Indigo

Book Description

Regarded as the "Bible" of mammalian embryo manipulation techniques since the 1986 publication of the first edition of Manipulating the Mouse Embryo: A Laboratory Manual, the third edition of this essential laboratory resource has now been completely reorganized, rewritten, and updated by a new cast of authors. The result is a compilation of new, cutting-edge protocols that include embryonic stem cell production and genetic manipulation, mouse chimeras, mouse cloning, assisted reproduction strategies (including intracytoplasmic sperm injection and in vitro fertilization), whole embryo culture systems, electroporation, embryo and gamete cryopreservation and rederivation, and gene expression, as well as more extensive background information on the use of these techniques. The "gold standard" techniques for applying recombinant DNA technology to investigations of mammalian embryonic development included in the first two editions of this book are also updated and recast, as is the summary of the current state of understanding of mouse development at the molecular level. This book is the premier authoritative and comprehensive source of technical and theoretical guidance for mouse developmental biologists and geneticists and is an essential resource for newcomers to these fields.

Customer Reviews:

The New Testament?.......2004-01-20

A definitive summary of mouse development and simple, concise proven protocols. This is the best publication there is for this kind of work. It's much better than the 2nd, ed. I wish it had more of a troubleshooting focus, but I guess if you are in this line of work, you should be able to figure out problems yourself, or query the tg list.... I like how there are alternative strategies mentioned depending on how your lab is equiped (or not).

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

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Enchanting
How to grow old disgracefully
Memorable characters
A MUST READ
"To survive is to win."

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Marina Lewycka
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0143036742

Book Description

“An amusing, astonishing debut . . . about how a family learns to let go of the past and live and love in the present.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With this wise, tender, and deeply funny novel, Marina Lewycka takes her place alongside Zadie Smith and Monica Ali as a writer who can capture the unchanging verities of family. When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant announces his intention to remarry, his daughters must set aside their longtime feud to thwart him. For their father's intended is a voluptuous old-country gold digger with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an appetite for the good life of the West. As the hostilities mount and family secrets spill out, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian combines sex, bitchiness, wit, and genuine warmth in its celebration of the pleasure of growing old disgracefully.

“A charming comedy of eros... A ride that, despite the bumps and curves in the road, never feels anything less than jaunty.” —Los Angeles Times
“Lewycka is a writer with a fundamentally optimistic vision of the future and a healthy curiosity about the past.” —Chicago Tribune
“Charming, poignantly funny.” —The Washington Post Book World

Customer Reviews:

Enchanting.......2007-10-02

I found this book enchanting and different. It's not just about a foolish old man who thinks he has found love with a calculating much younger woman from the Ukraine; but about two sisters who have been estranged since their mother died. They learn to understand and like each other through their efforts to help their father (who doesn't often appreciate their efforts) escape from the ridiculous relationship.

I've known several much younger people who have been silly enough to get themselves in relationships similar to the father's. You don't have to be old or crazy to want "love".

How to grow old disgracefully.......2007-09-22

Lewycka, who has written several nonfiction books about senior citizens' issues, has written a lyrical and engaging novel about growing old disgracefully and the bonds of sisterhood.

This book, first and foremost, is hilarious. There are dozens of scenes that made me laugh out loud. First are the relationship between Nadezhda's father, Nikolai, and his tarty Ukrainian bride, Valentina. Valentina is a scene stealer. She is gruff and greedy, venal and violent. She is a larger than life character, and the white whale to the sisters' Ahab. Nikolai himself is given to melodrama and long winded speeches about tractors and engineering. Vera, Nadya's big sister, also provides a great deal of comic relief, with her jaundiced and acerbic takes on the situation with Valentina and her father. It is a bit like reading a toned down version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".

Lewycka also explores sibling rivalry and the relationships of estranged siblings. At the beginning of the story, Nadezhda and Vera are fighting like cats and dogs. Every encounter ends in harsh words and slammed phones. As the book progresses, the sisters steadily get closer, having been united by the common desire to get Valentina deported. As Vera and Nadezhda talk more and more, they get closer. Nadezhda finds out why her sister is the way she is, and ultimately becomes close to Vera. By the end of the book, they are cordial and even a little warm towards each other. Lewycka masterfully handles this relationship, never letting it become cloying or saccharine. It is a touching undercurrent to the outlandish events that take center stage.

Finally, Lewycka explores the differences in first and second generation immigrants. Nikolai and Vera are first generation Ukrainian immigrants, while Nadezhda is firmly British in her outlook. The sisters have had markedly different childhoods. Vera endured life in a camp during World War II, while Nadezhda was born in the U.K. It is this difference that causes the chasm between the sisters. But, Lewycka does a good job of showing how Nadezhda slowly but surely begins to understand her sister's life and her outlook on life. We also get to hear the story of Nikolai and Ludmilla, the womens' parents. Their lives in the Ukraine, through pre-Stalin days and the horrors of the purges are explored in depth. It speaks to Lewycka's skill as a writer that these interludes perfectly fit into the narrative and help the reader understand Nikolai's motivations.

A great book for someone looking to laugh and learn about immigrants.

Memorable characters.......2007-09-10

This is the story of an old Ukrainian man who decides to get married to a much younger Ukrainian divorcee and the struggle of his daughters to get their father back. This was a funny book (although not knee slapping funny) with memorable characters. The readers are told the story of family history and the father's description of the developments in tractors from the agricultural to the industrial economy. The family history presented to the reader in installments, provides insight and depth to the characters. And the information about the development of tractors helps the reader to understand and appreciate the differences between the characters.

A MUST READ.......2007-09-08

An amazing novel. Starts off light and fun but really has a deep message. She is a great author and it's one of those novels you just don't want to put down. The story is captivating and her writing style is genius! I just picked it up for a quick fun read and now it's one of my favorites! A must read!

"To survive is to win.".......2007-08-31

In this unusual novel set in the English countryside, Nadia narrates the story of her father, an 84-year old Ukrainian engineer who is about to marry 36-year old Valentina, also a Ukrainian. The old man is crazy in love with the busty blonde, while she only has eyes for English citizenship papers. Nadia and her estranged sister Vera frantically try to help their confused, lonely father get out of this marriage to his cruel and promiscuous bride, while he doggedly writes his magnum opus, a history of tractors, in Ukrainian.

Valentina is a brutish cow of a woman who has men lining up for her attentions; she quickly makes Pappa's life unbearable. Nadia, ten years younger than her sister, grew up knowing nothing of their parents' lives in Ukraine; little by little she gets Vera to talk about what her parents - and she - went through under Russian and German rule. These reminiscences were so horrific, so pitiable, I read with tears in my eyes, yet I was glad to see light shed on this grim chapter of history.

This is a quick read, an odd combination of wry family humor and grand tragedy; I would not call it a comedy by any means. Recommended for those who like stories about families whose members don't always see eye-to-eye, and for those who would like to learn about the Ukrainian experience in the 20th century.

Average customer rating:

Deffinitely a beginner book
Wretched
Great coursebook, but heavy for the beginner
A huge over written mass of book
Very confusing and technical

C# How to Program
Harvey M. Deitel , Paul J. Dietel , Jeffrey A. Listfield , Tem R. Nieto , Cheryl H. Yaeger , and Marina Zlatkina
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0130622214

Customer Reviews:

Deffinitely a beginner book.......2007-03-29

This book is solidly aimed at beginners. It almost as if it's written for a reasonably intelligent person who somehow hasn't had much computer experience. These "How to Program" books in their previous editions for C and C++ were always held up as a sort of gold standard for learning a programming language. That is not the case with this C# edition.

The book is verbose to a fault. I've read several intro C# books now, and this is easily the worst one. For all it's pages, How to Program, offers so little to the reader. Yes it covers all the basic information you need to know, but it's so verbose you can't help but feel like the author is wasting your time as you read it.

To give you examples, most books of this sort assume the reader knows what a computer and the internet are, and at least can name a few programming languages. Other books will give you maybe a few pages of introduction to the history of C# and .NET and make comparisons to other common languages. How to Program starts with a 35 page chapter explaining computers, how they work, the internet, and a history of programming leading up to C#.

From there, every chapter begins with a smattering of historical quotes that have the most tenuous relationship to the material being presented in the chapter. Every basic feature is then covered in agonizing detail in a writing style capable of putting Bam Margera into a coma.

Your money and time would be much better spent on any of the following 5 books, Programing C# (O'reilly), Learning C# 2005 (O'reilly), Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2005: The Language, Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Step by Step, or C# for Dummies (I'm not kidding). Get any of those 5 books and Programming .NET Components (O'reilly), and you will learn much more in fewer pages and have a much greater grasp of working with C# and .NET.

Wretched.......2006-04-20

The text and examples in this book are too bogged-down in Visual Studio-isms for it to be a good introductory programming text, but the material is also too basic for experienced programmers.

The layout is terrible. Practically every third word is bolded, and the prose is interrupted by frequent "asides" that are inserted in the middle of paragraphs and stretch across entire pages. I found one page with *eight* asides on it! If the information was vital enough to be included, it should be integrated with the rest of the text; if it's truly optional/additional info, it should have been placed in the margins where it wouldn't interrupt the flow of the text upon a first reading. I find this book nearly impossible to actually read because of these very poor design decisions.

The few code examples I've tried to run from the book do not compile as printed. I suspect they were copied-and-pasted out of Visual Studio with vital parts omitted. This is an inexcusable oversight for a book aimed at beginners.

There is a second edition of this book out now. I would seriously recommend casting a critical eye on it, after all the problems with the first edition.

I have a few Deitel books that I like a great deal, so this book was a real letdown in every way. Please avoid if you value your sanity.

Great coursebook, but heavy for the beginner.......2005-12-22

Like a few others said, this book is very verbose at 1500 pages, but it's overkill for most people. I like it because it's got lots of coverage on many areas, but the examples are too big and too many and take from showing the meaty theory around each chapters objectives. I still give it 4 stars because others who have looked it over told me it's not too bad

A huge over written mass of book.......2005-12-19

I've been reading technical books for 25 years and this book was recommended to me by someone else - what a let down. First, way too verbose on every subject. I have never seen a book with so much miscellaneous and distracting stuff crammed into one page. The book is 1500 pages of which half don't need to be there. This might work in a class room, but a huge mistake for individual learning. They call there code samples live code, but I call it filling the pages. It's better to explain concepts with simple examples first, then build on them, and this book fails miserably. Many times, only a 2-3 paragraphs explains something, then it goes on for 10 pages dissecting samples. Then briefly concludes before whisking to the next long sample. It's quite the jumble. Also, open any page in this book and you will see 20 bold highlighting of keywords that is very distracting. Also, the pages are thin and have a glare that I find annoying.

The authors appear very knowledge and I'm sure they mean well, but the book is a labor of over analyzing. It's need to be merged with a "dummies" approach to make it more balanced.

I found the subject of basic classes poorly covered in only one brief chapter, and I still haven't found how to make arrays of classes. Also, the index seems to be weak.

However, the breadth of the book is nice if you need to study a few esoteric areas such at TCP/IP, and I have to admit that the chapter on data structures and collections seems to be superb. I would only buy the book for a few of the chapters, but if your trying to learn from the ground up, you will doubt your confidence to learn programming.

Very confusing and technical.......2005-09-16

This book may have some examples that work but the whole context is utterly confusing. I have it because it's what I'm using for my OOP programming class and I wish they didn't use it! It gets me so frustrated just going through it that I was asking the teacher if I should drop programming altogether. In reading another post, I see that a University teacher wrote that they didn't like this book as the students start blaming themselves for not understanding the concepts when it's really the books fault. I was guilty of feeling that way but in talking with other classmates and in reading these reviews from BEGINNERS, this book is definitely not worth it! If you are an experienced C++ or Java programmer you will probably understand the book pretty well as there are experienced people posting their thoughts but for the beginner it's a no no! I'm in a beginner class and it's way too confusing and frustrating!

Average customer rating:

Absolute "must have" for the pre-op WLS patient. Very thorough. It is my WLS bible
Great Book
Covering All the Bases
WLS for Dummies
Wonderful source of info

Weight Loss Surgery For Dummies
Marina S. Kurian , Barbara Thompson , and Brian K. Davidson
Manufacturer: For Dummies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

ASIN: 0764584472

Book Description

Get the scoop on weight loss surgery

Your authoritative guide to weight loss surgery — before, during, and after

Considering weight loss surgery? This compassionate guide helps you determine whether you qualify and gives you the scoop on selecting the best center and surgical team, understanding today's different procedures, and achieving the best results. You also get tips on eating properly post-op and preparing appetizing meals, as well as easing back into your day-to-day life.

Discover how to

Evaluate your surgical options
Understand the risks
Prepare for surgery
Handle post-op challenges
Find sources of support

Customer Reviews:

Absolute "must have" for the pre-op WLS patient. Very thorough. It is my WLS bible.......2007-09-25

This is the gotta have book for Weight loss surgery, it is my bible. You read this and you will have all you need to know. Read it before you go to the nutritionist and the pysh consult. It will give you comeplete understanding to know what to expect and what to do. It made me feel more comfortable about my decision to get Gastris Bypass surgery.

Great Book.......2007-09-20

This book was so informative. It walks you through every step of the process, from deciding which surgeon and procedure to the actual surgery to recovering and going home. There are even recipes and pages what you can expect to be able to eat at different stages of the recovery. Like all of the "Dummy" books, it is in regular every day English, not a lot of technical words. I took this book to a support group meeting the other day and one lady came up and said "Isn't that a great book". So if you are considering the surgery, I would highly recommend this book.

Covering All the Bases.......2007-08-22

Of all the books I've read regarding WLS, this is, by far, the most comprehensive. It covers everything from making the decision and dealing with insurance companies to post-op healing and the life-long impact surgery has.

I can't speak highly enough about this book and would suggest it for anyone having (or considering) bariatric surgery.

WLS for Dummies.......2007-08-22

I LOVE this book. I have referred to this book more than any book I have ever owned! It was my go to book before surgery, and I refer to it often since my surgery March 2007. This book covers everything! I highly recommend this for anyone considering surgery, or has had the surgery.

Wonderful source of info.......2007-08-17

While I was researching WLS, thank goodness I found this book. A wonderful source of info from beginning to end.

Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy, 2nd Edition

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Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy, 2nd Edition
J. Barkley, Jr. Rosser , and Marina V. Rosser
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262681536

Book Description

This International Student Edition is not for sale in the U.S. and Canada

This second edition of an innovative undergraduate text offers an approach to understanding different economic systems that reflects both recent transformations in the world economy and recent changes in the field of Comparative Economic Systems. The traditional way of teaching comparative economics, with its reliance on relatively simple dichotomies (private vs. state, planning vs. market) does not take into consideration the many variants and mixtures of economic systems that exist in the real world. The Rossers' introduction in the first edition of the concept of the "new traditional economy"--the effort by a developing country to embed a modern economic system into a traditional culture, usually religious--presented a new way to look at developing economies. Their innovative examination of Iran and its effort to develop a "revolutionary Islamic economy" as an alternative to market capitalism illustrates the use of this new tool in comparative economics.

After a four-chapter theoretical and historical overview, the book focuses on fifteen country studies, organized by economic system. The chapters on advanced market capitalism examine the economies of the United States (a chapter new to this edition) Japan, France, Sweden, and Germany. The chapters examining transition in former socialist economies discuss Russia, the former Soviet Republics, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia (including expanded treatment of the most successful transition economy, that of Slovenia), and China. The chapters in the final section of the book discuss "alternative paths" taken by the developing economies of Iran, India (its complex mix of socialism, capitalism, and tradition is examined in a chapter new to this edition), Mexico, and South and North Korea. The book concludes with a look at future trends that will continue to transform the world economy.

The Dragon Empress: Life and Times of Tz'U-Hsi, 1835-1908, Empress Dowager of China

Average customer rating:

Same old stereotypes and lies.....
Very informative
Superbly written, very perceptive.

The Dragon Empress: Life and Times of Tz'U-Hsi, 1835-1908, Empress Dowager of China
Marina Warner
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Customer Reviews:

Same old stereotypes and lies............1999-07-29

Any book which purports to use information having been supplied by the well known liar Sir Edmund Backhouse, is just the same old rehash of lying and deceit that so called "China scholars" have used for far too long. There is nothing new here to shed new light to an old mistake. Tzu Hsi was not the trerrible ogre that both Western and Eastern scholars to have been. Do we really need to keep up with the relentless stream of Tzu Shi bashing? If you want the same ill informed nonsense please read this book but if you want to learn something new you would do well to look elsewhere.

Very informative.......1999-06-09

I was doing my report my Tz'u Hsi and this book has a lot of information, probably more information than people need. Half of the time, it tells about war and China's situation at the time instead of Tz'u Hsi herself. For me I'm very interested in Chinese history and this book really satiated my thirst for it. This book can be a bit boring at times, but for the most part, it's interesting. It gives people an insight about chinese traditions and of course, the empress dowager herself. I recommend reading it!

Superbly written, very perceptive........1999-02-12

The best-written and most accurate biography of the Empress-dowager Tz'u-hsi. Although Marina Warner never studied Chinese, her account almost always tallies with the vernacular sources. She offers a shrewd, plausible and perceptive analysis of Tz'u-hsi's character. Her appraisal of the period has more insight and balance than Sterling Seagrave's jaundiced politically correct approach. An excellent introduction to the late Ch'ing dynasty.

A Teaching Guide to the Outsiders (Discovering Literature)

Average customer rating:

A great teaching resource
Great resource!
Excellent Resource!

A Teaching Guide to the Outsiders (Discovering Literature)
Jeanette Machoian
Manufacturer: Garlic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0931993938

Book Description

Teaching Guide designed to develop an appreciation for literature and to improve reading skills, exploring critique and literature elements.

Customer Reviews:

A great teaching resource.......2007-03-08

This book helped my immensely when I taught The Outsiders in middle school.

Great resource!.......2006-06-27

This teaching guide includes vocabulary for each section and a variety of graphic organizers (organizers for sequencing,character webs, compare/contrast, etc.). These activities help students go beyond comprehension level activities. This is good because the quizzes provided tend to focus on knowledge level questions. It is good to have the other activities to balance it out.

Excellent Resource!.......2000-04-05

I was delighted with the contents of this teaching guide. The skills pages, tests, and literay connections are well-written and user-friendly. The materials are rich in quality and very useful for classroom purposes. Each chapter includes Student Directives that can be used in a variety of ways, Vocubulary to anticpate along the reading as well as chapter summaries. There are pages of Character Development, Figurative Language, Plot Development and the springboard for many writing topics.

How to Do Things with Words: Second Edition (William James Lectures)

Average customer rating:

DEEDS AND NOT WORDS ALONE
Ehhh...
The Importance of Being Earnest to Austin's S. A. Theory
A Brisk tour through Speech Act Theory
a revolutionnary book

How to Do Things with Words: Second Edition (William James Lectures)
J. L. Austin
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674411528

Book Description

John L. Austin was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century. The William James Lectures presented Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts on a wide variety of philosophical problems. These talks became the classic How to Do Things with Words.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary. Students will find the new text clearer, and, at the same time, more faithful to the actual lectures. An appendix contains literal transcriptions of a number of marginal notes made by Austin but not included in the text. Comparison of the text with these annotations provides new dimensions to the study of Austin's work.

Customer Reviews:

DEEDS AND NOT WORDS ALONE.......2006-09-24

The ancient Greeks constantly harped on the contrast between words and actions, provoking Housman's parody in his Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
`Oh! I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw,
And that in deed and not in word alone.'
It seems a simple and basic distinction, but when one thinks about it it's not so simple as it looks. If I say `John promises to do that' I am simply reporting John's action of promising; but if I say `I promise to do that' I am actually doing the promising by saying so. Certain forms of words are actions as well, and not just in the trivial sense that to say something is to perform the act of saying something. Moreover, forms of words that seem very similar in meaning turn out not to behave in identical ways. `Apologise' behaves much like `promise', in the sense that when I say `I apologise for my behaviour' I am performing the act of apologising. However when I say `I am sorry for my behaviour' I may or may not be apologising - I may be reporting my feeling of sorrow, as if I had said `I am sad about my behaviour.'

The general idea is very easy to grasp, but the amount of variety in the ordinary expressions we use can seem mind-boggling. What's the story on `bequeath' for instance? If I say in my will `I bequeath you 1 million $' and if I have 1 million $ to bequeath you then I am performing the act of bequeathing by saying so. However if I don't have it I am bequeathing you nothing , whatever I say. Similarly, if I say `I anoint you Archbishop of Peoria' simply saying so doesn't make you that. In the first place I need the authority to perform this act, in the second place I need something to anoint you with, and in the third place you need to be willing to be so anointed. However even if all these conditions are present I will still not have anointed you Archbishop unless I also say so. It all goes on and on. If I am your commanding officer and I say `I reprimand you' I am thereby carrying out the act of reprimanding. However if I say `I insult you' and leave it at that I have done no insulting. Again, if one says `In saying that he made a mistake' this does not mean that the person's act consisted of something called `making a mistake'. And so on.

The series of twelve lectures in this book hauls us through any amount of fine and subtle detail about these so-called `performative utterances'. Normally the best way to read a book is to start at the beginning, but that's not what I'd recommend here. Once you have the general idea (even from this short review) I'd say start at the last lecture, go on to the second-last, and only then go back to the start. If you plough through it starting at page 1 it seems a bit of a catalogue of instances, almost as if linguistic philosophy is reduced to sweeping up after some majestic cavalcade of lexicography has passed by. Austin is always Austin of course, not just lucid and brilliant but witty too - there is one of his inimitable mixed metaphors somewhere, something about letting cards out of the bag or putting cats on the table. However after a while one yearns for a top-down perspective, for generalisation. That comes in the final two chapters. The most important statement in the book is in chapter XI, where he says that `...what we have to study is not the sentence but the issuing of an utterance in a speech situation.' That may not be Austin's most felicitous expression, at least not when quoted out of context, but it enshrines his basic argument, one that holes much ordinary linguistic philosophy below the water-line, that verbal expressions on their own do not enable us to understand what is said. Indeed I wish he had gone further in pointing out that non-verbal factors, such as tone of voice or facial expression, can cast doubt on what the verbal expression is ostensibly saying. I could, for example, say `Oh I do apologise' in such a manner as to make it very clear that I mean nothing of the kind.

In the last chapter Austin produces a short set of categories of expression in an attempt to classify the mass of detail in the foregoing chapters. He does not profess to think them anything but provisional, and the terms he coins are monstrosities - behabitives, expositives, verdictives, exercitives and commissives. Be not afraid. He explains them with all his characteristic clarity, and when you have seen the outlines of the wood you can go back to the beginning and inspect the trees individually. As always, Austin is a spoiler, and rightly so. He trains his guns on the illegitimate tyranny of `true and false' that has bedevilled so much philosophical thinking, saying that these terms constitute `a dimension of assessment' and do not stand in some supposedly unique relationship to `facts'. This is only a review, and if you want to know how he means that you have to read him for himself. For me, Austin's way of putting things is enjoyable and his thinking is liberating to the mind. Much philosophy is, in another of his great expressions, barking up the wrong gum tree, and I am only too grateful that Austin lived long enough to save us from the same fate.

Ehhh..........2004-06-05

As an avid newcomer to the rich and variegated world of contemporary philosophy, I am digesting all the "essential" works I can lay my hands on, and gathered that this one was such. However, once I was done with it I'm afraid I was just glad it was relatively short.

To begin with, I found Austin's writing style to be quite staccato; indeed, almost "hard on the eyes." It reads like "legalese" more than anything else I've come across in philosophy so far (it is not hard to adduce possible legal applications inherent in the subject of Performatives, so perhaps should be expected). He navigates through his chosen topic of speciality like a fly or mosquito constantly lighting and alighting on various surfaces in search of a tasty morsel but never quite finding anything to chew on. Instead of using his narrative to draw out actual philosophical *insights*, he spends most of the time on quasi-Aristotelian cataloguing of genus and differentia, while making very little of it in the process. I am really pretty puzzled by those other reviewers who speak of Austin's "argument" on Performatives: the structure of his "argument," as such, is broadly elliptical: he seems to come to some tentative conclusions every so often, then revises them again, and so on and so on such that at the end of the book I just wondered what, precisely, was said overall.

The main accomplishment, really, is in coming up with some putatively cardinal categories of illocutionary acts, such as "exercitive," "verdictive," "behabitive," etc. This seems fair enough, but for a far more elegant as well as penetrating analysis of the varieties of speech acts, I would point the interested reader instead to Searle's essay "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts," which is available in his _Expression and Meaning._ Put to very interesting use there is Searle's concept of illocutionary "point," or "direction of force;" that is, either "word-to-world" or "world-to-word." I was thinking based on Austin's work that performatives was just a dry subject, but Searle's "Taxonomy..." is, on the contrary, very interesting reading and should, I believe, be thought to have superseded this one in quality. Austin's treatise, however, is still justly celebrated at least as the first major work, ever, on the subject.

The Importance of Being Earnest to Austin's S. A. Theory.......2003-07-02

While I commend J.L. Austin's attempt in How to Do Things With Words to liberate language from the metaphysical pretensions that the logical positivists imposed upon it by investing it with a certain phenomenological value, i.e., via the notion of "the speech act," I cannot help but wonder if Austin's reevaluation of the nature of language carries with it certain puzzling implications, particularly with regard to speaker, she who commits the speech act.

Austin's argument concerning the characteristics of a performative utterance are informed by a specific assumption concerning the origin and evolution of language: to wit, that language in its primitive stage was simply a collection of one-word utterances that are inherently ambiguous in terms of their individual senses. Thus, in order to refine the sense of these one-word utterances, a whole array of supplementary parts of speech evolved, and language became consequently more complex and sophisticated (71). In Austin's nomenclature, the force of a given one-word utterance was too diffuse vis-à-vis the context in which it is uttered and thus quite ambiguous from the addressee's position. In other words, a primitive one-word utterance does not provide the addressee any certainty about how she is to construe it. Therefore, the increasingly sophisticated iterations of language indicate an ongoing effort to refine the sense of an utterance, to give the force of the utterance a more specific and unambiguous valence.

However, Austin also maintains that an unintended consequence of this evolution of language is that it reaches a point where it becomes too sophisticated and thereby re-introduces the very uncertainty it was originally intended to mitigate. He claims that the various parts of speech, and the words that comprise them "lend themselves to equivocation and inadequate discrimination; and moreover, we use them for other purposes, e.g., insinuation," and thus concludes that "the trouble about all these devices has been principally their vagueness of meaning and uncertainty of sure reception" (76). In other words, there is a definite yet non-localizable threshold that an utterance must not cross if it is to remain teleologically oriented toward the clarity and accurate construal on the part of the addressee.

The speech act therefore always navigates between the Scylla and Charybdis of inadequately directed signifying force resulting from the primitiveness of the utterance on one hand, and the over-complexity of the utterance on the other. As a result, the clarity of a given utterance depends almost exclusively on the intention of the speaker; she must in some way remain cognizant of the above-mentioned threshold and therefore deploy the force of her utterance in a way that avoids being too diffuse or unmanageably polyvalent. This is not to claim, however, that the clarity of a given utterance is reducible to some Aristotelian mean; rather the clarity of an utterance depends on how well it reflects the earnestness or sincerity of the speaker. This notion of the speaker's earnestness is deduced from the circumstances surrounding the utterance, as well as the utterance's delivery, e.g., the enveloping context, the speaker's particular emphases, diction and enunciation, etc. The addressee thereby "triangulates" the speaker's specific intention through interpreting the above-mentioned features of the utterance. In short, it is absolutely essential to Austin's project that the speaker mean what she says.

It appears then that Austin's fundamental supposition is tautological: the addressee deduces/approximates the speaker's degree of sincerity through the amount of sincerity the speaker conveys in her utterance, which in turn reflects ipso facto the speaker's sincerity (as a subjective condition). In short, the speaker is found to be in earnest because she is in earnest. Only an utterance of the utmost sincerity-what Austin terms an "explicit performative"-carries with it the closest thing to a guarantee in terms of a clear and accurate construal. This further implies that clarity of utterance is ultimately an ethical consideration, rather than a linguistic or grammatical one, because the speaker's responsibility to her addressee obliges her to be earnest and therefore quite literal in her expression (see Habermas on this point). Unless of course the context in which the utterance is made is one in which it is assumed, either through mutual agreement or convention, that explicit or pure performatives are not necessarily expected nor pertinent, e.g., a comical monologue, a play, etc.

Thus, while Austin's argument in How to Do Things with Words is elegantly schematic, it nevertheless implies a somewhat simplistically idealized and unitary notion of the speaker's subjectivity. In other words, Austin's claims cannot adequately accommodate instances of insincerity that, while perhaps unanticipated, are not exactly inappropriate-such as ironical observations on an immediate situation-because such self-abrogation of the speaker's sincerity renders the utterance "infelicitous" almost to the point of being diabolically caustic with regard to the addressee's apprehension.

A Brisk tour through Speech Act Theory.......2001-07-13

At many points, J.L. Austin's How to do Things with Words reads more like a linguistic textbook than a philosophy text. Whether you count this as a benifit or a distraction will depend on your disposition (it certainly beats reading Kant), but whatever your views on the subject, the work is a useful introduction to Speech Act Theory. How to do Things with Words examines a part of language that philosophy has traditionaly ignored, what he dubs the performative utterance. There are certain instances in language where to say something is do perform the very act you say, promising being the perinial example. If I say, under ordinary circumstances, "I promise to do x" then I have promised to do x. Using this seemingly magical fact as his starting point, Austin goes reach profound conclusions about the nature of language and philosophy. Though the tasks Austin sets out to accomplish are largely left uncompleted (he himself admits this) the book will give you the grounding you need to pursue other works in the field, such as those of Searle or Grice. Happy reading!

a revolutionnary book.......2000-05-18

The mysterious force of language revealed by Austin is one of the most important discoveries in the modern language theories.

Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science)

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Only book which consolidates Audio coding & Standards
Not satisfying for a nerd like myself...
Touching the core mechanisms underlying digital audio codec.
First comprehensible book on the topic

Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science)
Marina Bosi , and Richard E. Goldberg
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1402073577

Book Description

Foreword by Leonardo Chiariglione.
The topic of digital audio coding is of interest to a wide audience, including engineering and industrial professionals working in telecommunications, hardware design, music, and software product development.
Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards provides a detailed introduction to the methods, implementations, and official standards of state-of-the-art audio coding technology. In the book, the theory and implementation of each of the basic coder building blocks is addressed. The building blocks are then fit together into a full coder and the reader is shown how to judge the performance of such a coder. Finally, the authors discuss the features, choices, and performance of the main state-of-the-art coders defined in the ISO/IEC MPEG and HDTV standards and in commercial use today.
The ultimate goal of this book is to present the reader with a solid enough understanding of the major issues in the theory and implementation of perceptual audio coders that they are able to build their own simple audio codec. There is no other source available where a non-professional has access to the true secrets of audio coding.
Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards is based on a graduate course at Stanford University going into its 7th year. The subject material has been fine-tuned through this process to be accessible to readers of vastly differing backgrounds, levels of preparation, and interests. Exercises that apply the concepts covered are included at the end of each chapter.

Customer Reviews:

Only book which consolidates Audio coding & Standards.......2004-06-22

This book describes the basic details and the Signal Processing behind the Audio compression. It also describes PQMF and MDCT in continuation which is rare in books. Almost all the standard audio codecs are described with comparisons. I am delighted to read the book. At least my search end with this book on this topic. After getting this book, I need not look into IEEE & AES papers. For Audio engineers working on this domain should read this book to have a complete picture and overview of the technology and the domain.

Not satisfying for a nerd like myself..........2004-02-24

The book gives a good review of the historical development of audio coding standards with emphasis on ISO. Generally speaking it is well written, but the technical details as well as theoretical aspects are frankly, quite superficial; therefore it is not satisfying for a (proud) nerd like myself. If one's goal is to implement a program to handle the MP3 bitstream, for instance, then the book does not help. If one's goal is to design a new filter bank to improve the MP3 coder, then the book does not help either. However, it is recommended for beginners to get a flavor of the audio coding field.

Touching the core mechanisms underlying digital audio codec........2004-01-18

For a long time in my school life and now as a audio engineer I look forward to this kind of book.
MPEG Audio or AC3 audio standard is rather simple, but the syntax and decoding procedures imply considerably complex algorithms have been included there.
This book explains related theorys - for example filterbanks in detail, psychoacoustics, entropy coding, etc - concretely and expertly. She(Bosi) was one of the leading members in making MPEG Audio Standards.
Strongly recommendable!

First comprehensible book on the topic.......2003-03-14

This is a 'reference' book for anyone interested in how modern perceptual audio coders work. It is very well written, and complete.

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