Amazon Moon


Book Description

As a young man, John Alvarez is a bad boy, so its no surprise when a judge finally gives him the choice between going to prison and joining the Marine Corps. Alvarez reluctantly decides on the latter, not realizing that he will discover himself and find a home in the Corps. Shipped off to Vietnam, Alvarez leads his own band of bad boysIron Raveninto the jungle. They become the terror of their enemies and always the first choice for the most dangerous missions. On one such mission, the brain child of a couple of CIA ops, Alvarez and his squad are cut off from escape by their CIA handlers and are left to fight their way out alone or die. Only Alvarez survivesbut his revenge upon the men who abandoned him and his brothers lands him in prison for life. After twenty years of incarceration, Alvarez is offered his freedom, but only if he agrees to undertake another suicide mission. If hes going to be a free man, Alvarez must become the bodyguard of a Mr. Standish and lead him on a journey into the mysterious Amazonian kingdom ruled by the devil himself. It is only in the heart of the jungle that Alvarez discovers that he has accepted a mission with only two possible outcomesredemption or death.




THE AMAZON LADIES' CAPER


Book Description

Life can be such a bummer at times. For the sexy Sandy, disgruntled Bonnie, and perpetually pregnant Cathy, what burns them is their husbands’ annual hunting trip. In an effort to forever end these hunts, these three girls plan a secret caper wherein they’ll become Amazon lady warriors and conquer the very town where their husbands’ hunt. The Amazon Ladies’ Caper is a fun-filled fiction adventure with a little fantasy. Although it is humorous and highly entertaining, the book has a serious side as well. Within the pages of this book, we travel with the Amazon ladies from Sacramento, California (their hometown) to Glendive, Montana (where the caper takes place). Along our way, we join Elderhostelers on a dinosaur dig conducted by a Blackfoot Indian paleontologist. We enter the strange and secretive lands of Hutterites where we attempt a rescue. We even help a frustrated psychologist-author complete his book. Best of all, the Amazon ladies forever end their husbands’ annual hunting trip. Or do they? Join us on this most fantastic trip—which is guaranteed to be a “no bummer.”




Photoshop CS Savvy


Book Description

Savvy - n. Practical know-how. Just about anyone who works with digital images needs to know to how to use Photoshop. But its complexity can be confounding even to experienced users. In Photoshop CS Savvy, artist and teacher Steve Romaniello reveals the secrets behind Photoshop's power—showing you how to combine theory with practical techniques to get results that are inspirational and satisfying. Whether you're a graphic artist, photographer, web designer, desktop publisher, or, if your goal is to become Photoshop savvy, this is the book that will get you there. Work your way through from cover to cover or zero in on any topic, from setting up a Photoshop workflow to restoring old photos to creating a web photo gallery. In Hands On tutorials, you'll apply your knowledge in complex, real-world projects, mastering the techniques your own work demands. A 32-page full-color section showcases numerous color-related examples. Coverage includes: Core Photoshop Skills: selections, type, layers, paths, paint effects, alpha channels, Quick Mask, scanning, transformations. Features New in Photoshop CS: Shadow/Highlight correction, photo filters, Match Color, Color Replacement, Liquify enhancements, automations, support for raw camera files. Image Retouching: Dodge and Burn tools, cloning and healing, History Brush, Dust and Scratches filter. Color Management and Correction: levels and curves, color mapping, hue and saturation, channel mixing, CMYK conversion, printing. Photoshop, ImageReady, and the Web: page layout, optimization, image maps, animations, rollovers. Advanced Techniques: difficult selections, compositing, automation, duotones and spot color, advanced layering, 16-bit editing, preparing images for digital video. Note:CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.







Jagua, A Journey Into Body Art from the Amazon


Book Description

In search of the jagua fruit, author Carine Fabius takes readers on a journey into the deepest realms of the Amazon jungle, where a prized tattoo ink weaves magical tales into the heart and culture of the region's indigenous people. Written in a breezy, engaging style, the book includes: - 40 pages of gorgeous color photographs, including contributions by noted documentary photographer and travel writer Cristina Mittermeier - Over 25 black & white photographs and illustrations - The author's personal account of her and her artist/explorer husband's journey into the world of temporary body art, beginning with henna and culminating with the discovery of the jagua fruit's promise to deliver a beautiful tattoo that looks real -- yet fades after two weeks - Excerpts from her husband Pascal Giacomini's diary as he travels on a motorized dugout canoe into the deepest reaches of the jungle, where he spends weeks with an indigenous group called the Matses - Brief histories of various indigenous groups associated with jagua - Personal and insightful essays by veteran explorers and lovers of the Amazon - Information on the medicinal and mystical properties of the jagua fruit - Magical tales and beliefs surrounding this extraordinary fruit - A short history of tattoos - A short history of ink - Frequently asked questions (and answers, of course!) about jagua tattoos - Overview of the Amazon, the Indians that populate the area, and issues that currently dominate throughout the region - Traditional tales from the Amazon




Amazon Extreme


Book Description

The hair-raising true story of the first team to raft the entire length of the Amazon. To a trio of twenty-something adrenaline junkies, it sounded like an irresistible challenge: Tackle the Amazon with nothing more than a rubber raft between them and fate. In Amazon Extreme Colin Angus provides a you-are-there account of his expedition’s terrors and triumphs. In spite of Shining Path gunmen, mosquito-laden drinking water, and, of course, the terrifying rapids themselves, his crew also found a reverence for the equally compelling beauty that makes this region so renowned. Graceful dolphins, lush forests, and the intriguing people who live along the river complete the backdrop as Angus’s five-month excursion unfolds. Culminating in an astonishing victory that garnered major media coverage, this is the story of three guys who truly went off the deep end, and one who came back to write a riveting recollection of it.




The Amazon from an International Law Perspective


Book Description

With a vast river network and rainforests extending over eight South American countries, the Amazon plays a vital role particularly in maintaining biodiversity and terrestrial carbon storage. Due to its ecological characteristics, the Amazon benefits not only those countries but also the international community at large. However, the Amazon forests are being rapidly cleared with a consequent loss of biodiversity and impact on global climate. This book examines whether international law has an impact on the preservation of the Amazon by inquiring into the forms of cooperation that exist among the Amazon countries, and between them and the international community, and to what extent international cooperation can help protect the Amazon. Given the role of this region in maintaining the balance of the global environment, the book examines whether the Amazon should be granted a special legal status and possible implications in terms of international cooperation.




Amazon


Book Description




Cultural Forests of the Amazon


Book Description

Winner of the Society for Economic Botany's Mary W. Klinger Book Award. Cultural Forests of the Amazon is a comprehensive and diverse account of how indigenous people transformed landscapes and managed resources in the most extensive region of tropical forests in the world. Until recently, most scholars and scientists, as well as the general public, thought indigenous people had a minimal impact on Amazon forests, once considered to be total wildernesses. William Balée’s research, conducted over a span of three decades, shows a more complicated truth. In Cultural Forests of the Amazon, he argues that indigenous people, past and present, have time and time again profoundly transformed nature into culture. Moreover, they have done so using their traditional knowledge and technology developed over thousands of years. Balée demonstrates the inestimable value of indigenous knowledge in providing guideposts for a potentially less destructive future for environments and biota in the Amazon. He shows that we can no longer think about species and landscape diversity in any tropical forest without taking into account the intricacies of human history and the impact of all forms of knowledge and technology. Balée describes the development of his historical ecology approach in Amazonia, along with important material on little-known forest dwellers and their habitats, current thinking in Amazonian historical ecology, and a narrative of his own dialogue with the Amazon and its people.




Amazon Redshift Cookbook


Book Description

Discover how to build a cloud-based data warehouse at petabyte-scale that is burstable and built to scale for end-to-end analytical solutions Key FeaturesDiscover how to translate familiar data warehousing concepts into Redshift implementationUse impressive Redshift features to optimize development, productionizing, and operations processesFind out how to use advanced features such as concurrency scaling, Redshift Spectrum, and federated queriesBook Description Amazon Redshift is a fully managed, petabyte-scale AWS cloud data warehousing service. It enables you to build new data warehouse workloads on AWS and migrate on-premises traditional data warehousing platforms to Redshift. This book on Amazon Redshift starts by focusing on Redshift architecture, showing you how to perform database administration tasks on Redshift. You'll then learn how to optimize your data warehouse to quickly execute complex analytic queries against very large datasets. Because of the massive amount of data involved in data warehousing, designing your database for analytical processing lets you take full advantage of Redshift's columnar architecture and managed services. As you advance, you'll discover how to deploy fully automated and highly scalable extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes, which help minimize the operational efforts that you have to invest in managing regular ETL pipelines and ensure the timely and accurate refreshing of your data warehouse. Finally, you'll gain a clear understanding of Redshift use cases, data ingestion, data management, security, and scaling so that you can build a scalable data warehouse platform. By the end of this Redshift book, you'll be able to implement a Redshift-based data analytics solution and have understood the best practice solutions to commonly faced problems. What you will learnUse Amazon Redshift to build petabyte-scale data warehouses that are agile at scaleIntegrate your data warehousing solution with a data lake using purpose-built features and services on AWSBuild end-to-end analytical solutions from data sourcing to consumption with the help of useful recipesLeverage Redshift's comprehensive security capabilities to meet the most demanding business requirementsFocus on architectural insights and rationale when using analytical recipesDiscover best practices for working with big data to operate a fully managed solutionWho this book is for This book is for anyone involved in architecting, implementing, and optimizing an Amazon Redshift data warehouse, such as data warehouse developers, data analysts, database administrators, data engineers, and data scientists. Basic knowledge of data warehousing, database systems, and cloud concepts and familiarity with Redshift will be beneficial.