The year is 2017 in a Yorkshire town in England. A group of travellers were aware of others like them, capable of jumping into alternative worlds. This is traveller Michael Morrow’s plane of existence, but he is not alone. Susan arrived from a laterally inverted world in 2015. Originally from 1875, Lisa arrived from a world moving at a faster time rate than Michael’s. James experimented and opened portals, arriving from the year 2280. Throughout his travels, James actually intercepted a younger Michael Morrow in 1994. They have some adventures with the guardians whom prevent the distortion of events including ones for personal gain. Dimensional Observer Part V outlines the experience of what it was actually like to enter alternative worlds, which are moving alongside ours in different times, besides future travel.
Susan Morrow had come from an alternative laterally inverted world, where she had been there instead of Michael Morrow. They are now collaborating together on whether there could be any other travellers. Could that be likely, considering that her pet dog, Fido, had come through the same portal as her?
“Both Susan and Michael were disappointed because of Lisa having left. Will she come back and confirm she is a traveller from the past, like they think?” to be written on the back cover.
The group of them : Michael, Susan and Lisa, with James and Mark, look further at their alternative versions. Are there anymore travelers besides them?
An autobiography, this book is about the events and personalities of one hundred years of modern legends through the eyes of one who has lived it, stated in a uniquely opinionated manner. It includes wars and whores, the inside of business and politics on several continents, with unexpurgated revelations of individuals known to nearly everyone who lived during those times or learned about them since. Royalty, film figures, heads of state, corporate tycoons, and politicians parade through the pages as part of the author's daily life. Twentieth century history comes alive with experiences in Baltic wars, Adolf Hitler's inner circle, Greek government coups, CIA mercenaries in Africa, American heiresses, and the privileges of diplomatic office. Related by one born into riches and relegated to poverty, the narrative progresses via family scoundrels, political involvements, and escape and escapades in America. An unintendedly adventurous life from wealth and privilege to penniless, left with the asset of a brilliant mind to tell the story.
This book presents a theoretically informed, up-to-date study of interactions between indigenous peoples of Mediterranean France and Etruscan, Greek, and Roman colonists during the first millennium BC. Analyzing archaeological data and ancient texts, Michael Dietler explores these colonial encounters over six centuries, focusing on material culture, urban landscapes, economic practices, and forms of violence. He shows how selective consumption linked native societies and colonists and created transformative relationships for each. Archaeologies of Colonialism also examines the role these ancient encounters played in the formation of modern European identity, colonial ideology, and practices, enumerating the problems for archaeologists attempting to re-examine these past societies.
The extraordinary life of one of the world’s greatest music and literary icons, in the words of those who knew him best. Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon—there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in contemporary western culture, entertaining and inspiring the world with his work. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, to timeless songs such as “Suzanne,” “Dance Me to the End of Love,” and “Hallelujah,” Cohen is one of the world’s most cherished artists. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the many fans and followers who would miss his warmth, humour, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories chronicles the full breadth of his extraordinary life. This third and final volume in biographer Michael Posner’s sweeping series of Cohen’s life—That’s How the Light Gets In—explores the last thirty years of his life, starting with the late 1980s revival of his music career with the successful albums I’m Your Man and The Future. It covers the death of his manager, Marty Machat, and the appointment of another who would ultimately be accused of stealing more than five million dollars from Cohen. Personally, Cohen suffers the traumatic end of his long relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann and begins a public romance with actress Rebecca De Mornay. When that relationship ends in 1993, as Cohen is about to turn sixty years old, he begins a deeply spiritual phase, entering the Mount Baldy monastery under the tutelage of Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi—arguably the most important relationship in Cohen’s life. Ever the seeker, he then goes to Mumbai in 1999, the first of half a dozen trips to India to investigate Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, expanding his growing fascination with spirituality. In 2008, Cohen makes his triumphant return to the concert stage, and for five years travels the world in an extraordinary final act of his life, giving almost four hundred performances over three continents. The book provides the first full chronicle of Cohen’s final months, fighting debilitating disease, while still creating three new studio albums, adding to his remarkable legacy. Cohen’s story is told through the voices of those who knew him best—family and friends, colleagues and contemporaries, business partners and lovers. Bestselling author Michael Posner draws on hundreds of interviews to reveal the unique, complex, and compelling figure of the man The New York Times called “a secular saint.” This is a book like no other, about a man like no other.
Michael Herzfeld describes what happens when a bureaucracy charged with historic conservation clashes with a local populace hostile to the state and suspicious of tourism. Focusing on the Cretan town of Rethemnos, once a center of learning under Venetian rule and later inhabited by the Turks, he examines major questions confronting conservators and citizens as they negotiate the "ownership" of history: Who defines the past? To whom does the past belong? What is "traditional" and how is this determined? Exploring the meanings of the built environment for Rethemnos's inhabitants, Herzfeld finds that their interest in it has more to do with personal histories and the immediate social context than with the formal history that attracts the conservators. He also investigates the inhabitants' social practices from the standpoints of household and kin group, political association, neighborhood, gender ideology, and the effects of these on attitudes toward home ownership. In the face of modernity, where tradition is an object of both reverence and commercialism, Rethemnos emerges as an important ethnographic window onto the ambiguous cultural fortunes of Greece.
In the Deep Sky Chronicles, Michael Le Stark combines subject matter and opinions from some of our most respected scientists, physicists, and historians to tell a story. He combines it with a few of his personal experiences in life, and along with some exciting new theories, everything is woven together as an extraordinary new picture emerges. A few bold individuals, already familiar to most of us, are highlighted and how their courage and vision arrived just in time, and how one in particular, may have changed and shaped the world even more. Although events in our personal lives and our world, can seem overwhelming at times, we are reminded that each of us, are a world within ourselves, and we are in charge of that world. Described as very interesting and thought provoking, this book covers an astonishing array of of subject matter to arrive at some refreshing new perspectives.
Lonely Planet: The world’s leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet Greece is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Stand in the shadow of the Acropolis, compare sunsets and beaches as you hop from island to island, or sample the freshest flavours and most succulent seafood; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Greece and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet’s Greece Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, art, literature, music, architecture, landscapes, wildlife, cuisine, and the Greek way of life Covers Athens, Peloponnese, Central Greece, Northern Greece, Saronic Gulf Islands, Cyclades, Crete, Dodecanese, Aegean Islands, Evia, the Sporades, Ionian Islands, and more eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Greece, our most comprehensive guide to Greece, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less travelled. Looking for a guide focused on just the islands? Check out Lonely Planet’s Greek Islands or Crete guides for a comprehensive look at all the islands have to offer; or Pocket Athens, a handy-sized guide focused on the can’t-miss sights for a quick trip. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.
We’ve all come across those suave, confident, and all-so-knowing books that tell us precisely what to drink with which dish, how to swirl, sniff, slosh, and pronounce on our wine, and, above all, how to impress our friends and business associates with our expertise. Well, this is not one of those books. Is This Bottle Corked? is something different: a book that poses–and answers–the really important questions about wine. •What was Falstaff drinking when he called for more sack? •What was actually drunk at Plato’s Symposium? •When is rot "noble"? •Who was the first American connoisseur of wine–it wasn’t George Washington, but speaking of the general, what was his favorite wine? •Why on earth do wine connoisseurs talk like that? •Was Pliny the Elder the first Robert Parker? •Why do we drink to forget–and why doesn’t it work? These and many other intriguing, amusing, and curious questions are answered within, guaranteeing the reader a "Yes, but did you know . . .?" for every occasion at which a cork is drawn. Best read with a glass of aged German riesling, or perhaps a soft, consoling Constantia (recommended by Jane Austen for heartbreak and, to boot, gout) or maybe even a glass of St. Anne’s Rhubarb and Ginger Wine, this book is as much for bon vivants and those of us who just enjoy a good bottle or two as for the committed oenophile. Simply open, pour, and relax.
What does it mean to live in time, between the unforeseeable and the irreversible? In The Varieties of Temporal Experience, Michael Jackson demonstrates the significance of a phenomenology of time for ethnography, philosophy, and history through a multifaceted consideration of the gap between our cultural representations of temporality and the bewildering multiplicity of our experience of being-in-time. Jackson explores temporality in a subjective mode as a form of literary anthropology. The first part of the book tells the story of John Joseph Pawelka, whose 1910 escape from prison and subsequent disappearance became one of New Zealand’s great unsolved mysteries, discussing what it reveals about the interplay of popular stories, hidden histories, and media narratives in constructing allegories of national and moral identity. In the second, Jackson reflects on journeys up and down the islands of New Zealand, touching on the ways that personal stories are interwoven with social and historical events. Throughout this groundbreaking book, Jackson juxtaposes philosophy, history, and ethnography in an attempt to do justice to the extraordinary variety of temporal experience, at the same time exploring the ethical and existential quandaries that arise from the complexity of lived time.
I loved the Greece I knew... the kind of free life that could be had with a boat among the islands.' Scattered in a crescent in the sparkling waters of the Aegean, the islands of the Sporades are known to Greek fishermen as 'the gates of the wind'. It was to this unspoilt archipelago that Michael Carroll sailed Astarte, a boat of sleek mahogany with wine-red sails, named after the Phoenician goddess of the moon and the sea. But his dream of travelling where the wind took him, rootless and free, changed when he landed on Skopelos. There, a chance meeting with the charismatic Vangeli led to him buying a piece of land on a remote cove, once the site of an ancient city and the perfect harbour for Astarte. So unfolds the story of Carroll's growing attachment to Skopelos as he sets down roots and makes it his home. Engaging and vividly described, An Island in Greece is a sun-drenched tale of a life full of simple pleasures, governed by the seasons, the tides and the wind; the story of a traveller who finally arrived and a unique homage to the island that harboured him.
Britons watched the opening months of 1913 unfold with a sense of foreboding. On the continent, they saw a brutal conflict in the Balkans increase the prospect of a war engulfing the whole of Europe. On their doorstep, they observed the thorny issue of Irish home rule edge the island toward civil war as Ulsters Protestant Loyalists, led by Sir Edward Carson, vow they will fight to remain part of the United Kingdom rather than be subservient to a Catholic Republic governed from Dublin. And at home, they watched militant suffragettes, such as Emily Wilding Davison, challenge the rule of law in their crusade for the vote. The fiction that follows is set against this turbulent backcloth and constructed around certain historical events and individuals. Yet who is to say the story doesnt chime with a faint ring of truth?
Play Better Scrabble is written by National Scrabble Championship winner and the first victor on Channel 4's Countdown, Michael Goldman. The book contains strategies, hints and techniques for all stages of the game as well as instructional game examples, how to best use the S and the blank, anagrams and useful word lists. Play Better Scrabble will allow anyone to learn the Open Board Method, used by the elite players today to win games. The Open Board Method, pioneered by Michael Goldman, encourages an expansive style that leads to high scores. This second edition has a completely new design, including 28 colour diagrams, while retaining the same indispensable advice as the original. Published on National Scrabble Day in 2019, Play Better Scrabble is an educational, entertaining and accessible book is full of expert advice and celebrates one of the world's most iconic board games. It's the perfect present for those who are keen to play in a more fulfilling way as well as win more games.
Do you have a baldy clue as to who the bears and junglies are? Confused by the thought of some cheekywatter from your cargo? Fancy a day out at Fort Weetabix? Or would you rather settle down with some swedgers? After all, you don't want to be a stank dodger. Confused? You need this book. Michael Munro has won the eternal gratitude of Glaswegians for his efforts in popularising their city's dialect, universally known as the 'patter'. This book is the most extensive collection of this rich and expressive language ever made. Often hilarious, sometimes coarse (but never dull!), good knowledge of the patter is the key to understanding Glasgow and its inhabitants.
While the subject of wine, beer, and spirits continues to grow in popularity, there are very few books that approach the subject in an accessible manner and that also contain the pedagogical features needed by instructors. In addition, most books cover the subject of wine only, while hospitality students need a broader base on knowledge that also includes beer and spirits. After finishing the book, readers will be prepared to take the introductory certification exams of the Court of Master Sommeliers, International Sommelier Guild, and Society of Wine Educators and receive a first-level certification. Divided into five parts, Gibson covers wine, beer, and spirits. Along with a history of each type of beverage, he also covers how these beverages are produced and manufactured, varieties and styles of these beverages, and food pairings. Most importantly, Gibson covers costing, pricing, merchandising, marketing, and storing wine, along with creating a balanced wine list and table service.
The amazingly insightful, funny and brilliant record of Michael Palin's prime years as a member of the famed comedic group, Monty Python. Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s. This volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged and triumphed, how he, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, the two Terrys---Jones and Gilliam---and Eric Idle came together and changed the face of British comedy. But this is but only part of Palin's story. Here is his growing family, his home in a north London Victorian terrace, which grows as he buys the house next door and then a second at the bottom of the garden; here, too, is his solo effort---as an actor, in Three Men in a Boat, his writing endeavours (often in partnership with Terry Jones) that produces Ripping Yarns and even a pantomime. Meanwhile Monty Python refuses to go away: the hugely successful movies that follow the TV (his account of the making of both The Holy Grail and the Life of Brian movies are page-turners), the at times extraordinary goings-on of the many powerful personalities who coalesced to form the Python team, the fight to prevent an American TV network from bleeping out the best jokes on U.S. transmission, and much more---all this makes for funny and riveting reading. The birth and childhood of his three children, his father's growing disability, learning to cope as a young man with celebrity, his friendship with George Harrison, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these diaries. A perceptive and funny chronicle, the diaries are a rich portrait of a fascinating period. "A wealth of fascinating stuff about Monty Python." ---The Independent (UK)
This is the only world cookbook in print that explores the foods of every nation-state across the globe, providing information on special ingredients, cooking methods, and commonalities that link certain dishes across different geographical areas. Increasing globalization, modern communication, and economic development have impacted every aspect of daily life, including the manner by which food is produced and distributed. While these trends have increased the likelihood and expansion of food influences, variations of the same popular dishes have been found in regions all over the world long before now. This book is an ecological, historical, and cultural examination of why certain foods are eaten, and how these foods are prepared by different social groups within the same—and different—geographical region. The authors cover more than 200 countries and cultural groups, featuring each nation's food culture and traditions, and providing overviews on foodstuffs, typical dishes, and styles of eating. This revised edition features in excess of 400 new recipes, several new countries, and additional sidebars with fun facts explaining unique foods and unfamiliar ingredients. More than 1,600 recipes for popular appetizers, main courses, desserts, snack foods, and celebration dishes are provided, allowing readers to construct full menus from every country of the world.
In one bumper volume, two new Plant novels! Find Me My Enemies Is James Slater really a target of a security service operation against old radicals, or is he just paranoid? Or both? Is his performance artist partner part of the plot? Or his Valley of the Weed girlfriend? Cover Story ‘Someone’s trying to burn me down,’ Paige Turner publisher tells Plant. Or are they just setting fire to a stack of Illiberal Liberals? And how do Turner’s regular trips to India, Asia and the Middle East fit in, if at all? ‘Keep Plant coming.’ David Williamson ‘The Plant novels … are hybrids of satire and crime fiction, too funny to be called bleak, but concealing a complex seriousness of purpose.’ Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age ‘Plant grows on you.’ Stephen Knight ‘A protagonist who surely will be back.’ Emma Young, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Plant investigates not the petty individual crimes like kidnapping, murder or extortion, but the big picture – the intellectual and political follies of the age … the unstable underpinning of modern industrialized society is laid bare. And made hilariously funny.’ Peter Corris
Professor Michael (MRD) Foot, the only person referred to by his real name in a John Le Carré novel, served in Special Forces during the war and has an international reputation as an historian. Here he looks back on his exploits, giving a no-holds-barred account of special operations and his academic career.
Build your own intelligent agent system... Intelligent agent technology is a tool of modern computer science that can be used to engineer complex computer programmes that behave rationally in dynamic and changing environments. Applications range from small programmes that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This powerful technology is not widely used, however, as developing intelligent agent software requires high levels of training and skill. The authors of this book have developed and tested a methodology and tools for developing intelligent agent systems. With this methodology (Prometheus) developers can start agent-oriented designs and implementations easily from scratch saving valuable time and resources. Developing Intelligent Agent Systems not only answers the questions “what are agents?” and “why are they useful?” but also the crucial question: “how do I design and build intelligent agent systems?” The book covers everything a practitioner needs to know to begin to effectively use this technology - including an introduction to the notion of agents, a description of the concepts involved, and a software engineering methodology. Read on for: a practical step-by-step introduction to designing and building intelligent agent systems. a full life-cycle methodology for developing intelligent agent systems covering specification, analysis, design and implementation of agents. PDT: Prometheus Design Tool – software support for the Prometheus design process. the example of an electronic bookstore to illustrate the design process throughout the book. Electronic resources including the Prometheus Design Tool (PDT), can be found at: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/agents/prometheus This book is aimed at industrial software developers, software engineers and at advanced undergraduate students. It assumes knowledge of basic software engineering but does not require knowledge of Artificial Intelligence or of mathematics. Familiarity with Java will help in reading the examples in chapter 10.
1977 was a momentous year. We called it seventy-seven; the DJ on Capital called it Seveny-Seven. If you did not listen to Capital Radio, you were not worth knowing. To listen to 'Radio One' was heresy, even if it was the weekend top forty, both radio stations aired their singles chart on the same day at the same time. 'Radio One' did not have adverts but we still listened to London's radio station because we could pick it up even west of Reading and, for us, London was the centre of the universe. Seventy-seven was a cause of great celebration, it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee and you can still see plaques and go on a Jubilee walk to commemorate her twenty fifth year on the throne. Nineteen fifty-two saw the first commercial passenger jet airliner entering service and the completion of the first atomic bomb, nineteen seventy-seven was a street party to celebrate the achievements of Elizabeth's reign, full stop.
Professor Blakeney has written a detailed work on the current state of international enforcement of intellectual property rights. Using the background to, and the negotiation of, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, as well as the provisions of the ACTA itself, the book is a mine of information and analysis. Professor Blakeney's long experience of work on the laws and practice of IPR enforcement as a right-holder, an administrator, and as an academic and researcher, are second to none and it shows in this all-encompassing work.' – John Anderson, Global Anti-Counterfeiting Network This important book is the first detailed analytical treatment of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and its impact on intellectual property enforcement. The ACTA had been formulated to deal with the burgeoning growth in the trade in counterfeit and pirate products which was estimated to have increased ten-fold since the promulgation of the TRIPS Agreement in 1994. The book clarifies how the ACTA supplements the enforcement provisions of the TRIPS Agreement, namely by: expanding the reach of border protection to infringing goods in transit; providing greater detail of the implementation of civil enforcement and; providing for the confiscation of the proceeds of intellectual property crimes. As the book illustrates, a significant additional innovation is the introduction of provisions dealing with enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment. This book will strongly appeal to intellectual property rights policymakers at the World Trade Organization and World Intellectual Property Organization, legal practitioners, academics and students.
Gardens and Plants of the Getty Villa is the long-awaited companion volume to Plants in the Getty's Central Garden published in 2004. In the first part of the book, garden historian Patrick Bowe explores the design, planting, and uses of the ancient Roman garden and describes how J. Paul Getty's vision to create such a garden in California was brought to reality. The second part includes a sumptuously illustrated guide to the plants in each of the five gardens at the Villa. Bowe introduces each of the gardens, describing the underlying concepts and the relationship to the ancient Roman models as well as their architectural and sculptural elements present. He also documents how plantings have been renewed in light of new knowledge emerging from excavations conducted in the Roman gardens of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Horticulturist Michael DeHart provides informative descriptions of the growing habits and characteristics for each of the plants, citing medicinal, culinary, and ritual uses for many of them.
In the first volume of his memoirs, As Far As I Remember, Michael Bawtree told the story of his youthful years, from his birth in Australia to growing up in England during and after World War II, with an education at Radley College and Worcester College, Oxford and a two-year stint in the British Army. In this second volume he recounts his experience as a raw new immigrant in Canada, and his first steps as a professional actor, a university instructor, a book critic, dramaturge and playwright. In the years that followed he made a name for himself at the newly-founded Simon Fraser University, where he initiated the theatre program, and at the Stratford Festival, where he eventually served as Associate Director and director of the Third Stage, before leaving to freelance as a theatre director both in Canada and the USA. In 1975 he founded COMUS Music Theatre with Maureen Forrester, and went on to establish himself as a pioneer in Canadian music theatre development. The volume finishes in 1977 as he is on his way for the first time to the Banff Centre, where he was to play a major role in the following ten years. Michael's story, elegantly and amusingly written, gives us a vivid picture of Canada's theatre activity in the sixties and seventies, with honest though not always flattering portraits of some of its most distinguished artists. He is also open and honest about himself, recounting his failures and well as his successes, and sharing with us what became the love of his life.ÿ
“A harrowing tale of revenge. Hangman is a hardboiled police procedural . . . Readers come away not only entertained—and terrified—but also enlightened.” —Cemetery Dance A woman is killed on Halloween night in Seattle. Death by hanging—as cruel and vicious as it was back in the days when it was employed as a means of justice. Only there is no justice in this murder. And it isn’t the last one. Suddenly the police on both sides of the US–Canadian border are tracking a killer with a taste for the drama of the gallows. And just when the investigation zeroes in on a suspect, another corpse is discovered. The string of bizarre and brutal killings leaves a complex trail of clues—and a terror that only escalates with each killing. “Master of the Northern Giallo! There are more than a few reasons to take the stand and scream the glories of literary demon Michael Slade.” —Rue Morgue “Hangman’s escalating suspense is sustained not only by readers wondering ‘whodunit,’ but who will be the next to die. Every character is both a suspect and a potential victim.” —Quill & Quire “Murder with gore galore, and a killer who enjoys his hobby. There’s plenty of legerdemain before the trick ending.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Fascinating . . . The research on real-life hangmen is deftly larded into the fast-paced story.” —The Vancouver Sun “First-hand knowledge of the judicial system gives Slade’s thrillers their authenticity.” —North Shore News
This guide to Malta, Gozo and Comina includes: topographical walking maps; fold-out touring maps; many short walks and picnic suggestions - suitable for hot summer days and for those with young children; and an update service with specific route-change information.
Greeks arrived in America with the expectation that freedom would permit their families to thrive and be successful. With hard work, belief in the Orthodox faith, and commitment to education, Greeks ascended in Chicago, and America, to positions of responsibility and success. Today Greek Americans are among the wealthiest and most successful of immigrant groups. Greeks recognized a historical imperative that they meet the challenges and aspirations of a classical Hellenic heritage. Greeks in Chicago celebrates the rich history of the Greek community through copious pictorial documentation.
The extraordinary life of one of the world’s greatest music and literary icons, in the words of those who knew him best. Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon—there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in contemporary western culture, entertaining and inspiring people everywhere with his work. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, to timeless songs such as “Suzanne,” “Dance Me to the End of Love,” and “Hallelujah,” Cohen is a cherished artist. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the many fans and followers who would miss his warmth, humour, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories chronicles the full breadth of his extraordinary life. The first of three volumes—The Early Years—follows him from his boyhood in Montreal to university, and his burgeoning literary career to the world of music, culminating with his first international tour in 1970. Through the voices of those who knew him best—family and friends, colleagues and contemporaries, rivals, business partners, and his many lovers—the book probes deeply into both Cohen’s public and private life. It also paints a portrait of an era, the social, cultural, and political revolutions that shook the 1960s. In this revealing and entertaining first volume, bestselling author and biographer Michael Posner draws on hundreds of interviews to reach beyond the Cohen of myth and reveal the unique, complex, and compelling figure of the real man.
This book develops allocation mechanisms that aim to ensure an efficient resource allocation in modern IT-services. Recent methods of artificial intelligence, such as neural networks and reinforcement learning, and nature-oriented optimization methods, such as genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, are advanced and applied to allocation processes in distributed IT-infrastructures, or grid systems.
E-commerce increasingly provides opportunities for autonomous bidding agents: computer programs that bid in electronic markets without direct human intervention. Automated bidding strategies for an auction of a single good with a known valuation are fairly straightforward; designing strategies for simultaneous auctions with interdependent valuations is a more complex undertaking. This book presents algorithmic advances and strategy ideas within an integrated bidding agent architecture that have emerged from recent work in this fast-growing area of research in academia and industry. The authors analyze several novel bidding approaches that developed from the Trading Agent Competition (TAC), held annually since 2000. The benchmark challenge for competing agents--to buy and sell multiple goods with interdependent valuations in simultaneous auctions of different types--encourages competitors to apply innovative techniques to a common task. The book traces the evolution of TAC and follows selected agents from conception through several competitions, presenting and analyzing detailed algorithms developed for autonomous bidding. Autonomous Bidding Agents provides the first integrated treatment of methods in this rapidly developing domain of AI. The authors--who introduced TAC and created some of its most successful agents--offer both an overview of current research and new results. Michael P. Wellman is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and member of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Amy Greenwald is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. Peter Stone is Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and Director of the Learning Agents Group at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the recipient of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) 2007 Computers and Thought Award.
The definitive history of Iran, from the ancient Persian empires to today Iran is a land of contradictions. It is an Islamic republic, but one in which only 1.4 percent of the population attend Friday prayers. Iran's religious culture encompasses the most censorious and dogmatic Shi'a Muslim clerics in the world, yet its poetry insistently dwells on the joys of life: wine, beauty, sex. Iranian women are subject to one of the most restrictive dress codes in the Islamic world, but make up nearly 60 percent of the student population of the nation's universities. In A History of Iran, acclaimed historian Michael Axworthy chronicles the rich history of this complex nation from the Achaemenid Empire of sixth century BC to the revolution of 1979 to today, including a close look at Iran's ongoing attempts to become a nuclear power. A History of Iran offers general readers an essential guide to understanding this volatile nation, which is once again at the center of the world's attention.
How do you prepare for your first day on the set? Why might a bad audition lead to a good job offer? How should you research? What's the effect of a long tour on your love-life? Can you have a glass of wine before a matinee? What's the difference between transitive and intransitive corpsing? What is stage fright? In Michael Pennington's highly personal guide and memoir there are sections on rehearsals, on television then and now, on who does what on a film set, on the disciplines and rewards of musical theatre, and five directors discuss why the scenery is better on radio. Disability and racial bias in the theatre are discussed and we sometimes hear from other, younger voices who are following parallel paths. Infectiously enthusiastic, both conversational and profound, Let Me Play the Lion Too draws on the author's fifty years of experience to celebrate the deadly serious, sometimes hilarious, often misunderstood but infinitely enriching life of a professional actor.
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