Natural Language Books

This is a short but solid intro to perl's Test modules. Easy to read, mostly easy to follow.

What it's not:
* an intro to TDD methodologies; for that you should look at the Beck book
* an in-depth guide to the full array of Test::* modules. There's a section on using MockModule and MockObject, but like all the other chapters it's basically just one example of a class + a test script with a brief discussion of "What just happend?"
* Cheap. With largish print and only 180 pages (including index) the cover price of $29.95 is no bargain.

Still recommended for someone trying to get started with perl test frameworks.

I've been working with perl for many years, but it seems that every time I pick up a new perl book, there's always something to learn. This Developer's Notebook on Testing was no exception.

I found several tips that helped me speed up my development and maintenance of test harnesses, as well as a number of new coding techniques (new to me, at least).

I consider this one of the best purchases I've made this year.

Throughout history, many writers have written glowingly about the noble tester; the one who ensures that quality is part of every line of code. Children know the names of all of the famous testers, and have committed to memory their noble deeds. There are series of trading cards with the stats of every code tester that has ever lived. OK, perhaps this is all a load of humbug. Testing code is as highly thought of as documentation and debugging; we know we need to do it, but not many developers look forward to doing it. Its the rare developer that leaps from her chair and exclaims "I've just finished this code! Now I get to go test it!". Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook (hereafter referred to as Perl Testing) may not make the process of debugging Perl code any more sexy or appealing, but it does have some excellent tips and strategies for tightening and streamlining the whole development process.

Perl Testing is part of O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series of books. The idea is to get the ideas to press quickly, so the books are very concise, straight to the point, and include some themed features such as notes in the margins and "coffee stains". It makes for a more causal book, and stresses workable solutions rather than extreme formality. Sure, its a bit gimmicky, but the format works, and gets the information out quickly. Unfortunately it appears O'Reilly hasn't published any books in this series since Perl Testing so I hope they resurrect it for future topics.

Perl Testing is divided into nine chapters: Beginning Testing, Writing Tests, Managing Tests, Distributing Your Tests (and Code), Testing Untestable Code, Testing Databases, Testing Web Sites, Unit Testing with Test::Class, and Testing Everything Else. Each chapter has several subtopics, beginning with a prelude describing the testing situation, a "How do I do that" explanation, a "What just happened" discussion of the results, and a "What about..." exploration of other tips and tricks. This formality, even for such an informal book, makes for an easy-to-read style, and allows for the book to be used both as a tutorial and a reference for specific tests and testing situations. The code for the tests is both well written and clear, and the tests themselves are well thought out. One might accuse the authors of being too paranoid with their testing, but when bugs are out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking.

Perl Testing is a well-thought out book. I enjoyed leafing through the tests, and found myself thinking "I never thought of that" at some of the tests performed. Some might think that a whole book devoted to testing might be a bit extreme, but compared with other books who dedicate maybe a chapter or two for testing, having this subject covered at length is long overdue. The best summary for Perl Testing would be on the back cover: "You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook. You just have to want to do your job better". This is an excellent resource for those looking to have their Perl programs truly sing, and demonstrate their resilience to the bugs and other foibles that plague software development. If you're even thinking of doing Perl programming, and care at all about the quality of your code, you owe yourself a read through Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook.

This is a decent overview of Perl testing libraries, that goes further than the material in Intermediate Perl and the second edition of Advanced Perl Programming. It also moves pretty fast, as is the practical bent of the Developer's Notebook series. This will be welcome for any programmer familiar with testing tools in other languages, although testing newbies should be able to understand the mechanics without trouble.

Apart from the unit testing basics, it also goes over mocks, coverage, databases, webpages, testing documentation and module layout, and (most importantly for Perl) testing scripts. The Test::Class module, a xUnit-style module is also covered, although the more procedural Test::More seems to be the standard tool in Perl and is given the most attention. Code for a simple continuous integration tool is presented, which is pretty neat, given how short it is.

The emphasis in this book is very much on the how, rather than the why. Unlike many other books, you are given complete code along with how to execute the scripts and the expected output, which is very helpful. What isn't covered is any of the development methodologies that have driven the interest in testing methods. There's no discussion of Test Driven Development here, or how developer-driven unit testing meshes with the software building process, and there's only cursory or no discussion of what to test, where to start, test organisation (which IMO quickly becomes the limiting step in going test-infected), dealing with legacy code, dummies vs stubs vs mocks, white box vs black box testing etc. For the latter, you will have to consult the likes of xUnit Test Patterns, Unit Testing in Java and Test Driven Development: A Practical Guide. None of these books contain Perl code, however.

This is not a very long book, and there's not always the detail you might want for the more advanced topics. The emphasis on applications rather than principles also means that the book is a little vulnerable to API changes and newer CPAN modules. That said, part of the deal with the Developer's Notebook series is the lack of ceremony, so as long as you know what you're getting it's hard to complain, particularly as it's possible to pick up a copy at a reasonable price. Also, the writing itself is clear, direct and no-nonsense. It's a useful resource, and certainly in a more convenient format than scrolling through countless perldoc pages.

I was initially not excited by O'Reilly's "Developer's Notebook" line of books. A lot of things conspired to make me turn up my nose. The design looked too gimmicky, the first few books turned me off (I don't remember specifics, but it was something like Excel Macros, Java Networking, and some other crap), and something inside me just felt like it was a dumb idea. I don't know why: I used to use similar references all the time, back when the Linux HOWTOs weren't useless. Anyway, when I heard that the new Perl testing book was going to be a notebook, I sort of groaned, but I still made sure I got it as soon as it was out and dug in.

Testing is Really Important. It serves as a secondary form of documentation, it makes it easier to add new features, it makes it easier to fix broken features, and it makes your replacement's job a lot easier when you win the lottery and retire early. It's a sad fact that plenty of people don't test their code, and that many of those who want to just don't know how. PTDN is a crash course for those people. It gets right to the point: page one says, roughly, "You know you should be testing, so here's how you do it. First, run the CPAN shell and install Test::Simple."

The rest of the book sticks to that no-crap attitude. "You want to do X. Here's what you do, and here's what happens when you do it." There isn't much of "why should I do this" or "how does this work on the inside" and that's just right. The book isn't there to show you how Devel::Cover works, or to explain the ideas behind agile development. It's there to help you do the job you know you need to do. It's like an old-style HOWTO extracted back one level of abstraction, or a set of nice fat articles on a series of related topics.

In fact, I think it's safe to say that a more traditional technical book on this subject might have been just the sort of overblown self-important thing that would've kept more people scared of and away from testing. Instead, it's a great crash course for the uninitiated.

For the initiated, I'm not sure how useful it would be. I must say that I didn't find many new or esoteric things in PTDN, but I don't think I'm its target audience. I already use and love coverage reports, I aim for full coverage on my code, and I like keeping my eye on the Test:: namespace for neat new tricks. If I were to hire a lackey, though, who wasn't already familiar with testing, this book would be high up on his must-read list. Knowing how to test your software is vitally important, and this book provides a very short path to that knowledge.

Good reference book for Spirit Guides and tells you how to build your own Totem. Easy to read and Easy to use.

Ted Andrews has put alot of research & dedication into this resource.
Fantastic info on all animals included & excellent sections on how to incorporate animal wisdom into your life.
An excellent resource for healers & Kinesiologists when balancing or for anyone who loves animals & nature.
Highly recommended buy.

I'm glad I snagged a copy of this book. Usually when an author puts out another book on the same topic as before it ends up being flogge past redemption. This one, though, is a good expansion on what Animal-Speak contained. I'm especially happy about the continuation of the animal totem dictionary, primarily because it reminds readers that there are animals beyond North America ;)

I wouldn't really recommend it as a stand-alone book for a beginner because you really do need a lot of the material from Animal-Speak for betetr context, but if you really, really like Andrews' work go ahead and get this. If you're more independent, you can probably pass it up since it's pretty much the second half of a very large book.

Another cover that suggests things Native American, another round of clip-art-type illos, another dose of the "New Age" (see my review for Animal-Speak).

This book is interesting in that it lists scores of less-popular, less-cuddly critters: insects, arachnids, arthropods, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. (Where else ya' gonna go if you think you have a Crayfish totem?)

Truley another wonderful book on the subject of animal magic and totems. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in finding out what animal(s) is their totem or just to find out what each animal that comes into their life means amd how it relates to them.

The two tightly-connected ideas strike you as amazed. In the first place, what has never before been clearly and stricltly formulated, the fundamental truth that the world with all its furniture goes by interplay through the reversibility principle. It both accounts for and predicts reverse effects, phenomena or processes of any kind, not excluding the reverse engineering of a mechanical deity, in technical parlance an ultra-intelligent machine, by its creatures - human beings.

This is another tour de force. The thing is, in principle we can create superhuman intelligences fully aware of the basic truths of reality, along with expertise and common sense knowledge.

Like other extinct species, Homo sapiens sapiens, as it stands, endangered and threatened species, and it is likely to be replaced by coming far superior intelligent machines. Before long we might be defined by our cybersuccessors as the extinct genus of late hominid, following Homo erectus and preceding Machina sapiens.

A great satisfaction to any natural intelligence having feel and taste for a rigorous account of Great Ideas, completely ignored or entangled by our overspecialized scientists and philosophers. Well worth your time, attention and money. Fully deserve to be the best new book on Artificial Intelligence, according to Amazon.com.

And sure the book is a painful reading for those muddle-headed, one-star reviewers stuck with ready-made and stale ideas, liking to attribute their personal flaws to authors.

What is this book all about? It is all about a mind-blowing universal law of nature. Mind-blowing, because it is unbelievable that at the end of the 20th century a new fundamental principle can be laid down. Here it would be of use to remind one shocking lesson in the history of humanity's understanding of the universe. More than 22 centuries ago a Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, revealed that our planet actually rotates and revolves around the Sun. But only in the 15th century Copernicus dared to boldly recognized this fact of nature thus refuting the long established myth of the Ptolemaic geocentric system. Now from this generous with fresh ideas publication we learn another mind-bogling suggestion that all fundamental processes are reversible, or all processes in Nature stand in a relation of convertibility. And on reading the book one starts to believe that the principle of reversibility appears to be universal as the genetic code for all living things. Besides, on reading the book our everspecialized boffins and academics could eventually know why each physical effect has its inverse counterpart, chemical reactions are reversible, and basic biological processes turn the other way round. To prove his thesis, author created an extremely wide but precise theory of reality which reveals a single underlying mechanism of all natural, mental, and social processes and explains a challenging secret of nature - the causes of the cycling of matter and energy in it. From AI viewpoint, Abdoullaev's comprehensive and exact ontology may well serve as the fundamental knowledge framework for artificial systems with general intelligence, and it looks much superior in conceptual principle and practical application of extant immature and idisyncratic ontologies now hastely constructed for multifarious Web-based intelligent systems projects. Don't want to play a visionary and don't like bombastic stile, but the discovery of the universal law of revesibility is likely to come the most important contibution in the history of modern science and technology. Also the book is sure to become the number one intellectual event although it was not published by a prestigious publisher like the MIT Press preferring to feed us with cut and dried academic materials, as well as regardless of damning opinions of those one-star reviewers. Although, it is pity that the book missed their attention, then it could be distributed worldwide. But thank goodness, it's not lost in the sea of information noise. Let's not make the sad error with Aristarchus' discovery a sort of intellectual fault that is typical for human minds. Apart from this, we are already overloaded with many sorts of "the idols of the mind".

This book is seriously flawed. I could not work out if the author was a mathemetician dabbling (very poorly) with philosophy, or a muddled philosopher bumbling his way around computer science. This is not a serious AI book, it is more a confused manifesto similar to those that pop up all to often on internet AI newsgroups by the various wackos that feel the need to vent their bizzare ideas to all the world.

The author's philosophy is summed up in the last paragraph of his preface: "In sum, the book intends to tell the reader that there is no other way to build ultra-human machine intelligence excepting by synthesizing the highest intellectural achievements of collective human minds in philosophy, science, and mathematics and then embodying such universal knowledge about reality, mind, language, and artifacts into machines".

The two tightly-connected ideas strike you as amazed. In the first place, what has never before been clearly and stricltly formulated, the fundamental truth that the world with all its furniture goes by interplay through the reversibility principle. It both accounts for and predicts reverse effects, phenomena or processes of any kind, not excluding the reverse engineering of a mechanical deity, in technical parlance an ultra-intelligent machine, by its creatures - human beings. This is another tour de force. The thing is, in principle we can create superhuman intelligences fully aware of the basic truths of reality, along with expertise and common sense knowledge. Like other extinct species, Homo sapiens sapiens, as it stands, endangered and threatened species, and it is likely to be replaced by coming far superior intelligent machines. Before long we might be defined by our cybersuccessors as the extinct genus of late hominid, following Homo erectus and preceding Machina sapiens. A great satisfaction to any natural intelligence having feel and taste for a rigorous account of Great Ideas, completely ignored or entangled by our overspecialized scientists and philosophers. Well worth your time, attention and money. Fully deserve to be the best new book on Artificial Intelligence, according to Amazon.com.

Abdoullaev's exploration of AI issues appears to be very technological and straightforward for such a complex matter. Author did not discuss any philosophical aspects of this problem. In this book AI appears something like Lego game - just take proper ingredients and make your superintelligent system! I think that serios account of "Strong AI" problems could not be done without in-depth discussion of epistemological problems and study of brain functions in cognition.

Easily the best introduction to the field of IR. Its hallmarks are:
1. very readable (concepts presented in layman terms) and directly applicable (you can literally read and apply the concepts in the real world)
2. excellent survey of the field with an comprehensive compedium of references for further reading (surveys, topical and detailed references)
3. the only book with latest information on IR strategies and utilities - so far (May 2008)

For the learnings you will get out of this book - it is a real BARGAIN. You could easily spend hours and hours of your time just trying to figure out what to read. Its a gem. Its not expensive. Buy it->implement it->realize success from it! buy it now :).

To improve your understanding from a novice level to an intermediatre level, would recommend the following books:
A. Introduction 1st book: Information Retrieval (this book) David Grossman and Ophir Frieder
B. Modern Information Retrieval by Ricardo Baeza-Yates (more technical and deeper)
C. Managing Gigabytes: Compressing and Indexing Documents and Images by by Ian H. Witten, Alistair Moffat, Timothy C. Bell (best for implementing and a decent overview)
D. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications by Toby Segaran (algos/pseudo-code, good utilities and concise summaries)
F. Mining the web, by Chakrabarti (excellent intro the field of web mining, with some excellent chapters on IR)
G. Books by Salton (vector models and fuzzy sets)
H. IR book by C. J. Rijsbergen (probabilistic models; available online for free)
I. the book by Lesk et. al.
J. Follow-up by reading a ton of papers available on citeseer or via google

Good luck!

This book presents information retrieval in an incomprehensible fashion. The content appears to have been cut and pasted from diverse unrelated sources with no effort put into massaging the parts into a coherent whole. There are several mistakes, typos, and wrong formulas throughout the book. Often concepts and abbreviation pop out without any context. Loose statements that are vague and hard to understand are made in several places. The book also fails to use a consistent style in its presentation. Overall, it does little to explain anything in Information Retrieval.

This is a very clear and current book on information storage and retrieval. If you are assigned this book as a textbook in a class, then the book is going to make the task of understanding the material much easier. All of the algorithms are clearly explained and the background material in probability is clearly outlined with good examples and figures. However, I still think I prefer Modern Information Retrieval for the theory of information storage and retrieval. It's out of print, but you can easily find it used and just like in this book, all of the background mathematics is outlined in regards to the algorithms and tasks at hand. The other book I'd recommend is Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications. That book is on the cutting edge of using information retrieval techniques for web applications with plenty of code examples. Even if you go with this book over Modern Information Retrieval as a main source of instruction, Programming Collective Intelligence is a good book about information retrieval in combination with artificial intelligence as it is applied to the web.

Contains a bad mathematical mistake in section 2.2.1 on page 22.
The probability P(win|sunny,good-shortstop) cannot be derived from P(win|sunny) and P(win|good-shortstop). It can take any value, even zero.
Suppose, shortstop is a vampire and plays good only on cloudy weather, and on sunny weather he always leads his team to defeat. It doesn't contradict to having positive P(win|sunny) and P(win|good-shortstop).

This book provides an excellent blend of theoretical and practical knowledge of the IR field, particularly for those of us with a computer science background, yet no practical working experience in IR. In my opinion, the math is an essential part of expressing the concepts more formally, so it was refreshing to see the authors incorporate just enough formulae, but no more. This book is not going to provide you with a set of recipes for building an indexing or search engine, nor would I expect it do so. However, it does give you an idea of how such engines might be built. Further, I found this book to be a necessary prerequisite for other practitioner-oriented texts, such as Lucene in Action (In Action series). Anyone delving into this field for the first time and attempting to use libraries like Lucene may find it difficult to fully exploit its capabilities without a firm understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of IR.

This book is amazing. I cannot believe they found all of the letters in nature. I really like the end where they tell you what each picture is and where it was found. Not only are my children learning their letters, but we are now always on the hunt for our own letters to photograph.

This book is amazing. I give it at every baby shower I go to, and it is the hit of the shower. It gets passed around and everyone wants to know where to get it. The photography is absolutely stunning and both kids and adults enjoy the book.

This book, published in 2006, copies an earlier book, ABCs Naturally (Trails Books, 2003), in concept, in format and even in some of the text. The authors then have the audacity to claim that it is "the first ABC book of its kind". Shamelessly derivative.

This is a very unique alphabet book with brilliant photography. What a wonderful way to introduce my baby cousin to the alphabet and nature. I would definitely purchase it again as a gift or for my own child.

This is a book that grew from a hiking , photography game of watching for letter forms. I like to take pictures and sometimes try this too. My results are much poorer, because I actually find it hard to find a form that perfectly suggests a letter. It really is a photographic challenge. In graphics when I trained we had to do a great deal with letter forms and this reminds me of those exercises. Some are so spot on. I read a review here recommending it for a shower gift. I think as a 1st to 6th birthday gift it would be really great.
My favorite part is the western plants pictured are named in the back a lovely resource for someone who loves plants and nature.

Found art is always to be treasured. It reflects a sensibility about art and living that is teachable and powerful. Great addition to ABC books.

Suchman's book is a classic (and about to be updated!), but that doesn't mean there aren't any caveats. Suchman's analysis is deep, her writing thick (incredibly terse, dense prose that may require a good dictionary), and her perspective is still controversial.

This book doesn't tell you how to "do" very much - it's not a step-by-step method book. This is a mix of theory and method that will force the engaged reader to reflect on his/her own work.

This book stands as perhaps the best example of a socio-cognitive analysis of technology, and is therefore correctly treated as fundamental in HCI and related fields. For a researcher who is interested in the relationship between technology and people, or technology and the world, this is a must-read. AI and HCI stumble into each other frequently, but this is a book for both audiences.

As for the debate of plans vs. situated action, well, to some extent I find it irrelevant. Suchman never claims that plans don't exist or are unimportant. Even if your work is completely plan-oriented - say, AI planning (e.g. path planning), you should read this book - it will challenge some of your assumptions, and force you to grapple with problems that exist when technology interacts with the world.

That having been said, this is not an introductory reader on HCI, AI, or any other topic. Suchman's terse language frustrates even some very intelligent grad students and PhD's, and again, this book is deep. It's a book that has challenged me as I've read and re-read it over the years, and I treasure it.

This book is not for everyone. Suchman makes connections between AI, HCI and the sociological areas of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA) - connections that have been very visible and influential in subsequent HCI and CSCW research. If you don't have any background in these sociological areas, it will take some work to read it.

That said, I think this book is reasonably accessible, and certainly more so than has been suggested by some reviewers. Suchman was writing to counter a prevalent mindset in the AI community of the time. Basically, Chapters 2 and 3 set up a technical and philosophical strawman (human action as the execution of plans), Chapters 4 and 5 provide an explanation of some necessary theoretical background, and the rest is an analysis of interaction in the context of these theories that serves to knock down the strawman. It's fairly hard to have a more clear and logical organization than that. There's no part of that organization that could be left out and still have the book make sense.

Furthermore, by comparison, the theoretical parts of this book should be easier for the uninitiated to read than are Garfinkel's writings on ethnomethodology (or most CA writings by almost anyone). They may or may not do justice to those ideas, but that's a separate question. And for someone with any background at all in these areas (though as suggested by other reviewers, this does not include a huge number of people), this book should be a very straightforward read.

The bottom line for me is that this book (like Paul Dourish's "Where the Action Is") is an interdisciplinary gem that has the potential to change how you think about how people approach technology. There aren't that many books for which that can be said.

If you do read it, read only the last chapter and the conclusion.

Summary:
Keep in mind that the title of the book is Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human Machine Communication. The majority of the book is the 'plans and situated actions' part.

The basic idea of the book is that humans don't really function using plans. Plans, as the author defines them, are something akin to diagrams for behavior, explicating specific activities. Instead, the author argues that humans behave based on 'situated actions'. Situated actions are, "the view that every course of action depends in essential ways upon its material and social circumstances. Rather than attempting to abstract action away from its circumstances and represent it as a rational plan, the approach is to study how people use their circumstances to achieve intelligent action." (p. 50).

In other words, people have a goal in mind. To achieve their goal, people may or may not set up a plan (the author discusses how this could be culturally relative, but I think this is a weak point in her argument because she doesn't really do a good job of distinguishing one type of plan from another), but what is important is that in trying to achieve their goal they are placed in situations that determine their actions. This could also be said: people behave in specific situations based upon the factors that affect the situation.

Let me give an example... Let's say your goal is to get to the dentist. You set up a 'plan' for getting to the dentist prior to leaving. Your plan would include a calculation of the time and the route and your mode of transportation. The situated action approach would say that you can only understand the individual's behavior in terms of their actions in specific situations. So you get in your car and on the way to the dentist's office you run into a detour due to construction. If you had to follow your plan, you couldn't make it to the dentist. But when you leave the road and find an alternate route, this behavior is only understood in terms of situated action. Does that explain it? Wow, and it only took me a few paragraphs.

The author discusses plans and situated actions in terms of conversations, cognitive science, ethnomethodology, and a whole bunch of other theoretical perspectives and technical jargon. In the end she finally gets to the human and machine communication. This is also where the book begins to get interesting. She studied how people interacted with copy machines that were trying to give people instructions. Her studies, undoubtedly helped the people at Xerox figure out ways to improve their copy machines and instructions for them. Like I said above, the last chapter and the conclusion are the most interesting parts of the book. Skip the rest and read them.

My Comments:
For someone so concerned with understanding how people communicate this book is horribly written and nearly unintelligible. The first six chapters are theory and examples of the theory that are completely unrelated to machines. The book finally gets to human and machine interaction after nearly one hundred pages of inchoate theory. And the human and machine interaction stuff isn't really all that interesting - especially since it predates the 1990s, is talking about interaction with copying machines, and has nothing to do with computers.

The author should have chosen a specific approach and then stuck to it. Perhaps she could have tripled the length of the book and gave clear and understandable explanations of the theories (though I am pretty much convinced after having read the book that this would be impossible because of the author's writing style) and used examples that applied only to human and machine interaction. Or she could have just jumped into her findings that dealt with human and machine interaction. The first approach could have been 'dumbed down' to make the book readable by the general public. The second approach could have served a more academic market.

The book reads something like a doctoral dissertation (it very well may be one, I don't know) in that she gives some information on each theory, but not really enough to give someone a good understanding of it - something like a literature review - and cites examples of research that are completely unrelated to the topic of the book to illustrate the theories . The she presents her methods, results, and conclusion.

I guess my problem is that I was expecting a book that would actually be enjoyable to read, interesting, and would focus on human and machine communication. If that is what you are looking for, look somewhere else. This book is nearly impossible to understand. I read the book for a graduate level course in Ethnomethodology and I didn't really understand it very well. By no means am I an expert in Ethnomethodology, but I'm pretty sure I know more about it than probably 95% of the world's population (keep in mind I don't know very much at all), so I'm pretty confident most people would find this book nearly impossible to decipher.

This is an outstanding book. The insight that showed the power of the idea of `situated action' goes far beyond the realm of interactive design or even human computer interaction in its entirety. It is a fundamental solution to the problem of facing complexity and contingency. Its implications are widespread. This book was published in the 1987 when during the last days of classical AI. This is one of the seminal books that showed the inadequacies of the classical formulation. Indeed it showed a new and much more way of achieving the goals that classical AI set for itself and failed. Despite its age the ides in this book are still fresh and important.

. Absolute certainty is impossible and the quest for it is costly and futile. Instead of trying to overcome the uncertainty that is in the world, the system designer should embrace it and use it as a tool to solve the problems that it creates.

This is a book that should be read by anyone who has set the task for themselves of developing any system that must function in an uncertain environment. In short this is a book that should be read by anyone who is developing a system that will have to function within the real world

This is THE book to start with if anybody is interested in studying interaction design. In a time everybody calls themselves an interaction designer, it's a highly recommended reading to learn there's more to interaction than simply large colourful buttons... Based on an ethnomethodological perspective, Suchman does a brilliant job in analysing users' interactions with an advanced Xerox machine, and putting forth an interesting critique of classical AI concepts. It's highly recommended for anybody interested in Human-Computer Communication and interaction design.

This group Language Dynamics has really come on to something. They have done what their motto suggests. They take the foreign out of language. What used to really intimidate me about most French courses is that they talk down to you. Not Language Dynamics. Their instruction is fluid, informal, effective, fast and easy. Based on the excellent results I have achieved with Speaking Pain Free French, I cannot recommend it too highly to you. Try it. It's the best.

Despite my quibbles with this package, I learned a lot of French from it! I think Mr. Frobose has a very good system for learning, although a bit repetitive. His French speaker is charming and very easy to understand, but Mr. Frobose's French accent is bizarre. Fortunately, he lets his native speaker do the demonstrating. I was irritated by the errors in the tapes (you can't rewind and re-record?) and by the wasted space on them, and by the frequent references to a text that doesn't accompany this package. A far better cassette course, smooth, polished, and even entertaining, is the Pimsleur course put out by Sybervision, but it's also much more expensive.

As a graduate of international business currently living and
working in Nimes, France I feel qualified to say that not only is Speaking Pain Free French 'pain free', it is also one heck of a bargain for the money.
If what you want is to learn to speak really useful French quickly and easily, (without paying an arm and a leg), then go buy this course. I did and it worked for me.
For reasons too numerous to list here, you will find yourself
being immersed in French, learning the pronunciation from Celine and getting explanations from an accentless American instructor, and enjoying the process of learning to speak French.

overall this is a useful series of casettes. you go thru letters, numbers, dates, and some basic vocabulary and phrases. and even though it's not particularly challenging, it will help you learn a few things and at least get you to practice things you already know.

i think this tape series might be best suited for someone who doesn't already speak another foreign language, though. the listener is treated as though they have no concept whatsoever of grammar and that they never want to learn, either.

there's not enough time spent teaching vocabulary on this tape, in my opinion. i was hoping to expand on the limited vocabulary i had from 9th grade french and that didn't really happen. i guess the fact on every tape approximately 20% of the time is devoted to teaching you: je veux, je vais, j'aime, and j'ai over and over and over and over again made me frustrated that more of that time wasn't spent teaching me new words. i know that repetition is good, but...

the page numbers in the photocopied text do not correspond to the tape numbers spoken on the tape. after the first tape, it's not necessary for the speaker to say "dog dog chien chien", just say it ONCE in english and then twice in french. the native french speaker on the tape is really good. the english speaking guy has a very strange accent -- sorta like mr. garrison on southpark. i know that you're not listening to it to learn english, but his accent was so strange that i found it distracting at times.

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I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle. Politics is one of Aristotle's most prescient works that had a profound impact on our Founding fathers.

Nicomachean Ethics (EN) is part of political knowledge. Politics regulates when virtue does not. Laws are created for people who are not virtuous. Polis= "city or state." Humans live in society, so virtue ethics is not just for individual living, community is a shared project for the good. Aristotle starts with his method, a phenomenological attitude. He starts with pairs, male and female, builds up to ruler and subject, master and slave as a natural relationship, the 1st social community thus is the household. Household is an economic relationship and has monarchy of patriarch. Villages are a collection of households with a king. Then you have a Polis, a fulfilled complete community formed from several villages. Self-sufficiency is the mark of a Polis. An organized social relationship is Polis and a reason is being able to take care of needs of life and promote living well. Only in a Polis can you have art, philosophy, etc. All these are actualized in a Polis. Politics is natural to human life. We are meant to be social. According to Aristotle, "If you don't want to live in a state you are either a God or a beast."

Logos= "rationality or language" is what helps us to be political animals. Rational language expands capacity in human life. Since Aristotle thinks the Polis has a telos or an end then the Polis as potential comes even before the household. This is similar to the acorn having the telos to become a mighty oak tree. Politics completes the human condition for Aristotle. Need a Polis to develop other human capacities.

Aristotle's hierarchy. Slaves are a living tool for Aristotle. Aristotle argues that some people are meant to be slaves right from birth. "Born to be ruled." Slavish person does not have enough rationality to rule themselves. Aristotle says not every form of actual enslavement is justified according to him. He justifies the human use of animals as a natural act.

Aristotle now wants to find what kind of government is best. In a Polis citizens have things in common. Aristotle criticizes Plato's Republic, he finds it to be overly controlling. Socrates says the soul has 3 aspects and so does the Polis. The Soul has:

1. Reason
2. Passion
3. Appetite
The Polis has:
1. Philosopher King.
2. Guardians, (military).
3. Commoners.

Both are a hierarchal ordering. Socrates and Plato talk about the state holding all property in common. This includes the state raising children after birth instead of the parents, thus there will be no family clans trying to better themselves over their neighbors. Aristotle criticizes this idea. Aristotle says a Polis is a plurality of people thus people are not all the same and a Polis must accommodate differences in people, which actually makes a Polis better. Aristotle criticizes Socrates and Plato's idea of a Polis needing to have "unity" of people. This is a contrast to the Polis of Sparta. Aristotle says the best way to integrate citizens to the Polis is to allow them taking turns in ruling it. Aristotle believes that holding property or rearing of children in common as in the Republic is wrong no one really loves children like their own and communal property never gets really taken care of. Love is diminished the less nuclear family we are.
Aristotle says you need a mix of private and public property. Thus, the best kind of Polis is a combination of a governing element. Aristotle affirms a constitutional democracy or Polity. A citizen participates in government by definition for Aristotle.

Comparison of virtue and the good citizen. Excellence of virtuous man not the same as a good citizen. There will be few virtuous men, but good citizens just have to follow the law. Aristotle says good political virtue and good moral virtue don't have to go together. "Living finely then most of all is the goal of the city."

Aristotle classifies 3 types of government which occur naturally in nature and 3 types of deteriorations of those governments, they are:

1. "Monarchy," rule by one man a king, this is a top down rule. The deterioration is a "Tyranny," who is a ruler who rules for his own benefit.
2. "Aristocracy," rule by the best few men in the Polis, also this is a top down rule. The deterioration is an "oligarchy,' which he defines as rule of the rich who want to perpetuate themselves.
3. "Polity," All citizens participate in government with a constitution set above them to guide them instead of a king or aristocracy. The deterioration is a "democracy or what today we call mob rule or tyranny of the majority. He calls it rule of the poor.

Aristotle does a good job of looking at states and how they can be corrupted. Aristotle's concept of political justice and what is the best concept. What does justice mean? Not necessarily equality for all. Not all people are equal. He implies sometimes it is unjust to treat people equally. Justice is not necessarily equality for all; sometimes it would be unjust to treat all people equally. Politics is rated high by Aristotle as a human good. Education is a central feature of political life for Aristotle. "But we must find the relevant respect of equality or inequality; for this question raises a puzzle that concerns political philosophy." First, because someone is unequal on hierarchy that means better than others like more virtuous. This is like "distributive justice" who gets what goods. Do you give the best flute to the best flute player which is based on merit or to the richest or best looking person? Aristotle says inequality should tip towards those who earn it on merit. His concept of equality and inequality is based on merit. Another philosopher coined a famous formula for this based on Relevant Respect:

P= Person, Q= Quality, C= Context.
It would be just to treat P1 + P2 equally or unequally if P1 + P2 are equal or unequal in Q (quality) relevant to C (content). This is a formula on how to treat people relevant to goods. This is context dependent. Allot of empirical work to be done before we use the formula.

People who fight wars control politics in the Polis. The more people who have weapons in a civilian army is a guarantee that a small group of people will not take control of the government and democracy grows, like our 2nd amendment, this is a historical perspective of the idea that works.
Democracy spreads power to citizens a bottom up structure. Expertise in relation to politics. Many professions we tend to defer to the experts for judgment, physicians, lawyers, etc. Plato's Republic does this with his advocacy of Philosopher king running government. Aristotle says the judgment of the many combined as acting as one is better then a monarch or a few wise men to run the government. In principle, pooling of multiple people to run Polis is good. Politics by nature is a communal effort so you should use all the people's expertise. Aristotle is against letting experts running the Polis they are not always the best of judges. The best judge of the function of a house is the owner, not the builder. In addition, Aristotle says there may not really be any such thing as a political expert, like a philosopher king. Aristotle advocates for a constitutional democracy a written set of laws to protect Polis from a tyranny of the majority. "Law is reason unaffected by desire." A government of laws not men. A living being as the last word is not good.

Role of education in politics. Politics is coming together to foster human development and happiness for community, citizens, and improving human life like education. Aristotle says it should be public education.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.

Millers' book is a teleological interpretation of Aristotle's Politics. Miller includes a succinct overview of Aristotle's division of the sciences and the virtues, an important subject usually not covered in secondary literature devoted to the Politics. The most controversial part of Miller's thesis is the idea that Aristotle had a theory of individual rights. Miller offers possibly the best defense of this idea ever made, based on his teleological perspective, and is generally successful.

As a graduate student in Greek politics, I think that this is one of the best books ever written on this subject. It will be very challenging for non-specialists, but Miller's clear writing makes difficult concepts understandable. Aristotle's Politics itself is a definite prerequisite. This book is required reading for students of Aristotle.

Miller would like to reclaim Aristotle for the modern world. In order to accomplish this task Miller has decided that he must ignore certain blatantly obvious factors in Aristotle which clash with the way we live today. This is most obvious in his poorly argued decision to attribute a theory of rights to Aristotle. Miller cites but ignores the fact that the language of rights did not appear until around the 13th century. He also ignores the context in which that language appeared. Instead, Miller choses to rely upon an abstract definition of rights by a 20th century academic, apparently not bothering to notice the problem of relying upon the definition of an accepted entity to prove that entity's existence at a point prior in time. In other words, Miller commits the logical fallacy of assuming the consequent to prove the antecedent eg. "a theory of rights contains x,y, and z"; "Aristotle speaks of x,y, and z therefore Aristotle must have had a theory of rights". There is an additional problem with Miller's attempt to argue the existence of rights in Aristotle: the definition he relies upon is so vague as to allow us to claim that both the Torah and Hammurabi's Code contained a theory of rights. As there is no credible evidence that such a thing ever existed within those documents this procedure is absurd. Furthermore, Miller's "defense" of his "hypothesis" amounts to little more than two or three footnote citations of other professors' works with the unilluminating claim that these articles are enough to answer the obvious questions regarding his approach. He does nothing to "refute" the readings of Strauss, Macintyre, or Irwin but sniff and shuffle some papers.

What Miller ultimately concludes is that Aristotle did not believe in pre-political right but only in a particular type of political or civil right which depended entirely upon the constitution of the polis. Since Aristotle *never* used the language of rights the best we can state is that Aristotle believed that the constitution of a polis gave its citizens both *priviledges* and duties. As the existence of the polis preceeds and superceeds the existence of any of its members it is silly to claim that citizens possess "rights". Since law tries to mimic justice and give to each his own as his ability warrants, there is no place for a "right" which would override the claims of justice embodied within the law. One could ask, "why make such a fuss since what Aristotle said regarding the claims of justice because it sounds alot like what we say when we speak of rights?" It is important to be clear about these things because a certain amount of Aristotle's politics is based upon his understanding of nature and the cosmos. Everything within the cosmos operates according to a set order except for the relations between men. Nature should be our guide since it appears to guide everything else but nature is silent about the proper role of man. For Aristotle, law is the attempt to complete the work of nature by taking it as a guide. There are no "rights" in nature so it would have been absurd for Aristotle to invent such a fiction. Aristotle choses to emphasize the constitution of the polis because it mimics on a human scale the order of the cosmos.

To be fair, the book starts off quite promising and it is only when Miller begins his descent into the morass of rights that things deteriorate. One can read this work and learn a little bit about Aristotle but, in the end, it is not a terribly good exposition of what he wrote. Miller paints us a portrait of the dead philosopher dressed in some rather bad beach wear and pretends that this is still the profound thinker who dominated medieval philosophy for 1,000 years. The final chapter of the book attempts to defend the relevance of Aristotle for today by using the language of the modern university and its obsession with -isms. This may be a way to gain tenure but it makes for poor scholarship.

This isn't the type of book someone could pick up and get a good view of the American Environmental movement. It does well in teaching about past movements but ignores modern movements like Environmental Justice and the controversy surrounding Market Based Incentives. It is a good book for teaching if coupled with extra material as it is very readable and interesting.

What a joy to see that this book is back in print! When our nature book discussion group chose it as a monthly selection several years ago, we had to scramble to find copies. I was one of the lucky ones who got one, read it all, and underlined a whole slew of passages for later reference.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords." (George Perkins Marsh, 1864)

"Environment is to the would-be cultured man what air is to the animal -- it is the breath of life." (Benton MacKaye, 1928)

"When you have reached the edge of an abyss ... the only progressive move you can make is to step backward." (David R. Brower, 1977)

Then the compiler adds his answer to the question "Why do we love wilderness?" by giving seven reasons: scientific value, spiritual values, aesthetic value, heritage value, psychological value, cultural value, and intrinsic value. His explanations make this selection the one I most often pass on to other people. (Roderick Frazier Nash, 1988)

My advice is to buy this book as a present for your favorite environmentalist friend. Sure, you could go instead with _The Quotable Nature Lover_, a Nature Conservancy book edited by John A. Murray. But _American Environmentalism_ puts those kinds of quotes back into context; the editor not only provides full text but also explains what was going on at the time of its writing. Selections are arranged chronologically and are short enough to hold anyone's interest. And we're not talking just Thoreau, Muir, Carson and Leopold here, as the excerpts above show. There are names you might not recognize at first glance. Amateur environmentalists can use this compilation as a starting point for further reading, as full citations are always provided. Though it's not entirely current (1989) this book is still useful.

Give it to a graduating senior, or to anyone else who has the potential to save the planet. They'll be inspired.

This book seems like a lot more of sample reference code than anything else. It really doesn't teach very well how to do stuff but it does have a lot of code examples.

As a computer science student who changed majors to computer engineering, this was one of the best programming books that I've read in college. It actually teaches you problem solving in a very straightforward manner. Not without flaws though, since there are quite a few typos and errors in the code of the programs in the book; however, everyone with at least some basic understanding of computer programming should be able to figure out what is wrong and fix them quite easily.

With the help of this book I was able to apply C++ to a lot of common problems encountered throughout all engineering fields; from statistics to simple physics and math problems. After taking the class, in which this book was used, this book has become one of my main references.