Managing RAID on Linux

Book Description

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology is becoming a standard feature of computer systems that support mission-critical services like file sharing, mail exchange, or Web servers. RAID offers two benefits to these essential systems: improved I/O performance and fail-safe data storage. Although bandwidth problems on networks are well documented, the internal data transfer bottleneck that exists at the hardware level in each system can also leave you with perplexing performance issues. RAID is a cost-effective and easy-to-manage way to alleviate this bandwidth problem by distributing the I/O load seamlessly across multiple disks and controllers. RAID also provides uninterrupted data access through disk mirroring and parity algorithms. That means systems can remain online even during a disk or controller failure. RAID is scalable, making it robust enough for large, high-traffic sites and small, critical systems. By using RAID, system administrators can combine single disks into terabytes worth of data storage. Managing RAID on Linux covers everything system administrators need to know to put together a system that can support RAID. You will learn about the different types of RAID, along with associated technologies and issues, and how to choose the best RAID system for your needs. With a step-by-step, hands-on approach, the author guides you through the installation of either Linux software RAID or a hardware RAID card. The book shows how to build an array and optionally install a high-performance file system. Contents include:

An introduction to RAID and Linux
Planning and architecture of your RAID system
Building a software RAID
Software RAID tools and references
Building a hardware RAID
Performance and tuning of your RAID system

RAID has become the low-cost solution of choice to deal with the ever-increasing demand for data storage space. Written for system administrators, power users, tech managers, and anyone who wants to learn about RAID technology, Managing RAID on Linux sidesteps the often-confusing vendor-specific approach you'll find elsewhere to give you the straight story on RAID. Even non-Linux users will find this book full of valuable material.

Customer Reviews:

Will need Google if you want to recover from disk failure.......2006-06-07

I have to echo Lamar Thomas's review -- there is precious little on how to recover from a failed drive. You will have to go back to Google to learn how to recover from a single failed disk if using software raid to provide redundancy for your data. Having a paper reference for various types of disk recovery (in the case of not having a readily available web browser at the same site as the raid server machine) was the main reason I bought this book. So I was quite disappointed. Most of the book's material on hardware raid controllers is dated and by nature vendor specific. Moreover much of the material on creation of software raid that this book provides is unnecessary if one creates the raid partitions at installation.

Fairly good summary of Linux RAID information.......2005-01-17

Description

Some 230 pages that read easily. The first two chapters explain what RAID and the RAID levels are, what Linux offers, and compares software to hardware implementations. The third chapter gives detailed instructions on how to build a software RAID, using mdtools or mdadm. It tells you how to build the kernel with the right options, which may be unnecessary for you. There's some history of versions of the kernel, raidtools, mdadm. Furthermore, we get detailed information about creating arrays by hand, including hybrid arrays for combining the benefits of different RAID levels. The forth chapter gives a detailed reference about mdtools and mdadm, and the /proc pseudo-files provided by Linux. The fifth chapter presents some general issues of hardware RAIDs, and then goes into detail of five specific products. The sixth chapter is not about RAID at all: it gives an overview of the Linux filesystems. The last chapter is a mix containing managing RAIDs, configuring hard disks, performance, and booting. The book is rounded off by literature abd internet references. The book uses kernel 2.4.

Comment

By now we know that Linux is important. Linux software RAID comes for free and is fairly good. Therefore the book is justified. The book gives a good introduction explaining the RAID levels. The discussion about ATA versus SCSI is good. The comparison is an important complementary topic. The comparison between software and hardware implementations of RAID is good, too. The author expresses his opinion. I like my author to have an opinion. Vadala argues the case of software RAID in Linux. The material about filesystem discussion is okay, but not necessary here. As others have also noted, some topics must come earlier and clearer. For example a discussion of boot loaders. The material about fault detection and correction could be improved. On the whole, the book could be more problem-oriented.

Who should read it?

To set up a RAID, there's not much secret and the book will give you some added detail, but no big surprises. If you are a home user you probably don't need this book, although you might be curious. If you are a system admin, the book is useful as it resumes the tools necessary to create and manage RAIDs by hand and contains much information in gathered, well-presented form. Most of the information is available on the net.

Great intro to RAID.......2004-07-16

"Managing RAID on Linux" by Derek Vadala is a great intro and reference for understanding and setting up your own Linux RAID system at home or at work. The book does a great job of defining the terminology, covering the various RAID levels and explaining the technology. It covers both software as well as hardware RAID solutions, planning and tuning. The chapter on file systems was informative and the chapter on performance, tuning and maintenance was very useful.

This book would have been perfect a few years ago when I was setting up my current home file server which uses a pair of 40 GB drives in a software RAID-1 (mirroring) configuration. Since then, some of my partitions are now nearly full while others have plenty of free space. Rather than repartition, I've decided to build a replacement server with a RAID-5 configuration using three 120 GB drives.

While you can try and search the Internet for articles, I prefer reading from hard copy so I value books that do a good job of covering the material. This book came pretty darn close to addressing all of my questions except for one area.

At the time I ordered the book, a few people had mentioned "Linux Volume Management" which sounded very interesting. The copy I received was the first edition, dated December 2002, a time when LVM was itself relatively new. As such, there is no mention of LVM in this edition. Granted you'd almost need another book just to cover all of the details of LVM but since it is almost always used in concert with some kind of RAID, I felt the book should have had a section devoted to this important topic. Perhaps a chapter or two on this topic as well as a troubleshooting section could be added in a future edition.

The biggest difficulty with producing any book on Linux is that because it is constantly evolving, anything you write about can quickly become dated. I'd recommend this book as a good starting point for anyone interesting in learning about RAID on Linux especially if they come out with a 2nd edition with more info on LVM.

Don't count on this to help you recover!.......2004-01-03

I agree with all of the other reviews except the one that gave this book 5 stars! One of the most important topics that this book should have covered is how to recover from a disaster! How to replace a hard drive and re-sync the data to the new hard drive.

GURB is now an important boot loader and it doesn't even talk about it! Did you know that if you mirror (RAID 1) your drives during install and use GRUB as your boot loader your second disk won't boot if the first disk fails?

GURB doesn't copy the boot sector to the second (mirrored) disk during the RAID setup! You will be laboring under the mistaken thought that you will be ready *when* your system fails. What you don't know is that it is VERY hard to find out how to copy the boot sector to drive #2 using GURB. I still haven't found out after weeks of searching and posting in newsgroups.

If you can't recover from a failed drive, then you may as well NOT have a RAIDed system cause it wont do you any good. I can't believe that this book would leave a topic like that out! Just my two cents.

For RAID beginners that don't want to dig too deep.......2003-04-26

I was pretty diappointed by the content of that book.
The graphs and the explanations on what is RAID are nice, but there are only a few lines about what to do if something goes wrong, which is the kind of situation you would like to have a strong reference on how to save your data.

I would rate this book as ok for beginners, but when you want to know more, you don't have much help, so a bad mark for advanced users.
I expected a more advanced work like on the O'Reilly book 'Using Samba' which is very nice, especially the Troubleshooting section.

Book Description

More than a decade ago, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a revolutionary performance measurement system that allowed organizations to quantify intangible assets such as people, information, and customer relationships. Then, in The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan and Norton showed how organizations achieved breakthrough performance with a management system that put the Balanced Scorecard into action.

Now, using their ongoing research with hundreds of Balanced Scorecard adopters across the globe, the authors have created a powerful new tool-the "strategy map"-that enables companies to describe the links between intangible assets and value creation with a clarity and precision never before possible.

Kaplan and Norton argue that the most critical aspect of strategy-implementing it in a way that ensures sustained value creation-depends on managing four key internal processes: operations, customer relationships, innovation, and regulatory and social processes. The authors show how companies can use strategy maps to link those processes to desired outcomes; evaluate, measure, and improve the processes most critical to success; and target investments in human, informational, and organizational capital.

Providing a visual epiphany for executives everywhere who can't figure out why their strategy isn't working, Strategy Maps is a blueprint any organization can follow to align processes, people, and information technology for superior performance.

Customer Reviews:

Why you need a value proposition.......2006-07-22

While this book is very thorough, with some work it's possible to glean some very important approaches to how to manage work. I have used it to develop value propositions in teams and help shape the focus of an organization. It's worth spending time with if you struggle with priorities and focus.

Very Helpful.......2006-07-03

Very helpful in clarifying concept and application by dmonstrating many different prctical cases covering all industries.

Practical Strategy Implementation Book by Jameson Thottam.......2005-09-14

An excellent book for those who wish to develop roadmaps on Strategy and filled with insider trading tips on how to implement strategy throughout the life cycle of an organization.

As a past VP of Strategic Planning with various firms (e.g., Homestore, IndyMac Bank and MedChannel), I have applied these techniques along with various data analysis software applications (e.g., Crystal Ball, @Risk, SEC Stat II & SEC STAT III)....

The programs/ideas proscribed in this book are both practical and valuable to any strategy professional.

Hope this was helpful,

Jameson Thottam
(Jameson L. Thottam)

Packed with Knowledge!.......2005-06-17

If this book were a Hollywood film, it might be titled "Son of Balanced Scorecard" or even "Balanced Scorecard III." This book, however, is no mere spin-off or sequel. In two prior works, "The Balanced Scorecard" (which you may wish to read before reading this book) and "The Strategy-Focused Organization", authors Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the powerful concept of measuring the elusive intangibles that affect organizations. This information-dense book was born when the authors observed that CEOs instinctively draw arrows to explain their goals. This led to a breakthrough realization: "Objectives should be linked in cause-and-effect relationships." The graphic display of these relationships is a "strategy map." This book breaks new ground by providing a template so executives can be sure that their strategic planning omits nothing. It expands the concepts of "strategic themes" and "value-creating processes," and explains a system for aligning your organization's strategy with its intangible assets. However, the real-world examples may be lost on CEOs who are unfamiliar with MBA-style case studies. If you're implementing a "Balanced Scorecard" initiative or planning your firm's future, we say this is a blockbuster you don't want to miss.

Nice acorn, can't wait for the oak tree........2005-06-15

Where do you start with reviewing a book like this. It is jam-packed with good, even great ideas. Not necessarily original ideas, but, a lot of the hard work is in bringing together old ideas into new configurations.

It is probably worthwhile noting a few things the book is not. The very fact that I write these things using a negative style is, in a perverse way, an admission of how good I find this book and why I give it 5 stars. I'm usually never a literalist when it comes to management / business texts, I usually, hopefully, look for the interesting ideas at the heart of a book. Otherwise, like other reviewers, I'd probably give it one star.

It's not a finished product. It's one step in a long journey to discover a system which properly links strategy with performance measurement, which may go another 10 or 20 years (and probably more). You can see the evolution of ideas from Kaplan and Norton's first book on Balanced Scorecard to this effort some ten years later. Some of the concepts have changed notably. Don't be deceived by the subtle differences. Those subtle differences have not so subtle impacts. Indeed, if you want to be confused, read all three of their books. I'd recommend focusing on Strategy Maps and only dabble in the earlier two for key areas which are not covered by Strategy Maps.

It's not consistent. Maybe its a function of multiple authors. Maybe Kaplan and Norton's researchers have their own ideas, but don't be the least surprised if one part of the book contradicts another part - indeed, sometimes within a single page!! But, this is only a sign of the evolution that the whole BSC concept is going through. Hopefully, one day, it will move from popular to rigorous - again, many years down the track.

It's frustrating. Especially when, after reading a few pages, you are drawn to a strategy map example which you have to work quite hard at trying to match what was just written to what you are seeing in the strategy map. I think, however, that this is probably, once you think about it, a strength of the book - it shows a raw unedited strategy map from which a concept has been extracted rather than merely showing a contrived strategy map which, of course, precisely matches the words in the text.

Indeed, of all the strategy map examples in the book, I don't think I found one which is actually consistent with all the text, or follows the so-called Kaplan and Norton method precisely - that's the method K&N promote on their courses: the one that "explains" those organisations which have "failed" despite the use of BSC methods, i.e., pure spin.

It makes some amusingly optimistic and difficult to believe claims. If only they could get rid of the spin and self promotion. I like the bit about the BSC framework revolving around strategy as defined by Michael Porter (with its focus on differentiation) and then making the claim that it can be applied to any strategy representation. I also like the claim that the BSC deals with lead indicators, lag indicators and feedback loops. Feedback loops! You have got to be kidding!! Unless you are running simulations, none of these frameworks deal with feedback loops - except by introducing risk management objectives which simulate feedback loops if you really squint and turn your head sideways.

It is not integrative. From time to time the book hints at a bigger underlying system of which BSC is a part, but, unfortunately the BSC doesn't really talk about how the two relate - probably its most serious, but not unresolvable, weakness. It promotes a silo mentality: focus on BSC, forget the rest!! For example, it talks about strategic concepts in contrast to operational concepts without really getting to the heart of the differences and how one blends with the other. It talks about hundreds of underlying processes which run a business without talking about the relationship of them to the so-called critical strategic processes which populate strategy maps. It hints at a comprehensive, underlying measurment framework of which BSC is only a subset. If K&N want rigour, depth, comprehensiveness, this is where they need to go.

It is terminologically destitute. Goes with the consistency thing which is rampant in most managemetn and business texts. Either don't define, or define your words so loosely, that you guarantee confusion as the words invoke different concepts which at best overlap or, at worst, are mutually exclusive.

I'll stop here - I think I could probably match the length of the book itself if I continue. To summarise, I've said it in the title to this review: an acorn has been planted. It's been growing for 10 odd years, but, it's got a way to go. Can't wait to see that mighty and beautiful oak tree at its biggest and best.

I'll even line up for K&N's next book(s)!!

Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets

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Strategy insights...
Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets

Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets
John Berry
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0071412867

Book Description

Intangible assets such as brands, patents, and intellectual capital are the new measures of corporate wealth. But one can't manage what one can't measure. And while assigning accurate valuations is a stringent requirement under new FASB accounting guidelines, it is far from easy.

This book explains the latest thinking and techniques in measuring and managing intangibles. Innovative management disciplines like Balanced Scorecard are explained, while real-world examples from Amazon, eBay, and other firms demonstrate how companies are getting maximum advantage from all their intangible assets.

Download Description

Intangible assets such as brands, patents, and intellectual capital are the new measures of corporate wealth. But one cant manage what one can't measure. And while assigning accurate valuations is a stringent requirement under new FASB accounting guidelines, it is far from easy.

Customer Reviews:

Strategy insights..........2005-08-25

If you are looking for a book about valuation of intangible assets this
isn't it. However, it's an excellent guide to understanding what intangible
assets are and what innovative management techniques are available to
managers to extract maximum value from them on a day to day basis. The
examples are interesting and real-world and the ideas are expressed
clearly. The chapter on knowledge management, for instance, is really far
out. Knowledge Object Theory is bleeding edge stuff and a fascinating read.
Too bad it's so new that there are few real world implementations. Still,
it's very thought-provoking stuff. If you're interested in gaining greater
clarity about leveraging value from all the important assets before you,
this is a great place to start.

Tangible Strategies for Intangible Assets.......2005-08-22

I had heard of intangible assets and knew superficially what they were, but this book gave me a level of insight about the nature of intangible assets and how they can be managed that I had never considered before. Any manager should read the entire text, identify the most underutilized or underappreciated intangible asset in his or her own organization, and then champion the implementation of a pilot project using the techniques in this book. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Strategy maps: converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes.(Novel Solutions): An article from: Modern Casting

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Strategy maps: converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes.(Novel Solutions): An article from: Modern Casting
William J. Libby
Manufacturer: American Foundrymen's Society, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Modern Casting, published by American Foundrymen's Society, Inc. on December 1, 2004. The length of the article is 793 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: Strategy maps: converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes.(Novel Solutions)
Author: William J. Libby
Publication: Modern Casting (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2004
Publisher: American Foundrymen's Society, Inc.
Volume: 94 Issue: 12 Page: 39(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Heaven's Tableland The Dust Bowl Story
Vance Johnson
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000L2Z0YS

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Heaven's Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story
Vance Johnson
Manufacturer: F.S.G.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OKBWUI

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Heaven's Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story (Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Era of the New Deal)
Vance Johnson
Manufacturer: Da Capo Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0306706067

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Heaven's Tableland: The Dust Bowl Story (Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Era of the New Deal)
Vance. Johnson
Manufacturer: Da Capo Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSJXEC

Book Description

Like many other fields of activity within the general area of `information technology', modern cartography is undergoing rapid changes in both form and character. This manual has been prepared under the auspices of the International Cartographic Association to provide a learning resource for students and an updating information source for technicians covering the use of new technology in cartography.

Use of new systems means that the traditional methodologies have to be augmented with new skills, and as a result the fundamental nature of the profession is changing. Volume 3 of `Basic Cartography for students and technicians' has been prepared to provide information on, and illustration of, the evolving technologies now providing cartographers with new methods for the visualisation and communication of spatial information to a growing, increasingly map-hungry, and ever more knowledgeable international audience.

Amazon.com

Trinh Xuan Thuan, whose books of popular science are bestsellers in France, is an astronomer by training. In Chaos and Harmony, he reaches well beyond the immediate bounds of that field to consider the explosion of scientific knowledge of all kinds in the 20th century, and he muses on the very nature of scientific inquiry.

The most important aspect of a theory of science, in Trinh's view, is not that it be verifiable experimentally, but that it "allow beauty and truth to emerge into one." General relativity is a hallmark in this regard. Unendingly rich in insight and implication, as well as "inevitable, simple, and congruent with the whole," it has enabled cosmologists to range across the whole of time and to conceive of such phenomena as black holes and curved space. Trinh applies his beauty-and-truth criterion to various problems, such as where the moon--the largest known satellite in the solar system--came from, how chaos theory can properly be applied to economic modeling, and why nature seems to favor symmetry. Along the way, Trinh pauses to remark on episodes in the history of science and to make gentle but provocative asides (for example, gainsaying Einstein to insist that God does indeed play dice with the universe). Elegant and lively, Trinh's book is a fine survey of contemporary scientific ideas and a look ahead at science's ongoing quest for a unifying Theory of Everything. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

For 300 years, Trinh Xuan Thuan writes, since the time of Isaac Newton, scientists saw reality as a giant clock--a sterile mechanism in which one part acts on another in a deterministic fashion. But the discoveries of the last few decades have changed all that, conjuring up instead a universe brimming with unpredictability, creativity, and chance. Writing with exceptional grace and clarity, Thuan vividly describes these important scientific discoveries, intriguing new theories about chaos, gravity, strange attractors, fractals, symmetry, superstrings, and the strangeness of atoms. Equally important, he reveals how these discoveries have shaped our view of the universe--for instance, how quantum mechanics brought indeterminism to the subatomic universe. Thuan deftly describes quantum mechanics, discusses its relationship to the theories of relativity (which deal with the universe on a massive scale), and comments on Einstein's inability to accept it. Indeed, throughout Chaos and Harmony, he makes clear as never before the mind-bending ideas of modern physics, such as the effect of gravity on time (it slows it down), the impossibility of crossing the speed-of-light barrier (it would actually reverse time), the role of fractals as "the language of nature," and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in understanding the universe. From the subatomic world to the vast realm of quasars and galaxies, from the nature of mathematics to the fractal characteristics of the human circulatory system, Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us on a breathtaking tour of the universe. With striking examples and clear, plain language, he shows how science has actually restored mystery to the world around us--a world of symmetry and chaos, contingency and creativity.

Customer Reviews:

hard to decipher.......2003-10-28

As a reviewer below notes, this book is neoplatonism obscured by much well described science.

On page 332, the author writes-- "Our abitlity to do science and decipher the cosmic code suggests an intimate connection between the world of the mind and that of Platonic forms. The universe has produced human beings capable of understanding it. The loop is now closed. I believe that it did not happen by accident. ... The universe does have a meaning, and it is man who, by understanding it, bestows that meaning on it."

One must cover a lot of territory between the Foreword which only barely hints at the hidden Platonism and page 332. Such deciphering becomes extremely tedious...

General Information.......2003-03-29

Without getting into specifics you read Chaos, Symetry and Harmony. A good description of all modern theories and how they tie to Chaos without concrete reasoning. Yes Stock Market behaves like Chaos so what do you do with that, i could not get the answer. I would call it more like a summary of modern physics

Good popular science, but not really philosophy.......2002-12-09

Just so you get an idea of Dr. Thuan's philosophical viewpoint, he is a neo-Platonist (in the sense that he believes in a self-existing reality where mathematics "resides") and he believes that the universe was designed. He also thinks that determinism is bad. If you agree with any or all of these perspectives, you probably won't find any new reasons to support your viewpoint. If you disagree, you will probably find little here to convince you otherwise. This is not a philosophically original work.

But Dr. Thuan does offer an engagingly written (if brief) account of much of the history of modern physics--big bang cosmology, electromagnetism, special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, strong and weak nuclear forces, particle physics--as well as some fun topics like black holes and wormholes, and he teases the reader with short accounts of potential research areas such as superstring theory and supersymmetry. His treatment is nice since we get not only the results of modern physics, but also some sense as to how we got them in the first place, which is often missing in works of popular science.

My only complaints (other than the possibly misleading title) are:
* I wish he would have been a little more careful to distinguish the behavior of chaotic systems from the operation of "chaos theory" in Chapter 3.
* In Chapter 6 I wish he would have given more rigorous reasons than his personal incredulity for doubting that natural selection can account for the diversity of life. At least he could have gotten a biologist's perspective--he quoted quite often from physicists and mathematicians, so presumably it wouldn't have been very hard to get a relevant comment from a biologist.
* I found his comments on the "evils" of determinism in Chapter 7 to be distracting and beside the point, but perhaps others will see merit in them.

Overall, it's a good read if you want to get a general sense of some of the more important advances in physics, but if it's philosophy you're looking for, you could do better elsewhere.

What an amazing book!.......2002-06-03

I thoroughly enjoyed Xuan Thuan Trinh's approach to describing a modern view of the Universe. He ties many of the common themes underlying modern physics and science together. He also beautifully inter-weaves them together to give us all a better perspective on the advances that will come in the 21st century.

Vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories ..........2002-02-07

A clear, eloquent, and graceful discussion of how recent scientifc discoveries impact our lives in more than just theoretical terms. Thuan begins with a wonderfully vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories about chaos, gravity, strange attractors, fractals, symmetry, superstrings, and the strangeness of atoms, and reveals how these discoveries have shaped our view of the universe. From the subatomic world to the vastness of quasars and galaxies, from the nature of mathematics to the fractal characteristics of the human circulatory system, Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us on a truly awe-inspiring tour of the universe as we know it today. With brilliant analogies that open up the strangest, often counterintuitive theories about all sorts of things most of us don't take the time to consider, what Thuan really shows readers in Chaos and Harmony is how science has actually restored mystery and amazement to the world around us.

Chaos and Harmony: Perspectives on Scientific Revolutions of the Twentieth Century

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A Layman's View of Physics and the Cosmos
An exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible
An exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible

Chaos and Harmony: Perspectives on Scientific Revolutions of the Twentieth Century
Trinh Xuan Thuan
Manufacturer: Templeton Foundation Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1932031979

Book Description

Extraordinary advances in science in the twentieth century profoundly changed the way we perceive the world. New discoveries restored mystery to the universe, revealing a system of symmetry and chaos.

In this book, world-renowned astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan reignites the excitement of these discoveries while considering their philosophical and theological implications. He describes the process through which constraining and sterile determinism was challenged, transformed, and swept aside by contingency, which took a prominent place in fields as diverse as cosmology, astrophysics, geology, biology, and genetics. He traces the view of reality as dependent not only on natural laws, but also on a series of historical and contingent events.

Originally published in France where it became a bestseller, this is the first paperback English-language edition.

Customer Reviews:

A Layman's View of Physics and the Cosmos.......2006-04-25

In the mid 1600's Sir Isaac Newton developed a set of basic rules for how the universe worked. The power of Newton's logic, how simple he made the world look held sway for more than two centuries. Only towards the end of the 1800's did experiments begin to point to cracks in the basic Newtonnian theory.

In 1905 however, the world changed. Einstein published his first paper on relativity. Not long after that came quantuum mechanics. The physics of the twentiety century was to greatly change the view of the world. More complex, true, but also more in tune with the experimental findings.

This book is aimed at the layman and explains these fundamental changes in our view of the world. It also points to some of the unanswered questions that remain. Could it be that we are headed to another great change with a new Newton/Einstein in the wings?

An exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible .......2006-04-07

Chaos And Harmony: Perspectives On Scientific Revolutions Of The Twentieth Century by Trinh Xuan Thaun (Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia since 1976) is an exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible in the progression in understanding so many mysteries that engaged the minds and curiosity of so many scientists over recent decades. With the application of modern science, Chaos And Harmony inspects the philosophical and theological implications of astrological and astrophysical breakthroughs and past perceptions. Chaos And Harmony brilliantly explains in an elaborate format the intricacies and answers to many sought questions and misunderstandings, and is to be given high praise strong recommended for students of astrophysics, astrology, as well as readers with an interest in the theological or philosophical perspectives which the sciences may substantially counter and/or support.

An exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible .......2006-04-07

Chaos and Harmony: Perspectives on Scientific Revolutions of the 20th Century...

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Chaos and Harmony: Perspectives on Scientific Revolutions of the 20th Century...
Trinh Xuan Thuan; Axel Reisinger
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKCRFW

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Readable but here is what the book is REALLY about

Guaranteed to Make you vote for a tax on large estates

Trite and depressing

Now just imagine how it feels

Should have been better...

The Good Nanny: A Novel
Benjamin Cheever
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Last of Her Kind: A Novel

ASIN: 1582341222

Book Description

A searing black comedy about nannies and parents, publishing and prejudice, and the not-so-gentle art of ambition.

The new nanny is perfect. A natural with children, a whiz in the kitchen, and a talented painter, the only thing Miss Washington can't seem to do is make a mistake. But when Stuart Cross loses his editing job and decides to write the great American novel, the nanny's excellence quickly becomes a sore spot.

Stuart, paralyzed by writer's block, envies her impending artistic success; his wife Andie doesn't trust her and wishes she could stay home with their daughters; and on top of that, even a mention of the nanny's old boyfriend, ex-con Toussaint, makes the local police uneasy. The heightening jealousy and resentment that the parents feel toward their surrogate sets into motion a chain of unexpected events and surprising reversals that will end, less than a week later, in a suspected kidnapping, a half-million-dollar book deal, and the unpleasant question of just who, exactly, the guilty party is.

Customer Reviews:

Readable but here is what the book is REALLY about.......2006-06-26

Look at the cover of this one and you may can't really get a sense of the focus, the gist of this book. Is it a horror tale about yet another nanny gone bad? Is it about a nanny who steals the children's hearts, leaving the working parents in second place in their children's hearts?
Well, no, it isn't really about any of those things,although they might be minor points in this book. To me, this book was mainly a morality tale about ambition and where it can lead people and how their lives can get terribly muddled by trying to balance so many things -family life, work, hiring a nanny, wondering if the nanny is a criminal, etc.
I'm not sure why this book hasn't gained more of a readership but it deserves to be read- and discussed. The parents struggle with guilt as they leave their children in charge of the nanny,even though the nanny seems to be about as perfect as a caretaker could be. As the parents become more suspicious, readers can't help but wonder about the nanny as well- and that makes for suspense and tension.

The ending is a bit too pat and unbelievable for my taste but that doesn't offset the strengths of this work. Where is suspicion warranted and when is it merely a projection of guilt and ambivalence? How do high earners cope with loss and change? All of these themes are covered in this small, but not insignificant, book.

Guaranteed to Make you vote for a tax on large estates.......2005-09-05

A neoconservative take on The Nanny Papers. If you found the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina hysterical you'll roll on the floor laughing. Still, a read is recommended if only because you'll be sure to vote for a tax on large estates afterward.

Trite and depressing.......2005-07-11

This book uses stereotypical characters and cliched settings to create a tragedy of errors in suburbia. The author tackles racism, parenting, literary pretensions, fiscal irresponsibility, artistic ambition, neuroses, competitive spouses, office politics, corporate mergers, and anomie using characters who are no more than shells of real people. The characters revolve around the plot, rather than the plot weaving the characters together. The book is completely unbelievable - it would make an excellent Lifetime movie. All I got for my time was a severe case of reading indigestion.

Now just imagine how it feels.......2005-06-04

"Nobody cares about line editors anymore," says The Good Nanny's Stuart Cross at a party he's hosting in his too expensive new house, a mansion with a three-car "garage mahal" in an elegant suburban community in upstate New York. "Nobody cares about the text at all. We didn't even read the most expensive book we bought last year. We paid two million for a name and title, for smoke and mirrors."

"That was a bidding war," says Massberg, the junior editor and sycophant who will soon betray him. "There was no time to examine the manuscript. None of the other editors saw it either."

This is what the publishing world has come to, in the US, in the UK, in Canada, and all over the continent of Europe. Once "a gentleman's profession" practiced by people who truly loved books, it was taken over by the money men in the late twentieth century, crass entrepreneurs who stomped into the venerable British and American publishing houses, purged them of their great editors, handed over their jobs to the kind of editors who knew how to toe the bottom line. The new regimes then began to publish truckloads of books, many of them blockbusters written by hacks, hoping that something or other would "take," and in order to make sure that at least a few of the books did, they paid huge advances for them in bidding wars, getting them media attention prior to their even being published and guaranteeing them future reviews.

Other effects of the cynical realpolitik of this altered world soon followed: the Oprah effect; the effect of the Today Show, writers being transformed (if possible) into telegenic commodities, star-making, the creation of "bestsellers" months before actual readers got to hold the actual books in their hands.

But because Stuart Cross and his wife (Andie Wilde) will have to commute to New York City to their dream jobs-he's a senior editor at Acropolis, an independent and respected publishing house, she's recently been appointed the film critic for the New York Post-they need to hire a nanny.

So here comes Louise, the catalyst, a diminutive African-American woman who's been sent to the Cross household by the Mary Poppins Agency. Louise turns out to be an efficient young woman who's also a promising painter, having already made enough of a splash in the art world for the Museum of Modern Art to express an interest in buying her work. Stuart and Andie even begin to refer to her as "the paragon." And she is: she does light housekeeping and cooking, she teaches the children how to draw, she takes them to the Museum of Modern Art, she does their laundry, she reads them bedtime stories. She also reads them the following lines from a poem by Hilaire Belloc:

He hadn't gone a yard when-Bang!
With open jaws, a Lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The boy: beginning at his feet.

Now just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels...

The poem's "Bang!" cleverly foreshadows the novel's violent if somewhat improbable end and the lion's appetite for little children foreshadows Andie telling Stuart, "Don't let the paragon feed you the children for lunch."

This poem also (naturally) excites the little girls and they beg Louise to take them to the zoo to see a real lion. Alarming telephone messages left for Louise by an ex-convict "friend" by the name of Touissaint Louverture add to the tension. Louise also takes the children along with her when she goes to meet her lover, if he is her lover, and swears them to secrecy just as Mary Poppins long ago swore the Banks children to secrecy when she took them to see her friend Bert draw pictures on the sidewalk with coloured chalk, sunny parallel worlds they could step into and explore for an afternoon.

Cheever writes extremely well when he creates scenes involving the two little Cross daughters, he understands so well how competitive and vicious small girls can be. He can also be very playful and witty. But he has difficulty in establishing a consistent distance from his characters in his use of the narrative voice. Sometimes Louise is referred to as "the nanny," sometimes as Louise, sometimes as Miss Washington and sometimes as Sugar. And Stuart Cross himself is sometimes referred to as Cross and sometimes as Stuart.

Massberg's whine at the Cross party, "There was no time to examine the manuscript," also haunts Cheever's book, it's been flawed by so many errors and repetitions. In a book about a New York editor who's a legendary fusspot, it's truly bizarre to read a novel that apparently wasn't given the services of either a copy editor or a proof reader by the writer's New York publishing house.

Except when Cheever is being playful, the writing is also not particularly original and the dialogue tags are often predictable, overly familiar. People "chuckle appreciatively," and when they nod their heads they nod them mutely. But aren't most nods mute? Isn't muteness what a nod is actually all about? And in fact Stuart Cross nods his head mutely not just once, but again and again, he nods his head mutely at least thirteen or fourteen times. Several other characters also nod their heads mutely. And shake their heads mutely. They also wag their heads back and forth and wag their fingers. Or they hold up their fingers and wag them.

Cheever's inability to decide exactly what distance to take from his characters is also symptomatic of his difficulty in deciding which genre his book belongs to. Is it a satire? Is it a tragedy? Is it a cri de coeur, a lament for our time? Great novels can contain all of these elements, but the elements need to be integrated, and to do this the characterizations need time to deepen, to get more complex.

There's a convenient plot involving cops and guns and a police shooting tacked onto the book's end, followed by a final line that's a punch-line. But it's too heartless to be a punch-line, especially when we consider the tragic end of Louise. Not that we care very much. A woman with no faults, she's a cipher, a plot device, she hasn't been allowed the humanizing effects of a single character flaw or bad habit.

So is The Good Nanny a satire on class differences? Or is it a tragedy about racism in contemporary America? Or is it in fact a cri de coeur concerning the threatened place of art in the modern world? Readers will be bewildered by too many ironies if it's a cri de coeur. But they will feel too much emotion if it's a satire, too little if it's a tragedy.

Should have been better..........2004-10-18

Occasionally amusing descriptions of confused upper middle class suburbanites and their conflicted attitudes toward careers and parenting can't salvage this novel. The dialogue (especially that of the children) was awfully stilted, the plot was extremely slight, and the ending was completely predictable. Worst of all, the dust jacket summary gave away (before I even started to read) a very pivotal plot element that wasn't revealed until page 176 of a 270 page book.

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