Brevity is a virtue, but Langer's explanations fall well short of showing the reader how to apply the techniques of systems analysis.

The chapters are in the sequence neither of the chronology of systems analysis tasks nor or the order of presentation in systems analysis deliverables. Each chapter is like a separate out-of-context article.

Langer steers a balanced course between competing methogologies, pointing out, as few other books do, that we should integrate the principles of object-oriented analysis into the proven framework of structured analysis. Much of what's here is good, but there isn't enough of it.

I recommend The Art of Analysis for supplementary reading by the experienced systems analyst, but not as a textbook from which to learn systems analysis.

Like the hero of an action movie running from a burning jet, his fast thinking and willing feet sweeping away some hapless soul just before the big explosion consumes their former resting place, so have many of us found ourselves in IT positions of significance. We didn't begin our careers with this in mind, but as the information age has exploded around us, quick and willing minds have placed many of us in positions we were not formally trained for. Intimidating at times? To say the least! Mr. Langer's book is consumable during the explosion! His lessons on formal, academically and real world tested tools of analysis are straight forward, to the point, and packaged in chapters that are consumable in a single sitting. Following each chapter are a set of questions recapping the highlights to help set the information more firmly into your mind. Getting a solid introduction to so many great tools helped me to see which ones, out of a sea of tools available, would best suit my needs. It was also a great confidence booster to see that I was already doing so many things according to the book, Langer's book, The Art of Analysis. Buy it!

What an excellent introduction to Systems Analysis! Finally, a concise explaination of the topic in one super book--from an author who writes clearly and doesn't talk over his audience's head. If you want a head-start into Systems Analysis, and a clear idea of both the theory and the practice of all aspects of this field--buy this book and shop no furthur!

"Arthur's Computer Disaster" was a cute book. Any child would enjoy it. It's not only an easy reader that they would like reading, but it teaches a lesson. -What happens when your break the rules.

Arthur's hooked on this new computer game. His mom tells him not to play it while she's gone, but he does it anyway, even with his sister, D.W., warning him. Arthur accidently "breaks" the computer, his mother gets home, and punishes him. All in all, he learns a lesson.

D.W. is my favorite character, because she's so sweet and innocent, just like all little sisters are. She warns her brother, and he chooses not to listen, and ends up "breaking" the computer.

Book is on the level of SEE SPOT RUN. Not for young readers.

This is a great book to teach kids what happens when you break the rules. Arthur's mom tell him he can't play his new computer game while she's gone. But the game is really cool, and he doesn't mean to play it, exactly, just show it to Buster. But, as you might guess, things don't work out that way. Arthur is convinced he has broken the computer. D. W. worries that they will now be homeless, and it will all be his fault. But Mom is able to fix the computer and they all learn a lesson about following the rules.

As a Mom, I wish I could be as fair and calm as Arthur's Mom. She never yells or freaks out. She just grounds Arthur from the computer. And he admits that's fair, which my kids probably would not do. This is a great story about a very common situation. Kids and parents will relate to this one.

Geoffrey Wolff writes quite well, like a good travelogue writer, mixing in his own experiences with what he sees. He establishes early on that his father is the "Duke of Deception," and says he hates his father. But as we go on in the book, we find that little Geoffrey himself is not above committing various deceptions, and we begin to wonder whether we, the readers, are not being deceived. It never became clear to me why Geoffrey now hates his father. True, his father was a deceiver, but as far as one can tell from the book, he gave a great deal of his time and nearly all of his money to Geoffrey. His father may have had a screw loose, but he doesn't seem to have taken it out on Geoffrey. As a result, the author turns out to be something of an ingrate.

Maybe this can be called ultra-realistic biographical writing, but I think it is centrally flawed. If in all the pages of a novel Geoffrey Wolff can't show why he hates his father, then not only is the realism flawed but the entire enterprise is flawed as well. Even so, it's a pretty good read.

Geoffrey Wolfe's father was the type who could persuade an automobile dealer whom he had just met to accept a personal check for a new car after the bank was closed, and who could launch a successful career as an aeronautical engineer without relevant education, experience, or knowledge. His sons similarly reinvented themselves, one going so far as to submit forged credentials to win acceptance in an exclusive prep school. After the parents split up, Geoffrey lived an interesting if peripatetic life with his father, while his brother Tobias stayed with his mother, suffering poverty and abusive stepfathers. Since the father had the more interesting and eccentric personality, Geoffrey's book is perhaps the more adventurous, although less well written, than his brother's, This Boy's Life: A Memoir, but both make fascinating reading.

How else can we explain the phenomenon of Tobias and Geoffrey Wolff, two of our most accomplished writers, brothers raised apart in separate and uniquely bizarre circumstances? Devotees of THIS BOY'S LIFE should also enjoy THE DUKE OF DECEPTION, though the latter has a retrospective, adult tone absent in the former. The opening passage, where the author, now an adult with sons of his own, learns of the death of his dissolute but charming father, is a masterpiece. If I taught writing, I would tell my students, "If you can acheive what Geoffrey Wolff does in that small scene, you have done it all."

This book had a very imaginative and fun beginning and middle. But then it just abruptly ended and was over. My 5 year old boy likes long chapter books, and then he likes short books like this to be read over and over again. He hasn't wanted to read this one again.

A janitor named Al and his faithful friend, a dog named Eddie live in New York in a cramped, rather dingy apartment. They are pretty sick of it and Eddie gripes about it to Al. One day they fall into a bit of magic and escape the world that they are tired of and end up on a flying island in the air that is populated by all kinds of fantastic tropical birds. They feel like they are in paradise but, of course, they find out that paradise isn't all it's cracked up to be.
What I love about this book is the wonderful illustrations, full of bright colors and gentle humour, and the dialog that sounds just the way a janitor from the West Side of New York City might. I love the way Al and Eddie learn to make their lives better by the end of the story. What I don't particularly like is that the "moral" seems to say that you really shouldn't dream of paradise on earth because it's not okay to kick back and luxuriate and live in leisure because that's just not naural for human beings. It's just too preachy and simplistic. Why can't magic take you to paradise and it all turns out GREAT? Why do we have to feel like if we're not struggling along and doing what we've always done, then it's going to come back and haunt us eventually? I did like the way the book emphasized how precious friendship is and how lost we are without it.
This is a book for little ones and they will love the pictures and characters. They will love, as I do, the friendship between Al and Eddie. It got the 1987 Caldecott medal for Illustrations for a reason! I think it's a good book but I was bummed that Al and Eddie couldn't have their cake and eat it, too. I mean if a giant tucan can hoist you aloft to a fantasy island, why can't the fantasy be perfect?!

Hey, Al, by Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski, is a story about Al and Eddie, the dog, going to paradise.
Al, a nice, quiet, janitor, lived in a small but very neat apartment on the West Side of New York City with his faithful dog, Eddie. They were always struggling. Eddie hoped for a house with a backyard.
All that changed one morning when Al was startled by a huge bird said, "tommorow I will bring you to paradise." The bird offers Al and Eddie a change. The next morning, both are ready and waiting in the bathroom.the bird carries them to the paradise.
The theme of this story is that "your own home is the best place to be." Al and Eddie were much happier in their own house than in the paradise. Everyone will like this book, because it has beautiful pictures and ideas.

Overall, I think the book carries great meaning and great lessons. We need to have a new mindset - "macroshift", in order to save the planet. I totally agree.

Then why do I only give 3 stars? Because I still didn't see anything new. It is similar to other books, like "Limits to Growth" by Donella Meadows (Club of Rome). The author provides all different kinds of warning signs to ask people "Live simple. Love our Earth and other species". I know it's difficult to have a new pitch to ask people stop wasting or stop smoking, etc. However, we do need a more insightful/creative perspective to really change people.

Overall, I only recommend this book to people who are already buy-in "save the planet" concept.

As much as it is possible for a single book to give its reader a comprehensive and profound understanding of the impending global social, economic, and ecological crisis, this is that book.

According to Dr. Laszlo, human society has passed through three major stages --Mythos, Theos, and Logos--and is on the verge of its next, and perhaps final stage, Holos. But the transition from our Logos civilization to Holos, like those before it, is not quite as automatic as someone simply climbing the rungs of a ladder. According to _Macroshift, there is some real possibility that our civilization may fail to make the leap, in which case it will almost certainly 'break down' into global anarchy--we may have had a terrible foretaste of this in the September 11 attacks. (For a chilling picture of this kind of world, see the classic sci-fi film _The Road Warrior_). But, should it succeed, humanity will be privileged to witness the birth of the first truly global civilization--and a world whose possibilities surpass our dreams.

This is an excellent book. It embodies what I pretty much believe but in such an eloquent and thoughtful way. I highly recommed it to anyone who is searching for a hopeful perspective regarding the future of our world.

Tom

I agree, to some extent, with the recent two reviewers: Nobody can deny that Emil Artin was a great mathematician, having done a very good job in algebra. That does not necessarily mean his textbooks should be praised *ad infinitum*. I understand some classics remain valuable for an incredibly long period of time ("Morse theory" by Milnor is one of such landmarks that comes into my mind), but I feel scheptical if this one deserves that claim. This book is okay if you are interested in his writing style of many years ago, but not quite so if your main concern is to study Galois theory (or algebra: that makes no difference for that matter) efficiently and effectively. In that case you should turn to more modern textbooks like Cohn ("Algebra" published by Wiley.)

during reading this cute booklet, you can surely hear the gentle talk of an old math maven.(from the publishing date, the auther was 44 but that's my impression.) with a cup of coffee, stretch those edgy wrinkles of your brain.

A friend of mine has a maxim: The shorter a math book, the more likely I am to read it. Artin's Galois Theory is certainly that. It is also an example of Artin's wonderful mathematical style. Gian-Carlo Rota, who took classes from Artin when he was at princeton, said that Artin's proofs were perfect, as though he had gone through all the available proofs to find *the* proof and that was the one he used. Rota felt that this left the student at a disadvantage in that he didn't know about the effort that went into the proof, nor why it is beautiful. I disagree: the proofs in Galois Theory have a certain indescribable beauty to them which left me awestruck at their simplicity. They seem to have all the requisite attributes (as laid out in Hardy's A Mathematician's apology) to be considered beautiful. These notes are by no means complete, but I would suggest them as a suplement to another treatment of field theory (for example, Dummit and Foote or Morandi even though they were based upon Artin's treatment).

There aren't many trick books out there, but I still wouldn't recommend this one. I didn't like the way he suggested getting the dogs to do stuff. Try Take a Bow Wow. It is Great!!!

Every dog can have its day ... and Captain Haggerty, expert pooch trainer and the man dubbed "The King of Stupid Pet Tricks" (he's appeared with his menagerie on David Letterman's late-night talk fest more than two dozen times), has written, with oodles of tongue-in-canine-cheek humor, the book to prove it. Imagine! Teaching Doris or Alma or Fido or Rover to retrieve the TV remote, scan the Internet do the hokey-pokey or bunny hop. There are 125 easy-to-learn tricks that will have your doggie the cat's meow.

This is a book that contains a wonderful variety of tricks for every type of dog. I espcially liked the appendix at the end that shows the tricks that are suitable for specific breeds. There are more tricks than you'll ever need for your dogs, and they work!!!

I guess this is what passes for a thoughtful review of the tax code for a liberal. I'm sure the author has no desire to give "tax breaks" to individuals any more than those greedy corporations. Besides attacking expense deductions as a "tax break," the class-warfare demagoguery always ignores the ultimate beneficiary of tax breaks to corporations, which are the company's workers and its stockholder. Oh yeah, the stockholders are just greedy rich people anyway, right?

Before the welfare reform bill of 1996, genuine welfare was about 130 billion dollars per year, including food stamps, AFDC, housing assistance, WIC, Head Start, Low-income energy assistance, JOBS, Legal Services corporation, Medicaid, SSI, Pell grants, and the EITC. Altruistic behavior, of course, enrages conservatives, along with legitimate concerns, such as the Department of Education losing 450 million dollars in a three year time frame.

Meanwhile, the rich are quietly gorging at the trough.

The authors discover that "wealthfare" -- the money we hand out to corporations and wealthy Montgomery Burns types -- is at LEAST 448 BILLION dollars a year. To ensure not being accused of "bias," they consistently use conservative figures, thus leaving the real number far greater.

Their presentation is effective. Well cited, they address the orgy of waste and fraud in the "neglected" Pentagon, Social Security inequities generated from Reagan's sneaky regressive mega-tax hike on working people, phony accelerated depreciations (e.g. the NEGATIVE tax rates many corporations get away with), the S&L bailout we're still paying for, subsidies to nuclear, mining, timber, gas, oil, aviation, handouts to the media giants, insurance loopholes, and much more! Quite a lot for such a little book. A job well done!

This IS the "pinko's" view of the tax code. After all, it's socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor....

The next time some smug nabob starts muttering under his/her breath about the drain on our economy caused by the proverbial 'welfare mother' (you know, the one that's driving the Cadillac), you can put em' in their place armed with the wealth of info contained in this short but well written little book.

As 'Take the Rich Off Welfare' aptly points out, welfare really does suck a lot of money from our treasury, but it's not the poor and needy in this country that benefits from this bonanza. As a matter of fact the word 'wealthfare' is more applicable, because that's who's really benefiting- the wealthy.

Very brief, but meticulously researched and with sources to back up every fact, 'Take the Rich off Welfare' is a great introduction to the big wide world of graft in America. If you've ever been curious about who has their foot in the back door of the treasury- check out this fine book.

First of all - don't mistake this book with "Between the strokes of night" which deals with life-prolongation by altering the body's metabolic speed and time sense. Now, the reason everybody are so dissapointed, I believe, is that the book lacks Sheffield's usual giant scope, and therefore highly advenced thechnolegy, with the setting in the far future. (allthough thet description is'nt compatiblle with the wonderfull "Proteus" series). But the plot did waver a bit. the climax was not all that. I do think though that all the charecters were excellent, and developed through the book. Not a bad story, it's only the higher expectations of the readers from sheffield.

This may be the last of Mr. Sheffield's work, it is not his best, but it is a good read. Charles Sheffield is (or was) actually pulitzer prize winning author James Kirkwood. His non-Sci-Fi works fall out along the same lines, and level of quality, as John Knowles, John Irving, and even J.D. Salinger --- except Kirkwood was prolific rather than puckish. It would be a shame to see him go out on such a mediocre novel, & I hope others and betters are banked, and soon for publishing.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that burning vast quantities of combustible fuel to move an object from here out into orbit, let alone out into the solar system, is phenomenally expensive and dangerous. Science Fiction authors have, for decades, tried to come up with all manner of workarounds, from gravitation drives to Star Trek style transporters.

One proposal that, until the late seventies, didn't attract a lot of attention was the idea of a cable stretching from the Earth into space, held in place by some form of geosynchronous structure. It's probably the least sexy technology available, nothing more than a really, really, strong, long, cable with objects climbing up and down it using whatever means fit the designer's imagination.

Two science fiction authors, Arthur C. Clarke and Charles Sheffield, decided to raise the idea of such a cable at roughly the same time (Clarke's book, The Fountains of Paradise, was published two weeks before Sheffield's), and at once the obvious simplicity and advantages of the idea captured the public imagination. Well, sort of, currently there is no known material strong enough to withstand the tension a useful cable would carry, but we're probably not far off.

This book is a treat. As well as the story itself, mostly a thriller centered around an engineer (who builds the cable, 'natch), a billionaire solar system miner, and a dubious amoral biologist, the book comes with a contribution from Arthur C Clarke on the history of the how the idea was brought to press, and a long appendix detailing the physics involved in building a "beanstalk" (Sheffield's name for the thing.) It was this part I personally found most interesting - it covered how such a thing would be built, other designs centered around the same principle, advantages the cable would have such as the ability to slingshot ships from the end, using the Earth's own rotation to move objects to anywhere in the solar system.

The novel itself is a multi-layered story which is centered so much around a sub-plot that the beanstalk itself is almost an afterthought. In a pinch, Merlin, the main character, investigates the death of his parents and why they were murdered, after the new project he's hired to lead unexpectedly brings him into contact with people who were involved or knew the reasons. The Science in the Fiction includes the beanstalk (obviously), genetic engineering, the mining of asteroids and other trips around the solar system. About my only grouse is that the characters are a little wooden and come across in that kind of pseudo-machismo usually associated with salesman culture and office politics, something that ought not to have irritated me to the extent that it did.

A wonderful book though, proposing a wonderful idea that, if ever implemented, will probably mean more for mankind's eventual exploration of space than the moon landings themselves.

The trouble with writers who can write good English is that they can present bad arguments attractively. Let's face it: John Morris was a crank, a very learned, impressive crank, but a crank. My copy of his work is dotted with pencil notes that question his sanity; and while that was the immediate, unmediated response to the impact of a first reading, a subsequent and more placid view does not really mitigate the effect of some of his enormities.
His worst feature was a complete inability to tell the difference between legend and historical fact - understandable, perhaps, in a novice, but incomprehensible in a man who had spent all his life in scholarship. It is typical of his methods (to dignify them by that name) that he should take seriously the Kentish legend of Hengist and Horsa (as related by Nennius), in spite not only of its obviously legendary features but of the fact that it plainly contradicts everything that our best properly historical source, Gildas, has to tell about the first Saxon war. Gildas tells us that the war was a blitzkrieg caused by the sudden fury of starved barbarians; the legend makes it a long-prepared plan. Gildas tells us that it reached as far as the West Country; the legend restricts it to Kent. Gildas tells us that it was bloody but swift; the legend makes it last ten years. How does Morris get over these hurdles? Why, by a simple and airy remark: "accounts of the war north of the Thames have not survived". He should have said not only north of the Thames but west of the Medway; but let that pass, since at any rate it shows the level of his critical intellect. This sort of thing is highly damaging, not only because it legitimated the destructive scepticism of the currently prevalent Cambridge school of David Dumville and his followers, but because it has a lethal fascination for the unprepared reader, impressed (as some of the earlier reviews show) by the show of learning, and by the cohesive picture offered. The learning is not fake (although on a few occasions, especially when dealing with Rigothamus and Brittany, Morris leaves the impression of having invented sources, or at least read them very "creatively"); but learning is not enough, and a poorly grounded overall picture is worse than none at all. I have written myself about this period of British history, and am continuously surprised at Morris' blindness to obvious fact when inconvenient for his theories.
This book escapes getting only one star for two reasons: first, its genuinely excellent prose style; and second, that in the middle of the scholarly ordure there are a good few diamonds. From time to time, Morris comes up with genuinely brilliant ideas and insights (such as his argument for the existence of an individual insular idea of Empire, or his defence of the currently unpopular early dating of St.Patrick). But these are too widely scattered among a fluent tide of nonsense to be a reason to recommend the book. Though addressed to lay readers, this book is dangerous for them; it should be restricted to those who, having as much learning as Morris himself, are able to judge and condemn his arguments.

Morris's "Age of Arthur" is a scholarly work on Dark Age Britain, and the tribes it comprised. As anyone reading the history of the first millenium will realize, the quality and extent of reliable sources on European history drops off in a major way, following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and much of Morris's story relies on archeological evidence and pieced-together fragments of local annals. For this reason, this is not a terrific work of narrative history, but on the other hand, it is a solid survey of what went on in pre-Norman, post Roman Britain.

The title of the book refers to the Arthur myth, to which some (but not all) of the book is devoted. Morris's thesis is that the Arthur legends are traceable to a real-life British king, who brought the disparate British (i.e. non-English, non-Saxon) tribes in a coherent political unit, and whose reign was much venerated in the following centuries, when the British peoples became fragmented and vulnerable to invasion. In his treatment of the British and other tribes (e.g. the Scots and Picts) Morris is slightly susceptible to the tendency to find proto-nationalistic traits, when perhaps there were none. Still, a useful and coherent reference point for Dark Age Britain.

If John Morris never wrote another book, his AGE OF ARTHUR would have to be described as a lifetime achievement. I bought this book because I've been fascinated with King Arthur for some time, and this book is THE history of the period before, during and after Arthur. Only about one-fifth of the pages in the book are about Arthur's life, but Morris convincingly describes Arthur's time and his lasting effect on the cultures and governments of the British Islands. He also makes a convincing case that history is not predestined.

THE AGE OF ARTHUR covers a period that has been condescendingly labeled the "dark ages" by some. Morris suggests this age is not so much obscure as it has been overlooked. (Or was at the time he published his book. Many new "early Medieval studies" were published in the 1990s). Morris demonstrates that scholarship about this era can be carried out by using annals; lives of the saints; law codes; land grants and religious charters; "histories" such as those written by Gildas and Bede; graffiti and tomb inscriptions; poetry; chronicles; wills; genealogical records; archeological evidence from cemeteries, burial mounds, and barrows, houses, villages, encampments, battle fields and other sites; and linguistics analysis. He has done a magnificent job of identifying and synthesizing much of the extant material. His book is loaded with suggestions for scholars who want to continue investigating this era. I doubt you will find a better book for an overview of this period or for research leads.

Among other topics, I was intrigued with the various ways the Welsh (Angle for foreigner), Irish, Scots (Latin for Irish), and German peoples including the Angles of Arthur's age dealt with everyday issues. Their social and legal problems were not so very different, but the Irish and the Welsh (Roman Britains) appear to have been somewhat more practical and humane. They were much more concerned with compensation than revenge or punishment and more than once Morris refers to them as early humanists. For example, an (adulterous wife) was expected to compensate her offended husband by paying him "face money." Some of the old laws from this age are still "on the books." For example, the notion that seven years cohabitation by persons of opposite sex creates a "common-law marriage" is at least 1500 years old and is the law in places such as the Commonwealth of Virginia which follows English Common Law.