50 Ways to Leave a Planet


Book Description

No need for a ploy, boy. Just set yourself free. On the heels of a crazy, dangerous scheme that he barely got away with, Chuck Ramsey presses his luck and keeps trying. But on Ganymede, in the heart of Sol's wine country, in the territory of a small but ruthless local criminal syndicate, his luck runs out. Chuck sends off quick comms to the rest of the family to get them back to the ship on the double. Two problems: Becky doesn't believe he's really in danger on a core world, and Brad receives the wrong message entirely. For Becky, it's simple. She'd rather stay with Rhiannon as she tries to launch her daughter's acting career. As for Brad, he was out with his sister Michelle, and the message he got was a code word that his father was compromised, the ship wasn't safe to return to, and to get off the planet ASAP. By the time Chuck figures out his mistake, Brad has a huge head start, and has gone off the grid. 50 Ways to Leave a Planet is the tenth mission of Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem. It follows a mismatched duo of itinerant comedian and outlaw wizard as they roam the galaxy trying to eke out a living and stay ahead of the consequences of their actions. Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem looks back at an earlier era in the Black Ocean universe, and returning readers will get to see how some of their favorite characters came to be. Fans of morally gray heroes and slick talking conmen will love this series. Grab your copy before someone else does.




50 Ways to Leave Your 50'S


Book Description

In my fourth book, In it for the Long Run, one of the most popular chapters with the readers was You can call me Al. It was all about my good friend Al Barker, the only person Ive ever met who brakes with his left foot. Wanting to capitalize on the popularity of using titles of Paul Simon songs, I reviewed his repertoire for an applicable title for this book. Since the book is about my last year on earth before turning 60 years of age, I initially considered Slip Slidin Away but thought that might project a negative connotation towards getting older. Instead I chose one of Simons more popular songs and gave it my own slant as I wanted to do 50 things Id never done before in the 12 months leading up to becoming a sexagenarian (dont get the wrong idea--it just means a person between 60 and 69 years of age). On my 60th birthday (December 10, 2014) someone asked me how I felt. I said just like I did when I was 59. Heck, it was only yesterday (although my grandson calls it lasterday which if you really think about it makes a lot more sense). As for the 50 things Id never done before. dont expect anything outrageous (jumping out of an airplane), dangerous (wrestling an alligator) or spectacular (making a dinosaur appear--but if I could my grandson would be SO impressed). Just 50 things pretty much anyone could do...as long as they have the right attitude. And by right attitude I mean sometimes you just have to say what the ___. Just because I turned 60 doesnt mean I reached maturity overnight. After all, maturity is for old people.




50 Ways to Help the Planet


Book Description

We are becoming increasingly aware and engaged in environmental issues, but it's not always clear what the solutions are and how we can do our bit. We are ready and willing to make changes to our lifestyles, but often the advice about which are the best ones to make can be confusing. In this friendly guide you are shown how you can make changes in a positive and practical manner, and with some suggestions easier than others, there's a multitude of ways in which you can live more sustainably. Siân looks at the choices we can all make, helping you to reduce your carbon footprint and the impact of your lifestyle on the planet and change the world without changing your life. The 50 ways are divided into Plastics, Energy, Cooking and Eating, Travel, In the Garden and Action, and include a range of options, such as buying plastic-free beauty products, upcycling your furniture, cutting down on meat and having greener celebrations.




50 Ways to Leave Your 40s


Book Description

If you’re approaching that huge milepost with less than your usual birthday enthusiasm, open this book to discover all the ways in which turning fifty might just be the best thing yet. The authors share a wide range of ideas for making this major life transition a time of opportunity, growth, and celebration. As Sheila Key writes in the introduction: “What Peg and I hope you’ll hear among these pages is the irrepressible rustling of joy — joy enough to make you bust out laughing, sure, and the kind that comes from improving your mental outlook and physical habits, even just a little. But also the simple joy of having lived this long, of being able to look back over five full decades and forward to who-knows-how-many more; not to mention...the joy of living more mindfully in the ever-present Now.” Bursting with anecdotes, activities, “things to try at least once,” advice from a savvy doctor, and clever ways to remember it all, this little volume sparkles like a treasure chest. It’s as chock-full of useful and entertaining gems as your life is full of memories, regrets, dreams, and possibilities.




Mirth and Mayhem Mission Pack 3


Book Description

Suckers earn money. Truly epic idiots trick wizards into making it for them. Chuck Ramsey had come up with the best money-making plot of his entire career. His best friend is an unemployed wizard with a resume that would make a contract killer blush. What simpler way to generate income than to hire him out for high-paying jobs? And since there's a good chance he'd balk at being reduced to a simple paid killer, best not to let on how it all works. What could possibly go wrong? [Editor's note: Chuck, are you even listening to yourself anymore? This is a horrible idea! You're playing games with a man who used to barbecue dark wizards for a living! One of these books, I'm staging an intervention...] Mission 9 - Live and Let Kill Down on his luck and struggling to find work, Chuck Ramsey comes up with a crazy scheme: hire himself. Of course, the trick is to hire himself near where a contract killing needs to take place. Then, he has to trick his best friend, former librarian Mordecai The Brown, to track this guy down thinking the Convocation needs him dead. After that, it's just a matter of collecting a huge windfall. Mission 10 - 50 Ways to Leave a Planet When a scheme unravels, Chuck Ramsey panics. He sends word for his kids to scramble, hide, stay away until the coast is clear. Brad gets this message while watching his sister Michelle, and the two of them take off on an epic adventure to evade the law, criminal syndicates, the Convocation, and their own father--just in case. Mission 11 - Blowin' in the Wind On the run. New identities. Brad takes up an alias to hold down a job as his sister's legal guardian. Meanwhile, Chuck and Mort scour the galaxy for clues as to where the all-too-resourceful teen has hidden out. The only way Chuck will locate his son is to do some parenting and understand what makes Brad tick. Mission 12 - We Drink Alone When Mort gets an order to kill a popular trillionaire beer baron, he declines to take the job. For Chuck, a fan of the Milky Way's favorite beer, Earth's Preferred, not taking the job isn't enough. He convinces Mort that they need to go a step further and stop whoever is hired to replace Mort and protect the beer man from assassination. Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem follows a mismatched duo of itinerant comedian and outlaw wizard as they roam the galaxy trying to eke out a living and stay ahead of the consequences of their actions. Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem looks back at an earlier era in the Black Ocean universe, and returning readers will get to see how some of their favorite characters came to be. Fans of morally gray heroes and slick talking conmen will love this series. Grab your copy before someone else does.




50 Ways the World Could End


Book Description

Death by Euphoria. Dysgenics. Population Death Spiral. Genetic Superhumans. Geomagnetic Reversal. Galactic Collision. Strangelets. Whether we like it or not, everything's going to come to a pretty unpleasant halt on our planet at some point in the future. What we don't know is what form our extinction is likely to take. In this accessible and entertaining book, acclaimed writer Alok Jha explains the head-spinning apocalyptic science behind 50 horrifying doomsday scenarios.




Around the World in 50 Ways


Book Description

Set off from London and travel across the globe. Then try to make it back! In Lonely Planet Kids' Around the World in 50 Ways, kids choose their favourite routes and transportation, from tuk-tuks and sleds, to steamboats and hot-air balloons. They'll visit famous cities and exotic, far-flung places - and learn amazing facts about each destination along the way. But they'll need to be careful: not every path will take them where they want to go! Welcome to the Tower of London! That's the starting point of this amazing adventure. But what's the next leg of the journey? That depends on the transportation chosen. Once aboard, kids can discover all about these amazing machines and how they work. Then upon arriving at their next destination, they'll get to explore the local area and see what makes it so interesting and unique. With over 20 possible routes, who knows where they'll end up? About Lonely Planet Kids: Come explore! Let's start an adventure. Lonely Planet Kids excites and educates children about the amazing world around them. Combining astonishing facts, quirky humour and eye-catching imagery, we ignite their curiosity and encourage them to discover more about our planet. Every book draws on our huge team of global experts to help share our continual fascination with what makes the world such a diverse and magnificent place - inspiring children at home and in school. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.




Music Learning with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)


Book Description

Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, have arisen as the logical consequence of marrying long-distance education with the web and social media. MOOCs were confidently predicted by advanced thinkers decades ago. They are undoubtedly here to stay, and provide a valuable resource for learners and teachers alike. This book focuses on music as a domain of knowledge, and has three objectives: to introduce the phenomenon of MOOCs; to present ongoing research into making MOOCs more effective and better adapted to the needs of teachers and learners; and finally to present the first steps towards 'social MOOCs’, which support the creation of learning communities in which interactions between learners go beyond correcting each other's assignments. Social MOOCs try to mimic settings for humanistic learning, such as workshops, small choirs, or groups participating in a Hackathon, in which students aided by somebody acting as a tutor learn by solving problems and helping each other. The papers in this book all discuss steps towards social MOOCs; their foundational pedagogy, platforms to create learning communities, methods for assessment and social feedback and concrete experiments. These papers are organized into five sections: background; the role of feedback; platforms for learning communities; experiences with social MOOCs; and looking backwards and looking forward. Technology is not a panacea for the enormous challenges facing today's educators and learners, but this book will be of interest to all those striving to find more effective and humane learning opportunities for a larger group of students.




I'll Tell You in Person


Book Description

Praise for Chloe Caldwell: "I read it a couple of months ago in one can't-put-it-down-even-though-it's-the-middle-of-the-night sitting. It's as intense and interesting and clear-hearted as they come."—Cheryl Strayed "I'll read anything Chloe Caldwell writes. She's a rare bird: fearless, dark, prolific, unpretentious, and truly honest."—Elisa Albert "Nothing's sexier than first love and first intimacies, and Caldwell's brave autobiographical tale twists the trope into a powerful story about unexpectedly falling in love with a woman and the discoveries, sexual and otherwise, that ensue."—Time Out New York "The essays in this collection are as exuberant as they are sad. Her storytelling is as vulnerable as it is bombastic. These essays roll in gangsta, but wear freshly picked daisies in their hair."—Rookie Magazine Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs—I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see. Chloe Caldwell is the author of the novella Women, and the essay collection Legs Get Led Astray. Her work has appeared in the Sun, Salon, VICE, Hobart, Nylon, the Rumpus, Men's Health, and LENNY, among others. She teaches personal essay and memoir writing in New York City and lives in Hudson.




50 Things About Us


Book Description

50 THINGS ABOUT US is a fast and furiously funny journey through our national memory. It's about money, history, songs, gongs, wigs, unicorns, guns, bungs, sods of soil and rich fuckers. 'Patriotism is often the point where history and advertising intersect, and it was that brand of nationalism that Rees-Mogg and Johnson attempted to sell. It is a brand that can only hark backwards; a nostalgic nationalism built on half histories and wishes ... The kind of patriotism where the poetry of John Betjeman sits alongside blaming migrants for TB. 'But that is not our story. In fact, it is far from the narrative so many of us are a part of.' From self-deceptions on size, stature and space (clue: there's more than enough for everyone if we lose the golf courses) to the living links between empire, slavery, money and power, this is Mark Thomas' quest to remind us of the true and shared greatness of modern Britain. Structured as a list of fifty crucial 'Things', and fresh from a lock-down spent interviewing hundreds of NHS workers for the Wellcome Collection permanent archive, this is Mark Thomas at his provocative, passionate best.