Factor
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Interesting ideas, but marred by a sloppy presentation
I really enjoyed this book and I'm using the programs
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A collection of studies
Update on the Science of Women and Heart DiseaseHeart disease is the leading cause of death among adult women and this book provides the data documenting this risk, a reveiw of modifiable risk factors, strategies for their change and direction for futher studies.

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This book should be consored
Not a drop of smugness
Exposing the "AIDS" myth with facts!Christine presents the truth and it might hurt and perhaps even anger some people, but nevertheless, it is still the truth as many people see and experience every day. Christine shows in her book that, HIV has never been proven to cause "AIDS" or any other disease, but the public is being told over and over again that it is. Christine lays the facts on the table with extensive research and documentation to back up her claims. When you read, you might feel a sense of betrayel by the medical industry and media. That is what I felt, first time reading this book. Christine tells it like it is. The statistics that "AIDS" is not the epidemic compared to other diseases and accidents. That "AIDS" is not a disease, but a diagnose of being tested positive for HIV antibodies and having one or more of 28 old illnesses. Christine shows that, contrary to popular belief, the HIV test is NOT for the virus, but for antibodies, which they claim are specific to HIV, but is not.
The only critisism I have of the book is, I wish Christine would have spent a little more time on explaing the early cases of "AIDS" and the correlation between drug use and "AIDS". Nevertheless, the book brings the pure facts to the public in lay terms and in only 64 pages, that there isnt any excuse not to read it.
Go out and get a copy, and learn from Christine that, "AIDS" is not a death sentence, but a wake up call from a degenative lifestyle caused by recreational, prescription drugs, poor nutrition, stress and other environmental contaminations.

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Lots of information
Better than they say!
very good readAs for the upset people who rated this book low, i'm sure Les rated firemen higher than nurses in stress level because some nurses work in a low stress environment in some kind of pediatric aera, giving shots to little kids, while firemen have to be ready all the time when they are on call. And as for librarians, well, reccomending a book or showing someone to a copy of Moneyball doesn't really compare in stress to making international relations decisions or having to make a precise cut with a scalpel.

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Good information, but very detailed and out of date
Great beginners manual for breadth of Human FactorsThe topics it covers are the basic "physical" human factors topics. There is breadth but not depth. However it does not do much with UI design. There is nothing on Web design or computer station design.
This book's data is limited to examples that illustrate various points in the book. If you need detailed anthropometric data or workspace recoommendations you won't find it here.
Alan Cooper's book About face can help you with the UI part.
Jakob Nielson's Web Usability or Steve Krug's Don't make me think book can give you information on Web design.
Woodson's Human Factors Design Handbook can help you with the computer station part. At lot of money for just this though.
If you need detailed anthropmetric date, the sources I am most familiar with are:
Human Factors Design Handbook by Woodson(though it is a biased sample, if this is all you can get it is better than nothing) Woodson's newer book (2nd edition) gives computer station information, but is pricey for just this.
The measure of Man and Woman by Henry Dreyfuss and Associates (dated in 1970s)
BodySpace by Stephen Pheasant (in metric)
International data on Anthropometry by Hans W. Jurgens (gives you some international data found nowhere else).
Another thing that may help you is the table of contents:
Table of Contents:
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Human Factors and Systems
2. Human Factors Research Methodologies
Part 2: INFORMATION INPUT
3. Information Input and Processing
4. Text, Graphics, Symbols and Codes
5. Visual Display of Dynamic Information
6. Auditory, Tactual and Olfactory Displays
7. Speech Communications
PART 3: HUMAN OUTPUT AND CONTROL
8. Physical Work and Manual Materials Handling
9. Motor Skills
10. Human Control of systems
11. Controls and Data Entry devices
12. Hand tools and devices
PART 4: WORKPLACE DESIGN
13. Applied Anthropometry, Work-space design and Seating
14. Arrangement of Components within a Physical Space
15. Interpersonal Aspects of Workplace Design
PART 5: ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS
16. Illumination
17. Climate
18. Noise
19. Motion
PART 6: HUMAN FACTORS APPLICATIONS
20. Human Error, Accidents and Safety
21. Human Factors and the Automobile
22. Human Factors in Systems design
APPENDICES
A. List of Abbreviations
B. Control Devices
C. NIOSH Recommended Action Limit Formula for Lifting Tasks
very good introduction
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Drawing on his extensive experience as a war correspondent with the BBC and CBS, Durschmied moves from ancient Troy and the Trojan Horse to Iraq and Operation Desert Storm, offering a persuasive and at times wry account of the ways in which chance affects the unfolding of history. Recounting 17 key moments in human conflict and warfare, The Hinge Factor is not just an amusing meditation on what might have been; it is also a poignant and vivid account of the brutality and stupidity of war. More than just an account of accidents in history, this is a thoughtful and absorbing book. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

Laughing at peoples mistakes and misfortuneThat is actually the biggest problem with the book. While each example stands on its own, there is no attempt to draw the piece together into a coherent whole. No lessons are drawn. The book comes to no conclusion. Perhaps the author intended that the lessons be clear to the reader from the stories he chose. If so I missed it.
In fact I do not believe the author had any lesson in mind. The events described were chosen for their entertainment value, not for any educational purpose. If that is the authors goal, I would say it was a moderate success.
Durschmied is a television corespondent. That witting style is reflected in The Hinge Factor. Each of the seventeen short vignettes is filled with action and keeps a fast pace. The author never gets boughed down in details or pesky facts. Since each story stands on its own, it is easy to pick the book up and read any one at random. The helps the book server as an occasional diversion.
Cleopatra's NoseIn the hinge factor a former war correspondent talks about how such seemingly random and bizarre factors have changed history. From a wooden horse before Troy (arguably not a random factor since it was a deliberate plan) to a surprise killer bee attack against an army in the middle of a modern war, chance is sometimes the biggest factor in history. Here, in addition to the stories referenced above, the author discusses how battles from the American Civil War to the Crimean War, WWII, Vietnam and many others were greatly altered by almost random acts.
Telling you all the details of the stories ruins the fun of this book. I will tell you some of the details of only one story, my favorite. It was about how a drunken army actually lost a battle to themselves! Better still, they only were drunk at that time by a chance meeting between themselves and some merchants and whores.
Every story here is very interesting, short, about 15 or 20 pages, clear, and a quick read. You may actually end up believing that chance is the only element of war. To be fair, "fortune favors the bold" as the saying goes. I might add, and the well prepared. Was it Pasteur who discovered one of his great breakthroughs by chance? I just remember that when asked if he was "lucky" he replied that he was only lucky because he was trained enough and educated enough to be ready when this "lucky break" occurred. So it is, even more so, with war. Enjoy the Hinge Factor, a interesting read -until the end.
History for those who care."The Hinge Factor" is a superb attempt to shine a torch on some of the murkier areas of European history. How many people know how poorly the British were led during the early stages of the Boer War or the importance of the battle of Tannenberg to the history of 20th century? I loved this book and I feel that there should be more opportunities for readers to argue and confront history and yes, ask questions about "what if" through the reading of books such as this. Questions arising from books such as his are the meat of history-of course history must be written carefully-but was

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Don't waste your time
Smile and have happy thoughts
This Book Really Makes You Think
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Natural selection should push this book to an early deathHardin is a professor emeritus of "human ecology". Whatever that is it is not a science, at least as Hardin embodies it. Although his book purports to discuss scientific ideas, ideals and the scientific method, he clearly has no real understanding of these concepts. Science is provable (or disprovable), systematic, reproducable and requires support of multiple researchers. Hardin apparently has no respect for these priciples, although he makes references to them. I stopped reading the book, which I found to be a big waste of my time, when I got to the first paragraph of chapter 8. This is what it says:
"Natural selection is an inescapable default position of all biology, and as such calls for no experimental proof. Would human beings with six fingers per hand be superisor to those with five? If this were so, six-fingeredness would soon be the norm of the species. In truth, we deduce natural selection form whatever exists."
If you do not understand the incredible incompetence of such a statement then you should read a book by a biologist on evolution and the theory of natural selection (and some opposing or augmenting theories). If this paragraph strikes you as absurd and irresponsible than you can find better, more reliable sources of information.
Some insights among the indirectionsWhile I (and the natural resources of the planet) would welcome a world with say six hundred million people as opposed to six billion, I must disagree with the man from Mars about the educated and the uneducated. I suspect, regardless of actual numbers, their proportions would stay approximately the same.
However most of this book is not about overpopulation, but about political and economic issues that Professor Hardin is pleased to expound on. There is the problem of "Equity, Equality, and Affirmative Action" (Chapter 14). As Hardin sees it we really need to understand that "no two human beings are created equal" (p. 109) and that "equity" and "equality" are not the same thing. Exactly how he feels about affirmative action however is never stated directly--indeed little in this book is stated directly. Hardin prefers to hint at his position and let the reader figure it out. Since he gives the (absurd) example of laws mandating "the admission of pygmies to professional basketball teams," I am persuaded that he is opposed to affirmative action.
There are some things he does make clear, but not in a manner likely to persuade. For example, he is opposed to one world government, believing that it would be unstable. In support (surprisingly enough) he quotes Bertrand Russell: "A world state, if it were firmly established, would have no enemies to fear, and would therefore be in danger of breaking down through lack of cohesive force." Why a superstate would necessarily lack cohesive force is never explained. One gets the sense that it somehow has to do with another related Hardin idea, namely that multiculturalism within a single society is unstable. (See Chapter 15.) His argument is that the differing cultures would not be able to agree on how to go about their business peaceably and laws could not be formulated that all cultures would find acceptable. He gives the example of somebody from one culture wanting to drive on the right side of the road and somebody from another wanting to drive on the left. In fact, he gives this example a couple of times.
I am at a loss to appreciate these arguments (and some others in the book). That different people could not be persuaded to agree to drive on one side of the road seems silly. That a superstate could not find enemies for the populace to rally against seems naive. After all we have today the phenomena of the U.S. government directing its energies against drug lords and terrorists with the public firmly behind those efforts, as President Bush's high approval ratings attest. Furthermore, there will always be a counter-culture (in a democratic society) that the majority culture can and will rail against (and vice-versa). But I even question the underlying psychological assumption that a state needs enemies to be cohesive. Historically, governments have sought enemies (both within and without) as a means to solidify their power, but that hardly proves that a state necessarily needs enemies to survive. At any rate, perhaps we can dream up nasty little green men from some distant solar system to hate, if need be.
Hardin's style is somewhat off-putting at first and betrays his long years as a teacher. He makes statements with little or no support that encourage readers to evaluate for themselves, and then later on (after readers have presumably had time to think for themselves), he gives his rationale. (Or he doesn't!) The subject of one chapter is concluded in the next and then reopened in another. He sometimes explains the obvious and then fails to explain the cryptic, as for example he informs us that "philosophy" means "love of knowledge" (p. 31 ), but does not reveal why "adding two more lanes to a highway...ultimately increases traffic jams." (p. 39)
Some of Hardin's sentiments, however, I find quite agreeable. For example, "No one expects the physics of 50 B.C. to tell us how to launch a spaceship. But apparently many people are sure that the 2,000-year-old ethics developed in Near Eastern villages is all we need to solve" our moral problems. (pp. 4-5)
The greatest problem facing the planet today (and the root cause of many other problems) is overpopulation. It is a truth that needs a wider and more emphatic expression. I hope in his next book Professor Hardin concentrates on this urgent problem and leaves the political and economic niceties for others to straighten out.
More than meets the eye
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Bizarre conclusions that usualy result from poor thinkingThis potentialy good book ilustrate what any good thesis supervisor knows: poor thinking, failing to consider all the relevant variables involved in a problem, can lead to the most ludicrous, bizarre, absurd conclusions (not to mention recomendations).
The authors' recomendations, well covered by the other Amazon.com readers, have this artificial, twisted, demented quality, to anyone with half a spoon of common sense, not because they lack logic. By the contrary, they are the logical consequence of there line of investigation and analysis. The problem is they tried to analyse such a complex phenomenom as the modern heterosexual marriage through the narrow angle of the sexual component and, even this single subject is reduced to an over-simplified model of "male seeks intercourse with female, which controls the 'flux' of sex".
Lots of questions highlight the poverty of this framework of analysis. Here are just three:
* Why have divorce rates increased after women started providing free sex before marriage? Actualy, how could the institution of marriage survive such a blow, as free pre-nuptial sex, if the author's perspective is relevant?
* The sexual drive of women is significantly (and biologicaly sensibly) reduced, after the birth of a child. Instead of strengthening the marriage, this is tipicaly a period of stress for the relationship. How can this be explained by the authors?
* How about the male perspective and expectations, about marriages? Aren't men less prone to end marriages beacause it is easier for them to have satisfactory extra-marital sex and relationships? Are men sexualy over-satisfied within marriage or are both -- man AND woman -- frustrated, in terms of sex and relationship? Isn't it probable that extra-marital affairs mitigate the man's frustration but not the woman's? In this case, isn't the man's frustration more probably linked to sexual fulfillment, while the woman's stems from more relationship-related problems? If so what would be the results of the author's recomendations, less or more divorces? Better or worst marriages?
Fresh & Provocative
Finally, an actionable theory
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Burn Factor is big on implausible and illogical plot twists, and small on characterizations. We never learn enough about Quinn to understand why she puts her career (not to mention her life) in jeopardy, even as evidence of a massive cover-up continues to mount and her boyfriend, a CIA agent, turns out to be a willing accomplice to the conspirator-in-chief. Fans of Mills's previous novels (Rising Phoenix, Storming Heaven, Free Fall) who keep waiting for Beamon to show up and save the day will be disappointed, especially since the author doesn't quite succeed in making Quinn Barry as appealing a protagonist. --Jane Adams

Read his other books
even escapist fiction should have some grounding in realityThe main problem was the writing. The action scenes were awkward, and there were a couple of howlers, especially at the beginning: rice cakes "fatally impacting" on the floor (pg. 8), a woamn eating a "snowball-sized" scoop of ice cream (pg. 63).
Some of the characters still were not fleshed out enough or totally believable-- Twain and Marin, for example. There is actually the cliche of the serial killer listening to classical music at one point, something you see a lot of in movies but not in real life.
More than a few of the plot developments and incidents seem straight out of an action movie: the bad guys are always a step or two behind the good guys, a woman survives a gunshot when a bullet glances off her head (pg. 201), two people survive massive explosions that kill everyone around them (pg. 355), a man jumps out of the way of a bullet (pg. 377), the killer imbeds a knife in a cinderblock wall (pg. 333). Other plot points are just ludicrous, as when one of the characters calls Stephen Hawking on the spur of the moment.
There are many more smaller problems which highlight his lack of research or inability to write about events in a believable manner, though it would be pointless to list them all. Two thumbs down for me.
Another solid effort from Kyle Mills