Collins Books

Wonderful book for those who want to learn how to learn how to gain control of your money and invest.

This book truly changed my life. Ms. Stephen's down to earth, friend-to-friend approach spoke to me like no other financial advice book ever had. As everyone here has said, the daily devotional style makes it easy to digest and the quotes are truly inspirational. My thanks to Ms. Stephen's for this fabulous book.

Like the other people who reviewed this book, I just love it. I first borrowed it from the library and then purchased it for myself. I like the way it is made up, in tiny steps and really easy to read and follow. It truly inspired me to take a new look at money and I found out that you can save money in more ways than I ever thought possible. I highly recommend it. It is well worth the price.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs to gain control of their finances and set up their future.
Easy to follow....straightforward....tons of great advice!

I feel that my review should be first! This book is great. Not only is it a daily financial devotional, but it is also a down-to-earth NIV financial bible. I bought this book on a clearance rack in Crown and never read it until last week(note, I bought the book a year ago!). However, buy it, read it, use it, and read it again......

Robin Jarvis' Wyrd Museum Trilogy is a fantastic blend of Fantasy and Horror with interesting characters and a great story line.
Jarvis starts his trilogy with the slightly more easy going, "The Woven Path" which is an exiting journey into the the past life of an old teddy bear. Neil Chapmann and his family move into the Wyrd Museam as his father takes a job as a caretaker. While exploring Neil comes across a room filled with mysterious treasures and meets Ted, the reincarnation of a world war two American pilot. The two of them are sent back in time by Ursula Webster one of the three sisters who own the museum. They end up in London during world war two. Unfortunatly an ancient power has been unleashed on the city and Neil and Ted only have a little time to finish their quest before the demon finds them.
This is a great book although it may be frightening for smaller children.

This book is about 11-year-old Neil Chappman, whose parents just recently got divorced and he now lives with his father. The father got a job as a caretaker at a creepy museum. Because the father hadn't much money, Neil and his father had to live at the museum. While exploring the museum, Neil got sent back in time where he had to save the lives of 4 people.

I liked this book because of the way the author used descriptive language, as well as the amazing characters that the author developed. This is a great book for anyone who loves fantasy and adventure stories, but it has some scary bits in it so it's probably not for little kids.

This story sends chills trough you, but I`m not completely shure how much little kids enjoy it, because there is quite a bit of describing and I`ve found out that the youngsters don`t really find that amusing - it bores them if it seems too long. Shure they can identify with Niel (a boy sent back to war-time London) and the Teddy, but him actually beeing a grown man must confuse them.

I enjoyed it nevertheless - the Webster sisters anre creepy without any other stuff happening, and the father is so adorably helpless. The Story itself is well writen too and will probably not dissapoint you. Try it.

The Wyrd Museum trilogy has some of the most spine-tingling moments I have ever come across in juvenile fiction. While it is probably a little too gruesome for the 9 and under set, it provides plenty of thrills and chills for everyone 10 and above.

When you have grown weary of the exploits of a certain young wizard, come and visit with the Webster sisters for a magical tale of a more sinister sort. Nothing in or around Hogwarts has ever been this creepy!

A must read!!! If they made a movie out of this, it would probably outsell Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and you simply can NOT put it down. If you like books with mystery, action, comedy, horror, drama, romance or ANYTHING of everything all three of the Wyrd Museum books deliver and keep you wanting more!!!

Excellent, informative history of the rave scene in England... everything is in here: how influential Ibiza was to the scene, MDMA and its history, smiley faces, baggy pants, all the main players and djs... it brought back a lot of happy memories of my raver days in NYC in the early 90s. A must read for those interested in this scene especially the beginning which shows that it all started in America: Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage, Frankie Knuckles's Warehouse parties, Dr. Shulgin and his MDMA studies... Britian took it to the next level in the 80s beginning with the Summer of Love and raves and was then past back to the US in the early 90s: Frankie Bones and the Storm raves, NASA, and the rest. This book tells you all about it!

This book is truely entertaining, it covers music, culture, politics, drugs, ect... It was hard to put this book down, I was sucked into it and learned a great deal about the scene in Eroupe. I recommend this book to people who are looking for answers to questions they didn't know they were asking...

This book is well written from start to finish and is hard to put down. It provides a real inside viewpoint of not only the music put the politics of ecstasy culture. To those who seek alternatives to corporate-consumer-culture this book is very inspiring. In particular the stories of how groups like Spiral Tribe live(d) their lives.

To me this book really captures a lot of the emotion that those inside the 'rave movement' feel. Even though the book is centered on the London scene it seems to capture the universal essence of the culture. Reading the book felt like reliving the rave experience all over again. It's like a trip taking you from a ravers first mind-opening dose of MDMA to the realizations that come after continued exposure to underground dance culture and politics.

This book also provided a great account of the actions taken by the opponents of youth dance culture; the ignorance of the politicians and police using scare tactics to try and control what they clearly don't understand, the attempts by the alcohol industry to take the culture away from the underground and commodify it into regular bars for their profit, and the problems created in the culture by organized crime.

Altered State also delves into the issues of prohibition and harm reduction. This is another area where the book's message transcends the London setting it describes. These topics will resonate with anyone familiar with the current political climate in the USA. With the 2002 RAVE (Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy) club owners can now be held responsible for what their patrons ingest. Meanwhile organizations like DanceSafe.org offer harm reduction strategies to the millions of ecstasy users who defy prohibition.

I couldn't recommend this book more highly.

As someone who "came of age" in the club culture of Austin, Texas in the mid-1980s (Halls, Stephanie's, 606), I have been quite surprised that the Dallas (Starck) and Austin dance subculture has not been fully explored in many books as "ground zero" for the ecstasy-fueled rave movement that developed in Europe during the late-80s and early 90s. Although MDMA had been around for a while, if it wasn't for a chance meeting between a certain Austin DJ and one of Britain's top new wave bands after an Austin concert, England's 1988 "summer of love" might not have happened (or at least it would have been delayed for a few years). That "three days of love" on Lake Travis had a tremendous influence on the social history of youth over the next twenty years! The book mainly focuses on Britain's experience with the rave and dance subculture. However, it is the first few chapters that I find so fascinating . . . the development of MDMA and its infusion into the mainstream population through unassuming college students who had no idea they were guinea pigs for the multitudes to follow. Well worth the read, especially for those of us who experienced the phenomenon first hand.

Garage, House, Acid House, Techno, Balearic, Drum & Bass, Jungle, whatever you call it: this is the book about the real history. Sometime in the past fifteen or twenty years rock died finally, amd weren't you glad? I was happy but I was on E and my vote doesn't count. I was taking alot of smart drugs too and I wrote a few novels on those so-called "pep pills." But I wasn't hanging out in Ibiza with Danny Rampling of Claire Manumission, or even Larry Levin at the Paradise Garage. I was still listening to Wire and Gary Numan. Like most people, at first I didn't care for most techno or house, but you know what? It's all I listen to now (I am still living in 1999). How did that happen? Before I used to listen to a lot of punk, ska and reggae, and then dropped out of the music scene for a while. I liked punk music especially since there were no rock stars, and anyone with long hair (or even looked remotely like Evan Dando) was immediately uncool and we used to beat them up. Boy, we were thugs back then, eh? But sometime in the late 1980s, someone slipped me a hit of E, and this disco record came on and it sounded like the best record I ever heard, and I was in love with everyone and I dove in the middle of the groping room. A few years later, I got serious and became the literary insider, and read Joyce, Proust, Beckett, Pynchon, Irvine Welsh, back to back, you know the story.... Well, what I'm saying is this book is a wonderful read, and adds a little narrative to the no-narrative techno policy. It also documents the most profound youth movement of the last ten or fifteen years. That's what I like about Techno: no rock stars!

This book is effectively an ABC for kids. Published in the 1960s it still provides a valuable teaching aid to get young children learning their alphabet. Each letter has anassociated series of words and story attached to it. With characters such as "Aaron" the alligator, and Abigail a girl, simple sentences are conveyed with quirky illustrations to help children learn various concepts. From "Abigail crosses the road" to "Aunt Ada likes Lions" the book leads the young reader from A through to Z where we learn that "Zero is very cold for zebras". A fun way for any child to learn to read.

I got this book 32 years ago when my first daughter was born. We began "playing with" the dictionary when she was around 1, and it was such a source of laughs for both of us. She did learn her letters. At 18 months , while walking through a marked parking lot, she surprised my friends by saying "Mommy, standing on "A". I gave the dictionary full credit!

Now this same person is expecting her first child. The Dictionary is on it's way to her house right now.

Excellent book. My three-year old learned all of her letters in a fun and amuzing way. She was intrigued by the pictures and the activities the characters were perfoming. I highly recommend it for any preschooler.

Kristina, Mother of Tiffany

While all of the books with the Dr. Seuss label can be considered essential reading for children, this one is more essential than most of the others. In terms of books used to help children learn to read, I found it to be unequaled in value. I still have the copy my daughter read and it is worn to the point where the spine is falling apart. Not through misuse, but from being opened and the pages flipped over and over again.
In the beginning, I read it to her, but it did not take long until she was sitting by herself looking through the pages and saying the words. Each word is accompanied by an illustration and in most cases a brief sentence where the word is used. Many of the illustrations incorporate the usual Seuss silliness, such as the green alligator carrying a sign stating, "I am a horse." All of which is designed to give the meaning of the word "true."
One of the best books I have ever seen to help children learn to read, I cannot include enough superlatives to express my opinion of it.

This dictionary is in my book box of Seuss favorites.It really is a PD Eastman book.In March schools led by the NEA selected to promote Dr. Seuss on his birthday. A literacy celebration to promote reading.That is why I had my classroom Suess box out and re-found this book.


("Ten years ago, NEA started a reading revolution. From a one-day celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday to a year-round literacy campaign reaching nearly every home, school, and community, NEA's Read Across America is building a nation of readers. " Or so their site reads.)

It's a kind of teachers uniting to read with children and take a literacy stand yearly shout out. Now it's had ten years to blossom and expand and be a part of Spring in schools. I assumed at its start that each year they would broaden this to another author until years later we found ourselves focusing National Attention on a wide variety of authors, but that was an incorrect assumption as Dr. Seuss remained the primary focus.
And that's cool too. The program does encourage literacy generally. It's worth checking their site to find out more about Read Across America.

Somewhere inside of this it seemed the NEA was finding a phonics answer to promote reading to sidestep whole language, which I found a sad nod to those with limited views, but who cares really? It's worked in schools and it makes March more pleasant as you cook up Green Eggs and Ham or read the story of Horton or think about the Lorax, put on your big Cat in The Hat shoes, or wonder about the "differences" in our world as you read "Red Fish, Blue Fish" and how "from here to there and there to here funny things are everywhere," yeah no kidding. And I don't think Dr. Seuss really meant ha, ha funny. I really don't.

In my book boxes, as I said, is a 1964 copy of a Seuss/Eastman dictionary. I'm going to order several. Children in my room at the five group reading tables enjoy reinforcing their ABC order, reading the short and funny entries and they are beginning to grasp the construct of a dictionary by using the clever text and looking up things. Dr.Seuss or rather Eastman buries good jokes in his pictures and words too for added fun. There's lots of alliteration. A "blackbird is at the blackboard" under the entry for "black". "Drops are dripping" under "drip". "James at the jam jar" under "jam". Oh...none of that sounds as funny as it is, you need a copy to see.

Right now things are coming together for my readers but there needs to be a little motivational push to get them inside a book. Because at first reading is work. So when they read his little twists and turns, or the pictures have funny little almost naughty sneezers and loud, louder, loudest concepts it tickles them pink. And then I can begin the process of putting very young children into alphabetical order contextualized inside dictionaries and then move them from this into their child dictionaries and resource materials. Those really are so much drier and not as accessible. This helps.

As I said, this taught my brother to read and I remember for a time that he would recall words he knew were in here and then go put them in his writing using the dictionary to spell them in order to write better sentences. You can't ask much more than that. Excellent then and 43 years later this old lady teacher recommends this as a classroom resource. Too bad it is not reprinted in hardback as classroom sets. I'd get it in a blink of an eye.

Tom Gegax has done it again with The Big Book of Small Business...an outstanding "how to" commentary on starting and running a small (or not-so-small) business. A "must read" for anyone looking for a ready resource and "kitchen helper" in owning, operating and otherwise "worrying" a closely-held business. As the previous head of the Private Company Practice Group in my law firm, I can see how this book would have been of great help to many of my clients. As a person who once taught a course in Business Planning, I wish that at the time I had had Tom's book in hand to help students learn many of the practical aspects of running a business: managing people, strategic planning, negotiating commercial relationships, compliance etc - the list goes on.
Again, congratulations to Tom Gegax.
William R. Hibbs, Retired Partner, Dorsey & Whitney, PLLP, Minneapolis

Absolutely a fabulous book. Anyone who has ever run a business or plans to in the future will find this book a great asset. Tom Gegax delivers another winner.
William Cabot

While I would love to write a review of how Tom's guidance has helped my business succeed (and it has!), the surprise beneift of his books is that they become a guide for your life, not just your business.

As a new small business owner, I've devoured several books written on the topic of starting a business. Most have a few good kernels of knowledge in them somewhere, but none are as consistently helpful as this book.

The author, Tom Gegax, has a great deal of personal experience starting and growing companies, most of which seem to be in the tire industry. If you're business is not merchandise-based, but service-based, this book is still very pertinent. Topics like vision and values are discussed, as well as some interesting marketing ideas. Adapting the information into a business plan for a Web company was easy and enjoyable.

Be prepared for Mr. Gegax's very zealous approach to business. It borders on fanatical at times. If you shy away from corporate structures due to their "you must believe" mindset, you'll flinch a few times while reading, but it's still excellent counsel.

From a tactile standpoint, this book is great. The binding is well constructed, and the print is slightly large and easy to read.

I cannot recommend this book enough if you're starting your own business. Double that recommendation if you own your own business and need a shot of inspiration.

I also recommend Joe Kennedy's Small Business Owner's Manual available on Amazon.

If you could take all the best practices of business today and consolidate them into one manual, you would have an invaluable book but it would be about the size of the average American house. I believe "The Big Book for Small Business" by Tom Gegax is the "Cliff Notes" version of these best practices, I found this guide to be extremely valuable as an entrepreneur who owns four businesses and have made it required reading for all my employees.

Since one of my businesses is in an emerging market, I have done the unthinkable. I have sent my competitors CEO's copies of the book as well because I also believe in what Tom so eloquently stated, "A rising tide raises all boats". If we as industry can all utilize the advice contained in this book, our industry will grow to its incredible potential.

This is the best business book I have ever read and find myself coming back to it time and time again for strategy and execution ideas. This is 100% meat and zero fluff. My sincere congratulations to the author for delivering a business book masterpiece.

Best Regards,
Brian Brasch, President
Branick Industries Inc.

I picked up this book after reading the book "Fiasco", a book critical of the U.S. actions in Iraq, after the author noted that officers in the U.S. Military are currently using this book as a learning tool text book. Gaulle was a French veteran of WWII, Indonesia and served as a UN observer in Greece during an insurgent attempt to remove the government. He makes it very clear that the counterinsurgent (the government) in charge must win the battle for the population and that the soldier has a much more complex multi-dimensional role in creating trust within the population, creating security while not being too autocratic. He also states that successful adaptive leaders should be granted more local control on the ground allowing greater interaction. The author uses examples of insurgents from Algeria, Greece, and China along with an emerging U.S. Vietnam war that is evolving by the time the book was completed in late 1863. Gaulle notes that geography is a great aid to insurgents along with sympathetic borders. He also notes the classic insurgent method of intimidation; kill local politicians and police to make a greater impact on the masses, something well reflected in Iraq. On the other hand, he demonstrates how the Chinese Nationals treated their prisoners well, obtaining potential recruits, and how the nationals, upon gaining a territory would have a support administration prepared to go right in and set up. The Chinese nationals' organization abilities virtually provide a blue print for the counterinsurgents to follow. Although the text is 40 years old, written during the ruptures of colonial control of third world countries, it still is applicable today in the Middle East and elsewhere as a similar if not more sophisticated warfare is fought by insurgents, particularly those well supported, hence the major problem. The book is written in brief text book style and is a read most appreciated by those with a military background. Those without military experience or a technical appreciation may find it a not very colorful read. The book is very direct in its brevity with just 99 pages but a very insightful book in that short space. I purchased the paperback new for $28.

A good basseline, insight into the subject of Counter Insurgency.
Counter Insurgency, and other related Counter Insuregency Books, journals, white papers, should be mandatory reading for: civilian, military, strategic planners, intelligence officers, Congress, think tanks executive managers and planners before they decide to "..cross The Rubicon..." "...or the Tiber Rivers..."

Book breaks down how to quelch a counterinsurgency. More people in the Pentagon and Washington need to read it.

David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory & Practice is a classic. It is a classic in the sense that it is ... a work of enduring excellence ...an authoritative source [Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary]. I recommend this volume because it makes better sense of other books on intelligence and special operations, by serving as a metric for both policy and operational analysis.

Written almost as a `good news/bad news' aphorism, Galula concedes ..."Very little is offered beyond formulas - which are sound as far as they go - such as, `Intelligence is the key to the problem,' or `The support of the population must be won." P xii.

The essence of the text is clearly stated ..."to define the laws of counterrevolutionary warfare, to deduce from them its principles, and to outline the corresponding strategy and tactics." P xiii.

Galula begins by defining insurgency as ..."a protracted struggle conducted methodically, step by step, in order to attain specific intermediate objectives leading finally to the overthrow of the existing order ...it can no more be predicted than a revolution; its beginnings are so vague that to determine exactly when an insurgency starts is a difficult legal, political, and historical problem." P 5.

Vital decisions depend on the quality of the intelligence available to policy makers. Additionally, and possibly more importantly, intelligence must be evaluated and presented in terms of a practical application. Galula delivers on his promise, as Counterinsurgency Warfare systematically examines the theoretical i.e., strategic aspect of intelligence in terms of practical/tactical i.e., operational applications.

Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice is perhaps the best textbook on how to fight a guerilla war (to read about how to conduct a guerilla war read Mao Zedong's On Guerilla War or Alberto Bayo's 150 Questions for a Guerilla). David Galua wrote this book. He was a French military officer whose experience in Algeria (during its war of independence from 1954 to 1962) has shaped his views on how to fight an insurgency. As a result, he has written a book that is credible, effective, and given today's current events, very relevant.
This book serves as an effective teaching tool for anyone interested in understanding how guerilla war (including terrorism) can be subdued. It short, well written, and presented in a format that is easy for anyone to understand. This contrasts greatly with current military literature of today (including the upcoming US Army's FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations which is, in my view, too big for a busy officer to read in a single day).
This book, along with Roger Trinquier's, Modern Warfare, should be included as part of every military officer's recommended reading list. Not only is this book thought provoking (i.e. in providing strategies in fighting insurgents), it is also relevant to our current struggle against international terrorism. This book should be treated as an important weapon in any warrior's arsenal.

Wow! I'm so glad this book is still a hit. I still have the one that was issued to me in 1975 in ninth grade English. I have used it ever since, including for my bachelor's and two master's degrees. The spine is faded pink from sitting in the sun on my reference bookshelf for the last 33 years. This book is single best source you can find for grammar specifics; language structure; expository writing; or tweaking your writing for the essay section on the SAT or a back-to-school paper. A true treasure that is as useful today as it was long ago.

This book was issued to me in my senior year in high school in 1976. I have kept it by my side, has helped me through my college years and then with my children, and now that I have decided to go back to school and am studying translation, I have taken it out of the bookshelf once again because the books we were assigned do not even come close to the perfection (in my idea) of this book. It has traveled with me through the different countries that I have lived in. It is truly a jewel of a book as far as how it is organized, explained and the exercises are very helpful to reinforce what you are trying to learn.

I purchased this book to add to my library after reading several reviews on Amazon. The book has some valuable information, but you can obtain most of the same information from Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style."

I have the 1965 (!) version of this book! I used it in GRADE SCHOOL. I used it as a reference in HIGH SCHOOL. I used it as a reference in COLLEGE. I used it as a reference in GRADUATE SCHOOL. My daughters used it (as a reference) in GRADE SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEGE and now GRADUATE SCHOOL. My son is now using it! During homework, there was always a call for "Dad, can I borrow that red English book?" There isn't anything else like it, not today. It explains, illustrates and gives practical examples of English like no other textbook. it's built as a REFERENCE TEXTBOOK, something few books do today. Textbooks used to be like this once. I was on Amazon and wondered by chance if it were still available, I'd like to get an updated copy. I was stunned to not only find one, but find that every single reviewer felt that same way about this book! You absolutely MUST have this as part of your personal reference along with you home medical books and such! When your child asks, "So, dad, mom- is it "lay" or "lie?" - you'll go running for this book, I guarantee!

I picked up this book after it was recommended by Stephen King in his book "On Writing" pages 121-122 (hardback). Mr. King was right, this is a good book and it has everything you need to become a good writer. I have not reached that point yet, but I know I will eventually get there with the help of this book.

This is a great book especially when you started with Duck in the Truck. Very cute story and great illustrations. Lots of detail in the illustrations that are fun to pick out.

What a wonderful story this is....poor Fix-It-Duck only wants to help and he keeps making things worse and worse. A delightful bedtime story you will enjoy again and again.

It's okay, the story is fine. But compared to Duck in the Truck this one is just okay.

that we bought it and donated it to our local library to share with other kids. I have 3 children ranging in ages from 3 - 8 and we all LOVE DUCK!!

This is my 2 year old sons favourite book! He has the the entire book memorized and out of all of his books we read this one at least twice a day. It's a fun rhyming book that flows really well. The other books in the duck series are also great. I'm curious to see the new release of "hide and seek" featuring frog that is coming out in dec.

One of the best books on taking an outside look into how we do business, live and experience the world as people, not just consumers.Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

I have read tons of books on business practice and ethos. Rushkoff brought a great mix of theory and practical examples that are working in the real world of business. This book is the business version of "positive psychology", which advises that we develop our strengths and most problems will self correct. In this case it is, pursue your deepest values and you won't have to spend all your resources on marketing. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is involved in an organization at any level. I am a pastor of a church and it has provided many thought provoking concepts to explore in our context.

I'll admit, it took me awhile to really get into this book. Once I got through the first couple of chapters of "Get Back in the Box" though, I couldn't wait to read more of it.

The author, Douglas Rushkoff, feels that we're in the midst of a renaissance in creativity and collaboration. As he puts it, "genuine creativity is a result not of out-of-the-box thinking, but of true expertise." Here's a great example he used partway through the book: The person that decided (years ago) to put a VCR and TV into one device wasn't really innovating. The person who came up with TiVo, on the other hand, was a genius and someone who truly had a handle on people's viewing habits.

He's got an entire chapter on what he refers to as "social currency." The retailers featured as noteworthy examples in this chapter include B&N ("the store is a social hub"), Guitar Center ("it's a place to try out pretty much any piece of musical instrument there is--and to play on it for hours") and the Apple Store (described as "a little cathedral"). I tend to think Starbucks fits the mold as well. In fact, this chapter got me wondering about what would happen if Starbucks and Apple ever decided to create some co-branded shops...

Here are a few of the other interesting tidbits I highlighted throughout this book:

** ...customers don't want to communicate with brands anymore...they want to communicate through them...

** Although we claim we want more leisure time, we are much more likely to find an opportunity for genuinely fulfilling engagement and learning at work.

** It's about learning to tinker, to tweak, and to test the most basic, underlying assumptions of one's core business or technology.

** (Regarding focus groups...) In the vast majority of the dozens of groups I've observed or led, the purpose was less to glean new insights than to confirm the insights already held.

This turned out to be a very enjoyable book with all sorts of great observations.

A great book. Reading this was like a breath of fresh air and really changed my thinking about technology, innovation, design and the hope for creating a livable world.

Where to start...

I rated this 4 stars; 5 stars for being thought provoking and reinforcing my notions of what businesses should be concerned with, and 3 stars for the authors glaring examples of old-renaissance ideas/execution that didn't/don't work, yet providing nothing more than hindsight.

I agree with the previous post that the first half of the book was better than the second half. There are so many examples that are counter to the authors examples, but I'll give a few here.

First, in the absense of fullfilment opportunity exists. While Wal-Mart may be an evil company for some of its practices it also provides people in developing countries with a job, where none may have existed before. If you have no food and someone gives you a scrap then you at least survive to move onto a larger portion. If those who are employed at Wal-Mart cannot find another job that pays more than minimum wage then I would suggest going to a library and start learning...it has free internet access...

Second, many of the arguments made throughout the book are based on a circular reference that is incapable of breaking down, when in fact it would break down. If a=b=c=d...y=z and z=a then for values of a-z that fluctuate so does the continuum. Every example given in the book relating to whatever currency units are give follows the same principle: that at some point, hidden beneath the guise of logic and play, energy will need to be expended that is not optimally or even close to optimally what any person would normally do in search of or in realizing the new renaissance. This breaks the whole model and I suppose it also degrades innovation at the same time.

Third, open-source software, though trendy, has limitations. Imagine a world where function a is performed via single open-source project composing of a single developer, then fast-foward t years where function a is now performed by 1000 different projects each with 1000 developers (who share the same egos), in the meantime you have some number of function a demand satisfied by 1000 projects so a/1000. All of the sudden you have function b that people just though of at t+1 days, but only a small portion like 1% of function a projects are compatible...but the developers of function a projects not wanting their egos to be crushed realize this and perhaps migrate over to the small % of function a projects that are compatible...leaving the other 99% of function a projects to be picked up by some developer(s), whos egos aren't as big, to try and work something out with function b compatibility. Now you have function a compatible projects with a huge number of developers wanting to make their mark with function b, but the 99% of the people who utilize function a and now function b must switch to projects that are fully compatible and relearn, etc. The point is that people want recognition, however good or bad that may be, but it's the truth...even authors put their name, photo, etc.

Fourth, I agree that understanding your "core competencies" are very important and understanding the "source code" and "patterns" is nice, but what really got me was how high people must be in order to realize that this is the path to eternal bliss or "play." I mean who in their right mind would choose to clean out a septic tank as a way of "playing" or even perform surgery on someone's brain...just for fun, when you know that someone's life depended on whether you were qualified or not. If you aren't qualified then doesn't that introduce a classe system of sorts? Who would regulate this...would this person think that telling someone they are incompetent was "playing?" It's clear that any system which qualifies someone as being able to perform a specific action, no matter how much fun they might have, is clearly old renaissance and the illusion of new renaissance is just that (not in entirety, but practicality).

Fifth, while some people prefer to solve challenging problems, others would rather just sit around surfing, etc. What do we do with those people? Where would they get their surfboards, wax, wetsuits, food? I'll tell you who...the people that have enough resources at their disposal to just sit back and ponder how the old renaissance is coming to an end in favor of the new renaissance.

Sixth, peoples faith often becomes a paramount influence in the actions they undertake. Some are at extreme ends and radicalize what is otherwise a very moral and just view of how things should be. These radicals often carry out actions against others because their convictions are so strong and so outside of the middle that even if the middle moves it will not be enough so enough will be "encouraged." This artificial skewing leads to others ultimately forgoing "play" in order to build a counter-trend necessary to prevent skewing that is non-organic. In the end you have a reduction in pure innovation (good) and an increase in pure existence. I'm guessing that the author was too busy contemplating whether or not we could he didn't think whether or not we should...

Seven, the book discusses how currency became the demise of society as it pertains to interest, greed, etc. However, in the Paypal example he exalts that business for being upstanding and trying this new thing, but it ultimately fails because of the banks...yada, yada, yada. Anyways, Paypal was earning interest on the float vs. charging money for its service. How is that new renaissance? If we take the banks out of the equation so that interest is no longer accrued then who pays for the hosting, data, maybe it's those people who like to play in data centers. But then, who builds the steel racks, elevated floors, servers, ethernet cables, routers, switches, supplies power, constructs the building, stays up all night trying to figure out why no interest is being accrued :)

Well, that was more of a rant than anything else. I'm glad this book cemented my ideas about open-source software and about how so many company executives are in such disrepair. Innovation...hmmm...whenever I have a bug in software I usually just open a debugging program that I purchased and print-out the portion of code via a printer, utilizing a driver, written by some person of gets off on that sorta thing...but would they do it for free if there other needs weren't being met...I don't think so.

There's a reason why doctors get paid so much money, there's are reason why people do jobs they wouldn't otherwise do, there's a reason why the new renaissance only exists in the imagination of Gene Roddenberry. The have's and the have not's exist today, and perhaps in the 21st century we can combat much of this gap; however, until everyone is content with their existence and opportunity for existence then we will not reach the new renaissance. Indeed, it will only exist where truly innovative ideas take place...our isolated dreams...

The Hunting of the Snark is a whacky piece of poetical silliness by Lewis Caroll. Complete nonsense, no-one knows what a Snark is, or why Snark hunters hunt it, or why anyone would want to become a Snark hunter to start with. Anyway, the poem is definitely amusing at times with some of the humour he slips in.

The Hunting of the Snark seems to be a very, very short imitation of The Canterbury Tales. The first chapter (titled a fit) introduces all of the occupations of all the different people going on a journey. However, instead of going on a general pilgrimage and telling tales along the way, their trip is very specific to hunting.

The Baker actually attempts to tell a story, but the Bellman (who leads the group) says there's no time for storytelling. They have to catch the Snark before nightfall.

Along with the Bellman and Baker, a Banker, a Bonnet-maker, a Butcher, a Boots, a Billiard-maker, a Barrister, a Broker, and a Beaver tag along to hunt for the Snark. The Beaver is afraid of getting cut by the Butcher, so he puts on a dagger-proof coat and talks to the Banker about buying an insurance policy.

The Beaver is involved in a hilarious scene with the Butcher later, when the two attempt to compute sums. But perhaps the funniest scene of the entire book is in the Barrister's dream when the Snark declares sentence on a pig, only to find out the pig has been dead long before the trial even began.

I'd highly recommend this short poem for Carroll fans, even though it's not big enough to contain but a small portion of what's to be found in the Alice books.

I have read a great deal of nonsense in the past, but this was by far the best nonsense that I have ever read. There is no point, no meaning, no sense, and no boringness. It is a delightful poem (which is well written and very fun to read aloud) about a crew on a ship hunting a snark. The crew includes a captain who only rings a bell, a beaver, a cook who only cooks beavers (the beaver and the cook did not get along well), a man afraid that the snark would turn into a boojum and make him disappear, etc. As you can tell, this makes for an insanely silly poem. The subtitle is rather fitting, as my sides were definitely hurting from laughter when I was done. Well done Mr. Carroll.

Overall grade: A+

Nonsense poems can easily miss the mark
Yet, this masterpiece has that spark.

"How do you kill a _____?", you ask
To find the answer was the hunters' task.

"What was their fate?", you wonder
Did they ever catch their elusive plunder?

A paragon of haunting Carollian lore
Be in no doubt that you'll finish wanting more.

This poem is just great!

First, this one of the most delightful pieces of writing that ever appeared in (more or less) English. It succeeds as a sustained exercise in illogic. I am sure that only a mathematical logician like Dodgson could possibly have pulled it off - only someone with such deep understanding of reason could master unreason so completely.

Second, Martin Gardner's commentary adds depth and background to the reading. Gardner explains terms that are now obsolete, but also adds his own analysis and a rich history of the Snark phenomenon. It should be no surprise that Gardner is still best known as the long-time editor of Scientific American's column on Mathematical Games, a mathematician himself.

I can't add much to the scholarship or praise that already surrounds this incredible poem. I would like to point out, however, that most non-native English speakers are unfamiliar with this poem. Many of them have only ever seen the serious side of the English language, and have never seen English at play. I consider this short work to be the ideal introduction to the very best of English-language nonsense.

//wiredweird