Q and A Books

This story is about where Ash,Misty,Brock and of course,the very cute pikachu encountered prehistoric pokemon.They fell in a cave that Team Rocket dug.Sometimes Ash gets a pokemon,sometimes not, but he does in this one!You know the charmander that evolved,well it evolved again into charizard!I think it's great!

Cool, Tracy. This 3rd adventure leads Ash, his friends and hisPokemon to a prehistoric Pokemon. This book will make Pokemon HISTORY!

It was a great book. I liked it because I liked the part when Ash, Misty, Brock, and Pikachu were aboard the SS Ann, and Team Rocket's boss put people in the ship to take other's Pokemon.

Ash, Misty, Brock and Pickachu go on a Pokemon fossil dig/ Things get explosive when Team Rocket accidentaly wakes up some crank, ancient Pokemon!

I thought that it was a really great book. I like how Jigglypuff sings everyone to sleep. I think Charizard is really cool. It's too bad that he never will obey Ash.

The book is an excellent source for information on the relationship between the brain and behavior

This book is an excellent reference on neuropsychology. I am a graduate student in neuroscience and I was pleasantly surprised to note that this book was very thorough in its discussion of different topics. My research concerns aspects of activity in the temporal lobe and the authors have discussed some of the cutting edge literature.This book is definitely a cut above the normal neuroscience textbooks.

The authors have clearly taken the time to go through the literature and pick out interesting papers and placed them in a quick and readable manner. I would recommend this book to any student of systems neuroscience for a good introduction to the fascinating aspects of brain function. In fact I would go as far as saying that this book is an ideal companion to the now dated bible of neuroscience (Kandel, Schwartz and Jessel).

its the best choice for neuropsychology students. very simpleified & teaches basic important fundementals.

This work is titled "Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology." The work provides a very nice perspective on what is know about the human brain and how it affects our thinking and decision-making.

One positive feature: it is well written and you do not have to be a doctoral student in neuropsychology to follow the book from chapter to chapter.

A second positive feature is the wide ranging coverage of basic subjects--from the evolution of the brain to its basic organization to the structure and function of the cortex to a discussion of higher functions (such as memory, language, emotions, and so on), as well as abnormalities that can occur in the brain.

All in all, a valuable volume that provides the reader with a good introduction (at more than a very basic level) to the structure and functioning of the human brain. It also makes us think a little bit about what it means to be a human.

I just wanted to point out a few things for those looking to find a deal on the editions pubished before the fifth. I bought the 4th edition for a class, saved some bucks, but I have been having to constantly check with folks who have the 5th edition because many chapter and heading locations have changed between the two editions. In addition to this, there are several new chapters that reflect the development of neuroscience in the years between the two editions, such and brain imaging and plasticity. Now after struggling with the earlier edition for two months I am having to biuy the fifth to get the assigned chapters that are not in the fourth.

So, the 4th edition certainly is a good text, but be aware of the changes if you are using this for classwork.

Very easy to read and understand -and the book is the perfect size to bring with you to a nursery when Hosta shopping. This guy really knows his Hostas!

An excellent reference & carry along. I've been collecting hostas for 10 years. When I purchased this book in 2000, I hoped it would be the last book I'd ever need. I thought it was pretty pricey & it took awhile to talk myself into the purchase. I have not been sorry for a second. Every time I think it will be lacking -- I'm proven wrong. I have never seen or heard of a hosta that hasn't been listed. Bravo, Mr. Zilis!

When I first got serious about collecting hostas, I bought a lot of books. Mostly, they're coffee-table picture books -- totally unwieldly to carry and ones I'll never look at again. But THIS book! I've practically memorized it! I've made notes in it; I've added descriptions of new hostas and taped them inside; I've highlighted stuff in yellow. I carry this book with me everytime I go to a hosta club meeting, and I carry it with me when I go hosta shopping. When I go to the AHS convention in St. Louis in June, my trusty Handbook will be with me. I love the size and shape of it. It fits ideally in one hand, I can stuff it inside my notebook that I take with me when I go to meetings that require notetaking (it fits as perfectly in that notebook as it does in my hand!), and it lies comfortably in my passenger car seat, not taking up room or making a nuisance of itself, in between trips to meetings and greenhouses. Some experience and ssrious thought went into the writing and making of this book and it shows!

I've learned a lot about all the Hosta varieties... how they compare and contrast to each other so I can figure out what I'm actually buying and where I should plant them, how large they can get and what they will be like when mature, and have gotten a basic concept of how the varieties were developed over the years. Very useful, it is a handbook for understanding the hobby of Hostas and does that job well.

Not really a "coffee table" type book if that is what you want, even thou the pictures are good

Absolutely the BEST book on hostas that I have found so far. When I first opened the package this book came in, I laughed to myself and said, "Gee, I didn't order half a book!" The book is spiral bound, 600 pages - but only 9" x 4.25" (page size) so it looks like someone chopped the book in half!

Nevertheless, this book is crammed full of great information on many of the hosta cultivars you will be able to find for sale. And because of it's size, it should be easy to bring along when I go "hosta hunting." I would imagine it would be almost impossible to write one book and include information about all - there are just too many cultivars in the hosta world!

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants the useful information at their fingertips - while looking through online selections or as a field guide while shopping or just exploring a garden!

Learn the anatomy behind your muscles and why stretching is important. This book also includes several techniques for safe stretches.

If you're looking for a lot of background on muscle physiology or a very specific method of stretching this book might interest you, but if you're looking for a good selection of stretches, you should be aware that you only get 6 stretches here. I found the title a little misleading, since "every sport" would seem to include tennis, baseball and swimming, but this book only addresses lower body flexibility. If you want to stretch your arms, back, shoulders, etc, you're out of luck here.

I also found it annoying that the author promotes his personal stretching theory while using outdated studies to discredit other methods. For example, he uses studies from the early 70s to prove that PNF stretching is bad for you when the PNF stretching theories in use right now were not even developed at the time of the studies. Seemed like he was selectively choosing among the available research to prove his point while disregarding accepted theories that don't bolster his own method.

Stark's book is criticized here several times, for not addressing mid and upper body muscle groups. If I want advice on what to do about atherosclerosis, I will go see a cardiac specialist. And if I want expert advice for feet and closely associated physiology I will read Stark, because his methods and communication skills are among the best. Unlike some 'experts', Stark does not arrogantly venture beyond the scope of his discipline.

Stark is a podiatrist. Maybe some of the complainants should have checked out his credentials before purchase.

If you read my other reviews, you'll know that I'm on a quest to determine the best, most effective, and safe methods to increase physical flexibility. Here's my take on Stark's book.

1. Stark does a great job of outlining human physical anatomy involved in lower body stretching. He does it with simple diagrams and plain language accessible to anyone.
Second, Stark outlines harmful stretches and techniques and dispels common myths concerning stretching. The price of the book is well worth paying for this information alone.

2. Most important Stark medically explains why the muscle can only be lengthened when it is relaxed and you cannot force a muscle to relax and lengthen. Hence the incredible potential stretching benefits of practices like Yoga.

3. The problem with Stark's book is this is as far as he takes it. He doesn't really make the leap of what is required to increase flexibility. He offers 6 simple stretches that are safe to perform, but using his method and stretches, it would take you over 100 years to increase your flexibility.

4. So, really this book reinforces the writings of people like Pavel: the muscle must be relaxed to stretch. I think the targeted audience of this book may be people who experience daily aches and pains from old athletic injuries and need simple, gentle stretching exercises.

Great as an addition to a fitness library but definitely not a stand-alone book.

Finally somebody who got it Right!

I won't waste any space in telling you how important, and undervalued, stretching is for any sport. This is a fantastic anatomical approach to stretch. The book should be read, and understood by anyone who wants to be physically fit.

The coverege of the book is spotty in some places, especially when dealing with the torse and upper body. But, to me, that does not detract from the overall exceptional quality of this book.

After receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, Saul Bellow produced "Dean's December", another extraordinary masterpiece. Probably the most insightful of the wave of novels which appeared in the West after some of the writers managed to travel behind the Iron Curtain, this is the story of Albert Corde, the University Dean and journalist from Chicago, who travels with his Romanian wife, Minna, to Bucharest when Minna's mother, Valeria, is at the hospital in critical condition after a stroke.

Dean Corde, as an America in the Communist Romania (annoyingly called Rumania which I believe was common in English several decades ago, although incorrect), is protected by his wife's family, not advised to left the house by himself, and alienated by the language barrier, effectively being left alone, with scarce contacts with Minna's family (despite his strong feelings for them and his will to help). Staying alone in his wife's childhood room at Valeria's apartment, which is occupied also by an elderly aunt, Tanti Gigi, the Dean cannot even read books, being essentially a benevolent prisoner; so he immerses himself in thoughts, disturbing and worrying, his problems remaining unsolved and new problems appearing during this cold December. The professional matters, left in Chicago, mingle with the personal in Bucharest, and each has an element of another in it. Although the narrative is in the third person, it is clear that most of it is told from Albert's point of view and is, essentially, a stream of his thoughts, a monologue (with a phone conversation, a discussion with Minna, or some letters here and there).

Albert has left Chicago in the middle of being involved in the trial of the death of one of his students, where the two accused are a pair of black inhabitants of the city - a prostitute and a man whose actions are dubious, but who is a friend of Albert's nephew, Mason. Mason tries to convince Albert that his friend could not kill the student, and uses clever arguments, which - Albert admits to himself - are better than he is able to rebuke.
Because the Dean caused some stirrup with his articles (after all, he is not a true academic, as he reminds the reader quite often - he is a journalist) about the structure of the Chicago society, he feels he cannot count on the University authorities and feels a bit lost in the whole affair while he is in Romania.

In Bucharest, he tries to be helpful to his wife, who is not permitted to see her mother dying in the hospital for the privileged (as she was both a well-established doctor and married to one, in spite of her leaving the party and being condemned and then rehabilitated, but never fully accepted by the regime, she was allowed this last favor), and summons all the diplomatic help he can get - he negotiates with the Ambassador and meets his childhood friend, Dawey Spangler, now an acclaimed political journalists, who also promises to do anything for help.

Valerie's death on Christmas Eve provides an anti-climax, because it really does not provide relief, does not solve any of the trouble on either side, and although the Dean and Minna can return to Chicago, they are as disturbed as back in Romania.

The novel is a slow thought-provoking read, written in dense and intelligent prose. The Dean is another impersonation of Bellow's intellectual, expressing the author's thoughts. And I can see why Bellow likes so much this type of main character (maybe aside from being close to such people in reality?). An intellectual, an academic, is a good model protagonist whose philosophizing, and constant literary associations can be excused, and who gives in exchange a background of knowledge, insightful and perturbed mind, and idealistic attitude which can be used for the best presentation of the views the author wishes to show here. The story is a tale of two cities, very different - one a place under the oppression of the dictatorial Communist system, the other the American dream not without political and social trouble of its own. And the question, which immediately comes to mind: what makes people, the core of any society, better? The freedom, or at least apparent freedom, and material well being, or the lack of it all, forcing people to stick together and help each other in any possible way, and to appreciate even the smallest bits of cultural and economical normality.
In the other aspect, this novel, although clearly an attempt at objectivism from Albert's point of view, is a personal account, by definition not objective. Albert's perceptions and opinions are not ideal, his mental portraits of people, even the closest relatives, like Minna or his sister Elfrida, seem to be far from reality (he sees Minna, a professor of astronomy, as completely removed from the world, whereas she seems to be more down to earth than he is - maybe his view is blurred by love?), and his actions, although well intended and thought through, quite often miss the point.

"Dean's December" is a great novel, a treatise on universal matters and a record of a fragment of our history, valuable both to American and international readers, There is nothing shallow, trivial or negligible, and nothing that could be easily forgotten of become obsolete.

The Dean's December tells the story of Albert Corde, one of Bellow's memorably depicted intellectual characters, a Chicagoan of 'pullman car' gentility, a college dean and sometime journalist, who waits for a dying mother in law in chilly Romania, behind the Iron Curtain, and also for the result of a trial of two blacks accused of murdering a white student, A trial on which he has commented.

Corde is perfectly placed in his predicament for Bellow to explore the great themes that were brewing and swelling within his colossal mind at the time, some of them current and political, some of them the great eternal issues of life and existence. All are mixed in here. Corde reflects on the value of his intellectual life, surrounded by poverty and struggle in Romania, on the essence of virtue in ruthless capitalist societies where poetry and art are trampled by the one dimensional value axis of money versus poverty. Corde is a patrician intellectual, someone who escaped from the blocks fast in life, publishing an influential article on the Potsdame conference while still in his early twenties, but has stagnated along the way, in a similar manner to his precursor character Tommy Wilhelm in 'Sieze the Day'. Others, most notably the high flying political commentator Dewey Spengler have played the scales of life more practically, accepting society for what it is, eschewing old fashioned romanticism - their shared childhood reading of Shakespeare in Lincoln Park, and has played life as a political game. Corde, the philosopher, becomes trapped, and ponderous, much like Hamlet, and is denounced and outflanked by Spengler in a splendid denoument at the end of the novel.

Not all of the Dean's December is sublime. There are many passages displaying Bellow's worst fault - the pretentious, intellectual name dropping - Freud, Marx, existentialism, you name it, sprayed about the pages for show. But at its best, all Bellow's intellectual influenes combine to produce great mind grabs of paragraphs, astonishing stretches of prose that capture with great perceptive, aesthetic and stylish depth just what it is to be human. There is an incident at the beginning of the book (a famous incident, much commented on by the likes of Amis, McEwan and Rushdie) where a dog in Bucharest barks out against the limits of dog experience (for God's sake, open the universe a little more!). Bellow did just that. That is why he was so great.

In this somewhat rambling novel Saul Bellow contrasts the life in communist Romania with that in Chicago. Basically it's an indictment of much in American society. Dean Albert Corde is in Romania with his wife Minna where her mother is dying in a hospital. Bureaucratic red tape makes it impossible for Minna to visit her mother, though finally she's permitted just one visit. Meanwhile, Corde is contemplating the fallout of some controversial articles he's written for "Harper's" on Afro-Americans and the underclass. Romanian society is depicted as cold (it's no accident the story takes place in winter) and distant, while America is shown to be disorderly and confused, especially in the inner cities. Some of Bellow's observations are acute, but too much of the novel is sacrificed to the dissection of ideas by means of seemingly endless conversations. The novel almost talks itself to death despite all the pertinent analyses of public issues, from prisons to public housing, that Bellow examines. Interestingly, Corde solves his problem as Dean by resigning, but the reader wonders what will be next for him: "I'm quiet enough as a rule," he says. "I don't like controversy." Somehow it's hard to believe Bellow would be satisfied with that self-assessment from the hero of this novel.

I am a Bellow fan and have read most of his novels. After a while his books become like old friends. This is an excellent novel, but a bit slow and somber.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male, usually a writer but not always, and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels and other works. The present novel - we can assume - reflects his own personal experiences of travelling to Romania in 1978, to attend the funeral of his mother-in-law, a former minister of health - similar to the story details of the book.

Bellow's style progressed a long way as a writer over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written 25 years before his peak. Those were heavy slow reads. "Dangling Man" is often boring, and Bellow was in search of his writing style in that period of the 1940s. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit boring. The book is well written and compact and many like that first book, but it was never a big seller.

His style changes with time, and the novels became more colorful such as "Augie March" or "Henderson the Rain King," or in fact brilliant as in "Herzog" or expansive and entertaing such as in "Humbolt's Gift." In "Humbolt's Gift" the narrator Charlie Citrine, again a writer, tells us a bit about his philosophy of writing and the need to entertain. Some of these novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humour is mixed in with the meaning of life and the future of our souls. Along the way there are a few diversions such as "Mr. Sammler's Planet" where we see a much more serious individual but again there is a bit of humour with the character Sammler.

That bring us to the present book, written by an older Bellow, one perhaps a step past his prime. But that did not stop Bellow nor does it detract in any way from the book. In fact, as we see in "Ravelstein" a few decades later, Bellow does not lose his touch, but the novels continue to change and evolve. The present book is serious, almost completely lacking in humour, and there are no side stories about former wives, or criminals, etc.

Without giving away the plot - such as it is and it is weak like most Bellow novels - the book has two parallel stories but perhaps just one complicated theme. The parallel stories involve the visit by the narrator, Dean Albert Corde, and his wife Minna to Bucharest to visit Minna's dying mother in an ICU in a Soviet style hospital. Corde is the Dean of Journalism at a fictional Chicago university. That sets a rather grim and humourless cold war era tone. In Bucharest he meets up with an old friend, and now a famous journalist, Dewey Splanger. Unknown to Corde, Dewey is preparing a piece to be published on Corde and on their upbringings in Chicago four decades earlier. The second of the two parallel stories is the life of Corde as a Dean and the subject of his writings and life in general in urban Chicago. These events all seem to come together and converge in Bucharest in a wintry December. The general theme is the way Corde views of urban Chicago; the theme reflects his writings on urban affairs, and the impact of the university on society.

The book is a bit slow to start, average in length about 300 pages long, but once underway is a complelling but not a brisk read. It does not have those Bellow touches that we see in some other novels. But still, it is Bellow, and as in other novels he makes literary tangent after tangent off of the main subject describing every character in great detail, and sometimes time shifting back many decades. He paints a stark contrast bewteen the grey communist Bucharest and the colorful and the complex Chicago, run by the political machine.

In a later book, "Ravelstein," Bellow uses Allan Bloom as a character and I thought that there were touches of Bloom in the Corde character, especially in setting the theme and how Corde viewed Chicago: "Bloom was a professor of social thought and a noted translator of Plato and Rousseau." Bloom became famous and wealthy following his book "The Closing of the American Mind", about American values and the role of Higher Education. Bellow and Bloom taught together and Bellow wrote the forward for Bloom's most famous book.

From a biographical description of Bloom I have copied this note: "Bloom blamed high technology, the sexual revolution, and the introduction of cultural diversity into the curriculum at the expense of the classics, which in turn produced students without wisdom or values. According to Bloom, American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized continental ideas of nihilism and despair, and of relativism disguised as tolerance."

Some of those themes are present in the current novel, as Bellow describes the disillusionment of Corde with the crime and poverty of urban Chicago and the role in society of his own Chicago university.

This novel was a lot better than I had expected, but it lacks the warmth and charm of some of his other works.

Recommend. 5 stars.

The downside of being pugnacious and feisty is that people stop taking you seriously next time you jump into a scrap. This seems to be what happened to this undeservedly neglected book by a great and feisty American writer.

Known for bringing artistic beauty, dimensionality, and a golden aura of wisdom to his tough Chicago turf, Bellow here took the gloves off. His University of Chicago Dean hero struggles with injustice and cynicism at its rawest, when he becomes engaged with the cavalier Chicago criminal justice system and its disgustingly casual response to the murder of a student. Counterpoint is meaningfully provided by the death of an old relative behind the iron curtain, whom the Dean visits. As in Lear, the subplot is no relief at all, merely stokes the flames of the main plot and brings Bellow's fury with the modern world to a white heat. Thus we are denied mere sociological or political excuses for our modern mayhem; the focus is what has gone wrong with our hearts the world over. Never has Bellow been more engaged or convincing. Indeed Bellow sacrifices something of his usual high gloss artistic finish to this product in the process, perhaps intentionally and savagely.

Yeah, he wants to stick it in your face and it shows. This is doubtless what offends some readers. Nevertheless it is a worthy response to having just received the Nobel Prize. Most writers, American and otherwise, react by self-inflating to sanctimoniously gracious gas bags. Saul knew who he was, however, and never let anyone fool him on that score.

I cannot recommend the real life portraiture and painting that shines through this text highly enough. It is entirely genuine, real, perfect, matchlessly true. I frankly know of no better Chicago novel.

To be fair, however, I must warn you that the 2 respected readers I know, who read this one cover to cover, were almost viscerally angry afterwards for having done so. Ultimately the experience only underscored to me the difficulties of succeeding in fiction, of making it that real.

The foundation of consequentialist ethical theory, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is a must read for anybody who wants to understand ethical theory. While we may debate what makes action right or wrong, Mill's take is one that must be acknowledged.

One of the Classical School economists explains and defends a system of ethics that counted among its adherents Ludwig von Mises, one of the great Austrian School economists and philosophers.
Utilitarianism, in John Stuart Mill's day and our own, periodically comes under attack from the spokesmen of organized religion. But Mill holds that his philosophy is completely compatible with religious morals. Mill even writes that the founder of Christianity was a utilitarian. Makes sense when we realize that one of the main features of the early Christians was jettisoning Judaism commandments that seem to have no obvious utility (usefulness). That attitude lead them to eventually discard the entire Torah.
Mill imbibed Utilitarianism from his father -- British East India Co. executive and writer James Mill -- and their friend Jeremy Bentham. The two tablets of Utilitarianism are pleasure (acquisition of) and pain (avoidance of). Reduced to one it is the "greatest happiness principle." Mill argues persuasively that these things are more hard-wired into humans than almost everything else. The pursuit of virtue, which some in organized religion see as being at odds with Utilitarianism, is actually a form of the pursuit of happiness for the virtue-seeker, those around him/her, and/or future generations. This adds to the "public good," which is at the peak of Mill's values pyramid.
Utilitarian concepts are all over America's founding documents, especially the Constitution. Interestingly, and ironically, Mill's essay was published at the time of the Constitution's greatest crisis -- the Civil War (1863). Mill makes no mention of the crisis or America's earlier successful marriage of Utilitarianism and federalism/limited government.
Mill's "public good" and the U.S. Constitution's "general welfare" clauses helped open the gates to big government, Ayn Rand and other individual rights advocates point out. Sad but true. Although his ideas contain seeds for the modern welfare state, Mill meant his public good to be best achieved by free-acting individuals getting little or no prompting from government.
How does the individualized commandment of "love thy neighbor as thyself" get turned into the collectivist Social Security Administration? Perhaps the psychiatric profession can explain it. I can't.

Many of the posted reviews refer to a different version of the text (i.e. Crisp vice Sher)

Sher's version is an inexpensive and accessible (good font size and binding) edition of this classic. It contains the 3 essays (unabridged) use to construct Utilitarianism as well as a speech given by Mill while serving as a British MP in 1868 on capital punishment. Readers should note that aside from a short introduction by George Sher, this edition does not contain any additional analysis. Readers looking for a more detailed discussion will need to look elsewhere. Judging from some of the other reviews it sounds as if Crisp's version may be worthwhile.

I read this book for a graduate Mill seminar in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

John Stuart Mill, 1806-73, worked for the East India Co. helped run Colonial India from England. Minister of Parliament 1865-68 he served one term.

Mill develops a theory of morality in Utilitarianism. He argues against the group of people who think that morality is intuitive. Intuitionists think that God put morality in us, thus, morality is a priori. Moral rules or principles were programmed in us, we can see these rules, they are binding, however they do acknowledge that on a case by case basis we still need to use them to reason out the ultimate answer for a particular case.

Mill also believes that there are a set of moral principles that we ought to be thinking about. Intuitionists today think that case by case we can reason out what is right or wrong. However, they would be suspicious that of believing there were general moral principles. Intuitionists say it is not up to us to investigate what is right or wrong. Mill would disagree. Mill doesn't like Intuitionists theory because they can't prove their view; and they can't explain why "lying is wrong" as an example. In addition, they do not provide a list of these innate morals we are suppose to have, and they do not have a hierarchy for them to resolve the conflict between two morals when they arise.

Background on essay, written in 1861 came out in 3 magazine articles, pretty scanty which sometimes drives one crazy trying to deduce what Mill is saying. A lot of interpretation is necessary.

Chapter 2: The second paragraph is official statement of the theory.

"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

Happiness=pleasure and freedom from pain. This makes him a Hedonist philosophically.


Higher Pleasures Doctrine- Jeremy Bentham says how valuable pleasure was based on 2 dimensions that we evaluate our experience of pleasure by, intensity and duration. Bentham says this determines quantity in pleasure. Bentham said this determined how much a given experience adds to a person's happiness.

Mill adds a third value to evaluate pleasure by and that's its quality, how good it is. Many don't understand Mill's idea that pleasure has value and quality. Most people think that Mill is really talking about quantity, or they don't believe one can be a hedonist, that pleasure is the only thing that has value, and yet think that there is something more to judging how valuable an experience is than the intensity and the duration of the pleasure it contains. So, they say that one of two things must be going on here. Of course, some people are sure it is one thing, and some are sure it is another. Either what Mill is talking about when you get right down to it is quantity in pleasure and different experiences, or all the different things he says about quality can be somehow resolved into quantity. So that really what is going on is that when Mill talks about a pleasure being of a higher quality that just means that there is a lot more pleasure there that the quantity is much greater. Or, Mill is giving up on hedonism at this point and he is admitting that some things are valuable aside from pleasure. So, when he says an experience like reading a good book or something like that is more valuable than an experience of some kind of animalistic pleasure, that really what he is saying is this experience is more valuable for reasons that go beyond the amount of pleasure involved. In addition to how much pleasure is involved there is also that maybe the experience is more beautiful or more noble or something like that and this gives it additional value. So something other than the amount of pleasure involved gives it additional value. Mill can be a consistent hedonist and he can consistently say that pleasure is the only thing that can have value and yet it is still the case that some pleasures are just more valuable than other pleasures.

'Utilitarianism' by 19th Century English social philosopher, John Stuart Mill is the classic statement of a theory of ethics which is bases its argument primarily on the question of 'What is Good' instead of questions of obligation on which many other classic theories are based.

Today, Mill's theory and Utilitarianism in general fall under the shadow of an equally famous work by English philosopher, G. E. Moore, the great analytical work 'Principia Ethica'.

Utilitarianism is based on determining what is good by what provides the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people. All by itself, this theory leaves itself open to all sorts of difficult questions about whether great good for a large number of people is worth the suffering of a single individual and all sorts of variations on this theme.

Moore's argument is simply that these problems simply point up the fact that what is moral cannot be reduced to statements of fact, such as the amount of pleasure received by a number of people.

Oddly enough, Moore did not kill Utilitarianism. That is why Mill's work is still studied today. Unlike scientific theories, philosophical theories, being different ways of looking at the world, never entirely loose their insights, even some of the most absurd sounding notions such as Bishop Berkeley's solipsism.

Like Kant's short 'Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals', the greatest virtue of this book is that it is a classic statement of an important position by it's most famous proponent in a relatively short work.

It is not easy reading, but it's length means one can read and analyze it within the course of a week, which is why professors still assign it.

A very important work.

i really didnt care for this book. i wouldnt say that it was a page turner b/c to me it wasnt. a lot of things made me mad about this book. i would have to say it was the mentality of the boys in this book. thats why i say that. the sad thing is thats the reality of todays world. it doesnt stop b/c the book stopped. A LOT of boys think like that. unfortunately their thinking doesnt change as they become men

This book was execellent, definitley a page turner...I read it in two days.

Taking his cue from the harsh realities of the streets, author Mark Anthony has brought to life an incredible work of fiction that brings to the forefront the horrors of fast living and ill begotten money. In 1991 when the drug epidemic was at an all time high, many Americans, from all walks of life, found themselves in some way touched by the ever reaching evils that accompanied the use and selling of illicit drugs. However, no one seemed to be as hard hit by the trafficking, distribution and use of drugs, and the violence it spewed, than the youth of America's inner cities. Hordes of young men and women were ruined and corrupted by the fleeting power and money that drugs brought to the streets. The Fourth Crew of Queens, New York was such a group. Young, talented and intelligent, they were a group of African-American men who were seduced then betrayed by the false promises of street-life.

The Fourth Crew started out as a group of neighborhood friends whose bond was as strong as that of blood brothers. By no means innocent, they were however, just a group of friends who enjoyed life and were there for one another when the ills of Queens would rear its ugly head. Things changed for these young men in the summer of 1991. Fed up with being second class to the guys on the streets with money and girls, the Fourth Crew decided to become drug kingpins. Once and for all they were determined to get the things they wanted in life: money, street-credibility and women. In order to achieve such ambitious goals, the once seemingly harmless members of the Fourth Crew would have to transform themselves into hardened criminals. Soon the tight-knit group would find themselves torn apart by murder, prison and betrayal.

Told through the eyes of young Mark Holsey, the Fourth Crew member with a heart of gold, PAPER CHASERS is a page-turner that captivates from the first page. Mark Anthony takes you on a journey that is exciting and heartbreaking. Although street-life has been a popular theme in contemporary fiction, Mark Anthony's novel stands out from the rest. PAPER CHASERS is action-packed, sleek and intelligent. The novel delivers a true message about the ills of life on the streets, without being preachy or judgmental. The characters were non-stereotypical and believable. I found myself riveted and saddened by what eventually became of some of the characters. By novel's end I was captivated and touched by Mark Anthony's writing style and sense of story-telling .

Reviewed by L. Raven James
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The Summer of 1991, a perfect back drop for this tale of ordinary guys tired of being just ordinary. But just where does the chase of the all mighty dollar lead this crew of life-long friends from Queens?

Holz the main character comes form a two parent home, has graduated high-school, has a job and a good girlfriend. But he will still fall to peer pressure and risk it all for material gain.

I've read a lot of books about friends venturing into illegal activites looking for the come-up. But what differs in Mr. Anthony's tale is the reality of the outcome of such ventures. Is there a price to pay for the fast life? Come follow the Fourth Crew and find out.

Excellent novel describing a very memorable summer in NYC and an unforgettable crew.

This author makes the reader experience the story while reading the book. The excitement, the drama and the problems are so real! Mark Anthony communicates the art of telling a rich tale and bringing the characters to life. The writing is lighting quick, rough and unapologetic. This book is a essential for ALL book clubs! I truly enjoyed this book. When is the next???

I found it a fascinating of how one man could become a major dealer in nuclear technology.

The lax security in the European nuclear program allowed a Pakistani engineer Khan to steal the centrifuge designs. Khan took those designs to Pakistan to help create a nuclear bomb there. Soon Khan became the head of a major nuclear organization in Pakistan. Soon the Pakistani had developed centrifuges technology that could bypass the international controls on making nuclear bombs.

Here contrary to the writer, I am not so sure from his evidence the US atomic program for peace failed as he suggested. The appeal of Khan technology to rogue countries was they could bypass the checks here. So Khan sold this technology for large sums to Iran, Libya, North Korea and maybe one more.

Part of the problem stopping Khan was finding what was happening. Then it was his prestige in Pakistan. Plus the free world's need for Pakistani support both in the cold war and the war in Afghanistan after 911 but eventually in January 2004, under world pressure Khan was arrested and put under house arrest. So finally stopping Khan, leaving us with a problem of knowing how much damage Khan did!

Now it is a few years since the book was written. Iran is still trying to make a bomb. At best, Khan would have given it a boost. The Libyan spent much money for nothing and eventually gave up on nuclear bombs, so his contribution there was useless. North Korea appears according to recent information gave up earlier on this type of uranium enrichment technology and went back to the power reactor method. Maybe he helped with the bomb design. The last unknown country, I cannot comment.

Finally I am left wondering what happened to the money the Pakistani got from these countries? Khan lived a good life but he did not take much of the money. I suspect that it went to the Pakistan's nuclear program which I find a disturbing conclusion.

Overall if you are interested in this, you will find this a fascinating read.

George Tenet reportedly described A.Q. Khan as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden." Corera adds that Khan has had greater impact on nuclear proliferation than any other individual - yet, his story begins simply as the right man in the right place. Trained as a metallurgist in Europe, he began work in '72 at a research lab in the Netherlands at the forefront of Europe's efforts to develop the latest centrifuge technology for nuclear fuel, providing independence from the U.S.

Next to the research lab was a plant holding thousands of tall, slender centrifuges connected by a maze of metal piping. Each machine only enriched the gas a tiny amount - thus, the need for a connected cascade. Each centrifuge consisted of 100 parts, many engineered to within /001 of a mm. and able to withstand very high speeds. One tiny mistake and the centrifuge spins out of control, often crashing into other machines and destroying the entire cascade.

Khan's first job at the research center was to translate documents for a new German-designed centrifuge - the P2. Security at the site was lax, and within three years Khan's co-worker became convinced Khan was a spy. Authorities were alerted, but according to most accounts, the CIA helped convince them just to watch Khan and remove his access to secret materials. Realizing he'd been found out, Khan returned to Pakistan, taking thousands of pages of documents and even discarded parts with him.

At about this same point in time the U.S. learned of Pakistan's intent to use fuel reprocessing (aided by France) to make a bomb. France as convinced to stop the program, leading Pakistan to instead focus on Khan's knowledge of centrifuges. (Other advantages of using centrifuges were that much less space and power were required than reprocessing or gaseous diffusion - making the program much easier to hide.)

Khan knew Pakistan lacked the manufacturing skills ("couldn't make a pin"), but he also knew who the component suppliers were for the research lab where he had worked. Thus, he utilized a network of Swiss, German, U.K., U.S., China (bomb design), North Korea (missile design), and Niger (yellowcake) suppliers. By 1987 Pakistan had the bomb. Soon after, Khan began marketing his/Pakistan's skills - North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Throughout this period and on to the present, the U.S. knew of Pakistan's activities but refrained from taking strong action because their cooperation was needed to help defeat the Russians in Afghanistan, and then after 9/11 in terror-reduction efforts.

An IAEA inspection in '03 found Iran with 160 cascaded P1-design centrifuges and evidence of uranium enriched to between 36 - 70%. Iran's original efforts began under the Shah in 1976, were known about in the U.S., and reportedly led Saddam Hussein in Iraq to press for his own program (began by purchasing a reactor from France). Iran, like its mentor, Pakistan, eventually also decided to go the centrifuge route after the U.S. pressed France to renege on an agreement to provide Iran with a fuel reprocessing (enrichment) plant. In addition, taking a lesson from Iraq's reactor being destroyed by Israel, Iran built its facilities in a dispersed, underground manner.

Currently it is not clear what Iran's strategy is. It may simply be building a large, legal stockpile of power-plant level fuel - ready to upgrade to weapons grade on short notice in only 20% of the time required starting from scratch. Or, it may have a parallel setup that is creating bomb-grade material at the present.

Pakistan's proliferation activities continued after 9/11 - however, dissidents in various countries provided information that led to finding enrichment centrifuges on a ship bound for Libya. Libya decided to renounce its program, and the information garnered from them and their suppliers helped prove to Pakistan's leaders that Khan and his associates were running amok.

A.Q. Khan has now been under house arrest in Pakistan for several years, unable to even use the telephone. Hopefully his proliferation activities have all been undone. However, his network suppliers have by now learned how valuable their offerings are, and it is also known that he also worked with those wanting to start a program in Saudi Arabia.

A.Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology and a hero in Pakistan: Khan was known as the Father of the Bomb and built a global network selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. It's surprising to note that this is the first book-length survey of the rise and fall of the man and his role in spreading nuclear technology. It use interviews with politicians and key members of his own network to survey not only Khan's life and influence on the spread of nuclear technology, but the methods and intentions of the rogue states who bought from him. New details on how the CIA penetrated his network and broke his ring makes for a unique and eye-opening analysis which is a top recommendation for both general-interest collections strong in terrorist studies and military holdings.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is an excellent piece of work on Nuclear Proliferation. Things that I would have liked to see in this book :

*) Substantiated material with actual interviews with intelligence officers. Author uses lots of qoutes from private conversations, but how did he get access to those ? That makes me question a bit the authencity of the research.

*) The book keeps on jumping back and forth, which is an excellent case to muddy the presentation. I would have liked a chronological order maintained in the book so that thought processes can be collected and processed efficiently.

Overall it is an eye-opener.

This is a pretty good book giving a balanced view of what was known or suspected of Dr A.Q. Khan's activities. It does explain how Mr Khan got his Nuclear education and how he found his way into a nuclear program in Europe in the early 1970s. It gives some clear indications of the divisions that separate India and Pakistan which are remote from most of us who have been born in the USA, and how these may have served as a powerful motivator for Dr Kahn.

The book places many things into context and gives enough chronology that you can sort the various pieces out. There are some factual matters that can be argued with mr Corera, for example he claims Iraq had no nuclear program, despite the US having found a viable centrifuge buried in an Iraqi Scientist's garden. The book does give some idea of what the intelligence community knew and when they knew it. I personally am heartened that the intelligence comunity was able to penetrate this network when they realized this would be highly desirable. The CIA has suffered in the area of being able to recruit agents on the ground as a result of late 1970s reforms which emphasized technology approaches to the cold war as opposed to human intelligence.

The book also does a good job of bringing out the US dilemma in terms of asking an invaluable ally in Purvez Muscharev (sp?) to take down a national hero. A job that was a very delicate undertaking.

great for people who love to doodle and who enjoy reaching inside and having fun with your inner self

An excellent variety of simple, but quite creative activities to start you thinking about yourself. I wish there were follow ups of this kind.

Spiritual Doodles and Mental Leapfrogs: Playbook for Unleashing Spiritual Self Expression
What a disappointment. If I had seen it before buying I would not have purchased it. It is written in poor hand-printing which makes it hard to read. The suggestions seem recycled, not new and not interesting. I would have returned it except for the bother of shipping it back to Amazon.

This is a great book to get you started in self-expressive journaling and doodling. There is such a variety of reflections and exercises- you can pick and choose the ones you're in the mood to do. I haven't finished going through all of the exercises, but it is a fun book so far. The pages are filled with doodles and drawings by the author. They invite play and spontaneity. It is a great way to get to know yourself better and explore a new means of self-expression.

This book is a wonderful tool for someone needing to find themselves. I also use this to channel my anger. It was very well done and I think everyone should have a copy!!!

This book is about web testing in general, not just performance testing, and is a must have for the professional testing engineer. Chapters 7 and 8, on performance and scalability give a very good introduction to the subject, and include a great sample performance testing plan.

Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance, Inc. Stress Testing Software
http://www.webperformanceinc.com

The Web Testing Handbook is an excellent guide to `real world' testing of web sites and web applications. The book includes techniques, tips, checklists and - what I found really useful - lists of relevant URLs giving me instant opportunities to obtain up-to-date research, statistics and further expert opinion. The book also overcomes the problems many people have with endless acronyms by containing explanations of underlying web technologies. As a tester, I found the level just right - not over my head and not (like many Internet books) around my boots.
The book's approach is pragmatic and doesn't seek to give instant answers where none exist. Neither does it push academic approaches, which are never going to work in a high-pressure industry. I found the discussions of issues and solutions to be practical and useful. There is also a case study to reinforce the points made by the author - as well as making the topics more interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone directly or indirectly involved in web testing. It shows testers what to test and how. It gives test managers a framework and an approach to managing web testing - even including information on software tools. It is informative, understandable and, above all, readable.

When looking into books for any tech-related topic, I look for two qualities to assess the value of the book. The first is the depth of the subject matter of the work. I look for books that teach me new technologies, technique, or process. The second is the book's lasting value as a reference for future work. When spending money, I'd like to be sure that the lasting value of the book is at least potentially there. This book has neither of those qualities, here's why:

- Depth of Subject Matter -
It's difficult to determine who this book is written to educate. The forward identifies the audience as existing software testers looking for education in the finer points of web software testing. That's legitimate, but it falls far short of this or any other unstated goals. The delivery of material in this work is quick and dirty. There's no topic that extends beyond a single-digit number of pages. This makes plenty of sense in the early chapters where the discussion of things like hardware compatibility are discussed. Other areas deserve far better coverage. The topics of browser compatibility, performance testing, and scalability testing, for example, are scantly explained. It's a disservice to the reader, since these are paramount topics for the intended audience. Another downfall to this approach is its failure to discuss the organizational differences between an IT team deploying software frequently versus one deploying incremental releases on a yearly timeframe. To be fair, the authors touch on this topic, but it's nothing comprehensive.

- Reference Value -
The reference value of this book is almost zero. I run a test team for a web based business of considerable size, and I have to say I found some actually misleading advice in the work. A lot of the explanations of what's smart and what's avoidable fall completely off the mark. Even worse, and this is actually enough of a reason to start looking for a different book right away, is the poor quality of the references throughout the book. While they spend some considerable time explaining the difference between the time in a normal software development cycle and one that operates under 'web time', they cite sources from two and three years ago that are completely irrelevant considering the widespread and fundamental changes to the online software development domain. They establish 'web time' as an accelerated, hectic calendar where nothing is the same after two months of churning, but then cite references from 1999 market research studies to back up their points. Though definitely not intentional, it's very neglectful. I turned to the front of the book at one point to re-verify the copyright date. ...

So, for me and for my needs, this book is essentially worthless and I'm sad to have spent [$$] to learn this. The topics are covered only as summaries, but those that deserve and in some cases completely require a much deeper explanation are treated similarly. Regarding the intended audience, it's still a head scratcher because of the delivery of the material. It's not heavy in any one area, so it's difficult to determine if this is for a QA manager (can't work, not enough attention to process), the new tester (can't work, not enough detail on the actual testing), the converting tester (might work, but the high-level descriptions coupled with the indescriminate delivery of the subjects would confuse anyone without due insight), or the experienced web tester (can't work, too much of the data is elementary to those already functioning as a tester in the web space). I don't suggest it, and I wouldn't suggest it in a future edition if they work to update the references.

I've purchased and been reading this book. I've also reviewed the downloadable sample documents "Master Test Plan" and this is almost exactly what I need for the test plan I'm writing for our extranet site. Before finding this book, I spent hours searching for methods and techniques to use for developing a through test plan. Once I found this resource, my searching was over.

Testing Web-based applications and web interfaces is a new focus for many companies. Web-based application testing is different from the traditional client / server, PC, and / or mainframe system software products. Also factored in are code quality, browser compatibility, site navigation, user interaction, performance, and scalability.

Recognizing that companies need to conduct evaluation as they develop their "next generation" web sites and applications, The authors have written an insightful introduction to the concepts and techniques for conducting various tests. The book starts with an introduction to web programming, servers, architecture, and all those something 2 something terms (Business to Business (B2B) and Market to Market (M2M) for example). To select and conduct appropriate tests requires an understanding the purpose of the application and the architecture that supports it.

The authors reference a study by Creative Good during the 1998 holiday season on 10 leading Web shopping sites. The study found that for every US$1 spent on advertising generated US$5 in additional review while US$1 spent on "customer experience" improvements yielded more than US$60 in additional review. What more motivation is needed to ensure your Web site is usable?

This handbook guides you through the web testing process. The book is easy to follow and avoids dry "theory" talk that you find in many technical books. How often have you read such a book and found yourself unable to apply it to real world situations? You'll find a handy checklist of test conditions along with URLs for further references associated with the section to help you apply the test concepts. You can take the relevant items from the checklists and create your test case templates. The authors took another step and created a companion Web site using an imaginary company as a case study and included downloadable sample business requirements and test plans associated with the case study.

Covering all of the possible bases, the book offers guidelines and checklists for conducting all kinds of testing that applies to web-based applications, from interface usability to server functionality. It also includes common software development scenarios and provides possible options for handling them. For example, a team may require everyone to work on the weekend to test the Web site's ability to handle a large number of users. However, it may not be the best way to go functionally and financially. The authors explain the reasoning and present available options.

While traditional software developers are probably most familiar with concepts like load testing (determining how much load a server can handle) and software testing (making sure that all of the functionality works), human factors professionals have touted the concept of usability testing as a way of determining how well a user might be able to navigate and use a web site or application. Jakob Nielsen has been one of the most vocal in this. The book provides a variety of methods for testing usability.

The book provides something for everyone in a software development shop including developers, testers, managers, and project managers. Testers get help on how and where to begin. Managers can benefit from the test strategies and planning. Companies new to testing and not knowing which tools and resources to use will want to review the book's unbiased discussion and resources of such tools. You won't feel overwhelmed by the resources because it's organized by sections, which helps you focus on current needs.

The book is well laid out and it's a fast read. It would be difficult to miss its concepts. This well-rounded book would be a boon to any software development team's library even if it were only one person playing all the parts.