When all-American actor Jim Fallon's appetite for virile young guys is exposed, he's about to tell all, with a little help from Rod Dominguez and Bart Cain who's been looking for just such an opportunity.

When magic goes wrong, who are you going to call? The name's Torres, Bonnie Torres, and I'm a paranormal scene investigator—rooting out the truth about crimes of magic. It's dangerous and boring and scary and fascinating. Though not everyone in the Cosa Nostradamus is happy we're around, which can make things…tricky. Working two cases—looking into a murder for the NYPD, and a rich man's break-in—should be well within our abilities. But when things start getting weird in the Electric Apple, Private Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigations is stretched to the limits, trying to keep one step ahead and out of trouble. Add in rumors of a powerful creature gunning for us and it's not just our rep on the line this time—if we don't solve this case, everyone will suffer. Fortunately, around here, when the going gets weird, the weird hire us.…

Drawing on more than four decades of experience as a researcher and teacher, Howard Becker now brings to students and researchers the many valuable techniques he has learned. Tricks of the Trade will help students learn how to think about research projects. Assisted by Becker's sage advice, students can make better sense of their research and simultaneously generate fresh ideas on where to look next for new data. The tricks cover four broad areas of social science: the creation of the "imagery" to guide research; methods of "sampling" to generate maximum variety in the data; the development of "concepts" to organize findings; and the use of "logical" methods to explore systematically the implications of what is found. Becker's advice ranges from simple tricks such as changing an interview question from "Why?" to "How?" (as a way of getting people to talk without asking for a justification) to more technical tricks such as how to manipulate truth tables. Becker has extracted these tricks from a variety of fields such as art history, anthropology, sociology, literature, and philosophy; and his dazzling variety of references ranges from James Agee to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Becker finds the common principles that lie behind good social science work, principles that apply to both quantitative and qualitative research. He offers practical advice, ideas students can apply to their data with the confidence that they will return with something they hadn't thought of before. Like Writing for Social Scientists, Tricks of the Trade will bring aid and comfort to generations of students. Written in the informal, accessible style for which Becker is known, this book will be an essential resource for students in a wide variety of fields. "An instant classic. . . . Becker's stories and reflections make a great book, one that will find its way into the hands of a great many social scientists, and as with everything he writes, it is lively and accessible, a joy to read."—Charles Ragin, Northwestern University

Introduction Sales is first and foremost the art of persuasion. A salesperson persuades someone to part with his or her money in exchange for a product or service. This is done by convincing the customer that he wants the product or service more than he wants his own money. Often this is a formidable task because the goods and services offered by professional salespeople usually cost a lot of money. The good news for the salesperson is that the approach used can significantly improve the odds of success. Like any profession, a sales job becomes a lot easier once you learn the tricks of your trade. I believe that how well a salesperson learns the tricks of the trade can have a big effect on his success, income and career. The degree of success can also affect the salespersons happiness, family life and sense of self-worth. I am convinced that learning these tricks can be financially rewarding and prudent for any salespersons career. Perhaps Wesley Autrey, a New York construction worker, understood achievement best when he simply said; Good things happen when you do good. This book is designed to help you do a good job at selling people things. It describes, explains, and provides examples of the best tricks of the trade I have used in the real world for over twenty-five-years in my sales career. Several (but not all) tricks of the trade require specific rhetorical techniques. In those cases, I will explain the recommended rhetorical procedure as well. When needed, I will explain what questions a salesperson should ask, when to ask these questions, and why we ask these particular questions. I will explain not only the tricks of the trade but I will explain when and why we use specific tricks. I will also do my best to explain how and why these tricks actually work. All the tricks will work for most products and services sales professional typically are asked to sell. They work for inside salespeople as well as outside sales representatives. I have years of experience in both types of sales and the tricks in this book are important and valuable regardless of your sales environment. My own career attests to how well these tricks of the trade can succeed. Because I have used them while working for some of the largest corporations in America, I have frequently won incentive trips to wonderful resorts in the United States as well as those in Cancun, the Bahamas and even Europe. My goal in this book is to suggest ways in which salespeople at any stage of their careers can improve their techniques, hone their strategies, and ultimately, succeed more fully in sales. Vernon Law once warned: Experience is the worst teacher; it gives the test before presenting the lesson. In this book I am going to try to change the natural order of things. This book is designed to give you the lessons first, thereby leveling the playing field between rookies and experienced salespeople. The way I am going to do that is by letting out the secrets I have learned in the real world to everybody in this book. Over the course of my career, I have been to several conferences set up to train the beginning salesperson. This book takes what I have learned in those classes to a more advanced level with concrete suggestions based on my years of actual sales experience. As a result, this book is designed to benefit both novice and experienced salespeople. While each chapter focuses on a different fundamental principle of selling, I also give a very practical spin to what else---in addition to fundamentals---salespeople should understand. This book explains not only how to make a great presentation but all the other things you need to know to be an effective salesperson. Let me give you an example of the type of insight you can expect to gain by reading this book. Usually the first thing a new salesperson receives is training on how to explain what eventually he is supposed to be selling. This includes a detail

Jeston Nash knew horses—he’s stolen enough of them in his time. But the lookalike cousin of Jesse James was going respectable, almost. Then, in a New Orleans teeming with drunks and blue uniforms, he sold a horse to a well-bred lady. It was the biggest mistake of his career .... He hit Fort Lincoln with a belly full of wounds and minus a boot. His horse had been stolen, and he’d stolen it back—along with some bootleg crackers. All in all, it hadn’t been a pleasant trip through the dreaded Black Hills. But at least Jeston Nash—for the time being calling himself Beatty—hadn’t drowned. Now he fully intended to fulfill a promise: to deliver an unridable horse called Honest Bob to a woman named Custer. The trouble was, the wife of General George Armstrong Custer, Elizabeth, wasn’t very interested in the horse she’d persuaded Nash to deliver. In fact, Mrs. Custer was on the warpath. So were the Sioux—and General Custer’s commanders in Washington. Suddenly, Nash finds himself in the middle of the most dangerous kind of fight: a marital squabble. Before he knows it he’s riding alongside a hardheaded, buffalo-hunting, blond-haired general who’s sure glory awaits them—at a place called Little Big Horn ....

A collection of talks, workshops, lectures and conference pieces ... which were recorded at the time before being written by Fo's wife and collaborator Franca Rame (from introduction).

The twenty last years have been marked by an increase in available data and computing power. In parallel to this trend, the focus of neural network research and the practice of training neural networks has undergone a number of important changes, for example, use of deep learning machines. The second edition of the book augments the first edition with more tricks, which have resulted from 14 years of theory and experimentation by some of the world's most prominent neural network researchers. These tricks can make a substantial difference (in terms of speed, ease of implementation, and accuracy) when it comes to putting algorithms to work on real problems.