yiks! i never knew there were other twin towers in other places.
AND i ALWAYS thoought that OUR twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world! (just shows how much i know huh?)
well, o.k. what do you expect from a simple girl growing up in the city and who never went to college... i only know what i see, and to me the twin towers LOOKED like the tallest buildings in the world i still miss them. it still HURTS to look in that direction. tha towers that used to decorate the skyline of my city are gone, but im happy to know that somewhere in another city there are other twins. good to know. thanks.

The twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia became the tallest buildings in the world when they were completed in the latter half of the nineties. This architectural marvel became the first building in about 100 years to be taller than any building in the United States. Of course there are more stories in the Sears Tower (the previous record holder) and the broadcast towers do actually make it higher than the Petronas, but architectural standards for height measure spires but not broadcast towers - go figure. The Sears Tower can also still claim the highest observation deck of a building while the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada has the highest of any structure (the CN being considered a free standing structure and not a "building").

It is a great shame that the world trade towers no longer exist but it has been a long time since they were even the tallest buildings in even the U.S. (see other reviews). The Orient seems to be leaping ahead in building technology and this book illustrates one such example.

Now is the time to get this book as it still proclaims the Petronas as the 'tallest in the world' as plans are under way for even a higher tower in Shanghai, China and the record may again fall. In the present however, the Petronas are a great example of two countries working together with a group of Japanese construction crews working on one tower while the other was completed by Malaysians. This may be the first and only time in building history where such a unique strategy and cooperation took place.

American architects may have started the skyscraper in 'the Chicago school' but the future of tall buildings currently lies in the far east. I recommend this book to those who can swallow their 'America first' pride and see the glowing accomplishment of architecture in that region of the world.

A Canadian Perspective

P.S. Other reviewers should read the book or at least look at the description before pasting thoughts that are not relevant.

Why did two people write reviews of this book without knowing that it has nothing to do with horrible Sept. 11? One reviewer even expresses disappointment at the idea that this book is not about the NYC Twin Towers! Hunh? Look at the title - - they're different buildings!

Whatever. They are stunning buildings, as were the NYC Twin Towers.

If you have an interest in the architecture and amazing engineering challenges that brought these amazing structures into our lives (we in the West will not be building impractical skyscrapers evermore) ... this is a great overview.

I know this review won't make me friends with all the reviewers that rated this so highly... but... this book covers only the utmost basic of the basics. I quite honestly believe that if you don't already just know most of the stuff in this book, then maybe you should second-guess this whole marriage idea. I'm not trying to sound stuck-up or snobby... and I fully admit that when my fiance and I first started planning our wedding, there was a lot I didn't know... but it wasn't stuff you'll find in this book. I already know how to get along with my fiance (something covered in the book), how to handle wedding-arguements (covered in the book...) and that it's *her* big day... I mean, come on - if you don't know that stuff, well...

This book is a great little read! I didn't know what to expect when I ordered this one, but needless to say, it was one of the best wedding books I have invested in. Learning what a wingtip collar is, the traditional budgetary concerns and about the emotional stresses placed on your future bride are some of the myriad of topics covered in this book. The Groom's Gambit boxes really throw some neat little pointers your way as well. If you want a book (as a guy) to help you along in your wedding planning without having to read about the stuff that usually puts us to sleep (like flowers, bouquets and the like), pick up this book today. It's a great read that you will come to appreciate as you start along your journey to wedding bliss!

Boy, let me tell you this is one valuable read. Mark Rung is obviously gifted with the ability to write. His ability to capture what are tense moments for a groom while still maintaining his funny side are uncanny. This stuff would force Steinbeck to put down his pen and start taking lessons from the master. What a valuable guide for me. Although I'm currently divorced (twice), the guide made the three or so months post wedding bearable for both marriages. Thanks Jennifer and Mark, where would I be without this guide.

The programming language Java is widely used for web applications, servers, compilers. The concurrency aspect is also known to all of us. But for real time systems development in Java was awaited. I being a teacher of RTS course was looking for the language to introduce the real time system concepts. This book is correct solution. It starts with real time threading. Scheduling, Synchronization, timing issues of Real time systems are explained with implementaion and verification aspects. The book is correct choice for learning, developing, real time systems with complete programming language Java.

Hi all. This is a serious book on real time, even if you are not a java programmer. (by the way this is not a book on java for those who came here by mistake.)

I have used this book to help me build a project I am working on at my UNI and it's was very helpful. it is first of all Specification book so it main use for my opinion is a reference after the first reading an as such the book is very good. A real time programming background is essensial for really benefit from this book , but if you are one of the RTP so it's a book for you !

I gave it 4 stars because it's a spec and not my kind of books but it's a defenetly great spec. - Enjoy

Assume that you've been given a mandate to turn an existing, popular language built on write-once run-anywhere (WORA) principles into a basis for implementing correct performance-critical applications on a wide variety of platforms. Thats exactly what the team who wrote this book were tasked to do - without changing the core Java language specification. Bearing these restrictions in mind, its a good effort. The specification addresses all the basic concerns of the real-time developer - concurrency, asynchronous event handling and transfer of control issues, timing, scheduling, memory and so on, though the introduction of a single package: javax.realtime.

In general the rich set of classes provided seem to be fairly straightforward, and will probably be easy to use when a reference implementation becomes available. Key concepts are illustrated with short examples - and here's my biggest criticism - they are often of appalling quality - typically they confuse rather than clarify matters. I appreciate that this is a specification rather than a tutorial but anyone who has to implement or use this standard needs all the help they can get! There a few other typos, especially in the method signatures but these are easily parseable nonetheless.

The biggest changes are going to be in the real-time virtual machines that will be built to support this standard. Comprehensive support for such features as configurable scheduling algorithms, dynamic schedulability (where schedulable objects are dynamically added to the schedule and feasibility is determined at runtime), asynchronous transfer of control on executing threads and so on - are going to require heavy-duty support at the virtual machine level. The specification doesn't state how these and other services will be implemented but gives a would-be real-time JVM implementor lots of hints on how to do, and how NOT to do a good job in this area - which is a welcome addition.

So, my recommendation. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars if I could - but lets be generous and give it 5. The only detraction is that a good dose of proofreading could have improved on the current release. That said, I have high hopes that this will eventually emerge as a real-time development standard in the same way that Ada 95 promised to, but never delivered on.

p.s. for distributed real-time transactions - you'll have to wait for an additional standard to address this issue : watch this space.

This book was okay, but more superficial than I expected. It's advertised as getting to the heart of the writing and recording of the album itself. I was expecting details about neat studio tricks (how they got this or that sound), whose idea it was to arrange the piece this or that way, discussions about different mixes of the songs, what the different people involved with the album were like to work with, etc..., but the book isn't particularly detailed in these areas. I would wager that a lot of the people who like this album enough to buy a book about it would also want more of these esoteric details. But I guess it might be enjoyable if you're kind of a casual Bowie fan and want to get an idea of the tenor of the times during the which the album came out. Great album, okay book.

David Bowie is the ultimate chameleon in rock. He has changed his image and persona and taken on alter egos so many times it's tough to remember them all. One that rises above them all and is impossible to forget is Ziggy Stardust. The image of the androgynous glam rocker has lived on and gave rise to Mr. Bowie's most critically acclaimed and arguably best album. Mark Paytress examines the making of the album as well as the circumstances surrounding the creation of Ziggy Stardust and his Spiders From Mars. The book also details Mr. Bowie's career before the album with the most revealing and interesting being his early days in the music business. Mr. Paytress writes in too much a fan style as opposed to a journalistic style, but overall it is a solid book.

I've not read it and see no reason why you ought to, other than any narration of Bowie's life is bound to be intriguing. He lived in such a manner that a detailed listing of the contents of his sock drawer could not be less than fascinating.

I just started blowing on a harp I picked up and wanted something to learn some simple blues by. Although the premise of the book is a story of some cave men who learned the harmonica, there is a great deal of information here. I even found it a bit inspirational. I would recommend to those of you with a sense of humor who want to start learning for fun. If you are looking for strictly technical don't buy it.

Great book to get you started goes through theory straight harp cross harp and slant harp. very good teaching book. Goes through some theory. A quick read that you'll be reading over and over again. Great blues riff to get you wailing. I would suggest getting the cassettes with this or any blues instruction book.

It was a birthday present from my sister and I use it all the time. I think if you want to learn to play harmonica, this is a great way to start.

The material contained in this text, like all of Cheng Man-ch'ing's writings, is wonderful. It is a clear discussion of the process of learning Tai Chi, and gives many new ideas to practice. My complaint with this book is with the translator, not the original material. After reading it, I'm left wondering what the translator added to this text. His preface brings up the interesting issue of how the content of the 37 posture form changed while the number of postures did not. However, he doesn't take a position on the argument, and offers no insight as to why the change in content is important to the reader. Also, in the discussion of the form, there are two sets of pictures. One set is of the final posture, and a second step shows the intermediary steps. It is slightly confusing because the two sets of pictures are from obviously different times as Cheng is wearing different cloths in each set. It is unclear from the text if the pictures were like this in the original text, or if the translator pieced them together. Overall, the material in the book is wonderful, but the translator could have done a better job in bringing it forth.

This soft-cover book is not as good as the original hard-cover, which was (by the way) one of the two books I used to accompany the initial phases of my own T'ai-Chi journey (of 28 years). The photos lack the clarity of the hard cover and the printed instructions are not as clear as in some of the more modern illustrated instruction books. By the way, this latter comment(regarding the printed instructions) also applies to the hard-cover edition as well.

Using words, photos, and footwork configurations, this text, the culmination of Cheng Man-ch'ing's life work concerning his simplified method of Yang Style tai chi chuan, provides practitioners and students with a complete and concise guide to the Short Form. Cheng provides considerable postural detail as well as history and philosophy to add contextual relevance. The antique photos, though faded and at times challenging when clarifying detail of position or placement, lend much in the way of ambiance. The footwork sketches are extremely helpful.

With a number of glowing recommendations already written about this book I hesitate to express my disappointment. This is a less than memorable effort. The writing style is wordy and covers no new ground. For a beginner this book should be useful but no more. The photos have sparse details as to technique and technical information.

For a far better source try Campbell's Backpackers's Handbook. That book will challenge and inspire photographers of all level of ability.

Each to his own.

I suppose if you were absolutely just starting out, and didn't want to visit photo.net or other websites, this book might be a good, concise source of basic information. However, I bought it and was disappointed. I'm not a professional photographer, but I'm apparently a little beyond the target audience of this book, which puzzles me because I still sometimes take shots I don't like. It's not a *bad* book, it's just overshadowed by some *great* books that happen to compete directly with it!

If you are a climber or mountaineer, I would urge you to look at Jeff Achey's 'Guide to Climbing Photography' instead. If you're just interested in nature photography in general, you can't go wrong with Galen Rowell's books, the man is a master of the craft and not as climbing-centric as Achey. Clyde Soles has some terrific photos up on his website, too -- he's no Rowell, but he's also no slouch at outdoor photography. And his articles in Rock and Ice magazine are often quite good, too. This book just isn't worth buying in a world with great online resources and great printed how-to books like Achey's and Rowell's.

I love this book because it is written right at the best level for everyone to enjoy and get something out of. I read and practiced on my Canon AE-1, and shared things with a friend who began taking better pictures on his "point and shoot" camera. Terrific book, great photo examples....

This book was entertaining, but the similarities to whar's gone on in the world since September 11 are too much for me.

A good premise used successfully in La Femme Nikita but well-executed in this book. Plot is good, with unexpected twists and turns and in fact hits a little too close to home!!Generally well written.
However, suspend your discriminating thought powers (drug addict prostitute becomes a super slueth and has epiphany re revenge). The lead character is too hokey and her characterization is quite muddled and inconsistent. The plot devices work only if you believe the good guys and the bad guys are selectively stupid, overlooking the obvious and our gal is not.

As the jaded consumer of hundreds of thrillers I'm something of a tough audience, but Mark Burnell's debut novel was a genuine page turner and I was very impressed with it. Yes, the plot bears more than a passing resemblance to "La Femme Nikita" and yes, the book is a little too long and drags a bit in the middle, but Stefanie Patrick is much too interesting a heroine and Burnell much too good a storyteller to let small quibbles get in the way of "a crackling good yarn." The book is about how a drug-taking prostitute a few steps from her final fix is transformed into the dreaded Petra Reuter, unstoppable international assassin. There is plenty of sex and violence and a plethora of repulsive terrorists - in short, enough to keep the average thriller fan happily engaged for hours. I'm looking forward to Mr. Burnell's next foray with bated breath.

I should ahve know it was to good to be true. The books gives you a riff here and a riff there. I would prefer the entire song not just. "Repeat this riff in verse 3 twice" with tabs underneath it.

I enjoy looking at this book and seeing Metallica's first five albums tabbed out. I don't like the fact that this book only shows the IMPORTANT riffs, it doesn't show variations or anything. I guess you do have to keep a space limit, though, if you want to make a book for this cheap. Some cool features I like in this book include a Metallica timeline and Equipment Setup details. I also enjoy the commentary on the riffs, but if you don't know theory very well the commentary gets a little confusing. Not everyone will know what a "dyad" is. (It's two notes played at once, since it takes three to make a chord.) This book has helped me learn how to play better Metallica, so I guess it's pretty much accomplished its job.

4 out of 5 stars.

Buy This! It is a very good book for anyone who likes Metallica or just wants to play some awsome guitar riffs! Buy this book!!!