Frictions Books
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A Condescending BoreReview Date: 2008-04-21
Great except for one chapterReview Date: 2007-01-22
Fact or Friction?Review Date: 2005-12-03
While the style and tone remain static the subject matter is joyfully varied - ranging from reviews to biography to lists to revelation. It is hard to choose a "best" when so many are fine. The article on Stephen Jay Gould has aroused about as much controversy as Gould himself. His (Gould not Shermer) real crime was suggesting that Darwin's explanation was not the last word on the matter and there might even be an error or two in his findings. The deification of Darwin, replete with quotes biographical allusions and even the old "What did Darwin say?" is solidifying into a new quasi- religion.
What drives Shermer is not science per se but the history and philosophy of science. The article on "lists" of people and events was entertaining. Perhaps the best was the story of clashes in anthropology and how revisionism and ideology affect our judgement. The author is clearly in the "progressive" camp and makes the common mistake of overstating the danger in ID and fundamentalism (the vast majority of people on Earth reject evolution and we're doing just fine. After all, we have the right to be wrong in America.)
Several personal tales are here - from his days as a student and evangelical Christian to his growing interest in science and skepticism. They range from the sublime,the death of his mother by cancer, to the absurd, the hilarious episode when
certain intellectuals renamed themselves "Brights" with all the resulting bad publicity that anyone with an atom of sense could have predicted. The breakdown of the book makes it a perfect candidate for "bathroom reading". Get it
average at best, but an easy and enjoyable readReview Date: 2008-02-08
Esoteric Collection of EssaysReview Date: 2006-07-28
As the founder of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer knows a little something about skepticism. In fact Mr. Shermer along James (The Amazing) Randi and Martin Gardner have essentially created a new skeptic movement. The Skeptic philosophy is a non-partisan, scientific movement using the tools of logic and the scientific method to determine the truth or falsity of claims both large and small. Skeptic targets range from New Age mysticism to fundamentalist Creationism to Holocaust deniers.
Mr. Shermer goes beyond analysis and sees science as the next stage in the evolution of morality beyond organized religion stating that, "What we really need is a new set of morals and an ethical system designed for our time and place, not one scripted for a pastoral/agricultural people who live 4000 years ago". Later he states that, "Just as science has been our candle in the dark illuminating our path into the heart of human nature, science is our greatest hope for the future, showing us how best we can utilize our natures to ensure our survival." I'm not sure that science is quite up to the task of defining morality but I do agree that it holds a better chance than fundamentalist Christianity.
Science Friction is a collection of articles written by Mr. Shermer so don't expect any overarching theme. The articles range from an ill-advised attempt by a group of atheists, agnostics and progressives to label themselves as `Brights' to an analysis of the true cause of the mutiny on the bounty. As a long time reader of Skeptic magazine I have to warn other readers that you may find many of the chapters in Science Friction very familiar. The chapters range from breezy and readable to extremely dense as in the chapter `Exorcising Laplace's Demon'. I have to say that I prefer the books of Martin Gardner but Mr. Shermer is a fine heir apparent to the king of debunking.
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This Will Rub You the Right Way...Review Date: 2008-09-05
Don't waste your time!!Review Date: 2008-07-31
GREAT BOOK Review Date: 2008-07-29
(3.5 Stars) An Entertaining NovelReview Date: 2008-12-20
Friction is an entertaining novel by Nicolette. Nicolette takes readers on a journey into the tumultuous life of Love. You will see how Love's life goes from normal to chaotic as she blindly makes one bad decision after another. On one hand, you'll feel sorry for Love and her life situation. On the other hand, you hate Love for the numerous stupid decisions that she makes. This story shows that revenge isn't always sweet. Friction is a bold and sassy novel that will keep you glued to the pages.
Reviewed by Radiah Hubbert
for Urban Reviews
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Poorly writtenReview Date: 2008-08-30
Want to Know about Skiis and Snow? This book will tell youReview Date: 2001-09-30
W. E. M.
lots of data; lack of concept; slightly out-of-dateReview Date: 2003-01-25
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a bit ...Review Date: 2006-12-19
It's Good!Review Date: 2001-02-27
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Useful for folks who need to move from ERM to XML based modelingReview Date: 2007-07-02
No essence, poorly presentedReview Date: 2006-12-03
Just another useless modeling ideaReview Date: 2004-10-22
There are a lot of theoretical sections that I don't see necessity to be empasized or even presented.
The author conveyed the idea of AOM (Asset Oriented Modeling), but I am still clueless about the value of this AOM modeling. I am not convinced to adopt this modeling methodology to solve a real world problem. To me, it is just another proprietary practice of modeling, with no or very little pratical value. The material is very difficult to be tied to technical implementation, thus it is only good on paper.
I don't understand why there are so many good comments about this book. But after going through the book briefly, I realized it is a waste of time and money.
Best book for XML in a corporate environmentReview Date: 2003-09-13
Unlike the hundreds of other books that just describe what XML and XML Schema are, Daum's book gets deeply into why it is the way it is, by exploring how it fits in with conceptual modeling and how you would fit it into a complex environment.
He introduces a beguiling simple example domain (jazz musicians) which he revisits over and over again throughout the book. Through this simple example he works out subtle differences in different approaches to modeling, to schema construction, to constaint definition and modeling and finally how would you map this back to Object or Relational technology.
He introduces Asset Oriented Modeling, which is a form of conceptual modeling more attuned to XML schema model creation. His treatement of polymorphism in Schema, and techniques for evolving schema are as good as I've seen anywhere.
Excellent treatment of constraints, both conceptually as well as practical approaches to realizing the constraints in XPath or XSLT. These were worth the price of the book by themselves.
It's probably too late, but if you get no other book on XML and XML Schemas, this is the one to get.
The most practical book to create multi-namespace modelsReview Date: 2003-12-21
Writers are cannibals, but.....Review Date: 2008-02-18
It is, however, only secondarily the story of Ben Barzman, a promising screenwriter forced into thirty years of European exile. The main story is about Norma Barzman, a talented writer herself, who falls in love with a man who is aggressively progressive on most subjects, but has reactionary ideas about women working.
Norma and Ben fall in love almost at first sight (and do they ever meet cute!). Though she is a working writer when they marry, he forces her to quit her job. He then takes her movie story ideas and passes them off as his own (as in "El Cid"), takes joint projects she initiated and demotes her to "researcher," or steals her work completely. Basically, he gets apoplectic and abusive every time she gets within hailing distance of professional recognition.
Norma Barzman loves and takes pride in the many children she raises, but the book laments the complete destruction of her self-confidence in her own talent. She stays married to the man who tries to destroy her, but occasionally strays into other men's beds in her unhappiness (which will disturb prudish, superficial and judgmental readers, but sadden the rest of us.)
When her husband dies after 47 years together, she slowly but surely regains her writing voice. The results are both satisfying and uncomfortable, as the Blacklist had a tendency to deform the personalities of its victims. But the story has more universal resonances than just the sad song of a life bent out of shape by circumstance and a tyrannical husband, and is well worth the read.
One reviewer here appears to have an ax to grindReview Date: 2007-11-26
Bravo !A Racy and Riveting Read!Review Date: 2003-06-29
What a phony!Review Date: 2003-08-13
Condemned out of her own mouthReview Date: 2003-12-04
All you learn about is Norma Barzman herself, and even though you only hear her side of the story, by the middle of her book you come to hate her, condemned out of her own mouth as a self-obsessed hypocrite.
How is she a hyprocrite? She's a supposed "communist" living in luxury in a South of France estate, employing
servants to raise her kids.
She's a wife who shags all her loyal husband's friends behind his back.
She's someone who
to this day calls herself a screenwriter when she has only one produced screenplay to her name, a 1953 Italian B-movie. She
was shagging the friend of her husband who agreed to produce it.
It's a very irritating book, and really is best avoided.
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Cimbala keeps beating the same dead horseReview Date: 2002-12-09
The remainder of the book, though, rehashes themes that Cimbala has covered in significant depth in the past. He uses the examples of Russian war planning at the start of WWI, US/Soviet relations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and nuclear war planning to demonstrate how inflexible plans and thoughtless leaders can precipitate undesired wars. In this, the book is a simple repeat of his earlier book, Military Persuasion.
Cimbala does include two thoughful chapters that expand his earlier themes and contribute to the study of friction in modern, information driven conflicts: one on NATO action in Kosovo, and one on the Gulf War of 1991. Both chapters are useful and highlight his thesis that war planning in the information age is just as susceptible to friction as it was 100 years ago.
Overall, those interested in friction in policy decisions, or friction in information war will find the book useful. Those who have read some of Cimbala's other works can safely pass this one up.
Doctrine, Discipline, Intelligence, & Initiative = VictoryReview Date: 2001-07-25
The author, and this book, may well be among the strongest elements of what I perceive to be a growing backlash against the prevalent technophelia characteristic of the military-industrial complex that President and General Eisenhower warned us against--a technophelia that advocates a "system of systems" with no provision for strategy, doctrine, or intelligence; and a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) that looks to micro-UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and robotic ants as the primary means for defeating any enemy. We will simply assume every enemy will conveniently expose themselves to the narrow range of capabilities that we have devised at great expense!
The author provides as good a review of "friction" in war and in policy as one could hope for. Although sometimes tedious and not always easy to follow, this book is a must for any serious scholar of future conflicts between states, nations, and organizations. Above all, this book is a giant compressed Castor Oil pill for the techno-meisters so eager to believe they can shape a world where our money and our technology can overcome every obstacle and every opponent.
A few highlights intended to recommend the purchase of this book and its digestion:
1) Friction is not receiving the attention it merits from modern social scientists, including all those on the Department of Defense payroll. We still conceptualize our capabilities along techno-rational lines instead of human-normal chaos lines.
2) It is the combination of thoughtful doctrine, individual and unit discipline, initiative at all levels, and good intelligence (individual, organic, and external) that leads to victory through the reduction of friction--what General Alfred M. Gray, former Commandant of the Marine Corps institutionalized with his concept of "commander's intent" on top of training for war with the assumption that communications and computing *will* collapse in the heat of battle.
3) Although very brief in his coverage of intelligence per se, the author is helpful in reviewing Clausewitz's top eight sources of friction, the first three of which deal with information: insufficient knowledge of the enemy; unreliable information from patrols and spies; and uncertain knowledge of our own capabilities and dispositions. The author administers the coup de grace to technophiles with some elegant quotes from these worthies claiming that the new world of satellite intelligence is taking us to a non-Clauswitzian world where friction can be overcome by "information superiority"--these are the same folks that cannot find Bin Laden and had to invade Panama in order to capture Noriega--the same folks that let a warlord in Somalia run amok and let a small crowd chase away a U.S. Navy ship of war from docking in Haiti...the same folks that ignore 18 distinct genocide campaigns on-going today, with all that implies in terms of forced migration and epidemic disease and failed states and rampant destabilizing crime.
4) The author's review of groupthink (Janis) and how this leads to policy fiasco's is very worthwhile, not only because it is acutely relevant to how we are making decisions today in defense, energy, health, and fiscal policy, but because it highlights so clearly the dangers that come from a leadership that thinks it is invulnerable, morally superior, self-censored, sharing illusions of unanimity, subject to stereotyped visions of the world, and--worst of all--protected from reality by self appointed "mind guards" who put direct pressure on "deviant" naysayers (or dump them from the team).
5) The author is one of the few to focus on the impact of friction on what Clausewitz calls the ultimate disconnect, that between ends and means in war. As America prepares to rethink its military force structure, it is especially appropriate to note that we are planning to downsize the conventional forces while investing heavily in electronic capabilities, at the same time that the most advanced thinkers have moved beyond asymmetric war to non-traditional soft power including major emphasis on disease control, water preservation, transnational law enforcement, and major diplomatic and economic assistance options. Looking at today's situation through the author's eyes and this book, one can see that we do not have a strategy; we don't even try to understand what everyone else's strategy might be; and we are completely ignoring the need to fully integrate home front and overseas defense, foreign affairs, and trade strategy and capabilities management.
Over the course of 7 chapters, the author reviews friction both at the policy/acquisition level and the operational level of command, in relation to irrelevant and inflexible war plans; nuclear crisis management; within Desert Storm; in small wars, "faux wars" and peace operations; in modern deterrence; and in relation to mass destruction and information warfare paradigms. In the latter instance, he is acutely sensitive to the teachings of Dr. Steve Blank, that one man's information "warning" attack is another man's signal for "total war"--witness Russian doctrine that considers a C4I attack to be fundamental and requiring an immediate "dead hand" retaliatory attack.
The author concludes the book with a review of simple, compound, and complex friction in policy and operations, with examples, and for this section alone the book merits inclusion in any serious library concerned with international security.
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Poor intro to tribology that's full of errorsReview Date: 2008-11-23
Second of all, I'm sure this book had no proofreader as the amount of typos and errors in formulas throughout is ridiculous. The amount of incorrect formulas makes you rather untrustworthy of using any of the other formulas in the book -- who's to know if they're correct without re-deriving everything?
For an introductory text to tribology, I recommend "Introduction to Tribology" by Bhushan. The topic is more concisely and clearly explained, the formulas have fewer issues, and there are *example problems*!
Good Standard Tribology ReferenceReview Date: 2006-06-16
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Been there done thatReview Date: 2008-10-10
There is a Book for EverythingReview Date: 2008-07-16
There is a Book for Everything
Amos Lassen
I always thought that handjobs were kind of instinctive. Most of us did not have to be taught how to give one,it just happened and I assure you that the only thoughts anyone might have had,
had to do with getting caught in action.
I, however, must give handjobs their due. They satisfy, they are quick and they are fun and practical. A handjob relieves tension and requires no primping or getting ready. However, the handjob has been forced to take a second seat to other sexual activates and Marsha Normandy and James St. Joseph, the authors of this little book, do not feel that is fair. They want handjobs in the place they so rightfully deserve¡at the head of the list of sexual activities. They claim that ¡"if a handjob is worth doing, it's worth doing well¨. The book provides twenty-five different techniques to make self-abuse more satisfying (and by the way, I am sure that the authors do not like the term self-abuse with its negative connotation). The book shows us how to be more creative and achieve more pleasure as we "spank the monkey" and "bleed the lizard". The book, quite naturally, begins with the basic handjob technique and then introduces us to such exercises as "the jiffy pop", "ants climbing up a hill", "the twist off". "taffy pull" and "taint misbehaving" among others. What a blessing it is to know that there are so many ways for a man to get off by himself (and the ways seem quite fun but I have only managed to try eight of them so far).
The book is a lot of fun and it abounds in wit and playful eroticism. Yet there is a danger here. As you read, you want to try it all and I am not that young anymore (but do I wish I were).
"The Handjob Handbook" can take you to new heights in pleasuring yourself. I understand that the book was written for women but so what? We can still learn from it and reap its rewards. Just imagine asking a friend if he would like to ¡§climb the rope¡¨ or ¡§squeeze play¡¨ with you.
We guys know that we are born with a special toy that is fun to see and touch. Some of us are masters at masturbation but there are those that can use some help. There is a talent involved in giving a good handjob and like in music, some have an ear for it and others are tone deaf. That does not mean that there is no hope. Again, like in music, practice makes perfect (or at least a little better anyway). And remember also that a handjob is always convenient and always safe.
If your technique needs work, may I suggest you "boning up" with "The Handjob Handbook". If you already mastered the skill, get a copy for the fun it provides.
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Excellent beginners guideReview Date: 1998-02-24
Dissappointed...Review Date: 2003-09-11
I disagree with the Editorial Review that describes it as a detailed set of explanations about many items involved in the lubrication process in industry. A basic description is not what I've always understood as a detailed explanation. This review is what made me buy the book; now I know this is not the book for anyone who wants a medium degree of clear information.
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I think I could have lived with the God bashing if there had at least been something interesting here. In one chapter Shermer attacks historians for using other than comparative, scientific methods. He sites "Germs, Guns and Steel" by Jared Diamond but I was never sure to what effect. I was confused as to whether he was agreeing or disagreeing with the conclusions. I have read Diamond's book and it seemed to me Shermer was drawing the same conclusions but presenting it as a wholly original idea proving his point. Or maybe I just didn't understand what he was talking about. This book is definitely not laymen friendly (in my case anyway). I'm not a scientist but I do pride myself on being able to follow technical writing but several of the essays here are presented in a dry fashion and I had a hard time holding my attention. He reminds me of the boorish know it all at a cocktail party you can't wait to get away from.
There are several examples I could site of what seems to be the basic problem I had with this book and that is the idea that he and science are right and everyone else is wrong. In one chapter, Shermer takes historians to task for not using objective methods when evaluating events of the past. Science he assures us is the only way to the truth because it is completely objective, implying that no scientist has ever skewed data to reach the conclusion he or she wanted or needed. For someone who prides himself on being a skeptic that doesn't seem like very critical thinking to me.