There is a lot of generic language assistance but little when it comes to specific religious terms. Joseph and Stellwagen have hit a home run with this one. A handy practical "must use" guide for the new missionary or Pastor wanting to make an impact in Japan.

This book will save the newcomer years in language school! Outstanding job gentlemen!

Even though this book was written a number of years ago I was thrilled to find phrases, ceremonies and Japanese proverbs that were very current and useful. Boy, this is a must read for Christian missionaries or preachers who want to use the correct terminology in their dealings with the Japanese public. Thank you, Mr. Joseph!

Without a doubt, Armageddonquest is not only one of the best comic books that I have read, but also one of the best works of fiction I have read overall.

Do not confuse this series with an average graphic novel. 6 years in the making (with some chapters taking over a year to develop), Mr. Roach's incredibly well written 900-page-epic is full of incredibly complex and well thought out characters, plot twists, action, and overall adventure.   Somehow, through all the plots twists and turns, he manages to never lose the reader, nor contradict himself, all the while linking the story back to various prophecies.

Mr. Roach is clearly a scholar, and both his research and creativity shine through on every page.

While the art is at times crude, and while on a graphical level he may not be as good as others in the industry, he makes up for it and even goes beyond it through his storytelling and incredible plot. In the armageddonquest series, the black-and-white art is there to compliment the story, not drive it, and in this way, Mr. Roach has created a story that really sucks you in.

900 pages is a lot for any man to write, and a 6 year project is enough for a lifetime, but I certainly hope this is not the last I see of Mr. Roach's work. I'm hooked.

Showcasing Dante Marioni's glassblowing with 139 colorplates and four black/white photographs, Tina Oldknow (Curator of Modern Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York); Joseph Marioni (twice artist-in-residence at the Pilchuck Glass School); and Edward R. Quick (Curator, Presidential Materials Staff, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.) offer an informative text and commentary that enhances our understanding of this truly gifted man and his work. Very highly recommended for all serious personal, academic, professional, and community library collections, Dante Marioni: Blown Glass provides a "reader friendly" step-by-step depiction of the process used in the making of a blown-glass vase, a list of public collections, solo and group exhibitions, bibliography, biography, and index.

The paintings of James Tissot both reveal and pose questions concerning his subjects. Many works have seemingly deliberate contradictions. I found myself engrossed in each scene. This particular book is a beautiful collection of his most recognizable pieces.

I read "Reading Athena's Dance Card: Men Against Fire in Vietnam" expecting a well reasoned, well written study of American soldiers and Marines in Vietnam but found much more. This book delivers alot more than the jacket comments promise. It contains the expected analysis of Americans under fire in Vietnam and compares findings with the earlier landmark study by S.L.A. Marshall, but doesn't stop there. The book examines core issues using examples taken from historical depth and geographic/national breadth. Comments taken from surveys of American Vietnam veterans are used as a cordon bleu chef uses fine seasonings, with the ultimate result that the human factor, the face of the soldier under fire, is always to the fore. The book also gives great attention to factors such as training and rotation policy, among other things, essentially leaving no stone unturned in this thorough, well paced work. I highly recommend this book for students of military history in general, and those with an interest in Vietnam in particular.

Lucifer's Halo is the remarkable story of one man's spiritual battle with religion. Michael Joseph Lisner's striking art, incomparable symbolism and dialogue, provocative enough to startle, enhance the epic. Darrian Ashoka lives in a surrealistic New York City where the lower class is left to its plundering and filth by an elitist church who have moved to the city's outskirts. During a weekly Saturday night riot, Darrian is approached by Dawn, an enigmatic feminine deity, who invades his bed and provokes his intellect. On their next meeting, Dawn gives him Lucifer's Halo, remaining from his days as an angel. It is a dangerous bridge between Heaven and Hell and Darrian soon finds himself hounded by both sides in a bid for it. Darrian's fight to keep his gift is one of fright, confusion and reckoning. He must overcome fear and anger towards the other side and look deeply into his human soul for strength, truth and the right choice.

There are few graphic novels in my vast collection with such lush, visually appealing illustrations as JML's. Dawn is the most beautifully rendered (caucasian) vision of the Goddess ever captured on paper, and to quote the foreword, few artists have reflected such a love for his main character as Linsner. His hard rock/heavy metal heritage is plain to see throughout the book, but it does not diminish the fact that Dawn is alive in his mind and on the pages. The written story itself isn't as solid as it could have been, but Linsner's skills as a graphic storyteller more than compensate for any shortcomings one might find. Any serious lover of art, fantasy or mythology should own Lucifer's Halo. PAGANS RULE!

There are four gods above all others, Allah/Adonai/Yahweh the god of order, rigid and merciless; Lucifer the cast off angel who now commands chaos, mercurial and chaoitc; Dawn, the mother goddess of birth and rebirth; and her husband, the horned lord of the hunt and death, Cerennus. The story follows Dawn as she attempts to reawaken her lover to his divine nature, in his mortal incarnation of Darrian Ashkova. She gives him Lucifer's Halo so that he can see and interact with the people of Heaven and Hell, and learn his own place in the scheme of things. A definite must for anyone into great storytelling.

It's difficult to find original material in most security books. "Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Edition" (HPYN2E) breaks that trend. Responding to feedback on the first edition, the authors have made numerous improvements in the second edition. If you're looking for relatively novel content in a security book, read the sections of HPYN2E I discuss next.

HPYN2E shines in many respects. The "laws of security" in chapter 2 are accurate and enlightening. Chapter 4 helps teach secure programming techniques by comparing insecure and secure code snippets. Chapter 4 also demonstrates debugging and disassembling code, usually not seen in security texts. Chapter 8 probably contains the most advanced coverage of buffer overflows I've read in a book. By actually showing and explaining stack traces, the authors share a level of detail sufficient to satisfy all but the most elite coders. Chapters on "diffing" (5) and format strings (9) are robust. Hardware hacking, thoroughly described in chapter 14, is fascinating. The author cared enough to include numerous clear photographs of disassembled equipment, and mentioned many helpful external web references.

While these great chapters comprise more than half of HPYN2E, the remainder is not exceptional. I was not happy with the rambling, wordy chapters on spoofing (12) and tunneling (13). Spare us the quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy"! Still, this material is easily skimmed.

Because HPYN2E is written more from an intruder's point of view, the title doesn't seem to reflect the material. The book isn't exactly a "how to hack" manual, but it expertly illuminates many facets of compromising information resources.

When I read the first edition of this book, was truly disappointed. I was wondering how such people could have written such book. Not that the book was worthless, but too 'standard' to met the expectations I had from these guys.
Still the idea was very interesting (information directly from the real experts), and I kept waiting for a new edition.
Well the second edition is now out, and not only fulfills, but exceeds all my original expectations !!

Let's take a look:

The Approach:

Understanding attacks and vulnerabilities, by understanding 'how to hack' (good hacking of course. . . .ahem )

The Book:

Rewritten, expanded and improved, the book consists of 800+ pages well structured into 18 chapters (against 450+ pages and 15 chapters of the first edition).
Well written, well presented, with a real fancy table of contents, the chapters include url's, a FAQ section and a SOLUTIONS FAST TRACK one.
A lot of CLEVER code is included as well as helpful 'Tool & Traps' and 'Notes from the Underground. . . ' outlines.

The new sections (all outstanding) include:
- Hardware Hacking (otherwise only found in papers)
- Tunneling (excellent)
- IDS evasion (very easily explained)
- Format strings attacks

The Intended Audience:

People willing to become network security pros.

Contents:

- Introduction to Security, Attacks and related Methodologies.
- Cryptography.
- Unexpected Input, Buffer Overflow, Format Strings.
- Sniffing, Hijacking and Spoofing.
- Tunneling, Hardware Hacking, Viruses (et al.).
- IDS Evasion.
- Automated Tools.
- Reporting Security Problems.

The Bottom Line:

It is not just a good book, it is the best book among high level network security books, and the only that compares with specialized papers. Only quite easier.
I got more than 60 papers on buffer overflows. None compares with the classical 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One. IMHO, however, the corresponding chapter from this book, does compare and is really easier to understand.
Finally, the 'piece de resistance' of the book, is the chapter about Spoofing. Really enjoyed it, and by the way got surprised reading the innovative (to me) technique to 'Spoof Connectivity Through Asymmetric Firewalls'. Good Job Dan ;-)
As an added bonus, as an owner of this book, you'll find a lot of code files, applications and links...

I have the first edition of this book also, and I was really glad to see the second edition come out. There are some great hacking books out now, but I really think these ones are the best. I found in depth coverage on a lot of stuff you just can't find any place else. Some very cool info. on administering hosts locked behind a firewall and tips for making a "poor man's VPN". I also like that a lot of big names wrote the book, and their personalities really come through. A lot of tech. books can be a little dry even if they are well written. This one is actually entertaining also.

This book is an invaluable resource for any serious practitioner of molecular biology. Content is detailed and comprehensive. Highly recommended reference source. All credit to the authors for what is a thorough revision of this latest testament of what is undoubtedly the revealed scripture of molecular biology. The website gives you access to all the printable protocols from the book and is perfect for lab bound grad student.

Molecular cloning has been a lab staple for years. Now reprinted so you can update the old lab copy worn out by years of student use! Its a must have for any lab serious about molecular biology. Its also useful for student training. Many times there are simple explanations for the lab techniques we have adopted as dogma, but are unsure why. Molecular cloning has the answers and is a great resource. I highly recommend this book for its depth and breadth of protocols and guidance in the complicated realm of cloning!

So few and so much to say about this bible of Biology at the bench...
You'll really find everything you want in it, including the composition of all the buffers and solutions, the new protocols for high-tech biology (FLIM-FRET), some paragraphs about bioinformatics and more.Incredibly precise, this book is consequently a big book (3 huge volumes), so better know exactly wath you're looking for before opening it!
The must have of every lab!

This book started out with what I found kind of a stagey premise....with Vorpagel "teaching" a class of profiling students. There were some moments of interesting reading, but suddenly, in the final quarter of the book, Vorpagel and Harrington suddenly veered directly off the track of murder and profiling and went into two incredibly boring stories that had nothing to do with profiling at all. I'm beginning to wonder if anything is being written anymore, as far as forensic profiling, that says anything new. And I am also puzzled by the sheer number of these books lately that have veered far afield of their supposed topics. I found this a VERY average book.

This is one of the best profiling books I have read. It doesn't focus so much on the profiler's life as it does on actual case history, which is what I prefer. I never got bored with this one as I have with others that tend to focus on the feelings and sometimes the professional jelousies between the FBI profilers. I would love to read another book of case stories by this team.

In this engrossing book Russell Vorpagel instructs a class in death investigation. He uses some known (and some no-so-known) cases to teach his class (and the reader) about some of the intricacies of death investigation, which include critical thinking in solving cases in profiling. One of the major strengths of this book is Vorpagel's use of a myriad of cases to demonstrate his points. His instruction to his class followed by a case study demonstrates his points in full detail. This book is "must read" for anyone interested in death investigation and profiling.

Warning - This book has very little to do with dust! Actually, with his book Dust - A History Of The Small & The Invisible Joseph Amato demonstrates an inability to focus on any one topic for more than a paragraph at a time and obfuscates what otherwise should have been a rich and interesting topic below a morass of historical anecdotes. I was thoroughly disappointed. Effective historians have a natural ability to absorb volumes of information, select those facts and events which are important, and weave them into a coherent, interesting narrative. While Mr. Amato's 41 pages of supporting notes and 15 page bibliography suggest that comprehensive research was performed on the topic, no amount of references or notes can make up for his failure to focus on important aspects of "Dust's" history and inability to create from them an interesting story. If you are looking for a rewarding, enlightening read, look elsewhere.

This bright and sprightly stroll through the human relationship with the minute comes to a surprisingly dark conclusion.

Joseph Amato, Professor of Intellectual and Cultural History at a small college in southwestern Minnesota, tells an interesting, if familiar, tale. Dust was long defined by its occupation of the lowest position on the scale of the visible ('pollen' is the Latin word for 'dust'), and it symbolized insignificance and near-nothingness. Then came Western - now global - science. Dust became a multiform heap of material objects within a certain range of sizes ("With so much known about the invisible, dust can never again be ordinary," he writes), while at the same time ever more powerful instruments pushed ever further toward zero the notion of the infinitesimal. Meanwhile, civil authorities find themselves in a constant scramble to adapt to science's new insights into the implications for human well-being.

Prof. Amato is at his best in his survey of these societal responses to the news from the microcosm, and has interesting and upbeat things to say about the history of health, housekeeping, and hygiene. (He is much weaker on the scientific and intellectual side of things. I found particularly regrettable his neglect of Lovejoy's classic *The Great Chain of Being* - a work he cites in the notes but shows no sign of having assimilated.)

But the reader who arrives at the end of this brief volume is likely to be surprised at the author's take on the prospects of our increasing mastery of what is minute affecting our imaginative lives. In an essay written in the early twenties entitled "Subject-Matter of Poetry," Aldous Huxley expressed amazement that "The subject-matter of the new poetry remains the same as that of the old. The boundaries have not been extended. There would be real novelty in the new poetry if it had, for example, taken to itself any of the new ideas and astonishing facts with which the new science has endowed the modern world. There would be real novelty in it if it had worked out a satisfactory artistic method for dealing with abstractions. It has not." The concluding chapter of *Dust*, entitled "Who Will Tremble at These Marvels?" attempts to explain why not, and in doing so takes into a minor key what had till then seemed to be a work written in a major mode. This chapter, together with the touching ten-page memoir of his mother's relation to dust presented in an appendix, are the best things in the book.

So much of our world's business energy and investment capital go into information technology and biotechnology, which are fields where most of the important technology is so small as to be invisible to normal human vision. Author Amato explores how the human drive to improve our lives and our world led us (from the 16th century on) to see, measure, manipulate and control ever smaller particles and entities. The mysteries of dust, and then germs, then atoms, and now subatomic particles, viruses and prions, one by one "bit the dust" as they were revealed by this compelling quest. Bearing an amazing array of facts and stories (like the best musty and dusty library stacks I remember from college) as well as an approach both philisophic and humane, Amamto is an entertaining guide on this journey from bulbonic plague to Hoover vacuums to semiconductor plant clean rooms. I think his book helps explain the deep hopes and fears (and the high market valuations) our age invests in our interaction with unseen.