Bradford Books

Bradford Fairfax is a hunky 31 year old gay man with an interesting profession: he's a secret agent for a largely-unknown international organization that safeguards global security. When he unexpectedly gets an anonymous call that his ex-boyfriend, Ross, had died of a drug overdose in Provincetown MA, a gay-centric beach resort, he gets permission from his boss, Grace, to take time off to make the funeral arrangements, under a Power of Attorney that was drafted when they were both together.

Upon arrival in "P-Town," Brad stumbles upon another dead young man, whom he later finds had the same snake tattoo as Ross. A local "drag queen" entertainer who knew Ross advises Brad about a connection to an infamous guesthouse/brothel, run by a greedy crook hated by most of the locals. Brad decides to check out the place incognito, and nearly loses his life doing so. As additional murders occur, Grace hints there could be a connection with his next assignment, which is to safeguard a visiting Dalai Lama from an assassination plot, and Brad has to wonder if one of his new acquaintances could be involved. Is it Zach, the cute twink he bedded once before and still holds his interest? Or perhaps it could be Perry, a former employee of the guesthouse/brothel who had expressed a need for revenge against one of the deceased and knew at least one of the others. Then there is Johnny K, the guesthouse owner's burly bodyguard and partner in crime.

Author Round spins an excellent mystery with some original and unusual characters. Obviously, the story is a bit "out there," as good escapist stories tend to be. My only critique is that the flow of the book seems a bit uneven, with most of it rather slow and prodding (and prone to the author going off on tangents describing back stories and scenes that turn out to be of no consequence), while the final third of the book seems rushed and short on even basic detail. The titling of the book suggests Round is planning sequels in the series, which I would definitely check out when available. I give this one four stars out of five.

One part James Bond, one part Quincy, M.D., one part Sherlock Holmes, and one part stud-muffin, Bradford Fairfax is new force with whom to be reckoned. This light summer read will entertain and satisfy. Fun fare.

I owned a house and cottage in Provincetown for ten years and have been going back as a visitor every year since so I was fascinated by the title. This gay novel is a mystery with some love interest toward the end. Bradford Fairfax is an agent for a hush-hush security agency, and he goes to P'Town to investigate the suspicious death of a former lover. It's a rather complicated plot. Author Jeffrey Round describes Cape Cod as "the peninsula that curled back toward the mainland like a scorpion's tail." And there are human scorpions loose in his tale as well.
A phrasemaker at times, Round says "each gay man stormed his own inner Bastille breaking down the barricades for liberty and love." Strange people are aswim in the town and the book, Red herrings wash ashore, and it is not until the final pages that the killer is revealed. Your guesses may go awry. It's melodramatic and will call for a willing suspension of disbelief. If you're holed up in the dunes of P'Town, this book can provide a couple of afternoons of diversion while you're waiting for the tide to turn in your favor.
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead

Round, Jeffrey. "The P'Town Murders"
The Haworth Press, 2007.

Secret Agent in P'Town

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Bradford Fairfax is a hunk. He is also a secret agent who is partly James Bond, partly Sherlock Holmes and partly Quincy. More than all, however, is that he is a man who must be dealt with.
Provincetown has long been a gay resort but the P'town that we get here is one full of greed, murderous jealousies and disappointments. It is also a great setting for a new mystery novel by Jeffrey Round, "The P'town Murders". When a circuit party boy named Ross Petty dies because of an ecstasy overdose, his death is ruled an accident but along comes Bradford Fairfax, a complicated, human, sensitive and very seductive secret agent who decides that Ross was murdered and feels that the crime was committed by Hayden Rosengarten. Rosengarten is wealthy and has an evil mind but he also suddenly is found dead. This is just the beginning of a string of deaths and Brad must solve the series of puzzling murders. At the same time he learns of a plot to murder the Dalai Lama.
Brad begins to wonder if the murderer is someone he knows and almost loses his own life trying to solve the case. His boss, Grace, who has given him leave to go to P'Town informs him of the plot of the Dali Lama and is concerned that the two cases may be connected. Brad's next assignment is to guard the visiting religious leader on his visit to America. As his list of suspects grows, the book gets wilder and wilder.
The characters in the book are wild and original and the story is true escapism. It is a great summer read and if you like mysteries, this one is great fun. I loved the flamboyant list of murder suspects and I fell in love with Brad Fairfax. He solves the murder, of course, and falls in love and saves the Dalai Lama. (I hope I did not spoil it for you).
The author has created a wonderful gay detective. He fits no stereotype; he is charming, handsome, human and complicated and a real man. He leads a glamorous life and he is just like any one of us.
There is great humor in the book and it is touching as well. Provincetown comes across as a gay Disneyland and does not come across as it usually does. The list of suspects for the murder a real treat and just great fun. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Jessica Fletcher Meets a gay 007

An agent belonging to the Box 77 International Espionage Agency is called to Provincetown to retrieve the his ex boyfriend's body. While making funeral arrangements, he stumbles into a series of murders that involve a flamboyant list of suspects as only P'town can provide. In the end, he solves the murders, falls in love, and saves the life of a religious dignitary. Not bad for a fairy with a license to kill.

Great, light, and entertaining read!

I think is a good book, it has real orientation since the autor take their own experience.

I think is a good book, it has real orientation since the autor take their own experience.

If you run a business, it doesn't take long to realize that employees can make or break you. But how do you find the gems and leave the chunks of coal for your competition to hire?

This is a thorough guide and one that makes it very difficult for a slacker to fall through the cracks. A must read for HR executives and anybody who wants to find out how to find the good ones.

For my personal line of work, this book helped about 3-6%. I dont interview to hire for a position but for a distributorship. This book focuses on hiring for employment. I do recommend for those who hire for employment. Looking for a book that helps the client open up there reasons for wanting to own their own business.

This is a practical book for interviewing potential candidates for a job. However, the many tables and work throughs are a bit overboard. All in all, some good information but most people would only need to read a few relevant chapters.

In great condition, but took longer to receive than books I had ordered a week later.

I waited a month and never received my book. I was refunded for it. I will not buy through this seller again.

Thanks for sending this book so quickly. It's in excellent condition, just like new!

Thank you for the textbook, it was in very good condition and i like how soon it was shipped and how soon it got to me, Thanks again!

Overall I'm pleased with the product I received. It was in excellent condition! Unfortunately, the rate of speed in receiving this item was poor. However, I will remain a faithful customer in future purchases, thank you.

The Complementary Nature outlines a somewhat new way to view our universe. When the famed Neils Bohr, fierce opponent of Einstein and his theories of the universe stated "Contraries are complimentary" he gave rise to an entirely new way of looking at our world. The authors present these ideas in a crisp, "not too technical, not too simple" way making it a good read for anyone interested in a new way of viewing the universe.

This is a potentially momentous book. That being said, it is far from
a synthesis. It seems more like a long-winded manifesto with nice headshots of famous people. Nevertheless, the core idea is clear; namely that mentally-represented physical phenomena come in "complementary pairs", and that they form an interstitial and heterogeneous continuum between them. There is even a pairings glossary at the end of the book; each set of concepts is modified by a tilde (~) which denotes the link between two discrete states represented by linguistic titles.

The universal tilde designation is my major objection to this approach. The pairs actually seem to come in one of three flavors: binary oppositions, causal pairs, and hierarchical nestings. Yet pairs of all categories are annontated in much the same way. Think of the tilde as a mathematical operator, which I'm sure was the authors ultimate intent given their tone. Following this logic, if pairs come in qualitatively different types, then the authors should have used different operators for each type. It would make the entire enterprise much more straightforward, especially when mapping pairs to a phase space as occurs later in the
book.

Binary oppositions (linear~nonlinear) are by far the most
straightforward. People tend to be most comfortable with and can most intuitively analyze the outcome of these pairings. Consider the physical and mental aspects of hot~cold. Conditions in a physical system range from hot to cold; indeed, not only is there a linguistic dichotomy, but a physical one as well. Because the mapping between the two is relatively seamless, we can easily quantify "hot" vs. "cold" using both a dichotomous representation coupled to quantitative instruments. It is the pairings that do not fall cleanly into this category that cause potential
confusion. For example, causal pairs (reaction~anticipation) and hierarchical nestings (individual~society) might be considered differentiated states in a superficial sense, but treated as such may not map to a phase space well.

One interesting idea is that of functional information. One example from brain science is the specificity of COMT expression in prefrontal cortex. The initiation of gene expression at certain points in life history relies on the correct environmental conditions; interactions with surrounding proteins lead to specific types of emergent structures and specific phenotypes. No surprise there; such approaches to information are increasingly commonplace. The potential food for thought offered here is that this is part of an emergent process. Systems use functional information to build complexity; information everywhere does no good,
but when coordinated by concurrent processes it is most powerful.

Their treatment of emergence (micro~macro) is one of the best I've
seen, and is at once mathematically rigorous and intuitive. They treat "individual" and "collective" as a metastable system (two local minima on opposite sides of a metastable "saddle point"). The system is driven by the values of a few key parameters; these parameters represent the reciprocal forces of downward and upward causation. Instability in these parameters drives the system towards a phase transition; more intuitively, the system climbs out of one stable state to a metastable plateau. At this point, it is free to return to its original state,
remain unstable, or change to a new state. Dealing with the effects of causality on the initiation of phase transitions front and center makes for a much cleaner model than many of the other approaches out there.

More formal complex systems models becomes the thrust of this book's second part. Readers not familiar with Kelso's 1995 book "Dynamic Patterns" would do well to go there for a formal mathematical treatment. Once you understand the underlying concepts of coordination dynamics, go back and read "The Complementary Nature" again. Fresh eyes will provide you with a new perspective on the pairings. For example, pairings might be viewed as the boundary conditions of an n-dimensional phase space, or as discrete states in a multistable system. In any event, it is the space between the discrete states that are of interest to the authors. The take home message seems to be that this space is complex, unstable, and potentially fertile ground for the gray areas that humanities, brain science, and complexity scholars alike must understand.

The Complementary Nature (TCN) was written by individuals obviously deeply committed to grounding a philosophy of complementary pairs,(an ancient subject), in the newer science of coordination dynamics. This is a fascinating and exciting prospect, considering one of the physicist Niels Bohr's fondest wishes was to pursue this very subject. (Unfortunately he was unable to attain this goal in his lifetime.) The wish is immortalized in his credo, "contraria sunt complementa" or "contraries are complementary."

Could coordination dynamics be the key to Bohr's grail? Possibly-time will tell as the research covered in TCN progresses. At the very least, TCN chronicles an actual pursuit of a scientifically grounded general complementarity. And shedding any light on this subject has potentially deep implications, indeed. But why would achieving such a grail be important? What is to be gained by it? To quote the neuroscientist and roboticist Olaf Sporns,

"The division of our world (natural and social) into distinct contraries or opposites has become almost universal practice in most fields of human endeavor and inquiry, including science. Undeniably, imposing such divisions on space and time, wave and particle, order and chaos, action and perception, or organism and environment have enabled significant progress in our scientific understanding of these separate domains. However, understanding based on separation or contraries is fundamentally limited, as is powerfully demonstrated by modern physics, biology and neuroscience.

Kelso and Engstrøm's book offers an alternative, synthetic view based on the principle of complementarity, the reconciliation of contraries as jointly necessary and mutually reinforcing aspects of reality. This volume not only presents a comprehensive history of the idea of complementarity, it also puts forth a theoretical framework, called coordination dynamics, within which complementarity is rooted. The originator of this framework and lead author of the book, Scott Kelso, is a world-renowned neuroscientist whose unique perspective on brain dynamics pervades much of the text.

The dualist stance, epitomized in the writings of Descartes and his followers, has had a dominant influence on our modern conception of brain and mind as separate entities. Within neuroscience, the dualistic counterposition of the concepts of localized function versus global processing, of segregation versus integration, continues to create major obstacles to theoretical progress in the discipline. Coordination dynamics offers a way out of this crippling dilemma. Coordination abounds in the living world, as seen in the emergence of morphology from genetic instructions, movement from the action of joints and muscles, and cognition from nerve cells.

Coordination dynamics describes how coordinated patterns form and transform within and between parts of a given system. Core concepts, developed at length in the book, include self-organization, pattern dynamics, multifunctionality and functional equivalence, and information flow. The theory developed in this volume may well have far-reaching consequences, not only in paving the way to a more complete understanding of brain and mind, but in bridging and effectively erasing artificial conceptual boundaries that have hampered progress in many other fields of science. The accessible and thought-provoking style of the book will appeal to a broad range of readers from various fields. The impact of this volume will be felt for years to come."[1]

Even we find even more detailed insights about TCN in the following excerpts of an extensive review of TCN by Arthur Fabel, which can be found on thecomplemetnarynature.com website. Fabel, an engineer, author and editor himself, takes his research into the nonlinear sciences very seriously. His natural genesis website reminds one of the almost otherworldly attention to detail found in the life works of Thomas Aquinas. Here we see deeper into the issues within TCN:

"...Theoretical inklings of an innate nature from which life, mind and persons arise and exemplify began a few decades ago. In the 1960's general systems theory sought the elusive goal of a common pattern and process. In the 1970's and 1980's Ilya Prigogine and colleagues articulated a non-equilibrium thermodynamics of living systems, Hermann Haken, with whom one of the authors (Kelso) has collaborated extensively, conceived the field of synergetics about a self-organized coherence, among others were Benoit Mandelbrot (fractal geometry), Francisco Varela (autopoiesis), Stuart Kauffman (autocatalysis), John Hopfield (neural networks), and Murray Gell-Mann (complex adaptive systems). (Google will define these arcane terms for you.) In the mid 1980's, as science fields do, a stage of detailed studies commenced, orbiting about the Santa Fe Institute and other centers such as the authors. For the next decade or so, more features of life's consistent impetus such as modularity, symbiosis, local interactions between independent agents, criticality, information sharing, scale-free networks, algorithms, were identified. As these achievements converge and reinforce, a further phase is implied to at last glimpse a "universal" dynamic system. It is in this regard that TCN can presage and facilitate such a breakthrough...[2]

"Amongst these various features and terms, the authors are able to distill and identify a core propensity to form complements which are not in opposition but in active coordination. Before proceeding however, some examples from nature might help convey what scientists are trying to evoke and describe..."[2]

"TCN is a unique, concerted effort to lay out its theoretical lineaments. This is accomplished by three sections or Movements - conceptual roots in the history of wisdom and ideas, the technical theory of coordination dynamics, and philosophy and science rejoined via an integral research program..."[2]


Is TCN accessible? I thought so. Though I am not a scientist myself, I do have a general interest in what is happening in science today, to stay as informed as I can. Though you may be reading about this stuff for the first time, the science involved is now around 30 years old, and is currently and vibrant field of research, where new theory and experiments are being frequently published in today's scientific journals. As Fabel points out,

"Be reassured the authors know this may be unfamiliar terrain and write in accessible prose. Many topics are prefaced by a portrait and a quotation. How the Brain~Mind Works, for example, is introduced by luminations from Virginia Woolf. And as one reads along, it is not hard to imagine our cerebral dance of complements, "no coupling, no coordination," as yin and yang spiraling together and apart and together."[2] and

"TCN is a work in progress as the authors and colleagues proceed to sort, explain, and convey a bicameral spontaneity. Their distillation of Complementary Pairs, due to and enhancing Coordination Dynamics, as the salient quality of complex systems, promises to initiate a consummate phase with these features:

Universality - a realization that the same pattern and process organizes itself everywhere in nature at each nested stage and instance.

Complementarity - whose creativity is most distinguished by a dual pair of components not in opposition but in mutual reciprocity.

An Archetypal Identity - whereby each member takes on a representative role of a discrete, autonomy or holistic interrelation - particle~wave - individual~collective - compete~cooperate - masculine~feminine.

Translation - there is much need today for a common terminology since everyone is describing the same vitality. An array of disparate words are in use which tend to obscure their common narrative." [2]

And could such keys found within TCN be useful to society? Again, Fabel's words are quite informative:

"The Complementary Nature! Might western modernity be at last catching up to the heart of wisdom? Confucian scholar and ATA vice president Mary Evelyn Tucker often writes of a Chinese cosmos graced by a "relational resonance." Can our late task be its empirical verification and rediscovery with new theory, clarity and import? Such an insight would do much to qualify a cosmic and earthly genesis of which people are an intended phenomenon. I do not want to make too much of this, but it is incumbent to recognize when something of incisive value has been found.
For in closing what kinder and gentler earth community, as Thomas Berry would advise, could a complementarity of civilizations inspire? The previous Perspective considered a bilateral accord not only of East and West but South and North, with Islam located corpus callosum-like in each case. The Natural Genesis website section on Sustainable Ecovillages finds this imperative future rooted in a balance of person~group~planet. And what will it take for an electoral polity of familial right~left, orthodox~reformed, mother~father, which could not be more obvious, to come into salutary being. The most desperate need, however, must be to correct and heal the long imbalance of male domination, excluding and denying the feminine, now spending itself in social oppression, militarism and engulfing conflagration. This may even be the reason that male science cannot see the forest for the trees. In all these regards, The Complementary Nature is a significant contribution." [2]


I read The Complementary Nature, and feel that it describes important, current, groundbreaking work that may well be just the tip of an iceberg. Keep this book in mind the next time you see something in politics, medicine, science or any field where new understanding is found in moving beyond either X vs. Y, and includes discussions of complementarity.


Here are some some interesting excerpts from TCN. They give you an example of the writing style and some of the issues they cover:

"We propose that a tenable middle way lies with the concepts, methods, and tools of informationally based self-organizing dynamical systems, otherwise known as coordination dynamics." (p8)

"We are saying that coordination dynamics offers a means to ground our philosophy of complementary pairs in a comprehensive and ubiquitous science of life, of everyday experience. Coordination dynamics, by virtue of its ability to exhibit coexisting tendencies, frees us from the antagonism of opposites, the either/or mind-set that has dominated Western thinking throughout the ages." (p76)

"Coordination dynamics, the science of coordination, is a set of context-dependent laws or rules that describe, explain, and predict how patterns of coordination form, adapt, persist, and change in natural systems." (p90)

"...individual coordinating elements couple together to form coherent self-organized coordinated states. (p176)

"Coordination dynamics offers a successful scientific theory~experiment for understanding ubiquitous pattern formation, persistence, adaptation, and change in self-organizing systems that are coupled to and sculpted by information." (p181)



REFERENCES

[1] The Quarterly Review of Biology (March, 2007) 82:37-38.
[2] The Fabel Review. [...]

I approached this book hoping to find an account of how the mathematics of non-linear equations could be applied to patterns found in real life. A fragmented account is indeed present, but it takes up only a few dozen pages. The rest of this book is a repetitive and poorly argued foray into something akin to metaphysics. I would strongly suggest that a curious reader think twice before devoting the time necessary to unravel the authors' prose.

The presentation is not just repetitive, it is also poorly structured. The arguments themselves are unconvincing. I will try and present their main points, with some criticisms. Mostly the criticisms focus on the vagueness of the authors' novel terminology, and on the unacknowledged presumptions inherent in their discussion.

The authors repeatedly assert that humans conceptualize the world in terms of contraries. It is unclear whether they think this is the only way we structure the world, or the predominant way, or just one way amongst many others. After listing many alleged contraries, some of which seem less than obviously contrary, they slip into calling pairs of concepts `complementary'. Again it is unclear whether complementary is entirely synonymous with contrary, or only partly related, or an entirely unrelated term. Their citing of Niels Bohr' use of the term does not clarify their own, far more extended, use. In any case the notion of a `complementary pair' becomes central to their discussion.

They fail to provide any criteria for including or excluding a pair of words or concepts under their rubric of `complementary'. Instead, they provide examples, culminating in a long list of such pairs. As noted in another review, the complementary relationship is signified by a tilde (~), implying that it marks a single kind of relationship. Yet the pairs listed are related in numerous, quite distinct, ways. Aside from plausible contraries, there are pairs related by similarity, by mere association, by one being subsumed in the other (through scale or function), by grammar, and yet other ways (there are literally hundreds of disparate examples, such as - `size~position', `prerogative~rank', `hero~quest', `affect~mood'). They do not stipulate that some pairs of words would be impermissible, but presumably this is the case. For example, `hearing ~ speech' is listed, but `hearing ~ artichoke' is not: if the latter is impermissible, as one would hope, some account of why it is barred would be illuminating. If it is in fact permissible, then one wonders what is the function of concept `complementary'.

The authors claim that it is a pervasive habit of human thought to regard the terms in a contrary (or complementary) pair as mutually exclusive; so we take the elements of the world to be one or the other of the paired terms, but not both simultaneously. It is unclear whether this claim is based on empirical observation, or on some implicit a priori analysis of the concept of `contrary' or `complementary pair'.

They claim that their approach is novel in that it focuses on the `in-between' space betwixt the opposed terms. Unfortunately, their examples belie all these claims. When the list features `love~hate', and `good~bad', already the reader is thinking that the co-existence of opposites is hardly a novel notion; when the list spills into juxtaposed terms that are less plausibly contrary, such as `lawyer~client', and `philosophy~science', then co-existence is either unsurprising or, indeed, expected. As mentioned previously, the definition of their new terminology is vague to the point of being inherently confused and confusing, and, if given a charitable definition, then it maps claims which are either false or uninteresting.

They claim to be adopting a position beyond the conjunction of "either/or" and "and/both" thinking. I'm afraid that asserting this, without conceptual elaboration, did not give me any grasp on what they were in fact postulating.

Why have the authors taken this general approach? It is tempting to speculate that their mathematics, or at least the way they wish to conceive of it, fits best with the interaction between two functions - possibly modified by a third function modelling extraneous factors. Hence the need for two poles, or contraries, and the logical space 'in between'. Frankly, this is just speculation on my part, and I really can't make out why the framework they have posited is vital to their enterprise.

The authors make passing reference to laws, to `science', to Darwinian evolutionary theory, and to quantum mechanics, yet they do not follow through with any of their arguments, and at times appear to have an incompetent understanding of the conceptual complexities attending the cited terms. To take one example, they seem to imply that for knowledge to be `scientific' it must be based on a conjunction of mathematical theory and practical application - applied mathematics, if you will; this thesis, plausible though it might be, is contentious, yet the authors do not seem to be aware that alternative theses exist, or even to be aware that they have advanced a thesis per se; another example sees them mention `laws', but give no account whatsoever as to what constitutes a `law' in science or in general; re quantum mechanics, they choose one slant on the Copenhagen Interpretation and their presentation might blind the reader that an involved debate, with many positions, exists on this issue.

The core of their pragmatic work seems to rest on `Coordination Dynamics'. This appears to be the mathematical modelling of the interaction of changeable systems. Applying the mathematics to real life is, as they point out, difficult. Choosing what aspects of reality to single out for attention is fraught. How one divides reality into `systems', or `levels', is likewise opaque. They do not explain how one might go about doing so. They give no practical advice, but only note the obvious difficulty of the whole endeavour. At best, one might make the assumption that their `complementary pairs' are candidates for modelling; however, how one relates `love', or `acquaintance', or `dumb', to a mathematical equation is left unaddressed. Indeed, having read their entire book I have no idea how their mathematics elucidates anything. And this is a shame, as I'm sure examples, comprehensible to the lay reader, do exist.

Much of the book reads as a counter to a view of the world derivable from certain strands of established metaphysics. It is a view that sees the world as a machine; the paradigm vantage from which to view the world is from outside of it, that is from outside of space and time; from here, all of reality is laid out in four dimensions, the three spatial and time, which is regarded for practical purposes as a fourth spatial dimension; the world is entirely deterministic, and can be described, or even thought of as constituted by, linear equations. For an account of the history of such ideas I would recommend the work of Milic Capek, and that of Emile Meyerson. I doubt that Kelso and Engstrom could articulate exactly what view they object to, but my guess is something along the lines given above. It might even be the case that prior to their immersion in their chosen field they too held a similar view, and now they are arguing against it. Be this as it may, they want their mathematics to be seen as legitimate, as mapping reality, and so reality must be open to choice, the future not fixed, and non-linear equations equally capable of providing explanatory force as linear equations.

Another invisible opponent is the deist, or someone who assumes that order necessarily implies a creator of order. They counter this position with their postulate of `self-organizing coordination', the most sustained discussion of this occurring under this heading on page 92. Here the main idea is that a deus ex machina is not necessary for things to exhibit order. This is a negative definition of the term self-organizing, in that we are told what it's not. A positive definition is omitted. We do not know if `self-organizing' means the components of the system have features which generate order, or whether they do so only in certain `conditions', conditions strictly not part of the `system' per se; the crucial difference here is that we do not know whether the system can be studied without reference to externalities, or whether externalities must also be studied - if the latter, in what sense is the system self-organizing? It might not be a deus but something ex machina is contributing to the establishment of order. They offer the example of an orchestra successfully performing without a conductor, but this fails to illustrate anything: even the intended premiss that the orchestra is without a conductor is dubious, as in rehearsal such orchestras effectively have one, often the first violinist (who is termed the leader of the orchestra), and the lack of a visible `time-keeper' during performance is trivial, this duty falling again to the leader. What is more, it is a vexed example to generalize, since the `components' are all conscious, that is they are human beings, and any `organization' is effected quite consciously by each and every one of the `components' - this is quite unlike cases where the components are inanimate and unconscious, and that is to say the vast majority of cases that are to be studied.

As a further taste of the problems with their presentation, on page 104 they title a subsection ambitiously, "Origins of Agency". First off they reference the Santa Fe Institute approach to agency, which limits the conception of agency to: "all an agent does is alter its output based on its input". The authors do not explicitly say whether they endorse this definition; if they see it as problematic, they do not tell us how or why. Next, and presumably in contrast with the Santa Fe approach, they assert that living things possess `real' agency, with sentience and goal-directedness. Where does this 'real agency' come from? They provide the following explanation: "Spontaneous self-organizing coordination tendencies give rise to agency," and "Coordination establishes meaning." They do not elaborate these cryptic pronouncements - they simply state them and assume the reader finds them satisfying and explanatory. I did not. If inanimate entities, say ice crystals, `spontaneously self-organize' into a snowflake, are we to assume that they are sentient and goal-directed? Presumably not. But then how does their `explanation' differentiate this phenomenon from the sentience of a human being, who/which is likewise thought to be a `spontaneous self-organizing' system? Again their discussion is undermined by the introduction of terms, such as `self-organizing', with no analysis of their meaning in this technical setting.

If you are still tempted to buy and read this book a few further words of warning. The authors choose to begin sub-sections with shadow-portraits of famous and not-so-famous thinkers accompanied by quotes - the quotes seldom bear on the subject matter and, at least in the case of Samuel Beckett, the authors' understanding of the quote is questionable. They also choose to use colloquialisms and pretend that their casual language somehow makes their ideas more easily understood. They use their tilde frequently and to irritating effect. They try to illustrate their ideas through examples, yet the examples (as mentioned above) are ill-chosen and usually do not illustrate what was intended (sometimes suggesting the very opposite).

I took very little of substance away from this book. If other readers have done better, it would be interesting for them to specify and summarize what was of value. All the positive responses I have read have been less than detailed, that is, along the lines of saying this is a great book that challenges established ideas. Raising a challenge is a start, but I don't think that this is a very cogent articulation of what is really at issue.

As the book states, this is an INTRODUCTION, it is not a reference or practical guide to construction. It is rather informative, specifically in the biological sense, and the author does a good job introducing necessary information before using it, such as a review/introduction to vector and matrix mathematics; however, some external reading my be necessary to understand if you do not already understand some of these basics.

Note: I have only read the first 1/3 of this book so far as my first book on Neural Networks.

In my opinion, the author does not write very clearly as he often provides examples or explanations that require a fair amount of assumptions and/or inferences to understand them clearly. On the other hand, he is to the point with no off-topic text. There are also a fair number of errors (typos) in some mathematical formulas and computer code, usually the usage of i or j where the other should have been used or a missing line of code that is clearly described in the text, but forgotten in implementation (the appendices may be correct, but you must download them from [...] ). If the math doesn't make sense to what is written, keep reading and a later formula is usually correct. He also often skips several steps when deriving formulas without explanation beyond, "if [formula] then it is obvious that [new-formula]" so you may have to stop to think about the math involved.

The author is obviously not an advanced computer programmer. The code fragments are in Pascal, which can be easily translated to C/C++, but I would recommend against using this author's code for any reason other than the learning experience in association with reading the book for several reasons: First, the code is not object oriented, and thus will become more complicated than necessary, and second, because he speaks of how important optimization of the code is due to the large number of computations required, and then he immediately provides a 3 line function/procedure that is to be heavily used but could have been 30% more efficient by re-ordering the math (he did suggest the alternative math, and then went ahead and used the less efficient method). Finally, this code was written over 12 years ago in a language that is rarely used. Surely there are more comprehensive and more efficient libraries of code that would be more understandable in your native (primary) programming language.

Let me finish by saying that I am in fact glad to own this book and recommend it to anyone (College level or above) who does not already, but wants to understand the roots of Neural Networks, the links to biology, and get an introduction to many of the most common types of Neural Networks. Be advised, the required reading level is rather high, but the mathematics (at least in the first third of the book) do not go beyond a little calculus (derivatives, integrals, and some partial derivatives), basic Linear Algebra (basic vector and matrix operations, and eigenvectors/eigenvalues), and a basic understanding of statistics.

There's nothing really wrong with this book - it's just not useful for someone wanting to actually program a neural network system.

I read all sorts of stuff about the nervous systems in horseshoe crabs, but I don't find myself able to do anything with neural networks. Therefore, I'm scouring the Internet to find some source code examples or a tutorial of some kind.

If you want to know miscellaneous information about neural networks, go ahead and buy the book. But if you actually want to construct neural networks, buy something else.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It introduces neural networks, with a strong emphasis on biological plausibility. For example, the book compares the visual systems of simple animals with neural network feature extraction. Anderson moves effectively among evolutionary biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral psychology. His insights are important, clear, and often funny as well. The book gently introduces source code for implementing the various neural networks that he describes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn about neural networks. It starts with a good overview of the biological basis that will be appropriate for the engineering student. The author is witty and appropriately cynical.

Don't be fooled by the fancy name to this textbook. It is about neither language nor reality. It is about selling the mediocrity of a few philosophy professors who are smart enough paraphrase seminal articles on linguistic philosophy but not smart enough to actually use source text or say anything of substance. Instead of a survey or anthology of the great works on language and reality in the history of philosophy (as one would expect from an Introduction), you are forced to listen to the author's weak arguments for obscure viewpoints derived from slightly tweaking the work of others.

This book will provide you with some understanding about why philosophy, as an academic discipline, is in the tank, and not much else. Scr*w your mom, Sorenson.

Devitt and Sterelny's "Language and Reality" (along with A. P. Martinich's "Philosophy of Language," 4th ed.) was the required text for a graduate philosophy of language class I recently took. I found the book both challenging and enlightening.

By reading the Table of Contents in Amazon.com's nifty "Look Inside" feature, you can see pretty much everything that is covered in the book. Therefore, I shall just describe a couple of things that might be difficult to detect without having the book in your hands.

First, a word about writing style: Still active in their careers, Devitt and Sterelny (hereafter 'D&S') make no attempt to hide their positions on the issues they address in this book. In my experience, two felicitous things came from this. Regarding the text, on the one hand, such an approach gave a liveliness and immediacy to the prose. In the classroom, on the other hand, D&S's lack of neutrality provided my professor, who does not agree with them on all points, an excellent backdrop against which he detailed competing arguments.

Second, each chapter ends with a concise list of recommended readings. In light of the above point, if you're reading this book without a professor describing counterarguments to D&S's positions, then these recommended readings might prove quite helpful.

Third, the arguments and theories in this book are themselves very well laid out and with considerable detail, especially for an introduction. Moreover, the progession from one argument or theory to the next is quite smooth.

Finally, I should say that if you're very new to analytical philosophy, then this book, because of the amount of detail, might be a bit rough going, in which case I would highly recommend William Lycan's "Philosophy of Language."

Bottom Line: If you want a solid introduction to the philosophy of language and you feel comfortable with moderately dense analytical argumentation, then this book is for you.

Without being too technical (we can always skip the hardest stuff), this book is a great introduction to further eventual philosophical inquiry. The authors' view on philosophy of language, being quite critical, is pretty interesting and sometimes surprising. Philosophy, according to them, should be empirical. Their arguments are pretty compeling, and the prose ok to understand or grasp most of it. However, if anyone would want to buy it just to read randomly pages or chapters inside, this book would not be the best choice. References to previous chapters can be find everywhere. This book is full of useful data, and needs to be read preferably in a logical way (i.e. from the beggining to the end): this book is not a text-book with articles that can be read independently.
"Language and Reality" is pretty comprehensive; therefore it adresses certain things (theories) in a broad way to, most of the time, criticize them. The part talking about Wittgenstien (2pages) is disappointing. Even though we still can "grasp" the spirit of what he's done, it's not enough too me...
Overall, this book is really good, and I mostly agree with the authors, especially about their theory of meaning that is not based on any picture or strict description.

As an English professor strongly interested in philosophy but still an amateur, I have read quite a number of philosophical introductions, and this is one of the best. Some introductions proceed by giving you a ground-up account of the basic issues and arguments. The effect can be rather dull. Others proceed philosopher by philosopher, giving accounts of important positions that have actually been taken. The effect can be confusing. This book combines both strategies quite successfully, avoiding the pitfalls of each. It provides clear, well-considered accounts of the basic issues but also introduces real philosophical interlocutors. The order of the chapters is cleverly devised so that one has the experience of a coherent exploration, becoming both wider and deeper as it goes. That the authors take a general position of their own is very helpful to beginners in orienting themselves within the discipline. Also, in the later sections of the book, the authors show the influence that certain positions in language philosophy have exercized in fields beyond--in the history of science, linguistics, literary criticism, and discussions of "culture." The reader comes away not only enlightened about the basic issues of the philosophy of language but convinced of their importance.

A friend gave me this book because I am originally from South Bend and like to cheer for ND, but I am not what you would call a sports fan. I know next to nothing about basketball. I found this book to be very inspiring and heartwarming. Anyone participating on or coaching a team of young people would love it. It profiles each player, but emphasizes that each player coming together as a team is what is important.

The book is illogically split up, causing confusion, repetition, and destroying any suspense. The writing is often, at best, cheesy.

Most frustrating of all is the presence editing errors on almost every page, including obvious misspellings, such as the "Big Eat" Conference, "Stoors, Connecticut," and "Diana Taurisi."

This story is about the 2001 Final Four Champions; however, the writing would have been knocked out of the first round of the NIT.

Cheer Cheer for old Notre Dame!

The tag line is, "You can't handle the Ruth"!

This is a very uplifting book that will keep you turning the pages and leaving you with a wonderful feeling as you do.

It's a great story that everyone should read. It's a story of true student athletes that live in non- athletic dormitories and must attend class.

Notre Dames 2nd trip to the Final Four under Coach McGraw, the first trip was in 1997 with 7 healthy players. With a healthy team for this trip, she vows that the results would be different!

Mark and Muffet did a great job of giving us a real feeling of being there for that wonderful ride to the top. This is a story about a team that comes together for one unbelievable run to the title. A point guard who is granted a 5th year, an academic All-American at center whose talent is only surpassed by her brains on and off the court , and maybe the best 3 point shooter of all time whose talent is accentuated by this team, and the daughter of a NFL linebacker who has tremendous strength and quickness. It is a story of a true team where everyone understands that team goals come first. Finally a Coach who has the vision to see this teams strengths and puts together an offense and defense to make them almost unstoppable.

Coach McGraw maximized her teams strength with the precision of a surgeon making the right adjustments at every turn and keeping this juggernaut going. What comes across in that she has a wonderful and caring relationship with her players and truly cares for them as if she was their mother.

The story on Ratay, the best 3 point shooter in America, getting ready for the UCONN game at Notre Dame is priceless.

The story finishes with Ruth Riley hitting 2 free throws to win the game as Purdues final shot falls short. It was just like Hoosiers when Ollie needed to hit 2 free throws to win the game for Hickory. Only three weeks earlier Riley missed one free throw against UCONN in the Big East Championship and vowed that it would never happen again.

Niele Ivey in her career at Notre Dame suffered through two knee surgeries and could not understand why her basketball career had seemingly gone so far of course. In Gods plan Niele was granted a fifth year of eligibility which allowed her to play for the National Championship in her town of ST. Louis, there is always a plan.

Imani Dumbar was all set to attend a small college when a very late call came from Notre Dame. If only she know what the future would hold for her. She was the ultimate team player.

I liked the story of Murphy, Muffets son going home with his dad after they arrived back with the team from St. Louis and having his dad stop the car on the way home to be sure that Grace Hall had the #1 lit up to celebrate the National Champs.

As Purdue final shot falls short, and the buzzer sounds chaos takes over and Nice girls finish first. Relive the final buzzer and Father Malloy hugging the winning Coach, this book tells a great story. When you finish reading this book you will feel the urge to sing "CHEER CHEER FOR OLD NOTRE DAME"!

We're just beginning to see books about women's basketball, and this is one that should not be missed. Nice Girls Finish First is the story Notre Dame's championship year.
As the title hints, Notre Dame attracts athletes who are all-around people. Everybody goes to class and many athletes take a full, demanding schedule. One athlete chooses Notre Dame because "it's even better on the inside" than its shiny image on the outside.

The team consists of hardworking over-achiever. Like most basketball players, many girls came from difficult homes and overcame obstacles to get to college, let alone play on a championship team.

So here is the story of how a college team that has always been in the background can step up to the championships. It's a story of each player and a coach with a thoroughly modern marriage who wants to gain a bigger place for her team -- and respect for women's basketball everywhere.

The book delivers basketball suspense -- but heart-warming scenes too. The team returns to South Bend after the championship game -- and the whole school is waiting to greet them in the middle of the night. And after winning a game, there's Ruth Riley, talking quietly with her mother in an empty gym. After watching a semi final on television, a male crowd from the sports bar decides to drive all night to see the finals.

I wish this book were more widely distributed. Women's basketball fans are ready! When will the movers and shakers of the book world catch on?

They say truth is stranger than fiction. The story is amazing. If this happened to someone today, the chances of them living would be better, but still a very good chance they would die. This happened in the 1840's, and if it wasn't enough for a tamping iron to go through your skull, the doctor sticks his finger in the head, and then purges you from both ends; for weeks, and then an infection sets up for two months, and he still lives through all this. What a guy. The author gives all the details, and explains away all the myths. It is all here. I guess it really boils down to one thing. If this detailed story, and point by point examination of who Gage was, and who he became is of interest, then this is your cup of tea. You will either love the book or loath it. You decide.... I loved it. I doubt if there will be a reprint. I went ahead and bought it in the Hardcopy format, and I'm glad I did, as I intend to keep this in my library (don't loan out your books).

Malcolm Macmillan has done an excellent job of researching the life and times of Phineas Gage and presenting his story. I am especially grateful for how carefully he distinguishes between fact and conjecture, since much of Gage's life story is unfortunately incomplete and some aspects must be inferred. Within the context of Gage's injuries, Macmillan thoroughly reviews the development of scientific thought on the nature of consciousness. The section on ventricular physiology I found particularly interesting, as a scientist proposing that the basic concept may deserve revisiting. The mystery of consciousness is indeed the greatest mystery of our time, and Macmillan's book is a must-read for every student of the subject.

Central to Malcolm Macmillan's book is the fascinating case of Phineas Gage, a railroad construction worker who, in 1848, was involved in an accident in which an iron bar shot through his head, severely damaging his skull and, supposedly, his brain. To everybody's surprise, Gage survived the accident. After he recovered, it turned out that Gage was not quite the same man anymore. He was unable to return to his job and traveled around quite a bit and held a number of odd jobs before he died twelve years later. His personality had profoundly changed as well: he became irritable, short-tempered, and irresponsible, among other things. In this book, all first-hand accounts of the accident are collected for the first time. MacMillan investigates a number of claims about the Gage case and concludes that very few of them have any evidence in their favor. The polemics of the author with other Gage-experts unfortunately detract from the story as they pertain to irrelevant details. The author attacks relativistic and social constructionist views of history which disregards actual facts (but where can such a historian be found?); these attacks are misplaced and irrelevant. In the end, MacMillan concludes that, historically, the Gage case was of no importance whatsoever. This begs the question as to why he filled over 400 pages with the case in the first place!

What a wonderful book this is! Malcolm Macmillan has not only presented a scientific and academic story of this important case, but has truly delved into the microcosm of who "Phineas Gage" was as an 'ordinary man' by carefully intertwining the social and cultural world he lived in with the incident itself, and its aftermath. I enjoyed it very much I know those who will read it from all levels of American life (whether they be physicians, scientists, historians or just plain folk), will enjoy it as well. I want to thank him very much - - not only personally, but on behalf of all the people of Cavendish and members of the Cavendish Historical Society, for all his hard work and the tremendous job he has done.

There are not many books concerning computer graphics that go beyond mode 13h. This book covers the VESA extension for the high color and resolution modes. The section dealing with matrix mathematics and how it relates to computer graphics was very interesting. The AART utility is built using a step by step approach with plenty of C++ examples and explanations. For anyone wanting extended knowledge of computer graphics programming beyond mode 13h, this a must buy.

My greatest disappointment with this book was that I had not read it earlier. The book describes VESA and VGA modes and WIN-G (windows) very clearly and provides a CD-ROM with elegant C++ source for graphics primitives. (windows and dos-32) The compiled versions are nearly as fast as METAGRAPHICS and come with full source. Included are C++ sources for 3D animation with texture mapping (and some cool demos). If you know C++ and want to learn about some cool graphics techniques, READ THIS BOOK!!

the book is totaly good except that my cd that comes with the book is damaged and can not put the teqniques in the book to real actions which frozen my projects to a dead end i asked for another copy of this cd but no answer or just a site to download it from !!!!!

This book was a great book before the advent of DirectX, OpenGL and Hardware-Accelaration triangle. Now it's obsolete. It's about 2D sprites, it's about VGA graphic, it's about WinG, it's about color formats,and it's VERY LITTLE about 3D graphics. Any how if you are interested for clear C++ code, or if you're absolutely beginner with game programming it will be usefull. If I would write this review at 1990-1995 it was a five stars book.

I read the book in 1955, a paperback at a cost of 1.50. To be sold the same paperback (Reissued) with a initial price of less than 2 dollars, for the price of over 30 dollars with shipping leaves a very bad taste about dealing with Amazon for any future products or books. Jerome Simonson

I read this book in 1955 while I was working in a Steel Mill in Warren, Ohio. I could see then that I would never be rich earning $16.00 a day after what the "elite" of Hawaii was earning just prior to and during World War II. I agree with the reviewer from Charlotte, N.C., don't know why but I never forgot the book. (NOTE) I believe a movie staring Richard Eagen and Jane Russell was also made in the 1950's however, it did not "tell" as much as the book. I would be interested in obtaining a copy of the book...new or used...

The Revolt of Mamie Stover is the real history of Hawaii. It should have been named "Islands in the Stream". It describes how Hawaii was always stratically located during the wars and skirmishes in the Pacific. It describes how the citizens aquired what is now the Old Money. The elite in Hawaii would just as soon not see this book in print again. It has been a long time since I read the book, but it has always been in my memory.

Read this in the 50's in Australia. Always seemed to me to be a great american story, unjustifiably neglected. A most human tale, probably truer than false. Mamie a triumph in adversity, kindness of one who could have been just a user of people who chose to hold out a helping hand. Yes, I would love to obtain a copy so my wife could enjoy it in these less prudish times. A great human story.