The Pattern On The Stone

Author: W. Daniel Hillis
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465066879
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 133

Book Description
Most people are baffled by how computers work and assume that they will never understand them. What they don't realize -- and what Daniel Hillis's short book brilliantly demonstrates -- is that computers' seemingly complex operations can be broken down into a few simple parts that perform the same simple procedures over and over again. Computer wizard Hillis offers an easy-to-follow explanation of how data is processed that makes the operations of a computer seem as straightforward as those of a bicycle. Avoiding technobabble or discussions of advanced hardware, the lucid explanations and colorful anecdotes in The Pattern on the Stone go straight to the heart of what computers really do. Hillis proceeds from an outline of basic logic to clear descriptions of programming languages, algorithms, and memory. He then takes readers in simple steps up to the most exciting developments in computing today -- quantum computing, parallel computing, neural networks, and self-organizing systems. Written clearly and succinctly by one of the world's leading computer scientists, The Pattern on the Stone is an indispensable guide to understanding the workings of that most ubiquitous and important of machines: the computer.

The Fraternity of the Stone

Author: David Morrell
Publisher: David Morrell
ISBN: 1937760081
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 533

Book Description
Drew MacLane is a star agent in Scalpel, an organization named for its purpose: precise surgical removal. Assassination. Then MacLane decides to stop killing. He withdraws and retreats to a monastery, where for six years he lives the life of a hermit. But then someone tracks him down, leaving a trail of bodies. Someone who knows all about him - and will stop at nothing to destroy him. Less From acclaimed Thriller Master, David Morrell, comes a classic espionage tale that changed the genre, paving the way for the historical/religious thrillers of Dan Brown, Steve Berry, and James Rollins. In a remote monastery in Vermont, a mysterious man has spent six years alone in a cell, doing penance for unnamed sins that he committed for his government. His only human contact is the hand that delivers his spartan meals through a slot in his door. He allows himself only one small pleasure, the companionship of a mouse. When the mouse dies, nibbling bread, a terrible suspicion makes him finally leave his sanctuary and confront the ruthless enemies that he prayed he had left behind. Beginning with the Crusades and the origin of the word “assassin,” THE FRATERNITY OF THE STONE was the first novel to deal with Opus Dei, the Vatican’s civilian intelligence community. If you like to read about ancient conspiracies that threaten the modern world, this is where the genre began.

Daughters of the Stone

Author: Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429918527
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Finalist for the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers It is the mid-1800s. Fela, taken from Africa, is working at her second sugar plantation in colonial Puerto Rico, where her mistress is only too happy to benefit from her impressive embroidery skills. But Fela has a secret. Before she and her husband were separated and sold into slavery, they performed a tribal ceremony in which they poured the essence of their unborn child into a very special stone. Fela keeps the stone with her, waiting for the chance to finish what she started. When the plantation owner approaches her, Fela sees a better opportunity for her child, and allows the man to act out his desire. Such is the beginning of a line of daughters connected by their intense love for one another, and the stories of a lost land. Mati, a powerful healer and noted craftswoman, is grounded in a life that is disappearing in a quickly changing world. Concha, unsure of her place, doesn't realize the price she will pay for rejecting her past. Elena, modern and educated, tries to navigate between two cultures, moving to the United States, where she will struggle to keep her family together. Carisa turns to the past for wisdom and strength when her life in New York falls apart. The stone becomes meaningful to each of the women, pulling them through times of crisis and ultimately connecting them to one another. Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa shows great skill and warmth in the telling of this heartbreaking, inspirational story about mothers and daughters, and the ways in which they hurt and save one another.

Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future

Author: John MacCormick
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209057
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Nine revolutionary algorithms that power our computers and smartphones Every day, we use our computers to perform remarkable feats. A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world's biggest haystack. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. Without even knowing it, we use public-key cryptography to transmit secret information like credit card numbers, and we use digital signatures to verify the identity of the websites we visit. How do our computers perform these tasks with such ease? John MacCormick answers this question in language anyone can understand, using vivid examples to explain the fundamental tricks behind nine computer algorithms that power our PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Returning the Sword to the Stone

Author: Mark Leidner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781964499277
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The followup to his beloved debut collection Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me, Mark Leidner's Returning the Sword to the Stone is simultaneously profound and irreverent, in the same way that the world is flat as we walk and round as we live. "A child surprised that a neon sign / isn't hot the first time they touch one / knows how it feels as an adult to achieve one's goals" states the speaker of "Youth Is A Fugitive" and this sentiment is one of the central precepts of Returning the Sword to the Stone. Congealing directly off the page, these are poems that only Mark Leidner could have written.

The Pattern on the Stone

Author: Daniel Hillis
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780752839912
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
This tape is part of a unique twenty-part series, providing an enjoyable and stimulating introduction to all the main areas of science, selected under the guidance of Richard Dawkins.

Pattern on the Stone

Author: W. Daniel Hillis
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780297816904
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Relic Huntress

Author: Renee Joiner
Publisher: Oshun Publications, LLC
ISBN: 1956319093
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
Relic huntress Temperance Parris just got a hot tip. Somewhere in the Caves of Alegai, the legendary and often considered mythical, Futuri stones are buried with the body of the Atlantis seer and her channeling scepter. And Temperance aims to claim them all. It’s the miracle she needs to save her mother’s life and finally be free of the family’s blood curse. And maybe prove to the coven that shunned them both that the Parris witches are worthy still, curses aside. But time has been running out for ages, and now the hands are practically spinning toward a destiny she must avoid at all costs. Getting to the Alegai Caves isn’t the worst problem she has to overcome. There are spells and curses as bad as her own lying in wait for those who dare enter in. To avoid them, she’ll have to be prepared. The only person she knows who has more knowledge and skill than she does is the one person she swore she’d never speak to again: her ex, Jalen Baker. And though he’s never said, she senses that he knows more about the legend than he shared with her. Maybe something that can finally change her luck for good.

The Blue-Eyed Tarokaja

Author: Donald Keene
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231515207
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
The preeminent Western authority on Japanese literature a presents a collection of personal essays and literary vignettes that offers a fresh and personal insight into his prolific career as a writer and translator, traveler and social observer.

Proceedings ...

Author: Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description