Pinball Wizards

Pinball Wizards PDF Author: Adam Ruben
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613735936
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Pinball's history is America's history, from gambling and war-themed machines to the arcade revolution and, ultimately, the decline of the need to leave your house. The strangest thing about pinball is that it persists, and not just as nostalgia. Pinball didn't just stick around—it grew and continues to evolve with the times. Somehow, in today's iPhone world, a three-hundred-pound monstrosity of wood and cables has survived to enjoy yet another renaissance. Pinball is more to humor writer Adam Ruben than a fascinating book topic—it's a lifelong obsession. Ruben played competitive pinball for years, rising as high as the 80th-ranked player in the world. Then he had children. Now, mired in 9,938th place—darn kids—Ruben tries to stage a comeback, visiting pinball museums, gaming conventions, pinball machine designers, and even pinball factories in his attempt to discover what makes the world's best players, the real wizards, so good. Along the way, Ruben examines the bigger story of pinball's invention, ascent, near defeat, resurgence, near defeat again, and struggle to find its niche in modern society.

Pinball Wizards

Pinball Wizards PDF Author: Adam Ruben
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613735936
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pinball's history is America's history, from gambling and war-themed machines to the arcade revolution and, ultimately, the decline of the need to leave your house. The strangest thing about pinball is that it persists, and not just as nostalgia. Pinball didn't just stick around—it grew and continues to evolve with the times. Somehow, in today's iPhone world, a three-hundred-pound monstrosity of wood and cables has survived to enjoy yet another renaissance. Pinball is more to humor writer Adam Ruben than a fascinating book topic—it's a lifelong obsession. Ruben played competitive pinball for years, rising as high as the 80th-ranked player in the world. Then he had children. Now, mired in 9,938th place—darn kids—Ruben tries to stage a comeback, visiting pinball museums, gaming conventions, pinball machine designers, and even pinball factories in his attempt to discover what makes the world's best players, the real wizards, so good. Along the way, Ruben examines the bigger story of pinball's invention, ascent, near defeat, resurgence, near defeat again, and struggle to find its niche in modern society.

Pinball Wizards & Blacklight Destroyers

Pinball Wizards & Blacklight Destroyers PDF Author:
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
ISBN: 9780764351785
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Pop-art connoisseurs are treated to a mind-bending journey through the blistering paintings of San Francisco artist Dirty Donny Gillies. Take a visual tour of his vibrant, hand-drawn and screen-printed poster art series "Blacklight Rebellion" and hand-painted solo art show "Fantastic Voyage." This ultimate collection of cool also includes his iconic work for Stern Pinball, metal giant Metallica, Vans Skate, Snap-On tools, and Cruz Pedregon's Top Fuel Funny Car, not to mention work on his own air-brushed 1970s boogie van. The art attack continues with eye-melting imagery from skateboard decks, decal sets, toys, guitars, drums, and his series of model kits for AMT. Pop-art collectors will appreciate full-page photos from the likes of legendary street photographer Ricky Powell, as well as the commentary by Ed Robertson of the Bare Naked Ladies, Mastadon's Brann Dailor, Brendon Small of animated series Metalocalypse, Howie Pyro, (Danzig, D-Generation) and fellow weirdo artist Skinner.

Arfur: Teenage Pinball Queen

Arfur: Teenage Pinball Queen PDF Author: Nik Cohn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description


Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School

Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School PDF Author: Adam Ruben
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307589455
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This is a book for dedicated academics who consider spending years masochistically overworked and underappreciated as a laudable goal. They lead the lives of the impoverished, grade the exams of whiny undergrads, and spend lonely nights in the library or laboratory pursuing a transcendent truth that only six or seven people will ever care about. These suffering, unshaven sad sacks are grad students, and their salvation has arrived in this witty look at the low points of grad school. Inside, you’ll find: • advice on maintaining a veneer of productivity in front of your advisor • tips for sleeping upright during boring seminars • a description of how to find which departmental events have the best unguarded free food • how you can convincingly fudge data and feign progress This hilarious guide to surviving and thriving as the lowliest of life-forms—the grad student—will elaborate on all of these issues and more.

The Switch

The Switch PDF Author: Jason Puskar
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452970335
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
From the telegraph to the touchscreen, how the development of binary switching transformed everyday life and changed the shape of human agency The Switch traces the sudden rise of a technology that has transformed everyday life for billions of people: the binary switch. By chronicling the rapid growth of binary switching since the mid-nineteenth century, Jason Puskar contends that there is no human activity as common today as pushing a button or flipping a switch—the deceptively simple act of turning something on or off. More than a technical history, The Switch offers a cultural and political analysis of how reducing so much human action to binary alternatives has profoundly reshaped modern society. Analyzing this history, Puskar charts the rapid shift from analog to digital across a range of devices—keyboards, cameras, guns, light switches, computers, game controls, even the “nuclear button”—to understand how nineteenth-century techniques continue to influence today’s pervasive digital technologies. In contexts that include musical performance, finger counting, machine writing, voting methods, and immersive play, Puskar shows how the switch to switching led to radically new forms of action and thought. The innovative analysis in The Switch makes clear that binary inputs have altered human agency by making choice instantaneous, effort minimal, and effects more far-reaching than ever. In the process, it concludes, switching also fosters forms of individualism that, though empowering for many, also preserve a legacy of inequality and even domination.

Bloodbrothers

Bloodbrothers PDF Author: Richard Price
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312428693
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This brilliant early work from one of America's finest writers is a soulful and often profane story of working-class life in the Bronx, and one young man's bruising initiation into adulthood.

Keep Beach City Weird

Keep Beach City Weird PDF Author: Ben Levin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0515159476
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
Do you think you know the truth about what happens in Beach City? THINK AGAIN! Fans of Steven Universe know that Steven and the Crystal Gems are behind most of the strange occurrences that happen in their hometown of Beach City. But Ronaldo Fryman, the town's resident blogger and conspiracy theorist, has some other ideas. This book, created by show writers Ben Levin and Matt Burnett, is a companion to Ronaldo's blog of the same name, and includes his favorite theories and collected evidence. Is Ronaldo a raving, delusional madman or a brilliant, misunderstood visionary (or a little bit of both)? You be the judge!

They Create Worlds

They Create Worlds PDF Author: Alexander Smith
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 042975261X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 575

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Book Description
They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. 1 is the first in a three-volume set that provides an in-depth analysis of the creation and evolution of the video game industry. Beginning with the advent of computers in the mid-20th century, Alexander Smith’s text comprehensively highlights and examines individuals, companies, and market forces that have shaped the development of the video game industry around the world. Volume one, places an emphasis on the emerging ideas, concepts, and games developed from the commencement of the budding video game art form in the 1950s and 1960s through the first commercial activity in the 1970s and early 1980s. They Create Worlds aims to build a new foundation upon which future scholars and the video game industry itself can chart new paths. Key Features: The most in-depth examination of the video game industry ever written, They Create Worlds charts the technological breakthroughs, design decisions, and market forces in the United States, Europe, and East Asia that birthed a $100 billion industry. The books derive their information from rare primary sources such as little-studied trade publications, personal papers collections, and oral history interviews with designers and executives, many of whom have never told their stories before. Spread over three volumes, They Create Worlds focuses on the creative designers, shrewd marketers, and innovative companies that have shaped video games from their earliest days as a novelty attraction to their current status as the most important entertainment medium of the 21st Century. The books examine the formation of the video game industry in a clear narrative style that will make them useful as teaching aids in classes on the history of game design and economics, but they are not being written specifically as instructional books and can be enjoyed by anyone with a passion for video game history.

The Complete Pinball Book

The Complete Pinball Book PDF Author: Marco Rossignoli
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764315862
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This fantastic book tells the detailed history of pinball games from the 1930s to the 1990s, including the evolution of all sorts of game features--from flippers and bumpers to sound, scoring, and tilt mechanisms--all immersed in the complex and magnificent artwork characteristic of pinball machines. Pinball manufacturing giants like Gottlieb, Williams, and Bally are well represented, in addition to several lesser-known and foreign manufacturers. With a listing of over 3,000 games built to date, statistics, updated pricing information, and over 900 color photographs (including close-ups, flyers, images of rare prototypes, and games never before seen in print), this is essential for the libraries of all pinball lovers. The pinball machine is here to stay--due in part to the exponential increase in the number of serious collectors and enthusiasts. What other modern amusement machine can boast a longevity of over 60 years, withstanding the test of time and ever-changing technology, while maintaining its instantly recognizable form? The rolling, bouncing silver ball, as unpredictable as the flip of a coin or even life itself, has kept up with cutting-edge advancements in electronics, mechanics, and even computers, to amuse and test the skill of players worldwide!

Playstation Nation

Playstation Nation PDF Author: Olivia and Kurt Bruner
Publisher: Center Street
ISBN: 1599952785
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
When Olivia Bruner saw video games overtaking her young sons' lives, she decided to learn the facts behind addiction. What she found was shocking: that most games are designed to be highly addictive-triggering physiological reactions in the brain similar to those associated with substance abuse-and that one out of five kids becomes addicted to computer and video games. And while many parents screen the content of games to protect their children from violent and sexual themes, few understand the forces causing their children to become hooked on the "digital drug." This book arms parents with the facts they need and concrete steps to protect our children from this very real epidemic. A must-read for all parents.