Richard's simplicity and "prophetic" voice comes across quite beautifully in this book of daily meditations. His gift for making very difficult subjects into "a-ha" & "of course" experiences for the rest of us is quite remarkable. This all comes together in small daily tidbits via this wonder-full book. He continues to remind us that true spirituality is about simplicity, love(grace), letting go, and "grounded-ness"(Reality is God's greatest ally). His prophetic voice about our personal and societal idols (power, prestige, and possessions) is at the heart of the matter.

I own many, many 'daily meditations' books. If I had to keep just one, this would be it. Richard Rohr packs so much into one paragraph that the short meditations are just right. There is enough in this book to keep you on your journey of faith for years. Your life and thinking will change.

Richard Rohr is a gifted writer, by the looks of this publication. He has distilled the essence of spirituality, something that is difficult to define and pin down, and made it meaningful, relevant and tangible. Although he comes from a Catholic background, his insights apply to anyone who is interested in seeking a deeper level of meaning in our existence. Rohr's ideas challenge us to think for ourselves, rather than simply "following the crowd" in eking out a humdrum existence. Think of this book as a collection of spiritual vitamins - something to keep by your bedside and read a passage from each night.

I enjoy reading Kurzweil because he's an adventurous thinker. This book is particularly fun because some other fine minds take him to task. Ray holds up well because he's a reasonable thinker. Although some of his predicitions seem outlandish, they may not be. You can't read this book without engaging in a lot of interesting visualization about the future. Some of it is frightening, but there is hope as well. Will the future runaway on it's own or will we be in charge? I don't know, but I'm sure thinking about it, now.

This is Ray Kurzweil's third book concerning the future of reductionist artificial intelligence design and it's possible effects on us in the decades yet to come. In THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, Kurzweil's previous book, which I enjoyed also, and this volume, he uses technological trends, including Moore's law and other tools, to show that a desktop computer will have achieved human level computational ability around the year 2020. Also, Kurzweil envisions that we will be able, sometime in the next few decades, to scan human brains and download that 'software' into these advanced computers to give them human level reasoning abilities, with the speed of computer neural nets, leaving humans behind, so to speak. Accordingly, it may also be possible to scan individual brains and load that information into an advanced computer (attached to a body of some kind), giving that person a sort of immortality. This is the gist of Kurzweil's argument, I hope I got it essentially correct.

What Kuzweil means by computers someday becoming 'spiritual' is that they may become conscious, and 'strong A.I.' is the view that "any computational process sufficiently capable of altering or organizing itself can produce consciousness." The first part of this book is an introduction to all of the above views by Kurzweil, followed by criticisms by four authors, followed in turn by Kurzweil as he refutes these criticisms.

Personally, I found most of the views expounded by the critics here to be either non-sensical, or 'beside the point'. One critic says that the life support functions of the brain cannot be separated from it's information processing function. Of course it can be, even the effects of hormones can be programmed into a downloaded brain, as well as other chemicals used by brains. Another critic states that possibly evolution is in error, and yet another criticism is that our machines will not be able to contact a divine entity and would thus be inferior.... give me a break, well...perhaps this is all true and maybe pigs will one day fly over the moon unassisted. I could go on and on, but this is the job of Ray Kurzweil and he defends himself admirably in the final chapters of this volume. Kurzweil does mention in this book that brain scanning machines are improving their resolution with each new generation, and eventually will reach a point where they should be able to image individual neurons and synapses in large areas, and allow the brain 'software' to be transferred to a suitable non-biological computing medium, my only criticism of Kurzweil here is that I think he should discuss this technology more, and where it is headed, his next book would be a great place for this.

One final point, it seems to me that when a new idea appears to be difficult and complicated to achieve, the pessimist says: "This is difficult and complicated, and may not work", whereas the optimist says: "This is difficult and complicated, but may work". Only time will tell for sure.

The work, inventions, and opinions of Ray Kurzweil in the field of artificial intelligence have captured media attention and the attention of philosophers and researchers in artificial intelligence. But not only is Kurzweil one of the most brilliant and controversial of all the individuals working in artificial intelligence, he is also the most optimistic. This optimism holds not only for the future technology of artificial intelligence, predicted by Kurzweil to give independent thinking machines in the next three decades, but also for its social impact. Kurzweil believes that artificial intelligence will work for the benefit of humankind, but that this benefit will depend to a great degree on his belief that humans will take on technology that will effectively make them cybernetic.

The controversy behind Kurzweil stems from his recent book "The Age of Spirtual Machines", which is a detailed accounting of his predictions and beliefs regarding artificial intelligence. Many individuals objected to his visions and predictions, and he answers a few of them in this book. In particular, he attempts to counter the arguments against him by the philosopher John Searle, the molecular biologist Michael Denton, the philosopher William A. Dembski, and zoologist Thomas Ray. With only a few minor exceptions, Kurzweil is successful in his refutation of their assertions.

But even if Kurzweil completely refutes the arguments of these individuals, and possibly many more against him, the countering of arguments will not by itself solve the problems in artificial intelligence research. The fact remains that much work still needs to be done before we are priveleged to see the rise of intelligent machines. Kurzweil is well-aware of this, for he acknowledges this many times in this book. He points to reverse engineering of the human brain as one of the most promising strategies to bring in the robotic presence. The success or failure of this strategy will take the mind-body problem out of purely academic circles and bring it to the forefront of practical research in artificial intelligence. The 21st century will thus see the rise of the "industrial philosopher", who works in the laboratory beside the programmers, cognitive scientists, robot engineers, and neurologists.

Each reader of this book will of course have their own opinions on Kurzweil's degree of success in countering the arguments of Searle, Denton, Dembski, and Ray. But one thing is very clear: Kurzweil is no arm-chair philosopher engaging in purely academic debates on the mind-body problem. He is right in the thick of the research and development of artificial intelligence, and if the future turns out as he predicts, he will certainly be one of the individuals contributing to it. He and many others currently working in artificial intelligence are responsible for major advances in this field in just the last few years. Their ingenuity and discipline is admirable in a field that has experienced a roller coaster ride of confidence and disappointment in the preceding decades. All of these individuals have proved themselves to be superb thinking machines.

A Perfect book for people looking for colourful pictures. Ideal for amatures, and semi-pro. It has a great deal of information available, and rich in ideas for photographic techniques. Has various chapters dealing with different types of photography. Uses plain good comprehensive English. I highly recomend it to all Photography 'lovers'.

I recently made the switch to digital cameras from film cameras for many reasons. I found once I did that a large amount of the photography books out there were only applicable to traditional film cameras. Not so with this book. While there IS material in this book for traditional film photography the main focus of the book is how to take color pictures. The author divides the subject into separate sections which I have typed out below. Within each section are the related topics which contain detailed discussions for properly photographing the kind of subject matter the topic is concerned with. The book contains a nice introduction to the topic of color in the beginning and then moves into the subject matter discussions by topic. Each topic contains excellent color photographs that act as samples to both inspire and teach you how to take good color photographs. I REALLY liked this book. I highly recommend it to photographers of all levels.

Sections in this book: [1.] What is Color? (7 topics) 16pp. [2.] Working with Color (7 topics) 14 pp. [3.] Picture Composition (14 topics) 32 pp. [4.] Moods of Natural Light (18 topics) 38 pp. [5.] Using Artificial Light (4 topics) 8 pp. [6.] Subject Lighting (8 topics) 30 pp. [7.] Materials and Techniques (6 topics) 14 pp. [8.] Equipment and Darkroom (10 topics) 20 pp.

An excellent book on various types of subjects for colour photography. Almost every picture, from the sweeping landscape to the subtle close-up are of excellent quality. You get heaps of practical advice on how to make the most of colour in your photographs, and Hedgecoe takes you through the theory of colour and light, composition and technical information as well. The advice you get from this book not only takes your photography one, but several steps further. It boosts your creative thinking, gives you a lot of valuable information, and inspires you to go right out and take those great photos! Top marks!

An amazing book! Elegant, informative, photos and history that just won't quit. The only downside is that this book (there are 2 volumes actually) is so large it is hard to manage. I got a copy for my 10 year old granddaughter for a trip we are taking this Summer. She has been dazzled and is working her way through (finding the photos that attract and then diving into the chapter text). It has also become an addiction for me. If you are going to Florence, get this book and read it!!

Clearly this publication was a newsworthy event when it was first issued, garnering praise from the New York Times Book Review andthe Washington Post alike. Now these magnificent slipcased volumes are making news once again.Nothing else has changed about this popular monument of scholarly and publishing history and winner of the prestigious Prix Vasari in France. Matching an elegant and sophisticated text by three leading art historians with more than 700 glorious color photographs and another 854 duotones and architectural drawings, The Art of Florence immerses us in the creative life of the city that gave birth to the Renaissance.

This important and uncommonly beautiful publication gracefully links the city's architecture, sculpture, and painting to its rich social fabric and dramatic political life. The Art of Florence is truly a masterpiece...

This magnificent two volume book is a rare combination of outstanding substantive scholarship and state of the art photography. If you are looking for a light-weight book--physically or intellectually--this is not the book for you. Rather, the book provides a comprehensive history of Florence, both art history and political history, by noted scholars. The illustrations are lavish and compare extremely favorably with other art books in our library that illustrate the art treasures of Florence. Given the length of the book and the quality of the illustrations, the price is reasonable. The book can be enjoyed by the armchair traveler as well as by the tourist.

I'm not sure what philosophers intend to create with their endless excursions into varieties of ways to navel-gaze, but this book has helped me interrupt the endless loop I've seemed to have been caught in with philosophers for several years now. It's certainly not for lack of effort on my part that I've perpetually ended-up confused. Now I learn that increasing the level of confusion has actually been part of the philosophical agenda.

David Hildebrand does me two incredibly welcome favors with this work. First, he gets me started in the right place. That is, he gets me out of theoretical epicycles and returns me to the radical world of reality. Needless to say, having a proper starting point makes a huge difference that I notice immediately.

Next, he tells me what philosophy is capable of. That is, philosophy can actually be engaged in as a MEANS to study, perchance to improve, the experience I find myself immersed in before I open my mouth to speak or poise my pen to write or or even begin to compose sentences.

I have turned an important corner here in my own personal quest to effect improvements in the world. If I never learned where to start or how to employ philosophy, then I'd remain lost in it's self-absorbed, subjective/reflective mazes until I died.

While I admit benefitting from having an erudite response constructed logically to help contextualize Putnam & Rorty, I enjoy most of all the freedom to take my own personal set of capabilities, such that they are, and investigate whether or not I am able to effect improvement in the real world.

I feel very much liberated and very much encouraged in being a practically-minded human creature.

I will add my own deeply sincere thanks to those of the other reviewers here. I look forward to what follows this volume.

Although many essays (and anthologies of essays) have appeared on the topic of classical pragmatism versus neopragmatism, this is the first book-length project I know of to tackle the controversy from a viewpoint fully conversant with and sympathetic to Dewey's signal contribution. It is quite refreshing to discover a scholar who not is not only aware of, but champions, the vital Deweyan conceptions of having versus knowing, primary experience, and the centrality of inquiry. Hildebrand's grasp of Dewey's engagement with direct and critical realism is exemplary, and his "deconstruction" of Rorty's antirealism is nothing short of amazing-"wicked" comes to mind! Although Hildebrand's alternative "practical standpoint" falls short, in my view, of Dewey's full transactional integration of experience and nature, this book opens up an area of research of vital importance. It is well written, informed, and cogent.

This is the best book I have read about Pragmatism in a long time. Hildebrand confronts the differences between Neo-Pragmatism and the classical figures (especially Dewey). He argues that
although Putnam and Rorty consider themselves pragmatists they have failed to understand the more radical and significant insights of Dewey's philosophy. His criticism is not superficial. He
makes an effort to understand even the particular differences between Putnam and Rorty. Bravo!!!!!!!!!!

We received this book as a gift for our son's first birthday, and he has loved it to death! He loved to fill in the missing words as we read to him, and quickly learned all of his nursery ryhmes. Now at age 2, he is rediscovering this treasure...he has fallen in love with the illustrations all over again, and he understands the meaning and humor in these wonderful rhymes!

I got this book when I was little and now I want this book for my little girl. My favorite nursery rhyme is the one about the Crooked man. I reccommend everyone buying this book for their children.

The Classic Mother Goose is the perfect book to introduce nursery rhymes to kids of all ages. The illustrations in this book captivate the smallest children and they will choose this book over and over again as a favorite for bedtime stories. My kids read our first copy to death. That is the true test of how good a book is.

I found this book to be a great resource for the engineering and design fundamentals that relate to the question "how is all that data formatted and organized in digital television broadcasting?" The MPEG-2 Systems Standard is one of the foundations of digital television. If you're interested in how MPEG-2 really works at the system level, you'll find this book an excellent resource. The chapter on MPEG Transport by itself is worth the price of the book, but it also does a great job explaining another arcane MPEG-2 Standard, Digital Storage Media Command and Control (DSM-CC). It turns out DSM-CC is very useful in data broadcasting, but if you were to pick up the IEC standard itself and try to make sense of it, you'd find it very challenging.

Even though broadcasters have not started transmitting data along with digital television, this book sets the framework for understanding how it will be done. It's written by those experts in the field who actually designed the standard, so you know the information is accurate.

I highly recommend this book to all those who develop or maintain data broadcasting systems.

The good point is that it is not at all a replication of the specification (though a true copy of the A/90 spec is added as an appendix). The concepts are clear, progressive and sufficiently illustrated.

Chapter 3 alone tells you most you need to know about MPEG-2 Systems standard. I gained extra insight from it even after I had studied the original 13818-1 spec.

This book, written by several of data broadcast specification authors, is The Definitive Work on the ATSC Data Broadcast specification.

If you are an implementer of data broadcasting, you need exactly two things: a copy of the specification and a copy of this book.

The struggle to find to find true love in the present world is not an easy task. In this world where the once sacred institution of marriage is now no more likely to last than flipping heads on a coin, those who truly know what love is are scarce. Everyone claims to know what this thing called love is, but few truly understand the essence of everything the word love stands for. In this book, the writings of several self-proclaimed love experts, professors from various colleges, have been compiled together in an attempt to help others find out what love is and how to make it a part of their lives. The basic beliefs range from Buddhism to Christianity, but all of the authors agree that we all need love. This in itself is a valid argument because of the basic human need to feel accepted and appreciated.
Some of the claims made about love in this book are:

1. Give love to get love
2. Love is a choice
3. Love is wanting the best for another person
4. Love yourself in order to love others

There are various other insights on love in this book; buy it and find out what they are.
The basic argument from these claims filters into the overall argument of love stems from the individual. Love cannot exist if an individual doesn't want it to exist. Restating the claims, an individual must give love to get it in return, choose to love, desire the best others, and show love for the self in order to show love to others.
This argument is quite valid because love is not some sort of pit which people can helplessly fall into. Love is not lust and love does not envy. All of the claims presented elaborate on the essence of what love is and reasonably arrive at the conclusion that love stems from the individual. All of the points are clearly and precisely elaborated on in the book, and the reader comes away from the book with a newfound sense of mental completeness. This completeness comes from better understanding what true love is. There would be no way to account for the multitudes of occasions in which individuals have professed to "knowing" what love is, but enough sufficient evidence is presented in the book to allow the argument to be complete.
It's intriguing to find that many proverbs have stemmed from the forethought that love stems from the individual. The Golden Rule is the prime example of this. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The "doing" part is from the individual, one must do unto others first in order for others to do the same unto them. "You reap what you sow." Again, it is seen that the individual must first sow in order to reap. For what is there to reap if nothing has been sown? So this is what you must do, go out and express your appreciation for someone. Love first in order to love last.

Everyone in the world needs to read this book, I guarantee it would change many lives. It opens your mind to think deeply of what some fears the most, love. It truly answers so many questions in regards to love and life. Everyone that has picked my book up, cannot put it down. Now that's a winner!

To receive more love in your life, you must give more love: This book opens you to the possibilities. There are so many pearls in this collection of essays, and each and every chapter gives one much to ruminate about. I rate it a "10" because the messages are both timeless and crucial to finding happiness. It's a wonderful book to give as a gift, but first and foremost, as a gift to yourself.

This book will not just become another piece of bookshelf design. The reproductions are very good (much better in this hardcover version than in the soft cover...particularly in terms of color accuracy)As mentioned before, the writing is very engaging, well integrated with the images, totally relevant and easily referenced to actual plates. Strength of visual presentation is never compromised for economy of publication. Facts are developed in somewhat of a story form rather than that of a dry academic or bored docent offering. I especially enjoyed commentary on the influence and interplay Register experienced with writers John Fante, Charles Bukowski and Black Sparrow publisher John Martin.

Barnaby Conrad is a truly gifted writer and intellectual. His new book on the artist John Register is a wonderful tribute to an important american contempory artist.

Barnaby Conrad III is a high quality, well-educated author that is sensitive and brilliant in his ability to articulte and capture the essence of John Register in his suberb new book. This book is an important chronicle of a man who will become one of the important and accomplished artists of the twentieth century.

A terrific book, full of lots of photos and colour reproductions of advertising posters etc. Was dissappointed in that it had no detail on the actual trains re locos and consists etc, but more on the PR side of the Chiefs. If you are after more in depth detail I recommend the book "Santa Fe Streamliners" the Chiefs and their Tribesmen by Karl Zimmermann. A must have addition for the set.

In Santa Fe: The Chief Way, railroading enthusiasts Robert Strein, John Vaughan, and C. Fenton Richards Jr. collaborate to present an informative and totally engaging presentation of the famed Santa Fe railroad, and its legendary"Chief" locomotives that powered the trains along the New Mexico terrains. Blending historic photography with period advertisements, and thematic artwork, Santa Fe: The Chief Way is a welcome and much appreciate contribution to any American railroading history collection. Also available in a hardcover format (0937206717), Santa Fe: The Chief Way is an ideal giftbook for railroad buffs as well.

Robert Strein, John Vaughan, and Fenton Richards effectively collaborate to provide an informative and fascinating history of the Santa Fe railroad in Santa Fe - The Chief Way. Illustrated throughout with many unique historical photographs enhancing the "reader friendly" text, we are presented with highlights of those prestigious trains and their luxurious accommodations on the Santa Fe run. A welcome and highly recommended addition to any railroad buff's collection, Santa Fe - The Chief Way also touches upon the railroad hires of Native Americans guides to ride the trains through New Mexico for the edification of the passengers, as well as citing the film stars and cinematic moments associated with Santa Fe railroading history.