This book provides a very very good overview of fossils in all categories -dinosaur, reptiles, sharks, mammals, ferns, problematica, etc.

Nicely done with a very good color image of a representative fossil, as well as classification, a drawing of what the animal would look like, and typical size. This is true for every specimen.

Certainly depth of information is limited, however is still represented in small descriptions of habitat, locale, feeding habits, and occasionally quips of special interest.

Drawback is simply that more dinosaurs, reptiles, mammals could be represented. An inordinate amount of specimens are mollusks, snails etc.

However, again this book still does a good job of showing the many types of specimens in the fossil record which does grow on you.

A more extensive library of possible fossils could have been optioned to show a more choice fossil selection in some cases.

Good amount of information (concisely represented), with images and drawings very professionally done.

A larger, more in depth hardcover edition would be welcome.

This book is a very nice introduction if you already have some notions of QFT. It can happily supplement Lowell Brown's book for instance. Its main characteristics is conciseness, it goes straight to the point, in the minimum expenditure of time and effort, without sacrifying mathematical correctness. Unfortunately some important topics are almost absent from the book, such as Ward identities, or infrared divergences. But the book remains self-contained despite this.

This book is made up of 18 independent chapters. Each chapters contain a detailed account of the theories and technics on the liquid-liquid interface, e.g. solvation, kinetics of charge transfer, SHG, and ISE, and epecially deals with the theoritical aspects of them. For students, it is a little difficult to understand the essential nature of the interfacial chemstry. Because one chapter has only 20 pages on the average in the book.

When we get annoyed at Solzhenitsyn's lack of insight in contemporary politics (for instance, when he applauds the Russian intervention in Chechnya), we can turn back to his depictions of life in the Soviet work camps and delight in the fact that he used to be different (when the ruling was an enemy suiting his conservative and slavophile ideas, as one is tempted to add).

'The Love-Girl and the Innocent' is a brilliant play about the inhuman world of the camps, that have their own rules, and where nothing of the world outside matters. The 'Innocent' is a newly arrived prisoner, who still bears idealism and is reluctant to adopt the camp techniques of survival. His love for Lyuba, one of the many women forced by circumstances to sell themselves for privileges and rations, tempts him to compromise with himself and betray his moral and emotional loyalties.

This biography explained the life of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. This book explains his life from birth and his family, to the marriage and his influence in the war. It explained how the general was the leader of the Confederacy. The book also explains the Civil War so that it is easy for the kids to understand. In the book there are also great pictures that mildly display war along with quotes ad images from that time period.
The author did a wonderful job displaying the war and allowing children to understand the concept on a very neutral level. I also liked the outline at the end of the book on his life. It helped children really visualize the order of events.
I like this book for all the above reasons also for the ease of reading. I found it so easy to understand and I think that this book will allow the children to gain interest into biographies and the war. Maybe even lead them into reading all Adler's other biographies.

This novel is well written. Reading it is a joy.

This seems to be almost entirely based on American research and American armed forces Joint Vision 2020 statements. As such it's useful for but also limited to the official American view. As a result there's at best limited discussion of
- longterm operations
- requirements imposed by operations amid a civilian population, possibly ours or allied civilians, with lots of media attention probable and likely no war declared
- what actual training, logistics, and joint command structures are needed, ie everything needed to actually use the weapons described
- defeating opponents who may not be states or who have systems as much or more advanced
or anything else not currently focused on by the JV 2020 statements.

I found the flashpoint background an inadequately-informed U.S.-centric view. Calling Iran part of the Arab world would infuriate Iranians and Arabs alike. Given a choice, both North and South Koreans would -much- rather chart their own path since historically both China and Japan have treated Korea very badly. I could go on but that's hopefully enough.

Sorry, but I found this to be gee-whiz tech with minimal analysis and context. It's only somewhat useful for noting some more conventional American technologies.

showing you what may be in the future. It deals with new aircraft designs, robots and drones, new armor, ships, computer-linked information networks and the war-in-space. But while interesting, I think it does not deal with the real issue, which is America's willingness, or lack of it, to get down and dirty in dealing with the many flashpoints and trouble spots in the world, either with brand-new weapons or old fashion ones.

"You are tomorrow's soldier. You will play your part in the next major war America will wage." From these opening lines of Tomorrow's Soldier, David Alexander's excellent book on 21st century warfare, the author builds on this theme in a series of eight carefully researched and well-written chapters on combat in the combined arms battlespace of near-future conflicts.

Sometimes in clear and concise descriptions of complex weapons systems such as stealth aircraft, main battle tanks and nuclear submarines, at other times in fast-paced narrative that reads like the best fiction, Alexander shows how the warfighters of tomorrow will interact with the weaponry, battlefield communications, and other combatants on the killing grounds of the new century.

"Probably it will be a regional war, one involving an aggressor state challenging the strategic interests of America and her global allies," the author writes. "Also probable is that it will be another coalition war, similar to Desert Storm. Similar ... but in many ways very different." Alexander predicts, for example, that unlike the Gulf War, tomorrow's war might involve sizable numbers of friendly casualties and the disappearance of the "home front." "The front lines of tomorrow's war could expand to include the continental U.S.," Alexander writes, "and everyone could become a combatant" to some extent. By this he explains that while the next war might be regional in theater, it could be global in scope, because rogue states now have access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and have demonstrated a willingness to use terrorism to carry the fight far from the immediate war zone.

The book's eight chapters offer a description of high-technology as applied to the combined arms battlefield written in plain language that is easily understandable by any reader, and glossaries of military terms and acronyms have been included to familiarize those unacquainted with the finer points of that Washington Beltway language called "Pentagonese."

Chapter one, War: Past, Present and Future, is a concise description of the history of modern warfare. Chapter two, Flashpoints to Future War, goes into likely places where war may break out (note: since the book's appearance, Alexander's predictions concerning fighting in the Balkans and in the Caucasus have become reality). Chapter three, Warzones and Weaponry 2010, offers an overview of major combat systems from the "digitized G.I." to robotic reconnaissance aircraft. Chapter four, Synthetic Battlespace, deals with virtual reality in combat. Chapter five, Land Warfighting 2010, discusses future land battle, including some excellent writing on hypertanks and mechanized systems. Chapter six, Tacair 2010, is a comprehensive look at high-tech combat aviation systems, including the Joint Strike Fighter, the F117A Nighthawk and the B-2 Spirit bomber. Chapter seven, From the Sea, is an informative chapter on surface and undersea naval warfare. The final chapter, War Beyond Tomorrow, which deals with such esoteric subjects as weapons of mass destruction, information warfare, robotic assault systems and war in space, concludes the book.

As everyone who follows current events knows, a revolution in military technology has taken place. This exceptional book takes you into the secret world of military warplanners, counter-terrorist specialists and high-technology weapons labs to make clear exactly what the "digital" in digital warfare really means, and what tomorrow's war could mean to you.

--Mike Dockweiler, Military Systems Analyst and Pentagon Consultant

This book describes how an invasive alga was released into the Mediterranean and details the political story of why it was allowed to spread. The alga, caulerpa taxiflora, was first discovered growing under the windows of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco in 1989. When Meinesz saw the alga, he approached the director of the museum and was told that the alga, being tropical in nature, would never survive the winter. However, it did indeed survive the winter, flourished, and over the next few years spread beyond Monaco to the coast of France, Spain, and as far away as Croatia.

Although one section of the appendix describes the biology of the alga, the vast majority of the book is devoted to documenting the various political battles that the author fought to try to convince the authorities to take action against the spread of the alga. Some of the behind-the-scenes tales of how the academic publishing establishment works were quite illuminating. After reading this book, I will also be rather skeptical when I come across scientific articles in the popular press, especially newspapers, since Meinesz points out how often reporters got the details wrong or pulled other facts out of context. When I picked up this book, I was more interested in learning the scientific and environmental implications of an invasive species, but that's not the focus of this book.

This book should wake up anyone who still believes that clear scientific truth will automatically change the way that governments make decisions. Consider it the ocean-side equivalent of Halberstam's classic "The Best and the Brightest." and an excellent complement to Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly". Dr. Meinesz was among the few and leading French scientific voices who saw and, what's more, cared about the epidemic spread of a tropical green algae along the world's most expensive coastline - the Riviera. He shows how the famous Oceanographic Museum at Monaco not only caused the problem with its careless handling of an exotic species but how the Director's disinformation cover-up campaign spread faster than the noxious seaweed itself. And it did not help that this environmental mayhem was started under the watch of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau (the preceding museum director). One of the most striking things one learns is how diverse and complex -- and ultimately useless -- the French bureaucracy is, that is supposed to be protecting their coastlines and marine environments. A scary story that might have done better with a more carefully chosen title!

The author does not try to convince the reader of the ecological threat that the algae imposes. That is now obviouse. He recounts the politics involved with this ecological crisis. There is a historical record of a failure in a system composed of government officials and agencies, and reputable scientific circles. First, the governmental agencies failed to recognize the problem. The "wait and see" attitude that is described shows a certain apathy or indolence of bureaucratic agencies. There is a failure in the practic of science to report ideas with the proper rigor. Both the author and his opponants make mistakes that exacerbate a pseudo-scientific debate, causing confusion in the news media. The unfortunate result is a crisis spiraling out of controll. In the last section "the lessons of Caulerpa" he explains his opinions on why the failure in the system occured. I don't necessarily agree with his views, but it is an interesting critique of the current politics of biological science.

As an advanced programmer, I must say that I'm disappointed that the level of information provided is not as deep and meticulous as I had hoped.

Additionally, both the index and the overall organization of the book leave much to be desired.

The book, however, is a valuable reference for beginning and intermediate programmers. It explains the STL (Standard Template Library) from the ground up, explaining when, where, and why you would use any particular aspect of the STL, how to use the STL, and sufficient examples to understand correct syntax. This book also contains a detailed section of applying the STL to real-life programming examples. Furthermore, the book also contains a comprehensive reference guide for quick and easy access to pertinent information about STL aspects you frequently use and modestly comprehend.

If you are a beginning or intermediate programmer, this book is worth adding to your collection.

John's reviews are interesting. While I agree with many of the points he makes, I disagree with some. And I found a few to be self-contradictory.

He says, for instance, that "This is a good solid book that will get you up to speed quickly on all the important ideas in STL, and many of its basic usage idioms", but then naievely claims that "there aren't any higher level ideas than those presented here". Does the book cover only basic concepts, or is it that if the book doesn't cover it, it is not knowledge?

The book is full of concrete examples. But my problem was that they were trivial. Reversing or sorting or finding characters within a string is great fun. But it doesn't help me understand who owns the memory within a container. Or how to directly and safely reference an element at an arbitrary position within a container outside of an iteration loop. A majority of the examples use trivial intrinsic datatypes for contained elements; how is using a struct or class different?

All of those issues are important aspects of using the library, and not something I think a busy reader should leave to "a little imagination". While most of the disputed facts are eventually available in the text, they're not easy to find. The organization of the book isn't quite intuitive enough to make it a thoughtful reference or a breezy tutorial.

And, in many cases, once found, they're not clear. John cited page 151 for an explanation of the differences between some of the collections. There, it says "With maps an multimaps, the data items are pairs of keys and data of some other type..." What's that mean? Two keys and data of some other type? Or a key and data of some other type? Does "pairs" mean "two", or an instance of the "pairs" utility class?

The book really is missing information. None of the examples do any error checking whatsoever, and the exceptions that the templates throw aren't described. (Maybe, like priority queues, error handling was formalized after the book went to press. It is showing its age, and there's now a 2nd edition. I haven't purchased it.)

It's ambitious to write a book that tries to serve as both a tutorial and the reference. (Me, I think it's just impossible.) This book does very well, but falls short of adequately completing either goal.

I think that there's a bias against this book because it doesn't fit well with the way these reviewers would have liked to learn the subject at hand. I know that's where I landed. While true masters do indeed make it look simple, making it look simple doesn't help learning. Otherwise, we could all watch Tiger Woods for a few Sundays before taking home a Buick and a six-figure check.

I'm astonished by the abundance of IMO very ignorant reviews of this book. 4.5 stars might be the ideal rating, but given all the other excessively negative reviews, I opted for 5 rather than 4.

This is a lucid, very well-written book, with plenty of sage advice. It introduces the concepts gently, but without excessive redundancy or hand-holding. The examples are well chosen, and illustrate their points (although in some places, there is a bit much duplication for my taste, but that too serves to illustrate the uniformity of STL). This book is clear, to the point, and covers most of the essential subjects amply (it's s bit weak on storage management, but as the authors mention, rarely will you need to write your own allocators). And it includes a minimal - but perfectly functional and adequate - reference section. The presentation is well organized, and procedes at a moderate pace.

As one who has written a couple data structure libraries of his own, and who has taken to heart (in spite of C++ being a mess of a language, and templates being fundamentally a kludge) the sophistication of STL, I can safely say it incorporates many ideas that other programmers need to know, and probably do not appreciate fully. This book does a good job explaining some of the deeper motivations behind STL's design. As they say, a true master makes it look simple, and that's what both the authors of STL and this book achieve.

It is true that the book is slightly out of date, but not with regard to the fundamentals. All of the key ideas you learn from this book apply to the latest revisions and any programmer worth his weight in, uh, salt can easily figure out the minor differences.

I recommend this book to those who like insight, and succinct clarity, and who eschew the typical computer book, full of facts, hype, and verbosity, but little illumination, progressing by baby steps. This is a good solid book that will get you up to speed quickly on all the important ideas in STL, and many of its basic usage idioms.

DC and Dark Horse Comics put out the worst crossover stories on the comic book market. In Superman/Aliens, The Man of Steel was de-powered somewhat to make the battle with the Aliens more even sided, but it made for predictable reading. Same story here where yet another alien virus is de-powering Superman and making him an easy target for the Predator. I tell you, they do not even try to be original anymore. They have two pages of dialoge then jump right into the fighting and it's not over until a last minute trick of restored power takes over, and Superman is his powerful old self again, thus the Predator is history, and this is what happens here. I think both DC and Dark Horse Comics are perfect for each other. They both put out really bad comics.

How can a predator have any hope against the man of steel? Give superman an alien virus that is not-so-slowly draining his powers.

In this story Superman and the stars team are researching a mysterious alien ship discovered in central america. Only one man with his own secrets has any idea of who the pilot is.
However, a mad scientist steals the energy core, planning to use it to carry out genocide of global proportions.

A classic superman story.

However, things turn ugly when superman catches a space bug and the ship turns out to be a predator ship. A buddy of the deceased pilot shows up, wanting the core back. Things quickly escalate as a traitor turns up, and the predator sets his sights on the strongest of prey, superman.