Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows
Title | Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows PDF eBook |
Author | Tom DeLonge |
Publisher | To The Stars |
Pages | 541 |
Release | 2016-04-05 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 1943272166 |
For those who know... that something is going on... The witnesses are legion, scattered across the world and dotted through history, people who looked up and saw something impossible lighting up the night sky. What those objects were, where they came from, and who—or what—might be inside them is the subject of fierce debate and equally fierce mockery, so that most who glimpsed them came to wish they hadn’t. Most, but not everyone. Among those who know what they’ve seen, and—like the toll of a bell that can’t be unrung—are forever changed by it, are a pilot, an heiress, a journalist, and a prisoner of war. From the waning days of the 20th century’s final great war to the fraught fields of Afghanistan to the otherworldly secrets hidden amid Nevada’s dusty neverlands—the truth that is out there will propel each of them into a labyrinth of otherworldly technology and the competing aims of those who might seek to prevent—or harness—these beings of unfathomable power. Because, as it turns out, we are not the only ones who can invent and build...and destroy. Featuring actual events and other truths drawn from sources within the military and intelligence community, Tom DeLonge and A.J. Hartley offer a tale at once terrifying, fantastical, and perhaps all too real. Though it is, of course, a work of... fiction?
Teaching Machines
Title | Teaching Machines PDF eBook |
Author | Audrey Watters |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Pages | 325 |
Release | 2023-02-07 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 026254606X |
How ed tech was born: Twentieth-century teaching machines--from Sidney Pressey's mechanized test-giver to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Contrary to popular belief, ed tech did not begin with videos on the internet. The idea of technology that would allow students to "go at their own pace" did not originate in Silicon Valley. In Teaching Machines, education writer Audrey Watters offers a lively history of predigital educational technology, from Sidney Pressey's mechanized positive-reinforcement provider to B. F. Skinner's behaviorist bell-ringing box. Watters shows that these machines and the pedagogy that accompanied them sprang from ideas--bite-sized content, individualized instruction--that had legs and were later picked up by textbook publishers and early advocates for computerized learning. Watters pays particular attention to the role of the media--newspapers, magazines, television, and film--in shaping people's perceptions of teaching machines as well as the psychological theories underpinning them. She considers these machines in the context of education reform, the political reverberations of Sputnik, and the rise of the testing and textbook industries. She chronicles Skinner's attempts to bring his teaching machines to market, culminating in the famous behaviorist's efforts to launch Didak 101, the "pre-verbal" machine that taught spelling. (Alternate names proposed by Skinner include "Autodidak," "Instructomat," and "Autostructor.") Telling these somewhat cautionary tales, Watters challenges what she calls "the teleology of ed tech"--the idea that not only is computerized education inevitable, but technological progress is the sole driver of events.
Productivity Machines
Title | Productivity Machines PDF eBook |
Author | Corinna Schlombs |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Pages | 365 |
Release | 2019-10-01 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN | 0262537397 |
How productivity culture and technology became emblematic of the American economic system in pre- and postwar Germany. The concept of productivity originated in a statistical measure of output per worker or per work-hour, calculated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. A broader productivity culture emerged in 1920s America, as Henry Ford and others linked methods of mass production and consumption to high wages and low prices. These ideas were studied eagerly by a Germany in search of economic recovery after World War I, and, decades later, the Marshall Plan promoted productivity in its efforts to help post–World War II Europe rebuild. In Productivity Machines, Corinna Schlombs examines the transatlantic history of productivity technology and culture in the two decades before and after World War II. She argues for the interpretive flexibility of productivity: different groups viewed productivity differently at different times. Although it began as an objective measure, productivity came to be emblematic of the American economic system; post-World War II West Germany, however, adapted these ideas to its own political and economic values. Schlombs explains that West German unionists cast a doubtful eye on productivity's embrace of plant-level collective bargaining; unions fought for codetermination—the right to participate in corporate decisions. After describing German responses to US productivity, Schlombs offers an in-depth look at labor relations in one American company in Germany—that icon of corporate America, IBM. Finally, Schlombs considers the emergence of computer technology—seen by some as a new symbol of productivity but by others as the means to automate workers out of their jobs.
The Kids' Book of Simple Machines
Title | The Kids' Book of Simple Machines PDF eBook |
Author | Kelly Doudna |
Publisher | Scarletta Press |
Pages | 147 |
Release | 2015 |
Genre | Juvenile Nonfiction |
ISBN | 1938063600 |
Introduces six simple machines, describing how they work in more complex machinery and how they are used every day.
The Truth Machines
Title | The Truth Machines PDF eBook |
Author | Jinee Lokaneeta |
Publisher | University of Michigan Press |
Pages | 263 |
Release | 2020-02-26 |
Genre | Law |
ISBN | 0472126474 |
Using case studies and the results of extensive fieldwork, this book considers the nature of state power and legal violence in liberal democracies by focusing on the interaction between law, science, and policing in India. The postcolonial Indian police have often been accused of using torture in both routine and exceptional criminal cases, but they, and forensic psychologists, have claimed that lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis (the use of “truth serum,” Sodium Pentothal) represent a paradigm shift away from physical torture; most state high courts in India have upheld this rationale. The Truth Machines examines the emergence and use of these three scientific techniques to analyze two primary themes. First, the book questions whether existing theoretical frameworks for understanding state power and legal violence are adequate to explain constant innovations of the state. Second, it explores the workings of law, science, and policing in the everyday context to generate a theory of state power and legal violence, challenging the monolithic frameworks about this relationship, based on a study of both state and non-state actors. Jinee Lokaneeta argues that the attempt to replace physical torture with truth machines in India fails because it relies on a confessional paradigm that is contiguous with torture. Her work also provides insights into a police institution that is founded and refounded in its everyday interactions between state and non-state actors. Theorizing a concept of Contingent State, this book demonstrates the disaggregated, and decentered nature of state power and legal violence, creating possible sites of critique and intervention.
Mind Machines (Human++ Book 1)
Title | Mind Machines (Human++ Book 1) PDF eBook |
Author | Dima Zales |
Publisher | Mozaika LLC |
Pages | 344 |
Release | 2017-01-23 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 1631422316 |
From New York Times & USA Today bestselling author Dima Zales, an intense new techno-thriller that pushes the limits of what it means to be human. With billions in the bank and my own venture capital firm, I’m living the American dream. My only problem? A car accident that leaves my mother with memory problems. Brainocytes, a new technology that can transform our brains, could be the answer to all of my problems—but I’m not the only one who sees its potential. Plunged into a criminal underworld darker than anything I could’ve imagined, my life-saving technology might be the death of me. My name is Mike Cohen, and this is how I became more than human. Please note: This book was formerly titled Human++.
Mobile Working Machines
Title | Mobile Working Machines PDF eBook |
Author | Marcus Geimer |
Publisher | SAE International |
Pages | 470 |
Release | 2020-12-31 |
Genre | Technology & Engineering |
ISBN | 0768094321 |
Mobile Working Machines are defined by three characteristics. These machines have a cer-tain task of doing a working process, they are mobile, and they have a signifi cant energy share in their working functions. The machines should be as productive, efficient and of high quality as possible. All these machines in the fi eld of agriculture, forestry, construction, logistics, municipal sector, and in other special applications work in different applications. But, many technologies placed in the machines are the same, similar or comparable; therefore, different branches can learn from each other. Mobile Working Machines provides a wide and deep view into the technologies used in these machines. Appropriate for new engineers as well as those who wish to increase their knowledge in this field, this book brings together all the latest research and development into one place.