Author: Ryan Ruby
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455565199
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
A gothic twist on the classic tale of innocents abroad, The Zero and the One is a meditation on the seductions of friendship and the power of dangerous ideas that registers the dark, psychological suspense of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and the intellectual and philosophical intrigue of John Banville's The Book of Evidence. A shy, bookish scholarship student from a working-class family, Owen Whiting has high hopes of what awaits him at Oxford, only to find himself adrift and out of place among the university's dim aristocrats and posh radicals. But his life takes a dramatic turn when he is assigned to the same philosophy tutorial as Zachary Foedern, a visiting student from New York City. Rich, brilliant, and charismatic, Zach takes Owen under his wing, introducing him to a world of experiences Owen has only ever read about. From the quadrangles of Oxford to the seedy underbelly of Berlin, they practice what Zach preaches, daring each other to transgress the boundaries of convention and morality, until Zach proposes the greatest transgression of all: a suicide pact. But when Zach's plans go horribly awry, Owen is left to pick up the pieces in the sleek lofts and dingy dives of lower Manhattan. Now he must navigate the treacherous boundary between illusion and reality if he wants to understand his friend and preserve a hold on his once bright future.
Author: Blake Masters
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 075355030X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
WHAT VALUABLE COMPANY IS NOBODY BUILDING? The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there. ‘Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.’ ELON MUSK, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla ‘This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.’ MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO of Facebook ‘When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic.’ NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, author of The Black Swan
Author: Ben Dolnick
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345803175
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
It’s been ages since the “incident” that estranged former best friends Adam and Thomas, and Adam has long since decided he’s better off, even if his own life hasn’t exactly turned out as planned. Ten years after the two friends spoke their last words, Adam is working as a tutor, sleeping with the mother of a student, and spending most of his nights looking up his ex-girlfriend on Facebook. But when he receives an email from Thomas’s mother begging for his help, he finds himself drawn back into his old friend’s world. Thomas hasn’t been doing well, and now he’s disappeared while traveling in India. As Adam embarks upon a magnificently strange and unlikely journey, Ben Dolnick unspools a tale of friendship, spiritual reckoning, and redemption.
Author: Andrew Smart
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682190072
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
“Andrew Smart deftly shows why it’s time for us to think deeply about thinking machines before they begin thinking deeply about us.” —Douglas Rushkoff, author, Escaping the Growth Trap,Present Shock, and Program or Be Programmed “Provocative and cool.” —Cory Doctorow “Forget the Turing test—will the supersmart AIs that we hear so much about these days pass the acid test? In this playful, informative, and prescient book, Andrew Smart brings psychedelics into dialogue with neuroscience in order to challenge the whiz-bang computational views of human and machine sentience that dominate the headlines. Giving robots LSD sounds like a joke, but Smart is dead serious in his critique of the hidden and sometimes dangerous biases that underlie both popular and scientific fantasies of digital minds.” —Erik Davis, host of “Expanding Mind” and author, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information “Philosophy, psychedelics, robots, and the future; consciousness and intelligence, what else do you desire? Here you will see why those machines that reach singularity will be smarter than us and take over the world—and shall need to be conscious…and maybe they can only be conscious if they are human enough. The thesis of the book, and the path shown us by Smart, leads to a great trip, of imagination and philosophy, of maths and neuroscience.” —Dr. Tristan Bekinschtein, Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge Can we build a robot that trips on acid? This is not a frivolous question, according to neuroscientist Andrew Smart. If we can’t, he argues, we haven’t really created artificial intelligence. In an exposition reminiscent of crossover works such as Gödel, Escher, Bach and Fermat’s Last Theorem, Andrew Smart weaves together Mangarevan binary numbers, the discovery of LSD, Leibniz, computer programming, and much more to connect the vast but largely forgotten world of psychedelic research with the resurgent field of AI and the attempt to build conscious robots. A book that draws on the history of mathematics, philosophy, and digital technology, Beyond Zero and One challenges fundamental assumptions underlying artificial intelligence. Is the human brain based on computation? Can information alone explain human consciousness and intelligence? Smart convincingly makes the case that true intelligence, and artificial intelligence, requires an appreciation of what is beyond the computational.
Author: Karen Fortunati
Publisher: Ember
ISBN: 1101938927
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 397
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Book Description
For fans of 13 Reasons Why and Girl in Pieces, this is a novel that shows the path to hope and life for a girl with mental illness. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Pulaski knows Zero is coming for her. Zero, the devastating depression born of Catherine’s bipolar disorder, almost triumphed once; that was her first suicide attempt. And so, in an old ballet-shoe box, Catherine stockpiles medications, preparing to take her own life before Zero can inflict his living death on her again. Before she goes, though, she starts a short bucket list. This bucket list, combined with the support of her family, new friends, and a new course of treatment, begins to ease Catherine’s sense of isolation. The problem is, her plan is already in place, and has been for so long that she might not be able to see a future beyond it. This is a story of loss and grief and hope, and how some of the many shapes of love—maternal, romantic, and platonic—affect a young woman’s struggle with mental illness and the stigma of treatment.
Author: Andre Norton
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504025474
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
A gem trader and a feline mutant unite to find the truth behind a mysterious stone rumored to be the key to all the power in the universe. Apprentice gem trader Murdoc Jern lives on Angkor, a thriving hub of interstellar trade. One day, a furtive visitor brings him a ring discovered on an alien corpse. It’s made of age-pitted metal surrounding a dull and lifeless stone. Yet it exerts a powerful hold on Murdoc. And when his father is killed, Murdoc begins a quest, taking with him his only legacy, the mysterious ring, which he knows is the key to his dad’s death. Accompanied by Eet, a feline mutant with paranormal powers, Murdoc hurtles through space, where he’s pursued by a religious order called the Green Robes. His journey takes him to distant planets and once-great armies marooned on vanished worlds. In a desperate battle to learn the ultimate meaning of the Zero Stone, Murdoc must bargain for his freedom—and his life—and confront the fate that befalls seekers of knowledge.
Author: Kathryn Otoshi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972394635
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A number/color book reminding us that it just takes one to make everyone count.
Author: Jess Walter
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061758043
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
In this National Book Award Finalist, a cop navigates unexplained memory gaps, a mysterious new assignment, and a world gone mad in the wake of 9/11. Officer Brian Remy has no idea how he got here. It’s been only five days since terrorists attacked his city, and Remy is experiencing gaps in his life—as if he were a stone being skipped across water. He has a self-inflicted gunshot wound that he doesn’t remember inflicting. He has a beautiful new girlfriend whose name he doesn’t know. His son insists on mourning him, despite his being alive. And his old partner now appears on a box of First Responder cereal. While smoke still hangs over the city, Remy is recruited by a shadowy government agency assigned to gather all of the paper that was scattered in the attacks. As Remy stumbles across a dangerous plot, he realizes he must track down the most elusive target of all—himself. And the only way to do that is to return to that place where everything started falling apart.
Author: J. Kinkade
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615644882
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
When Mitch and Polly McKenna start a new life in Baltimore, they hope to leave the Military and their troubled pasts behind. Two years earlier, a Marine jet mysteriously crashed in the Arizona desert, and Mitch tries not to dwell on his role in the tragedy, but the bitter images of that horrific day are seared into his memory. The monotony of his new job--flying for a commercial airline--adds little toward his recovery, and soon he begins to spend more time with a bottle than with Polly. But Polly has a past she'd rather forget, too. Before marrying Mitch, she led a clandestine existence known only to a select few, which did not include him. After almost getting killed during a covert mission, she swore she'd never return. But with the unmistakable signs of boredom creeping into her far too comfortable suburban life, even danger seems a more appealing alternative. She's restless and in dire need of a profound change. But going back to that previous life is complicated. And dangerous. And then a phone call to Mitch's old squadron changes everything. The couple learn that an old friend, David Jordan, has boarded a flight to Pakistan, one of the most volatile and unlikely of places with only a brief and dubious explanation to his wife. David's odd behavior before the flight stumps her, but Mitch isn't so easily fooled. After piecing together the facts, Mitch thinks he knows what David is his after. With his quest for redemption far outweighing any fears for personal safety, Mitch follows the trail to Peshawar and vows to stop David from making the biggest mistake of his life. Determined to keep Mitch safe, Polly is forced to reach back to her former life for answers. But what she doesn't know is that someone wants to see Mitch dead, someone with the power to kill hundreds more. By working together, the McKennas will uncover the Cold War murder of an unsung hero and a breathtaking betrayal of trust and friendship. If they succeed, they will save more than one man's life and perhaps stop the collapse of their faltering marriage.
Author: Brad Meltzer
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1848947542
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 537
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Book Description
Come play the Zero Game - you can bet your life on it... Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they're bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun - a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realise the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined - and that they're about to be the game's next victims. On the run, they turn to the only person they can trust: a sixteen-year-old Senate page who can move around the Capitol undetected. As a ruthless killer creeps closer, this idealistic page no only holds the key to saving their lives, but is also determined to redeem them in the process.
