I received this book as a gift and read it in two days. It's written in a short straight forward way much like newspaper articles. I never knew the depth and scale of the human experience to be so odd until I read this book. I recommend it highly for light vacation/beach side reading. It had me laughing & cringing at the same time. I read it to my husband on a road trip to Seattle from L.A. and it kept us entertained.

The first thing that calls the attention of the customer is the title. Many people don't go beyond that, but to those brave enough to pick the book up, you will find a nice collection of true, but weird, news recollected from around the world.
The news are divided in categories, thus making this book excellent for both long and short reading.
Consider this book the next time you feel down, it will make you laugh! :)

This is the third book in the News of the Weird series.

It is just as good as the others and is also quite funny.

Any basketball fan interested in one of the greatest players in the history of the game will peruse this book with interest -- much more for the striking photographs than for the copy, which covers Bird's biography in chronological fashion, concluding with his successful first year as coach of the NBA's Indiana Pacers. The photography, however, is worth the price of admission. Lipofsky has covered the Celtics since very early in Bird's career and his artist's eye has caught and framed some remarkable images not only of Bird but of the game -- among the stunning photographs in the book are wonderful game shots of Bird vs. his greatest competitors over the years, the Lakers as a whole, Michael Jordan, and Julius Erving, and many striking images of the Celtics in their heyday. The temptation with this book is to tear out and frame a few of the photos; they're that good.

You will want to get two copies of this book - because you're gonna want to cut out some of the great, great photos and frame them.

Flipping through this book is like looking through a picture album. The photos are that good - the paper used to publish the book is the high-gloss type.

And some of the pictures are ones that are rarely seen. A couple of my personal favorites: a portrait of the Celtics' starting five in the mid-eighties; a two page spread of Larry taking practice shots before a game (the photo was taken at rim level, and it looks like Larry is shooting the ball in your direction).

If you are a Celtics fan (o.k., you don't have to admit that) if you are a Larry Bird fan like me, then you'll appreciate this book of rare photos of Bird. Now, get this book. And get some photo framing supplies!

Hoop junkies rejoice! If you are a basketball fan than you are a Larry Bird fan and this is the one must have book of arguably the greatest basketball player of this or any generation. Dramatic photos and lively, informative text, chronicle Larry Legend's unforgetable career with the Boston Celtics. There is no better collection of photos of Larry Bird...period. Steve Lipofsky's photographs have captured and preserved, for basketball fans everywhere, the storied career of one of basketball's true legends. A great holiday gift for the true fan or anyone who wants to know what all the fuss was about.

This book is an essentially non-mathematical descriptive overview of computational linguistics that emphasizes an historical viewpoint. It is very understandable, even for someone approaching the subject for the first time. In addition, it could be used as a textbook as there are a large set of exercises at the end of each chapter. Computational linguistics has been applied to biological sequence analysis, which was my primary reason for reading the book.

The author begins with the concept of a language, which is defined as a set of word sequences with a formal language being a subset of the free monoid over a finite lexicon. The reasons for using generator grammars are discussed but these need to be replaced by a special type called categorial (C-) grammar, invented in the 1930's and applied to natural languages in the 1950's. The disadvantages of C-grammar are outlined by the author.

A second generative grammar, called phase structure (PS) grammar is discussed, and restrictions on the rule schema give four different types of PS-grammars. These different types give four different classes of complexity, with this complexity measured by an algorithm with the number of primitive operations required to analyze an input expression counted in relation to length of the input. Context-free PS-grammar is applied to natural language via phrase structures. The author distinguishes carefully the differences between C- and PS-grammars. In particular, the goal of PS-grammar is to represent what is called the constituent structure of natural language, which is defined by the author as a formal property of phase structures. He makes it very clear that there is as of yet no complete PS-grammars for natural languages. He also discusses in detail the constituent structure paradox with examples of discontinuous elements in natural language. The solution of Chomsky to this problem via transformation rules is outlined. This transformational grammar is equivalent to a Turing machine generating recursively enumerable languages and so is undecidable. To resolve this, Chomsky introduced formal restrictions on the transformations called "recoverability of deletions". The author shows however via Bach-Peters sentences, that this method does not always work. The discussion of parsing distinguishes between morphology parsers, syntax parsers, and semantic parsers. This exemplifies how the declarative-procedural distinction applies to the relation between generative grammars and parsers. These distinctions are important, the author argues, when modeling natural languages on a computer.

That natural languages are not context-free motivates the author to search for other formalisms. A successful formalism must be computationally tractable, and this is reflected in its grammar type. The "type transparency" between the parser and the grammar enables the analysis of the complexity to be done at the parser, since for any language, they will have the same formal grammar. The weaknesses of this approach for PS-grammar is discussed in detail by the author, and he gives other algorithms that restructure the PS-grammar rules in order to obtain parsing of context-free languages. These concerns also exist when the requirement that the grammar formalism "input-output" be equivalent to what is spoken and heard. PS-grammar is shown to be incompatible with this.

The more recent notion of left-associative (LA) grammar is discussed as an alternative to C-and PS-grammars. The irregular bracketing of these grammars is handled by using the principle of possible continuations in LA-grammars. The author shows, interestingly, that the distinction between context-free and context-sensitive languages disappears in LA-grammar. The principle of possible continuations allows close relation between parsing and generation. Discontinuous elements are dealt with by coding filler positions into a functor category and then cancelled later.

There are different types of LA-grammars which are characterized in terms of their generative capacity and computational complexity. Recursion theory plays a role, and the complexity is measured in terms of the operations required to process an input in the worst case. The author discusses in detail the different types of LA grammars and their subhierarchies, and compares the LA-and PS-hierarchies.

The morphological analysis of natural language can be studied in terms of combination principles, with words being defined in terms of word forms, and a clear distinction is made between the two notions. Word forms in turn are composed of elementary parts called morphemes, and morphemes are associated analyzed allomorphs. The author explains the steps needed to morphologically analyze an unknown word.

Even more interesting, and more important from a practical point of view, the author discusses methods for automatic word form recognition, including methodologies for investigating the frequency distribution of words. The grammar system of LA-morphology is used for word form recognition of English, German, Italian, French, Japanese, and Polish. The empirical testing of a grammar system via the building of a corpora is discussed with an illustration of Zipf's law. Unfortunately, the author does not discuss in detail the use of hidden Markov models in statistical tagging.

Syntax deals with the composition of word forms and uses the combination rules of valency, agreement, and word order. German and English are analyzed in terms of their word order. The ability of LA-grammar to map variable-based rule patterns onto categorially analyzed input expressions using a strictly time-linear order makes it efficient and flexible, argues the author. The LA-syntax for English and German is discussed in detail by the author. The discussion makes heavy use of finite state machines.

There are three different semantic systems, namely the logical, programming, and natural languages, and the author shows how these are related via replication, reconstruction, transfer, and composition. The problems in viewing natural languages as logical semantics is discussed in the context of Tarski's work. The author argues that the insistence of using logical semantics for analyzing natural language is incorrect since natural languages work differently from metalanguage-dependent logical languages. Truth, meaning, and ontology are taken out of the philosophical realm and applied to the logical semantics of natural language.

If you have a limited bookshelf space and a limited budget, but love to have a good study and reference book on Computational Linguistics, than this is the one to have. The subject is treated in girth and in depth. The 500-page content is well structured and very well written. The author has divided the content into four parts (mentioned in Preface) Theory of Language, Theory of Grammar, Morphology and Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics. I have hard time putting this book down since the time it arrived in the mail a few weeks ago.

Computational Linguistics is not only the toys in Scholar's hands. It should solve the problem of natural language communication between humans and computers. This book give us systematic and complete solution and 'solid' solution.It is a real and true computational linguistics. We need 'solid' foundation more than 'smart' technique in CL. If you are interested what's a real CL, this book is worth reading and using as textbook.

This book is a treat to read, both for parents of younger children and for kids themselves. Its playful use of words should encourage readers to invent their own blended new words and to gain an appreciation of reading for the sound of the words themselves. The story is clever and the illustrations are crisp and colorful. It is, quite simply, a book that is fun to read. Highly recommended for Christmas giving and for year-round enjoying.

The Great Mizzariddle is one of the best Christmas Storybooks I've ever read! Mr. McElroy's word combinations are ingenious and brilliant. Or should I say ingeniant? A fun book the whole family can enjoy!

I think this is an excellent book for children of all ages. It is definately one of those "read aloud to your kids" books, but still very enjoyable. I can't wait until i get my own copy!

Warning: reading this book may be dangerous to your comfort zone, and may result in your church leaders recommending that you seek God's leading somewhere else!

This was the textbook used in the Bible college I attended in the 60's, and it shaped my point of view on missions and church government for a lifetime. It was excellent in reminding us to compare our current practices with what worked 2,000 years ago, and to sort out the cultural imperatives from the denominational imperatives from the Biblical imperatives.

"Roland Allen was an Anglican missionary in China from 1895 to 1903. For a few years afterward he was in charge of an English parish. For the next 40 years he was writing on missionary principles. Much of what he wrote seemed to be forgotten. The present work and a later volume written in answer to criticisms (The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes which Hinder It) are the only two that have been regularly reprinted. Allen himself told his son that his writings would come into their own about the year 1960. In fact that year saw the republication in a single volume of many of his other writings." [From the foreword.]

It is amazing to me that Allen wrote this book in 1912. Even today his radical critique of Western missionary methods is cutting edge, though the biblical principles he advocates are now being embraced more and more by some ministries that are not tradition-bound.

While this book and its sequel (Spontaneous Expansion) address mission work specifically, the principles described do not apply only to how the people of one country do missionary work in another. These books really are about what the Bible has to show us about how to carry out the mission of the church, whether in our own culture, in ministering cross-culturally in our own back yard, or planting churches across an ocean.

If Allen is right in the conclusions he draws about finance (chapter 6), many (most?) church planting efforts may be operating by financial principles that do more to hinder rather than help establish a healthy, self-supporting church.

His observations on the biblical pattern for selecting and equipping elders for local church leadership challenged not only the status quo of the Anglican church of his day, but continue to challenge the practices of most churches today.

In my work as a church consultant, my sense is that (1) most church members, and probably even most pastors, are unaware of the radical differences between our presentday ways of doing church and the New Testament precedents, because they are largely ignorant of the biblical precedents; and (2) even when they become aware of some difference, there is a tendency to assume that those differences are inconsequential. Yet many of the most passionate of today's church leaders look at the church of Acts and long to see God's Spirit at work with that kind of power in the church today.

If we really long to recapture the vitality of the New Testament church, wouldn't it be worthwhile to seek to understand the principles by which it operated? (The "Methods" of the book's title is misleading; "Principles" would be more accurate.) Then we can consider whether those principles might be essential to the spiritual vitality of the church and go about asking how we can apply those principles in our context.

For anyone serious about developing such a biblically-rooted vision of how to go about doing church, I highly recommend this book and its companion volume.

The fact this book was written in 1927 but is applicable to our times is evidence of the Truth it holds. It is not an easy read. It provokes much thought and reflection. I was given the book to read by Mission 21 India prior to a trip I am going on to learn how we can help Christian Indians spread the Word in India. I believe it has helped open/prepare my mind to accept, love and learn from others. I believe as Mr. Allen does that the Holy Spirit can work differently in each of our lives. We all have different gifts to use. This book is also an excellent commentary on many of Paul's letters. Roland Allen insights are Truth based.

Used this book all of the time in my German classes! Wish I had had this sooner, would have made everything a lot simpler. Its easy to use, easy to understand, and great when you need to find something quick. This should be a book every college student, studying German, should be required to have.

When this book was first published in 1980, the producers wanted it to be 'the most helpful one-volume dictionary for students, linguists, and all translation needs'. Twenty-two years later, I would dare to suggest that if this aim has not been met, then this dictionary has not fallen far short. There are over 200,000 words and phrases in both English and German. All words are defined in context (this is especially important for the novice student) and the clear abbreviations make the dictionary easy to use. Moreover, there is also a four-page guide in English and German on how to use this dictionary to assit the user further.
On account of its age, this dictionary is inevitably a little dated, but it is still a very useful linguistic tool for students of German. I heartily recommend it.

I have taught German for ten years, and I have done freelance translations with German for fifteen. This dictionary remains my favorite German dictionary. It is complete, contains loads of idiomatic expressions, it's easy to read, it's vocabulary is up to date (including lots of software and computer terminology). I recommend this dictionary whole-heartedly. Another good choice is the Langenscheidt--but Langenscheidt is sometimes too British, so the Collins is the best option for any American.

I read this excellent book by Roland Perry some time ago and became convinced of the assignation of the role of the Cambridge University's 'Fifth Man' to Victor Rothschild. Perry's narrative was convincing and thoroughly researched. The book is an excellent read yet I, like the previous reviewer, am puzzled as to why the 'revelation' was not picked up by the press as would have been expected in such cases. I am now even more puzzled. Reading through Christopher Andrew's and Vasili Mitrokhin's book "THE MITROKHIN ARCHIVES" no mention is made of Rothschild as the Fifth Man. Instead the pre-Rothschild fall guy John Cairncross is once again fingered as the last of the Magnificant Five. Can someone tell me - who is the REAL Fifth Man?

Paul Hellander, Travel Writer - Photographer

'Just as the three musketeers were really four so we were really six' Anthony Blunt. This book is a result of high class investigative journalism and has left me totally convinced. In regards to John Cairncross, it is my belief both Cairncross and Rothschild were traitors as Blunt admitted they were really six. Only Rothschild had the ability and position to betray the UK so totally and there certainly has been a cover up.

While browsing in a local Public Library, I came upon this very well presented, and convincing, professional account by Mr Perry, of the unveiling of The Fifth Man. I am astounded that a spy story, detailling the activities of an individual traitor, who was responsible for the greatest influence on world history ever revealed, has apparently been concealed from the history of the twentieth century. I recommend this book by Roland Perry to all interested readers of history, and to those of us fascinated by the espionage history of the twentieth century, and of the Second World War.I further recommend that the publisher of this book (Sedgwick & Jackson, London)consder reissuing this title.It is an absorbing read. This book is an astonishing revelation of History.

As someone who has studied the Middle East extensively, I found this book to be well-written, but ultimately -- and unfortunately -- just a rehash of secondary sources. In other words, although there's nothing particularly wrong with this book, there's nothing particularly great about it either. No inside insights into what made the enigmatic King Hussein tick, for instance, which could have been very helpful and interesting but which would have required the author to interview people who knew the King well. It also would have been interesting if the author could have untangled the many seeming contradictions in King Hussein's reign, but unfortunately he either tried but was unable to do so or just did not do the necessary legwork needed to discover some of these answers. Ultimately, it appears that the author, or perhaps his publisher, was more interested in rushing out the "first book on King Hussein since his death" than in doing a first-rate job. That's unfortunate, and ultimately a disservice to this fascinating man and also to the events he lived through and played a role in.

The book explains the very dangerous and exciting life of the late King Hussein. This movie would give insight into the very harsh world of a Middle East peace process and the leader that made it happen for his country, Jordan. This movie would be a great tribute to such a great leader.

When King Hussein was young, he witnessed the assassination of his grandfather and was almost killed by the same gunman. His father was mentally unstable, making him unfit to be King. King Hussein had numerous wives and many children. His goal of keeping peace between Jordan and the neighboring countries was accomplished, and King Hussein was known as a peacekeeper. His life was never far from the brink of disaster. He was the master of survival, escaping many assassination attempts at the same time facing a political crisis. He had many loves: fast cars, classic guns, and beautiful women. His life was so very important that it must be made into a movie.

King Hussein was one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen. He was a precious source of stability and peace in a particularly unpredictable region of the world, the Middle East. His whole life would be a great movie of his struggles and accomplishments as leader of Jordan. His life was very important in the lives of his peoples and the peoples of neighboring countries. King Hussein was very well respect as to give a eulogy at the funeral of the former prime minister of Yitzhak Rabin. His life was peacefully ended in 1999 due to his cancer, but even in his final days at the Mayo Clinic, he contributed to the peace process by a televised appearance at the Wye meeting. No one could write a script as interesting and exciting like the life of King Hussein. The movie would give great respect to such an extraordinary leader of the Middle East.

Hoping to improve my knowledge of Middle Eatsern history and politics, as well as find out more about this fascinating man, I tried Dallas's book. It was fast-paced, dynamic, gripping and very revealing. I highly reccommend it.

The Wayward Knights ends the one of the more misnamed series of fantasy books. In the fourth book chronicling the adventures of Sir Pirvan, a Solamnic knight who started out as a thief, there are two threads of development in the tale.

One is of Sir Pirvan's adventure to discover and eliminate the threat on Suivinari island which menaced human and minotaur sailors who had a rare, mutual, if unspoken, agreement, to share the island as a replenishing station for their ships.

The other thread involves Gerik, son of Pirvan, who had to defend their home, Tirabot Manor, against minions of the kingpriest who would like to eliminate those who practiced true virtues instead of paying lip service.

The book went through many events without giving a proper account of events and background. Instead, the narration is given through eyewitness accounts of the characters but very little explanation of what the character thinks and knows and thereby how they came to the conclusions they made. This is a maddening pattern. People unfamiliar with the world of Krynn would be unable to follow the book at all. This applies to all four books.

The reason why I described the titles of the series as misnamed is because little so far had been given to provide insight to the workings of the Knights. Instead, each adventure becomes like a process in gaining experience points to promote the lead character up the ranks of the Knight, without giving a proper account of the Order, the Measure and the Oath. The writer's way of addressing the Measure and the Oath, the central tenet of the knighthood, became merely a conceptualisation of the experiences of Sir Pirvan. What is wrong with this is it cheated the readers from actually learning about the Order itself, which is what should be expected, given the titles of the book.

Even the last title, the Wayward Knights, was not truly reflected by the story contained; there is little sense that the knights mentioned had really been wayward.

There is actually little wrong with the story as a fantasy tale, but when a series of book had the Knights of the Crown, Knights of the Sword, Knight of the Rose and the Wayward Knights as their title, I expect to be shown more about a knight making his way through the Order, dealing with more people within the Order, rather than merely setting off on quests. The series reflected little of learning of loyalty associated with Knights of the Crown, little of how valour is associated with Knights of the Sword, little of how justice and wisdom is associated with Knights of the Rose, and how Habbakkuk, Kiri-Jolith and Paladine are honoured and modeled after.

Furthermore, higher level ranking Knights of the Sword and Rose have at their disposal certain spells which they should have been utilising. After all, this is pre-Cataclysmic Krynn.

I found this exciting and fast-paced. The descriptions were vivid. This is every bit as good as Mr. Green's Conan books. Maybe better.

After reading the first thre Knights books, I was not really looking forward to reading this book. But even after reading the first hundred pages, I knew it was much better than the others. It certainly described a lot about krynn and not just Istar like the other books, and was a really good book. I would recomend it to any reader.

This is a very good book. It helps you understand the movie better because it explains some of the things that were unclear in the movie. If you liked the film, you'll like the book.

The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! Well actually they aren't, but that is the concept of the book Independence Day based on the blockbuster film of the same name. The book was written by Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin the team who wrote the screenplay, as well as Stephen Rmolstad. The premise of the story is that on July 2, 1996 a strange phenomena begin to appear over major cities in the world. The phenomena begin to cause worldwide panic and wonder about our unknown visitors. And now the fun begins. This book has great detail and paints stunning visuals to the reader. The authors descriptions get you to believe how real this could be. When the phenonema begin appearing there is a weird disturbance in the satellite systems. Soon thereafter it is discovered that the signal is really a countdown, and when the countdown ends, you guessed it, the aliens attack. This book is fun from beginning to end. A thrill and pure enjoyment to read, I would recommend this book to any fan of the Sci-fi genre. A sort of "War Of The Worlds" for the 90's, "Independence Day" will deliver the goods in an explosive way. By Matt Crandall

If you saw the movie, the book is just as good. Reading it breaks down the whole plot and theme to the movie. I like it because I was able to focus on all problems that occured. It also makes you wonder if we really are alone in the universe. I recommend Independence Day to anyone who likes action, adventure and surprise.