SAM

SAM PDF Author: Jonathan Waldman
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501140604
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A true story of innovation that “reads like a movie” (Seth Godin), centered on a scrappy team of engineers—far from the Silicon Valley limelight—and their quest to revolutionize the traditional trade of masonry by building a robot that can lay bricks. Humans have landed men on the moon, programmed cars to drive themselves, and put the knowledge of our entire civilization in your back pocket. But no one—from MIT nerds to Army Corps engineers—has ever built a robot that can lay bricks as well as a mason. Unlike the controlled conditions of a factory line, where robots are now ubiquitous, no two construction sites are alike, and a day’s work involves countless variables—bricks that range in size and quality, temperamental mortar mixes, uneven terrain, fickle weather, and moody foremen. Twenty-five years ago, on a challenging construction job in Syracuse, architect Nate Podkaminer had a vision of a future full of efficient, automated machines that freed bricklayers from the repetitive, toilsome burden of lifting, in bricks, the equivalent of a Ford truck every few days. Offhandedly, he mentioned the idea to his daughter’s boyfriend, and after some inspired scheming, the architect and engineer—soon to be in-laws—cofounded a humble start-up called Construction Robotics. Working out of a small trailer, they recruited a boldly unconventional team of engineers to build the Semi-Automated Mason: SAM. In classic American tradition, a small, unlikely, and eccentric family-run start-up sought to reimagine the behemoth $1 trillion construction industry—the second biggest industry in America—in bootstrap fashion. In the tradition of Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, SAM unfolds as an engineering drama, full of trials and setbacks, heated showdowns between meticulous scientists and brash bricklayers (and their even more opinionated union), and hard-earned milestone achievements. Jonathan Waldman, acclaimed author of Rust, masterfully “reveals a world that surrounds us but mostly eludes our notice” (The Boston Globe).

SAM

SAM PDF Author: Jonathan Waldman
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501140604
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
A true story of innovation that “reads like a movie” (Seth Godin), centered on a scrappy team of engineers—far from the Silicon Valley limelight—and their quest to revolutionize the traditional trade of masonry by building a robot that can lay bricks. Humans have landed men on the moon, programmed cars to drive themselves, and put the knowledge of our entire civilization in your back pocket. But no one—from MIT nerds to Army Corps engineers—has ever built a robot that can lay bricks as well as a mason. Unlike the controlled conditions of a factory line, where robots are now ubiquitous, no two construction sites are alike, and a day’s work involves countless variables—bricks that range in size and quality, temperamental mortar mixes, uneven terrain, fickle weather, and moody foremen. Twenty-five years ago, on a challenging construction job in Syracuse, architect Nate Podkaminer had a vision of a future full of efficient, automated machines that freed bricklayers from the repetitive, toilsome burden of lifting, in bricks, the equivalent of a Ford truck every few days. Offhandedly, he mentioned the idea to his daughter’s boyfriend, and after some inspired scheming, the architect and engineer—soon to be in-laws—cofounded a humble start-up called Construction Robotics. Working out of a small trailer, they recruited a boldly unconventional team of engineers to build the Semi-Automated Mason: SAM. In classic American tradition, a small, unlikely, and eccentric family-run start-up sought to reimagine the behemoth $1 trillion construction industry—the second biggest industry in America—in bootstrap fashion. In the tradition of Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, SAM unfolds as an engineering drama, full of trials and setbacks, heated showdowns between meticulous scientists and brash bricklayers (and their even more opinionated union), and hard-earned milestone achievements. Jonathan Waldman, acclaimed author of Rust, masterfully “reveals a world that surrounds us but mostly eludes our notice” (The Boston Globe).

Andy Varipapa

Andy Varipapa PDF Author: Glenn Gerstner
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476693331
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Born in Italy in 1891, Andy Varipapa immigrated to the United States in 1903, uneducated and unable to speak English. Equipped with little more than athletic ability, the will to succeed, and a healthy dose of self-confidence, he became bowling's first superstar. In the 1940s and 1950s, Varipapa was the world's most famous bowler. For more than 50 years, he dazzled fans with an array of never-before-seen trick shots in person, on movie screens, and on television. Varipapa was not only a performer but one of the greatest bowlers ever. He won the prestigious BPAA All-Star tournament in 1946, silencing critics who claimed he was just an entertainer. And he did so at age 55, long past most bowlers' retirement age. To prove it was no fluke, he repeated in 1947. Bowling fans recognized the outspoken and brash "Great Varipapa," who once said, "I'm the most skillful, talkative, and controversial bowler who ever lived." Few knew Andy, the kind and loyal family man and friend. Sourced from interviews with family and friends and more than 1,000 secondary sources, this first-ever biography of Varipapa tells the personal story of bowling's greatest showman and one of its most influential figures.

Happenstance

Happenstance PDF Author: Robert Root
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 160938220X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Reflecting on how a student’s parents met because of a fly ball to center field in a summer softball game, author Robert Root wondered how the lives of that student’s parents and of the student himself would have changed had the batter bunted or struck out. Haunted by this pure example of happenstance, he began to ponder his own existence, dependent in part on geology (the Niagara Escarpment) and history (the Erie Canal). He wondered how happenstance had influenced the course of his parents’ lives, in particular their marriages (they married and divorced each other twice), and consequently the shaping of his identity. Happenstance investigates the effects of that phenomenon and choice on one man’s life. Root explores this theme in interwoven strands of narrative, interpretation, and reflection. One strand, “The Hundred Days,” follows his attempt to write one hundred journal entries, each about a different day in his life, to recover memories of specific moments or collections of moments. In the strand headed “Album,” he examines and interprets old family photographs in light of the way he reads them in the present, as someone now privy to a family secret that directed his and his siblings’ lives without their knowledge. Interspersed among these brief interpretations and narratives are reflections on happenstance and choice, a sequence contemplating their effect on his life and perhaps on all our lives. Through juxtaposition and accumulation, the book’s incremental unraveling of meaning imitates the process of unexpected epiphanies and gradual self-discovery in anyone’s life. By revisiting individual days, giving voice to photographs that mutely preserve family moments, and reflecting on the way happenstance and choice determine the directions lives take, Robert Root generates a meditation on identity anchored in an album in words and images of a mid-twentieth-century life.

Occupational Outlook Quarterly

Occupational Outlook Quarterly PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Occupations
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


Federal Probation...

Federal Probation... PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description


Hard City

Hard City PDF Author: Clark Howard
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504062043
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 659

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Book Description
The searing novel of a brutal boyhood in 1940s Chicago—and a young man walking the knife’s edge between a life of crime and a brighter future. The son of a single mother addicted to heroin, Richie grows up in poverty and hardship. His adolescence is a constant battle between hope—in the form of a kind boxing coach, a job in a bowling alley where he can sneak a nap, and a determination to track down his disreputable father—and brutality. Desperately lonely, Richie must contend with the criminal justice system, abusive foster homes, and a period of exile with his grandmother in Tennessee. In this gritty, semiautobiographical novel by an Edgar Award–winning author, the fate of this young man hangs in the balance as he finds himself tested by want, war, and the ever-present temptation to give up on the possibility of something better. “Strongly satisfying [and] frequently compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews “Sustains a sense of tension, moving smoothly between flashbacks of the events of Richie’s early years and the traumatic experiences of his adolescence, then on to his return to Chicago.” —The New York Times

Totah Six-Pack

Totah Six-Pack PDF Author: Fender Tucker
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1605431079
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description


The Boy Behind the Pins

The Boy Behind the Pins PDF Author: Miriam Fuhrman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bowling alleys
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description


Buses Are a Comin'

Buses Are a Comin' PDF Author: Charles Person
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250274206
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward—written by one of the Civil Rights Movement's pioneers. At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans. This purposeful mix of black and white, male and female activists—including future Congressman John Lewis, Congress of Racial Equality Director James Farmer, Reverend Benjamin Elton Cox, journalist and pacifist James Peck, and CORE field secretary Genevieve Hughes—set out to discover whether America would abide by a Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in bus depots, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms nationwide. Two buses proceeded through Virginia, North and South Carolina, to Georgia where they were greeted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and finally to Alabama. There, the Freedom Riders found their answer: No. Southern states would continue to disregard federal law and use violence to enforce racial segregation. One bus was burned to a shell, its riders narrowly escaping; the second, which Charles rode, was set upon by a mob that beat several riders nearly to death. Buses Are a Comin’ provides a front-row view of the struggle to belong in America, as Charles Person accompanies his colleagues off the bus, into the station, into the mob, and into history to help defeat segregation’s violent grip on African American lives. It is also a challenge from a teenager of a previous era to the young people of today: become agents of transformation. Stand firm. Create a more just and moral country where students have a voice, youth can make a difference, and everyone belongs.

The Compleat Calhoon

The Compleat Calhoon PDF Author: Fender Tucker
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1605430617
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
This 420-page chunk of paper contains the complete works of Fender Tucker, including both of his books: TALES FROM THE TOWER and WEED, WOMEN AND SONG. The first half is fiction and the second half reads like fiction, but it's all true, according to his memory of life as it was in Farmington NM in the 50s and 60s. The book also contains the lyrics to every song he wrote back in the days he misspent as a guitar-picking slugabed. Ed Gorman wrote that he enjoyed thumbing through the many short memoirs which add up to a sort of autobiography. Does someone like Fender Tucker deserve an autobiography? Read THE COMPLEAT CALHOON and see for yourself.