In this book, Johnson does a very good job of conveying the ideas of emergence in a simple, understandable way. For people that are just looking to get an idea of what the field is about, this book will provide the answers in an accessible manner.

The book beings with a compelling look at the way ant colonies function and uses this as a foundation for the ideas of emergence. Along the way he looks at several examples of emergence, including cities and software. He also touches on (or alludes to) current research areas such as genetic algorithms and pattern recognitition.

As someone who studied computer science I felt the book was a bit too light and missed some great opportunities to dig, at least a bit, into greater detail. However, I think many people will find this an approachable, enjoyable read.

I have to give this book credit, it sticks to its topic very well, making the book concise and easy to follow. It opens with the basics of ab anatomy and then moves in to various exercises and programs for strengthening and developing the abdominals. Only at the end does it stray slightly off course and discuss the nutritional aspects of ab development.

The one area where this book stands out (and my reason for purchasing it a while back) is that it focusses on the pelvic tilt associated with improper ab development. For about $... it might be worth it just for this information.

The downside is that this book is out of date. Swiss balls are the current rage in ab developed and the book author has titles devoted entirely to this subject, yet they aren't mentioned once.

Prisoner's Dilemma addresses two major areas: an overview of the concepts of game theory and a biography of John von Neumann. Neither are convered in extreme detail, but that isn't bad. In fact, it makes this book an enjoyable casual read.

The game theory pieces are presented at a very approachable level of detail. No rigorous math, just well written descriptions of the basic concepts.

The first part of the book covers the development of game theory and provides good "character development" of von Neumann. It them moves away from von Neumann and into the politics of the time (which are exceptionally interesting, especially if you didn't live through them).

Overall I found the book very interesting. It manages to balance several topics without wandering and going into excessive detail.

I have to admit, Fast Food Nation was a bit different than I intially expected. I thought the book would mostly cover the nutrition of fast food but actually spend a significant amount of time on the business practices of fast food companies and their related industries (such as meat packing, etc). Regardless, the book was a great read that I couldn't put down.

Schlosser uses many first hand accounts and stories to give context to the information presented. At first this seems somewhat biased as most of the stories come from the "little guy" (fast food franchise owners, ranchers, etc), but is pretty well balanced with the opinions of "big business". The stories provide an interesting history of the industry and help put a face on many of some of the more significant players.

Personally, I found the most disturbing part of the book to be the business practices of companies in the fast food and meat packing industries. The nutrition aspect wasn't too much of a surprise since restaurants make that information available. Overall, it has significantly changed my view of the fast food industry.

Personally I was a bit disappointed with this disc. I really enjoy Paul Van Dyk's work, but franky this was nothing special. If you have his other albums you probably already own a couple of the tracks and the new tracks don't offer anything particularly interesting. If you're a true PVD junkie, then go for it.. However you aren't sure then save your money for The Politics of Dancing -- a much better work.

I really enjoyed the first "Euphoria: Ibiza" set, so I was looking forward to checking out the second installment. I have to say that I enjoy the second collection more than the first. The mix of tracks seems to be more unique -- most of it I hadn't heard before.

The first disc starts off with several tracks containing vocals that I found very annoying. However, it quickly moves past these and really gets things going with yet another mix of "Seven Cities" (is it a requirement to include this track if you are going to release a trance disc? :)). The mix of "Seven Cities" is one of the best I have heard, definitely better than the one included with the first set.

On the second disc I particuarly enjoy Galaxia (8), Embrace (11) and "Isn't Life Wonderful?" (11), but the entire second disc is a good mix with smooth transitions.

This title has been sitting on my shelf for years, but for some reason I decided to start flipping through it the other day. It's sad to admit this, but I couldn't put it down! I really wish I had taken the time to read this years ago.

In a reasonably short title, this book covers more about the nooks and crannies of C than almost any other book I have come across -- and does it in a way that keeps the reader's attention. Subtle aspects of the language are presented in detail and accompanied by interesting stories and suggestions (called "Handy Heuristics" in the book) for improving your own code.

The book then steps a bit outside of the language to explain (briefly) how linkers work and how executable are structured. This information helps to round out the language specific material and is something you won't find in too many other places.

The only downside to this title is that the information is probably a bit dated and somewhat Sun specific. However, I wouldn't let either of these items prevent you from adding this to your software development collection.

I guess one wouldn't expect anything less from the designer of the language than a book that goes into extreme detail. This book is a valuable reference for those who really want to know the details of C++. It starts with the basics of the language and moves into higher level constructions, such as the STL. Through the book, Stroustrup is clear to describe exactly how the language behaves and what parts of C++ are implementation specific details. There are even bits of humor hidden in all of those pages.As other reviews have mentioned, this is not a good book for beginners. In fact, I don't think it is a good book for an experience programmer starting out with C++. If you are in either of those categories I recommend looking for something simpler. If you start out with this book you'll find yourself lost in the details. However, for those that are experienced programmers and know the fundmentals of C++, this book will serve as a valuable reference.

I guess one wouldn't expect anything less from the designer of the language than a book that goes into extreme detail. This book is a valuable reference for those who really want to know the details of C++. It starts with the basics of the language and moves into higher level constructions, such as the STL. Through the book, Stroustrup is clear to describe exactly how the language behaves and what parts of C++ are implementation specific details. There are even bits of humor hidden in all of those pages.As other reviews have mentioned, this is not a good book for beginners. In fact, I don't think it is a good book for an experience programmer starting out with C++. If you are in either of those categories I recommend looking for something simpler. If you start out with this book you'll find yourself lost in the details. However, for those that are experienced programmers and know the fundmentals of C++, this book will serve as a valuable reference.

Cosm was a very enjoyable read.. some of the more interesting science fiction I have read in a long time. The story follows a physicist that "accidentally" creates a universe in a laboratory. Benford keeps the story moving by following the development of this universe and exploring how it is viewed from many different angles, including law, religion and politics. Personally I enjoyed just finding out what was happening to the universe itself, but the other angles really added depth to the story. I must say that he paints a pretty bleak picture of academic physics... this certainly won't serve as a good recruiting tool for academia.. :)

Others reviews have suggested the character development isn't very good. I would buy that, though I didn't get that impression while I was reading the book. I'm sure the character development could be better, but I found the book very enjoyable regardless.