Seems like the author is trying to pretend to be this geat hero riding his iron stallion across the frozen reaches of Siberia.

I found him to be a true bore. Out running and out smarting Soviet KGB agents on a bicycle? Oh please!

If you want to read a true adventure, read Miles From Nowhere by the late Barbara Savage.

Mark Jenkins clearly did not like Russia and the system. I agree on his view of the old system, but my thoughts were again and again: What does he do there. He don't like it at all. In spite of all the trouble of Mark Jenkins, the fact is that a Russian biker crossed Russia one sea to another in 1967, 22 years before Jenkins. The first do cross all of Russia was a Dane, me, who did it in 1997 from Magadan to Kaleningrad (more to the East and more to the West than Jenkins route). The brother of Fjordor Koinikov (who followed Jenkins), Nikolai, tried to do it before me. He failed because of cold. I succeed because I loved Siberia. Jenkins hated it.

Jenkins does an excellent job of conveying the feelings he experienced during this trip. Sometimes spirits were low and sometimes they were high. His writing captures the reality of the trip and reveals the spirit of the Russian people with great emotion. I disagree with the review above that states Jenkins hated Siberia. He clearly had a great appreciation for the people he met there and valued his experience. It was obvious that he had a problem with Communism, and hence did not understand the Soviets. This is a book about people. Who cares whether they were the first group to ride across the country? The objective of the book was to describe a journey, and that has been done very well.

First of all, the title is very misleading. This is in no way an atlas "of the American Railroads." It is at best a superficial sketch book of a FEW American railroads. Too many major railroads are never mentioned at all. Of those that are included, historical narrative occupies no more than two pages each. The "Chronology" section on pages 130 through 133 does not even list the beginning or the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. The charts on page 127 showing the buy-outs and mergers resulting in today's "big four" roads are woefully incomplete; for example, the Santa Fe is shown as a component of today's BNSF, but all the various roads that were assimilated into the Santa Fe are omitted.

Even though the book purports to cover "railroads in the 1990s," it does not list, map or discuss any of the numerous (and relatively profitable) regional roads that have been created from cast-off routes of the Class 1 roads.

For anyone who is at all familiar with the history of American railroading, this book is far too superficial and incomplete to offer much knowledge of any value. For someone who is ignorant of the subject and wants a solid grounding in it, the book's brevity and many omissions also cause it to be of little value. Perhaps, as another reviewer has already noted, the book would be useful for youthful students learning the techniques of research at elementary or junior high school level. The information in the book is valid, just not adequately comprehensive for serious, adult research into American railroads.

Like the textual material, the maps are useful in visualizing the geographical areas which the included railroads occupied but are not sufficiently detailed to be of much help to an advanced researcher. They did help this "geographically challenged" reader better grasp the general location of some roads whose names were familiar but whose locations were vague.

The concept of the book was potentially excellent. While most of the well-known railroads in American history have had a plethora of both popular and scholarly books written about them, having one source that would present an abbreviated, chapter-length history of each would have been very handy. Add to that the recent histories of contemporary regional and short-line roads that have not yet been chronicled and we would have had a very useful addition to the literature on the subject. In execution, however, this atlas falls far short of the promise of its title. In final conclusion, I am forced to observe that it adds nothing to the extant literature and therefore really has no reason to exist.

The only reason I'm giving this book 4 stars and not 5 is because I was hoping that it would be a little more detailed. I easily engulfed it in one day. If you know almost nothing about the history of US railroading, this is the book for you to get you started. However, if you're looking for detail and volume, you've come to the wrong place.

This book covers the rise of most of the major rail lines, including a brief history of each. I would've enjoyed more detail about the various consolidations that have occured in the last 50 years, including up-to-date maps of the current class I lines.

I became interested in trains because I grew up in Tehachapi, which is a well-known area to western US train buffs - the site of the Tehachapi loop - built by CP/SP. When I was a little kid, I would see the SP's and Santa Fe's rumble through town non-stop. Now I notice that UP and BNSF run through town instead, which prompted me to learn more. Basically, my questions were answered when I learned about the recent consolidations occuring in the past 5 years.

This is by far the best general book on American railroads for less than $... In a small book and a large topic, many difficult choices must be made. The author has chosen his material well, has organized it logically, has provided clear and readable discussions, and has chosen suitable maps and photographs to supplement the text. There are remarkably very few errors or misleading statements. Of all the railroad books I have, this is usually the one I reach for first. Sometimes it's to get a brief overview for a more detailed study; often it's just to get a quick look at a map or other graphic. I particularly like the one-page schematic showing the mergers since 1959 that consolidated 26 railroads into the present big four. (There's a minor error in the date given for the merger of part of Conrail into CSX.) The side-bar chart showing the railroad groups ("Vanderbilt Roads", "Morgan Roads", etc.) of the early 20th century is also useful. When I need more detail, I realize I must go to other books. I do, however, sometimes question the value of the space on my bookshelves that books such as the 416-page "Shortline Railroads of Arkansas" occupy.

The criticisms of this book that I have seen are by "adult" "experts" who think that the book omits important topics. It does omit interesting and important topics, but an expert should be able to count pages. What do you expect for $... and 144 pages?

I happened to have a copy of two editions (1992 & the 3rd : 1999) of this ... thing. Not only Mr. Miller is shallow, but confusing and his explanations are so limited that I can barelly imagine how can it be usefull. After 13+ years related with network analysis and TRUE troubleshooting, and having to help others to start in this area, there is one book I have seen of very little use : this one. The information in the book gets you nowhere.

If you want better sources of information, and you have the basics on Networking (at least layer 2) I would recommend either Comer excelent book on the TCP/IP area, or Stevens/Wright TCP Illustrated series, and as a complement (or if you need detailed info on Layer 2 and Networking in general) read the amusing and excelent "Interconnections" by Pearlman (this authors DO KNOW what they are taking about, and it shows !!!!)

I found this book to be ok, but not great. It was a bit too technical for the beginner but did a good job of describing problem, showing evidence of the problem in packet traces, and how to fix the problem.

The book goes over using TCP/IP and the internet protocols. I touches on supporting these protocols, and goes into supporting a network interface connection. From there it goes into troubleshooting internet connections from address translation to routing. It also has chapters on host to host communication and process/application communication.

OK, it's not the only book, but this book comes close. It's not for the beginner. You must be VERY well versed in TCP/IP before attempting to read this book. While it's not rocket science, it's too much info to absorb if you don't understand TCP/IP. I rate this book on the same level as Radia Perlman's book, Rich Seifert's book, Jeff Doyle's book, and Clark&Hamilton books.

If you want to be able to trace files (especially NAI's Sniffer), then this book is for you.

I find this book rather poorly structured. The authors have not decided if this is a book for developers or for administrators, and they try to make it a book for both. I think they have ended ut writing a book for nobody.

All code fragments need another look. I know that they are not intended for a compiler, but I think they should at least look that way.

As in most TUXEDO documentation the authors have a hard time getting to the point. Technical computer litterature can be a lot more pedagogic and easy to read than this!

This book is written the way books in this field should be written! Take note computer community, the authors of this book have not simply compiled an encyclopedia, but have carefully crafted a book. Early chapters provide theory and and lay the foundation for the detailed chapters that follow, covering everything from transactions to MIBS. Useful examples are povided, and it is impossible to finish this book without a conversational understanding of Tuxedo. If you need to know the difference between an RPC, FML buffer, and an RM, get the book!

Great introduction to Tuxedo. What I like the most is the completeness of the book. In other words, they define all their terms and assume no prior knowledge. I got up to speed very quickly on Tuxedo thanks to this book.

This TPB concludes the Age of Apocalypse arc. It collects X-Men: Omega, X-Universe #1 & 2. Two decades ago, Charles Xavier's son, Legion, travelled back in time with the purpose of killing Magneto, to make the present day easier for his dad. But then things went horribly wrong and he accidentally killed the young Charles Xavier. What followed was an alternate timeline: Hell on earth. Apocalypse wouldn't get any resistance from the X-Men and so he ended up ruling the US - with the rest of the world in his future agenda.

But the time-lost mutant Bishop can prevent this. The X-Men have acquired a piece of the M'Kraan crystal to change the world by sending Bishop back in time to prevent the murder. In the mean time, the X-Men have to fight off Apocalypse and the servants under his command.

This one is kinda like Dawn of the Age of Apocalypse. All the known characters from the separate books get together and finish the story off. It's a pretty good ending, but it could've been better. And I question the moral lesson in this one. They just get rid of the troublemaker right away, who was just a victim of bad parenting. The art is good and some parts are kinda funny. Basically, there is alot of action in this one.

These stories won't mean much if you haven't read this AoA storyline from the start. If you get this, I recommend you get all the other AoA TPBs too. For a complete reading list of it, see my X-Men: LegionQuest review.

This book also contains X-Universe #1 & 2, which features the other non-X Marvel characters in this altered timeline. But I didn't find it very good nor compelling enough at all.

Twilight of the Age of Apocalypse collects the two issue X-Universe mini-series and the one shot swan song of the AoA storyline X-Men: Omega. X-Men: Omega is the main highlight here, as we see Magneto and his remaining X-Men taking one last shot at Apocalypse and crew as the world around them begins to end. While the story is action packed from panel to panel, it does leave something to be desired; especially to those readers (like myself) who thoroughly enjoyed the AoA storyline which went down as one of the most underrated storylines in X-Men history. The battle with Magneto and young Nate Grey (X-Man) taking on Apocalypse and Holocaust is worth the price of admission alone. The X-Universe storyline isn't anything special really, it just serves it's purpose by showing the readers what happened to other Marvel Comics icons in this alternate timeline. We see Sue Storm and Ben Grimm having never been members of the Fantastic Four. We see Donald Blake having never found the mystic hammer Mjolnir which turned him into the Mighty Thor. We see Tony Stark without ever donning the suit to turn him into Iron Man, and we also see Gwen Stacy who never met her doom as Peter Parker's first true love. That storyline is interesting, but X-Men: Omega is worth getting this for alone. All in all, if you liked the AoA storyline as much as I did, then this is an essential volume in your library.

I completly disagree with those who say that the age of apocalypse story line was mediocre at best, they probably haven't read the darn thing. I know, I know, X-Universe was pretty lame but X-men Omega was one helluva rollercoster, I mean the conclusion to one of the best stroy lines of decades was simple incredible. The fight between Holocaust and the young Nate Grey along with the battles between Cyclopse and his brother Havok along with Jean and Wolvie thrown into the mix, you know there's gonna be blood and lots of it. A non stop thriller, that simply has to be read in one sitting for the full effect, this will probably please newer X-fans than old, but who knows...

Mark A. Eggleston is an analyst at Currid & Company specializing in emerging technologies.

If you want to sell books about networking don't ever use the word "Novell" Mark....please.........emerging technologies???

Houston...

This is a very complete overview of networking in general. The authors have done a very good job of describing needed networking principles in laymen's language. It is focused on the beginner and has a liitle bit of a Novell bent to it but after reading this anyone should be able to hold their own in a networking type of conversation. This is definatlely going on a permanent spot on the book shelf so that at the very least I can translate my own geek-speak to something humanly meaningfull.

This is a great intro to networking. It is well formatted and presents the subject at just the right pace for someone getting to know what networking is all about. As a reader and technical writer who is beyond the introductory stages, I found it a compelling piece of work because of the way the authors were able to discreetly frame topics without blurring the big picture. The book makes a for a good read at the intro level but also at an advanced level if you are searching for a coherent way to deliver information to people without your skill set.

I agree with the other reviewers concerning good code and rampant typos. However, the author seems to think the audience is captive, and is willing to put up with his idiosynchracies. [I for one am not.] As an example, much discussion is devoted to the comparison of the GCD algorithm variants, so much so that one of the variants, Left Shift Binary, is "name-dropped" in the middle of the text, leaving the reader wondering why it deserves mention. The Least Remainder variant is missing critical information on the modulo arithmetic operation - namely, that '%' gives the same result on argument pairs with differing signs, even though the quotient is not the same as with same sign pairs. '%' just works, and that's all we are expected to care about.

Overall, the book appears more like a user manual: the code works, and is packaged for the user. Code applications are covered in the "manual".

The misspelling on the cover (developement) is a portent of what lies within. This book covers a lot of good material, and the programs are well-written. If I could stop here the book would rate five stars.

Unfortunately, the text is loaded with typographical errors, more than I have ever seen before in a hardback. If you are willing to decipher the text, you will find that Mr. Herkommer has put together a nice package of number-theoretic programs.

I enjoyed the book despite its shortcomings.

This book is for anyone who is interested in reproducing or applying number-theoretic results in C. The central problem is that it appears that the book has not been copy-edited, nor is there any evidence that it has been proof-read. Indeed, this is easily the most typo-riddled book that I have ever encountered. Sometimes the typos are just annoying, at other times they create a real obstacle to understanding. For example, anyone wishing to learn about the four color theorem will have to look elsewhere--the short discussion is marred by a nonsensical sentence. The proof of the claim that there is no highest prime also contains a fatal misprint. And the discussion of the Greatest Common Divisor seems to distinguish between two functions, gcd and GCD. But, after much re-reading, it is clear that this is not the case.

That McGraw Hill should charge $65 for this is obscene. The presence of misprints in a technical book is particularly unforgivable, for each newly-discovered misprint significantly undermines the reader's confidence in the accuracy of a given proof or claim.

That said, two minor cavils: (1) The discussion of complexity theory easily assumes as much as it delivers. Anyone hoping to learn about measuring algorithmic complexity should go somewhere else. (2) The author cites a book published in 1971 as containing the first formal statement of the principle of mathematical induction; evidently he is not aware that Frege gave a formal proof of the principle in 1879.

Finally: I would have given the book five stars if it had not been so badly produced (there really is a lot of good stuff here that can't be found anywhere else), but since McGraw-Hill did such a shoddy job, I can only give it three.

NB: A previous reader complains that she cannot locate a header file (numtype.h) that is essential for running any of the programs in this book. Hello! It's on the cd that comes with the book--you can't miss it.

Back when I was learning GL, this book was the best. It covered the basics at a good level of detail. Almost as if Mark could read our product requirements, it also has appendecies on off-topic-to-GL-but-not-to-us topics, such as the X input extension and graphics overlays.

I believe GLX has gone through a few revisions since this book last had a new edition. Therefore some of its data may end up referencing deprecated old glx functions instead of the slick new method. In particular I'm thinking I saw something about visual selection changing. That's the only reason I'm holding back on star number 5.

Mark has a very good way of describing how things work. I have been using OpenGL for while but not using XWindows extensions that much. This book helped a lot and I used it to make sense of some the convoluted text in other books for the wgl functions.

I think that it was a good book. This was my first OpenGL book, and I'm now purchasing more. It's good to see that there are some X Window System specific books out there. The book explains in detail GLUT, but not some other complex areas of OpenGL (Why I'm buying more OpenGL books...). I'd recommend the book for beginners of OpenGL that are frusterated with Windows-specific texts.

This book is a mess of every conspiracy under the sun. It was proven false by Budiansky and MANY others. THE KEY documents that CONSPIRACY theorists (like Willey) told us the government was keeping SECRET were DECLASSIFIED in 1998 and 1999 and are at the National Archives at College Park. They state that as of December 1, 1941, only 10 percent of the code groups and 5 percent of the additive groups had been recovered in AN-1 (aka JN-25B). Also a report by OP-20-G on decrypts produced in various Japanese code systems for each month of 1941 reports the number of decrypts in JN-25 as "none" Futhermore a complete internal history of the solution of JN-25, was written at the end of WWII. This document, which provides great cryptologic detail,explains how JN-25 was broken during each period. It fully confirms the testimony of the USN personnel involved. By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, no JN-25 message had been read for intelligence value.
I'd also like to say that ALL of the Japanese officers involved including, Abe, Chigusa, Fuchida, Fujita, Genda, Goto, Ishiguro, Kusaka, Maki, Matsumoto and Yoshioka all maintain radio silence was strictly observed. Fuses were removed from the transmitters and the transmitter keys were disabled. Read ("The Pearl Harbor Papers") It was NOT possible! Willey, it seems will not engage in defending his work. More that likely he knows that it is outdated.

Mark's book simply fuels the fantasy world of conspiracy "fans". He routinely takes quotes out of context, ignores inconvenient facts and distorts information to promote his own program, that of hate for FDR. Compare this book with Gordon Prange's works. It's easy to tell which person did the work and gives a rational view of the events surrounding this sad day in US history. If you want to see where Wiley has distorted the original information, check out www.ibiblio.org/pha, where thousands of pages of text await the person who doesn't want to be lead by the nose.

Of all the books I've read about Pearl Harbor, this is the best!
The author seems to know a great deal about codebreaking and, if
anybody can nail the betrayal, Willey has done it!

It was a pleasure to read this book for its refreshing and unhackneyed investigation of the special world of virtuosi. The interspersal of autobiographical material reminds the reader that all responses to music and musicians are individual and personal. We react both to the experience of the music and to our relationship (real or imagined) with the performer. Of course sex is a part of that - why else has Tom Cruise spent a fortune in lawyers' fees recently defending himself of charges of being homosexual? As I read the book, it is neither a scientific analysis of the phenomenon of virtuosity, nor a psychological one, but the written musings of an author who has obviously spent a lifetime researching these artists, attending their concerts, reading their biographies, listening to their recordings, and who then shoots us, the readers, stream-of-consciousness fashion into their world with all its many facets. Although this scatter-gun approach is sometimes dizzying, it is also exhilirating at times.The author's biases cause us to pay heed to the pianists' motivations, drives, training, sexuality, musical priorities and repertory choices, and then presents us with the major question of the book - is music better served by the pianist who has dedicated himself to becoming a superlative and electrifying performer, or by the pianist who has sought to minimize his own personality's contribution to the performance in an effort to reveal the composer's intent? This is a central question in the world of classical piano today, and at least this book's author is not scared of proclaiming his opinion unequivocably.

I have grave reservations about the amazon rating system, not because it's so democratic but because like it or not it's for all intents and purposes anonymous. ... Since part of Mitchell's premise is that being gay is necessarily a component of personality, and personality is vital to an artist's performance or mode of expression, it only stands to reason that virtuoso playing should involve a personal aesthetic. It is a very personality-driven and paradoxically private public endeavor, rather like the "private language" (as Edmund Wilson describes it in AXEL'S CASTLE) of the Symbolist poetry being written throughout much of the period Mitchell is describing. This book is attempting to elucidate and describe a phenomenon in an area where very often little is known of the performers' private lives, since artists such as musicians and composers have always relied heavily on the graces and approval of patrons. (I'm talking about a time before an era saturated with mass media--when people can choose to come out either as a sincere gesture of solidarity, or as a savvy, provocative career move, flouting the conventions to get a rise out of sales.) A patron--a bishop or prince, an industrialist's wife--was someone you didn't want to risk offending. No wonder Proust was taken until quite recently by critics--in France included--as the same heterosexual cocksman as his narrator Marcel. Proust avoided alienating his readers, 90% of whom were straight and wouldn't have "gotten it" if Proust had written 3000+ pages of narrative filtered through the point of view of a gay man.

Part of what Mitchell is pointing out is that despite plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that a horde of top-flight artists in all fields have been gay, in music--particularly piano pieces without lyrics (the very form Mitchell is concerned with)--we have, paradoxically, the most abstract and elusive medium, in which a "private language" (like Rimbaud's quizzically visionary abstractions) must carry the full weight of artistic expression. These can only be supported by currents drawn or springing from the artist's personal reserves of experience and interpretation. The fact that the artist might be in love or have in store a hot date later that same night would certainly be relevant to a piece driven by the private language of passion.

... What Mitchell is trying to do is decode the transpositions of what we've always presumptuously held to be universal back into the private particulars. In doing so, he must of course presume, but keep in mind that he's also swimming against the currents of centuries of culturally sprung presumptions.

I found this book thoroughly fascinating--not merely a detailed consideration of specific piano virtuosi, but a philosophically complex meditation on how we, as human beings, cope with the phenomenon of genius. As its title suggests, Mitchell's book is above all a defense of virtuosi against charges that they are demonic, super- or sub-human, and his enthusiasm and passion for his subject is contagious. The alternation of personal essays with investigations into such issues as historical performance, the experience of women pianists, and the virtuoso in literature gives the book a quality of personality that I found distinctly refreshing, while the discussion of the connection between (homo)sexuality and pianism, which other readers found annoying, I thought brave, astute and powerful.

All in all, in a superb book.