Other books that might interest you

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  Gps

  Paul E. Ceruzzi

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  A concise history of GPS, from its military origins to its commercial applications and ubiquity in everyday life. 
  GPS is ubiquitous in everyday life. GPS mapping is standard equipment in many new cars, and geolocation services are embedded in smart phones. GPS makes Uber and Lyft possible; driverless cars won't be able to drive without it. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Paul Ceruzzi offers a concise history of GPS, explaining how a once-obscure space technology became an invisible piece of our infrastructure, as essential to modern life as electric power or clean water.   
  GPS relays precise time and positioning information from orbiting satellites to receivers on the ground, at sea, and in the air. It operates worldwide, and its basic signals are free, although private companies can commodify the data provided. Ceruzzi recounts the origins of GPS and its predecessor technologies, including early aircraft navigation systems and satellites. He describes the invention of GPS as a space technology in the post-Apollo, pre-Space Shuttle years and its first military and commercial uses. Ceruzzi explains how the convergence of three major technological developments - the microprocessor, the Internet, and cellular telephony - enabled the development and application of GPS technology.

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  Garden Wildlife - Revealing Your...

  Gerard E. Cheshire

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  Garden Wildlife is a book that looks at the habitats in our gardens from the point of view of wild animal and plants.If we understand our gardens in this way, then we can appreciate that different parts of our gardens essentially mimic wild habitats in microcosm. This means that we can provide places for wild animals and plants to flourish in our gardens, whether they happen to be in rural, suburban or urban settings.Above all, we need to get away from the current obsession with tidiness and sterility in our gardens, and allow odd corners to go wild, so that our native species can live alongside us in the modern world.Without wildlife to discover and observe in our gardens, our lives are impoverished, so we have a duty to ourselves and our children to invite nature back into our outside spaces.

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  Surfer Beach Ocean Waves - For...

  Greg Cetus

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  Riding a wave is an exhilarating experience, where the rush of adrenaline meets the soothing embrace of the sea. As you listen to this recording, you'll feel like you're right there, riding the waves and living life to the fullest. 
   
  Forget about your daily problems and immerse yourself in a world of adventure and excitement. Face the challenge of the long, tall waves head-on, and emerge victorious, feeling invigorated and alive. 
   
  Let the power of the ocean wash over you, cleansing your mind, body, and soul. This recording is perfect for anyone seeking a truly virtuous blend of sun, salt, and sand, where the possibilities are endless, and the adventure never ends. 
   
  Experience the thrill of the ride and let the waves carry you away to a world of endless possibilities.

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  Beauty and the Beast

  Michael Taussig

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  The celebrated anthropologist and author of The Corn Wolf examines the Colombian culture of plastic surgery and its surprising relationship to violence.   Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Colombia, Michael Taussig scrutinizes the audacious and sometimes destructive attempts people make to transform their bodies through cosmetic surgery and liposuction. He balances an examination of surgeries meant to enhance an individual’s beauty with their often-overlooked counterparts, surgeries performed—often on high profile criminals—to disguise one’s identity. Exploring this global phenomenon through Colombia’s economic, cultural, and political history, Taussig links the country’s long civil war and history of torture to the beauty industry at large, sketching Colombia as a country whose high aesthetic stakes make it a staging ground for some of the most important and problematic ideas about the body. Central to Taussig’s examination is George Bataille’s notion of depense, or “wasting.” While depense is often used as a critique, Taussig also looks at its position as a driving economic force. Depense, he argues, is precisely what these procedures are about, and the beast on the other side of beauty should not be dismissed as simple recompense. At once theoretical and colloquial, public and intimate, Beauty and the Beast is a true-to-place ethnography that tells a layered story about the lengths to which people will go to be physically remade.

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  Tokens - The Future of Money in...

  Rachel O’Dwyer

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  Wherever you look, money is being replaced by tokens. Digital platforms are issuing new kinds of money-like things, from phone credit, to shares, gift vouchers, game tokens, and customer data. These tokens are used to turn invisible stuff into assets, to pay wages, to track purchases, and to program and specify the terms of financial and political access and inclusion. What does it mean when online platforms become the new banks? What new types of control and discrimination emerge when money is tied to specific apps, or actions, politics, or identities?By exploring the history of experiments in extra-monetary economies, O'Dwyer shows that private and grassroots tokens have always ghosted the real economy. But as the large tech platforms issue new money-like instruments, tokens are suddenly everywhere. Amazon's Turk workers getting paid in gift cards. Online streamers trading in wish lists. Gamers working for virtual gold. Coined memes selling for thousands. Bitcoin, gift cards, NFTs, customer data, and game tokens are the new money in an evolving economy. This challenges the balance of power between online empires and the state. For platforms, tokens can be an extra-regulatory sleight of hand. But for everyday users, workers, and online subcultures, tokens can also be subversive, a way of imagining what money could be, now and in the future.

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  Birds and Frogs of Temperate...

  Greg Cetus

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  This recording of birds and frogs from Washington state forests and wetlands offers continuous energetic melodious bird singing in a beautiful natural setting. Occasional lake frog is joining in from time to time to create a perfect holistic soundscape. The birds are fully energies for the day to give you a boost of energy improve mood and focus. Whether you need to block some external noise or need a good background ambiance for productivity these beautiful birds will take you to that safe space and help you with your daily tasks.  
   
  Birdsong relaxes physically and stimulates cognitively at the same time. People find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years they have learnt when the birds sing they are safe. This natural soundscape is productivity boosting and can be used at work to help focus, improve cognition and reduce tiredness. Gentle birdsong also masks unwanted background noise, hum, and conversation which will help with reduction of tension and stress. 
   
  Here's a selection of individual birds you may be able to hear in this recording: Black Swift, Ancient Murrelet, Pacific Loon, American Bittern, Purple finch, Pacific Wren, Wilson's Warbler, Bald Eagle, Northern Flicker, and a variety of smaller ground and aerial forest creatures and plants.

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