"A group of American patriots, all former military, are looking for a way to get their number one choice, Senator Ben Corn, elected president. Corn is a telegenic, perfect candidate-yet harbors secrets that threaten him. The group's goal is to implement their own foreign policy and fundamentally restructure American society. Essential to this scheme is Greta Webb, a sophisticated and beautiful CIA agent who is an expert on how global dark money flows, not to mention skilled in lethal hand-to-hand combat. To achieve their goals, they form dangerous alliances. One is with a woman who manages the largest, and most corrupt, private pool of capital that has ever existed. And another with the brilliant, ruthless founder of Russia's most successful private military company: a mercenary's mercenary, who has ties to Vladimir Putin. He has his eye on Greta Webb-and while she would be wise to avoid him at all costs, she cannot. Journeying across the globe from New York to Washington to Middle Eastern war zones to wine cellars in the French countryside to Putin's private restaurant in St. Petersburg, the group of Americans become enmeshed in this underground world. And as they discover the secret of the dark money's pool's success-which involves manipulating the markets to rake in billions of dollars-they come into ever increasing danger. Ultimately the team of Americans must decide whether their ultimate objectives are worth the cost of ruthlessly sacrificing not just a few but potentially many human lives. Brilliantly told and filled with jaw-dropping action and unforgettable characters, Undermoney offers a savage look at the secret lives of the world's richest people"--

"A group of American patriots, all former military, are looking for a way to get their number one choice, Senator Ben Corn, elected president. Corn is a telegenic, perfect candidate-yet harbors secrets that threaten him. The group's goal is to implement their own foreign policy and fundamentally restructure American society. Essential to this scheme is Greta Webb, a sophisticated and beautiful CIA agent who is an expert on how global dark money flows, not to mention skilled in lethal hand-to-hand combat. To achieve their goals, they form dangerous alliances. One is with a woman who manages the largest, and most corrupt, private pool of capital that has ever existed. And another with the brilliant, ruthless founder of Russia's most successful private military company: a mercenary's mercenary, who has ties to Vladimir Putin. He has his eye on Greta Webb-and while she would be wise to avoid him at all costs, she cannot. Journeying across the globe from New York to Washington to Middle Eastern war zones to wine cellars in the French countryside to Putin's private restaurant in St. Petersburg, the group of Americans become enmeshed in this underground world. And as they discover the secret of the dark money's pool's success-which involves manipulating the markets to rake in billions of dollars-they come into ever increasing danger. Ultimately the team of Americans must decide whether their ultimate objectives are worth the cost of ruthlessly sacrificing not just a few but potentially many human lives. Brilliantly told and filled with jaw-dropping action and unforgettable characters, Undermoney offers a savage look at the secret lives of the world's richest people"--

The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as “games about games,” metagames implicate a diverse range of practices that stray outside the boundaries and bend the rules: from technical glitches and forbidden strategies to Renaissance painting, algorithmic trading, professional sports, and the War on Terror. In Metagaming, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux demonstrate how games always extend beyond the screen, and how modders, mappers, streamers, spectators, analysts, and artists are changing the way we play. Metagaming uncovers these alternative histories of play by exploring the strange experiences and unexpected effects that emerge in, on, around, and through videogames. Players puzzle through the problems of perspectival rendering in Portal, perform clandestine acts of electronic espionage in EVE Online, compete and commentate in Korean StarCraft, and speedrun The Legend of Zelda in record times (with or without the use of vision). Companies like Valve attempt to capture the metagame through international e-sports and online marketplaces while the corporate history of Super Mario Bros. is undermined by the endless levels of Infinite Mario, the frustrating pranks of Asshole Mario, and even Super Mario Clouds, a ROM hack exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. One of the only books to include original software alongside each chapter, Metagaming transforms videogames from packaged products into instruments, equipment, tools, and toys for intervening in the sensory and political economies of everyday life. And although videogames conflate the creativity, criticality, and craft of play with the act of consumption, we don’t simply play videogames—we make metagames.

The co-host of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs. Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century. At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin. One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad. Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “We should aspire to Colapinto's stellar journalist example: listening carefully to the circumstances of those who are different rather than demanding that they conform to our own.” —Washington Post The true story about the "twins case" and a riveting exploration of medical arrogance, misguided science, societal confusion, gender differences, and one man's ultimate triumph In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. The boy's uninjured brother, raised as a boy, provided to the experiment the perfect matched control. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. Writing with uncommon intelligence, insight, and compassion, John Colapinto sets the historical and medical context for the case, exposing the thirty-year-long scientific feud between Dr. John Money and his fellow sex researcher, Dr. Milton Diamond—a rivalry over the nature/nurture debate whose very bitterness finally brought the truth to light. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's—and one family's—amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.

NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A ten-step plan for finding peace, safety, and harmony with your money—no matter how big or small your goals and no matter how rocky the market might be—by the inspiring and savvy “Budgetnista.” “No matter where you stand in your money journey, Get Good with Money has a lesson or two for you!”—Erin Lowry, bestselling author of the Broke Millennial series Tiffany Aliche was a successful pre-school teacher with a healthy nest egg when a recession and advice from a shady advisor put her out of a job and into a huge financial hole. As she began to chart the path to her own financial rescue, the outline of her ten-step formula for attaining both financial security and peace of mind began to take shape. These principles have now helped more than one million women worldwide save and pay off millions in debt, and begin planning for a richer life. Revealing this practical ten-step process for the first time in its entirety, Get Good with Money introduces the powerful concept of building wealth through financial wholeness: a realistic, achievable, and energizing alternative to get-rich-quick and over-complicated money management systems. With helpful checklists, worksheets, a tool kit of resources, and advanced advice from experts who Tiffany herself relies on (her “Budgetnista Boosters”), Get Good with Money gets crystal clear on the short-term actions that lead to long-term goals, including: • A simple technique to determine your baseline or “noodle budget,” examine and systemize your expenses, and lay out a plan that allows you to say yes to your dreams. • An assessment tool that helps you understand whether you have a “don't make enough” problem or a “spend too much” issue—as well as ways to fix both. • Best practices for saving for a rainy day (aka job loss), a big-ticket item (a house, a trip, a car), and money that can be invested for your future. • Detailed advice and action steps for taking charge of your credit score, maximizing bill-paying automation, savings and investing, and calculating your life, disability, and property insurance needs. • Ways to protect your beneficiaries' future, and ensure that your financial wishes will stand the test of time. An invaluable guide to cultivating good financial habits and making your money work for you, Get Good with Money will help you build a solid foundation for your life (and legacy) that’s rich in every way.

PDAs and robotics come together in this innovative resource! Here is the ONLY BOOK to provide in-depth designs and concepts on how to create a robot that utilizes your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) as the remote control--or "brains." * Allows any PDA to communicate with and control the robot * No connectors necessary--works on a wireless link between the PDA and the robot * Requires only inexpensive, off-the-shelf components * Modules can be easily customized for individual use * Covers specialized software, control circuits, and interfaces ideal for creating artificial life forms