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Its authors caveat is that "science can only operate as a work in progress without perfect knowledge, and we much therefore leave a great deal out from ignorance --- especially in a historical field like paleontology, where we must work with the strictly limited evidence of a very imperfect fossil record." It's that fossil record, that the book presumes is accurate in its layer-by-layer record through time, that requires scrutiny. The oldest fossils are found in the bottom layers and the youngest in the top layers of rock, but little or no evidence is presented to provide skeptical readers information they can decipher for themselves as to the accuracy of fossil dating by rock layers. Are we to believe, without exception, that the fossil record is progressive from bottom to top? What about fossilized trees that protrude through millions of years of time? They are conveniently omitted. Michael Benton of England's Bristol University, one of the book's contributors, says "All the periods in the geological time scale receive their names in recognition of obvious changes in the fossil record." Yet, to the contrary, Benton adds, "the history of Earth's crust has been far too violent to preserve much more than a random sample."
Its general editor, Stephen Jay Gould, is magnanimous in his promotion of a single theory of man's origins, from monkeys he and most other fossil hunters say.
There may be missing pieces to the paleontological puzzle, but the bone diggers cliam they have finally filled in the evolutional blanks and can conclusively attest to the idea that life evolved from simpler single-celled organisms into modern man. The book's most ardent opponents are taken head on by Gould: "The lack of fossil intermediates had often been cited by creationists as a supposedly prime example for their contention that intermediate forms not only haven't been found in the fossil record but can even be conceived." But Gould holds a trump card. He says: "a lovely series of intermediary steps have now been found in rocks.... in Pakistan. This elegant series, giving lie to the creationist claims, includes the almost perfectly intermediate Ambulocetus (literally, the walking whale), a form with substantial rear legs to complement the front legs already known from many fossil whales, and clearly well adapted both for swimming and for adequate, if limited, movement on land." Oddly, the book never shows a drawing of Ambulocetus, but does have an illustration of a skeleton of a 400-million year old fish with a small underside fin bone the authors claim "must have evolved" into legs in four-legged animals. Man's imagination is not found wanting here. Out of millions of fossils collected and stored in museums, is Ambulocetus the main piece of evidence for evolutionary theory?
Richard Benton says that Charles Darwin had hoped the fossil record would eventually confirm his theory of evolution, but "this has not happened," says Benton. Darwin hoped newly-discovered fossils would connect the dots into a clear evolutionary pattern. The book attempts to do that with its fictional drawings of apes evolving into pre-humans (hominids) and then modern man. Yet the book is not without contradictions. It says: "It remains uncertain whether chimpanzees are more closely related to modern humans or to the gorilla."
The horse is shown as evolving from a small, four-toed to a large one-toed animal over millions of years. There are different varieties of horses, yet there is no evidence that a horse ever evolved from another lower form of animal, nor that horses evolved into any other form of animal.
Another evolutionary puzzle that goes unexplained in the book is the pollination of flowers. How did bees and flowers arrive simultaneously in nature? What directed the appearance of one separate kingdom of life (insects) with that of another?
The book describes 6 1/2-foot millipedes and dragonflies with the wing span of a seagull, but gives no explanation for them. Life was unusual in the past and not all forms fit evolutionary patterns. Consider the popular supposition that life evolved from the sea onto land. That would make more advanced forms of intelligence land bearing. But the aquatic dolphins defy that model, since they are among the smartest mammals.
The book maintains an "out of Africa" scenario for the geographical origins of man, but recent fossil finds in Australia challenge that theory and even the book's authors admit that "a single new skull in an unexpected time or place could still rewrite the primate story." Consider Java man (Homo erectus), once considered the "missing link" and dated at 1.8 million years old. Modern dating methods now estimate Java man to be no more than 50,000 years of age, a fact that was omitted from this text.
Creativity, invention and language are brought out as unique human characteristics. Yet the true uniqueness of man is not emphasized. Humans biologically stand apart from animals in so many ways. Humans can be tickled whereas animals cannot. Humans shed emotional tears, animals do not. The book does not dare venture beyond structure and function, beyond cells and DNA, to ask the question posed by philosophers --- does man have a soul? The Bible speaks of a soul 533 times, this "book of life," not once.
Gould's temple is science. He calls the scientific method "that infallible guide to empirical truth." Science works by elimination. It can only work from experiment to experiment, eliminating what is not true. It can say what is probable, it can never say what is true. Gould appears to begrudge the shackles of science by stepping outside its boundaries in overstating what it can accomplish. Whereas creationists await the day they will stand in judgment before God, for the evolutionists Gould says "Someday, perhaps, we shall me our ancestors face to face." Imagine, standing there looking at a man-like monkey skeleton.
One cannot fault the flaws in this book. After all, it was written by highly evolved apes.


And please don't buy some creationists' claims that this is science fiction. The contents of this book is based on material from thousands of scientific articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as "Nature" and "Science", representing the fruits of the hard labour of paleontologists from all over the world. And the fossil record, even if it is convincing in itself, is far from the only support for evolution. Independent evidence for evolution can also be found in biogeography, development, molecular analyses (gene DNA, junk DNA, mtDNA etc), anatomical analyses, and even field observations of new species evolving. This large amount of evidence is why evolution is considered an established and undisputable fact. Of course, if one rather than facts wants comic book fantasies such as humans coexisting with dinosaurs and evil scientists conspiring to hide the truth, then one should look for creationist books instead. Or comic books.



Surely plant (and other) systematics bear on a traditional use of systems which have inherent flaws, given the tremendous diversity os species (or whatever you can call the final taxa) they deal with. The limitations of a patchy fossil record render phylogenetic approaches, however tempting their confection may be for a plant scientist in his search of a broader understanding, a kind of Nirvana that can never be completely conquered. We can know with some accuracy how long ago currently fossilized plants lived, but anyone familiar with the concept of convergence can hardly attribute affinities to a leaf imprint not attached to a flower or vice versa. Oddly enough, some of these concerns are addressed in Chapter 1 of the book, which is not consistent with the classification system proposed [since a large number of smaller but very important families was left out].
On p. 3 the book addresses the theory-neutral approach and clearly states it's intent to go further - into Phylogenetic interpretations. Conversely the most exhaustive numeric study of all species in a single extant genus, using all characters one can securely split into states, will shed light on their similarities, providing just another elegant and often valuable way to organize data, such as a cladogram. Distinguishing similarities reflecting true affinities from those brought about by convergence remains a cumbersome task which shall always rely on traditional methods.
The comment on p. 6 says: "We do not know the actual phylogeny of any nontrivial group of organisms [what would a trivial one be?], but instead must infer phylogenies from the data available to us." I have trouble agreeing with this point of view, since available data is admittedly patchy and often inconsistent. Paths in the true cladogram of evolution can not be retraced based on assumptions. We only have access to the dense upper surface of the crown, while the gross remainder of the tree's branches and trunk are obstructed from view. No matter from which angle one looks at it, Phylogeny draws on a generous dose of guesswork. On the practical purpose of classification, I cannot but paraphrase CRONQUIST (1988:12), one of the traditional taxonomists excommunicated in this book: "In taxonomy, consistency must always be secondary to the primary objective of recognizing natural groups on the basis of all available information".
Fitting the entire universe of traditional knowledge and current advances of plant systematics into a comprehensive book for students at any level poses obvious problems: How does one cope with limited space to organize the maelstrom of data? Our minds need to create categories in order to control storage and retreival of information. Obviously some omitting is inevitable, but at least the general idea of diversity must come across. In that sense I am especially intrigued by the comment by Michael Donoghue in the foreword "Students will readily appreciate the desirability of abandoning ranks altogether."
Following one of the modern trends, some groups of plants in the book's system, (for ex. used for Orchids in Dahlgren's treatment) are named using formal taxonomic rank, while other are not. If a group is recognized as separate, why not give it a rank? One inherent function of ranks is providing a common language - the only method of sharing knowledge currently used by humans. It must be recognized that the way in which ranks are currently applied is not problem-free: why must there be a defined number of them, let's say, between family and species? Rather than eliminating ranks, we should create new ways to apply them and see them.
No matter how deeply modern views have shifted, we can never entirely erase nor replace the results presented in old publications. Students need to know and understand important footsteps in 2 centuries of botanical investigation, which have paved the way toward current advances. We can now add new characters from an arsenal of chemical and mollecular data, ecological observations and a substantially improved matrix of geographic data. Regardless of academic rank, we are all students with a mission to discover and organize information and convey knowledge, not to ignore, misplace or ommit data. How can a student fit families like the Acanthochlamydaceae, Acoraceae, Boryaceae, Burmanniaceae, Corsiaceae, Costaceae, Didieraceae, Epacridaceae, Lemnaceae, Velloziaceae or Xyridaceae into such a system, when they are not even in the alphabetical index?
A good system must account for every component as best it can. Misplacing taxa (implicitly considered the most common flaw of traditional classifications) is still better than making-believe that odd parts don't exist. The argument of producing a textbook for undergraduate courses does not justify the omission of important plant families. Students deserve to start out at least with a complete set of families and the tools to recognize them. Even a great job of organizing a mere subset of information has very limited practical value, especially if Phylogeny is one of its main goals. Some of the smaller families which were left out are very important from both the taxonomic and the phytogeographic perspectives. Despite some hardships such as dichotomic keys starting with presence or absence of betalains, Cronquist's system remains the most recent comprehensive reference guide to the diversity of flowering plant families, simple enough to be used at the undergraduate level.
Though data from modern sources, such as molecular and chemical, are used in the introductory chapters, it is not quite clear how this data was usen in confecting the classification by JUDD et al., and there is no way of knowing whether the new system proposed shall hold its consistency after all omitted families of vascular plants are included in the data.

In some ways the book has not changed. It very much looks the same since the same illustrations were used. It still has only limited usefulness as a systembook in that coverage is far from complete. The appendix on "Botanical nomenclature" is still a soft spot. Not only is the (badly) erroneous bit on the naming of cultivated plants still there, but the slanted view of the ICBN has worsened (the ICBN even being called "Linnaean" in a bit of blatant forgery of history) and the PhyloCode is plugged.
Nevertheless the times they are achanging, and those desiring to change with the times will find the second edition a work they need to be familiar with.




Overall, I was very disappointed in this book.

The book begins with devastating attacks being carried out on Federation colonies. At first the only point of the attacks appears to be the destruction of Federation sites. However, after a great deal of investigation, the purpose turns out to be much more sinister. The Enterprise engages the raiders and just manages to defeat them after learning of their origins.
This is one of the better books in the Star Trek series and I found it difficult to put it down.

As Kirk and crew, minus Uhura, speed off to save another Federation world suffering from an unknown space attack, only to find the worlds completely devastated. Ready adventure is apparent when the attacking fleet severly damages the Enterprise and make their escape.
But, Spock finds something of great interest that could make a difference in the fate of the Federation, let alone the Enterprise. Uhura is on a mission of her own... making this a two story adventure... working the plots of these stories together, the readers get a better picture of the adventure.
This is solid classic TREK told well and written to keep your interest with an ending only found in the TREK universe.

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A new case uncovers buried bones from 20 years ago. And Bosch can't shake the story the bones of the 12-year-old boy are trying to tell.
The bones reveal heavy abuse. A brutal death. An abbreviated life that may have been better off dead after all.
While the mystery behind the bones starts to unravel, new obstacles begin to block the case's progression. In the middle of it all, Bosch finds himself falling for a rookie cop.
As Bosch and his partner try to solve the case, what seems to be a routine procedure goes terribly wrong. Bosch's career is in trouble, his personal life is in turmoil and he's rocketing toward a decision that will affect the rest of his life.
Whether you're a hard-core Harry Bosch fan or just starting to read about this detective's all-too-human daily life, "City of Bones" is an excellent chronicle with a compelling plot and well-developed characters.

This time detective Harry Bosch faces off with a child murderer, a killer who has remained on the loose for nearly two decades. Once a dog uncovers what appears to be a human bone in the woods of Hollywood Hills, Bosch is called. It takes the savvy sleuth only a glance to realize this is a child's arm bone.
Once the media spreads the word Laurel Canyon is crawling with police, amateur crime solvers, the curious, reporters, and (true to Connelly form) a gorgeous young police officer whom Harry takes under his wing in more ways than one.
As additional remains are unearthed Bosch determines the bones are those of a long dead abused boy. Obviously, there's a killer out there who believes he's home free, and Bosch is haunted by black images of his own childhood. The pressure is mounting and it's all on Bosch.
Few can bring to life the components of a police investigation as capably and thoroughly as former crime reporter Connelly. Authenticity and rapid fire action make "City Of Bones" another can't-put-it-down read.
- Gail Cooke

"City of Bones" is the old Michael Connelly and the old Harry Bosch - a hard-boiled LA homicide detective who plays by his own rules but gets the job done. In this book, Bosch is called out to investigate the discovery of skeletal remains buried in a wooded area some twenty years previously. As usual, he runs into the usual bureaucratic frustrations as the top brass fear that another "cold case" will do further damage to the reputation of the LAPD. Connelly guides the story through a number of complex plot twists, creating suspects and then despatching them and leaving the reader wondering where things will end up. The writing is well crafted, the character development very good and the plot leaves you guessing right up until the very end. He also injects the right amount of "police procedural" - the paperwork, the internal investigations, the politics - into the plot to give the book the realism for which he is known.
The book is every bit a "page-turner" and I ploughed through it in a single day, staying up into the wee hours to finish it off. The lack of sleep was worth it - Connelly has crafted an excellent book. In many ways he has returned to the old Harry Bosch - no gimmicks, no "tie-ins", just plain old good quality, hard-boiled detective fiction. Let's just hope that Connelly sticks to the format because, if so, we've got a lot to look forward to.
Michael Connelly is back on form and has produced a 5 star crime novel as a result.



Finally I spent another buck to get an (almost as inexpensive) edition (used) - the Signet edition edited by Burto. That helped a lot - with definitions of terms and hints about lots of secret relationships possibly there for those who would dig further. At last I'm starting to figure out why this guy is considered so awesome. To really get an appreciation of Shake's heart and mind, beginners like me really need more than just the poems.
Now I'm borrowing an English major's copy of Dr. Vendler's edition (Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets). It's pretty heady, so I'm just trying to read her introduction. Whew! I haven't tested out all her theories, but is so much incredible care and complexity going on behind the scenes in these poems - it's no wonder people are still boggled after 400 years.
Truly amazing - but unless you're an English major I wouldn't recommend bothering with this doubtful dollar deed. Getting a copy of the Signet or Folger Library editions will make beginners much happier.

Of course, if you are wondering what they mean, and all that, you will have to get yourself familiar with Rowse's edition of the sonnets: A. L. Rowse: Shakespeare's Sonnets.
But once you know who the principal characters are -- Henry Wriothesley, the young Earl of Southampton, Christopher Marlowe, and Emilia Lanier -- plus young Will Shakespeare himself -- then the Dover will do fine for you and yours.
After all, this is exactly the book you could have bought on its first day of publication, four centuries ago!! :-)
ttfn
jimmy




This book is not it.
It assumes a fairly detailed basic knowledge which most 'newbies' to the Unix/Apache world just do not have. After I had learnt quite a bit about Apache (from another source) I found this book excelent to tune that knowledge. It is however, as the title 'Professional Apache' suggests, for the Professional Apache administrator. Don't get it to learn about Apache, get it when you already know quite a bit about Apache, and need to learn how to refine that knowledge and need to tweak Apache for maximum performance!
Wainwright is incredibly knowledable, but like many knowledgeable people he forgets that for the average Joe to get from A to Z he has to go via BCDE & F and can't start at UVWX & Y. This is not a criticism of Peter but rather is a criticism of the Wrox editorial staff.
I do feel that the editorial staff could, with a little intelligent effort, have helped Peter create a book that could indeed have become the 'bible' of Apache Administration.

time focussing on version 2.0 of the application.
Much of the material in this book was covered in his previous edition (Professional Apache), though the obvious
emphasis here is on Apache 2.0. However, Apache 1.3 isn't ignored and the book is still useful for anyone using
that version, as well as anyone simply migrating to 2.0.
As before, it starts with a basic overview of the HTTP protocol, TCP/IP and server hardware. These are useful for
beginners, but I'd hope that anyone thinking of running a web server would have this knowledge already.
The section on improving web server security has been expanded into its own chapter and includes plenty of useful
system security and integrity advice not peculiar to web servers, but crucial nonetheless. The chapter on
extending Apache with third-party modules has had an overhaul too, now covering the likes of WebDAV and
mod_python. mod_perl, which has changed drastically for Apache 2.0, is also covered in detail for both versions of
Apache.
I've recently built an Apache 2.0 server from scratch using nothing but this book, and apart from a couple of
typos I've found it to have covered every step of the way without coming across any errors or omissions (the index
is very good but in the May 2002 print I have some of the entries are one page out). The book is still very
Unix-centric, though there seems to be more specific information for Windows users than in the previous edition.
But then who would run Apache on Windows anyway? The author makes his views clear near the start of the book that
Unix is a preferable platform, but for the masochists there seems to be enough information to get Apache running
on Windows.
If I have any complaints it's that perhaps the chapter on monitoring Apache could have been expanded somewhat in
its description of log analysis tools. Only Analog is covered in any depth, though it is described in plenty of
detail from installation to configuration and is arguably the most useful analyser out there anyway.
Professional Apache 2.0 isn't a bed-time read, but it's an excellent tutorial and reference for the Apache
administrator and far more useful than the online documentation. If you are planning to install or run Apache,
then I highly recommend this book.

Although Apache changed a great deal in its version 2.0, it is a credit to the Apache folk that the config files and command line options have basically remained the same for sys admins. For this reason, the book seems to include a lot of material (CGI security, building, core modules) from the original book. However, a closer look reveals many changes. Almost every chapter includes a discussion about how features differ in both versions of Apache. The book does a good job of giving an overview of Apache's architectural changes and how the use of multi-processing modules (MPM) allow the admin to choose an optimal implementation of apache. This edition, noticeably bigger than the previous one, contains many more examples of how one can extend apache functionality (configuring for binary distribution, setting up virtual interfaces, load sharing). Many sections have been expanded. The discussion of security and SSL is more detailed, yet more succinct; so is the section on content negotiation, (which is twice as long as the previous book), doing proxy server configurations, rsync and benchmarking performance. The discussion on hardening the server was great and up-to-date, although I wish the book spent more time discussing on patching and upgrading.
What is new to the book? We find a longer discussion of graphic administration tools for Windows and Unix, including webmin (which actually I wanted more of). We also have discussions of newer modules such as mod_ruby, mod_python, mod_dav as well as a brief description on how to install tomcat alongside apache. The discussion of mod_dav was especially helpful and interesting to me (and I was especially glad that the author acknowledged the Subversion DAV module, something which is bound to become more important). The php stuff hasn't changed much (although at the time the book was published, 2.0 compatibility with PHP was still an iffy proposition). The book's discussion of mod_perl isn't significantly different, although it does point out migration issues and some additional features.
Generally, the book is clearly written and contains enough examples to find any configuration you want. A few parts required rereading (especially the part about proxies and proxypasses), and occasionally I needed a better explanation of what the example code was supposed to do.
No book can be everything for everybody, and nobody can accuse the book of not having enough content (it is after all more than 700 pages!). I found myself wishing for other things. The book briefly discussed 2.0's support for ipv6, but I longed for a fuller explanation and a more detailed example (Fortunately, I had seen a good ipv6 tutorial on Linux Journal ). Also, I would have liked more information about other web application servers (like zope that Apache sometimes coexists with, content frameworks (such as cocoon) and other goodies produced by the Apache Foundation. The author might legitimately feel that such subjects lie outside the book's scope, but such topics are becoming more important.
In summary: for newbies who are looking for a guide to start with: this is the definitive book to read. It's definitive and a little imposing, but it is well written and logically arranged.
For people already familiar with Apache 1.3 but looking for more depth about ipv6, php, content frameworks or Tomcat, it might be better to read books on those specific subjects instead of this one. Indeed, Wrox will soon be coming out with a book specifically on Apache and Tomcat.
For experienced system administrators, the material in this book may not be terribly new, but they will still appreciate the variety of configuration examples for managing large numbers of virtual hosts and the convenience of having documentation of the 1.3/2.0 differences at their fingertips.





This was one of Crichton's first books, and the profit off this one sent him through medical school. The book is full of medical terms and has a lot of footnotes that make you constantly have to move up and down pages. Although this isn't Crichton's best, I didn't even use a bookmark because I never put it down.

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