This informative and occasionally bizarre collection of American inventions will help you discover successful and significant ideas—along with the frivolous and utterly useless ones lost to history. Innovation and entrepreneurism appear inextricably woven into the American DNA. Throughout American history, the great inventors and innovators gazed into the future and saw the products and services that would transform the world. While passionate about creating this new thing called a democracy, our Founding Fathers were also driven to change the way humans lived and worked—to complete everyday tasks faster, easier, and more efficiently. As of 2018, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had granted its ten millionth patent. But with over 500,000 applications now being filed annually, fewer than half of these applicants will be granted patents and far fewer still—an estimated one percent—will realize commercial success, according to the Office. Some are flawed by mistakes or missing details, others too ridiculous to take seriously, still others simply ahead of their time. From the brightest and most innovative to the wackiest, most bizarre, and downright crazy, this collection of 100 patents includes funny and informative descriptions and original illustrations, all the while letting you in on what most successful patents have in common, what inspired their creators, and how great inventors view the world.
Well, now you've gone and done it America. You've elected Donald K. Trump President and the U.S. will never again be the same! The problem for all of us is that he's got plans, lots of them--the list reads like a bad acid trip: Nominating Bernie Madoff for Secretary of the Treasury; "Trumpifying" the Constitution; making personal real estate deals with Vladimir Putin; staging a hostile takeover of one of America's great news magazines - to name just a few. In this "inaugural" (and wholly fictitious) issue of Trump TIME Magazine, President-Elect Trump promises to re-make America in his own image - and it ain't pretty. Don't like it? Move to Canada, losers!
Now, from the controversial, new, Republican Speaker of the House—Newt Gingrich, one of the most visible faces in the news today, and author of Contract with America—comes this collection of memorable quotes on topics ranging from abortion to welfare.
From the wise guys behind Is Martha Stewart Living? comes a hilarious parody of the lifestyle maven’s autobiography. Long before Martha Stewart's insider trading scandal, Tom Connor and Jim Downey had been spoofing her announced-then-postponed autobiography, Martha, Really and Truly. Now, in Martha, Really and Cruelly, the best-selling humor duo delivers their own version of events leading up to her sensational downfall. Written in "Martha's" voice, this faux autobiography reveals early incidents of unethical playing-house tactics, questionable Kool-Aid stand practices, highly suspect home ec grades, and devious dating strategies. And that's before she's out of her teens! If anyone can take uncannily accurate aim at the Dominatrix of Domesticity, it's Connor and Downey. Their breakout best-seller Is Martha Stuart Living? was followed by Martha Stuart's Better Than You at Entertaining and Martha Stuart's Excruciatingly Perfect Weddings.
Many, if not most, business surprises are negative ones. They often cause setbacks that require time, energy, and resources just to get the organization back to where it had once been. The pragmatic approach to managing the causes of these lurking setbacks described in IF..., Then... is a proven method for achieving goals without the burden of these negative surprises. The Protect-Biz risk management planning process is specifically designed for busy people with other things to do. It shatters conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to the threshold for entry into effectively managing the potential obstacles between you and your goals. Its mantra is "identify, avoid, and anticipate--and then get back to work." No costly specialists, no expensive software needed. Protect-Biz leads the entrepreneur, the executive, and the manager to risk management self-sufficiency and independence with very little initial investment in terms of dollars and time.
A field guide to entranceways for homeowners looking to enhance the character, value, and appeal of their home looks at a variety of decorative architectural elements while illustrating nearly one hundred entrance styles that range from English Colonial to Art Deco.
Poetic Acts & New Media advances the fields of literary and new media studies by clarifying boundaries between competing genres and media through the creation of a new artistic genre, "media poetry." This aesthetic mode of expression/becoming seeks to transform mass culture (our codes of communication) by self-consciously acknowledging how textual, audio, and/or visual signs are constructed according to their simulation and not their representation. This study draws heavily upon literary media theories that intersect with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of 'Sense' as a simulated power of sensory transformations. Media poetry becomes a complex power of 'Sense' by blending conventional mass-media codes with poetic simulations that provide alternative forms of creating meaning. Poetic Acts & New Media specifically examines the works of several poets that exemplify this multi-sensory approach to printed-text poetry, especially: -Langston Hughes -Tony Medina -David Wojahn -John Kinsella -David Trinidad. It also analyzes several contemporary films that embody the multi-modal logic of media poetry: -David Lynch's Mullholland Drive -Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky -Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. In addition, this study interprets two influential primetime TV shows as exemplars of media poetry: Twin Peaks and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All media poetry, regardless of genre or medium, allows readers/viewers to envision "reality production" as a rewriteable and poetic enterprise that can productively remediate any transparent abstraction or common-sense realism.
With more and more people discovering the pleasures of a good smoke, interest in cigars has ignited, and cigar smoking has become the hottest trend of the 90s. Today, such high-profile people as Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenneger, David Letterman, and Madonna are often seen sporting stogies, and according to the Cigar Association of America 3.5 billion cigars were sold in 1995, with sales of premium cigars up an astounding 45 percent. For this growing number of aficionados comes The Handmade Cigar Collectors Guide and Journal. The rich journal pages provide space for the user to affix the cigar band and record vital statistics for the cigars they sample, such as draw, ring gauge, flavor and burn. What's more, these pages are adorned with sepia-toned images of famous cigar smokers and memorable quotes. The guide section features never-before-published information on how to locate, acquire and preserve the worlds hardest-to-find cigars, as well as color photographs of more than 20 of the most coveted handmade cigars. Beautifully designed to reflect the discriminating tastes of cigar lovers, The Handmade Cigar Collectors Guide and Journal is a keepsake that no discerning connoisseur should be without.
“There is something here for anyone who wants to coach or have a better understanding of the game. . . . It fills the gaps in many areas that aficionados may not even think about.” --Jon Gruden, Super Bowl winning coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers If you're new to football or share the couch with a die-hard fan, this is the book that tackles your toughest questions about what's happening on the field. Football for the Utterly Confused provides in-depth coverage of the rules, the positions, the scoring, the jargon, and the players on each side of the ball. Don't just walk by while others talk about last night's game. Join the fun with what you learn in this play-by-play guide. Let these Utterly Simple icons guide you! What to Watch For Clues you in to key points in the game and on the field From the Playbook Defines all the terms you'll need to know to talk the talk Historically Speaking Puts all the details of how the game works in context, with stories of the greatest coaches, players, and games ever played
Presents a parody of the Smith and Hawken gardening catalog, introducing a range of such "useful" gardening utensils as a portable divining rod and a twenty-four foot rake
Travel, and the exhilarating experiences it offers us, is the shared concern of these stories, which have been chosen from among the hundreds that have appeared in the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction series. More than seventy volumes, which include approximately eight hundred stories, have won the Flannery O'Connor Award. This stunning trove of always engaging, often groundbreaking short fiction is the common source for this anthology on childhood—and for planned anthologies on such topics as family, gender and sexuality, animals, and more. Travel can whisk us away to craggy mountainsides and sunny coastlines or bustling cities and mysterious jungles. Travel can excite and rejuvenate or intimidate and overwhelm. These sixteen stories reflect upon our immense, intriguing world and our explorations of it, whether you choose to follow the beaten path or abandon it.
Roman legions rang Celtic Europe's death-knell and orchestrated Celtic Britain's swansong, provoking Queen Boudicea's massive anti-Roman revolt which resulted in "the worst disaster to befall the Roman Empire" — all of which had a huge bearing on the rise of Celtic Ireland. This book presents Turoe's Celtic Royal complex, unprecedented for its size and layout, but akin to Belgic oppida (as named by Caesar) in SE England and NW Europe. It hosts the Turoe Stone, Europe's most celebrated La Tene-decorated stone. No one knew why this classic masterpiece of Celtic stone art was set on Turoe's summit in the West of Ireland. Here its hitherto unrecognized Royal Sanctuary trappings at the centre of a vast Belgic oppidum defensive system of linear embankments uniquely connected to the Celtic invasion of Ireland and its archaic history are unfolded. It is recorded in early dindshenchas (history of the famous places) and associated with the names of archaic kings and queens. The first record of it is by the renowned 1st/2nd century Greek geographer, Ptolemy of Alexandria, who listed 2 capitals in Ireland, the only 2 in his day. One is Emain Macha near Armagh. The other was never definitively identified. He located it roughly in central Co. Galway where Turoe is. He named it REGIA E TERA (Te[mh]ra), the genuine early Celtic name for 'Capital at Turoe' (Cnoc Temhro). It had an acropolis and several necropoli, including those around Athenry cited in archaic texts in the Book of Leinster as ‘Releg na Rí lamh le Cruachain' where members of Turoe's Royal Household (Rígrád Temhróit) were interred, such as Queen Medb and her father, Eochaid Ferach Mhor whose palace, Rath Ferach Mhor, stood beside the Turoe Stone. Part of its sprawling urban-like complex flanking Turoe and Knocknadala (Assembly/Parliament Hill) is placed under preservation order by The National Monuments Department. Ptolemy renders Knocknadala (early Cnoc na nDál) as NAG-NA-TA[L], "the most illustrious 'city' (polis) in all Britannia, and most considerable in size, located in the west of Ireland." The sole reference to a dense population in early Irish literature points to this area. Ancient roadways, Slí Mhór and Slí Dála, converged on Turoe/Knocknadala. Rót na Ri, Royal Road of the Kings, ran from Turoe to the great seaport of Ath Cliath Magh Rí in Galway Bay. Dindshenchas texts state that "Ath Cliath Magh Rí was the chief seaport of Ireland through which Ireland has most often been invaded." A large segment of the Celtic invasion force landed there and advanced on Turoe, the core of its primary settlement area, as recorded in the Dindshenchas of Cnoc na Dála. Continental and British Belgic tribes are remembered in townland names within this vast Turoe oppidum complex. It was suppressed by pseudo-historians who set the Irish race on the cutting edge of woeful ignorance about its Celtic roots as Armagh's monastic conmen concocted scheming stews of sheer political propaganda to win the patronage of powerful warlords. The enforced Irish exile of King Dagobert II shows the depth of involvement of Armagh-linked Abbots in Frankish politics through whom Pepin's new national Over Kingship of the Franks profoundly impacted the genesis of Ireland's High King-ship/Tara/Patrick myth. As E. Breathnach noted "The culmination of the creation of the medieval myth surrounding Tara ensured Tara would be regarded from the late 10th/11th century as the monument of the Kingship of Ireland. Tara's potency as a political symbol was evoked to the extent that by the 17th century it was depicted as one of the institutions on which the Kingship of Ireland had rested from time immemorial" (Edel Breathnach, 'Cultural Identity of Tara' in Discovery Programme Reports').
An avid golfer, the author has played with the best of them and the worst of them. With his sense of humour very much to the fore, he takes readers around the greens as he recalls some of the characters he has met and the experiences that have befallen him. A sequel to From the Wood to the Tees.
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