“A tremendous novel—droll, savvy, original. An invigorating blast of fiction.” —William Boyd, Author of Any Human Heart and Restless.” A hurricane sweeps off the Gulf of Mexico and, in the back country of Alabama, assembles a passenger jet out of old bean cans and junkyard waste. This piques the interest of the enigmatic Directorate of the Extremely Improbable. Their fascination with this random event sets into motion a madcap caper that will bring together a hilarious cast of characters, including: an eccentric mathematician, last heard of investigating the physics of free will; a lovelorn Cambridge postgraduate who has set off to America with a ring in his pocket and hope in his heart; and a member of the Directorate with no capacity for imagination. What ensues is a chaotic chase across a fully realized, hyper-real America, haunted by madness, murder, mistaken identity, and conspiracy. The Coincidence Engine is a lively, boisterous debut that heralds the arrival of a major new talent.

Since the early seventies, the development of the automobile has been characterized by a steady increase in the deploymnet of onboard electronics systems and software. This trend continues unabated and is driven by rising end-user demands and increasingly stringent environmental requirements. Today, almost every function onboard the modern vehicle is electronically controlled or monitored. The software-based implementation of vehicle functions provides for unparalleled freedoms of concept and design. However, automobile development calls for the accommodation of contrasting prerequisites – such as higher demands on safety and reliability vs. lower cost ceilings, longer product life cycles vs. shorter development times – along with growing proliferation of model variants. Automotive Software Engineering has established its position at the center of these seemingly conflicting opposites. This book provides background basics as well as numerous suggestions, rare insights, and cases in point concerning those processes, methods, and tools that contribute to the surefooted mastery of the use of electronic systems and software in the contemporary automobile.

Muscle cars all but disappeared by 1974, but by the 1990s, thanks to improved engine technology, they were back with a vengeance. This book traces the full history right up to today's new Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger.

Part 41, focuses on Navy fuel purchase contracts for Saudi Arabian oil and businesses' use of institutional advertising for tax exemptions during and after the war.