A Leap from the Clouds

Author: Jerry Kuntz
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476689601
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
In the late nineteenth century, circus aerialists collaborated with show balloonists to perform death-defying stunts, initially by suspending themselves from trapeze bars beneath a balloon, later by jumping from the balloons using fabric parachutes. By the 1890s, these performances became a worldwide craze, remaining in rural fairs and fetes for decades. Many of the original balloon-parachute pioneers went on to play key roles in the creation of airships, test flying the first gliders and airplanes. Based on extensive historical research, this unusual account explores how a nineteenth-century daredevil act united with the desire to achieve human flight. These performers' contributions did not come without a price: dozens, if not hundreds, of people died in horrifying events witnessed by thousands of spectators. This book chronicles the act that had no practical purpose other than entertainment, which eventually evolved into the development of the free-fall parachute pack--a key aviation need--and the foundation of a new activity known as skydiving.

The Horse That Leaps Through Clouds

Author: Eric Enno Tamm
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 158243817X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 523

Book Description
On July 6, 1906, Baron Gustaf Mannerheim boarded the midnight train from St. Petersburg, charged by Czar Nicholas II to secretly collect intelligence on the Qing Dynasty's sweeping reforms that were radically transforming China. The last czarist agent in the so–called Great Game, Mannerheim chronicled almost every facet of China's modernization, from education reform and foreign investment to Tibet's struggle for independence. On July 6, 2006, writer Eric Enno Tamm boards that same train, intent on following in Mannerheim's footsteps. Initially banned from China, Tamm devises a cover and retraces Mannerheim's route across the Silk Road, discovering both eerie similarities and seismic differences between the Middle Kingdoms of today and a century ago. Along the way, Tamm offers piercing insights into China's past that raise troubling questions about its future. Can the Communist Party truly open China to the outside world yet keep Western ideas such as democracy and freedom at bay, just as Qing officials mistakenly believed? What can reform during the late Qing Dynasty teach us about the spectacular transformation of China today? As Confucius once wrote, "Study the past if you would divine the future," and that is just what Tamm does in The Horse that Leaps Through Clouds.

Smoth... A Nimbus Cloud of Unknowing

Author: Badal Verma
Publisher: Notion Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Book Description
Smoth… A Nimbus Cloud of Unknowing is a collection of interrelated short stories. They are focused on the stories of women, who make our lives beautiful and so often leave us in the end to change the entire paradigm of those very lives which they had once decorated. The narrative is an insightful interplay of thoughts and complex emotions between the protagonist and three imaginary young women who are the subtle characters of his Atarangee Antarman, namely – Awargi, the happiness of his inner universe; Ehad, the time; and Sajda, the prayer, who help him manage his complex emotions for a beautiful woman who loves him. The spectrum of interplay is vast and includes a journey to his past and future. It is divine injustice and reiteration of the frailty of life that this fascinating work of fiction ends in a real-life tragic love story that leaves a lump in the throat. And, this was never part of the original script. Tragic as it is, it lends substance to the insightful dialogues that take place throughout the book. An intense read in parts, the book urges one to reflect on the thoughts and emotions that are lying dormant somewhere in the subconsciousness of every human being. In the end, it leaves a lingering impact on the reader’s mind. -Major General Anil Sengar

Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape

Author: Joseph Leo Koerner
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861897502
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) is heralded as the greatest painter of the Romantic movement in Germany, and Europe’s first truly modern artist. His mysterious and melancholy landscapes, often peopled with lonely wanderers, are experiments in a radically subjective artistic perspective—one in which, as Freidrich wrote, the painter depicts not “what he sees before him, but what he sees within him.” This vulnerability of the individual when confronted with nature became one of the key tenets of the Romantic aesthetic. Now available in a compact, accessible format, this beautifully illustrated book is the most comprehensive account ever published in English of one of the most fascinating and influential nineteenth-century painters. “This is a model of interpretative art history, taking in a good deal of German Romantic philosophy, but founded always on the immediate experience of the picture. . . . It is rare to find a scholar so obviously in sympathy with his subject.”—Independent

Charlie and Halley Clear the Cloud

Author: R.K. Keandrick
Publisher: R. K. Keandrick
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Book Description
Charlie and his sister Halley, fresh from their last adventure across the stories their writer had abandoned, are thrilled to discover a new neighbour. Their excitement turns to curiosity when they discover that their writer had nothing to do with her arrival. Even more intriguing: Her dog is missing. Charlie and Halley spring into action to find the dog and solve the mystery behind their new neighbour. They’ll face jungles, big bubbles, hungry villagers and far too much jelly. And somehow turn steam engines and bear butts into a solution.

Library Linked Data in the Cloud

Author: Carol Jean Godby
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1627052208
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Book Description
This book describes OCLC’s contributions to the transformation of the Internet from a web of documents to a Web of Data. The new Web is a growing ‘cloud’ of interconnected resources that identify the things people want to know about when they approach the Internet with an information need. The linked data architecture has achieved critical mass just as it has become clear that library standards for resource description are nearing obsolescence. Working for the world’s largest library cooperative, OCLC researchers have been active participants in the development of next generation standards for library resource description. By engaging with an international community of library and Web standards experts, they have published some of the most widely used RDF datasets representing library collections and librarianship. This book focuses on the conceptual and technical challenges involved in publishing linked data derived from traditional library metadata. This transformation is a high priority because most searches for information start not in the library, nor even in a Web-accessible library catalog, but elsewhere on the Internet. Modeling data in a form that the broader Web understands will project the value of libraries into the Digital Information Age. The exposition is aimed at librarians, archivists, computer scientists, and other professionals interested in modeling bibliographic descriptions as linked data. It aims to achieve a balanced treatment of theory, technical detail, and practical application.

中大汉英词典

Author: Derun Liang
Publisher: Chinese University Press
ISBN: 9789629961725
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 1188

Book Description
"This dictionary is intended for the use of foreign readers and thus pays special attention to the translation of the Chinese terms or the use of their English equivalents. Over 4,500 Chinese words and 70,000 entries of terms have been included, among them more than 20,000 are new entries. They are words and terms that appear since the 1990s and have a wide coverage."--BOOK JACKET.

First You Build a Cloud

Author: K. C. Cole
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0544080149
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
This clearly written and compelling look at physics and physicists offers “thousands of new ways to see our daily world more richly” (Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gödel, Escher, Bach). For many of us, physics has always been a thing of mystery and complexity. K. C. Cole, an award-winning science writer, specializes in making its wonders accessible to the everyday reader. This book uses lively prose, metaphors, and anecdotes to allow us to comprehend the nuances of physics: gravity and light, color and shape, quarks and quasars, particles and stars, force and strength. It also shows us how the physical world is so deeply intertwined with the ways we think about culture, poetry, and philosophy, and explores the workings of such legendary scientific minds as Richard Feynman, Victor Weisskopf, brothers Frank Oppenheimer and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Philip Morrison, Vera Kistiakowsky, and Stephen Jay Gould. “An exemplary science writer . . . For readers without scientific background, Cole gracefully introduces relativity, quantum theory, optics, astrophysics, and other significant disciplines, never getting bogged down in unnecessary explanation. Thus, you may not learn all about thermodynamics from reading her chapter on it, but you will learn enough to think seriously about the entropy in your own life. Cole sprinkles her text with comments from famous scientists—‘Space is blue, and birds fly in it,’ said Heisenberg, and Faraday said, ‘Nothing is too wonderful to be true’—that are not only delightful in themselves but perfectly suited to her own text. No review of Cole’s book could be too wonderful to be true.” —Booklist

Aerosols and Climate

Author: Ken S. Carslaw
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0128231726
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 856

Book Description
The ever-diversifying field of aerosol effects on climate is comprehensively presented here, describing the strong connection between fundamental research and model applications in a way that will allow both experienced researchers and those new to the field to gain an understanding of a wide range of topics. The material is consistently presented at three levels for each topic: (i) an accessible "quick read" of the essentials, (ii) a more detailed description, and (iii) a section dedicated to how the processes are handled in models. The modelling section in each chapter summarizes the current level of knowledge and what the gaps in this understanding mean for the effects of aerosols on climate, enabling readers to quickly understand how new research fits into established knowledge. Definitions, case studies, reference data, and examples are included throughout. Aerosols and Climate is a vital resource for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, senior researchers, and lecturers in departments of atmospheric science, meteorology, engineering, and environment. It will also be of interest to those working in operational centers and policy-facing organizations, providing strong reference material on the current state of knowledge. - Includes a section in each chapter that focuses on the treatment of relevant aerosol processes in climate models - Provides clear exposition of the challenges in understanding and reducing persistent gaps in knowledge and uncertainties in the field of aerosol-climate interaction, going beyond the fundamentals and existing knowledge - Authored by experts in modeling and aerosol processes, analysis or observations to ensure accessibility and balance

Developing Robust Date and Time Oriented Applications in Oracle Cloud

Author: Michal Kvet
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1804619361
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
Create robust temporal solutions in Oracle Cloud and spread the solution worldwide by leveraging its regional properties and time zone synchronization Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Key Features Migrate existing on-premises applications to the Oracle Cloud environment using data migration techniques Handle date and time values efficiently using Oracle database's available data types and duration modeling principles Apply temporal database models in real-world systems to ensure robustness, security, and performance Book Description Proper date and time management is critical for the development and reliability of Oracle Databases and cloud environments, which are among the most rapidly expanding technologies today. This knowledge can be applied to cloud technology, on premises, application development, and integration to emphasize regional settings, UTC coordination, or different time zones. This practical book focuses on code snippets and discusses the existing functionalities and limitations, along with covering data migration to the cloud by emphasizing the importance of proper date and time management. This book helps you understand the historical background and evolution of ANSI standards. You'll get to grips with data types, constructor principles, and existing functionalities, and focus on the limitations of regional parameters and time zones, which help in expanding business to other parts of the world. You'll also explore SQL injection threats, temporal database architecture, using Flashback Technology to reconstruct valid database images from the past, time zone management, and UTC synchronization across regions. By the end of this book, you'll be able to create and manage temporal systems, prevent SQL injection attacks, use existing functionalities and define your own robust solutions for date management, and apply time zone and region rules. What you will learn Explore the fundamentals and terms related to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and data migration Follow core principles and date and time element management supervised by ANSI standardization Discover the limitations of existing functionalities and conversion methods Build robust and secure temporal solutions that are resistant to SQL injection threats Understand time zone management and regional settings by focusing on regional and national conventions and approaches Use Flashback Technology to create temporal models in terms of historical and current states Who this book is for This book is for IT specialists, students, system developers, database administrators, and cloud integrators. With a hands-on approach, this book will help you to gain a comprehensive view of the issue of time processing and enable you to develop complex, robust applications that are usable and portable in any region.