This books just provide you with everything you want to know about VB5.0. It is so useful!

overall, i thought this was a good book to read about the proper strategies for the weatherlight deck cards. I'm an avid magic card player and i own portal subset besides weatherlight subset. This book was useful in instruction on building contructed or limited deck formats and gave excellent information on certain cards for certain environments. Plus the artwork was great!

In 1850, Eric Jansson of Sweden, a charismatic leader confident in his divine mission, led some 1,200 followers to the United States, marking the beginning of the exodus of emigrants from Sweden to North America. This book tells Jansson's story, from his birth in Biskopskulla, through his receiving his diving mandate, his conflict with the Lutheran state-church, his emigration to the United States, and his eventual death. Along the way, Paul Elmen, a Professor of Moral Theology at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, looks at Jansson's theology and its roots, what made conflict between it and Swedish Lutheranism inevitable, and how it differed from Wesleyan theology.

If you are interested in Eric Jansson, or the commune he formed at Bishop Hill, Illinois, USA, then you really must read this book. It covers Eric Jansson's life in greater detail than I have ever seen it covered. Also, Professor Elmen's examination of Jansson's theology was quite fascinating, and gave me a greater understanding of what he and his followers believed. Overall, I thought that this was an excellent book on Eric Jansson, one that I highly recommend.

The book is great for young experimenters. Easy to follow instructions and clever writing get kids into the 'science is fun' mindset. The 'Food for thought' section that accompanies each activity explains the science behind the activity clearly and with the right amount of detail for the intended audience. (Tested on my 10-year-old son). Each activity concludes with a 'More to chew on' section that enables kids to relate what they've observed to other examples of the same principle. Many of the activities focusing on static electricity, air pressure and buoyancy could be used for elementary school science fair projects. There is an awesome demonstration of center of gravity. Other activities deal with sense of touch, taste and smell. There are a couple of activities exploring optics. The scientific method and related concepts are introduced. The illustrations are extremely helpful in diagramming the text. Older kids (and adults) will enjoy the reading for the subtle titles like 'Stop Making Cents' and 'A Salt and Gravity'.

However one disagrees with Sartre's philosophy, his Marxism, and his anti-Americanism, it is difficult to argue against his personal involvement in what he believed in. Sartre was no pipe-smoking, arm-chair academic content to let others do his fighting. He was always there on the front-lines, perhaps bellicose in his utterings, but always visible. An issue he disagreed with never experienced-his-absence, and Sartre did not hesitate to also be a novelist-philosopher, and as such, he showed more moral courage than perhaps any 20th century philosopher. The equality of idea and action was perhaps an axiom for Sartre, and his life was definitely an empirical validation of such.

Definitely introspective to extremes, this novel, the second in his series "The Roads to Freedom", is the ultimate portrayal of life in France before the Munich Pact and the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1938. As a reader, it is easy to get trapped in the stream of consciousness approach that Sartre takes in his novel. Each character is not to be found alone, but immersed in the quagmire of panic, and for some, exhiliration, at the prospect of wartime conflict. The characters define themselves by the instant, their attitudes caught in the flux, that flux impossible to arrest, but their choices completely free nonetheless. Their individuality is sometimes robbed by the gaze of the other, but captured again by choice. Ideology has a short time scale for them.

Sartre does not really shout at the reader through his characters. But their predicament is believable. Their anxiety sometimes familiar, but they also have a perhaps hidden optimism. They know it is themselves, and no other, that determines their future history. The (burden?) of choice is with them always, and they understand fully the power of consequences. But choice works for them as well as against. This makes the appreciation of these characters easy and familiar.

This is the sequel to "The Age of Reason", and I thought it was by far the better book.

It's the story of Munich 1938, when war seemed inevitable as the crisis over Hitler's territorial demands on Czechoslovakia reached its peak. Sartre examines the feelings of a wide range of people through a time period of just over a week, feelings ranging from fear of a repeat of the 1914-1918 War, to the excitement of others who looked forward to conflict as a means of finally giving a meaning to their lives.

Sartre's technique is to skip swiftly from scene to scene, and location to location, doing so sometimes within a sentence. It takes concentration on the part of the reader to follow this, but I found it increased the pace of the story, and gave a sort of kaleidoscopic effect - conflicting and contrasting attitudes are exposed more easily, as are the differences between social classes, and even between nationalities.

The book is a damning indictment of appeasement, and of France and Britain's lack of courage in the face of the rise of fascism. But at the same time as condemning the appeasers, Sartre is sensitive enough to understand why people felt the way they did, and that includes the appeasers themselves - perhaps the appeasers too were trapped by the ambiguity of their own and their public's opinions, lacking the freedom to do what was right.

The add to the praise, the book's ending is great too.

The only thing I will comment (because I do not give away the book) is the writing style. If you are expecting "Age of Reason" part II, then you will not get what you were looking for...the writing style or mode is very different. The way the book is put together is there are many characters all in different parts of French territory in different walks of life, ages, sexes, etc. Often times when you are reading you will lose sight of where one character speaks or thinks and the next one. you will have to go line by line in the same paragraph, where a sentence ina paragraph represents a though of a different character and that character will not be identified...but you will know...but it becomes irrelevant who says or feels what because it is about the collective consciousness of french people in the midst of war...and this is the biggest success of the book is that this technique so succesful and masterfully implemented. It makes the book feel like events are happening so quickly and things are moving so fast which lends to the urgency of the situation in France. I feel like its a forrest fire...that starts with a brush and picks up momentum until its raging! There are new characters in this book and he has carried the old characters over. Please do yourself a favor and do not read the series out of order.

This book approaches a topic which deserves serious attention by scholars of international relations - much more than is happening. It approaches this topic from an interesting and rather revisionist point of view, offering the author's views and some interpretations. Yet, the study is not so subjective, and not at all substantiated by facts. All in all interesting reading, new views to talk and argue about, but nothing really new or inspiring.

Eric Paul Roorda's book is a very interesting study in how well-intentioned U.S. policy backfired. Beginning with Hoover and continuing with FDR, the U.S. tried to be a "good neighbor" to Latin American nations. In other words, the U.S. ceased to intervene at the drop of a hat. In the case of the Dominican Republic, this new policy allowed a ruthless military dictator with fascist tendencies, Rafael Trujillo, to seize power. Despite warnings from those in the know, the U.S. held fast to its non-intervention policy and allowed Trujillo to hold power for years. The book documents all of this as well as Trujillo's well-organized and continual lobbying effort to gain the approval from U.S. officials that he craved. I had thought for a long time that we should stay out of the business of other nations, but this book certainly casts doubt on the wisdom of that approach. Highly recommended.

Eric Paul Roorda gives an insightful view in the often overlooked subject of u.s. diplomatic and military relations with latin american dictators, namely that of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Through exhaustive research and excellent writing, Roorda gives a detailed account of how the dictatorship of trujillo took advantage of F.D.R's Good Neighbor Policy in order to cement complete social and politcal control upon the Dominican people. Roorda illustrated how the Good Neighbor Policy, in effect, gave tacit consent to the Trujillo regime. Another aspect of American diplomatic history that Roorda poignantly sheds light on, is the racist and prejudice attitudes of many of the American players in the game of foreign affairs. These prejudices gives the U.S. government a paternalistic view of the governments they deal with as well as the people from those nations. The Dictator Next Door is a must read for any student of Dominican history and for any reader interested in American foreign affairs under the Good Neighbor Policy.

In Choosing Schools, Schneider et al. have raised the bar in the highly-politicized academic debate over school choice and its consequences. Using survey data from two school districts in New York City and two in suburban New Jersey, the authors probe many of the familiar questions, including parent information levels, preferences and school performance.

Where the book really shines, however, is in the consideration of atypical questions, including the importance of parental information networks on the success of choice and the impact of school choice on the formation of social capital.

As Stanford professor of political science Terry Moe writes in review, Choosing Schools is a "tour de force." I encourage anyone interested in the theory underlying education policy and privatization of public goods to read this book.

In the 1990s school choice has been a highly contentious and passionately debated topic of discussion in schools, government and the popular press. There are, I am sure, more reams devoted to this subject than to violence in schoolyards. Yet, much of what is claimed to be evidence for or against school choice is colored by ideology and/or politics - not careful analysis of the causes and consequences of choice programs. And therein lies the distinction between Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools and the myriad other texts on the market today.

Utilizing information culled from hundreds of residents in four school districts (two each in New York and New Jersey) the authors of Choosing Schools furnish empirical answers to long-standing questions in the school choice debate: What do parents value in education and do parents choose schools based upon these valuations?; How much do parents really know about their children's schools?, and; Does choice increase parental involvement in the schools? Devoid of hyperbole (a downfall of many self-styled policy pundits) and underwritten by careful theorizing and analyses, the bottom-line is clear: While school choice is not the sole panacea for all that ails the educational enterprise in this day and age, it is a powerful antidote to the sluggish, generally moribund public education system in America.

Choosing Schools is, in a nutshell, exemplary social science and this well-reasoned book deserves a close read, especially by those who matter most in the school choice debate - parents, educators and politicians looking forward to the November polls.

But you need to have a few comercial plug-ins and this means spend money, instead of this you can learn many tricks other people learn with experience and time. I really don't know if the book isn't good enoght or 3D Studio is very incomplete, filling the holes with expensive IPAS.

First of all, I want to say that I'm from Sweden, so please be indulgence with my language. I've read the magnificant book of 3d Studio & Hollywood Gaming Effects. I used both 3d Studio and 3D max for the tutorials, and I was quite impressed. The book is based on examples and tutorials, made by pros'. The examples in the book are very detailed, and are understandble, even for an amateur like me. And the best thing is that, if you dont understand what they're talking about, just put in the CD-Rom (that comes with the book) find the chapter for the example, and run it. There you have it, step by step, all the exaples in the book on the CD-Rom are explained on the CD-Rom too. A book for both amateurs and proffesionals, that increase the flexibilaty you need to become a graphic artist. And even if you're using 3d Max, the examples in the book - and on the CD-Rom - works properly. Since Max and Studio are based on the same system. The examples in the books are well illustrated, and the layout makes it very easy to find and read. You learn new things every time you browse through the book. And just by watching the exapmles on the CD-Rom, you can load a project - and go through it - see for your self how it's build. And in that way learn some useful hints & tricks. A low cost educational book, that you can get useful hints & tricks from, that you cant get from anywhere else. As I said, my English is bad. I sometimes can't find a way to express my feelings in words. But it is a good book. I rated the book with a 9. Now that, is self explained. Happy rendering, Your Friend In The Jungle Of 3D.

When I first picked this book up I was expecting it to be another book on teaching the beginner how to do simple effects. I could never have been so wrong. Starting at an advanced level, the book assumes you not only have lots of experience with 3D Studio, but some additional software tools as well. Then, it shows you, in detail, how to create certain effects, all of which can be easily adapted to your scenes. Some of the effects include overlaying your animation with video so that it 'fits' together, or extended use of 'Bones Pro' and 'MetaBall Modelers'(which are plug-ins for 3D Studio) to create organic models.

For beginners, I recommend "3D Studio Special Effects/Book and Cd Rom" while this book is more for users with a solid grip on 3D Studio.

I agree with many of the reviewers below that this book was helpful and often interesting. It gives a readable orientation to one of the most important movements in the software industry today, and the editors have been fortunate to gather together so many contributors who obviously know whereof they speak. In particular, the editors' Introduction, Eric Raymond's "Brief History of Hackerdom," Richard Stallman's account of GNU and FSF, Bruce Perens's discussion of Open Source, and Tim O'Reilly's essay on "Infoware" were informative and thought-provoking.

That said, it should be noted that the Amazon reviewer above gets it wrong when she writes that the book gives a "fascinating look at the raging debate." In fact, *nothing* about Open Source is debated in this book, which is a major disappointment. As the reviewer from Princeton below notes, the goodness of everything Open Source and the badness of everything Microsoft seems to be a given for many of the writers. At the risk of criticizing the book for not being something its creators didn't intend, I think it would be greatly improved with the addition of a wider range of viewpoints and even a dissenting voice or two. (There are a number of essays that could give place to some alternate content: Eric Raymond's second essay, "The Revenge of the Hackers," leans heavily toward the self-congratulatory, as does the Netscape cheerleaders' "Story of Mozilla." And Larry Wall's "Diligence, Patience, and Humility" seems to have been included not on its own merits but on the author's reputation as the Perl Deity.)

A final wish is for the book to address a broader range of readers. As a longtime computer user but a relatively new programmer, with no formal business training, I found many of the essays to rely heavily on the jargon of hackers and MBAs. More editorial control here, in addition to a broader range of content, would make this book seem less like preaching to the choir and more effective at spreading the Open Source gospel.

First of all, take a look at the list of authors. It reads as a "Who's Who" guide for the software and tools I'm running on my current system. (Kernel by Torvalds, GNU/Free Software by Stallman, Open Source Software by a number of individuals/companies (esr, Perens), development tools by Cygnus (Tiemann), DNS by Vixie, web server by Apache (Behlendorf), CGI programming in Perl by Wall, browser by Netscape (Hamerly, Paquin), Linux Distribution by RedHat (Young), and references by O'Reilly. (Of course, there should be an "et al." behind every one of these names.)

This is a great book for achieving basic literacy in the (generically-termed) Open Source movement.

By reading this book, you'll get rms' view of why software must be free. (And indeed, why it eventually will be free.) You'll also find out how some companies (like the newly-merged RedHat/Cygnus conglomerate) can thrive in a market where the product is free.

If you read *all* of the essays, you'll even find out why the Free Software Foundation's GPL does not work in some cases, and how "Open Source Software" is similar to and differs from "Free Software". (The below reviewer should be slapped with his Clue Stick for not taking the time to read and understand this important difference. ;-)

And you'll also find out why Perl (like Larry Wall himself) is so strange and brilliant at the same time.

The reason this book only gets 4 stars is due to the lack of proofing. One of Wall's diagrams is completely missing, and there are numerous typos. This is the first O'Reilly book I've seen with a lot of stupid mistakes. (And I've seen a lot of them. =)

PKG

This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict.

Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print.

Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.