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Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9780241989678
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check - because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, making their complete and rapid elimination unlikely. Vaclav Smil is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, he is a scientist; he is the world-leading expert on energy and an astonishing polymath. This is his magnum opus and is a continuation of his quest to make facts matter. Drawing on the latest science, including his own fascinating research, and tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Noam Chomsky - ultimately Smil answers the most profound question of our age- are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead?
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9780241989678
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check - because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, making their complete and rapid elimination unlikely. Vaclav Smil is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, he is a scientist; he is the world-leading expert on energy and an astonishing polymath. This is his magnum opus and is a continuation of his quest to make facts matter. Drawing on the latest science, including his own fascinating research, and tackling sources of misinformation head on - from Yuval Noah Harari to Noam Chomsky - ultimately Smil answers the most profound question of our age- are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead?
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593297067
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A new masterpiece from one of my favorite authors… [How The World Really Works] is a compelling and highly readable book that leaves readers with the fundamental grounding needed to help solve the world’s toughest challenges.”—Bill Gates “Provocative but perceptive . . . You can agree or disagree with Smil—accept or doubt his ‘just the facts’ posture—but you probably shouldn’t ignore him.”—The Washington Post An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible—a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn’t inevitable—the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world’s rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020—and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future.
Author: Alan G. Lafley
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 142218739X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.
Author: Article 19
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 1718500300
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 122
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Book Description
An accessible, comic book-like, illustrated introduction to how the internet works under the hood, designed to give people a basic understanding of the technical aspects of the Internet that they need in order to advocate for digital rights. The internet has profoundly changed interpersonal communication, but most of us don't really understand how it works. What enables information to travel across the internet? Can we really be anonymous and private online? Who controls the internet, and why is that important? And... what's with all the cats? How the Internet Really Works answers these questions and more. Using clear language and whimsical illustrations, the authors translate highly technical topics into accessible, engaging prose that demystifies the world's most intricately linked computer network. Alongside a feline guide named Catnip, you'll learn about: • The "How-What-Why" of nodes, packets, and internet protocols • Cryptographic techniques to ensure the secrecy and integrity of your data • Censorship, ways to monitor it, and means for circumventing it • Cybernetics, algorithms, and how computers make decisions • Centralization of internet power, its impact on democracy, and how it hurts human rights • Internet governance, and ways to get involved This book is also a call to action, laying out a roadmap for using your newfound knowledge to influence the evolution of digitally inclusive, rights-respecting internet laws and policies. Whether you're a citizen concerned about staying safe online, a civil servant seeking to address censorship, an advocate addressing worldwide freedom of expression issues, or simply someone with a cat-like curiosity about network infrastructure, you will be delighted -- and enlightened -- by Catnip's felicitously fun guide to understanding how the internet really works!
Author: James C. Zimring
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108476856
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 407
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Book Description
A timely and accessible synthesis of the strengths, weaknesses and reality of science through the eyes of a practicing scientist.
Author: Alan Snow
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416950001
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 54
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Book Description
Santa Claus has a complicated and sophisticated Christmas operation, which includes the training of and numerous jobs for his elves to the celebrations at his own Christmas Day party.
Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262042835
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 665
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Book Description
A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities—developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.
Author: Stig Abell
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1473658403
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
'Absorbing . . . an intelligent and clear-eyed account of much that goes on in our country' Sunday Times Getting to grips with Great Britain is harder than ever. We are a nation that chose Brexit, rejects immigration but is dependent on it, is getting older but less healthy, is more demanding of public services but less willing to pay for them, is tired of intervention abroad but wants to remain a global authority. We have an over-stretched, free health service (an idea from the 1940s that may not survive the 2020s), overcrowded prisons, a military without an evident purpose, an education system the envy of none of the Western world. How did we get here and where are we going? How Britain Really Works is a guide to Britain and its institutions (the economy, the military, schools, hospitals, the media, and more), which explains just how we got to wherever it is we are. It will not tell you what opinions to have, but will give you the information to help you reach your own. By the end, you will know how Britain works - or doesn't. 'Stig Abell is an urbane, and often jaunty guide to modern Britain, in the mould of Bill Bryson' Irish Times
Author: Jeremy J. Baumberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691174350
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
A revealing and provocative look at the current state of global science We take the advance of science as given. But how does science really work? Is it truly as healthy as we tend to think? How does the system itself shape what scientists do? The Secret Life of Science takes a clear-eyed and provocative look at the current state of global science, shedding light on a cutthroat and tightly tensioned enterprise that even scientists themselves often don't fully understand. The Secret Life of Science is a dispatch from the front lines of modern science. It paints a startling picture of a complex scientific ecosystem that has become the most competitive free-market environment on the planet. It reveals how big this ecosystem really is, what motivates its participants, and who reaps the rewards. Are there too few scientists in the world or too many? Are some fields expanding at the expense of others? What science is shared or published, and who determines what the public gets to hear about? What is the future of science? Answering these and other questions, this controversial book explains why globalization is not necessarily good for science, nor is the continued growth in the number of scientists. It portrays a scientific community engaged in a race for limited resources that determines whether careers are lost or won, whose research visions become the mainstream, and whose vested interests end up in control. The Secret Life of Science explains why this hypercompetitive environment is stifling the diversity of research and the resiliency of science itself, and why new ideas are needed to ensure that the scientific enterprise remains healthy and vibrant.
Author: Sam Grubb
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 1718501293
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Cybersecurity for Beginners is an engaging introduction to the field of cybersecurity. You'll learn how attackers operate, as well as how to defend yourself and organizations against online attacks. You don’t need a technical background to understand core cybersecurity concepts and their practical applications – all you need is this book. It covers all the important stuff and leaves out the jargon, giving you a broad view of how specific attacks work and common methods used by online adversaries, as well as the controls and strategies you can use to defend against them. Each chapter tackles a new topic from the ground up, such as malware or social engineering, with easy-to-grasp explanations of the technology at play and relatable, real-world examples. Hands-on exercises then turn the conceptual knowledge you’ve gained into cyber-savvy skills that will make you safer at work and at home. You’ll explore various types of authentication (and how they can be broken), ways to prevent infections from different types of malware, like worms and viruses, and methods for protecting your cloud accounts from adversaries who target web apps. You’ll also learn how to: • Use command-line tools to see information about your computer and network • Analyze email headers to detect phishing attempts • Open potentially malicious documents in a sandbox to safely see what they do • Set up your operating system accounts, firewalls, and router to protect your network • Perform a SQL injection attack by targeting an intentionally vulnerable website • Encrypt and hash your files In addition, you’ll get an inside look at the roles and responsibilities of security professionals, see how an attack works from a cybercriminal’s viewpoint, and get first-hand experience implementing sophisticated cybersecurity measures on your own devices.
