This really seems like a recycled and rehashed book quickly put together in order to rush a "new topic" to print. I'm pretty sure I recognize this content from other books I've seen on the shelf. Even the paper quality seems recycled! I got this one in the mail, and it already was yellowed - the pages seem like newsprint. I found very little value in this book, content wise. There are definitely better ones out on the market by the gurus on the subject!

Love it.

It taught me everything I needed to know to design a flash site for a mobile phone. The site allows users to order alcohol at rock bottom prices in Spain.

By the way, I know this guy and he is great.

A Doll's House is an easy-to-read, interesting play but I was not particularly drawn to it. The dialogue and characters lacked excitement. However, the static setting did showcase an interesting plot. Despite the lackluster personalities and conversations, I was drawn to the conflict Ibsen presented: the state of confusedness Nora slipped into in considering whether it was right to listen to the blatantly biased society she lived in, which revolved around men or to follow her own natural instincts. She had forged with good intentions, but the reality of her action caught up with her. In Nora's world, a world driven by her husband's needs, desires, and commands, she believes she is helping him by taking out a loan. The laws, accusation, judgings are all man made, preventing her from ever getting away with her well-meant deeds. I was thoroughly impressed by Ibsen's underlying themes, especially in his time of reservedness and anti-feminism. He accurately depicted the lifestyle of so many women in his time: as mere playthings, objects of desire, moved about in a cookie-cutter dollhouse by manipulative husbands. A Doll's House can be regarded not only as an accurate portrayal of life for women but also as a social commentary on the wrongs of it.

Isben's choice of subject matter, theatrical style and characterisation caused much controversy amoungst audiences at the time, but is an intereting topic to observe now, considering the rapid change that women are experiencing, concerning independence.
When reflecting on the time it was written, women were considered merely an 'accessory' for their husbands, a sculpture that they would mould to perfection. It is interesting, when realizing how much society has changed, the fact that women have more freedom, in many aspects, in this case who they want to spend the rest of their lives with, and for what reason. To be more than just a 'featherbrain' to their husbands, and to partake in a mutal relationship, where equal input is evident.Revealing these issues at the time, and over-coming them now, is thought provoking, and indeed a controversial topic.
You don't hear many cases nowadays about a woman marrying someone against her own will, and being dis-satisfied for most of her life, as women are slowly gaining more independence.
The theme is very thoughtfully depicted, and sustains interest amoungst all audiences.

I have aleardy read it more than 6 times ,and Im still feeling that I would like to read it again.Because it makes you release how Ibsen had extraordenary sensetivly.And it learns you how to deal with your wife.

Please be aware that this book really is a horrible translation of Huizinga's original and insightful attempts to make sense of 'play'.

Huizinga's contribution of the new word 'ludiek', introduced through his translations in almost every language but English, is simply left out of the introduction and does not occur in the book. This means that the logic Huizinga has set up, pointing out how cultural practices are characterized by 'ludieke' features (i.e. features of their game-like quality) gets reduced to a book on 'game elements'. The entire logic of play creating culture therefore never comes across, but stays obscured behind game elements in culture.

This translation should really be immediately taken from the market or redone by someone who actually tries his best to translate with integrity. An indication of the complete lack thereof is the note of the editor that he changed the subtitle from 'play element of culture' (which Huizinga in his introduction clarifies he fought for on several occassions to be maintained) into 'play element in culture', because "English prepositions are not governed by logic". The English-centricity complete overrules at least 90% of what Huizinga actually expresses.

Horrible.

Huizinga illustrates with numerous examples out of all sort of civilizations that culture first appears under the form of play. The first forms of culture are played. He finds his examples in as different fields as jurisdiction, art, poetry, battle ...
I agree that play was certainly influential or important for certain aspects of cultural life, but not for essential points like politics, exercise of power or distribution of wealth within a society.
This book is not in the same class as his other more known book 'The Autumn of the Middle Ages'.
He makes an important remark in his diatribe against Carl Schmitt, whom he reproaches his wrong point of view. Schmitt founds his jurisdictional work on the principle of 'friend-foe', in other words on war not on peace.

Huizinga's genius is to find the idea of play hiding like a spider in the most unlikely places. The medieval "judicial duel", where justice was done by fighting? Clearly a development of ancient forms of combat - and that combat itself was always highly stylised and ritualised, which show, according to Huizinga, that they themselves were "play" forms. He demonstrates with convincing scholarship that Greek tragic drama and religion were also born from play.

The important thing for the reader to understand is that Huizinga does not think that play is in any way trivial or less than serious. In fact, he argues that play is a wider, more all-embracing concept than seriousness. Because the idea of seriousness excludes play, whereas the idea of play can very well be taken seriously. In the latter portion of his book, he laments the fact that play has been ripped from its organic place at the heart of communities and transferred to commercialized spheres of sport.

Contrary to what another reviewer says here, Huizinga was not writing in the 1950s but in 1938. A time when the old ideals of nobility and chivalry even in war had been exploded. A time when the very idea of play was something worth cherishing, something to attempt to preserve for a more fortunate future.

This is a masterpiece of deeply humanist historical and cultural analysis. If it annoys poststructuralists, well, its the poststructuralists who have the problems.

Steven Poole, author, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution

This book has all of the usual defects of books from Kluwer Academic Publishers. Acronyms in the text and terms in equations are not defined. Diagrams have errors. It seems to be a cut and paste job with very little systematic development of the subject. Graphs of CAD program outputs are presented with no or very little comment or discussion. There is one case of a technical error. A mathematical program output which claims to show the effects of amplifier noise figure really illustrates the beneficial effects of dithering data to overcome the effects of finite word length in FFT calculations.

If your just starting in the field of
RF design it is better to start off with
a more basic RF text book. I found this more
indepth book an excellent addition to my library
with lots of real world circuit examples
and up to date references. It
contains a glossary explaining every
symbol. Basically everybody in my design
group wants to borrow it from me.

Las tres hermanas, es una obra de teatro, la cual yo encontré muy aburrida y sin sentido, únicamente avanza y avanza la historia y no se ve ningún cambio, por lo que el desarrollo es lento. Realmente no me agradó ya que hay muchos personajes quienes me parecieron innecesarios y no encontré el tema principal de la historia.

Concluyendo un poco de lo anterior, podríamos considerar que esta obra es de género Pieza ya que las acciones de la misma son de tono serio ya que los temas a tratar son: la muerte, incendios, política, amor, los cuales son vistos y tratados desde un punto de vista muy formal por los personajes.

Las hermanas toman conciencia de sus cualidades y defectos al hablar de sus empleos, sus vidas amorosas etc., (aunque en su mayoría sean defectos) pero como es característico del género pieza, éstas no resuelven su situación, y quedan deseando irse a Moscú sin resultado alguno.

Yo en lo personal no encontré el tema principal de la obra, lo único que me pareció interesante es ver y conocer un poco de las tradiciones y costumbres de Rusia a principios de siglo.

Even though this play seems boring and does not seem to have much of a plot, as one reviewer commented, Chekhov intended it this way. There is much more to the play that the lack of plot. Personally, at first, I thought that the play was pointless and boring; however, a more detailed analysis in my English class changed my mind. Chekhov has more to transmit that just the actions.

Although Roos and Edvinson are well known in the field, this book provides only the most superficial treatment of what is anyhow a "light" topic. Many of the examples cited verge on the specious - at the level of "invest in R&D - 3M made a fortune so could you". The treatment of linkage between strategy and intellectual capital measures is also very weak. Beyond asserting that you need one, they don't really provide much else to guide you here.

Other better books exist both on Intellectual Capital itself, and the management of intangibles more generally.

For anyone trying to get a solid grasp of, and appreciation for, the idea of intellectual capital, this book is a winner. Moreover, the authors present an intellectual capital system that gives more insight into the intangible wealth that is the ultimate fount of future organizational innovation and growth. An impressive contribution.

This is one of the Requisite series that is not up to par. The book is too brief and this really shows when reading the text, which is abrupt to the extreme. This makes for a very tedious read, and you often have to reread the same paragraph multiple times to figure out the point. There is also a noticable paucity of pictures (big no-no in radiology), and the illustrations provided are of poor quality. I recommend you physically pick up this book and browse thru it before plunking down your hard-earned cash.... Just compare the discussion and pictures/diagrams on hip dysplasias to the Requisites (a meat-and-potatoes topic). I fould the Requisites version ridiculously incomplete. Most residents (including peds residents) are not going to be familiar with the Graf classification for hip dyplasias, yet the Requisites just has a one line blurb about the "methods described by Graf and Harcke both having merits". I'm sure that'll come in handy when I'm being crucified by the oral examiner on my inability to intelligently classify something as common as hip dysplasias.

As I complete my radiology residency nothing has been more instrumental than the Requisites Series. I consider the collection of books as essential reading for radiology residents.

Astrom Wittenmark's book on Computer Control Systems is a good book for intermediate and experienced people in the field of Computer Control Systems. It is excellent in its contents and coverage of the field as a whole.

What it needs is some details at certain places so that things will be easy to comprehend. What I mean is that its not the best book to have as a first text towards the subject. We used the book as a course text for advanced controls class. With little control background, I felt it very tough to read the book. But now that I am well versed with the field, I find this book handy to keep.

It is good to see that there is a compilation of essays on Hans Christian Andersen. The bibliographic references, alone, make this an important volume of scholarship. I liked some of the pieces of writing. There are fine essays in a section that deals with translations of Andersen's stories and poems in other languages. I also gained good insights by reading about Andersen's work in relation to the historical and political contexts of 19th Century Denmark. There is a range of quality in the overall texts, however, and some of the pieces are simply not compelling reading.

This book is interesting from a historical point of view. It follows missionary practise in Irian Jaya as it was before the war, and as seen through the eyes of a young boy. The author was himself in such a position. The story follows Jim and his father as they set out for a trip into the interior. They meet with all sorts of events on the way. A better translator might have done more justice to the book, but even so it is an interesting story, and as a young boy I enjoyed it very much.