Author: Kent Evans
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781938545016
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Damien Wood's path to adulthood in the last decade of the 20th century is marked with effortless success--creative, financial, sexual. Yet his half-Asian lineage with its inherent cultural clashes is coupled with the inability to be touched by feelings or the people around him. Damien's efforts to reach his inner self take him from place to place and one hollow relationship to another, but he remains stuck outside of his experiences, a robot convincingly playing the role of daredevil artist and globetrotter.Then, the century turns. As Damien's mother dies after a long and agonizing illness, and 9/11 inaugurates a reign of fear and terror, his emotions, from desire to despair, begin to emerge unbidden. These birth pangs of humanity send Damien on a mordantly comic, darkly suspenseful quest from the Americas through Southeast Asia in the company of an expatriate colony with too little to lose - including values - until violence comes to claim him as one of its own. No longer a robot, Damien has become a wanted man.A daring hybrid of adventure, verse, and travel fiction, framed by a chronicle of self-revelation in a pitch-perfect voice for the post-millennium, this book heralds the return of a novelist of impressive literary gifts.
Author: Mel Gilden
Publisher: ibooks
ISBN: 0743479262
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
He called himself Zoot Marlowe, said he’d just blown in from Cay City, but even the wacked out surfer dudes could tell that the four-foot detective with the giant schnoz was from somewhere out of their world. Still, he could throw a mean frisbee and he said he was a private eye, and when someone decided to smash and trash all the surfing robots in Malibu just days before the biggest surfing contest of the year, Zoot was the only being around willing to track the bot beaters down. But Zoot didn’t know just how widespread a conspiracy he was about to run up against. For this first case of his Earthly career would see him taking on everything from the Malibu cops to Samurai robots; motorcycle madmen to talking gorillas; and a misplaced mistress of genetic manipulation! "Gilden proves that you can write first-rate humorous science fiction." —Science Fiction Chronicle
Author: Brad Linaweaver
Publisher: TV Books
ISBN: 9781575000534
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
This title aimed at the sci-fi fan and TV viewer -- the Trekkie, broadly defined -- serves as a tie-in to the hit TV series -- 22 new episodes just commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel -- and a companion to the Putnam Berkley novelizations. "Sliders" is an illustrated guide to the fantasy adventures of the time- and space-traveling crew, and provides detailed descriptions of the parallel universes that are visited. "Sliders" also serves up plot lines of the episodes, as well as in-depth interviews with its stars and a behind-the-scenes tour led by the show's writers and producers.
Author: Maja J. Mataric
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026263354X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
A broadly accessible introduction to robotics that spans the most basic concepts and the most novel applications; for students, teachers, and hobbyists. The Robotics Primer offers a broadly accessible introduction to robotics for students at pre-university and university levels, robot hobbyists, and anyone interested in this burgeoning field. The text takes the reader from the most basic concepts (including perception and movement) to the most novel and sophisticated applications and topics (humanoids, shape-shifting robots, space robotics), with an emphasis on what it takes to create autonomous intelligent robot behavior. The core concepts of robotics are carried through from fundamental definitions to more complex explanations, all presented in an engaging, conversational style that will appeal to readers of different backgrounds. The Robotics Primer covers such topics as the definition of robotics, the history of robotics (“Where do Robots Come From?”), robot components, locomotion, manipulation, sensors, control, control architectures, representation, behavior (“Making Your Robot Behave”), navigation, group robotics, learning, and the future of robotics (and its ethical implications). To encourage further engagement, experimentation, and course and lesson design, The Robotics Primer is accompanied by a free robot programming exercise workbook that implements many of the ideas on the book on iRobot platforms. The Robotics Primer is unique as a principled, pedagogical treatment of the topic that is accessible to a broad audience; the only prerequisites are curiosity and attention. It can be used effectively in an educational setting or more informally for self-instruction. The Robotics Primer is a springboard for readers of all backgrounds—including students taking robotics as an elective outside the major, graduate students preparing to specialize in robotics, and K-12 teachers who bring robotics into their classrooms.
Author: Leslie Bulion
Publisher: Holiday House
ISBN: 1682631443
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
Humorous, Shakespearean-inspired verse about body parts blends with whimsical art in this award-winning science poetry collection from Leslie Bulion. Leslie Bulion's award-winning volume of anatomical verse begins with an invitation to solve a series of poetic riddles: "Of course you have a body, / But do you have a clue / Where all the body parts you've got are found / And what they do?" Each poem that follows poses a puzzle in verse (with a sly wink and a nod to Shakespeare) and provides hints for uncovering the body part in question—from blood, bones, eyes, and the heart to the brain, pancreas, stomach, tongue, and more. Sidebars throughout offer additional facts, while appended notes offer a crash course on poetic form and a few facts about the Shakespearean works that inspired the verses. Mike Lowery's playful, original art adds context along with photographs and a diagram of the human body. A truly unique nonfiction title that's ideal for cross-curricular learning!
Author: Michele Colledanchise
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 042995090X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Behavior Trees (BTs) provide a way to structure the behavior of an artificial agent such as a robot or a non-player character in a computer game. Traditional design methods, such as finite state machines, are known to produce brittle behaviors when complexity increases, making it very hard to add features without breaking existing functionality. BTs were created to address this very problem, and enables the creation of systems that are both modular and reactive. Behavior Trees in Robotics and AI: An Introduction provides a broad introduction as well as an in-depth exploration of the topic, and is the first comprehensive book on the use of BTs. This book introduces the subject of BTs from simple topics, such as semantics and design principles, to complex topics, such as learning and task planning. For each topic, the authors provide a set of examples, ranging from simple illustrations to realistic complex behaviors, to enable the reader to successfully combine theory with practice. Starting with an introduction to BTs, the book then describes how BTs relate to, and in many cases, generalize earlier switching structures, or control architectures. These ideas are then used as a foundation for a set of efficient and easy to use design principles. The book then presents a set of important extensions and provides a set of tools for formally analyzing these extensions using a state space formulation of BTs. With the new analysis tools, the book then formalizes the descriptions of how BTs generalize earlier approaches and shows how BTs can be automatically generated using planning and learning. The final part of the book provides an extended set of tools to capture the behavior of Stochastic BTs, where the outcomes of actions are described by probabilities. These tools enable the computation of both success probabilities and time to completion. This book targets a broad audience, including both students and professionals interested in modeling complex behaviors for robots, game characters, or other AI agents. Readers can choose at which depth and pace they want to learn the subject, depending on their needs and background.
Author: David Greven
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476639485
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
The ABC TV series The Bionic Woman, created by Kenneth Johnson, was a 1970s pop culture phenomenon. Starring Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers, the groundbreaking series follows Jaime's evolution from a young woman vulnerable to an exploitative social order, to a fierce individualist defying a government that sees her as property. Beneath the action-packed surface of Jaime's battles with Fembots, themes such as the chosen family, technophobia, class passing, the cyborg, artificial beings, and a growing racial consciousness receive a sophisticated treatment. This book links the series to precedents such as classical mythology, first-wave feminist literature, and the Hollywood woman's film, to place The Bionic Woman in a tradition of feminist ethics deeply concerned with female autonomy, community, and the rights of nonhuman animals. Seen through the lens of feminist philosophy and gender studies, Jaime's constantly changing disguises, attempts to pass as human, and struggles to accept her new bionic abilities offer provocative engagement with issues of identity. Jaime Sommers is a feminist icon who continues to speak to women and queer audiences, and her struggles and triumphs resonate with a worldwide fanbase that still remains enthralled and represented by The Bionic Woman.
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Gollancz
ISBN: 9781473216365
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 784
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Book Description
This is an amazing collection of some of the best short fiction ever written in the SF genre, by an author acclaimed as 'the mastersinger of space opera' THE TIMES. With an introduction by noted SF critic Johnathan Strahan, this collection of twenty short stories, novellettes and novellas includes MINLA'S FLOWERS, SIGNAL TO NOISE, TROIKA, and seven previous uncollected stories, including TRAUMA POD, THE WATER THIEF and IN BABELSBERG. Alastair Reynolds has won the Sidewise Award and been nominated for The Hugo Awards for his short fiction. One of the most thought-provoking and accomplished short-fiction writers of our time, this collection is a delight for all SF readers
Author: Kevin Hemenway
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 0596005776
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
This book "takes you to the next level in Internet data retrieval by showing you how to create and deploy spiders and scrapers to retrieve and work with information from you favorite sites and data sources"--Back cover.
Author: Gareth Branwyn
Publisher: Que Publishing
ISBN: 0789745488
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 620
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Book Description
This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version. A real-world business book for the explosion of eBay entrepreneurs! Absolute Beginner's Guide to Launching an eBay Business guides you step-by-step through the process of setting up an eBay business, and offers real-world advice on how to run that business on a day-to-day basis and maximize financial success. This book covers determining what kind of business to run, writing an action-oriented business plan, establishing an effective accounting system, setting up a home office, obtaining starting inventory, arranging initial funding, establishing an eBay presence, and arranging for automated post-auction management.
