Pluses and Minuses


Book Description

A guide to changing how you think about numbers and mathematics, from the prodigy changing the way the world thinks about math. We all know math is important: we live in the age of big data, our lives are increasingly governed by algorithms, and we're constantly faced with a barrage of statistics about everything from politics to our health. But what might be less obvious is how math factors into your daily life, and what memorizing all of those formulae in school had to do with it. Math prodigy Stefan Buijsman is beginning to change that through his pioneering research into the way we learn math. Plusses and Minuses is based in the countless ways that math is engrained in our daily lives, and shows readers how math can actually be used to make problems easier to solve. Taking readers on a journey around the world to visit societies that have developed without the use of math, and back into history to learn how and why various disciples of mathematics were invented, Buijsman shows the vital importance of math, and how a better understanding of mathematics will give us a better understanding of the world as a whole. Stefan Buijsman has become one of the most sought-after experts in math education after he completed his PhD at age 20. In Plusses and Minuses, he puts his research into practice to help anyone gain a better grasp of mathematics than they have ever had.




Techlash


Book Description

Technology has made human lives incomparably better. Civilization as we know it would utterly collapse without it. However, if not properly managed, technology can and will be systematically abused and misuse and thereby become one of the biggest threats to humankind. This open access book applies proactive crisis management to the management of technology organizations to make them more sustainable and socially responsible for the betterment of humankind. It forecasts the unintended consequences of technology and offers methods to counteract it.




Reading and Writing Public Documents


Book Description

Annotation Government documents--forms, brochures, letters, and policy papers--that are difficult to understand create problems both for the public they're intended to help and for government agencies. In this collection, researchers from five universities in the Netherlands survey recurring problems in government documents and offer possible solutions. The contributors are linguists, document designers, and other communication experts who have studied public documents both empirically and from a design point of view. Though the subject is Dutch documents, the text is in English, and the work may be of interest to those investigating government communication in other nations as well as those who produce similar documents in the private sector. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Russia and the USSR 1905-1941


Book Description

Stretch and challenge your students with SHP's longest-lived and best-selling series for GCSE History. This is an SHP Official Text which means it has been created by the Schools History Project for use with the GCSE specifications. This is part of SHP's comprehensive and authoritative range of books for GCSE History.Click here to find out more about the Schools History Project and their award winning publications. Russia and the USSR 1905-1941 This title is a comprehensive and authoritative depth study for use with all GCSE level specifications. It thoroughly covers the content requirements of the OCR, Edexcel, AQA and CIE specifications using an enquiry-based approach. It is also a popular international text being widely used in Australia. It is written by experts who understand both how to design good teaching material but also understand the exact assessment requirements of each specification. The Student's Book combines: - Clear explanation of specification content - Classroom-trialled activities that really motivate students - Extensive and intriguing source material and case studies It will enliven any history course and will help students achieve their best. This Teacher's Book supports the Student's Book with worksheets and teaching notes for all the main activities in the Student's Book.




Pluses and Minuses


Book Description

A book about who and what counts in life, mathematic and philosophically




Solid Contact


Book Description

One of the world's most sought-after golf instructors and a PGA Teacher of the Year makes it easy to be your own coach, customizing your golf swing for phenomenal accuracy. In his decades as a renowned golf coach and player on the PGA and Champions tours, Jim Hardy has attracted not only a clientele of impressive players, but top teachers from around the globe flock to his clinics as well. At the heart of his approach is a simple philosophy: There is no universally right or wrong way to swing a golf club. In fact, Hardy teaches that every person's golf swing is as unique as a strand of DNA. Of course, this creates a challenge for instructors. Now, in Solid Contact, Hardy distills his remarkable system for readers of all skill levels, teaching them how to self-diagnose their shots and correct their swings and misses on the very next shot. Packed with instructional drawings and anecdotes about lessons that spurred turnarounds for the best instructors and pro golfers in the game, Solid Contact addresses the unique aspects of each golfer's swing. Hardy's plus/ minus system draws on three actions: the swing, the swing's impact, and ball flight. Working through evidence in each of these three categories, readers can tailor their actions to address weak points for dramatically improved effectiveness. Putting the world's best instructional techniques in the hands of all readers, Solid Contact delivers lasting results in record time.




Inventing the World


Book Description

An epic cultural journey that reveals how Venetian ingenuity and inventions—from sunglasses and forks to bonds and currency—shaped modernity. How did a small, isolated city—with a population that never exceeded 100,000, even in its heyday—come to transform western civilization? Acclaimed anthropologist Meredith Small, the author of the groundbreaking Our Babies, Ourselves examines the the unique Venetian social structure that was key to their explosion of creativity and invention that ranged from the material to social. Whether it was boats or money, medicine or face cream, opera, semicolons, tiramisu or child-labor laws, these all originated in Venice and have shaped contemporary notions of institutions and conventions ever since. The foundation of how we now think about community, health care, money, consumerism, and globalization all sprung forth from the Laguna Veneta. But Venice is far from a historic relic or a life-sized museum. It is a living city that still embraces its innovative roots. As climate change effects sea-level rises, Venice is on the front lines of preserving its legacy and cultural history to inspire a new generation of innovators.







Great Stories Don't Write Themselves


Book Description

One of the most common questions new writers ask professionals is how they wrote their book—what was their process for storytelling? Did they use an outline to plan the book, or write it from the seat of their pants? But really the question should be about the general principles and nature of storycraft—does every part of a story have what it needs to keep readers turning the pages? Bestselling author and creator of StoryFix.com Larry Brooks changes the sound of the writing conversation by introducing a series of detailed criteria for novelists of every level and genre to refer to while writing, regardless of their preferred writing method. Beginning with the broadest part of the story, the early checklists help writers to ensure that their novel is based on a premise rather than an idea, and gradually hones in on other elements to keep the story moving forward including: · dramatic tension · narrative strategy · scene construction Readers won't know or care about the process. But what Brooks offers here is a chance for readers to make the most of whichever process they choose, and in doing so cut years off their learning curve.




Avidly Reads Board Games


Book Description

Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life. Writer and critic Eric Thurm digs deep into his own experience as a board game enthusiast to explore the emotional and social rules that games create and reveal, telling a series of stories about a pastime that is also about relationships. From the outdated gender roles in Life and Mystery Date to the cutthroat, capitalist priorities of Monopoly and its socialist counterpart, Class Struggle, Thurm thinks through his ongoing rivalries with his siblings and ponders the ways games both upset and enforce hierarchies and relationships—from the familial to the geopolitical. Like sitting down at the table for family game night, Board Games is an engaging book of twists and turns, trivia, and nostalgia.