Book Description
Tolstoy said that happy families are all alike. Bruce Stockler proves him wrong in what Esquire named Best Fatherhood Memoir. When Bruce and his wife Roni discover that they are preg-nant with triplets, it's the start of a moving roller coaster ride into the exhausting, joyful experience of parenting multiples. From the day the babies are born, the Stocklers' lives become chaotic, starting with a nervous taxi ride across Central Park and a thirty-person team in the delivery room. Just going to the supermarket and keeping the kids-and the store-safe from dis-aster becomes an adventure. And then the babies start to walk-in three direc-tions at once!-leading to episode after hilarious episode.
Customer Reviews:
All that's wrong with "parents" today.......2007-09-13
This is a truly sad statement on today's society. People who go into debt to have children that they don't want to raise (the wife specifically) then cry poor the whole time while shopping at specialty markets and renting vacation houses. Please. They will parade their children around to boost their egos but when the time comes to actually parent, no one is around. The wife is especially disgusting - she can stay up at night to watch TV but can't help her husband take care of the fussy children. It is far from funny - more like pathetic.
It got me through!.......2005-12-31
I got this book when my triplets were about 18 months old. They're 4 years old now. After putting the kids to bed at night, I would read 3 or 4 pages before dropping off to sleep. I loved it. After finishing it, I would open it up randomly to just remind myself how funny parenting can be if you can find just a few minutes to reflect on your day. Stockler's honesty about all the dimensions of his life at that time makes this book very special.
Triplet Mom.......2005-09-20
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like someone finally acknowledged the emotional roller coaster ride of being triplet parents.
This is a must read for all triplet parents!
Couldn't Sleep, Couldn't Put It Down.......2005-03-17
What a wonderful surprise this book was -- a gift from a friend with twins -- had never even heard of it -- an amazing, big-hearted, down-to-earth, bitingly well-written, terribly honest, amazingly observed story of a Dad who thinks he knows everything about being a great Dad, who then faces the ultimate test -- three new babies, losing his job, becoming a stay-at-home Dad, trying to work it out with a smart but quirky and difficult wife -- the incredible bouts of humor (taking his kids to a disgusting public restroom) seamlessly mixing with his exploration of anti-family prejudice at work, his bizarre Dad, his loving but anxious mom, his struggles to become a full-time writer. And the triplets--from the first minutes of their lives, their sharply-described personalities bursting into the story and reshaping everything. A really unique memoir and a powerful voice of love and faith and truth.
It drove me nuts!.......2005-03-16
This book drove me up the wall. There is not one single likeable person in this tale, including the kids, who are well on their way to becoming complete brats by the conclusion--thanks to their father's lack of discipline and their mother's constant absence. I didn't find it amusing that he let his kids run all over the place in public, or that bedtime was never enforced. Maybe Stockler is vicariously living his "wild child" side through them, but such selfish people do not make the world a better place. And spending time with them via this book is maddening.
Book Description
In the year that World War II began, Albert Einstein sent his famous letter to President Roosevelt regarding the feasibility of a revolutionary uranium bomb. What was considered infeasible at the time was the development of aircraft capable of carrying an atomic device.
This book documents the development and delivery of the Silverplate B-29 bomber, the remarkable airplane with capabilities that surpassed those of known enemy fighters of the time and was employed to release the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. The basic history of the Silverplate B-29, from conception to successful development, is set forth in the early chapters, which discuss the then secret work of the 509th Composite Group at Wendover Army Air Field, on the Marianas Island of Tinian, and at Roswell Army Air Field. Subsequent chapters discuss the Los Alamos test program, Silverplate B-29 combat operations, the Air Force bases from which the aircraft operated, accidents associated with operations and details of the various classes of atomic bombs carried. Concluding chapters give special attention to the members of the 509th, who were responsible for dropping the bombs and whose efforts brought an end to World War II, provided the backbone of America's nuclear deterrent force in the years after the war, and opened the Atomic Age. Information available in the seven appendices includes, among other things, a chronology of events surrounding the development of the Silverplate bomber and the atomic bomb, a Silverplate B-29 mission list, and individual Silverplate B-29 histories.
The story of this special bomber is accompanied by many never before published photographs of Silverplate B-29's and the men who flew them and includes a foreword by Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay on the Hiroshima mission.
Customer Reviews:
An Atomic Adventure.......2005-11-02
Although this book focuses on the special, "Silverplate", B-29 airplanes, it is full of the riveting stories of the two atomic missions against Japan in WWII. It contains techincal information about each of the 16 special airplanes and their post war histories. And it tells a lot about the flesh and blood men that labored sucessfully to end the war. One of the two missions went like clockwork and the other came close to a failure -- a good read. It is full of detailed photos.
Amazon.com
Imagine an almost instantaneous communication system that would allow people and governments all over the world to send and receive messages about politics, war, illness, and family events. The government has tried and failed to control it, and its revolutionary nature is trumpeted loudly by its backers. The Internet? Nope, the humble telegraph fit this bill way back in the 1800s. The parallels between the now-ubiquitous Internet and the telegraph are amazing, offering insight into the ways new technologies can change the very fabric of society within a single generation. In The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage examines the history of the telegraph, beginning with a horrifically funny story of a mile-long line of monks holding a wire and getting simultaneous shocks in the interest of investigating electricity, and ending with the advent of the telephone. All the early "online" pioneers are here: Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, and a seemingly endless parade of code-makers, entrepreneurs, and spies who helped ensure the success of this communications revolution. Fans of Longitude will enjoy another story of the human side of dramatic technological developments, complete with personal rivalry, vicious competition, and agonizing failures. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
"A fascinating walk through a pivotal period in human history."--USA Today
For many people, the Internet is the epitome of cutting-edge technology. But in the nineteenth century, the first online communications network was already in place--the telegraph. And at the time, it was just as perplexing, controversial, and revolutionary as the Internet is today.
The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. With the invention of the telegraph, the world of communications was forever changed. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over its wires. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought. The saga of the telegraph offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time, and is a remarkable episode in the history of technology.
* Illustrated throughout
* A masterful, lively blend of science and history, in the bestselling tradition of Longitude
"Fascinating...If you've ever hankered for a perspective on media Net hype, this book is for you."--Wired
"Sparkling."--Forbes
"Essential reading for those caught up in our own information revolution."--Christian Science Monitor
Customer Reviews:
An important book and a fun book.......2007-09-10
I have written three books on Wireless networking and am about to start writing a fourth. Coming from this perspective, The Victorian Internet was both an excellent read and an enlightening one. It is true that we can get caught up in any new thing and think that it is going to drastically alter the world. Of course, those of use directly implementing the new thing always think it will alter teh world for the better. This book shines a light of reality on this thinking to make you realize that a new technology alone is not likely to save the world, though it can make it an easier place for many to live.
Many reviewers have stated their favorite story, so I will share mine. It's the opening story of the book. It begins, "On an April day in 1746 at the grand convent of the Carthusians in Paris, about two hundred monks arranged themselves in a long, snaking line. Each monk held on end of a twenty-five-foot iron wire in each hand, connecting him to his neighbor on either side. Together, the monks and their connecting wires formed a line over a mile long."
The story goes on to reveal that Jean-Antoine Nollet induced a shock onto the wire to see if the monks would feel the shock at the same moment and indeed they did. This revealed to Nollet that electricity traveled at an extremely rapid speed and began the turning of the gears that led to electrical impulse-based communications (which we still use today in Ethernet and Wireless).
This book is filled with such stories and will certainly both entertain and inform you.
Tom Carpenter, Author: Wireless# Certificiation Official Study Guide
History repeats itself.......2007-01-03
Again, and again, patterns of human behavior repeat. This easy to read book explains the parallels between early communication methods and our Internet era. Everything old is clearly new again, and once you read this book, you will more easily identify the same thing in other areas. I may make you a bit of a cynic, but I think it is being more realistic.
There are also some really cute stories of individuals and their interactions. Romances over telegraph, some of which led to marriages and other ends for example.
Educational and fun to read, somewhat of a written documentary.
Writing Far Away.......2006-10-26
The invention of the electric telegraph during Queen Victoria's reign allowed communication to quickly cover long distances. The railroads allowed people and freight to quickly cover long distances. Both made the modern world what it is today. The telegraph existed decades earlier as a semaphore (with lights) that could send messages to a distant viewer. Sending a signal by light goes back over a thousand years. "One if by land, two if by sea."
Oersted discovered that an electric current creates a magnetic field that affects a compass needle (p.23). Samuel Morse invented a "bi-signal" scheme that became the dots and dashes of the Morse Code. Others invented their version of the electric telegraph (Chapter 2). Morse could see the benefits of rapid communication (p.40). Chapter 3 tells of the skepticism towards this newer invention. The telegraph was used to capture a pickpocket and a murderer (p.50). Chapter 4 tells of the explosive growth of the telegraph network. International agreements allowed interconnections (p.69). Underseas telegraphy was invented (p.72). Chapter 5 explains how lines were laid across the ocean connecting Newfoundland to Ireland in 1858. Would communication result in World Peace (p.83)? The success of the telegraph created traffic jams of delayed messages, most of which were time-sensitive. A pneumatic tube system could be used for short distances (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 tells how telegraph messages were used to cheat by sending horse race results before betting was closed. Changing a lower price attracted more customers and led to more profit. Page 115 shows how nine words of code replaced over 62 words. But the meaning of a code word would change if one letter was changed in error (p.116).
Chapter 8 tells of romance over the wires. Ordinarily they could distinguish a woman by how she "worked their wire" (p.134). People were married by telegraph. Telegraphers were rated on their ability alone, which meant women and teenagers were hireable. One effect of telegraphy was the speed in reporting news from around the world (Chapter 9). Newspapers formed groups to gather and send the news (p.150). Rapid news now required press censorship (p.155). Too much knowledge created an overload (Chapter 10). Rapid communications made possible "large, hierarchical companies" (p.173). The stock ticker tape was invented to present continuous news (p.175).
But a new technology appeared and sent telegraphy into a decline. Others refused to pay Samuel Morse for his patent and legal battles followed. The Supreme Court upheld Morse's patent in 1853 (p.183). The growing use of automatic telegraphs reduced the need for skilled operators (p.188). Wheatstone patented an automatic sender that was ten times faster (p.190). A duplex sent twice as much traffic. Baudot used rotating distributors to multiply the number of lines (p.192). Others tested the "harmonic" telegraph to use tones to send separate messages on one circuit (p.195). Alexander Graham Bell built a "speaking telegraph" that transmitted speech (p.197). "Distant speaking" on a telephone was "an instant success" (p.199). A new age had dawned (p.200). Chapter 12 gives the legacy of the telegraph, which went into a decline as telephone usage increased. The teleprinter was invented (p.205). The days of a telegrapher as a highly paid, highly skilled information worker were gone (p.205). Standage compares the similarities between the telegraph network and today's Internet (pp.206-210). The `Epilogue' notes that today's Internet echoes the 19th century telegraphic network. The `Sources' list the books and journals used for reference.
can't get it back..........2006-02-18
I bought this one, and my 15 year old son took it. He reads it constantly and I can't get it back. What a surprise...
Interesting parallels between the telegraph and the Internet.......2005-07-27
This is an interesting, well-written account of the history of the telegraph, with parallels drawn between that story and the modern-day history of the development of the Internet. Not a scientific account, but includes enough information to tell general readers how the key technologies work. Also includes entertaining anecdotes about the social changes that the new invention caused or contributed to.
Book Description
What really goes on between the sheets? It takes research to discover the truth about sex. But studying people's sex lives has not always been easy, safe, or even legal. This book traces the curious history of sexology and details the surprising findings of these brave researchers who have dared to ask the tough questions.
Written in a breezy style, the book reveals how we came to know what we know about topics from birth control to homosexuality, open marriage to surrogate sex therapy. Included are the most significant events and colorful individuals, such as the idiosyncratic German transvestite Magnus Hirschfeld and the controversial Alfred Charles Kinsey, who shattered the Puritan facade of 1950s America.
Average customer rating:
- The league of Morse Code gentlemen
- Past and future...
|
Victorian Internet
Tom Standage
Manufacturer: Walker Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965703797 |
Customer Reviews:
The league of Morse Code gentlemen.......2006-07-10
At some future date, a history of the 'bit' will be written. The title of this books suggests such a story, but the focus is actually on a unique and interesting community of people: those that could 'read and write' in Morse Code at more than 10 words per minute. Thus, the book starts with the formation of the league by Mr. Morse himself, and ends with the device that made such skill superfulous, the telephone.
The book is a mix of legal history ('x' patented 'y' and 'z' fought the patent until ...) and culture shock narrative. The legal history is largely drawn from court proceedings surrounding patent lawsuits. The culture shock narrative attempts to map contemporary Internet speculations upon 19th century society. Unfortunately, this latter theme is secondary to the safe and traditional legal history.
The various 'invention and patent' stories can be found elsewhere in more detail, but the social history is unique. Standage argues we can anticipate the outcome of various Internet social trends by looking for parallels in the Victorian era. The early telegraph era, like the early Internet era, produced wild popular delusions about universal peace and harmony. The humdrum reality of network crime and loss of privacy was the 19th century reality, will it be so for us? The telegraph produced the earliest examples of 'scientific' utopias. We could learn much by carefully recounting the outcomes of such experiments.
My only complaint is that the social commentary was secondary to the legal history.
Past and future..........2005-11-08
The title of this book, 'The Victorian Internet,' refers to the 'communications explosion' that took place with the advent and expansion of telegraph wire communications. Prior to this, communication was notoriously slow, particularly as even postal communications were subject to many difficulties and could take months for delivery (and we complain today of the 'allow five days' statements on our credit cards billings!).
The parallels between the Victorian Internet and the present computerised internet are remarkable. Information about current events became relatively instantaneous (relative, that is, to the usual weeks or months that it once took to receive such information). There were skeptics who were convinced that this new mode of communication was a passing phase that would never take on (and, in a strict sense, they were right, not of course realising that the demise of the telegraph system was not due to the reinvigoration of written correspondence but due to that new invention, the telephone). There were hackers, people who tried to disrupt communications, those who tried to get on-line free illegally, and, near the end of the high age of telegraphing, a noticeable slow-down in information due to information overload (how long is this page going to take to download?? isn't such a new feeling after all).
The most interesting chapter to me is that entitled 'Love over the Wires' which begins with an account of an on-line wedding, with the bride in Boston and the groom in New York. This event was reported in a small book, Anecdotes of the Telegraph, published in London in 1848, which stated that this was 'a story which throws into the shade all the feats that have been performed by our British telegraph.' This story is really one of love and adventure, as the bride's father had sent the young groom away for being unworthy to marry his daughter, but on a stop-over on his way to England, he managed to get a magistrate and telegraph operator to arrange the wedding. The marriage was deemed to be legally binding.
A very interesting and remarkable story that perhaps would have been forgotten by history had history not set out to repeat itself with our modern internet.
Book Description
A new paperback edition of the first book by the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses—the fascinating story of the telegraph, the world’s first “Internet,” which revolutionized the nineteenth century even more than the Internet has the twentieth and twenty first.
The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by Thomson Gale on February 22, 2006. The length of the article is 516 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 Victorian Internet.(Editorials)(The telegram dies, but a revolution continues)(Editorial)
Publication:
The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: February 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: A6
Article Type: Editorial
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, published by Auslib Press Party Ltd. on June 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1218 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: Victorian Public Libraries and the Internet: Results and Issues.(Review) (book reviews)
Author: Paul Scully
Publication:
Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1998
Publisher: Auslib Press Party Ltd.
Volume: 11
Issue: 2
Page: 102
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
Like gardening, bird watching is a fast-growing regional hobby. Now, Cool Springs Press brings its successful state-specific publishing approach to bird watching guides. In collaboration with Bird Watcher's Digest, these bird watching guides provide accessible, credible advice.
The birds that frequent the backyards of Virginia differ from the birds that frequent the backyards of Tennessee. In addition to unique descriptions, each bird profile includes a range map to identify each bird's North American distribution. One hundred birds are profiled, each with a color photograph, to ensure accurate identification. A seasonal section informs the reader of:
Migrating birds that can be seen during that season
The foods and plants that can attract those birds
Where to go to view year-round and migrating birds
Cool Springs Press's partner, Bird Watcher's Digest, has sold more than 4 million copies of their booklets on bird species, bird habitat, feeding, and other related topics.
This series of books from Cool Springs Press targets the beginning bird watchers for ten states.
Books:
- If My Kid's So Nice... Why's He Driving Me Crazy?: Straight Talk About the "Good Kid" Disorder
- It's a Girl!: An Owners Manual for Your New Baby
- Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society, State
- Labor of Love: Mothers Share the Joy of Childbirth
- Living Now: Strategies for Success and Fulfillment, Student Edition
- Living With A Brother Or Sister With Special Needs: A Book for Sibs
- Marital-relationship Therapy Casebook: THEORY & APPLICATION OF THE INTERSYSTEM MODEL
- Maternity Clothes: Simple Patterns to Make While You Wait
- Multiple Sclerosis: The Facts You Need (Your Personal Health)
- My Andrew: Day-to-Day Living with an ASD Child
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Content Area Reading and Writing: Fostering Literacies in Middle and High School Cultures
- A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest
- The Fullerenes: New Horizons for the Chemistry, Physics and Astrophysics of Carbon
- Whisper my name
- The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook: Landscapes
- An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind
- Women's Health Under 40
- Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology
- The Life and Times of R. Crumb: Comments from Contemporaries
- Healing With Plants in the American and Mexican West
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Raising Multiple Birth Children: A Parents' Survival Guide
TripleFun: From Infertility to Triplets
When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads, Revised Edition: Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy
The Everything Twins, Triplets, And More Book: From Seeing The First Sonogram To Coordinating Nap Times And Feedings -- All You Need To Enjoy Your Multiples (Everything: Parenting and Family)
The Multiples Manual: Preparing and Caring for Twins or Triplets
