Computer and Science Books

This book consists of two parts (its not formally laid out that way, it just naturally organizes into two parts). The first part is a qualitative introduction to integrated semiconductor electronics (with emphasis on transistor junctions). The second part focuses on solid state quantum physics with emphasis on optical as well as electrical properties. There is also a smattering of material on super conducting materials and some basic material about how a digital computer works. The author's intended audience is the high school student or first-year college student who wants to pursue a degree in the sciences. An alternate audience is the informed layman who wants to be up to date at a qualitative level with recent advances in electronics and future directions in research and development.

I believe the book is well written for the intended audience. Turner has an easy-to-read style, and he manages to explain things (generally) in a technically accurate way without the use of mathematics. Without the mathematical details this book is not what you'd expect in a design reference - and that's not what it's intended for. But it is an excellent book to read in advance of a rigorous quantitative class on the subject. I think it's much easier to understand physical phenomena in mathematical detail if one first obtains a qualitative "feel" for what's going on.

Turner opens his book with two short chapters on matter and the origin of conductivity. He spends the next few chapters describing p-n junctions, how they are used to make transistors, and issues that limit their size and speed. Along the way he shows how transistors are used in computers both in the fabrication of basic logic elements, and also in the venerable "flip-flop" memory cell. His descriptions are clear and concise, making liberal use of figures and diagrams so that the concepts can be grasped with no particular pre-existing skills in physics or electronics.

The explanation of present semiconductor physics sets the stage for later discussions about the motivation for semiconductor devices at the quantum level. He does a good job of illustrating the fact that quantum-dominated semiconductor devices will not simply be miniaturized versions of the devices populating current integrated circuits. The physics would not allow it. Rather, they will be unique devices that are designed and custom tailored using quantum theory from the ground up. The result will be new devices that have similar - though often dramatically different - operating characteristics, and that are orders of magnitude smaller than present devices, as well as faster.

In illustrating the classical and quantum semiconductor circuits, Turner does a nice job of laying out the basic ideas behind these devices. In qualitative prose, he explains the exclusion principle, how it applies to fermions, and how the exclusion principle in conjunction with quantized energy states results in many of the phenomena that we observe in semiconductor devices. Turner's description of the optical properties of semiconductors flows naturally from earlier discussions. He describes the basic ideas behind a laser, though in this regard I found the descriptions somewhat lacking. Other interesting groundwork is provided in his descriptions of tunneling and Compton pairs (which are involved in super conducting).

A nice feature is the glossary of terms, along with a nice list of further reading material and a good index. The book is also well illustrated throughout, with figures that add considerably to one's level of understanding. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in a qualitative introduction to solid-state physics, electronics, or semiconductor optics. I found it enjoyable to read and rich in the sort of qualitative imagery and description that makes learning so much more enjoyable.

This book is a great refresher of concepts that are driving many of our modern semiconductor devices. It does not get into heavy equations or overly complicated scenarios.

This book gives sound, complete and comprehensible explanations for a number of solid state devices (pn diodes, FET and bipolar transistors, laser diodes, superconductors, Josephson junctions, etc). This book contains the best (most comprehensible) explanation I have ever read on the theoretical operation of bipolar transistors.

Turton has done a wonderful job descibing the technicalities of today's computer/electronic technology. His descriptions allow the lay-person to understand the current technology and to understand where the future is taking us - probably to the Quantum Dot - and other devices. I highly reccomend it for anyone interested in the nanotechnology field as a primer

I am not a statistician or programmer but was able to do some really good analysis using this book as my guide. I think this book would be good for college students or professionals looking to learn to utilize R, a powerful and free statistical software.

I find this book helpful as a beginner's supplement to regressions in R. It explains in an easy way the basics of regression analysis in R. Thereby, it is generally understandable and easy to follow even for beginners. The book takes a focus on application and is logically structured, making easy steps first and adding one step to the other in a natural sequence (going from easy to more advanced models and techniques). The book does not cover more intricate regression models like multivariate regression.

Overall, this book is recommended for beginners in R who want to get started with regressions. Although R as an open-source software also allows you to find such information free on the web, I find this book a helpful companion.

This text is a fantastic introduction to most regression techniques as well as a wonderful reference to the R and SPlus languages. Although there are many regression texts out there, you will be hard pressed to find one that is as comprehensive and pithy as John Fox's. Not only that, if you want to take advantage of the very powerful (and free) R language, do not buy a manual. Buy this book instead. It's what I use.

I found this book to be a good basic regression book that covers the basics and gives liberal examples with code, and points out differences between R, S-Plus, S3 and S4. The book does give some general background material on the basic systems, like working with arrays, matrices, writing programs and other basic details. Book also covers data transformation, linear models, generalized linear models, model diagnostics and graphing.

Fox is a sociologist and the examples come from his line of work, however this does not degrade the books ability to show regression modelling using R or S. Except for the specific examples the book plus the extra chapters available on the books website more or less covered what was covered in my graduate engineering regression class.

Topics such as nonlinear, robust, resampling, time series, nonparametric, while not covered in the book, chapters are however provided on the books website and appear to the same quality as what is in the rest of the book. Scripts for all the chapters, including the online-only chapters, are also available on the website.

An excellent explanation of what bandwidth is all about and what it means. Gives information not found in textbooks or industry documents. Answers such questions as why digital isn't always better than analog. Very well organized and treats subjects such as audio bandwidth and video bandwidth in different chapters. Filled with interesting tidbits, the book makes for some excellent reading. Some will see the book as leisure reading, others as something more serious. I saw it as both!

Wow, this is the best book I've ever read on a technological subject. If you are a non-technical person and want to know how your phone, cell phone, fax, modem,TV, radio, internet work in layman's terms; this is your book!. Better yet the book does all that in under 200 pages. Oh yeah, it also tells explains bandwidth and how we're never going to have enough despite what you may have heard about the coming "broadband revolution".

Although I've been involved in professional video production for the last 25 years in the non-technical area, I finally understand how a TV signal is transmitted and received after reading this book. I take back all the bad things I ever said about Microsoft, because they're the ones who published this outstanding book. I'm sadden that the author has past away. He had a unique ability to take very complicated stuff and explain it to liberal arts majors like myself and it's too bad he won't be around to write more. His clear thinking and economy of words is in very short supply in the technical book area...kind of like bandwidth.

If you've ever been puzzled by bandwidth or wanted to know more about it, this book is for you. For most of us, bandwidth is how much information we can get in front of us how quickly. But how does it happen? How can the same piece of copper wire that carries a low-grade voice signal to us at a mere four thousand bits per second also carry a high-quality mixture of images and text, even motion video, at over a million bits per second? What's the difference between the original bandwidth of radio broadcast frequency bands and bandwidth as we usually read about it in the popular media? Lu starts from the beginning, not neglecting the Stone Age, and carries us through the telegraph (including a widely-used system we had never heard of called the optical telegraph) into today's computer and telecommunication networks. In two chapters, "Thinking about Bandwidth" and "Looking at Bandwidth," he provides fascinating comparisons of bandwidths, proving, among other things, that it would be 640,000 times faster to fly 6 million CD-ROMs to Europe on a Boeing 747 than to upload them over the European E-1 lines under the Atlantic. But the book is practical, too, containing compact tables that define and compare various bandwidth measurements, starting with the hertz (cycles per second) for analog bandwidth and bps (bits per second) for digital bandwidth. Two chapters explain broadcast bandwidth, audio and video, the latter including brief explanations of TV standards, cable TV, color TV, and satellite TV. Datacasting is explained, too - how non-video data can be carried along with the video signal. In another long chapter, Lu explains Point-to-Point (rather than broadcast) Bandwidth, both wired and wireless transmission media and methods. A final chapter, devoted to bandwidth on the Internet, compares in human terms the ways to access the Internet (ISDN, DSL, cable modems, and wireless and satellite). Lu, the former science and technology editor for the Children's Television Workshop in the U.S., hopes that future bandwidth growth will be filled by better science content for children. He wonders whether bandwidth will be shared fairly among the world's peoples, rich and poor. He notes that bandwidth bottlenecks will persist and that the amount of bandwidth required for widespread video-on-demand and full-motion videoconferencing is not likely to arrive in this generation.

Cary Lu, a well-known science writer and editor, died shortly before the book was completed and final sections were written by his friends, New York Times computer columnist Stephen Manes and Adam Engst, author of the Internet Starter Kit series. Without in any way stinting on the details, this book aims for the general reader who needs help with technical explanations. It's also written by someone who has thought carefully about the significance of bandwidth. At whatis.com, where we continually fine-tune our definition of bandwidth, The Race for Bandwidth is a book that we have been unconsciously waiting for. Now that it's here, we plan to keep it very handy.

A great read -- very informative, not too technical (or, more properly, technical, but without jargon), and wide-ranging. Stephen Manes and Adam Engst deserve our thanks for shepherding it to completion after Cary Lu's death in 1997.

I find it unfortunate that the book is published as part of Microsoft Press's "Strategic Technology" series, whose other titles seem to be much more geek-specific: "Understanding ActiveX and OLE", "Understanding Electronic Commerce", "Understanding Intranets". Perhaps they are also aimed at a general audience, but since Lu's book covers so much about non-computing activities such as telegraphy, broadcasting, telephones, and even shipping and air flight -- stuff that should be interesting to people who aren't that computer-focused -- it seems that it's been relegated to a publishing ghetto from which it deserves to escape.

The cover doesn't help much, describing it as the "guide to key technologies behind fast Internet connectivity, wireless communications, video conferencing, and interactive television." It's more than that. It's a guide to so much that we use already today, not just these technologies of most people's future. The most interesting sections for me so far have discussed FM radio and shutter telegraphs, for instance.

This book should not live in the Computing section of bookstores, but in the general science section. It will surely outlive every other title in the

"Strategic Technology" series, because it deals with more universal topics in a less time-limited way. It would be sad to see it in the ubiquitous computer title remainder bins in a year or two, when it should really continue to be printed like other wonderful general science books such as James Gleick's "Chaos" or Stephen Jay Gould's essay collections.

It's also a shame that Lu wasn't around to promote the book. I think it could have reached a wider audience if he were able to do the promotional and talk-show circuit to entice people with its broad scope and easy fascination.

Don't think of this as just another "neato new technology" book. The book is good enough and concise enough that I read it voraciously in a little over a day. It's a miracle of brevity that rivals Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" guide to writing good English, and E. Annie Proulx's novels.

I'm amazed at how much is packed into a relatively slim volume, and how much of that information likely won't require revision for a long time. In particular, the early chapters discussing what bandwidth is and how it plays into the history of communications are, with a few exceptions such as pricing examples, pretty timeless.

Other sections seem (understandably, given the author's death before completion) a bit rushed and muddled, and could use clearing up. Some of the discussions of digital cell phone technology, and particularly granularity, seem dropped in from somewhere else, without proper context or explanation -- as if surrounding parts were missing.

The glossary is sometimes helpful, sometimes tautological -- having separate listings for each acronym, when the full definition is often a line or two away, also seems redundant.

Despite its flaws, I encourage you to buy it sight unseen. Not only will it outlast most more expensive technology titles you could purchase, it will give you a broad understanding which those books can't touch.

Even if you work for the phone company and live and breathe bandwidth every day, you'll certainly learn something -- such as why the world's best AM radio is made in New Zealand, that 18th century French optical telegraphs had bandwidths of a fraction of a bit per second, or that someone with graduate degrees in Physics and Biology once worked on "Sesame Street".

Providing you with exactly what you need to get started with building a ray tracer. Complete with sample source code, and a working program that you can use to build on, you don't have to spend hours figuring out where to begin or how to implement what you've just learned. All of the features of a ray tracer, from beginner to advanced, are covered in a way that any college level student could pick up with ease.

This book is a great resource for anyone looking to learn about ray tracing. It succeeds in breaking a complex topic down into understandable chunks that anyone with basic C++ programming skills can work from. It's also a very interesting read. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in this area.

College-level collections strong in engineering and electronics will appreciate this step-by-step description of writing a ray tracer from scratch. Chapters survey the ray-tracing concept, describing the images, sample code, and even linking to a website which contains the samples. Exercises support theory and hands-on application by instructing on adding features to a ray tracer. Any college-level collection strong in advanced information technology needs this.

The ultimate in detailed graphics is perhaps a ray tracing approach, since this derives from the actual physics of how light propagates through a three dimensional region, and interacts with objects in that region. Suffern takes an ab initio approach. Starting with elementary 3d vector analysis and then introducing the idea of rays. It turns out that you need to know very little physics to proceed into the book. Nothing at the level Maxwell's Equations, which is what actually describes light propagation to a physicist.

In programming terms (since you are probably a programmer), the book's approach is a factorisation of ray tracing into the portions needed for graphics generation.

The text is also well suited for a undergrad course. The chapters have many exercises; accompanied by a detailed website for the book. There are also many colour images that stand well next to the descriptions of the algorithms.

This order was completed just fine. Delivery was prompt and it arrived in good condition. No complaints.

The book is an excellent summary on the topic and more! It provides excellent coverage of state-of-the-art production techniques and the influence of particular procedures and components on device reliability. I suppose that complete newcomers might find it sometimes difficult to understand the background of some contents due to the compact style. However they are rewarded with one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date texts I have ever seen on this subject. Moreover the reader is provided with many references for further in-depth reading. Considering the wealth of information the book provides the author did an excellent job in writing a well readable text.

I would recommend it as a textbook as well as for the experienced scientist/researcher.

This book gives the basic and latest issues in the semiconductor device reliability as well as issues that nails the failure analysts. This book covers all the major issues, including oxide reliability, ESD and electromigration. This book will be and should be considered for the aspring Rel and FA engineers as well as act as a refresher to those hardcore professionals.

I have a filing cabinet full of papers on various aspects of materials reliabilty: solder stress calculations, mechanical behavior, diffusion, corrosion mechanisms, etc. Professor Ohring's book neatly summarizes all of that into one coherent text, covering topics such as electromigration, electrostatic discharge, solder mechanics, corrosion, semiconductor devices and more. But rather than touch on the practical aspects of these failure modes, as do several reliability books I already own, he delves into the underlying fundamental mechanisms involved, providing equations and explanations. This is why I consider Ohring's book a true textbook on the subject. The detailed explanations are valuable to me in that they provide a springboard from which to analyze more complex issues. For anyone involved with reliability of materials in electronics, I highly recommend this book. And one more thing: in some places Prof. Ohring writes with a refreshing informality. For example, he talks about defects and KILLER DEFECTS (his words and capitalization!). I just laughed when I saw that.

I owned the first edition of this book and decided to upgrade. That was a good choice. The discussion of USB-based devices is very valuable and explanation of Firewire helped me pick a video camera.

This is the easiest book on PC upgrading money can buy. A 10!

As a "computer senior citizen" -- most of this is new. This book helped me install more RAM and a new disk drive. Step by step pictures made it very easy. My kids were impressed!

My system was SLOW. Over the weekend, I followed step-by-step instructions to add RAM, defragment my disk, reorganize my file, and fine tune a couple settings. In a few hours, my system was running much faster. I'm a novice. The book made these intimidating operations VERY EASY.

Make existing capabilities better by adding disk-caching software and more RAM, defragmenting the hard disk, doubling disk storage capacity for compressing the hard disk, restarting your system daily, and upgrading to the latest version, especially with a computer less than two years old. Install and plug in to a surge suppressor as the first upgrade. Add a math coprocessor to run complex spreadsheets and math-intensive programs such as computer-aided design. Save money by replacing hardware: only hardware technicians know how to repair most PC hardware devices. Make repairs by beginning with the cheapest, easiest fix and working to the hardest and most costly. Think about basic physics for how computers work, and the problem area may show up. Find an area user technical support group for common fixes to common mistakes. These are some of the many clearly illustrated and reader-friendly comments author Kris A. Jamsa shares in RESCUED BY UPGRADING YOUR PC. His book stands out in a crowd, sharing concerns and information with Wayne N. Kawamoto's BUILD, UPGRADE AND REPAIR YOUR PC NETWORK ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET, Mark Minasi's THE COMPLETE PC UPGRADE AND MAINTENANCE GUIDE, and Aubrey Pilgrim's UPGRADE AND REPAIR YOUR PC.

This book is a whirlwind of all things in our life that gets affected by Internet. I have read both "Being Digital" and "Silicon Snake Oil" and I agreed with both those views. I read this title and it blew me away.I am not sure why this book is out of print and why they are selling it for $0.01

The key reason is this: This book was published in 1995 and I can cite companies that were formed in 1999 book by taking a line from the book. Entire magazine articles are written simply elaborating the content of a single paragraph in this book. Its not the labels or company names that are cited here which are important but the fact that the key ideas mentioned are ensconced in todays' labryinthine evolution of the Net.

Another way of being impressed with this book can be the sheer prophetic nature of it. We can never evaluate anything against the future because of lack of materialization. Whereas, we can take this kind of a book and lay down its theses and look at reality to see how it panned. Try it for yourself and recollect how many other works of literature had a similar impact.For example Page 139 Bullet #3 contains the idea of youtube.com

If you are anywhere connected to the Internet Industry then you gotta read this book. If you are in any other industry and wanted to chalk out the perimeter of the net then this is a mighty good investment of your time.

I had to chuckle when I saw that this book is available at .01 in the used books on Amazon.com -- it is such a terrific book--- worth it's weight (which is about 1 lb) in gold and more :)). Fabulous insight into what it's like to deal with Silicon Valley and the future-- all relevant today-- Covers the Internet, Games, Smart TV or "PC In Drag" and much more as we venture in into the Brave New World of today. Written in 1995 it is a prescient approach to today and tomorrow's business world involving technology, changing culture and telephony and more. Kline was a contributing writer at WIRED and Burstein is/was Senior Advisor to the famous Blackstone Group...still ahead of the cure. It says its the book about the Information Highway-- it's really about doing business in the information age --called NOW.

Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Information Highway by Daniel Burstein and David Kline, Plume/Penguin Book, $13.95. 1996 ISBN 0-452-27105-3 by Marcus Goncalves - goncalves@process.com "Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Information Highway" by Daniel Burstein and David Kline is one of those books so embracing in its effort to describe a vivid, human-natured narrative of the road warrior personalities and strategies driving the digital technology revolution of our times that it almost challenges you to "pray" before you continue reading it. The book, has a bitter-sweet taste, funny but also sad, exciting but depressing, it gives us a leap of faith in the twenty-first century society but also portraits the leviathan of cultural clashes. It's almost magic, in the sense that it drags you onto an envision of the dominating forces shaping our future, the battle between net profit and net human identity, the gripping reality of where the information technology is taking us by condition... not opinion. Burstein and Kline's book elaborates on nothing new, but provides an entire new insight of facts, as the arguments presented are results of social-technocrats tragedies and casualties, elicited by incisive and informative headlines on Wired magazine, Hotwired and other Web-zines, not mentioning major news media. It debates on the "usability" of computer technology, which included video games and the human imagination as well as the PC versus the TV trend. It wonders over the dreams and nightmares of every road warrior, active or passive. It even discusses about Bill Gates and Microsoft's strategy, and the works of the government's proper role in light of the free market forces. Road Warriors is talking about a current reality, where most of the battles are still taking place, some not even started yet. The formed and severed alliances it describes are still in the process. The warriors of the information highway and the rest of us are optimistically heralding a new world order in the wake of the Information Age. For some, it may be another opportunity to grab the American dream, but it could also very well be a paradigm predicting a new, dangerous global conflict were disconcerting inefficient government policy, professional careers and family values will crash and burn, in Web time, through the effect of wires and chips. The rivalry of the Information Age warriors is replaced by the clash of civilizations. Just like Phoenix, the re-emerging information technologies on the Internet, the Web, Cybercash and I-phones, to name few, are reshaping new trends, new opportunities, new business, and consequently, a new cast of citizens, a new civilization: a Cyber one, that is. This does not mean that these events are always convincing. Here and there, as Burstein and Kline examine recent events, in light of the coming of the so called Digital Age, one suspects that they are interpreting the facts to suit the theory. Their book has plenty detailed examples of the advent of the Digital Age, including the social dimensions often excluded by technocrats. That's why so many love magazines like Wired, and so many hate it. For instance, will computers replace televisions in the living room, where the family will be gathered, as discussed in chapter eight, Smart TV, or a PC in Drag? The burgeoning increase of personal computers, usage of online networks and multimedia applications suggests that. Indeed Americans are spending more and more time in front of a computer. That much is true, but the theory has trouble with other features of the "infowar," like the deep transformation it will indicate in American social life, which realistically, as Burstein and Kline indicates, it will not happen in the foreseeable future. The idea hardly seems to matter to technocrats and road warriors, whatever their own faults (is it technology's fault?), which really were victims "of profound changes in the structure and internal life of Americans," as brilliantly discussed on the book, not merely a great ideal of Yankee ingenuity, entrepreneurial capitalism, and economic progress, as described by Burstein and Kline. For instance, the Silicon Graphics' former chairman, Jim Clark, statement that "computers and consumer electronics are going to be shared technologies," would have been very different if he had not found a new "Zion for his mass-market dream: the Internet." What exactly Jim Clark might have done differently so he wouldn't be so wrong on his assessment? Thus the Internet may be housing some 30 million users, the cable TV viewers amount to about 150 million in 63 million homes. Still, Burstein and Kline's grand concept of a PC in drag versus smart TV explains a good deal about the battle of giants like Tele-Communications, Inc., Microsoft, NTT (the giant Japanese telecommunication company) and their impact in the world these days, which would be difficult to explain without it. Stripped to its essence, paraphrasing Professor Donna L. Hoffman's words, of Vanderbilt University, the book's argument is this: The Information Age will tremendously affect society, in particular the American society. The book is dazzling in its scope of placing this global revolution in the historic context and grasp of the intricacies of contemporary global politics and consequent transformations following the Industrial Revolution. Readers not already familiar with issues driving the unprecedented promises of the Information Age might feel a bit overwhelmed with the conclusions the authors come to: America's society is growing more and more dysfunctional, in a process that is alienating families and individuals by canning the American people dreams onto digital fetishes serving the interests of few. As the authors write on Chapter 11, The Global Challenge, "the prosaic reality is that policy makers in every country, including United States, are continuing to make national decisions about the flow of global information based on their own interests." Past the after shock of a crude reality taking place at the myriad of the present Information Age, riding on the so called Information Super Highway, Road Warriors is a "must read" for everyone involved in this process, business and academic communities alike. It is also a call for society's conscience and active participation on this digital revolution. It is an alert of the danger and somewhat unavoidable fragmentation and decentralization of society in face of the clashes resulted of the "future shock" so well diagnosed by Alvin and Heidi Toffler back in the 70's. If we don't take Bustein & Kline very seriously, the clash of our civilization may start at our home.

Ok the book is now 'old' in that it was published in 1995, but you are not going to find anything better on the business of the 'information highway' (I know that term irritates people, but the point is that this book is about more than the just Internet, it is about the world the net is embedded within).

The book is about the business war over communication and transmission, that will effect everybody who uses the Internet or other 'new media', the massive mergers and collaborations which effect us all. It discusses High Definition TV, the video on demand problem, the fight over the phone business, stock market frenzy over 'information stock', the problems when so much money can be made by so few people, what happens to the 'middle class' etc. It is a call for us to think about the future based upon a fairly detailed consideration of what is happening now

some quotes:

"design and use of new technology necessarily entails contests over political power"

"companies.. are continuing to invest feverishly against the evidence of most market research and historical experience"

"one of the Digital Revolution's central laws is that the more uncertain one is about exactly how to profit from digital technology, the more lyrical one becomes in describing it"

"As the rate of new wealth creation fueled by digital technology rises, the number of people required to produce it is decreasing"

There are few books on the so called 'information revolution', which anyone interested in the subject will get something out of. This is a book for business, investors, academic analysts, politicians, and nearly everyone else.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone who wishes to handmade his/her own Sumo Robot Wrestler and compete against many other Sumo robot builders.
Pete Miles explains in detail how to design a Sumo robot and how to put all components together.
Great book with lots of photos and diagrams.
It's even priced reasonable.
I believe this book would become a bible for every Robot Sumo enthusiasts worldwide!!

I read this book from cover to cover, and I have to say that it's an excellent book (and I'm not just saying that because my robot Marauder has a picture in the book).

This is the book I wish that I had when I got started.

I highly recommend it.

This is an excellent book on sumo robots. It takes you all the way from building your first sumo robot to construction of the battle rings.

Lots of pictures and lots of solid technical information. This book is a must have you want to build a sumo robot or want to improve a robot you've already built.

This is a must-have text for every robot builder; generously full of inspiring ideas, pictures, circuits, diagrams, techniques, and strategies.

With one or more pictures or diagrams on almost every page, Pete's "Robot Sumo" guide details and explains in a clear and easy-to-understand way the various technologies, techniques, and tricks involved in building sumo robots (which can also be applied to other types of robots). The abundance of pictures and diagrams expose the mystery of these fighting robots through 16 well-organized chapters, allowing the reader to easily grasp the ideas with enough detail to be able to easily incorporate them into their own robotic projects. This text is appropriate to all ranges, from the beginner to robotics looking for a place to start through the seasoned robot builder looking for advanced techniques. There are details for radio-controlled robots as well as a wealth of information on autonomous robots. The text also has a very comprehensive index to allow you to quickly locate specific material, plus two appendices full of references. I just got my copy of the book today and I have already discovered many useful construction techniques that I plan to incorporate in my own robots.

This is the best single-source of robot-building information on the market today!

I manage information risks for a large organization on a professional basis and this is one of the best books I have read on this important topic. What I found most useful about this book is that it complements rather than competes with formal risk management methods. This book explains techniques and methods that you can use to enhance your existing risk assessment process like data gathering, impact analysis, evaluations and so on. This book should belong on every risk managers bookshelf.

Very easy to read. Very good details on how the security industry works, no more secrets.

I am taking a class on Threat Risk Assessment and one of our main references is Douglas Landoll's "The Security Risk Assessment Handbook". The great thing about this book is that it takes what would normally be extremely dry material and makes it interesting. The book has a conversational tone which is easy to read, and yet still manages to be very informative. A great tool for anyone who wants to learn about security assessments.

Finally Some one has heard our struggle!! We have a guide that is easily read and solves the blank sheet of paper problem. The book is based in a real world and shows almost step by step the process. The major selling point to me is it serves as a great reference book as well. When you need collection points or industry standards this is the book. Read it and you will not leave for a risk assessment with out it.

I'm serious - you should get this book just so you can read the forward by - get this - GARY NORTH himself! He did a mean-spirited thing (grin): he quoted Senator Bennett's 1998 statements verbatim. That these do not match the toned-down report is obvious to anyone who reads both... and now you can read both.

The report should be in every home and be read .This book is actually an official document reprinted word for word .An objective , honest analysis of this material would cause a sea change in public opinion reguarding this subject.This bipartisian effort is to be commended.As an engineer and a serious investigator of this subject for over two years I could not recommend this book more highly.This is not a laborious read.It presents the material in a well organised and cogent manner and many readers will have trouble putting this down.Get this book.

After a year of study and hearings, this report by US Senate is the most authoritative statement of the Y2k issue available. These Senators have nothing to gain by overstating the issue, and risk looking silly in a few months if they have overstated it. This report shows where we stood as of February 1999. The informed facts present a far different picture than most expect. This is very worth reading, especially the beginning and end. (Some of the summaries of witness testimony can perhaps be skipped.) The report covers Y2k in utilities, transportation, medicine, etc. Determining why this information was not reported more widely by the media will occupy historians for years, if any of the risks presented by Y2k come to fruition.

Everyone should read this document. It explains why the Year 2000 problem will impact everyone. It is heartening to see Democrats and Republicans working together on the Senate Y2K Committee for a common cause. Be sure and read the whole thing! If you only read one book about Y2K, read this one.