I don't like it.I hate those vulgar expressions on the porn star's face. On the other hand, I don't think he is now beautiful at all. He looks much worse than 5~6 years ago.

Many people have seen Johan Paulik in the bel AMi sex-action films, and have lusted after this beautiful and almost real youth. Hoffman has managed to capture all of Johan's appeal in this masterful collection of B&W images. From the outdoor shots to the casual indoor poses, these pictures ooze charm, sex-appeal, and wit.

The comments by Paulik (in the foreword) that he feels that he is not as attractive at 25 as he was at 18 frankly cause wonder. has he looked Roffman's pictures? Can he be so unconfident about his body? Surely, he is more rounded than he was at 18. Who isn't? That being said, his 'rounded' form makes him all the more attainable, as he looks even more like the boy-next-door, even if he is much more beautiful. I for one find him much more erotic and sexy than when he was 18! I showed this book to a friend of mine, a married woman, who looked through the images, paused for breath and then said, "What an outstandingly beautiful man!" That says it all.

A great book.

If you're after gratuitous pictures of Johan, go download them with everyone else off the internet. You won't find them here. Oh, you'll find nudity, but only where it seems natural.

Roffman has perfectly capture the essense of Johan, I have never seen so much character and personality emerge from a page before. Johan relaxes before the camera, and you are rewarded with intimate glimpses into his personality. This is Johan at his cheekiest. As you flick through the pages and pause at images of him relaxing with Roffman's two dogs, you feel like just another friend there with him, as you laugh over breakfast or come to wake him in the morning.

This is Johan the man, Johan the boy, Johan the friend and Johan the lover, all in the pages of one book. If you ever saw him in a Bel Ami production and wished you could get to know him, then get this book, because it's as close as you'll get.

Great book, packed with code. I appreciated that it didn't talk down to me like other books on this topic have done. It took me right to where I wanted to go. No problems with anything on the CD. Packed with code that I was able to put to use right away.

What can I say? This is the definitive book on XSLT.
There is no question that Hjelm and Stark has done a fine job of covering the subject matter in this book. They discuss the XSLT and its use in depth, as well as giving GREAT example code. It is packed with related topics including HTML, XHTML, WML, etc. This book is probably not aimed at absolute beginners, but rather assumes a familiarity with HTML and related technologies, and that the reader is just expanding into XSLT. In particular it is assumed that the reader is familiar with XML. The authors' style of writing seemed very readable, clear and concise. In summary, this 320-page book is a great introduction for those who want to approach XSLT applications. It is more a book for inspiration than reference, although most of what you would need to look up is in there somewhere. Its strength is in the depth and detail of the examples and explanations.

I've already read the tomes on XSLT and I was just looking for a how-to with plenty of examples. I wanted to be sure the author had connection to W3C and that's what these guys have. What a surprise when I opened the zip files on the CD to find just that. If you need a complete reference on the topic, this book isn't for you. If you want to learn how to create transformation sheets, then this is it!

Brand is the flip side of Peer Gynt. Ibsen may well have intended to write heroism into Brand, a charismatic dissenting priest, but could not breathe any life into his protagonist at all. Brand is cold, righteous, merciless, uncompromising. The play is dated, dull, static, but of historical interest to Ibsen scholars, since he may have learned plenty by writing Brand. The rather rigid Norwegian state/church of his time loved it, granted Henrik a permanent poet stipend for Brand. Modern gentle readers may roll their eyes.

This is unmistakeably Hill's _Brand_: the technical grace of his Englishing of Ibsen shows an acute awareness of the responsibility of the translator to both the original text and the language into which it is to be translated. Hill's translation enriches not only the English language but the ability of English (and non-Norwegian) speakers to appreciate Ibsen's brooding, symbolically charged drama of the challenge of faith in the midst of common life. Is Brand's fidelity to his "dear Christ hurt with thorns" obdurate or obstinate? In this play, the repudiation of social morality in the name of higher things is put to the question: what if devotion to such "higher things" also leads to, or becomes a mask for, moral isolation, the cauterization of social feeling? Uncompromising and yet compromised, Brand is a caution, and _Brand_ a cautionary tale...

This book captures the essence of humanity. I recommend to anyone who wants to find themself.

Norbert Elais' The Civilizing Process is an explanation of the rise of the modern nation-state, and the process by which state formation engendered changes in the psyches and day-to-day manners of modern citizens. In short, his argument is that the functional complexity of post-medieval Europe went hand-in-hand with a sublimation of man's baser instincts. Upon first glance, the reader immediately wonders about the relevance of findings such as "in medieval society people generally blew their noses into their hands" (126). The dominant explanations for the rise of the modern nation-state have usually been based in economics (Marx, Polanyi, Moore, North & Thomas) and not in the sort of etiquette, manners and social customs that are the key operating concepts in Elias' work. However, Elias makes a convincing case that such customs deserve predominant explanatory weight, being vehicles of social control that lay the psychological groundwork for the nation-state. Such a finding helps political scientists answer the persistent question of why Western political institutions fail when placed into unfamiliar Third-World social environments. Most analysts have chalked this up to unequal economic development, but Elias would probably favor an argument emphasizing the lack of a "civilizing" process in Third-World societies. Such an explanation--like Putnam's reasoning in revealing Southern Italy's "civic culture" to be bankrupt--is admittedly open to criticism of essentialism, cultural determinism, and other postmodern shortcomings, but at a minimum, it certainly alerts us to pertinent, non-economic variables at work in the development-democracy relationship.

Elias selects three comparative cases, France, England and Germany, and performs a content analysis of medieval texts on manners, etiquette, and the transformation of the nobility from warriors into courtiers. These texts are the empirical evidence offered for his key variable, pan-European courtly manners delineated by social structure (classes and "monopolies" of power). The other key variable (it's rather unclear which one is "dependent" on the other) is the rise of the nation-state, which was brought about by an exogenous variable (population growth) as well as two intervening factors: 1) the decline of the nobility relative to national absolutism (both economically and militarily); and 2) the rise of a money economy. Elias shows how centrifugal forces in these societies (mainly the warrior-noble class) resisted the "integration" of absolutism/nationhood, but that these forces in the end were overcome by economics coupled with the centripetal social groundwork of pan-European "civilite" and social customs, leading to an increasingly complex interweaving of social functions. "Society was 'in transition' . . . 'Simplicity' . . . had been lost. People saw things with more differentiation" (61). "Social control was becoming more binding . . . with the structural transformation of society . . . a change slowly came about: the compulsion to check one's own behaviour" (70).

The near totality of Elias' evidence is qualitative, often selected from medieval writings and secondhand observations. Although he means to proceed inductively from these facts, Elias often reads like a deductive historian, especially when positing lawlike generalizations such as "the more or less sudden emergence of words within languages nearly always points to changes in the lives of people themselves, particularly when the new concepts are destined to become as central and long-lived as these" (48). In fact, his entire thesis can be summarized with another of his apparently deductive axioms: "The growth of units of integration and rule is always at the same time an expression of structural changes in society, that is to say, in human relationships" (254). Marxists, of course, would say that such social changes are themselves dependent upon changes in the relations of production, but Elias gives equal weight to social causes as to economic ones. The economy is by no means neglected in his analysis, since he gives currency, demand for property, and population growth prime explanatory roles in his causal process (despite the fact that there is no quantitative evidence given for these socioeconomic correlations, unlike the analysis of the same topics by North & Thomas). However, Marxists would surely have a fit over Elias' assertion that the civilizing process leads to a wholesale leveling of distinctions between social classes (430), as well as his claim that the modern state arose out of a virtual stalemate between the bourgeois and the nobility (327).

On the topic of state-society relations, Elias makes the provocative argument that for the past 300 years, "monopoly rulers" (including, but not limited to, absolutist kings) are mere functionaries, with the real power resting in the hands of their "subjects" (271). "Control of the centralized institutions themselves is so dispersed that it is difficult to discern clearly who are the rulers and who are the ruled" (315). Of course, under an instable balance of power (including today's Third World) the playing field is presumably up for grabs between different classes and parts of the state, but in a developed society, Elias would argue that the internalization of "civilized" norms means that the "strong" state, while resting on a cohesive social order, is not as autonomous from social forces as one might think.

We live our everyday lives shrouded in monotony, going about our business as if our existence was the most natural and unquestionable one, yet what our souls calls "home" has actually been created in an extremely complex and all-encompassing process of perpetual change.

In this very ambitious book, Norbert Elias examines both how our consciousness has been transformed by society, and how society itself has "progressed", that is, what mechanisms have propelled the transformation of our western civilization from a violent and unrepressed, autarkic existence, to our infinitely interdependent, specialized and pacified modern nation-states.

By first exploring and analyzing historical documents, the author let's us experience with much detail how human's relations with others have been transformed, how our manners and behavior have been modelled by a changing environment, illustrated by the most diverse situations like table manners, attitude toward those of an inferior condition, hygiene, and sexuality.

It is like glancing at our collective youth, oddly familiar and intimate, yet repulsive.

Elias then meticulously articulates by what forces feudalism eventually gave rise to ever more centralized and interdependent forms of government and the corresponding specific changes in human behavior and attitudes.

A couple of interesting ideas in this book specially relevant to current debate: how society's transformation isn't the design of anyone or a "conspiration" of sorts, but a process that obeys its own laws; how our form of government is very deeply dependent on all classes and peoples, thus enjoying very little freedom for gratuitous action; and how war isn't necessarily the opposite of peace, but the opportunity for ever larger zones of pacification to emerge.

All good lessons to re-learn today, specially by the Left, with its visions of evil conspirations and it's stubborn insistence on perpetuating strife and conflict by opposing lasting resolution by means of war.

This is one of the most important books I have ever read. Norbert Elias ingeniously and persuasively provides a way to understand the evolution of Western societies and personalities from the Twelfth Century to our own time.

He provides an organizing principle for understanding how and why life and people were different in different periods of Western history. Until I read Elias I could only guess at what life was like in earlier eras by inferring from social, economic, and technical conditions. Elias provides a clear and reasonable way to look much closer.

I strongly recommend this book.

DESPITE the fact that SOME people think Jaeger is his son Jedit, I still think that this book is pretty good. The ending, however, could have been better. Johan's character is too underdeveloped. The reader has no idea of what motivates him. I'll say this book is pretty average. (And yes, My REAL name is Johan.)

The book was overall great, there were something I didnt care for, such as the pirates... and the very end, but despite these it was still a very good book. Clayton Emery, writer of the original magic series(produced by Harper Prism) returns to write the first book of legends cycle... despite my dislike of pirate related thing, Emery does an exceptional job of keeping the reader intrested, and even further I awaited the term of each page and found myself wanted to skip partts of sentances just to find out what happened next. However... the plot seemed to go kind of far out at times, but was much like an epic would. The other weak point in my opinion was the end... The long awaited confrontation between Johan and the Tiger Man was rather much to short, however I did not expect it and so even this was in a way a nice surprise. If oyu find any of Clayton Emery's first books, I suggest you pick them up as well

Johan features some characters that are actually in the Legends card set ( Haezon Tamar, Johan, and Jedit. I'll bet many people includeing me have waited a VERY long time for Legends to have a story and I have to say one thing. It was well worth the long wait. Okay, Johan's city is well dying and tries to take over Haezon's city to save his own ( that doesn't sound too evil ). Can Haezon and a talking tiger warrior named Jedit stop the wizard Johan? I won't tell you. Oh, just read the book!

Great Book on Analog, Mixed signal circuit design. But deals only with bipolar devices!

The whole book is divided in three major section . First part deals with low power,low voltage , high speed designs . Some of the papers in this area are really good since mostly it starts from basic and takes us to the very advanced concepts . The second part is related to CAD tools for Mixed mode simulations . And the third part is for precise current or frequency generation . This includes discussion about bandgaps voltage controled oscilators etc.

In this interesting play, Henrik Ibsen sets up a scenario of a married couple with three children that seem to have a good relationship with each other. This couple is Nora and Helmer (called Torvald by Nora). They always seem to have romantic conversations with each other, but soon, we learn that years ago Nora had to take a loan from Nils Krogstad, in order to pay off a lifesaving medical treatment for Helmer. He doesn't know this and thinks that the money came from Nora's father, who has passed away.

Helmer, who has just been named a manager of a bank, is always treating Nora in such a sweet manner, such as "Is that my little lark twittering out there?" or calls by another bird's name. She always gets little money from Helmer, but never gets large sums because Helmer is worried he thinks she doesn't know how to manage her money wisely. In the beginning, Nora treats Helmer with overwhelming respect although Nora is hiding her loan that she is paying off on a regulaly with some of the money from Helmer. Nora doesn't want Helmer to think she took a loan since she thinks it could affect their relationship.

There are three other supporting characters in this play: Dr. Rank, Nils Krogstad, and Christine Linde. Dr. Rank is a friend of the family who is seriously ill. Nils Krogstad a worker at the bank, who is about to his job to a friend of Nora's, Christine Linde, a woman who recently moved back to the area because her husband died.

At the end of Act II, we find out Nora forged her father's signature on the loan. Krogstad had written a letter to tell Helmer about the loan. Nora is worried that Helmer will read the letter Krogstad wrote.

This play is about a woman trying to understand her marriage, and always wanting something wonderful to happen. With Helmer, she finally realizes that she isn't being treated the way she wants, and nothing wonderful seems to happen. Nora had no trouble making the decision of leaving her family, but perhaps she would have had a hard time recovering from this rare type of circumstance in this time and age.

As I very clearly stated above, this is a read-worthy book, though not my favorite or one of the best books that I have ever read. If you're in the mood for some feminist action or any politics, go ahead, pick up the book. This is, however, NOT a book for anyone who's looking for comedy.

In the past 10 years we have seen a tremendous amount of joint ventures, mergers and aquisitions and the future seems to be on the same keel. Strategic Alliances offers a framework to increase the opportunity for success as one ventures into new ground.

If your desire is to one day be a CEO, president, divisional manager or you work on projects regularly, this is a great purchase and a great resource.

Reading is a little dry and in some parts seems like a textbook.

This book does a good job in introducing a systematic approach to various types of co-operations between organisations, an to develop a theory around the different forms of alliances.

I found the text to be a bit academic and dry, and its' examples seem a bit outdated in many cases. However, case material related to strategic alliances can be found in the newspapers every day.....

The book is rich of color photographs, drawings, and analytical texts. With its detailed maps, the book is an invaluable guide to explore the fantastic architecture to be found in Stockholm and its surroundings. A must book if you are interested in Nordic architecture.

When these authors talk about long-term history, they are including hominid cultures in prehistorical Europe, and Asian and African cultures, not just historical Eurocentrism. They discuss how Marx and Weber sidestep everything except European experience, and how consideration of multiple civilizations shows that social development is not a straight line. There are not many other sociology books I've read whose bibliographies include articles such as "Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene." Of course, since I'm not a sociologist, there's much I don't know - perhaps there are many other such books out there. But I certainly didn't find them while collecting a shelf-full for a grad-school sociology course (required for a major in another social science). This was one of the most readable of the 30 or so books I plowed through.

The main concept the authors wish to convey is that history (and sociology) should not be concerned only with chronology, but also with long-term processes. Stages, or phases, have been commented on by previous sociologists, most of them having the view either that the stages showed a steady progress upward - or a steady deterioration downward. Life has either degenerated from a golden age to a machine age, or we are now the most civilized the world has ever been in all things. In both cases, the main concerns of such authors were primarily to explain conditions in the author's present world by showing how these had arisen out of previous conditions. Such stages were a favorite of 19th-century sociologists and anthropologists. However, twentieth century authors may have gone too far in rejecting stage models; our authors here feel that both chronology and "phaseology" should be taken into account. This leads the authors to "processes."

One of the most useful concepts presented is the authors' view of the major transformations in society: from a stage where there were no societies with control over fire, agriculture, or mechanical industry, to a stage where some societies controlled some of those, to a stage where some societies control all of those areas. Then, we can place particular societies into context - if we call a particular society "agrarian", is it coexisting with many other agrarian societies? Or with industrial societies? Are they on their way toward an industrial society?

There is then a chapter showing the relationship between agrarian societies and religion; the function of priests as determiners of when it is time to plant is illustrated by both historic and not-too-long-ago examples. This is followed by a look at how an agrarian culture leads to socially stratified societies, and to warrior classes, and how the subsequent "taming" of warriors is a necessary element for further social development.

This book is somewhat academic, but not dense with jargon. It is not extremely heavy reading, and can be understood by someone without an intensive knowledge of sociology or economics. It's helpful if the reader is at least familiar with the names of such theorists as Marx, Spencer, Weber; for someone who has been introduced to those theorists in an undergraduate sociology class, and is looking for a more modern point of view from which to start a term paper or other further study, this book is a good starting point. Its multicultural viewpoint that includes Asian and African civilizations will be a welcome change from the Eurocentrism of the older theorists, and should also appeal to the professor for whom a student might be writing such a paper. Because of its title, it might not immediately come to such a reader's attention - since history, rather than social development, is in the title, some might pass over it. That would be a mistake.