Catalog Search Results
Author
Publisher
Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
In this illustrated volume, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences. Filled with surprising stories of accidental genius and brilliant mistakes -- from the French publisher who invented the phonograph before Edison but forgot to...
Author
Publisher
Grove Press
Pub. Date
c2001
Language
English
Description
Traces the history of tobacco, focusing on humanity's fascination with its use as a recreational drug and providing information on its origins, its use in ancient civilizations, its role in the development of global trade, and other related topics.
Author
Publisher
Smith Street Books
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Description
Part identification guide, part scientific textbook, part historical artefact, Ginger Pride -- by proud redhead Tobias Anthony -- is your manual to all things ginger. Split into three chapters, Ginger Pride looks at identification of redheads, the science of being red, and profiles the twenty most famous redheads in history, coming to the inevitable conclusion that the ginger influence on the world is more than a follicle deep. From the different...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The automobile was one of the most miraculous inventions of the 20th century. It promised freedom, style, and utility. But sometimes, rather than improving our lives technology just makes everything worse. Over the past century cars have filled the air with toxic pollutants and fueled climate change. Cars have stolen public space and made our cities uglier, dirtier, less useful, and more unequal. Cars have caused tens of millions of deaths and injuries....
Author
Publisher
Crown
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind,...
Author
Pub. Date
s202
Language
English
Description
Summary:I often ask people what their favorite place is in their city or town. What are the places they particularly like and think about as having a special meaning or memory? The answer inevitably is a public space, sometimes a large park to walk, play, or picnic and other times a local square or plaza with shaded paths and comfortable seating. Benches outside a cafe or on the sidewalk are commemorated with the names of those who spent time sitting...
Author
Publisher
Henry Holt and Company
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that you're better off without them. In this important book, Lanier, who doesn't participate in any social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for everyone to leave these dangerous online platforms. Lanier's reasons for freeing ourselves from social media's poisonous grip include its tendency to bring out the worst in...
Author
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Co
Pub. Date
c2013
Language
English
Description
"In Full Upright and Locked Position, former FAA chief counsel and senior aviation policy official Mark Gerchick unravels the unseen forces and little-known facts that have reshaped our air travel experience since September 11, 2001. With wry humor and unique insight, Gerchick takes us past the jargon, technicalities, and all-is-well platitudes to expose the new normal of air travel: from the packed planes and myriad hassles of everyday flying to...
Author
Publisher
Doubleday
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes--these all stem from the same forces that give our planet life. It is only when they exceed our ability to withstand them that they become disasters. Viewed together, these events have shaped our cities and their architecture; elevated leaders and toppled governments; influenced the way we think, feel, fight, unite, and pray. The history of natural disasters is a history of ourselves. ...Renowned seismologist...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
"Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes--good and bad--are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking...
Author
Language
English
Description
The gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social networks preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. The companies' founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. -- adapted from jacket
Author
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 10.3 - AR Pts: 35
Language
English
Description
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development at the dawn of the 21st century--the attacks of 9/11, or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and s
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, his arguments and observations are more...
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