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Free as in Freedom [Paperback]: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software
by Sam WilliamsFree as in Freedom interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software movement. It examines Stallman's unique personality and how that personality has been at turns a driving force and a drawback in terms of the movement's overall success.Free as in Freedom examines one man's 20-year attempt to codify and communicate the ethics of 1970s era "hacking" culture in such a way that later generations might easily share and build upon the knowledge of their computing forebears. The book documents Stallman's personal evolution from teenage misfit to prescient adult hacker to political leader and examines how that evolution has shaped the free software movement. Like Alan Greenspan in the financial sector, Richard Stallman has assumed the role of tribal elder within the hacking community, a community that bills itself as anarchic and averse to central leadership or authority. How did this paradox come about? Free as in Freedom provides an answer. It also looks at how the latest twists and turns in the software marketplace have diminished Stallman's leadership role in some areas while augmenting it in others.Finally, Free as in Freedom examines both Stallman and the free software movement from historical viewpoint. Will future generations see Stallman as a genius or crackpot? The answer to that question depends partly on which side of the free software debate the reader currently stands and partly upon the reader's own outlook for the future. 100 years from now, when terms such as "computer," "operating system" and perhaps even "software" itself seem hopelessly quaint, will Richard Stallman's particular vision of freedom still resonate, or will it have taken its place alongside other utopian concepts on the 'ash-heap of history?'
Theory of Fun for Game Design
by Raph KosterNow in full color, the 10th anniversary edition of this classic book takes you deep into the influences that underlie modern video games, and examines the elements they share with traditional games such as checkers. At the heart of his exploration, veteran game designer Raph Koster takes a close look at the concept of fun and why it’s the most vital element in any game.Why do some games become boring quickly, while others remain fun for years? How do games serve as fundamental and powerful learning tools? Whether you’re a game developer, dedicated gamer, or curious observer, this illustrated, fully updated edition helps you understand what drives this major cultural force, and inspires you to take it further.You’ll discover that:Games play into our innate ability to seek patterns and solve puzzlesMost successful games are built upon the same elementsSlightly more females than males now play gamesMany games still teach primitive survival skillsFictional dressing for modern games is more developed than the conceptual elementsTruly creative designers seldom use other games for inspirationGames are beginning to evolve beyond their prehistoric origins
iPod: The Missing Manual, Eleventh Edition
by David Pogue J. D. BiersdorferApple’s iPods continue to set the bar for media players, with bold new features like the Touch’s supersized screen and Siri voice control. But iPods still lack a guide to all their features. That’s where this full-color book comes in. It shows you how to play music, movies, and slideshows; shoot photos and videos; and navigate Apple's redesigned iTunes media-management program.The important stuff you need to know:Fill it up. Load your iPod with music, photos, movies, TV shows, games, ebooks, and podcasts.Manage your stuff. Download media and apps from the iTunes and App Stores, then organize your collection.Tackle the Touch. Send email and instant messages, make FaceTime calls, and shoot photos and HD video with the Touch's 5-megapixel camera.Go wireless. Use the Touch’s new iOS 6 software to sync content wirelessly.Relish the Nano. Enjoy video and photos on the Nano’s new big screen, and chart your workouts with the Nike+ pedometer.Master the Shuffle and Classic. Get mucho music on the little Shuffle, and use the Classic’s giant hard drive to tote around your audio and video collections.Pump it up. Blast iPod tunes through your home and car stereo.
Grid Layout in CSS: Interface Layout for the Web
by Eric A. MeyerCSS has had a layout-shaped hole at its center since the beginning. Designers have bent features such as float and clear to help fill that hole, but nothing has quite done the job. Now that’s about to change. With this concise guide, you’ll learn how to use CSS grid layout, a generalized system that lets you lay out pieces of your design independent of their document source order and with full awareness of the overall design.Short and deep, this book is an excerpt from the upcoming fourth edition of CSS: The Definitive Guide. When you purchase either the print or the ebook edition of Grid Layout in CSS, you’ll receive a discount on the entire Definitive Guide once it’s released. Why wait? Learn how to make your web pages come alive today.Explore the differences between grid boxes and block containersCreate block-level grids, inline grids, and even nest grids inside gridsLearn best practices for attaching elements to your layout, using explicitly defined grid lines or grid areaUnderstand how the implicit grid automatically adjusts for oversized elementsCreate gutters between grid elements, and align and justify individual itemsEric A. Meyer is an author, speaker, blogger, sometime teacher, and co-founder of An Event Apart. He’s a two-decade veteran of the Web and web standards, a past member of the W3C’s Cascading Style Sheets Working Group, and the author of O’Reilly’s CSS: The Definitive Guide.
Class Act: Ending the Education Wars
by Maxine McKewMaxine McKew makes the case for a considered examination of the transformation that's now underway in some of Australia's most challenged schools. Through a series of conversations and case studies Class Act documents the precise strategies that are helping to change the culture of individual schools and to lift academic performance. Class Act invites reflection on one of our most pressing national dilemmas—how we replicate success across a fragmented educational system and reverse the decline in student performance.
Knowledge Solution: What place does history have in a post-truth world?
by Anna ClarkWhat can we learn from recurring events across the recent history of Australia, of colonisation, nationalism, racism, fighting on foreign shores, land booms, industrial campaigns and culture wars? Arguments about the discipline of Australian History, from thinkers across the ideological and historical spectrum, are distilled in these extracts and essays. The Knowledge Solution: Australian History is the second collection in a series that draws from the remarkable books published by Australia's oldest university press. Contributors include: Bain Attwood, Geoffrey Blainey, Michael Cannon, Raffaello Carboni, Manning Clark, Peter Cochrane, James Curran, Mark Davis, Alexandra Dellios, Richard Evans, Michele Grossman, Marcia Langton, Helen MacDonald, Stuart Macintyre, Janet McCalman, Mark McKenna, Lisa Palmer, Ray Parkin, Rachel Perkins, Robert Reynolds, John Rickard, Kathryn Shain, Peter Spearritt, Peter Sutton, Rebe Taylor, Maureen Tehan, David Unaipon, Jo Wainer, Stuart Ward, Ellen Warne, Myra Willard and Alexis Wright.
Weather Obsession
by Lawrie ZionWe have come a long way since the days when weather information could only be found in the back pages of newspapers. The Weather Obsession takes the temperature of modern weather media and investigates how it has fuelled our fascination with all things climatic.Weather information now pervades everything from our mobile devices to online news and social media, while the Bureau of Meteorology is a daily destination for millions of us. What has made weather so much more than a mere talking point? What happens when this data becomes big business? And what is at stake when it comes to how the media frames our understanding of the relationship between extreme weather and climate change?The Weather Obsession lifts the lid on our insatiable appetite for meteorological media and shows that while we might not have stopped worrying about the forecast, almost all of us have learnt to love the BOM.
Profits of Doom: How vulture capitalism is swallowing the world: Updated Edition
by Antony LoewensteinVulture capitalism has seen the corporation become more powerful than the state, and yet its work is often done by stealth, supported by political and media elites. The result is privatised wars and outsourced detention centres. Mining companies pillaging precious land in developing countries and struggling nations are invaded by NGOs and the corporate dollar. Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein travels to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and across Australia to witness the reality of this largely hidden world of privatised detention centres, the cost of cheap clothing manufacturing and militarised private security. Who is involved and why? Can it be stopped? What are the alternatives in a globalised world? Profits of Doom challenges the fundamentals of our unsustainable way of life and the money-making imperatives driving it.Endorsements for Profits of Doom: 'In Australia, so often bereft of voices of dissent and courage, Antony Loewenstein's tenacious work stands out. Profits of Doom is a journey into a world of mutated economics and corrupt politics that we ignore at our peril.' - John Pilger, independent investigative journalist, author and documentary film-maker 'A great exercise in joining the dots, on essential terrain that too often is ignored. At a time when rapacious private interests campaign to destroy government - so they can cash in on its absence - Loewenstein reports from the frontline in an insidious war.' - Paul McGeough, author of Kill Khalid and chief foreign correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald 'The competition for the most depraved example of the predatory state capitalism of the Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal era is fierce. In this chilling study, based on careful and courageous reporting, and illuminated with perceptive analysis, Antony Loewenstein presents many competitors for the prize, while also helping us understand all too well the saying that man is a wolf to man.' - Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor at MIT and Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy, political activist and author 'Profits of Doom nails the mad idea that the drive for profits will create global wellbeing. Antony Loewenstein delivers a spine-chilling account of the post 9/11 world taken over by vulture capitalism and its political cronies. And this is what we are voting for.' - Bob Brown, former leader of the Australian Greens and director of Sea Shepherd 'Antony Loewenstein's Profits of Doom is a powerful indictment of the corporations and governments across the globe whose unquenchable thirst for resources and power threaten the stability - perhaps even the very existence - of the planet. Loewenstein is no armchair academic or cubicle journalist. The stories in the book are the product of years embedded, in military and economic warzones, with the disempowered of the world, the people from Pakistan to Papua New Guinea and beyond who have the audacity and bravery to fight back against all odds. Loewenstein's keen sense of justice is evident on every page of this book as he gives voice to the voiceless and confronts the powerful. Profits of Doom is a devastating, incisive follow-up to Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine.' - Jeremy Scahill, international best-selling author of Dirty Wars and Blackwater
River: A Journey Through The Murray-Darling Basin
by Chris HammerIn The River, Chris Hammer takes us on a journey through Australia's heartland, following the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, recounting his experiences, his impressions, and, above all, stories of the people he meets along the way. It's a journey punctuated with laughter, sadness and reflection. The River looks past the daily news reports and their sterile statistics, revealing the true impact of our rivers' decline on the people who live along their shores, and on the country as a whole. It's a tale that leaves the reader with a lingering sense of nostalgia for an Australia that may be fading away forever.
Screening For Good Health: The Australian Guide To Health Screening And Immunisation
by Dr Kerry Kirke Dr Nicola Spurrier Martin BrayScreening for Good Health is a practical guide to help you make sense of the hundreds of health messages that we are bombarded with each year. Whether or not there is a family history of a particular illness, screening and immunisation are smart, simple steps anyone can take to counter preventable diseases. Prepared by experts in their field, Screening for Good Health gives an overview of the stages in life, the screening tests and immunisations that are relevant to each age bracket, and the importance of your own record-keeping. An alphabetical listing covers every illness from Alzheimer's Disease through to Osteoporosis to Tuberculosis. For each preventable illness, the entry provides up-to-date information on: - its symptoms - risk factors - disease progression - protective lifestyle choices an individual may consider - the screening tests available - the health services at your disposal, and - the treatment available. Also included is a comprehensive travel health section, with a convenient checklist covering all aspects of health protection during travel, and a first-aid guide.
Public Opinion, Campaign Politics & Media Audiences: New Australian Perspectives
by Bridget Griffen-Foley Associate Professor Sean ScalmerThis timely book investigates the fascinating landscape of media-driven politics through the prisms of 'public opinion', political campaigning, and audiences.From Indigenous voting rights and climate change to talkback radio and right-wing populism, Public Opinion, Campaign Politics & Media Audiences showcases new research in political science, history and media studies. Contributors scrutinise the relationship between polls, party policy and voting behaviour, and evaluate the roles of oratory and the media in electioneering and political communication across Australia, Britain and the United States.The eight chapters are based on papers delivered at a symposium to honour Murray Goot FASSA, Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Relations, on his retirement from Macquarie University.
Bent Uncensored: Australia's Crooked Cops
by Susanna LobezThe sensational murder convictions this winter of former NSW detectives Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara for the killing of drug dealer Jamie Gao has meant that previously suppressed material in Bent can at last be read.James Morton and Susanna Lobez have illustrated, in several Gangland books, that Australia almost certainly has out-ganged other countries. Now their spotlight is turned on corruption within the police services and identifying which state wins the bent cop handicap.Morton and Lobez examine the problems that started with the First Fleet and spread through to the present day, looking at the trouble caused by greed, power, drink, sex, money and, most recently, drugs. They compare the experience in Australia with corruption in America, England and Hong Kong, concentrating in particular on organised corruption at the highest levels, including judges, lawyers and politicians, through to the petty criminals who work our streets.Which state has the shadiest cops? The answer will surprise you.
City Limits: Why Australia's cities are broken and how we can fix them
by Jane-Frances Kelly Paul DoneganOur bush heritage helped to define our identity, but today Australia is a nation of cities. A higher proportion of Australians live in cities than almost any other country, and most of our national wealth is generated in them. For most of the twentieth century, our cities gave us some of the highest living standards in the world. But they are no longer keeping up with changes in how we live and how our economy works. The distance between where people live and where they work is growing fast. The housing market isn't working, locking many Australians out of where and how they'd like to live. The daily commute is getting longer, putting pressure on social and family life and driving up living costs. Instead of bringing us together, Australia's cities are dividing Australians-between young and old, rich and poor, the outer suburbs and the inner city. Neglecting our cities has real consequences for our lives now, and for our future prosperity. Using stories and case studies to show how individuals, families and businesses experience life in cities today, this book provides an account of why Australia's cities are broken, and how to fix them.
Warfare and Culture in World History, Second Edition (Warfare And Culture Ser. #9)
by Wayne E. LeeAn expanded edition of the leading text on military history and the role of culture on the battlefieldIdeas matter in warfare. Guns may kill, but ideas determine when, where, and how they are used. Traditionally, military historians attempted to explain the ideas behind warfare in strictly rational terms, but over the past few decades, a stronger focus has been placed on how societies conceptualize war, weapons, violence, and military service, to determine how culture informs the battlefield. Warfare and Culture in World History, Second Edition, is a collection of some of the most compelling recent efforts to analyze warfare through a cultural lens. These curated essays draw on, and aggressively expand, traditional scholarship on war and society through sophisticated cultural analysis. Chapters range from an organizational analysis of American Civil War field armies, to an exploration of military culture in late Republican Rome, to debates within Ming Chinese officialdom over extermination versus pacification.In addition to a revised and expanded introduction, the second edition of Warfare and Culture in World History now adds new chapters on the role of herding in shaping Mongol strategies, Spanish military culture and its effects on the conquest of the New World, and the blending of German and East African military cultures among the Africans who served in the German colonial army. This volume provides a full range of case studies of how culture, whether societal, strategic, organizational, or military, could shape not only military institutions but also actual battlefield choices.
Border Optics: Surveillance Cultures on the US-Mexico Frontier (Critical Cultural Communication)
by Camilla FojasExamines how the US-Mexico border is seen through visual codes of surveillance When Donald Trump promised to “build a wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border, both supporters and opponents visualized a snaking barrier of concrete cleaving through nearly two thousand miles of arid desert. Though only 4 percent of the US population lives in proximity to the border, imagining what the wall would look like came easily to most Americans, in part because of how images of the border are reproduced and circulated for national audiences. Border Optics considers the US-Mexico border as one of the most visualized and imagined spaces in the US. As a place of continual crisis, permanent visibility, and territorial defense, the border is rendered as a layered visual space of policing—one that is seen from watchtowers, camera-mounted vehicles, helicopters, surveillance balloons, radar systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, and live streaming websites. It is also a space that is visualized across various forms and genres of media, from maps to geographical surveys, military strategic plans, illustrations, photographs, postcards, novels, film, and television, which combine fascination with the region with the visual codes of surveillance and survey.Border Optics elaborates on the expanded vision of the border as a consequence of the interface of militarism, technology, and media. Camilla Fojas describes how the perception of the viewing public is controlled through a booming security-industrial complex made up of entertainment media, local and federal police, prisons and detention centers, the aerospace industry, and all manner of security technology industries. The first study to examine visual codes of surveillance within an analysis of the history and culture of the border region, Border Optics is an innovative and groundbreaking examination of security cultures, race, gender, and colonialism.
An Oasis City (ISAW Monographs #6)
by Roger S. Bagnall Nicola Aravecchia Raffaella Cribiore Paola Davoli Olaf E. Kaper Susanna McFaddenScattered through the vast expanse of stone and sand that makes up Egypt’s Western Desert are several oases. These islands of green in the midst of the Sahara owe their existence to springs and wells drawing on ancient aquifers. In antiquity, as today, they supported agricultural communities, going back to Neolithic times but expanding greatly in the millennium from the Saite pharaohs to the Roman emperors. New technologies of irrigation and transportation made the oases integral parts of an imperial economy. Amheida, ancient Trimithis, was one of those oasis communities. Located in the western part of the Dakhla Oasis, it was an important regional center, reaching a peak in the Roman period before being abandoned. Over the past decade, excavations at this well-preserved site have revealed its urban layout and brought to light houses, streets, a bath, a school, and a church. The only standing brick pyramid of the Roman period in Egypt has been restored. Wall-paintings, temple reliefs, pottery, and texts all contribute to give a lively sense of its political, religious, economic, and cultural life. This book presents these aspects of the city’s existence and its close ties to the Nile valley, by way of long desert roads, in an accessible and richly illustrated fashion.
Risible Rhymes (Library of Arabic Literature #31)
by Muḥammad ibn al-SanhūrīWritten in mid-seventeenth-century Egypt, Risible Rhymes is in part a short, comic disquisition on “rural” verse, mocking the pretensions and absurdities of uneducated poets from Egypt’s countryside.The interest in the countryside as a cultural, social, economic, and religious locus in its own right that is hinted at in this work may be unique in pre-twentieth-century Arabic literature. As such, the work provides a companion piece to its slightly younger contemporary, Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī’s Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, which also takes examples of mock-rural poems and subjects them to grammatical analysis. The overlap between the two texts may indicate that they both emanate from a common corpus of pseudo-rural verse that circulated in Ottoman Egypt. Risible Rhymes also examines various kinds of puzzle poems—another popular genre of the day—and presents a debate between scholars over a line of verse by the fourth/tenth-century poet al-Mutanabbī. Taken as a whole, Risible Rhymes offers intriguing insight into the critical concerns of mid-Ottoman Egypt, showcasing the intense preoccupation with wordplay, grammar, and stylistics that dominated discussions of poetry in al-Sanhūrī's day and shedding light on the literature of this understudied era.A bilingual Arabic-English edition.
The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty: Restoring Law and Order on Wall Street
by Steven A. Ramirez Mary Kreiner RamirezA critical examination of the wrongdoing underlying the 2008 financial crisisAn unprecedented breakdown in the rule of law occurred in the United States after the 2008 financial collapse. Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and other large banks settled securities fraud claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose the risks of subprime mortgages they sold to the investing public. But a corporation cannot commit fraud except through human beings working at and managing the firm. Rather than breaking up these powerful megabanks, essentially imposing a corporate death penalty, the government simply accepted fines that essentially punished innocent shareholders instead of senior leaders at the megabanks. It allowed the real wrongdoers to walk away from criminal responsibility. In The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty, Mary Kreiner Ramirez and Steven A. Ramirez examine the best available evidence about the wrongdoing underlying the financial crisis. They reveal that the government failed to use its most powerful law enforcement tools despite overwhelming proof of wide-ranging and large-scale fraud on Wall Street before, during, and after the crisis. The pattern of criminal indulgences exposes the onset of a new degree of crony capitalism in which the most economically and political powerful can commit financial crimes of vast scale with criminal and regulatory immunity. A new economic royalty has seized the commanding heights of our economy through their control of trillions in corporate and individual wealth and their ability to dispense patronage. The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty shows that this new lawlessness poses a profound threat that urgently demands political action and proposes attainable measures to restore the rule of law in the financial sector.
A Hundred and One Nights (Library of Arabic Literature #45)
by Bruce FudgeFantastic tales of magic and wonderEdited and translated into English for the first time, A Hundred and One Nights is a marvelous example of the rich tradition of popular Arabic storytelling. Like its more famous sibling, the Thousand and One Nights, this collection opens with the frame story of Shahrazad, the gifted vizier’s daughter who recounts imaginative tales night after night in an effort to distract the murderous king from taking her life. A Hundred and One Nights features an almost entirely different set of stories, however, each one more thrilling, amusing, and disturbing than the last. In them, we encounter tales of epic warriors, buried treasures, disappearing brides, cannibal demon women, fatal shipwrecks, and clever ruses, where human strength and ingenuity play out against a backdrop of inexorable, inscrutable fate.Although these tales draw on motifs and story elements that circulated across cultures, A Hundred and One Nights is distinctly rooted in Arabic literary culture and the Islamic tradition. It is also likely much older than Thousand and One Nights, drawing on Indian and Chinese antecedents. This careful edition and vibrant translation of A Hundred and One Nights promises to transport readers, new and veteran alike, into its fantastical realms of magic and wonder.A bilingual Arabic-English edition.
Researching Gender-Based Violence: Embodied and Intersectional Approaches
by Heather R. Hlavka April D. J. PetilloAn interdisciplinary collection of critical, feminist reflections on interpersonal gender violenceDespite the growing interest in the subject of gender violence, surprisingly little has been written in recent years about the methodology behind this emerging field of research. This interdisciplinary collection seeks to fill this gap by empowering scholars to conduct gender violence research in ways that deconstruct rather than reinforce existing power structures and hierarchies. The book argues for new approaches to research and activism on gender-based violence grounded in the intersectional realities of individuals and communities. Each chapter discusses the role of reflective methodologies to recognize institutional and intersectional inequalities, challenging the reader to contemplate ethical considerations of an embodied feminist methodology when researching gender-based violence. By centering these issues for applied scholars, practitioners, and academic activists, the book offers insights about where sociocultural notions of criminality and innocence might align across geographies of gender-based violence.The volume encourages further thinking about embodied methodological creativity in and for the future of interpersonal gender-based violence research. A powerful tool for conducting productive scholarship, Researching Gender-Based Violence provides recommendations for interrogating, practicing, and collaborating across fields, disciplines, and lived realities.
Impact of P2P and Free Distribution on Book Sales
by Brian O'LearyBook publishers have long used free content as part of their marketing and selling efforts, with the vast majority of free content distributed in printed form. Digital distribution of free material, either intentional or via unauthorized availability through peer-to-peer sites and other Web outlets, offers a fast and expansive connection to consumers, but content can also be copied and disseminated without publishers' control. Some publishers are torn between the efficiencies digital distribution provides and concerns over piracy and print-sale cannibalization. This research report is part of an ongoing effort by O'Reilly Media Inc. and Random House to test assumptions about free distribution, P2P availability and their potential impact on book sales.
Essential System Administration: Tools and Techniques for Linux and Unix Administration
by Æleen FrischEssential System Administration,3rd Edition is the definitive guide for Unix system administration, covering all the fundamental and essential tasks required to run such divergent Unix systems as AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Tru64 and more. Essential System Administration provides a clear, concise, practical guide to the real-world issues that anyone responsible for a Unix system faces daily.The new edition of this indispensable reference has been fully updated for all the latest operating systems. Even more importantly, it has been extensively revised and expanded to consider the current system administrative topics that administrators need most. Essential System Administration,3rd Edition covers: DHCP, USB devices, the latest automation tools, SNMP and network management, LDAP, PAM, and recent security tools and techniques.Essential System Administration is comprehensive. But what has made this book the guide system administrators turn to over and over again is not just the sheer volume of valuable information it provides, but the clear, useful way the information is presented. It discusses the underlying higher-level concepts, but it also provides the details of the procedures needed to carry them out. It is not organized around the features of the Unix operating system, but around the various facets of a system administrator's job. It describes all the usual administrative tools that Unix provides, but it also shows how to use them intelligently and efficiently.Whether you use a standalone Unix system, routinely provide administrative support for a larger shared system, or just want an understanding of basic administrative functions, Essential System Administration is for you. This comprehensive and invaluable book combines the author's years of practical experience with technical expertise to help you manage Unix systems as productively and painlessly as possible.
Practical Machine Learning: Innovations in Recommendation
by Ellen Friedman Ted DunningBuilding a simple but powerful recommendation system is much easier than you think. Approachable for all levels of expertise, this report explains innovations that make machine learning practical for business production settings—and demonstrates how even a small-scale development team can design an effective large-scale recommendation system.Apache Mahout committers Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman walk you through a design that relies on careful simplification. You’ll learn how to collect the right data, analyze it with an algorithm from the Mahout library, and then easily deploy the recommender using search technology, such as Apache Solr or Elasticsearch. Powerful and effective, this efficient combination does learning offline and delivers rapid response recommendations in real time.Understand the tradeoffs between simple and complex recommendersCollect user data that tracks user actions—rather than their ratingsPredict what a user wants based on behavior by others, using Mahoutfor co-occurrence analysisUse search technology to offer recommendations in real time, complete with item metadataWatch the recommender in action with a music service exampleImprove your recommender with dithering, multimodal recommendation, and other techniques
Java: Unearthing the Excellence in Java
by Jim WaldoWhat if you could condense Java down to its very best features and build better applications with that simpler version? In this book, veteran Sun Labs engineer Jim Waldo reveals which parts of Java are most useful, and why those features make Java among the best programming languages available.Every language eventually builds up crud, Java included. The core language has become increasingly large and complex, and the libraries associated with it have grown even more. Learn how to take advantage of Java's best features by working with an example application throughout the book. You may not like some of the features Jim Waldo considers good, but they'll actually help you write better code.Learn how the type system and packages help you build large-scale softwareUse exceptions to make code more reliable and easier to maintainManage memory automatically with garbage collectionDiscover how the JVM provides portability, security, and nearly bug-free codeUse Javadoc to embed documentation within the codeTake advantage of reusable data structures in the collections libraryUse Java RMI to move code and data in a distributed networkLearn how Java concurrency constructs let you exploit multicore processors
Make: The Essential Guide to 3D Printers
by Anna Kaziunas FranceThe 3D printing revolution is well upon us, with new machines appearing at an amazing rate. With the abundance of information and options out there, how are makers to choose the 3D printer that's right for them? MAKE is here to help, with our Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing. With articles about techniques, freely available CAD packages, and comparisons of printers that are on the market, this book makes it easy to understand this complex and constantly-shifting topic.Based on articles and projects from MAKE's print and online publications, this book arms you with everything you need to know to understand the exciting but sometimes confusing world of 3D Printing.