Book Description
From a rare volume on the history of playing cards: nearly 500 elegant illustrations that once graced European regular and tarot card decks. On display are face cards, musical instruments, fantasy figures, and other motifs — all ideal for adding a period flair to almost any graphic project. 251 black-and-white illustrations, 245 designs in color.
Customer Reviews:
Good images, but incomplete.......2007-04-28
The images are interesting and high quality, and come in a variety of designs, but if you want a whole set of antique playing cards, this is not the place to go. There isn't even a full set of face cards.
pretty good selection.......2006-11-06
Not a bad selection, haven't used the images yet but I'm sure I will at some stage.
Average customer rating:
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Adrian Hill's Oil Painting for Beginners
Adrian Keith Graham Hill
Manufacturer: Sterling Pub Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Instructional & How-To
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Painting
| Instructional & How-To
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Painting
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Oil Painting
| Painting
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 028980101X |
Product Description
A beginner's book of oil painting.
Average customer rating:
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The Making of the "Living Planet"
Andrew Langley
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Evolution
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Environment
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
| Conservation
| Desertification
| Ecology
| Environmental Science
| Natural Disasters
| Recycling
| Water Supply
| Weather
ASIN: 0047780029 |
Book Description
We live on a dynamic planet with diverse landforms and bodies of water and ice. The vast surface of the Earth is constantly changing. Making of the Earth provides the latest research in the study of the natural and man-made forces that influence the scope and shape of the planet. Among the topics covered are Arctic geology, coastal geography, continental formation, desert features, erosion, glacial landscapes, global tectonics, mountain ranges, riverine topography, tectonic processes, unique landforms, and volcanic terrain
Customer Reviews:
Don't buy this book. Seriously........2005-08-09
I cannot believe someone gave this book 5 stars. I found it simply dreadful. It's even worse considering that this is apparently meant for children. I did not give this to my children, because I had a tough time reading it myself (and I like geology!)
The writer does not seem to know how to put words together to make readable sentences, or how to put sentences together to make readable text. I found myself rereading things, trying to make sense out of what was written. The opening chapter started off with the making of the earth, but it didn't seem to be in sequential order; I had a hard time figuring out what was supposed to be happening when (jumping from one time frame back to something that had already happened - very confusing). Not all of the text appeared to be so disorganized, but none of it was particularly interesting to read, and there were sentences with poor structure throughout.
The book makes a point of defining the new words/terms it introduces, but does not always do so at or before the point where the word is first used in the text itself; sometimes a word's definition comes a page or more after the word's usage.
The pictures are terrible. There are few illustrations and none of the illustrations are particularly good. Most of the book's images consist of mediocre black and white photographs of nondescript terrain. The quality is poor both in terms of the reproduction quality and the quality of the original photography; the images don't convey much information.
I abandoned this book and bought a first-year college geology textbook. Any of the undergraduate texts I have seen are easier to read & feature much better photographs (that actually convey concepts) and illustrations. Photos and illustrations should be in color.
Give this book to your child & you will turn him or her off geography forever!
A fine supplemental reading recommendation.......2001-05-18
How was the Earth formed, and what is the current state of the planet? Making Of The Earth joins other in the 'Living Earth' reference series, providing high school level students and up with the basics required to understand geology. Illustrations, photos, and easy discussions make this a fine supplemental reading recommendation.
Customer Reviews:
Charlie Brown gets Little Leaguers Elbow.......2005-09-05
"You're the Greatest Charlie Brown" is apparently a name for a cartoon series, I discovered when punching this into amazon.com search. The book I am reviewing is a compilation of Peanuts strips from 1963-1964, selected from another Peanuts book called "As You Like it Charlie Brown".
This is one of my favourite eras of Snoopy. I like the style and the sense of humour across the strips. The book takes a little while to warm up though, I feel.
Quite a few memorable moments. Snoopy gets caught in a flood, Charlie Brown gets little leaguers elbow. Lucy points out all Charlie Browns faults via a slide show, complete with intermission and whopping fee. Linus has to sing a carol for the PTA against his will, thanks to Lucy. Lucy also has a go at poor Linus, making him and his blanket (and deprivation of) her science experiment.
Worth a look for any Peanuts fan.
Product Description
Selected cartoons from As You Like, Charlie Brown II
Average customer rating:
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The Internet Joke Book
Brad Templeton
Manufacturer: Annabooks/Rtc Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Humor
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
E-mail
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Criticism
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Computer Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Groupware & Communications
| Software
| Computers & Internet
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Humor
| Entertainment
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| History & Criticism
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 1573980250 |
Book Description
A collection of highlights from many years of online humor, this compilation includes jokes on sex, politics, religion, current events, celebrities, and "things that never happen on Star Trek." Plus a special section of more than 100 variants on "how many does it take to change a light bulb?"
Average customer rating:
- Funny But Can Be Somewhat Vulgar
- Best book on e-tails
- It was alright
|
E-Tales: The Best & Worst of Internet Humor
Manufacturer: Cassell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Humor
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Internet
| Home Computing
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
| Internet & Education
| Online Searching
| Web Browsers
| Web for Kids
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Computers & Internet
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Jokes & Riddles
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0304357278 |
Book Description
E-Tales? It's cyberspace entertainment in print for the first time. This huge collection of Internet humor parades outrageous jokes, alarming facts, amazing-if-true stories, revealing personality tests, and mind-numbing word games. The world's worst accidents and horrible diseases appear next to terrifying tales of air travel. Jokes about the sex lives of old people mix with signs that you're getting old. You'll find drawings you can make using x's and o's. "Darwin Awards" honor people who do stupid things that result in their demise (thus removing themselves from the gene pool). Vying for the worst country and western songs: "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?" and "I Still Miss You Baby, but My Aim's Getting Better." Much more to come: two men in a bar stories, sex in the White House jokes, and St. Peter at the Pearly Gates jokes.
Customer Reviews:
Funny But Can Be Somewhat Vulgar.......2001-11-16
This book has a lot of hilarious jokes in it, but it also has quite a few inappropriate jokes ranging from slightly vulgar to downright crude. Granted, the majority of the jokes are clean (as far as the language goes) but have adult themes (i.e. the differences between men & women, sex, drinking, etc) Overall this is a good book (in my opinion) but the reader should be aware of the possibility of being offended by some strong cuss words and outright obnoxious themes.
Best book on e-tails.......2001-09-10
This book is so funny. I love the fact that it is a good-time read and is shocking at times. I can't remember a time when I read a book that I showed my friends and they couldn't put it down. Ever since I showed my friends and family, everybody I know has asked me where I got it. We took this book everywhere and everytime we got bored we'd just start reading it. If they came out with another book like this I'd definitly be the first to get it. I'd definitly recommened this book.
It was alright.......2001-08-12
This book is a pretty cool book if you like that kind of stuff. Definitely not for the little kids though. Some vulgarities are included in the book. But all in all, it is really funny.
Average customer rating:
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Em@Il Joke Book
Huw Jarsz
Manufacturer: CARLTON BOOKS (Pref
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1844429105 |
Average customer rating:
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Internet Joke Book
Keith Evans
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Computers & Internet
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Comic
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0738832820 |
Book Description
This book contains jokes, bizarre stories and witty humor gathered from around the United States and abroad. Sidesplitting witticisms of old and new, some we've heard yet still humorous, the new even much more hilarious. However, various contents may not be suitable for younger readers.
Average customer rating:
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Internet Joke Book - Volume Two
Keith Evans
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Computers & Internet
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Jokes & Riddles
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0738845760 |
Book Description
This book is composed of fresh jokes, bizarre stories and witty satire collected from throughout the United States and abroad. This, Internet Joke Book- Volume Two, contains, yet even more sidesplitting witticisms of old and new. Various contents may not be suitable for younger readers.
Average customer rating:
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Internet Short Stories and Jokes
Harvey Fushman
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Internet Games
| Games & Strategy Guides
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Short Stories
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1413430651 |
Book Description
This is the first book about the Internet that has gathered and organized all of the myriads of jokes and fables that have circled the globe over phone lines. Over fifteen years in the making the author has compiled and edited little facts and big ideas that poke fun at everything and everyone. All professions and all peoples are included. Here are a bundle of laughs and tears, interesting facts and irreverent and informative stories. Read it at home or at a party. Bring it to your place of work to relieve the stress or brighten the monotony. Enjoy it as you would a meal; little bites or all at once. Memorize the facts to impress your friends and be prepared with a timely joke or story. It is all here in one wonderfully entertaining book.
Cover Design by Chris Forrette
Author Picture by Thomas Lascher
Average customer rating:
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The Ultimate Book of Netty Nutters
Chris Tarrant
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Entertainment
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Jokes & Riddles
| Humor
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Internet
| Home Computing
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
| Internet & Education
| Online Searching
| Web Browsers
| Web for Kids
ASIN: 0006531504 |
Book Description
Will Stark and Roger Milligan have compiled the best of all those hilarious, touching, moving and just about everything else you can imagine e-mails into this 272 page "World's Funniest & Greatest E-mails" paperback book.
This book makes a perfect gift for yourself or someone else. They have taken the best of the best over the last seven years and categorized them into these easy to read chapters.
Gender Humor Animal, Blonde, Church Humor Inspirational Drunken, Elder, Kids Humor Religion Something to Offend Everyone (and just) Hmmm
Put it on your desk for an easy quick laugh, or keep it in the bathroom for your daily inspiration and laughter. Whether you are 15, 55 or 105 this book has something for everyone. You just can't put this book down!
Customer Reviews:
In depth history and current view of Cajun and Creole music.......2000-06-20
Exceptional history and current description of Cajun, Creole, and Zydeco music. Will be appreciated both by tourists new to Louisiana culture as well as by serious connoiseurs of folk music and traditions and of French language. Barry Jean Ancelet is both a distinguished professor at the University of Louisiana (Lafayette), as well as being a Cajun "Garrison Keillor" (of Prairie Home Companion fame).
Average customer rating:
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The makers of Cajun music =: Musiciens cadiens et creoles
Barry Jean Ancelet
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Religious & Sacred Music
| Musical Genres
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Theory, Composition & Performance
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
| Appreciation
| Composition
| Conducting
| Exercises
| Instruction & Study
| MIDI, Mixers, etc.
| Sheet Music & Scores
| Songbooks
| Songwriting
| Techniques
| Theory
| Vocal
Music
| Judaism
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0292750781 |
Average customer rating:
- Before Thought: The Primacy of Human Intellect over Computer
- Outstanding!
- the muddled analysis demonstrates nothing
- Good history, bad assumptions, wrong conclusions
- first we shape our tools, then our tools shape us
|
After Thought: The Computer Challenge to Human Intelligence
James Bailey
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Culture
| Business & Culture
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Artificial Intelligence
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Theory of Computing
| Artificial Intelligence
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Computer Mathematics
| Artificial Intelligence
| Computer Science
| Computers & Internet
| Subjects
| Books
Popular Culture
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Theory
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Philosophy
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Mathematics
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
| Applied
| Chaos & Systems
| Geometry & Topology
| Mathematical Analysis
| Mathematical Physics
| Number Systems
| Pure Mathematics
| Transformations
| Trigonometry
ASIN: 0465007813 |
Amazon.com
Can the habits of thought we've developed over centuries and the computers we've built to automate our thought processes help us in a world choking on data? In this sweeping examination of the history of scientific thought, James Bailey argues that our current approach to computing is crippled by our need to create computers in our own intellectual image. The solution, a parallel approach to computation, where the nature of electronic circuits rather than human nature determines the design, will produce self-modifying machines that are profoundly alien, yet have the power to extract meaning from the flow of data that surrounds us.
The author's interpretation of the history of Western science from Greek antiquity to the present is a highly personal and fits his theory almost too smoothly. But his central thesis, that our understanding of reality is strait-jacketed by the tools we've developed to describe it, is profound and well worth pondering. The book is filled with interesting historical examples based on the author's wide reading and many of his observations are pithy and thought provoking. After Thought requires a dose of corrective skepticism on the reader's part (after all, the author was an executive at Thinking Machines Corp., a manufacturer of parallel processing supercomputers), but given that caveat, it's a fascinating read.
Customer Reviews:
Before Thought: The Primacy of Human Intellect over Computer.......2001-06-28
Bailey's ruminations bear rereading now that five years have passed since their first appearance. We have survived the advent of the new Millennium, and we have found once again that, after the divine afflatus, human intellect reigns supreme in the cosmos.
This is not to say that Bailey's postulations have no merit. The advances of the computer age, particularly in the still-infant and arcane discipline of artificial intelligence, continue to fascinate us and to challenge us. Yet even with the burgeoning networks and the increasingly powerful integration of humanity and its machines, the surprises offered by the observations of the young and young-in-spirit still outdo those of scientific teams. I suspect that pattern, as old as civilization, will prevail.
The chapter in this book that most demands reflection-and rereading-is Chapter 17, where Henry David Thoreau is pitted against the myriad forces of the information age. As early as 1978 I was criticized by my literary colleagues for teaching the metaphysician of Walden Pond. At the time, I was working with Dr. Louis Uhle of USC on patterns of word usage in Renaissance English (primarily dramatic) texts as a scientific measure of authorship attribution. Yet Thoreau offered my students access not to data, but to genius, and that, not data, intrigued them.
Another colleague from the life sciences took his students to the college lawns to look as if for the first time at the patterns of dandelion blossoms, evoking the kinds of questions that not much later spawned Chaos Theory. My maths colleagues, intrigued with what I was doing with language, proceeded to AI, and my psychology colleagues drifted off to work some of the same ideas in formulating new network designs at Bell Labs.
Bailey's own accounts of elementary school children discerning the grounds for identifying a species that had remained unperceived by the "experts" reminds me of those halcyon days-before I also drifted into "line and circle" problem solving of the probabilistic kind. We had no idea we were participating in a revolution of thought, and perhaps that was just as well.
A metaphor Bailey uses in After Thought, particularly in Chapter 17, is that of understanding the behavior of rivers, and I think he was trying to suggest something about the elusive construct of Nature, which, if we should only drop our preconceptions and listen, would always surprise us. The Mississippi, like the Nile (or the Yangtze, for that matter), remains a keen scientific concern, but offers no easy understanding.
Yes, we have the potential to engage in collaborative enterprises involving computers and networks around the globe-the greatest parallel processing enterprise, in size and scale of any age. The question is, how much closer to essential truths this endeavor brings us?
Bailey would have us understand that we are about to transcend the time of maths as we know them and that we shall reach a new plateau of pattern recognition that renders the schema of ancient Babylon, the thinking of Kepler and even the cogitation of the Sante Fe Institute fellows obsolete. Perhaps, but, then again, perhaps not. The leaps of genius have outrun the numbers throughout history, however the scientific elite have formulated them. Our experts propose; Nature disposes otherwise. The human intellect itself has been found far more powerful than the sum of all the crunching power of all the machines in being or under consideration-working individually or working together.
Two cautions to Bailey's line of reasoning-for its determinism seems to partake of the confining features of Newton's laws, which he claims to eschew. First, no true scientist ever deceives himself or herself that absolutes are inviolate. Second, the very open inquiry at the root of the scientific method-even among the ancient Greeks-has never really surrendered to the rigors of numbers.
We fall between the pattern that has broken and the patterns that we sense as possible in Chaos every time. Taken that way, we can all still engage in our common task of understanding taking the fruits of our data looms as yet another set of features against which we try to move from apprehension to comprehension, the latter of which we approach as that dark and all-transforming glass of eternity.
Outstanding!.......1999-03-02
Bailey does an excellent job of combining computer theory with history, mathematics, economics and philosophy. I can only guess that the people who gave it a single star must have had difficulty with Bailey's style which, at times, requires a measure of diligence to locate the point.
the muddled analysis demonstrates nothing.......1999-01-19
I'm an artificial intelligence person, and I bought this book to keep up-to-date with what popularizers are saying about my field. Now I wish I hadn't--it's too depressing. James Bailey got caught up in the promise of the wave of trendy data-driven learning algorithms like neural networks and genetic algorithms, and the purpose of the book is to gush about them. There's no attempt to place these methods in the broader context of artificial intelligence as a whole, and no recognition of their weaknesses. The book randomly names these methods the "new intermaths" and analyzes them historically as a radical breakthrough from the traditional sequential, numeric, data-poor human reasoning into the brave new world of parallel, non-numeric, data-rich silicon reckoning. He's partly right about that, but I think it's a coincidence; the book's argument is so muddled that it doesn't reach any convincing conclusion.
Good history, bad assumptions, wrong conclusions.......1997-06-28
This is a wonderful intellectual history of modern logics. However, Mr. Bailey should probably have known more about brains and less about computers before he wrote this book. That human brains can think sequentially and that this has been the mode of scientistic thinking since Descartes, does not mean that brains only think sequentially as he assumes. Furthermore, that computers can be built in parallel does not mean that "wires" have any better capacity to process intermaths than brains. His conclusion, therefore, that we need parallel computers to complement our serial brains is silly. Alas, he is as captivated as all of the busy complexity theorists at Santa Fe by the notion of the "object" whose interior processes can remain "intractable" so long as we recognize their behaviors. A better conclusion might have been that since we can see computers producing order without bendfit of formulaic algorithms, then perhaps we should investigate if this isn't really how the massive parallel processors between our ears actually work. Or, he could spend some time just observing and reporting on the creative processes of ... well ... artists
first we shape our tools, then our tools shape us.......1997-05-09
This is a delightful book! Bailey brings a historian's eye to an intellectual history of mathematics, and how our tools for calculation
shape the things we calculate.
Every page is full of details --- Galileo's massively-parallel thought-experiment with beads on a wire; how the shift from hand-written manuscript to movable-type printing press sped the replacement of geometry with algebra; Kepler's lifetime of calculation; the intriguing suggestion of how different was Babylon's astronomy, which was not based on geometry.
Bailey sees the history of mathematics filtered through three phases: the mathematics of place (geometry), the mathematics of rate (algebra to calculus), and now, with the emergence of computer tools, the mathematics of change and relationship (chaos theory, neural nets, simulation).
Books:
- Art: 21: Art in the 21st Century 3 (Art 21 PBS)
- Art and the Power of Placement
- Art Nouveau, 1890-1914
- Art Nouveau Frames and Borders CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art Series)
- Art School: A Complete Painters Course
- Arts and Culture: An Introduction to Humanities, Volume I (2nd Edition)
- Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime (Aesthetics Today)
- Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art
- Blue Note: Album Cover Art
- Brush Meditation: A Japanese Way to Mind & Body Harmony
Books Index
Books Home
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- Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems
- Creating Beautiful Boxes With Inlay Techniques
- Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
- Cat Made Me Buy It!
- Cut & Assemble the Wizard of Oz Toy Theater
- CREATIVE LICENSE, THE: GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO BE THE ARTIST YOU TRULY ARE
- Entering Normal
120 Classic Posters from "Les Maitres de l'Affiche" CD-ROM and Book (Dover Full-Color Electronic Design)
Antique Playing Cards: A Pictorial History
Old-Time Travel Posters and Luggage Labels CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Clip Art)
Full-Color Old-Time Label Art CD-ROM and Book (Dover Pictorial Archive)
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