an indie filmmaker for indie filmmakers, this book is perfect for rookies, veterans, and students who want to maximize their budget while turning in top-quality work.
Silver Gelatin In the Digital Age: A Step-by-Step Manual for Digital/Analog Hybrid Photography (Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography)
by Douglas EthridgeThis book provides photographers of all skill levels with a concise step-by-step guide to combining analog and digital tools with the goal of making silver gelatin prints in the traditional darkroom. It offers the most comprehensive treatment of lith printing published in many years, focusing on materials which are currently available. Key topics include traditional silver gelatin printing, direct and second-pass lith printing, film to digital image conversion, bleaching, toning and other post-production practices. Readers will learn how to use specific Photoshop tools to carry out the time-honored techniques of overall tonal control, contrast, and burning and dodging. This also features Photoshop basics for black and white, image shaping in Photoshop, and digital negative creation. Through exploring these skills, readers will gain an understanding of how to prepare images and create negatives that can be used in other historical processes including cyanotype, platinum/palladium, and many others. Author Douglas Ethridge details a systematic approach to combining analog and digital working methods, making the text ideal for both digital photographers looking to creatively edit their images with traditional darkroom aesthetics, and film photographers looking to incorporate digital capabilities into their practice
The Sinful Maternal: Motherhood in Possession Films (Horror and Monstrosity Studies Series)
by Lauren RochaPregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery are challenging experiences that impact women’s physical, mental, and emotional health in ways that have been historically minimalized, dismissed, or neglected. A mother’s body becomes a public body, physically and politically not her own, instead shared by her spouse, her children, and those around her. Her body, therefore, makes the perfect vessel for an invasive presence—or possession. The Sinful Maternal: Motherhood in Possession Films examines the role of mothers and motherhood in ten possession films, including Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Babadook, and Hereditary. Chapters discuss the work of such directors as James Wan, Jennifer Kent, Robert Eggers, and Ari Aster to address how their cinematic approaches to these films produce rich possession narratives that explore different facets of motherhood and women’s agency. Working at the intersections of gender studies, architectural theory, trauma studies, and monster theory, with a particular focus on the treatment of (often unruly) female bodies, author Lauren Rocha investigates the ways in which motherhood is a fertile state for possession and how possession acts to influence, destabilize, and reshape identity and the self. Placing the films in chronological order, she closely analyzes the ways in which sociocultural influences create different roles women and mothers are expected to perform. Ultimately, Rocha demonstrates how possession offers a way to challenge performative motherhood to free the self.
The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania
by Brad BalukjianFrom the bestselling author of The Wax Pack, comes another eye‑opening road trip adventure into a pocket of iconic pop culture—professional wrestling—starring the Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, Tito Santana, and many more larger‑than‑life characters of the WWF in the 1980s. "Perhaps one of the most truthful and enjoyable reads about my profession ever. I absolutely loved this book." —Former WWF Champion Bret "The Hitman" Hart In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian&’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search of not only a reunion with the Sheik, but something much bigger: truth in a world built on illusion. Balukjian seeks out six of the Sheik&’s contemporaries, fellow witnesses to the World Wrestling Federation&’s (WWF) explosion in the mid-&‘80s, to unearth their true identities. As Balukjian drives 12,525 miles around the country, we revisit the heady days when these avatars of strength, villainy, and heroism first found fame and see where their journeys took them. From working out with Tony Atlas (Tony White) to visiting Hulk Hogan&’s (Terry Bollea) karaoke bar, we see where these men are now and how they have navigated the cliffs of fame.The Six Pack combines the spirit of a fan with the rigor of an investigative reporter, tracking down former WWF employees, childhood friends, and mutually curious archivists. Wrestling is perceived as a subculture without a cultural home, somewhere between sport and theater—often dismissed as silly and low‑brow. But what makes this book so compelling is the humanity beneath each wrestler. The Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, and the rest of the cast were not characters in a comic book movie. They were real people, with families and feelings and bodies that could break. Most of them did, in fact, break; some have been repaired, but none of them will ever be the same.
The Sleeping Beauties
by Lucy AsheAn unputdownable tale of obsession, jealousy and heartache against the backdrop of WW2 May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril. But a chance meeting with a Sadler&’s Wells ballet dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund&’s train carriage, it&’s clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems. For Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of the Sleeping Beauty ballet that is so much a part of her, but her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet. This, Briar feels, is a show for a mother and daughter. A dance that could turn deadly… One of Lucy Popescu's Books to Look Forward to in 2024 in Camden New Journal
Slow Onset Disasters: Linking Urban Built Environment and User-oriented Strategies to Assess and Mitigate Multiple Risks (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Graziano Salvalai Enrico Quagliarini Juan Diego Blanco Cadena Gabriele BernardiniThe book provides an overview of the Slow Onset Disasters (SLOD) in the urban built environment discussing potential strategies to assess and mitigate multiple climate change related risks. Climate change evidence has been reported in the last decades, suggesting that the anthropogenic activities are accelerating these changes towards a warmer and more polluted environment. In this context, SLODs have been linked to climate change related disasters and have been stated to have a higher impact risk within dense built environment (BE). Therefore, the book presents a description of the most relevant SLODs, their significance, and confluence, the way in which scientists and entities are monitoring their progression at different scales, a structured risk assessment strategy and the deconstruction of the BE characteristics that make it more prone to SLODs risk. In addition, it highlights the necessity of adapting the traditional risk assessment methods, to account for different vulnerability types, including the morphology and materiality of the BE, and the BE users’ characteristics. In fact, individual features influence users’ responses and tolerance to environmental stressors, because of age, health, gender, habits, and behaviour, thus impacting the users’ vulnerability. Exposure can then amplify these issues, since it defines the number of users that can be effectively affected by the SLOD. Starting from this perspective, the book first traces literature-based correlations between individual features, use behaviour, and individual response to the SLOD-altered open spaces. Then, a novel methodology, to quantify the variations of users’ vulnerability and exposure, is offered, to support designers in quickly defining input scenarios for risk assessment and mitigation. Lastly, it demonstrates, through a case study, the SLOD risk assessment framework proposed and the evaluation of the efficacy of risk mitigation strategies.
Slow Planning?: Timescapes, Power and Democracy
by Mark Dobson Gavin ParkerA deep exploration on how questions of time and its organisation affect planning practice, this book questions ‘project speed’: where time to think, deliberate and plan has been squeezed. The authors demonstrate the many benefits of slow planning for the key participants, multiple interests and planning system overall.
Slum Boy: A Portrait
by Juano DiazOne of the most moving accounts of non fiction ever written according to the Guardian 'This is a heart-breaking story, beautifully told. I hope it finds a million readers' - Andrew O'Hagan'What a brave and powerful story. If you like Shuggie Bain and Damian Barr then Slumboy is for you' - Lemn Sissay'Compulsively readable, it's Dickensian in its rich cast of Glaswegian characters' - Patrick GaleJohn MacDonald must find his mother. Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return.A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her. His mind is consumed with images and memories he can't process or understand, which his eventual adoptive parents silence out of fear as he grows into a young man within a strict Catholic and Romany Gypsy community.This memoir is about how John found his way to his true identity, Juano Diaz, and how, against all odds, his unstoppable love for his mother sets him free.
Slum Boy: A Portrait
by Juano DiazOne of the most moving accounts of non fiction ever written according to the Guardian 'This is a heart-breaking story, beautifully told. I hope it finds a million readers' - Andrew O'Hagan'What a brave and powerful story. If you like Shuggie Bain and Damian Barr then Slumboy is for you' - Lemn Sissay'Compulsively readable, it's Dickensian in its rich cast of Glaswegian characters' - Patrick GaleJohn MacDonald must find his mother. Born into the slums of Glasgow in the late '70s, a 4-year-old John's life is filled with the debris of alcoholism and poverty. Soon after witnessing a drowning, his mother's addictions take over their lives, leaving him starving in their flat, awaiting her return.A concerned neighbor reports her, and he is forcibly taken away from his mother and placed into the care system. There, he dreams of being reunited with her. His mind is consumed with images and memories he can't process or understand, which his eventual adoptive parents silence out of fear as he grows into a young man within a strict Catholic and Romany Gypsy community.This memoir is about how John found his way to his true identity, Juano Diaz, and how, against all odds, his unstoppable love for his mother sets him free.
Small Signal Audio Design
by Douglas SelfSmall Signal Audio Design is a highly practical handbook providing an extensive repertoire of circuits that can be assembled to make almost any type of audio system. This fully revised fourth edition offers wholly new content on internally balanced audio design, electret microphones, emitter-follower stability, microphony in capacitors, and much, much more. This book continues the engaging prose style familiar to readers as you learn why mercury-filled cables are not a good idea, the pitfalls of plating gold on copper, and what quotes from Star Trek have to do with PCB design. Learn how to: make amplifiers with apparently impossibly low noise design discrete circuitry that can handle enormous signals with vanishingly low distortion transform the performance of low-cost opamps build active filters with very low noise and distortion while saving money on expensive capacitors make incredibly accurate volume controls make a huge variety of audio equalisers use load synthesis to make magnetic cartridge preamplifiers that have noise so low it is limited by basic physics sum, switch, clip, compress, and route audio signals build simple but ultra-low noise power supplies be confident that phase perception is not an issue. Including all the crucial theories, but with minimal mathematics, Small Signal Audio Design is the must-have companion for anyone studying, researching, or working in audio engineering and audio electronics.
Smart and Healthy Walking: Toward Better Health and Life in Smart Cities (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)
by Tin-Chih Toly Chen Yun-Ju LeeThis book examines smart technologies and their invaluable role in augmenting the walking experience of mobile users. From meticulously planned walking routes to precise footprint detection and analysis, as well as cutting-edge fall detection and prevention mechanisms, these intelligent technologies have the potential to revolutionize healthy and smart walking. Against the backdrop of the post-COVID-19 era, where unrestricted mobility has become pivotal for restoring normalcy, the demand for smart healthcare solutions has soared. The book explores latest advances in sensor technology, cloud computing, deep learning, and networking and related innovative applications that can leverage smart technologies to enhance healthy walking.
Smart Cities and the Poor: Towards an Agenda for Inclusive Urbanization in India
by Alok Kumar MishraDeveloping countries worldwide have been embarking on ‘smart cities’ programmes using new technology solutions to improve public services. Faced with severe problems of digital divide, poverty, unemployment, inequality, and financial and social exclusion, these cities have to negotiate hard in order to reach their goals. This book examines urban governance, digital divide, poverty, unemployment, and financial and social exclusion and presents a theoretical perspective on inclusive cities, urbanization, migration, slums,and affordable housing. The book aims at formulating and implementing an agenda for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable urban development in tune with the UN-SDGs, the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III, and India’s new national urban missions. It probes into the scope of adopting inclusionary urban planning, zoning, and housing, financing inclusive city development, and poverty alleviation through municipal finance reforms using findings and lessons from detailed field studies of Indian cities. It also suggests an agenda for slum-free and poverty-free cities in an attempt to make these cities more people-focused, humane, and inclusionary. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political science, policy studies, public administration, urban studies, urban planning and management, urban sociology, and geography, besides being of interest to policy researchers, community workers, grass roots researchers, policymakers, and sociologists.
Smart Cities and the Poor: Towards an Agenda for Inclusive Urbanization in India
by Alok MishraDeveloping countries worldwide have been embarking on ‘smart cities’ programmes using new technology solutions to improve public services. Faced with severe problems of digital divide, poverty, unemployment, inequality, and financial and social exclusion, these cities have to negotiate hard in order to reach their goals. This book examines urban governance, digital divide, poverty, unemployment, and financial and social exclusion and presents a theoretical perspective on inclusive cities, urbanization, migration, slums,and affordable housing.The book aims at formulating and implementing an agenda for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable urban development in tune with the UN-SDGs, the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III, and India’s new national urban missions. It probes into the scope of adopting inclusionary urban planning, zoning, and housing, financing inclusive city development, and poverty alleviation through municipal finance reforms using findings and lessons from detailed field studies of Indian cities. It also suggests an agenda for slum-free and poverty-free cities in an attempt to make these cities more people-focused, humane, and inclusionary.This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political science, policy studies, public administration, urban studies, urban planning and management, urban sociology, and geography, besides being of interest to policy researchers, community workers, grass roots researchers, policymakers, and sociologists.
Smart Cities in Poland: Towards sustainability and a better quality of life?
by Izabela Jonek-Kowalska Radosław WolniakThis book considers and examines the concept of a Smart City in the context of improving the quality of life and sustainable development in Central and Eastern European cities. The Smart City concept has been gaining popularity in recent years, with supporters considering it to be an effective tool to improve the quality of life of the city’s residents. In turn, opponents argue that it is a source of imbalance and claim that it escalates the problems of social and economic exclusion. This book, therefore, assesses the quality of life and its unsustainability in Central and Eastern European cities within the context of the Smart City concept and from the perspective of key areas of sustainable development. Using case studies of selected cities in Central and Eastern Europe and representative surveysof Polish cities, this book illustrates the process of creating smart cities and their impact on improving the quality of life of citizens. Specifically, this book investigates the conditions that a Smart City has to meet to become sustainable, how the Smart City concept can support the improvement of the residents’ quality of life and how Central and Eastern European countries create smartcity solutions. Containing both theoretical and practical content, this book will be of relevance to researchers and students interested in smart cities and urban planning, as well as city authorities and city stakeholders who are planning to implement the Smart City concept.
Smart City Blueprint: Framework, Technology, Platform
by Tan YigitcanlarThe smart city movement, during the last decade and a half, advocated the built environment and digital technology convergence with the backing of institutional capital and government support. The commitment of a significant number of local governments across the globe, in terms of official smart city policies and initiatives, along with the constant push of global technology giants, has reinforced the popularity of this movement. This two-volume treatment on smart cities thoroughly explores and sheds light on the prominent elements of the smart city phenomenon and generates a smart city blueprint. This first volume, with its 12 chapters, provides a sound understanding on the key foundations and growth directions of smart city frameworks, technologies, and platforms, with theoretical expansions, practical implications, and real-world case study lessons. The second companion volume offers sophisticated perspectives on the key foundations and directions of smart city policies, communities, and urban futures, with theoretical expansions, practical implications, and real-world case study lessons. This book is an invaluable reference source for urban policymakers, managers, planners, practitioners, and many others, particularly to benefit from it when tackling key urban and societal issues and planning for and delivering smart city solutions. Moreover, the book is also a rich and important repository for scholars and research and undergraduate students as it communicates the complex smart city phenomenon in an easy to digest form, by providing both the big picture view and specifics of each component of that view. It also appeals to local government agencies and smart city practitioners.
Smart City: A Critical Assessment (The City Project #6)
by Dario Costi Giovanni LeoniThis contributed volume reports on a multidisciplinary collective work on the topic of Smart City, merging scientific reflections and operational issues. Here, current Smart Cities concepts are subjected to criticism, while the related terminology has been updated to contemplate a model of urban development capable of integrating technical and humanistic culture by fostering an open dialogue between different stakeholders. Upon an introduction to the state of the art, this book presents a glossary of definitions and concepts around the contemporary city, and five interviews with researchers and scholars of different background. The last chapter summarizes current challenges in designing the city of the future, highlighting new research directions in home-infrastructure, small smart city, energy transition, connectivity, digitalization and autonomous and connected mobility.Written by the members of the Scientific Committee of the Smart City 4.0 Sustainable LAB ResearchLaboratory, an inter-university network including research groups from the University of Parma, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, University of Bologna, University of Ferrara, the Polytechnic University of Milan, and the Catholic University of Milan with its Piacenza campus, this book offers a source of inspiration for other researchers and stakeholders, and it is intended to foster collaborations between different stakeholders - and possibly countries – to develop future cities that are wise, green, sustainable and inclusive.
So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We're Still So Obsessed With It)
by Jennifer Keishin ArmstrongFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia comes the totally fetch story of one of the most iconic teen comedies of all time, Mean Girls, revealing how it happened, how it defined a generation, “like, invented” meme culture, and why it just won’t go away, filled with exclusive interviews from the director, cast, and crew. Get in, loser. We’re going back to 2004.It’s been 20 years since Mean Girls hit theaters, winning over critics and audiences alike with its razor-sharp wit, star-making turns for its then unknown cast, and obsessively quotable screenplay by Tina Fey. Fast forward two decades and Mean Girls remains as relevant as ever. Arguably, no other movie from the 2000s has had as big of an impact on pop culture.In So Fetch, New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, offers the first ever authoritative book about this beloved classic that shaped an entire generation. Based off revealing interviews with the director, cast, and crew, So Fetch tells the full story of the making of Mean Girls, from Tina Fey’s brilliant adaptation of a self-help guide for parents of teen girls, to the challenges of casting Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and the iconic supporting players. So Fetch also explores the film’s lasting cultural influence, from its role in the rise of Y2K tabloid culture, impact on girls of all ages and lgbtq+ culture, to how we use it to define female relationships to this day.Timed for the 20th anniversary and the release of the new movie musical adaptation, So Fetch is the perfect companion for fans and anyone who understands that when it comes to Mean Girls’ enduring legacy, the limit does not exist!
Social Practices and City Spaces: Towards a Cooperative and Inclusive Inhabited Space (Routledge Research in Architecture)
by Kyriaki TsoukalaThis book examines the relationship between social practices and built space, focusing on current cooperative/participative and posthuman approaches to its production and management. From a social-cultural-and-ecological perspective, it explores the modes of engagement of all factors in the constitutional processes of inhabited space. Throughout this interdisciplinary collection, built space is reconsidered in the light of other schools of thought such as philosophy, anthropology, social sciences and political theories and practices. It covers new ground at conceptual, epistemic and methodological levels, focusing on inhabited space from within the framework of globalisation, biopolitics, cultural changes, environmental crisis and new technologies. Organised into three parts, Parts 1 and 2 focus on the role of architects in the emergence of a new ethos for habitation, as well as the modalities of the inclusion of differences in design, discussing the importance of participation and narrative at a theoretical and practical level in architecture. In the third part, the chapters delve into questions regarding the intersection of design, ecology and technoscience in a posthuman approach, which might support the inclusion of differences in design and the emergence of a new environmental ethos. Providing a stimulating landscape of arguments and challenges to new readings of architecture, society and the environment, this book will be of interest to researchers, students and professionals of architecture, urban planning, anthropology and philosophy.
Social Robotics: 15th International Conference, ICSR 2023, Doha, Qatar, December 3–7, 2023, Proceedings, Part I (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14453)
by Abdulaziz Al Ali John-John Cabibihan Nader Meskin Silvia Rossi Wanyue Jiang Hongsheng He Shuzhi Sam GeThe two-volume set LNAI 14453 and 14454 constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2023, held in Doha, Qatar, during December 4–7, 2023. The 68 revised full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 83 submissions. They deal with topics around the interaction between humans and intelligent robots and on the integration of robots into the fabric of society. This year the special topic is "Human-Robot Collaboration: Sea; Air; Land; Space and Cyberspace”, focusing on all physical and cyber-physical domains where humans and robots collaborate.
Social Robotics: 15th International Conference, ICSR 2023, Doha, Qatar, December 3–7, 2023, Proceedings, Part II (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14454)
by Abdulaziz Al Ali John-John Cabibihan Nader Meskin Silvia Rossi Wanyue Jiang Hongsheng He Shuzhi Sam GeThe two-volume set LNAI 14453 and 14454 constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2023, held in Doha, Qatar, during December 4–7, 2023. The 68 revised full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 83 submissions. They deal with topics around the interaction between humans and intelligent robots and on the integration of robots into the fabric of society. This year the special topic is "Human-Robot Collaboration: Sea; Air; Land; Space and Cyberspace”, focusing on all physical and cyber-physical domains where humans and robots collaborate.
Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators (Equity and Social Justice in Education Series)
by Noreen Naseem Rodriguez Katy SwalwellPlan and deliver a curriculum to help your students connect with the humanity of others! In the wake of 2020, we need today’s young learners to be prepared to develop solutions to a host of entrenched and complex issues, including systemic racism, massive environmental problems, deep political divisions, and future pandemics that will severely test the effectiveness and equity of our health policies. What better place to start that preparation than with a social studies curriculum that enables elementary students to envision and build a better world? In this engaging guide two experienced social studies educators unpack the oppressions that so often characterize the elementary curriculum—normalization, idealization, heroification, and dramatization—and show how common pitfalls can be replaced with creative solutions. Whether you’re a classroom teacher, methods student, or curriculum coordinator, this is a book that can transform your understanding of the social studies disciplines and their power to disrupt the narratives that maintain current inequities.
Solar Adobe: Energy, Ecology, and Earthen Architecture
by Albert NarathHow a centuries-old architectural tradition reemerged as a potential solution to the political and environmental crises of the 1970s Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, a widespread movement embracing the use of raw earth materials for building construction emerged in the 1970s. Solar Adobe examines this new wave of architectural experimentation taking place in the United States, detailing how an ancient tradition became a point of convergence for issues of environmentalism, architecture, technology, and Indigenous resistance. Utilized for centuries by the Pueblo people of the American Southwest and by Spanish colonialists, adobe construction found renewed interest as various groups contended with the troubled legacies of modern architecture and an increasingly urgent need for sustainable design practices. In this period of critical experimentation, design networks that included architects, historians, counterculture communities, government weapons labs, and Indigenous activists all looked to adobe as a means to address pressing environmental and political issues. Albert Narath charts the unique capacities of adobe construction across a wide range of contexts, consistently troubling simple distinctions between traditional and modern technologies, high design and vernacular architecture. Drawing insightful parallels between architecture, environmentalism, and movements for Indigenous sovereignty, Solar Adobe stresses the importance of considering the history of the built environment in conjunction with architecture&’s larger impact on the natural world.
Solar Chimney Applications in Buildings: For Engineers and Scientists (Green Energy and Technology)
by Long Shi Haihua ZhangThis book comprehensively describes the operating principles and theoretical foundations of solar chimneys. It covers current research results, including numerical analysis and mathematical models based on different assumptions. Complying with the application of renewable energy in sustainable buildings, solar chimney has received extensive attention as an indispensable part natural ventilation. This book is a guide to the application of solar chimneys from single zones to multi zones, and it provides a reference source of application for construction practitioners and engineering decision-makers. The design basis and the related basic principles of fluid mechanics and natural ventilation design strategies introduced in this book will also be beneficial to college students.
Song of the Six Realms
by Judy I. LinXue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract. <P><P> With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. For a young man of nobility, he is strangely kind and awkward, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible offer: serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture. <P><P> But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country noble: He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent. <P><P> The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war… but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms. <p> <b>New York Times Bestseller</b>