Group items tagged

Time isn't what it used to be  TIME is not what it used to be. Once a flowing river whose current we passively monitored, time is now more properly understood as something constructed by the brain and personalised by culture. We have relationships with time; we fight it and manipulate it. Into this arena steps Eva Hoffman with her poetically scientific and austerely titled Time. Hoffman is on an exploration to become intimate with time, motivated by her sense that our interaction with time has changed. Our societies have become obsessed with time and timekeeping, both in the workplace and at home. Jet travel manipulates our experience of day-night cycles and seasons, while biomedical science races to increase our lifespan yet further. At the other end of the spectrum, new technologies adapt our minds to the ever-briefer scales of micro and nano. Hoffman covers a lot of ground, from physics (why time flows in only one direction) to biology (the circadian rhythm and sleep) to neuroscience (how temporality is constructed by the brain). She addresses questions of time and consciousness, including the uniquely human ability to envision large vistas of past or future. Perceived time is illuminated by disease states such as Alzheimer's disease or Korsakoff's syndrome, in which one's time narrative becomes disorganised, and by fantasies and dreams, in which the unconscious brain does not necessarily commit to a temporal narrative at all. Hoffman also investigates individual differences in how people treat time (those who leave parties early versus those who have to be shooed out at the end) as well as cultural differences (communities in which haste amounts to a breach of ethics, for instance). A recurring theme is that the human capacity to manipulate our environment ushers in new complexities to the basic biology of time. For example, while other animals age and die on a strict schedule, humans do everything in their power to control that timing. And the book is full of

"Boot & Milk Balls take us back in time to the mirth and madness of a bygone era. The antics of fun-loving, hometown characters, often turn bazaar. Two popular legends, grossly entwined, evolve to become one macabre tradition. Three additional short stories; Lost Books Found, Hidden Treasures and The MPA; bring this mischievous Des Peres, Missouri era to a close. Boot and Milk Balls The delights of being raised in the small home towns of yesteryear, cannot compare to the sprawling municipalities of today's generation. Long before we locked ourselves in our air-conditioned homes, a bygone era boasted a community blending heritage. Families often united to help one another, and barn-raising, a popular event, always drew much of the town together. With construction completed, the local big bands provided entertainment for its christening. Hay rides and dances became a part of these festivities. Some of the antics which occurred along with, and after these gala celebrations, would often be talked about for years, if not decades to come. A feature event; instigated by the Probst brothers, owners of the local blacksmith shop; always brought hundreds of laughs. While hiding behind the scenes, they painted a face on their large, bare, beer bellies, and donned grass hula skirts. After a few more beers, they reappeared wearing large straw hats, which completely covered their heads, the brim resting on their shoulders. The boisterous comedy dance they performed in this attire is indescribable. During this wonderful era of mirth and mischief, many traditions were born, and the characters who initiated them emerged. St. Louis County, Missouri; host of several diverse nationalities, had more than its share of these unique personalities. They emanated from every neighborhood and occupation. The prodigious German citizenry, living in the small municipality of Des Peres, project two distinct and opposite hereditary traits. Often only one generation apart, the attributes of

""Well that fucking hurt!", I shouted after awakening. Feeling myself being dragged by two people by my arms and seeing the surrounding area that once was covered in dust. No Walker to be found as my last seen memory had seen, but more importantly, where the hell is Maddie. Still groggy from being smacked in the back of my head with a gun and a bit nervous, though I won't admit that to these men dragging me along this beaten path. Weak, tired and so damn confused " She is going to kill you all.", I say with a delightful smile on my face. Was only then one of the men dragging me responded " You are right Nick, she is going to kill us all, but not just her as she is not the only one of her kind infected, which is why we are taking shelter underground." With him telling me some of what I already knew " So what is your intent with me?" I asked while trying to regain my balance on my weakend knees. Wanting so badly to strike at these men dragging me underground and also wanting to reach for my gun, but realized it had been taken away "Good luck on finding her dip shits and if you were even capable of, you can't harm her." Then the man on the right of me started to become a familiar face as my eye site started to clear up some "Nick, had we retained her while you both came back to the facility, we would have ended her life as her powers she has of destruction is neutral underground of here. Why did you of all people not think of that idiot?" Calling me an idiot just really pisses me off! "Is that you Agent Jarvis?" Son of a bitch! A once close friend of mine and he is the one calling me an idiot. He was fast to acknowledge that it was in fact him and that I was not going to like the questioning session that was going to be taking place. I myself know what that is like as I have witnessed many sessions before in my time working as an agent myself. 'Fuck!', I would say to myself while my heart started to race faster. Having to plan something quickly and trying to decipher

""Well that fucking hurt!", I shouted after awakening. Feeling myself being dragged by two people by my arms and seeing the surrounding area that once was covered in dust. No Walker to be found as my last seen memory had seen, but more importantly, where the hell is Maddie. Still groggy from being smacked in the back of my head with a gun and a bit nervous, though I won't admit that to these men dragging me along this beaten path. Weak, tired and so damn confused " She is going to kill you all.", I say with a delightful smile on my face. Was only then one of the men dragging me responded " You are right Nick, she is going to kill us all, but not just her as she is not the only one of her kind infected, which is why we are taking shelter underground." With him telling me some of what I already knew " So what is your intent with me?" I asked while trying to regain my balance on my weakend knees. Wanting so badly to strike at these men dragging me underground and also wanting to reach for my gun, but realized it had been taken away "Good luck on finding her dip shits and if you were even capable of, you can't harm her." Then the man on the right of me started to become a familiar face as my eye site started to clear up some "Nick, had we retained her while you both came back to the facility, we would have ended her life as her powers she has of destruction is neutral underground of here. Why did you of all people not think of that idiot?" Calling me an idiot just really pisses me off! "Is that you Agent Jarvis?" Son of a bitch! A once close friend of mine and he is the one calling me an idiot. He was fast to acknowledge that it was in fact him and that I was not going to like the questioning session that was going to be taking place. I myself know what that is like as I have witnessed many sessions before in my time working as an agent myself. 'Fuck!', I would say to myself while my heart started to race faster. Having to plan something quickly and trying to decipher

Short of money, the inventor Thomas Edison is captivated by the charismatic figure of J.P. Morgan, the world's greatest banker. Accepting Morgan's glittering offer of almost unlimited cash in return for helping the man change the way the world does business, Edison sees himself descend from being the godlike inventor of electric light to being complicit in the invention of the electric chair. Ever more enmeshed in Morgan's personal life, he becomes infatuated by a world of privilege and power, where duty and desire, faith and immorality are thrown into conflict, ultimately threatening his own spiritual and creative survival.

Drove House has always loomed large over village life. Boarded-up for years, it is reputed to be brimming with ghosts, and is shunned by the locals - all except Billy, for whom it has been the site of childhood dens and secret adolescent adventures. When the captivating Muriel moves in with her bohemian mother, they sweep out the ghosts and breathe new life into both the house and Billy's quiet rural existence. After an idyllic summer, though, Muriel returns to her life in London, and the newly empty Drove House becomes the backdrop for Billy's struggle to reconcile the vanishing agricultural lifestyle he has inherited with the glimpses of a baffling new way of life Muriel seemed to offer. Charting the conflict between these two competing worlds, Peter Benson's award-winning first novel is at once a lyrical portrait of the landscape of the Somerset Levels and a touching evocation of first love.

A squad of soldiers get caught on camera by a Fox news team. The video goes viral. They were already heroes. Now they become celebrities. For two weeks at least. The army seizes on an opportunity to get some good press and sends these soldiers on a 'Victory Tour' culminating in an appearance in front of millions on TV at a Dallas Cowboys football game. What exactly were these men fighting for? "The hot dog, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mom's apple pie. That's what everyone's fighting for." That's what Yossarian says in Catch-22. Billy Lynn is no longer so sure.

Escaping the ghetto 11-year-old Hugo is left by his mother in the local brothel, where Mariana, one of the prostitutes, has agreed to hide him. Mariana is a bitterly unhappy woman who hates what she has done to her life, and night after night Hugo sits in her closet and listens uncomprehendingly as she rages at the Nazi soldiers who come and go. Quickly the two become fiercely protective of each other and, as her life spirals downwards, Mariana reaches out for consolation to the adoring boy who is on the cusp of manhood.

WW2 is about to start but life for a young boy in a small town in Albania is still a game. Yet, as the town falls to the Italians, the Greeks, then the Nazis, the boy grows up. Falling in love with unattainable women, seduced by magic and literature and finally forced to flee, his existence changes from marvellous, terrifying and extraordinary into a primitive world where the severed arm of a British airman becomes a talisman and girls vanish-possibly killed by their own fathers. Forging the unexpected and terrible link between childish playfulness and a horrifying political future, Kadare has created a story with a depth and brilliance characteristic of the master story-teller.

"Stanley Swanson-Breed of a Werewolf" I've lived an extraordinary life to say the least. I started out in journalism and found myself located in Kansas City, KS working for the largest output of the newspaper known as the Kansas City Star. Born in 1974 and currently living in Stull, KS is where I have ended up and have retired at a young age of almost forty years old. I retired because I happen to be paralyzed from the waist down as a drunk person who ran a red light had t-boned me while on my motorcycle on my way home from work. That happened only a few years ago. I am not here to write about my life, but let me introduce myself. My name is Kain Edward. There were many things I wrote about in my time as a journalist, but found the most intriguing to me was that of paranormal existence, sightings, vampires and werewolves. Something I found I could exaggerate in my mind freely and always wanted to believe in them. During my life as a young boy, I loved anything to do with 'mythology' or those creatures that had certain powers. I grew up watching a lot of movies that involved Vampires and Werewolves and I believe that is why I had grown to be so time consumed in the research of such. One thing that always stood out to me was the fact that there never really ever seemed like there was a book or movie that gave great details of 'Werewolves', which would become more fascinating to me as I began to lose a slight interest in Vampires. "Surely there has to be more to Werewolves then just being some hideous beast that kills humans?" I would say to myself many times over. I had to do a lot of traveling and research as one might imagine. I had spoken to so many people from all parts of the world that claimed to have seen such subjects of interest or heard of someone who had. It only grew my interest that much more. Unfortunately, nothing ever turned out as a positive result as I often ran into dead ends. I soon became a laughing stock to co-workers and even

Anyone who want to learn python programming can start from beginning and become a professional with the help of James P. Long's "Python Programming For Beginners" book

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." -Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Millions of people have a queasy feeling that something is not right in the global economy - but they struggle to put their fingers on what exactly the problem is. Treasure Islands at last tells the real story of where it all went wrong. This is the great untold story of globalisation. Tax havens are not exotic, murky sideshows at the fringes of the world economy: they lie at its centre. Half of world trade flows, at least on paper, through tax havens. Every multinational corporation uses them routinely. The biggest users of tax havens by far are not terrorists, spivs, celebrities or Mafiosi - but banks. Tax havens are the ultimate source of strength for our global elites. Just as European nobles once consolidated their unaccountable powers in fortified castles, to better subjugate and extract tribute from the surrounding peasantry, so financial capital has coalesced in their modern equivalent today: the tax havens. In these fortified nodes of secret, unaccountable political and economic power, financial and criminal interests have come together to capture local political systems and turn the havens into their own private law-making factories, protected against outside interference by the world's most powerful countries - most especially Britain. Treasure Islands will, for the first time, show the blood and guts of just how they do it. Tax havens aren't just about tax. They are about escape - escape from criminal laws, escape from creditors, escape from tax, escape from prudent financial regulation - above all, escape from democratic scrutiny and accountability. Tax havens get rich by taking fees for providing these escape routes. This is their core line of business. It is what they do. These escape routes transform the merely powerful into the untouchable. "Don't tax or regulate us or we will flee offshore!" the financiers cry, and elected politicians around the world crawl on their bellies and capitulate. And so tax havens lead a global race to

If, as Lessig conclusively demonstrates, Congress is indifferent to the will of the people and to democratic debate - because it has been captured by monied interests to whose interests it exclusively attends - then the people lose the ability to affect what government does in any realm. It doesn't make much difference which problem you believe is most pressing: this is the dynamic that lies at the heart of it. Inaction on climate issues is due to the power of polluters and energy companies; the power of the private health insurance industry blocks fundamental health-care reform; endless war and civil liberties abuses are sustained by the power of the surveillance and National Security State industries; and a failure to achieve real Wall Street reform is due to the fact that, as Sen. Dick Durbin amazingly acknowledged about the institution in which he serves, "the banks frankly own the place." Without finding an effective way to address that overarching problem, the only recourse for citizens becomes either passive acceptance of their powerlessness (i.e., apathy and withdrawal) or disruption and unrest fomented outside of the electoral system (the driving ethos of OccupyWallStreet).

Someone is watching Eva. In the trees at the edge of her garden, a figure lurks in the dark. In the hospital, Jonas watches over his girlfriend, who is in a coma. But what, or who, has put her there? Through a chance meeting, Eva and Jonas's lives will become disturbingly entwined. And Eva will discover that sometimes, in order to survive, you must betray the ones you love the most. A fascinating look at how much we all betray and learn to live with those betrayals.

Tamarisk Row is the story of a young boy growing up in Australia. He is a solitary-type and prefers to immerse himself in an imaginary world rather than mingle with kids his own age. His father is a compulsive gambler and because of this the world of horse racing becomes central to the boy's fantasies which feature a complex web of images involving calendars, colours, grasslands, creeks and rivers, Catholic rituals, priests' houses, horse races and racking skills, marbles, stones, freckles, books and libraries, and tunnels and secret places, that have all been used repeatedly and with remarkable consistency by Murnane in his subsequent fiction. It has been called "one of the very best books about childhood and the world as the child finds it."

A programmer can start from scratch and become a professional with the help of James P. Long's "Python Programming For Beginners" book. Those who want to get a good grip of what programming language is should get from this Python book.

Emma Watson is a young actress that has no connections with another actress Emily Watson; also she is rich, talented and ambitious. Each year she becomes more beautiful and by the way, today is the 19th of September - Hermione Granger s birthday