Get Fuzzy: 2005 Day-to-Day (Get Fuzzy)

Book Description

Bucky Katt is a snaggle-toothed Siamese who can't stand monkeys, the media, or civilized behavior. Satchel Pooch, an unlikely mix of Shar-pei and Labrador retriever, wears a watch (which he can't read), laughs at jokes he doesn't understand, and eats food off the floor with joyful abandon. Together they are at the chaotic, hilarious center of "Get Fuzzy" by Darby Conley, the world's hottest comic strip. Appearing in more than 400 newspapers around the world and in a best-selling series of books-more than 400,000 copies sold to date-"Get Fuzzy" again brings its distinctively offbeat sensibility to a calendar line that is certain to appeal to readers everywhere, of any species. Let the mayhem begin. More than 350,000 copies of the two previous day-to-day calendars have been sold. The 2005 edition is sure to build on that success by continuing the winning format of a putting a "Get Fuzzy" daily strip on every page.

Customer Reviews:

365 Days of Rob, Satchel, and Bucky Katt!.......2004-09-28

I love this little gem of a comic strip. It is one of the most witty, refreshing, and downright funny stips to come along in a long time. Best of all, this daily calendar provides me with a laugh almost every day. If there's any downside to it, it's that I don't throw away the past days' strips. So next to my desk calendar, I have the strips from the previous year stacked next to it. There are just too many good Bucky strips to just get rid of them.

I'm just about through my 2004 calendar and have an order in for the 2005 version. I need my daily quota of "Get Fuzzy"!

If you're limited on space and you spend your day in a veal cube like I do, this would be the perfect addition to bring a little laughter to an otherwise mundane day. Enjoy!

Our Animal Friends Provide Daily Laughs.......2004-08-02

Darby Conley is one of the greatest cartoonists to come out of the second half of the twentieth century. "Get Fuzzy" took newspapers by storm and won the hearts of animal lovers (including me) everywhere immediately when it was first published. Of course now there are several "Get Fuzzy" books, calendars, posters, etc., available for purchase, and they are worth the money to devoted fans of the strip. I am especially partial to the books but now for the second year I have bought the day-to-day calendar to provide a bright spot in any day, no matter how otherwise dull.

Everyone needs a calendar, so if you love animals, and particularly if you have personality intensive pets, you will love this calendar. I ordered mine early and already peeked at the strips for the year ahead, and they are funnier than ever. Buy this calendar if you want a dose of animal related fun every day for 2005. I highly recommend it!

Book Description

The workplace has been changed in recent decades by the rise of digital technologies. Parts of a single labor process can be moved around the world, with implications not only for individual workplaces, but for the working class as a whole.

Within advanced capitalist countries, the workplace has been made more flexible through cell phones, e-mail, freelancing, and outsourcing. The process often makes the situation of the workers more precarious, as they are forced to pay for the tools of their trade, are expected to be constantly accessible to workplace demands, and are isolated from their fellow workers.

Huws' The Making of a Cybertariat examines this process from a number of perspectives, including those of women in the workplace and at home. It explores changing categories of employment and modes of organization, and how new divisions of race and gender are created in the process. It questions how the virtual workforce can identify their common interests and stand together to struggle for them.

The Making of a Cybertariat is both a testament to the author's remarkable record in the politics of technology over several decades and a vital resource for grasping ongoing debates and controversies in this field.

Customer Reviews:

An original and compelling critique of capitalism.......2004-03-30

Ursula Huws' "The Making of a Cybertariat" is a collection of essays on the political economy of technology and its myriad social consequences. In this fascinating book, Dr. Huws has developed an original and compelling critique of contemporary capitalism. While the articles span from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the analyses are consistently razor-sharp and the insights remain as valid today as when they were originally conceived and written.

Dr. Huws has worked for many years as an activist, researcher and free lance writer living in Great Britain. She currently serves as a Professor at London Metropolitan University. Both the immediacy and the solid scholarship that infuses her writing is evidence of these myriad roles as well as Dr. Huws' professionalism and dedication to her work.

Integral to Dr. Huws' analysis is the Marxist-inspired concept of commodification, or capitalism's tendency to draw into the cash economy activities which had been previously carried out by unpaid labor. For example, the hand-washing of clothes is replaced by the laundromat and in turn by the home washing machine. With each succeeding wave of technological advancement, the division of labor increases in a manner that richly rewards technical specialists while it enslaves large masses of deskilled workers and consumers into an increasingly tenuous and impoverished lifestyle.

But Dr. Huws goes well beyond Marx by emphasizing the Feminist identification of the home (not the factory) as the primary locus of struggle. As telecommunications and computer technologies increasingly blur the distinctions between home and office, it is the female who disproportionately bears the cost of capitals' expansion, Dr. Huws posits. Capital benefits from technological innovations such as self-service banking, for example, mainly by offloading laborious tasks onto consumers. Dr. Huws goes on to state that the machines, laws and social norms that regulate domestic female behavior turns housework into "drudgery" and helps extend and enforce the sphere of male domination and control.

Within this general analytical framework, individual chapters are dedicated to discussions of the Internet and its facilitation of corporate restructuring and the outsourcing of work overseas; how women's health suffers due to inequalities in the workplace and the female ethic of sacrificial caregiving; technology's role in the failure of collectivity in the 1970s, the rise of individualism and the decline of the public sphere from the 1980s to today; the debunking of postmodern theories pertaining to the supposed dematerialization of the economy; the contestation of time wrought by the automation of routine tasks and the application of Taylorist management principles; the myriad challenges of forming a "cybertariat" class consciousness in a contingent global economy that is segmented by space, status and culture; and more.

At the close of each chapter, Dr. Huws ponders how citizens might wrest control of the work processes and technologies controlled by capital and state in order to channel it towards the cause of enriching society and empowering people.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Resources for Feminist Research, published by O.I.S.E. on September 22, 2004. The length of the article is 1293 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in a Real World.(Book Review)
Author: Susan Sturman
Publication: Resources for Feminist Research (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2004
Publisher: O.I.S.E.
Volume: 31 Issue: 1-2 Page: 25(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Trade is one of the most powerful forces linking our lives, and a source of unprecedented wealth. Yet millions of the world’s poorest people are being left behind. Increased prosperity has gone hand in hand with mass poverty. Already obscene inequalities between rich and poor are widening. World trade could be a powerful motor to reduce poverty, and support economic growth, but that potential is being lost. The problem is not that international trade is inherently opposed to the needs and interests of the poor, but that the rules that govern it are rigged in favor of the rich.

If Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America were each to increase their share of world exports by one per cent, the resulting gains in income could lift 128 million people out of poverty. In Africa alone, this would generate $70bn – approximately five times what the continent receives in aid.

In their rhetoric, governments of rich countries constantly stress their commitment to poverty reduction. Yet in practice rigged rules and double standards lock poor people out of the benefits of trade, closing the door to an escape route from poverty.

Reform of world trade is only one of the requirements for ending the deep social injustices that pervade globalization. Action is also needed to reduce inequalities in health, education and the distribution of income and opportunity, including those inequalities that exist between women and men. However, world trade rules are a key part of the poverty problem; fundamental reforms are needed to make them part of the solution. Oxfam’s campaign, Make Trade Fair, aims to change world trade rules so that trade can make a real difference in the fight against global poverty.

This report gives comprehensive research findings and analysis, presenting a powerful case for changes in trade laws, and a reform agenda to make these changes happen.

Customer Reviews:

A Barrel Full of Belly Laughs.......2000-01-01

This is a "hoot and a holler" type of book. I re-read this one on occasion, smiling in recognition of many of the guys I knew growing up, and laughing right along!

Dr. Cannon did a wonderful job with this book of explaining just what a good old boy is and why good old boys and rednecks are NOT the same! Reading this book, there were times I began to wonder if I didn't have a bit of Gobbie spirit in myself (and no, I'll never be a Gobbie exactly; I don't have all the requisite tools).

In a side note, my copy is signed by Dr. Cannon and two of the people mentioned in the book, Cecil Hitchcock and "Lousiana Fats" - I go to church with Cecil). That makes it even more special to me!

Hopefully, this book will get back into print VERY soon -- the world should read this one!

Great fun and very accurate!.......1998-11-29

The style made this a lively and fun book to read. Unfortunately, I loaned it to a good ol' boy to read and never got it back. I need another one badly, if anyone out there has one.

Customer Reviews:

A memory of my music life.......2005-09-29

Actually I read the 1978 version when I was a serious music student. It is very long time ago. The book became a memory of my music life.
It was unforgettable that the contemporary music had began with Debussy's "Prelude a l'ares-midi d'un faune". After reading the book, I analyzed the Debussy's score then I was totally convinced.
I met many contemprary composers in this book. I tried to listen thier music later, some of I love, some of not.
Griffiths's writing is clear and I think he captures the overall picture of 20th century serious music world.

CLEAR AND CONCISE INTRODUCTION TO MODERN MUSIC........2000-06-08

Griffiths book Modern Music clearly shows the main styles and trends af 20th century Music, he starts with the late Romantics and the Impressionists like Strauss,Mahler and Debussy and then devotes chapters on New Harmony, New Rhythm and Form. The revolutionary ideas of Schoenberg and Stravinsky are covered and how their ideas and others developed throughout the century. There's a chapter on Neoclassicism, Serialism and Total Serialism which developed after the second world war through composers such as Boulez and Stockhausen , he writes about the influence of the east on such composers as Debussy and Messiaen. Percussion, new ideas in rhythm, electronics and chance methods are covered, and then the last chapters are about Theatre and Politics and Minimalism and Multiplicity.

All the major themes and the most important composers are here so you get a clear Idea of how Modern Art music was in the 20th century, the book is not long so you don't get a detailed analysis of the works but what you get is a clear overall picture. A very good book to start with if you want information on Modern Music

Also recomended are his books "Modern Music the Avant Garde since 1945" which is a more detailed analysis of the second half of the century and his book about the Brilliant composer Gyorgi Ligeti.

Average customer rating:

Wake Up Amazon!

Modern Music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez (World of Art)
Paul Griffiths
Manufacturer: Thames and Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0500201641

Customer Reviews:

Wake Up Amazon!.......2007-01-25

Would someone at Amazon please wake up to the fact that the book "Modern Music" by Paul Griffiths and the CD "Modern Music" by some dumb rock outfit called Be Bop Deluxe have absolutely nothing to do with one another?! My stars are for the book, which is an insightful and comprehensive (also very well written) intro to real music in the late 20th century. It's a sad world when the glowing reviews of mediocre beat music take over a book covering the very real, profound and meaningful art music so sadly being utterly and universally neglected. And for no other reason than that the outfit in question gave their attempt a name it does not deserve (there is nothing modern about the popular jungle rhythms that dominate most conventional fare). Buy this book and leave the inarticulate sound-jungle behind you forever!

Average customer rating:

not for beginners or the faint of heart, but fundamental

A classic work on the application of social science to HCI

Read only the last chapter and the conclusion.

Important Beyond Its Ostensible Field

Fundamental reading

Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
Lucy A. Suchman
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Machine Learning | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
Human Vision & Language Systems | Artificial Intelligence | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Languages & Tools | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction (Bradford Books)

Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions

Cognition in the Wild (Bradford Books)

Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction

Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design (Acting with Technology)

ASIN: 0521337399

Book Description

This lively and original book offers a provocative critique of the dominant assumptions regarding human action and communication which underlie recent research in machine intelligence. Lucy Suchman argues that the planning model of interaction favoured by the majority of AI researchers does not take sufficient account of the situatedness of most human social behaviour. The problems that can arise as a result are pertinently, and often amusingly, illustrated by the careful analysis of a recorded interaction between novice users and an intelligent machine, whose design has failed to accommodate essential resources of successful human communication.

"Plans and Situated Actions" presents a compelling case for the re-examination of current models of underlying interface design. Lucy Suchman's proposals for a fresh characterization of human-computer interaction which also incorporates recent insights from the social sciences provides a challenge that everyone interested in machine intelligence will need seriously to consider.

Customer Reviews:

not for beginners or the faint of heart, but fundamental.......2006-12-31

Suchman's book is a classic (and about to be updated!), but that doesn't mean there aren't any caveats. Suchman's analysis is deep, her writing thick (incredibly terse, dense prose that may require a good dictionary), and her perspective is still controversial.

This book doesn't tell you how to "do" very much - it's not a step-by-step method book. This is a mix of theory and method that will force the engaged reader to reflect on his/her own work.

This book stands as perhaps the best example of a socio-cognitive analysis of technology, and is therefore correctly treated as fundamental in HCI and related fields. For a researcher who is interested in the relationship between technology and people, or technology and the world, this is a must-read. AI and HCI stumble into each other frequently, but this is a book for both audiences.

As for the debate of plans vs. situated action, well, to some extent I find it irrelevant. Suchman never claims that plans don't exist or are unimportant. Even if your work is completely plan-oriented - say, AI planning (e.g. path planning), you should read this book - it will challenge some of your assumptions, and force you to grapple with problems that exist when technology interacts with the world.

That having been said, this is not an introductory reader on HCI, AI, or any other topic. Suchman's terse language frustrates even some very intelligent grad students and PhD's, and again, this book is deep. It's a book that has challenged me as I've read and re-read it over the years, and I treasure it.

A classic work on the application of social science to HCI.......2006-05-10

This book is not for everyone. Suchman makes connections between AI, HCI and the sociological areas of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA) - connections that have been very visible and influential in subsequent HCI and CSCW research. If you don't have any background in these sociological areas, it will take some work to read it.

That said, I think this book is reasonably accessible, and certainly more so than has been suggested by some reviewers. Suchman was writing to counter a prevalent mindset in the AI community of the time. Basically, Chapters 2 and 3 set up a technical and philosophical strawman (human action as the execution of plans), Chapters 4 and 5 provide an explanation of some necessary theoretical background, and the rest is an analysis of interaction in the context of these theories that serves to knock down the strawman. It's fairly hard to have a more clear and logical organization than that. There's no part of that organization that could be left out and still have the book make sense.

Furthermore, by comparison, the theoretical parts of this book should be easier for the uninitiated to read than are Garfinkel's writings on ethnomethodology (or most CA writings by almost anyone). They may or may not do justice to those ideas, but that's a separate question. And for someone with any background at all in these areas (though as suggested by other reviewers, this does not include a huge number of people), this book should be a very straightforward read.

The bottom line for me is that this book (like Paul Dourish's "Where the Action Is") is an interdisciplinary gem that has the potential to change how you think about how people approach technology. There aren't that many books for which that can be said.

Read only the last chapter and the conclusion........2003-02-05

If you do read it, read only the last chapter and the conclusion.

Summary:
Keep in mind that the title of the book is Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human Machine Communication. The majority of the book is the 'plans and situated actions' part.

The basic idea of the book is that humans don't really function using plans. Plans, as the author defines them, are something akin to diagrams for behavior, explicating specific activities. Instead, the author argues that humans behave based on 'situated actions'. Situated actions are, "the view that every course of action depends in essential ways upon its material and social circumstances. Rather than attempting to abstract action away from its circumstances and represent it as a rational plan, the approach is to study how people use their circumstances to achieve intelligent action." (p. 50).

In other words, people have a goal in mind. To achieve their goal, people may or may not set up a plan (the author discusses how this could be culturally relative, but I think this is a weak point in her argument because she doesn't really do a good job of distinguishing one type of plan from another), but what is important is that in trying to achieve their goal they are placed in situations that determine their actions. This could also be said: people behave in specific situations based upon the factors that affect the situation.

Let me give an example... Let's say your goal is to get to the dentist. You set up a 'plan' for getting to the dentist prior to leaving. Your plan would include a calculation of the time and the route and your mode of transportation. The situated action approach would say that you can only understand the individual's behavior in terms of their actions in specific situations. So you get in your car and on the way to the dentist's office you run into a detour due to construction. If you had to follow your plan, you couldn't make it to the dentist. But when you leave the road and find an alternate route, this behavior is only understood in terms of situated action. Does that explain it? Wow, and it only took me a few paragraphs.

The author discusses plans and situated actions in terms of conversations, cognitive science, ethnomethodology, and a whole bunch of other theoretical perspectives and technical jargon. In the end she finally gets to the human and machine communication. This is also where the book begins to get interesting. She studied how people interacted with copy machines that were trying to give people instructions. Her studies, undoubtedly helped the people at Xerox figure out ways to improve their copy machines and instructions for them. Like I said above, the last chapter and the conclusion are the most interesting parts of the book. Skip the rest and read them.

My Comments:
For someone so concerned with understanding how people communicate this book is horribly written and nearly unintelligible. The first six chapters are theory and examples of the theory that are completely unrelated to machines. The book finally gets to human and machine interaction after nearly one hundred pages of inchoate theory. And the human and machine interaction stuff isn't really all that interesting - especially since it predates the 1990s, is talking about interaction with copying machines, and has nothing to do with computers.

The author should have chosen a specific approach and then stuck to it. Perhaps she could have tripled the length of the book and gave clear and understandable explanations of the theories (though I am pretty much convinced after having read the book that this would be impossible because of the author's writing style) and used examples that applied only to human and machine interaction. Or she could have just jumped into her findings that dealt with human and machine interaction. The first approach could have been 'dumbed down' to make the book readable by the general public. The second approach could have served a more academic market.

The book reads something like a doctoral dissertation (it very well may be one, I don't know) in that she gives some information on each theory, but not really enough to give someone a good understanding of it - something like a literature review - and cites examples of research that are completely unrelated to the topic of the book to illustrate the theories . The she presents her methods, results, and conclusion.

I guess my problem is that I was expecting a book that would actually be enjoyable to read, interesting, and would focus on human and machine communication. If that is what you are looking for, look somewhere else. This book is nearly impossible to understand. I read the book for a graduate level course in Ethnomethodology and I didn't really understand it very well. By no means am I an expert in Ethnomethodology, but I'm pretty sure I know more about it than probably 95% of the world's population (keep in mind I don't know very much at all), so I'm pretty confident most people would find this book nearly impossible to decipher.

Important Beyond Its Ostensible Field.......2002-07-12

This is an outstanding book. The insight that showed the power of the idea of `situated action' goes far beyond the realm of interactive design or even human computer interaction in its entirety. It is a fundamental solution to the problem of facing complexity and contingency. Its implications are widespread. This book was published in the 1987 when during the last days of classical AI. This is one of the seminal books that showed the inadequacies of the classical formulation. Indeed it showed a new and much more way of achieving the goals that classical AI set for itself and failed. Despite its age the ides in this book are still fresh and important.

. Absolute certainty is impossible and the quest for it is costly and futile. Instead of trying to overcome the uncertainty that is in the world, the system designer should embrace it and use it as a tool to solve the problems that it creates.

This is a book that should be read by anyone who has set the task for themselves of developing any system that must function in an uncertain environment. In short this is a book that should be read by anyone who is developing a system that will have to function within the real world

Fundamental reading.......2000-06-28

This is THE book to start with if anybody is interested in studying interaction design. In a time everybody calls themselves an interaction designer, it's a highly recommended reading to learn there's more to interaction than simply large colourful buttons... Based on an ethnomethodological perspective, Suchman does a brilliant job in analysing users' interactions with an advanced Xerox machine, and putting forth an interesting critique of classical AI concepts. It's highly recommended for anybody interested in Human-Computer Communication and interaction design.

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