The software with this book is a very down level DOS version 6.1 of SPICE. I expected study aide software. Version 8 PSPICE (and soon 9) is available for free on the Web or on CD from ORCAD. Why spend the extra $12?

The book itself is a good primer for text based SPICE.

The book is an adequate primer for the spice software. Although the sofware is DOS based, it is certainly adequate for learning purposes. As an engineer using Pspice in my work, I think that this book is a good purchase. I would also reccommend the Kielkowski books (both of them!)

To be honest, I really wanted to like this book because Terry Leach seems like a good guy and an honest man, but this book isn't one that I'll think of when I think about good baseball books. It's an autobiographical account of his playing days in college at Auburn, the minor leagues, and the big leagues with the Mets, Royals, Twins, and White Sox. It's not a very well-written book. For example, there are a number of grammatical errors. He tends to use the word myself a lot when he could just use I or me. He also makes way too many excuses for his failures (I wasn't used right, I was hurt, etc., etc., etc.,) and he also complains too much about not being treated right by the different teams that unceremoniously dump him. When he does taste success he can't stop raving about himself or praising himself. On the plus side, this book is easy to read and easy to follow. It's possible to finish this book in the amount of time it takes to watch an entire major league baseball game. Another good thing is that he doesn't have anything bad to say about old teammates, managers, etc. The closest he comes to bad-mouthing someone is when he says that he didn't care for some of his teammates in the minors. He seems like a genuinely good man, and that's why it's too bad this book wasn't a bit more interesting to read.

This book is a short fast read a fairly detailed account of Terry Leach's major league career. While it contains almost no controversy or dirt, espicially when he was a member of the "bad boy" Late 80s Mets, the book is a good read when if you would like to know about the lesser players in baseball.

For some reason or other, this book remains, thirty years after its publishing, an authoritative introduction for newcomers to Bresson and Ozu (not so much to Dreyer). Having spent several years studying French and English-language Bresson scholarship and criticism, I must encourage those who are looking for a reliable way to 'insert' themselves into Bresson's films to begin elsewhere. Schrader's book has not aged gracefully.

Its primary shortcoming is that, in the case of the chapter on Bresson, it is sadly outdated. First and foremost, for a book that boasts to offer a 'theory' of (transcendental) style, it offers little more than an interpretation of a select group of Bresson's films (the so-called 'Prison Cycle') and their stylistic tendencies. While some of these stylistic observations remain strong, they are covered over with the most outrageous of readings of Bresson's film that they themselves lose their initial value. Published in 1972, the theory that Bresson's style is adapted to 'express' the 'Holy' fails to account for the filmmaker's later, almost atheistic, color work, like 'Lancelot du Lac,' 'Le Diable, Probablement' and 'L'Argent.' In order to convince us that this theory applies, Schrader would have to write a new edition of the book, which would have to make sense of the 'anti-transcendental' leanings of the last stage of Bresson's career. I doubt whether this could be accomplished. He would also, I believe, need to address an issue raised by David Bordwell in 'Making Meaning,' in the chapter 'Why Not to Read a Film.' Schrader fudges the line between hermeneutics and theory, offering not a 'theory' that makes sense of Bresson's 'style,' but an interpretation that periodically makes use of formal and stylistic observations. In short, there are many shortcomings to Schrader's scholarship, here.

To those new to Bresson, I'd have to suggest a few other texts that are more sober in their methods and conclusions: Kent Jones' Introduction to his BFI Modern Classics book on 'L'Argent,' Andre Bazin's essay on Bresson's style in Volume I of 'What is Cinema?' (which remains not only one of the best pieces on Bresson, but one of Bazin's best as well), and last but not least, the collection of essays edited by James Quandt (particularly the essays by P. Adams Sitney). The best essays on Bresson contextualize his stylistic development, noting that his 'autere' style emerged in part as a response to the French 'cinema de qualite.' Even Manny Farber's short write-up on 'La Femme Douce' in 'Negative Space' is more sound than Schrader's entire chapter on Bresson.

I read this years ago, before Schrader was well known as either a screenwriter or a director, but this book introduced me to the three great filmmakers he analyzes here. Hard to believe the same writer would go on to script TAXI DRIVER, HARDCORE, and RAGING BULL. But after you read this you will see the 'transcendental' element is in all of Schrader's screenplays. This book is not for the "movie buff" but a more scholarly audience. But if you are a Schrader fan, it is a must read.

I had a hard time forcing myself through this book. I gave it to my 10 year old son, who is a Francophile and a voracious reader, and he couldn't get through it. Just kind of dry for a biography of a person who was probably pretty interesting.

Lafayette, young brash and bored, takes as his life motto the "Why Not?" on his family crest and answers the call to adventure by leaving the ennui of European court life and taking up arms in the American cause. His personal life, including wife and kids left at home, his adoration of Washington, and his instrumental role in the success of the faltering colonial revolution are all adequately explained for young readers, but there is an uncharacteristic flatness to the telling. Fritz' many other biographies certainly qualify her to tackle this enigmatic subject, but the intricacies of political intrigue seem to oscure the storyline. Lafayette's life seems to have been about boredom, about opposing constituted authority and about swashbuckling adventure, no matter who pays the price. A tough subject to cook down for readers 10-14, by any standard. It's a great read for an overview of Lafayette's life, but lacking in the fire and passion of Fritz's other books.

THIS BOOK IS REALLY BORING WITH NO PLO

I loved this book -- I thought it was charming and well-written. I was completely engaged by the characters, and the descriptive passages are beautifully managed.

Reading this book reminded me of why English journalists are so often disliked and distrusted by the people they cover. It's not that I didn't want to hear that James Herriot's books are largely fiction, or that his real-life partner Donald Sinclair was in fact rather lazy and stuffy, or his wife something of a shrew. I just didn't want to hear it this many times, in this much detail, or in this annoyingly strident, self-important tone. The book actually has a lot going for it--Lord has a good, clean, writing style, and seems to have done a lot of solid research. But he can't seem to control his reporter's impulse to "get the goods", to dig up all the stuff that his subject didn't want us to know and make it the centerpiece of his book, and finally that ruins it. To see this treatment administered to a thoroughly decent human being, by somebody who was supposed to have been a friend, makes me wonder why *anybody* would ever talk to an English reporter.

Graham Lord is not a hack or a fraud, but he clearly wrote this book without any cooperation from the family of James Herriot (Alfie Wight), and it shows in an abominable lack of actual information about Herriot's life before meeting Lord or of Herriot's life as a vet. He also makes far too much about the fact that Herriot was writing compelling stories based on actual incidents rather than serving only as a journalist, but since his connection to Herriot was only through his books and some occasional personal contact, there was little else he could write. The book is infuriating in the extent to which it substitutes information about the times in which Herriot lived for actual information about Herriot: knowing nothing of Herriot's life growing up, Lord talks endlessly about the life of other people who grew up in the same neighborhood as Herriot, and historical records and newspapers were obviously his primary source, along with people who didn't live in Thirsk and who had limited contact with Herriot.

The inadequacies of this book inspired Jim Wight (Herriot's son) to write a truly revealing biography entitled The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father, and Lord is to be thanked for that. He did his best with what little information he had, but there is no escaping the fact that he had too little information, and having read the son's memoir, I quickly found Lord's book unbearable and started skimming after a couple of chapters in the hopes of finding SOMETHING I hadn't already learned from Wight's book. I was not successful.

James Herriot's stories about a country vet in the 1930's and 1940's present a warm, fascinating set of yarns about a bygone time. The Herriot reader intuitively understands that the real story is not the literal set of cures and pet names listed in the stories, but instead, a Yorkshire culture that was swiftly passing before what then was considered modernity. The Herriot universe is peopled with charming farmers, the whimsical and amusing fellow vets, the Farnon brothers, and a world of amusing coincidences among the vet cases assigned to Mr. Herriot. In his biography, Graham Lord sets out to show the real vet behind the novelist. In so doing, he portrays a fellow who was, as in the books, a rather shy, quiet, likable man. Some Herriot loyalists in some instances may be alarmed to discover that Mr. Herriot's real life was not as idyllic as the books, and that the books contained a fair bit of fiction. On the whole, though, the reader will understand and appreciate that the Herriot stories are not bounded by inquiries such as "was Siegfriend Farnon really as charming as the character in the books?" or "was the real-life Helen a bit more domineering than the one in the books?". Graham Lord's bio is a straightforward read, which,while largely sympathetic, spends a fair bit of time trying to show that some of the Herriotverse was mythic. The style of the writing is clear and easy. The format of the bio is fairly conventional, though we are in the main spared the sort of speculation about the inner philosophies of grandparents that mar some literary bios. The bio is reasonably short of hyperbole. The real puzzle of the Herriot life is how this natural storyteller developed his craft and evolved such a fully-formed fictive universe. The Lord bio devotes some attention to this issue, but not nearly enough. Instead we are left with anecdotes suggesting that the Herriot novels are only fifty percent fact. This is really beside the point,

much as it is irrelevant whether a historical Sir John Falstaff was really a buffoon. I recommend this bio, as it shows a life quietly but in the main well lived, and a writer who developed fascinating material from a creative imagination and a colorful perspective on the everyday.

Of course I haven't read every textbook ever written; the title of this review is hyperbolic (in the semantic sense).

But seriously, I don't know what the target audience for this book is, but it couldn't possibly be undergraduates trying to learn physics. The following are the flaws which come to mind most immediately:

1) Definitions of terms are moving targets. No term that is defined in this book is used in the same sense twice. You can expect at least three "definitions" of a term over the course of one chapter, and even more over the course of several chapters. This has made it very difficult for me to retain any of the information presented.
2) It's extremely cluttered. Ninety-nine percent of the book is devoted to very specific problems rather than giving lucid explanations of general principles which would lead to a clear understanding of the general principles. It's very difficult to solve specific problems without a clear understanding of the general principles that can be applied to achieve a solution.
3) The author's derivations of equations are frequently very confusing. My confusion generally is caused by one of two things:
a) very large steps are frequently made without any explanation of what math was being done to get from one line to the next.
b) typographical errors are plentiful, so I never know if it's some math that I haven't done between the steps or if it's actually an error.
In the end I'm frequently immobilized by baffling conclusions that the author draws seemingly out of nowhere.

To sum this all up, I might wish this book on my worst enemy after it goes through another five editions.

As an engineering student using this text everyday there are definite strengths and weaknesses of the text. The text is written cleary, but at times rambles, and can confuse the reader. Example problems are generally clear and help the reader understand, but again, tend to add too much unnecessary theory and discussion. The Engineer is only interested in ways to solve problems and a general explanation, not page after page of theory development and formula integrations to explain a formula. Strong points are good relation of physics to everyday experience, clear and easily understood diagrams, and a progressive arrangement of the material. "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Fishbane et al would be a "bible" for engineering physics if 2/3 of the unnecessary and vague discussions were removed, and problem solutions clarified rather than simple answers given at the back of the book. Engineers learn more by example, and unfortunately too few useful examples are provided.

I am a college student who have taken basic calculus courses. I was extremely suprised that the book can give such a full account for every topics, from the classical, fundamental one, to the newest technological development. It don't just derive formula, but also emphasize the physical importance of the theory behind. The book is certainly better than many "First Aid Exam Kit" available in the market, if you really want to understand the theory of Physics. In another word, as entitled, the book is dedicated for potential scientists and engineers.
It seems that the writers try to illustrate all the theory in an enjoyable way. And this, to a certain extent, make the taste of the book a bit boring. And if you don't have much interest at Physics, it would be a nightmare to read it.
I also thinks that the odd number answer of the book's question is the worst point of the book. And for the prospective owner of the book, I would recommend them to do the excercises of the book. It's because some of the sub-topics of the book is embeded in some of its excercies. But after all, it is the best Physics book I have ever read.

This review is written by a huge fan of Tom Clancy. By far the worst Jack Ryan book.

**Summary**
The Good - The Idea
The Bad -Tom Clancy's execution of his idea
The Ugly -618 pages for a 350 page idea

**Details**
THE GOOD - The plot is simple and an interesting idea. Jack Ryan early in his career as a CIA analyst is posted to London and brought into a situation involving the attempted assasination of Pope John Paul II. It has cold war intrigue, spycraft and gives us the opportunity to see Ed and Mary Pat Foley at work early in their careers, as well as Admiral Greer and DDO Bob Ritter. At the same time Tom Clancy gets to write some historical fiction and speculate on the details behind the event including the roles of Brehznev, Andropov and Suslov.

THE BAD - Of course, the villians are the KGB, communists and the assassin that a defector (the Rabbit) identifies. Also, as an aside, according to Dr. Cathy Ryan (who joins a hospital staff there) socialized medicine in the UK is so pathethic that one hopes never to need surgery while there. (This is the illustrative of the level of mind numbing detail in the book.) Of course, we are reminded at length how bad the communist economies were and how delusional were their leaders and while such reminders are probably worthwhile and do explain the thesis of the book, they continually interrupt the flow of the story.

THE UGLY - The details of the torture methods used by Stalin and the KGB. The lack of fact checking and several editing mistakes, especially since Clancy's strength is his attention to detail. E.G. the assasin is twice misidentified as one of his previous victims with a similar name and even more incredibly the attempt on the Pope's life in actuality was made in 1981, yet in the book it occurs the year that the Orioles won the world series (1983) and when Cal Ripken was supposedly a rookie (1982). If you are going to write historical fiction rather than about events in some parallel universe, get your facts right.

Jack Ryan fans will probably want to read this book despite its serious shortcomings, all others should wait for the movie which can keep the plot and action while getting rid of the extraneous material. Let's hope the apparent sequel, The Mask of The Red Death if the hints throughout this book mean anything, is better.

I personally liked it but clancy is really getting carried away with the profanity. It suddenly showed up in Bear and the Dragon and it disturbs me. Its as if he cant find a more colorful word to describe the situation.

Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit is quite an interesting read. It tell's a bit more about Ryan's early years as a spook with the CIA, though he's not the only star of this book.
The plot is simple; A KGB communications agent gets a conscience when he learns about Russia's plan to kill the pope, so he decides to defect and spill the beans before it's too late.
It's not as action packed as say 'The Sum Of All Fears' or 'Rainbow Six'. A good portion of the story deals with the CIA and it's British counterpart SIS in getting the Rabbit and his family out and it does tend to drag a bit.
But, for all that, you do get an interesting history lesson about Russia and it's neighbors and why they're so different from the West.
Clancy also deftly describes (Acronym's abounding) all the behind the scenes play of counter intelligence and espionage and every other spy scenario you could imagine.
It's been suggested over the years that Russia did in fact arrange for the attempt on the pope's life, and Clancy explains clearly why Russia was so afraid of him, and the story is quite plausible.
I recommend this book simply because it is extremely well written. Whether the subject matter appeals to you or not is irrelevant. I get the impression that this is the story that Clancy's wanted to write for years and it shows in his superior handling of the task.
Mission Accomplished!!

I did read another book by this particular author and although I found it thoroughly amusing I just thought he wrote it for entertainment. There were obviously not enough people that had said actual good things and it just seems like her rounded up people that really disliked Paul McCartney and I know that everyone isn't angelic but he didn't just bend the halo, I thought it was pretty low the way he basically stripped her of her integrity with a full on attack.

For a book that is as rotten as Mr. Giuliano's. Um, if you hate McCartney,and his late wife Linda(god rest her soul)so much then why'd you write a book about them?

It sufferes from the biases of several people who have been associated with the McCartneys(Denny and ...JoJo Laine.Linda comes off as being a it-rhymes-with-witch at times. But then again, JoJo Laine has a lot to gain(it rhymes!)by expressing her(negative)opinion of the McCartneys. She claims that they were drug users. Interesting given the story in the book about JoJo selling spare tickets she stole to get drug money, Tsk tsk. Giuliano also drags out Paul's former stepmother and stepsister who lost out on the McCartney millions once Paul's father died and that Paul didn't help them out

Giuliano also manages to get in digs at Yoko Ono(granted, she isn't high on Beatles' fans lists of favorite people)but he stoops pretty low just the same.If you've read any of his books you know that Mr.Giuliano wishes that he were some sort of music insider,which he obviously isn't(read any of his other books on the Beatles-of which there are many)for proof of this.And more than that, it's just BORING!!and there's stuff in there that I'd read a zillion times before, in other, better, Beatle bios.The one good thing about this book is that there are some great pictures in it.Otherwise,it'd be a waste of your money.

In my opinion, this book is not as bad as many people think it is, although it is certainly not the best. Let's just say, it offers a different angle... The weakness of the book is, of course, that a big part of it is based on interviews with people who felt mistreated and not fully appreciated by McCartney. I also found it annoying that the author took liberty to criticize the musical quality of certain songs and albums that I had always admired. It just reminded me of those lame newspaper columns that show up each time Paul releases a new CD - articles written by those musically challenged grungy "rock experts" who can't stand anything that is NOT neurotic, ugly and angry - in other words, something they could identify with! On the other hand, having been a dedicated fan of the Beatles and Paul McCartney for over 20 years now, I was not at all offended by reading that Paul was not a saint. It wasn't hard for me to imagine. Most talented people have difficult personalities. And, yes, the book does show, no matter what the author's intention was, that Paul McCartney IS an outstanding genius, one of the gratest musicians and songwriters of all time. Somehow, I tend to believe Denny Laine, his ex-wife, and many others, who told Giuliano their bitter stories. Unfortunately, we all hurt people's feelings from time to time, and you can't always please everybody. The problem is that when Giuliano put it all together in one book without even bothering to balance it with any other information, he ended up with a very biased picture. However, any intelligent reader, especially an educated McCartney fan, should have no difficulty seeing the real human being - with all his weaknesses and enormous, extraordinary talents, someone who has his ups and downs, - behind the biased portrait painted by Giuliano. And, from this standpoint, I found the book interesting to read. As for Denny Laine, I'm sure he himself now feels uncomfortable about some bits of his interviews that made it into the book. I don't think he ever fancied himself as the 2nd John Lennon, or something. After all, he is a talented guy and a good musician - otherwise he wouldn't have played with McCartney for more than 8 years! Obviously, he holds a grudge, and, most likely, he has his reasons. But don't judge the guy. It was Guiliano's fault that he practically built a book on those personal comments and called it "The Life and Times of Paul McCartney." (By the way, the edition that I have lists only Giuliano as the author.)

In the predictable style of most misanthropic environmental doomsayers, Ehrlich conveniently forgets that humans are capable of confronting pressing problems with technological and social innovation, as though we're all doomed to live in the 1970s (or the present) forever. People who think Earth is about to be depleted of its resources might want to check out books like "Mining the Sky" by John Lewis. There are enough resources in space to support us for a long time. And yes I know we don't yet have the capability to get to them yet but there's no law of nature that says we can't eventually.

There seems to be something in people that always wants to look on the bad side of things, even if the bad side of things doesn't exist. Why, I don't know, but it has allowed the author to make a 40-year career of being wrong on EVERYTHING, and yet he's still taken seriously by some people. If I was to scream that 2+2=5 all my life, I would be dismissed as a nut. Yet the author is doing exactly the same thing...and is not dismissed as a nut. Go figure. This is a ridiculous book. Read it for humor, and then goggle at how seriously the author takes himself. What a twit.

Paul Ehrlich begins the work that gave him instant notoriety (infamy) by saying: "I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time."

He spends the next 180 pages proving conclusively that such is not the case.

It isn't simply that his predictions turned out to be wrong in some of the particulars, but rather that they were so completely wrong that they will NEVER come to pass (though he unrepentantly continues to beat the same drum).

Ehrlich predicted that, by the end of the 20th century, human want would outstrip available resources; whole areas of human endeavor would screech to a halt due to resource scarcity; England would, in all likelihood, cease to exist; India would collapse due to its inability to feed itself; and "inevitable" mass starvation would sweep the globe (including the US). We were on the brink of disaster in 1968, and the future looked very, very dark. In fact, he asserts, "it is now too late to take action to save many of those people."

And yet none of these things have come to pass. Why? Because Ehrlich makes the same mistake that Malthus did: he confuses the concept of finite resources with the notion that they (and the demand for them) are fixed. This is the point that Ehrlich's detractors (most notably Julian Simon) have been making for decades.

Ehrlich did not foresee the technological innovations (the Green Revolution) that have been such a boon to mankind, or changes in both the supply and demand of various resources (such as those in his famous bet with Simon). But such changes were inevitable (far more than the catastrophe that he predicted). The entire history of human endeavor is adaptive. As resources become more scarce, their costs rise. As those costs rise, incentives are created to find alternatives or increase supply or decrease demand. Thus, assuming that either resource availability and/or per capita demand is fixed is not merely an oversight - it is inexcusably poor science.

This is also why claims that "The Population Bomb" was some sort of self-correcting prophecy - that by drawing attention to the problem, disaster was averted - hold no water. This fallacy is based on the assumption that long-term concerns about population growth are somehow more pressing than current hunger problems. Norman Borlaug (one of many involved in the Green Revolution) would have a good laugh about that one. Unfortunately, the major cause of hunger in the world today (in countries like Ethiopia) is not resource scarcity, but political realities (despots) that prevent access to food.

One last point to Ehrlich's defenders: much has been made about cancer rates (and Simon's purported unwillingness to bet on them). But a rise in cancer incidence was to be expected, not because of pollutants or chemicals or environmental degradations, but because cancer is primarily a disease of the aged. The population "explosion" did not occur because more children were/are being born (the opposite is true), but that children were/are no longer "dropping like flies." The average age of the population has risen markedly and so, of course, has the incidence of age related diseases.

My favorite example of Ehrlich-speak: "Enough of fantasy.... Just remember that, at the current growth rate, in a few thousand years everything in the visible universe would be converted into people, and the ball of people would be expanding at the speed of light."

I'm SO glad he'd had "enough of fantasy."