In Terminated for Reasons of Taste, veteran rock critic Chuck Eddy writes that "rock'n'roll history is written by the winners. Which stinks, because the losers have always played a big role in keeping rock interesting." Rock's losers share top billing with its winners in this new collection of Eddy's writing. In pieces culled from outlets as varied as the Village Voice, Creem magazine, the streaming site Rhapsody, music message boards, and his high school newspaper, Eddy covers everything from the Beastie Boys to 1920s country music, Taylor Swift to German new wave, Bruce Springsteen to occult metal. With an encyclopedic knowledge, unabashed irreverence, and a captivating style, Eddy rips up popular music histories and stitches them back together using his appreciation of the lost, ignored, and maligned. In so doing, he shows how pop music is bigger, and more multidimensional and compelling than most people can imagine.

New York Times Bestseller From Neal Stephenson—who coined the term “metaverse” in his 1992 novel Snow Crash—comes a sweeping, prescient new thriller that transports readers to a near-future world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics. “Stephenson is one of speculative fiction’s most meticulous architects. . . . Termination Shock manages to pull off a rare trick, at once wildly imaginative and grounded.” — New York Times Book Review One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the question: Might the cure be worse than the disease? Epic in scope while heartbreakingly human in perspective, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

Instant Termination Could Strike at Any MomentWith microchips implanted in their brains at birth, the slaves of Cantral and Cillineese have labored under the tyrannical rule of the nobles and their computers for centuries. Monica, a noble who avoided the implanting and escaped a death sentence at the age of four, is now sixteen and has gone into hiding. She lives with the slaves inside the walls of the Cantral palace, pretending to be one of them while the slave council plots a way to use her chip-less state to destroy the all-powerful computers that strike down any hint of rebellion.The fate of millions rides on Monica's shoulders. As the only chip-less person in the world, she must find a way to destroy the computers and free Cillineese from the nobles' iron fist before they strike with the ultimate punishment-death for everyone inside the city walls.

Conducted properly, information security risk assessments provide managers with the feedback needed to manage risk through the understanding of threats to corporate assets, determination of current control vulnerabilities, and appropriate safeguards selection. Performed incorrectly, they can provide the false sense of security that allows potential threats to develop into disastrous losses of proprietary information, capital, and corporate value. Picking up where its bestselling predecessors left off, The Security Risk Assessment Handbook: A Complete Guide for Performing Security Risk Assessments, Third Edition gives you detailed instruction on how to conduct a security risk assessment effectively and efficiently, supplying wide-ranging coverage that includes security risk analysis, mitigation, and risk assessment reporting. The third edition has expanded coverage of essential topics, such as threat analysis, data gathering, risk analysis, and risk assessment methods, and added coverage of new topics essential for current assessment projects (e.g., cloud security, supply chain management, and security risk assessment methods). This handbook walks you through the process of conducting an effective security assessment, and it provides the tools, methods, and up-to-date understanding you need to select the security measures best suited to your organization. Trusted to assess security for small companies, leading organizations, and government agencies, including the CIA, NSA, and NATO, Douglas J. Landoll unveils the little-known tips, tricks, and techniques used by savvy security professionals in the field. It includes features on how to Better negotiate the scope and rigor of security assessments Effectively interface with security assessment teams Gain an improved understanding of final report recommendations Deliver insightful comments on draft reports This edition includes detailed guidance on gathering data and analyzes over 200 administrative, technical, and physical controls using the RIIOT data gathering method; introduces the RIIOT FRAME (risk assessment method), including hundreds of tables, over 70 new diagrams and figures, and over 80 exercises; and provides a detailed analysis of many of the popular security risk assessment methods in use today. The companion website (infosecurityrisk.com) provides downloads for checklists, spreadsheets, figures, and tools.