![]() ![]() If that seems obvious to you, allow me to ask: How does your iPad know what colors to produce onscreen? How does Netflix know which movie to send you? What, physically, is data? Despite living in an electronic world, these are just not things that we're taught. Out modern computerized world is just layers upon layers of systems of computations that we've heaped onto the backs of our silicon beasts of burden. There are no arcane secrets behind machine learning. The nuts and bolts, code and compilers none of it made any sense. But until last year, I had no idea how any of this shit really worked. My opinion on such matters holds weight with a certain audience of tech consumers. ![]() Over the years I have owned and written about computers, mp3 players, smartphones, game consoles, DVD players - you name it, I've written about it. ![]() I have been a tech nerd for almost 32 years now. ![]()
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![]() The big Victorian house at the corner of the cul-de-sac, the one with the rose trellises along the fence and the tiered teak deck in the back. And sometimes we’re doomed to repeat the things we’ve forgotten. Then again, maybe their pasts would make even less sense than before. If four pretty girls in Rosewood were suddenly given perfect memories, they might know better who to trust and who to stay away from. A friend you remember as always having your back? Oops! On closer inspection, not so much. ![]() Someone who seems like an ally now? Look again-could be they weren’t as nice as you thought. With 20/20 memory, the past could suddenly get a whole lot uglier. You’d relive each time your soccer-loving crush sat next to someone else at lunch. With your spanking-new flawless memory, you’d also have to remember every fight with your BFF. Or that the very first time you saw your eighth-grade crush, he was walking through the school courtyard, palming a soccer ball in one hand and an iPod Touch in the other.īut with every blessing comes a curse. ![]() Like that you and your best friend first bonded over hating the smell of rubber cement in third-grade art class. ![]() ![]() What if, all of a sudden, you could remember every single second of your entire life? And not just the major events everyone remembers-little things, too. ![]() ![]() Just like with The Poisonwood Bible, I felt that Kingsolver had a very clear message yet still managed to add extra nuances to the story to prevent it from becoming too simplistic and predictable. The reader won’t feel blinded by the science of climate change but it is also impossible to come away unaffected by it after reading the novel. ![]() However, Kingsolver’s story is convincingly told. A research team arrives to investigate but Dellarobia’s involvement in their work soon comes into conflict with all other aspects of her life, particularly her husband’s family who want to clear the land for logging.Īs Kingsolver explains in the author’s note at the end of the book, the plight of monarch butterflies in the Mexican mountain town of Angangueo is a true story while the appearance of the butterflies in rural Tennessee is entirely fictional. ![]() As we learn later, this is the arrival of millions of monarch butterflies which have been diverted from their usual destination of Mexico by the effects of climate change. ![]() ‘Flight Behaviour’ by Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of Dellarobia Turnbow who climbs up a hillside in southern Appalachia on her way to meet her lover and stumbles across what appears to be a lake of orange fire. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But she soon began to love her new life in a wholly unexpected way. ![]() Never has trying to turn on the oven been so problematic especially for someone who is “supposed” to be trained under “Michel de la Roux de la Blanc” in a Cordon Bleu school.ĭisaster follows, as Samantha battles with the washing machine, the ironing board, attempts to cook a cordon bleu dinner. They have no idea they’ve hired a Cambridge-educated lawyer with an IQ of 158, but the trouble is Samantha has no idea how to work an oven.īut nobody is as shocked as Samantha when she realizes she must cook and clean for these people. She was offered a job by her employers, the Griegers. Asking for directions at a big mansion, she is mistaken for an interview candidate for a housekeeping job. She walks right out of the office, gets on the first train she sees, in a daze she finds herself in the middle of nowhere. Everything I’ve worked for since I was 12 years old. A mistake so huge, it wrecks her career and her chance to be a partner. So busy that she depends on her caring neighbour to receive her mails and do other things for her. She’s one of the brightest lawyers at Carter Spink and She works all hours never had any weekends off, she has no life and spent the 12 years in her life wanting only one thing: To be a senior partner of Carter Spink, one of London’s prestigious law firm. ![]() ![]() ![]() (Everyone knows too much exposition is a bad thing, especially in comics, but sometimes Morrison’s scripts practically throb for more explanation.)īut over the next four issues, as Morrison’s intent became more and more clear, Nameless became more and more interesting. The quick start perhaps wouldn’t have been as big of a problem if Morrison weren’t in his hyper-frustrating opaque mode, refusing to offer much by way of explanation for anything on the page. The story opened in media res, with a nameless dabbler in the supernatural - well, to be specific, his name is Nameless - being recruited to fend off the asteroid Xibalba. It’s a pity that Nameless didn’t start off very well. That’s about as high concept as you can get, and if Morrison is nothing else, he’s fundamentally skilled at high concept. Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham’s comic Nameless is on its fifth issue this week, but it wasn’t until this issue that the premise of the series really hit home for me: it’s Armageddon, only the asteroid is haunted. ![]() ![]() Kleypas's fans will appreciate the high action and scintillating twists and trysts. The suspicious newlyweds fight growing passion and frustration while a mysterious villain makes attempts on Evie's life. SAN FRANCISCO It was another strong year in the classroom for winter sports as Sun Devil Athletics has 87 student-athletes on the 2023 Pac-12 Winter Academic Honor Roll, part of. Despite their mutual mistrust, they forge a tentative bond, but Sebastian is alarmed by his powerful reaction to the consummation, while Evie tries to defy her feelings for this ""muff-chaser."" After Evie's father dies, Sebastian takes an interest in the club, and while reforming it, Evie challenges him to a three-month celibacy bet before she'll bed him again. They embark for Scotland, where they have a hasty marriage. Evangeline offers up her future inheritance to Sebastian in exchange for the protection of marriage and assistance in seeing her father before he dies. Vincent, striking a deal with Evangeline Jenner, the stuttering daughter of a sickly club owner whose uncle is plotting to marry her to a cousin, kill her and take her father's money. Desperate to escape her scheming relatives, Evangeline Jenner has sought the. ![]() ![]() I loved it and was so psyched for Kleypas' next Wallflower book, what seemed like the logical continuation of a love story between Daisy Bowman and Cam Rohan after their brief but hot encounter together. Bestseller Kleypas's latest begins with the rake Sebastian, Lord St. So I just finally got around to reading the much recommended Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas. ![]() ![]() ![]() But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. ![]() Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside - safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. Your heart beats only with their permission.Įverything changed on The Day. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It helps that his advice is never condemning or highfalutin as many self-proclaimed spiritual gurus can be. It helps that Tolle is so completely calm and steady as he narrates his own work. My deepest self is revealed in Tolle’s superbly simple teaching. ![]() ![]() This book isn’t dense or complicated but the ideas presented touch you to your core, and I found it helpful to take pause on occasion and to just let them simmer deep into my consciousness. Nobody makes the truth so simple yet so compelling. As far as spiritual enlightenment goes, it’s the real deal. There are few books that speak to you on such a deep level that you have a-ha moment after a-ha moment, but The Power of Now is one of them. I came to Tolle’s book after years of meditation, lots of spiritual angst, and a hunch that I was spending too much time with worries about the past and anticipation about the future. These are two no-no’s I know well from over a decade in mindfulness training and teaching yoga. This presence is felt as you read through the lines of this book. The publishers were “compelled” to publish the book due to Tolle’s profound spiritual presence. This is your inner purpose, which will reveal itself as an outer purpose once you hone your inner energy. According to Eckhart Tolle, you’re here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. The Power of Now has one goal – to remind you why you exist. Note: This The Power of Now summary is part of an ongoing project to summarise the Best Mindfulness Books and Best Self Help Books of all time. ![]() ![]() ![]() These were cautionary but ebullient celebrations of America - of its people and landscape and history - all penned by a man determined to show, like the proudest of fathers, what idiosyncratic glories this homemade nation contains.īorn William Trogdon, in Kansas City, Mo., Least Heat-Moon found his pen name early on, when his scoutmaster father, of Osage descent, christened himself "Heat Moon," William's brother "Little Heat Moon" and William "Least Heat Moon." (The hyphen, he says, came later, after he'd been addressed as "Mr. Least Heat-Moon's sophomore effort, 1991's "PrairyErth: A Deep Map," an almost microscopically in-depth and exhaustive exploration of a single rural county in Kansas, garnered him similar sales and praise. The book exploded: "Blue Highways" clung to the New York Times bestseller list for nearly a year, and critics adored it. With the 1983 publication of "Blue Highways," his folksy travelogue through America's near-forgotten back roads, William Least Heat-Moon instantly established himself as one of the nation's preeminent travel writers. ![]() ![]() ![]() Very early on he had offers to buy his first book from two small publishers. Hugh went online and figured out the process of querying agents. It was because of the tremendous response and encouragement of his family and friends that he tried to get it published. Hugh always had very low self-esteem when it came to his writing and he was very afraid to share his writing with an audience. His first impulse was simply to put it up on a blog for people to read. Hugh sent his first manuscript around to family and friends after he finished it. He never thought that he would be able to pay his bills with his writing. Hugh’s only goal was to write so that he could say that he had written a book. He finished his first manuscript when he was 33. He finally had time to sit down and write. ![]() When Hugh met his wife it was a good excuse to get out of the industry. He was on call 24 hours a day and spent most of his time away from his family. He spent that decade working and living on boats. He always wanted to write but he could never summon the fortitude to get to the end of the manuscript.Īfter college he became a computer technician, and then switched careers to become a yacht captain for 10 years. Hugh took an unlikely path to becoming a best-selling author. He has sold more than 2 million copies of his books as a self published author. Hugh has self published all of his books except his first book. Hugh Howey is the New York Times best-selling author of the Wool series. ![]() |