Machines Books

I found and bought this book based on a review in Technometrics. It lived up to all my expectations. The book not explained what to do but also what not to do. This book will give everyone a jump start as to how to use SPC to make their facility run better.

"Running Your Machines with SPC" is the book I recommend for both new and 'sustainment' operations SPC training.

Too often, operations personnel have been introduced to charting methods from a quality or engineering perspective, and not from a tactical operations point of view. A quality perspective often emphasizes product disposition, and an engineering perspective usually focuses on capability issues.

This book clearly illustrates the operations role of SPC and the use of control charts for rapid and effective `hour-by-hour' tactical decision-making.

I've used it over and over. You mentioned that you were going to do drafts of the Irish Cabin pattern mentioned in your book. Did you ever do it? I need a size for a Queen Bedspread-102x112.I hope you have worked it up. I like the way it looks. Hope to hear from you about this. Thanks. Marie Bundy

This book is the best of all worlds: it combines the speed of strip quilting with the economy of scrap quilting. The directions are clear and easy to understand, I checked it out from the library and taught myself how to piece quilts! Full of illustrations, it explains many favorite patterns such as log cabin, nine patch, woodpile, flying geese, roman stripes/fence rail and others. Definitely a must have for newer quilters, and even more the experienced.

This was my favourite book of the Time Machine series. I liked learning about dinosaurs.

This book is great. It is about you, as a time traveller. As with all the time machine series, you have to choose between several options as you travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. Your choise provides your destiny, can you complete the mission, or, as the publishers so well put it, "are you ready to face the danger?".

As a Human Resource Consultant, I am always looking for new ways to help organizations design and manage teams most effectively. In Selling Is a Team Sport, Eric Baron provides practical, applicable information that transcends the "sales team" and can easily be applied to all teams. In a very readable and humorous style, Mr. Baron offers his knowledge-based experience on how to obtain workable skill sets in such areas as: team building, problem-solving, needs assessment, facilitation, listening, questioning, action planning and closing. Each of these areas readily translates to all of our everyday interactions- whether it be in a team setting or on an individual basis. The applicability of this book is readily apparent, for example, the reported facts from focus groups about what "buyers" want. "Buyers" wants can easily be translated to facts about what people want in their interactions. The acronym CREST and its translation presented in Mr. Baron's book is a wonderful mnemonic to strengthen quick acquisition of these sensible approaches to dealing with people. Charts, diagrams, anectodal experiences and text make the lessons being taught by Mr. Baron easily acquired and remembered. I thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience I had when reading Selling Is A Team Sport.

As a professional that has been part of the sales process from a direct sales, sales management, and marketing role I found this book to be very impactful. It offers insightful and pragmatic processes and skills that can be applied by anyone associated with the sales process. Whether you are a sales manager, a technical support professional, a product manager, or the line salesperson I think that you will find some valuable information.

I thought the processes regarding the successful facilitation of a "team" sales call to be especially interesting.

The message to be made to companies...to survive in today's highly competitive marketplace, everyone, not just the sales department,from top to bottom, must be selling to help the salesforce do its job.


Selling Machine proposes that the whole company focus on the customer. The book wraps up with emphasis on the value of teamwork and how teams can enhance customer focus.

Reading the books written by Miller, Heiman and Tuleja (The New Conceptual Selling, Successful Large Account Management and The New Strategic Selling) changed the way I looked at complex sales processes completely and increased sales success of the companies I work(ed) for dramatically. Their books (and excellent training courses) represent a customer-centric vision rarely to be found in other writings (and training courses) on how to sell.

The Selling Machine gives an excellent overview of the Miller-Heiman philosophy and goes one step further by propagating that all employees should share responsibility in enhancing revenues by supporting the sales force. A must-read for everybody in an organisation - be it sales or marketing, administration or reception desk, CEO or his/her driver. All who understand that in the end it is the customer who is paying your salary. So better make sure all people on board are helping to get sales in.

Especially a good read for people who want to get acquainted with Miller-Heiman's work or who just think they have not enough time to read all the other books I mentioned.

I am a beginner in sewing so I found this book extremely helpful. It has a lot of nice color pictures and diagrams that show how to make different kinds of stitches, like french knots and silk ribbon roses. It also shows how to use a sewing machine to make the same stitches, if you do not sew by hand. I think that the more experienced sewing person may not find much that they haven't seen before, but again, if you are new at this like me, it is worth the $4.99 investment!

I didn't cover enough in the other review I wrote. The book also gives great project ideas in using scrap materials, weaving, and the like to adorn clothing, bedding, etc., along with detailed instructions. It really covers a lot.

Hopkins asks some of the most important questions that we, as a culture, are currently facing. The social and ethical issues related to technology and gender need our attention, and this collection is the only book on this topic I have been able to find. I highly recommend it!

Sex/Machine is by far the best single source concerning gender and technology. This book collects the most stimulating and important essays in this area, and unlike many edited volumes, contains an introductory essay which is by itself worth the price of the book because of the insights it brings to these issues. Elegantly crossing multiple academic disciplines--from philosophy of technology, to medical ethics, to womens studies, gender theory and cultural studies, to law (among others), Patrick Hopkins has assembled a collection of the most provocative writing concerning the interactions between technologies and genders. The essays in this edited volume explore the history of technologies and gender, and how technology can shore up traditional and problematic gender roles (e.g., pectoral implants to make men appear more "macho", and technologies that make it possible for parents to know, and potentially select, the sex of their children before they are born). More interesting to me, though, are the selections that explore ways technologies undermine traditional ideas of gender. The sections I found most thought-provoking were the essays in Part IV on the issues (among others) concerning transsexuals and medical technology, in Part V on computers and cyberspace/cybersex, and in Part IV on cyborgs--bodies such as that of the Borg on Star Trek that are such interminglings of so-called "hardware" (machine) and "wetware" (biology) that gender no longer has any meaning. I'm going to use this book in a course in gay and lesbian history and philosophy, but I could see it being used in courses in medical ethics, philosophy of technology, womens studies, and gender and cultural studies. Perhaps the best feature of this book is that it is extremely readable--in addition to classrooms, it will make great reading for a book club, or for anyone interested in sex, gender, and technology.

If you are responsible for the design of face seals, there is no better resource that this. I found it to be rather expensive but well worth the money. I have been able to implement successful seal designs by using the approach and design equations that are presented in this reference.

This is an excellent book for any engineer that is applying radial sealing technology.

The first week I received this manual I was able to apply much of what I read. The value of the data is priceless.

The design related information is accurate and well as the material selection criteria.

This book is also written very well, (considering the fact the most engineering manuals are hard to read).

You could use this book alone to design and develop a radial lip seal for any application.

If you need to cut, sand, route, shape, or clamp, this is a great reference book. I have read many shop tip books, and there are ideas here I've never seen anywhere else. And the illustrations are superb.

I've already made several jigs and used this book as the reference. There is enough detail to guide a user to completion, and more than enough jigs to cover all the situations you might encounter where a jig is required.

Great book... strongly recommend it !

_____________________________________________
Prof. Rawlins has written an elegant small book on the history and
future of computers, ranging from Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine
(1842) to future machine intelligence. His book joins such
distinguished predecessors as Hans Moravec's "Mind Children" and Eric
Drexler's "Engines of Creation": speculative-science books more
interesting (and certainly more rigorous) than most science-fiction.

From Babbage, Dr. Rawlins turns to Alan Turing, "another farsighted
English mathematician who dreamt of machines that manipulated
information... Like Babbage before him, Turing saw so far ahead that he
never understood why he had to explain everything he foresaw to the
government." Like Babbage, he lost his funding and his heart.
Convicted of homosexual acts in 1952, he was forced to undergo chemical
castration. He killed himself in 1954.

Rawlins treats the maddening inflexibility of present-day programs: we
can blame David Hilbert (c. 1900). "Hilbert wanted a completely
mechanical way to solve any mathematical problem; something like
directions in a cookbook, only more precise... Although he never knew
it, he was asking for computer programs... We'll eventually have to
give up our Hilbertian total-control philosophy and let our machines be
more adaptive. Because we're already losing control."

"The answer to "Could computers think? is that it doesn't matter...
What matters is whether we *think* they think." His discussion of AI is
succint and illuminating: "A future of smart machines is strange
indeed... it may be much harder to kill yourself by turning on a gas
oven or running a car in a locked garage - both your oven and your car
may figure out what you're trying to do and prevent you... Possessions
might get more dangerous, too... Are we ready for a world of feral
cars?"

"As Thoreau said long ago, we've become the tools of our tools... One
day, something vast and cool and strange may read these very words -- and
chuckle with amusement.

Welcome to tomorrow."

Highly recommended.

review copyright 1997 by Peter D. Tillman
First published at SF Site

I was recently assigned this book by a Java computer course as a general read. As I am not new to the ideas of computers and/or programming them, and even though this book is geared towards newcomers to the computer world, I still learnt interesting facts.

"Slaves of the Machine" was written with a very clear and informal style, and even discusses some new facts that most computer knowledgeable people will find interesting, such as the history of the computers. At times I feel Rawlins exaggerates the movement of computers and is looking too far in future for us to comprehend (ie. humans catching viruses from computers).

This is not to say it is not possible; it does send chills down my spine when I think about some of the topics that Rawlins discusses.

This book will be a superb read for people who are new to the concept and theories of computers. Analogies are packed in this book and this makes grasping some of the issues much easier. Other topics discussed is how man programs the computer, and the current limits of the machines.

If you ever wondered how computers came about and want some insight on where computers may take us in the future (or where we may take them), and whether you are a novice or experienced computer user, I would recommend this book. It's not filled with techie-stuff but written in plain, casual English.