"The following is an account of my continued life as an Uber and Lyft driver in the Twin Cities metro area, starting December of 2015 and stretching all the way through 2018. Rideshare services vary considerably from market to market, and at no point throughout this book did my market offer the 'pool' service. Finally, it should be noted this book is a sequel to Ubered : my life as a rideshare driver. If you have not read my first installment, I would strongly urge you to stop right here and read that first." --

It was quite silent in the scrub. No breeze stirred the leaves and no bird moved, except for the kite hawks wheeling silently, eternally, high in the hot air. She smelt her attacker before she saw him. A heavy stench hit her with such force that she started with shock. It was a smell she’d never encountered before. Not man, not animal, something like carrion, but alive. It seemed to envelop and suffocate her, then became tangible as two arms wrapped around her body and began tearing at her clothing. A young man driving from Sydney to Adelaide for work decides to take a short detour into the desert. He turns his hatchback on to a notoriously dangerous track that bisects uninhabited stone-covered flats. Out there, under the baking sun, people can die within hours. He’s not far along the road when a distraught young woman stumbles from the scrub and flags him down. A journalist from Sydney, she has just escaped the clutches of an inexplicable, terrifying creature. Now this desert-dwelling creature has her jeep. Her axe. And her scent... From the author of the classic novel Wake In Fright comes a chillingly brilliant short novel that’s part Wolf Creek and part Duel. Fear Is the Rider is a nail-biting chase into the outback, towards the devil lurking at its centre. Wake In Fright was made into an internationally acclaimed film. Fear Is the Rider is a previously unpublished manuscript from the 1980s that was recently rediscovered among Kenneth Cook’s papers. Kenneth Cook was born in Sydney. Wake In Fright, which drew on his time as a journalist in Broken Hill, was first published in 1961 when Cook was 32. It was published in England and America, translated into several languages, and was a prescribed text in schools. Cook wrote twenty-two books in a variety of genres, and was well known in film circles as a scriptwriter and independent film-maker. He died in 1987. ‘Fantastic, breath-taking, edge of the seat stuff.’ Col’s Criminal Library ‘This lost Ozploitation gem is pure horror adrenaline, as characters and reader alike are hunted by a relentless golem—the nightmare outback monster we've always feared.’ Chris Flynn, author of A Tiger in Eden and The Glass Kingdom ‘The moment to moment effect of reading Fear Is the Rider is one of gasping attentiveness to the urgent needs of the present...There is special, pulpy kind of genius to the kind of book that almost swipes ahead for us, like a concert pianist’s assistant.’ Australian ‘Another great retro thriller. Treat it like going to a movie, because it will only take you a couple of hours to power through it...It’s just pure adrenaline and survival.’ Herald Sun ‘A suspense packed ride until the final page.’ QANTAS Magazine ‘Possibly the scariest, most spine-chilling and nerve-wracking book I’ve read. Ever...It’s incredibly filmic—think Wolf Creek meets Mad Max—and so visceral I could feel my heart rising up in my throat as I turned the pages.’ Reading Matters ‘A schlocky, old-school thriller in the best possible way...A kind of literary Mad Max, a master class in Ozploitation, or simply as a short, sharp burst of literary adrenaline, Fear is the Rider is a hell of a lot of fun.’ Readings ‘[A] short but powerful novel, Cook takes the reader on an action-packed, tension-filled ride...Definitely a page-turner.’ BookMooch

The world is working exactly as designed. The combustion engine which is destroying our planet's atmosphere and rapidly making it inhospitable is working exactly as we designed it. Guns, which lead to so much death, work exactly as they're designed to work. And every time we "improve" their design, they get better at killing. Facebook's privacy settings, which have outed gay teens to their conservative parents, are working exactly as designed. Their "real names" initiative, which makes it easier for stalkers to re-find their victims, is working exactly as designed. Twitter's toxicity and lack of civil discourse is working exactly as it's designed to work.The world is working exactly as designed. And it's not working very well. Which means we need to do a better job of designing it. Design is a craft with an amazing amount of power. The power to choose. The power to influence. As designers, we need to see ourselves as gatekeepers of what we are bringing into the world, and what we choose not to bring into the world. Design is a craft with responsibility. The responsibility to help create a better world for all. Design is also a craft with a lot of blood on its hands. Every cigarette ad is on us. Every gun is on us. Every ballot that a voter cannot understand is on us. Every time social network's interface allows a stalker to find their victim, that's on us. The monsters we unleash into the world will carry your name. This book will make you see that design is a political act. What we choose to design is a political act. Who we choose to work for is a political act. Who we choose to work with is a political act. And, most importantly, the people we've excluded from these decisions is the biggest (and stupidest) political act we've made as a society.If you're a designer, this book might make you angry. It should make you angry. But it will also give you the tools you need to make better decisions. You will learn how to evaluate the potential benefits and harm of what you're working on. You'll learn how to present your concerns. You'll learn the importance of building and working with diverse teams who can approach problems from multiple points-of-view. You'll learn how to make a case using data and good storytelling. You'll learn to say NO in a way that'll make people listen. But mostly, this book will fill you with the confidence to do the job the way you always wanted to be able to do it. This book will help you understand your responsibilities.

Illinois 2021 Rules of the Road handbook, drive safe!

Riding 2,000 miles on horseback from Montana to New Mexico sounds like a crazy but thrilling dream or pure hardship and exhaustion. According to Bernice Ende, the trip was all that and more. Since swinging her leg over the saddle for that first long ride in 2005 (at the age of 50), Ende has logged more than 29,000 miles in the saddle, crisscrossing North America on horseback - alone. More than once she has traversed the Great Plains, the Southwest deserts, the Cascade Range, and the Rocky Mountains. Along the way, she discovered a sense of community and love of place that unites people wherever they live. From 2014-2016, she was the first person to ride coast to coast and back again in one trek, winning acclaim from the international Long Riders' Guild and awe from the people she met along the way. Bernice Ende's memoirs are illuminated by accompanying maps of her routes and photos from her journeys, capturing the instant friends she meets along the way, and her ongoing encounters with harsh weather, wildlife, hard work, mosquitoes, tricky route-finding, and the occasional worn out horseshoe. Ende reveals her inner struggles and triumphs - testing the limits of physical and mental stamina, coping with inescapable solitude, and the rewards of living life her own way, as she says, "in her own skin." Saddle up and come along for the journey of a lifetime.