Customer Reviews:
My Kinda Street Maxwell Street is..........2005-11-01
Ira Berkow's Maxwell Street,about Chicago's 'Jewish Bazaar' and the famous and not so famous characters that spent time there has to be one of the handful of
really special books ever written;pound for pound or otherwise.
I received a copy of it for a graduation present and continually reread Berkow's interviews and stories.Chicago is a city that doesn't make too many mistakes,but the sad dismantelling of Maxwell Street over the past century was a biggie.Rest in Peace.
great information on jewish people rising from maxwell st.......1998-07-03
very interesting stories on everybody from paul muni to adm. hyman rickover. All from maxwell st. Probably only a chicagoan can appreciate these entertaining stories on the famous and not so famous
Book Description
The Mediterranean trade in luxury goods from the East made a strong and lasting impression on Italian artistic taste and production during the early Renaissance. This opulently illustrated book describes and illustrates the fascinating ways that imported art objects inspired improvements and new variety in Italian decorative arts. From Italian textiles featuring Islamic and Asian motifs to ceramics and glassware that reflected Syrian techniques and ornamental concepts, this book gives an extraordinary view of the influence of imported Oriental goods in Italy over three crucial centuries of artistic development.
Rosamond Mack traces Italy's emerging decorative arts tradition as she discusses textiles, ceramics, glass, bookbinding, and metalwork; she also considers how Italian painting reflects trans-Mediterranean trade and travel. Painters represented carpets and ceramics from the East in their works, as well as textiles with bands of writing replicating or suggesting Arabic script, negotiating cultural differences in their borrowings. These paintings show how Islamic motifs were absorbed into Christian contexts.
Beginning in the 1300s and 1400s, the works of Italian craftsmen inspired by luxury goods from Islamic and Asian countries gradually began to compete with those brought to Europe in huge quantities on Italian merchant ships. Yet even after their own versions surpassed the quality of some of the imported goods, Italians continued to collect, imitate, and adapt objects from the Ottoman empire and China. As Mack discusses these important influences, she provides useful summaries of the history of Renaissance decorative arts and presents a balanced and carefully researched view of the controversial topic of East-West artistic exchange.
This uniquely comprehensive study offers an intriguing look at the effects of exchange in Renaissance material culture, shedding new light on the development of the Italian Renaissance as a whole. No other source provides so rich and inclusive a synthesis of the period's decorative arts.
Customer Reviews:
Perfect Condition and Great Price.......2007-01-10
It came brand new, in perfect condition and it was a nice discount!
INFLUENCE OF ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.......2006-02-25
To whom visit Italy, Venice is different of other important art centers , like Rome or Firenze . The Oriental influence in the
architecture remains as first impression.Screnning windows in the lunette above Porta Sant'Alippio , ,the grills on Saint Mark, the facades of the Doge's Palace.But,also, in the painting , and general decorative arts the islamic and oriental influence is visible. Venise was the gateway of the Orient.As
written in the Introduction of this excellent book , it was not necessary to travel to the bazaars of Damascus to acquire merchandise,because it could be found in Venice . The book is a complete study of this commerce ,between 14th and 17 th centuries ,and its influence in the life of Venice - including
the new class of designers , imitating silks , ceramics , glasses , and other kind of products.This book describes a very
interesting connection , not quite found in other works - the
influence of Islamic civilization in the Italian Renaisance.
Customer Reviews:
Boom or Bust an indepth look at how the FX works........2005-08-02
About the time of the Gulf War, International Markets had been hoping the U.S financial house would put their house in order. International Markets wanted more investing, savings and growth; instead, U.S markets became heavy in consumer debt. Interest, taxes, and inflation were at high levels. Foreign investment began seized up large chunks of real estate hoping for inflation too drive up price and increase their U.S equities. The 80s housing boom would be curtailed by rising interest rates but maintain a stead climb for the next 25 years. Real Estate would seem invincible until maximum debt levels could not be exceeded.
Corporate Investment enticed foreign investors to buy U.S companies based on location value and settling for lower levels of production. However, the corporation investors would not be expected to maintain this pattern. Investor would buy U.S companies and transfer labor forces overseas taking advantage of lower labor costs and high profit margins.
Deflation. What would happen, if the housing prices deflate? Cheap money would be repaid by expensive money and for this reason, it may be better to cut loses, and move the money into a foreign currency. Perhaps, the Germany currency would be the refuge to preserve value. Investors will be looking for currencies in countries where economic growth is high, inflation low, and real interest rates are high. Investors always have a safe habor to retreat too. Once the Foreign exchange starts moving in a particular way, it is unlikely to reverse, just like big ships turn slowly. The shifting of money between countries is linked to economic performance.
In 1984, the dollar reached new highs, many consider it overvalued, some were watching for a sell-off. Reagan stated, he would not intervene. The decline of the dollar was agreed upon in "The Plaza agreement", as follows, "further orderly appreciation of the main non-dollar currencies against the dollar is desireable." Between 1985-87 the dollar fell 50% meaning the buying power of the U.S citizen was cut in half.
Capital flows. There is only one hugh pot of international money. Capital flows shift assets from one country to another and these shifts affect the currency value or the exchange rate. Foreign exchange is needed for liquidity. Individual trader make and lose money from Foreign exchange transactions, however, corporations use the foreign exchange for liquidity. Corporations may be required to make purchases in dollars, so they exchange local currency for dollars.
Hedging allows the company to lock a certain exchange rate in the future for a fix amount of money. Banks offer these credit rate forwards to clients. Banks actively try to bet they can beat the averages extended for the credit forward rate. Banks do this by buying and selling currencies on the foreign exchange and profiting off a marginal spread.
In 1991, the U.S recession was ending, Europe economy was slowing down, the dollar was sharply rising, relative interest rates were thought to be shifting to the West, dollar dominated assets were becoming attractive, and capital began pouring in. U.S commodities prices, bonds, and securities were directly affected by foreign investment. This massive international pool of money flowed from one investment vehicle to another. Large blocks of commerical and private real estate where wholly or partially owned by the British, Dutch, Canadian, and Japanese countries. U.S manufacturing depending heavily on investment from overseas.
U.S imports are paid in dollars. When the foreign exchange rate favors imports (when their is a strong domestic currency), lower import costs will soon be pass along to the consumer, in terms of cheaper products. For example, an American importer buying Japanese goods must trade dollars for yen in order to pay for those goods. Likewise, a German buying American goods must sell deutsche marks and buy dollars in order to pay his invoice with U.S currency. When the exchange rate goes against a company, it must lower costs, lower its profit margin, and seek new avenues to export goods.
The foreign exchange market is a free market in the purest sense. It is not answerable to a higher authority; it is composed of 200,000 active traders; it has millions of global investors; it has no restrictions on this market; it has no international authority acting as a governing authority; it is consider one of the most stablizing factos in the world monetary system.
Dated and not ability oriented.......2005-06-04
I tend to overlook the age of books before purchasing them, and this is yet another one of those follies. Aside from that, this book is an interesting read, though more personalized and biographical. I would pick this book up if you want to maybe gleam some personal concepts and perceptions from an insider, but don't think it's going to help your trading or undestanding too much. There are much better books for that.
Interesting but dated.......2003-10-24
Krieger, I'm going to guess, didn't really know for sure what kind of book he wanted to write so he kind of included a bit of everything, but gave us not enough of anything.
It would have been great if the book had been written in the same style that Jim Cramer's book revealing how he ran his hedge fund was written, lot's of action and description. Krieger includes some of this, like how he'd spend 18 to 20 hours a day in front of a computer and wonder about his life. But he just didn't get in depth enough.
He covers a lot of history, but again, it was not enough if history was what you were looking for. In my case, it was a bit much, I really didn't need to hear so much about the specific names and dates, I wanted more of the individual trading side of his story, what he did and why. How it worked or didn't.
Of course, this book is totally out of date. For that reason, it is actually even more interesting in a way, as the author has no idea how FX trading will advance.
The book itself offers no specific strategies or advice on investing in the FX market, however, I guess that would make sense as when it was written, only pro's or people with a lot of cash could enter this market.
If Krieger were to decide to write a modern work, covering the topic of trading "inside the trillion-dollar world of currency trading" as the cover states, it would be something I'd love to read. I can't recommend this work currently, without the caveat that the reader realize it's limited value as far as trading in today's market. The history, however, is interesting as is the limited view the author gives us as to his trading. Whether the price of the book is worth paying, I'd recommend it only to the reader that is sure of what they are getting.
Great overview!.......2003-04-14
This is a great book. Mr.Krieger gives you the history of how foreign currency trading came about. He also provides you insight into how curreny trading work and more importantly how it fails.
He doesn't give specific strategies on how to trade currencies, but he does introduce vocabulary and resources to help you get started. In that respect the book is out of date. There is no discussion on the internet and how that has changed the face of currency trading forever.
This is a good book, a foreign exchange classic that wouldn't hurt any currency trader if he kept a copy on his shelf.
Amazon.com
It may be foolish to consider Eric Raymond's recent collection of essays, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, the most important computer programming thinking to follow the Internet revolution. But it would be more unfortunate to overlook the implications and long-term benefits of his fastidious description of open-source software development considering the growing dependence businesses and economies have on emerging computer technologies.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar takes its title from an essay Raymond read at the 1997 Linux Kongress. The essay documents Raymond's acquisition, re-creation, and numerous revisions of an e-mail utility known as fetchmail. Raymond engagingly narrates the fetchmail development process while elaborating on the ongoing bazaar development method he uses with the help of volunteer programmers. The essay smartly spares the reader from the technical morass that could easily detract from the text's goal of demonstrating the efficacy of the open-source, or bazaar, method in creating robust, usable software.
Once Raymond has established the components and players necessary for an optimally running open-source model, he sets out to counter the conventional wisdom of private, closed-source software development. Like superbly written code, the author's arguments systematically anticipate their rebuttals. For programmers who "worry that the transition to open source will abolish or devalue their jobs," Raymond adeptly and factually counters that "most developer's salaries don't depend on software sale value." Raymond's uncanny ability to convince is as unrestrained as his capacity for extrapolating upon the promise of open-source development.
In addition to outlining the open-source methodology and its benefits, Raymond also sets out to salvage the hacker moniker from the nefarious connotations typically associated with it in his essay, "A Brief History of Hackerdom" (not surprisingly, he is also the compiler of The New Hacker's Dictionary). Recasting hackerdom in a more positive light may be a heroic undertaking in itself, but considering the Herculean efforts and perfectionist motivations of Raymond and his fellow open-source developers, that light will shine brightly. --Ryan Kuykendall
Book Description
Open source provides the competitive advantage in the Internet Age. According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel. The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy. Already, billions of dollars have been made and lost based on the ideas in this book. Its conclusions will be studied, debated, and implemented for years to come. According to Bob Young, "This is Eric Raymond's great contribution to the success of the open source revolution, to the adoption of Linux-based operating systems, and to the success of open source users and the companies that supply them." The interest in open source software development has grown enormously in the past year. This revised and expanded paperback edition includes new material on open source developments in 1999 and 2000. Raymond's clear and effective writing style accurately describing the benefits of open source software has been key to its success. With major vendors creating acceptance for open source within companies, independent vendors will become the open source story in 2001.
Customer Reviews:
A great start point to everyone who wants to understand the open source world.......2007-01-03
I think it's quite hard to find a book (and also an author) with deep knowledge and clear information related to Open Source software as this one. The logic presented here is useful not only for aspirant hackers but also for everyone interesting in the fascinating Open Source revolution.
Amazing!!!.......2006-07-14
I'm enjoying this book very, very much!!!
I makes you want to adere to an Open Source project. :)
ESR Helps the Intermediate Software Developer Understand His Environment.......2006-02-04
This is my second experience with ESR's books, and I've been very pleased with both of them. Looking at software development from his "anthropologist" perspective, has proven extremely helpful in better understanding my experiences in the industry, and especially in seeing things about people and processes that I didn't realize were there until he'd pointed them out. I don't think this would have made much sense to me if I was new to the software development environment, but now that I've been in it for several years and experienced different people and different groups with their own different processes, ESR's conceptual insights have helped me evaluate my own way of working and thinking. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's been in software development for at least three years... I think your own experience is very important to have behind you when reading ESR's books. This kind of reading led me to the Fred Brook classic "The Mythical Man-Month", which I think is still full of applicable insights (a whopping 30 years after it was first published).
For those who question why open source makes sense.......2006-01-29
Eric Raymond presents a coherent and well-supported case that explains why open source makes commercial sense. Putting aside the "religious" fervor of some of his arguments, the logic on why the open source movement can spawn successful businesses is irrefutable. Read it and you will understand why traditional (proprietary) software business models have become a dying breed. I would rate the book a "5" but for some parts where the text becomes somewhat convoluted and repetitive. Overall, a must-read for anyone involved in software development.
A classic with much to offer, but flawed........2005-12-30
Eric Raymond is widely regarded as the anthropologist of the hacker community. This is Eric Raymond's revised classic with some new material. It is the first comprehensive commentary on the sociology of the Open Source community, and recommended reading for anyone doing business in software development, or running a business that depends on software and the Internet.
Like many of Eric Raymond's colleagues and fellow Geeks, he is clearly a brilliant individual, carried forward by focused effort and imagination. And like many talented people, he is an autodidact; self taught bar some courses in philosophy and mathematics. This is not a criticism. Raymond's career, publications and contribution show amply the intellectual qualities he possesses. However, his lack of training in social, economic and cultural science shows. And, as an insider (he is one of the original tribe of hackers) he is not the best person to make a disinterested commentary on the hacker community.
Great hackers, he tells us, are humble people. A more critical observer would have analyzed the comparative payoffs of styles showing why a loud mouth style - while it might work for some performers or show oriented careers - doesn't pay in this community. This is generally true of communities in which peers are well able to judge the quality of each other's contributions. Faking it doesn't payoff, and looking like you might need to fake it is counter productive. Insofar as the behaviour of chief hackers is humble, we learn more about the social economy of hackerdom than about distinctive individual personalities.
Despite many insights, Eric Raymond is wrong in his principal analysis. Why, he asks, do talented people spend years of unpaid work on projects that benefit others for no pecuniary reward? He characterizes hackers as members of a gift giving community, and attributes too much of the hacker motivation to altruism and idealism.
The central problem is not "why do hackers work for no pay?" Rather, why do people work for money? Or, more fundamentally, why do people work? I take it that readers will agree that we can roughly divide our motives into physiological drives (hunger, thirst, need for shelter, sex) and the "higher" needs (self fulfilment and meaning). After satisfying the needs for food, shelter and companionship why do we continue to work at all? If it is to get status, to get power, to feel good about ourselves and similar, then money beyond basic needs is unnecessary. Onassis once remarked "Without women, all the money in the world is worthless." Some of us work to become wealthy, and we trade that wealth for status, power, respect and admiration, and perhaps we use our wealth to get women, sex and occasionally love. If this is what these motives are for, then even the higher needs are secondary to sex; or, as evolutionary psychologists tell us, are all about reproduction.
Money is a means. If I can earn status, power and respect directly, why waste time with money? Of course, money is fungible. That means it can be traded easily for a great many things; a big house and a luxury car, perhaps. But possessing these is merely another way of obtaining status, power, respect, admiration and sex, if not love.
Why am I writing this review? By my own dispassionate analysis, I am advertising my capacity to say sensible things and I am making a reputation; this is an asset in the social and commercial market place. Amazon might like me for doing this, but they would be mistaken to think that I write reviews out of altruism directed at Amazon; at least not defined in any metaphysical or moral sense. Sociobiologists denote some social instincts "altruism" but these are operational definitions of instincts as Machiavellian as any scheming tactician can be said to possess; in that sense I may be an altruist. Hackers too, for their work is not unlike my book reviews. Hackers trade in an economy that differs not one jot from the money economy, and Eric Raymond, in so far as he supposes it to be a fundamentally different kind of economy, is mistaken.
Likewise the account of hacker commitment to lofty ideals are not any more credible - but also not any less credible - than the mission statements and codes of ethics written by CEOs of major corporations. Among hackers are people as likely to steal code as are others to donate code; to write viruses as to write Fetch Mail. An anarchic disrespect for some of our more widely accepted conventions for protecting property rights is a characteristic of hacker mentality; not one that we should admire. Of course, honourable idealists are found among hackers; Eric Raymond is clearly one of them. Take, for example, the Open Source Initiative that is largely his work. What an outstanding contribution that is! Clearly he is passionate about his beliefs and ideals. But honourable idealists are found among entrepreneurs too, also successful ones, and even among politicians. Let us not delude ourselves about what it is the really motivates us and our fellow travellers.
Amazon.com
Can a human being be reduced to the sum of his or her body's parts? In a curious turnaround, science and industry are making the case that our selves are separate from and even the owners of our flesh and bone, rather than the meat machines 20th-century biologists posited. That this reversal is to their advantage and profit is the theme of Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age.
Authors Lori B. Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin, each intimately involved in the struggle to define the laws and issues of the biotech age, make a strong and clear case against the newfound rights of business interests to harvest our bodies and derive exclusive profit from the resulting products and processes. Though some of their arguments are unconvincing--while it is certainly true that many cultures hold blood and other tissues sacred or at least taboo, such beliefs would seem to pale before, say, a cure for cancer--on the whole, the reader is left with a sense of urgency that harm is being done to an unsuspecting population of health care consumers unknowingly mined for new biological properties and to humanity itself, rightly expecting the same selflessness from the medical community that eradicated smallpox and smashed polio with little to no profit for the principals. Using stories of individuals injured or abused by the increasingly rapacious biotech industry and their own careful analysis of the changing intellectual property laws governing the mess, the authors warn of a dehumanized world unimaginable even a few decades ago. Whether we'll avoid the pitfalls of our new tech or simply cope with the results is a question for history. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
In the age of biotechnology, the body is speaking to us in new ways. Our DNA, blood, and bones — our very being! — have acquired currency in an exceedingly bizarre fashion that we could not have imagined even a decade ago. Valued as both a source of information and the raw material for commercial products, the tissues in a single human being can now attract millions of dollars, and with them new commercial uses for human blood and body tissue. Because of this, the risks --we face both individually and as a society --are massive and should be understood by everyone.
Body parts are useful to researchers and entrepreneurs, insurers and employers, law-enforcement authorities and immigration officials. And they are more easily available than most people suspect. Nearly all of us have blood and tissue on file. Whenever you have a blood test, a biopsy, or surgery, that tissue is potentially available without your consent. Genetic testing is mandatory in many contexts, and our DNA may become our primary identification --the social security number of the future.
Human tissue is crucial to health care, but it has also become a medium for artists who have found ways to sculpt in blood and to plastinate skin. Interior decorators buy human skulls in body boutiques. DNA can even be used to run computers, since its replications provide more memory than the binary code. As the body market expands, people have been dismayed to discover that their eggs have been given to other women without their consent and that scientists and biotech companies are making huge profits by secretly patenting their cell lines and genes.
Andrews and Nelkin illuminate the business of bodies, telling individual stories to show the profound psychological, social, and financial impacts of the commercialization of human tissue. They explore the problems of privacy and social control that arise with the extraction of information from the body, and the provocative questions of profit and property that follow the creation of marketable products from human bodies.
Their findings are shocking, groundbreaking revealing the existence of a $17 billion body business in a true story that reads like science fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Easy Read for the Non-scientist.......2001-05-08
Andrews and Nelkin have done a good job of describing the burgeoning field of biotechnology in layman's terms. Although redundant at times, the authors get right down to the nitty-gritty on issues of tissue marketing, genetic manipulation, assisted reproduction, embryonic research, cloning and other current topics. The book also explores the ethical issues of these rapidly expanding fields, which is particularly relevant in view of the money to be made on lucrative discoveries by researchers and companies who place the bottom line above human rights. This book is recommended for anyone who wants to know about DNA but is afraid to ask.
Who Owns Your Body?.......2001-02-26
If you took a human being and dismantled the body into its elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and the rest, you would get a collection of pure chemicals that used to estimated as worth 89 cents. That's what you get if you take all the information and structure away. Information and structure within our bodies are worth something, and are worth more and more every day as we are able to understand them better. And here's a disturbing thought: someone else may own those particular details on your own particular body. And sell them.
According to Lori Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin, in their troubling book _Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age_ (Crown Publications), that's happening often. It happened to John Moore, who about fifteen years ago was being treated by a specialist for hairy-cell leukemia. As you can imagine, such treatment required a lot of tests on Mr. Moore's body, but it seemed to Moore that there were too many going on, and that the doctor was secretive, and insistent that the blood, and then bone marrow and skin and semen, had to be obtained at his own lab. Moore investigated, and found that he had become patent number 4,438,032. The doctor had found that there were certain unique chemicals in Moore's blood, and the pharmaceutical company Sandoz had reportedly paid $15 million for the right to develop a cell line taken from Moore. The doctor seems to have said that he had found a "gold mine" in Moore, and Moore indeed felt he had been "harvested." So, of course, Moore sued for property theft. In 1990, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of the doctor, saying in effect that Moore didn't own his body parts, but the ones who discovered and patented them did.
Author Andrews is a legal scholar and bioethicist at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Nelkin is a New York University professor of law. They offer many other troubling examples of what we would intuitively regard as people's rights to their own body chemistry being smashed for the profits of gene-hunters and corporations.
Issues of genes are not the only problems covered in this worrisome book, which is an excellent introduction into a world we are just now making for ourselves. It also considers such things as the ownership of bodies which are prepared for artistic display; the Korean Ear Mound in Kyoto, Japan, a collection of body trophies from the Japanese-Korean War four hundred years ago; and the web sales of a firm called Skulls Unlimited. The genetic issues, because of their novelty, are certainly the most enigmatic, and the authors quite rightly raise questions about non-medical issues such as DNA typing of criminals, military people, or minorities to go into a computer whose usage may be unlimited. It is perhaps regrettable that the final chapter of the book, where one would expect intelligent recommendations for solutions, is only seven pages long, and contains more questions than answers. That is, I suppose, only because the book is one of the first calls to look at a new and serious ethical, scientific, and corporate problem. Perhaps we will have answers in the future, but it is a strange territory we are traveling through, and it is clear that we need somehow to change the road we are on.
Book Description
The corporate market is now embracing free, "open source" software like never before, as evidenced by the recent success of the technologies underlying LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). Each is the result of a publicly collaborative process among numerous developers who volunteer their time and energy to create better software.
The truth is, however, that the overwhelming majority of free software projects fail. To help you beat the odds, O'Reilly has put together Producing Open Source Software, a guide that recommends tried and true steps to help free software developers work together toward a common goal. Not just for developers who are considering starting their own free software project, this book will also help those who want to participate in the process at any level.
The book tackles this very complex topic by distilling it down into easily understandable parts. Starting with the basics of project management, it details specific tools used in free software projects, including version control, IRC, bug tracking, and Wikis. Author Karl Fogel, known for his work on CVS and Subversion, offers practical advice on how to set up and use a range of tools in combination with open mailing lists and archives. He also provides several chapters on the essentials of recruiting and motivating developers, as well as how to gain much-needed publicity for your project.
While managing a team of enthusiastic developers -- most of whom you've never even met -- can be challenging, it can also be fun. Producing Open Source Software takes this into account, too, as it speaks of the sheer pleasure to be had from working with a motivated team of free software developers.
Customer Reviews:
In my case, five stars is an understatement.......2007-07-27
Just yesterday I was talking to a friend about this book and we discovered each other very glad with it. First of all, the author has a lot of experience with the theme in question. Furthermore, Karl Fogel is very compelling with words. He knows how to write down his experience in a way that is pleasant, certainly due to a lot of writes he had made through plenties of open source projects.
With this book you will be in touch with topics like the needed infra-structure to setup open source projects, the dinamics of the open source community, strategies for packaging and releasing software, common issues that arise in open source daily development and how to workaround then, a brief about licenses (with properly links for more information on this topic); just to highlight some aspects.
This book was the first hand someone land me into the open source world. It's helping me in three ways: to extract more from open source softwares that already exist, to start my own open source project, and to look at software development through a new, different, and till now better perspective.
Hope this review helps you!
Required reading for Open Source project leaders.......2007-06-19
If you have already read pretty much everything that there is to be read about why you'd want to start, manage, fund or participate in an Open Source project, but want to know everything about how best to do it, then Karl Fogel's Producing Open Source Software is the book for you.
Drawing from his extensive experience with the Subversion project, Fogel provides in this book a comprehensive overview of all aspects of Open Source software development, covering technical, social, political, economical, legal, and managerial aspects.
While the book is more aimed at medium-to-large scale projects, especially those involving some kind of corporate entity, there is much in it that is applicable to most projects, excluding maybe only those little, one-man efforts that rarely become successful. But if you are the originator of one of the latter and, should it suddenly attract a wide following, you'd better be prepared to face the unavoidable problems that popularity brings.This book will come in handy in this case.
Here are, in my opinion, the strong points of the book:
* Providing a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of all aspects of Open Source development. This is really the manual of open development.
* Demonstrating that there is much in open development that is similar to more traditional, corporate-style software development (you cannot always rely on good will and volunteers), but also much that is different, in motivation, rewards and objectives.
* Putting the accent on the human aspect of development: mutual respect between participants is often the deciding factor in determining whether a project will thrive or fail. Since even the best of intentions sometimes are not enough to foster a peaceful, productive and collaborative environment, Producing Open Source Software contains a lot of useful, practical advice that you can follow if you want to keep developers happy and motivated.
"Must Read" for Open Source Participants.......2007-04-29
It's easy to make the mistake of viewing this book as "too fluffy" or perhaps too soft to be of any use to the practical user or developer of open source software. Nothing could be further from the truth: in a classic open source way, the author has compressed man-centuries of OS community experience into a practical working guide for anyone who wants to do something serious in this area.
Gives you a feel for the why, not just the how.......2006-12-27
The book impressed me by the breadth and depth of the thinking that must have gone on before it was written. Mr. Fogel being an active open-source developer, I was at first suspicious that he might just be presenting his way of doing things as gospel. Quickly, though, he convinced me that he reflects his ways more profoundly than most other people I know, myself included. Maybe that, in itself, is a consequence of open-source development processes?
sound advice for an oss project.......2006-08-03
sound advice for an oss project
please note that the entire text of this book is avaiable online - but the paper book is ofcourse nicer to read!
Amazon.com
John McMillan's Reinventing the Bazaar is an extremely accessible description of markets large and small, as well as an explanation of their underlying mechanisms. An "absolutely free market," he says, is a "free-for-all brawl," while a "real market" is an "ordered brawl." Sprinkling his analysis with hundreds of anecdotes and examples--prison camps, eBay, the American experiment with alcohol prohibition, the Tokyo fish market, and traditional Ghanaian bazaars--and pertinent quotes from the likes of Chekhov, Twain, and Steinbeck, McMillan animates his subject. Why do banks build showcase headquarters? Which "frictions" brake, and which spur, various markets? Is the "invisible hand" attached to a clothed arm? Why are both pro- and antimarket absolutists, in McMillan's view, the economics equivalent of "flat-earthers"? Is there such an animal as a "perfect" market? Reinventing the Bazaar answers these questions, and many more, in an eminently wise, entertaining, and instructive way. --H. O'Billovich
Book Description
Clear, insightful, and nondogmatic, this book gives us a new appreciation for one of our most ubiquitous institutions.
From the wild swings of the stock market to the online auctions of eBay to the unexpected twists of the world's post-Communist economies, markets have suddenly become quite visible. We now have occasion to ask, "What makes these institutions work? How important are they? How can we improve them?"
Taking us on a lively tour of a world we once took for granted, John McMillan offers examples ranging from a camel trading fair in India to the $20 million per day Aalsmeer flower market in the Netherlands to the global trade in AIDS drugs. Eschewing ideology, he shows us that markets are neither magical nor immoral. Rather, they are powerful if imperfect tools, the best we've found for improving our living standards. A New York Times Notable Book.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, a reasonable, non-ideological book about markets.......2007-05-17
I had never expected to give a 5-star review to a book about markets. But this book is a very even-handed description, favoring a case-by-case approach to "market design". Government is neither all bad nor all good, and markets are neither all good nor all bad, in this view. Nor does McMillan wrap markets in the mantles of politics and/or religion, a la Milton Friedman, George Gilder and others. The writing style isn't as felicitous as Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist", which covers a lot of the same economics theory as this book; nor is this book quite as quick a read. But it has more real-life examples and more intellectual depth overall, while still being very much a popular, non-technical book. Like Harford's book, this one gives orthodox neoclassical economics theory (Arrow-Debreu, equilibrium, supply and demand, and other "Econ 101" stuff) more credence than it merits, but McMillan's pragmatism and professional humility somewhat compensate for this defect. Sadly, John McMillan passed away in March 2007 from cancer while still in his 50s. This book assures us that such a reasonable voice won't vanish completely -- which is lucky for us, since such voices have always been in short supply.
pleasant and valuable reading.......2007-01-29
Well organized, very well researched, surprisingly readable prose for an academic, and a well balanced mix of case studies from a wide variety of actual markets and more abstract reflections based in good part on these studies. I'm not giving it the full accolade of 5 stars because of some repetitiousness and a "target audience" problem: most readers will either find themselves reading relatively long passages that teach them nothing new (if they're already well-grounded in microeconomics) or else faced with some concepts that are pretty hard and not adequately taught in this book (if the readers lack any previous study of microeconomics) -- that's a difficult problem to solve, and I don't claim to know a solution, but Professor McMillan hasn't found one either. Nevertheless, I'd recommend the book to all levels of readers, as just about everybody will get many useful notions and ways of thinking from it, and it is, all in all, quite pleasant to read from cover to cover.
Just what I wanted...........2005-09-29
a fantastic review of the idea, basic history, and pros and cons of market economies. McMillan writes in a very accessable and yet erudite way, and his personal experieces (which he shares) demonstrate his authority on the subject. In looking for a good, basic introduction to macroeconomic ideas this is a helpful read. If you ever encounter leftist or rightist ideologues or a college student who is enticed by communism (a great IDEA, even McMillan agrees), this is a good reference book to silence unfounded criticisms. McMillan is empirical in his reasoning and his potent examples from history and real life are very helpful.
The Best Begginers Guide to Markets.......2004-08-21
Mc Millan's book makes it easy to understand how markets work, as well as their bennefits. Although it is not a book advocating free markets, it puts some sense into the idea through fun examples, stories and quotes. Anyone toying with the idea that free market economies are bad should read this book. As an imparial comment it might show a thing or two about why it is that free market policies don't seem to work for some countries(because they are not all that free)while in others they seem miracuolous.
The secrets of economic growth and sensible pro market policy can be extracted, although I wouldn't base a government's development plan on it.
The book is fun to read, easy to understand and highly illustrative. A must read for anyone (for or aginst free markets)
Essential Information and Wisdom.......2004-01-15
Wherever buyers and sellers get together, there is a market. In the absence of currency, trades have been consummated by assigning relative value to items (e.g. livestock, weapons, clothing) or services (e.g. plowing, medical care, harvesting). Throughout human history, there have been markets in one form or another at which people exchanged or purchased goods of various kinds, usually in a centrally located area such as a crossroads, harborside, village center, or town square. Buyers and sellers (or traders) gravitated to markets where and when there would be the most people. At least to some extent, all that remains true today even with the emergence of cybermarkets. Effective marketing in the 21st century creates or increases demand first by attracting interest. Hence the importance of visibility. It must also provide a convincing argument as to why a given product or service is preferable to other options, including not purchasing anything. Supply and demand often come into play. Pricing is frequently a decisive issue. For centuries, be it in an ancient bazaar or modern market, buying/selling/trading is among the most dynamic of human activities.
In this lively as well as informative book, McMillan offers "a natural history of markets" which helps us to gain a better understanding of how markets work as well as of what they can and can't do. "Markets do what they are supposed to do, however, only if they are we structured. Any successful economy has an array of devices and procedures to enable markets to work smoothly. A workable platform has five elements: information flows smoothly; property rights are protected; people can be trusted to live up to their promises; side effects are curtailed; and competition is fostered." I agree with McMillan that, as a result of innovations made by participants, "spontaneous evolution is the main driver of [private sector] markets" if and when provided with assistance from the public sector (i.e. government).
Because throughout history the strength of markets has been their adaptability and their "restless reinvention," McMillan argues, shaping new markets is both a task for governments and an opportunity for entrepreneurs. Appropriate involvement by the former ensures, for example, the protection of intellectual property; appropriate involvement by the latter ensures that the process of adaptability and reinvention is sustained. There are so many excellent books now in print which discuss the most effective marketing strategies and tactics.
Secondarily, McMillan examines several of them but his primary purpose, as I understand it, is to explain how and why the market economy ("...the worst form of economy, except for all the others which have been tried from time to time") "solves some all but intractable problems...[because] it admits variety and permits criticism" This book will be of greatest interest and value to decision-makers with responsibility for marketing within organizations which either have no "workable platform" or one which may soon collapse from the weight of external competition or internal inadequacy.
I also highly recommend this book to those who have a keen interest in cultural anthropology. As suggested earlier, the bazaar or market has always been and always will be among the most dynamic of human activities. Why? Because it must constantly be reinvented to accommodate ever-changing human needs and interests. McMillan's comprehensive analysis of that volatile process is a unique and brilliant achievement.
Average customer rating:
- Old Friends Need Visiting on Occasion
- A Wondrous Adventure aboard the Orient Express
- Always a pleasure to read Theroux
- Aboard a Legendary Ride
- Not a book for those curious about Asia
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The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia
Paul Theroux
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Customer Reviews:
Old Friends Need Visiting on Occasion.......2007-07-15
... and this book is indeed an old friend, for it is the work that introduced me - and many others - to Paul Theroux. It was this book that introduced me to Theroux's charming crankiness, his wickedly astute ability to size up a human interaction and make the most of it - almost like a young boy who starts to craft a "whopper" - but most of all, his uncanny talent for observing a scene for nary a moment and offering up visualization that stays in the mind's eye for ages.
Here is Theroux's oft-quoted take on pulling into one of Europe's crown jewels: "Venice, like a drawing room in a gas station, is approached through a vast apron of infertile industrial flatlands, criss-crossed with black sewer troughs and stinking of oil, the gigantic sinks and stoves of refineries and factories, all intimidating the delicate dwarfed city beyond."
But there is more, just as artful, sometimes better:
"...modernization stopped in Turkey with the death of Ataturk, at five minutes past nine on November 10, 1938. As if to demonstrate this, the room in which he died is as he left it, and all the clocks in the palace show the time as 9:05. This seemed to explain why the Turks typically dress the way people did in 1938, in hairy brown sweaters and argyle socks, in baggy pinstriped pants and blue serge suits with padded shoulders, flapping winglike lapels and a three-pointed hanky in the breast pocket. Their hair is wavy with brilliantine and their mustaches are waxed..."
Or this: "Laos, a river bank, had been overrun and ransacked; it was one of America's expensive practical jokes, a motiveless place where nothing was made, everything imported; a kingdom with baffling pretensions to Frenchness... the more I thought of it, the more it seemed like a lower form of life, like the cross-eyed planarian or squashy amoeba, the sort of creature that can't even die when it is cut to ribbons."
Or: "The mountains had begun to rise, acquiring the shape of ampitheaters with a prospect of the China Sea; eerie and bare and blue, their summits smothered in mist, they trailed smoke from slash-and-burn fires... Now it was sunny and warm: the Vietnamese climbed up to the roofs of the coaches and sat with their legs hanging past the eaves. We were close enough to the beach to hear the pounding surf, and ahead in the curving inlets that doubled up the train, fishing smacks and canoes rode the frothy breakers to the shore, where men in parasol hats spun circular webbed nets over the crayfish."
"Railway Bazaar" has been derided by some for offering only a fleeting glimpse of various cultures from a train window and a quick layover; truth be told, that is what foreign travel consists of even for the most intrepid traveler who is not an anthropologist or social scientist. Theroux does a perfectly splendid job painting a portrait of a war-ravaged Vietnam where GIs and the locals have come to somewhat cynical terms with the denouement, and his vivid and disquieting depiction of the infusion of sexual violence into mainstream entertainment (theater and even comic books) in Japan is among the best I have read about this dark underside of that culture.
And then there are the characters of his passing parade, the bit real-life players that Theroux shapes into larger-than-life caricatures. They are at turns annoying, stealthy, invasive, pedantic, morose and beatific, and Theroux breathes life into them - each a literary joy in his or her own way.
Theroux has a wonderful knack for taking the last paragraph of his creations (many, at least) and crystallizing the mood of that work within a final sentence or two (think "Saint Jack" and "My Secret History"). He does that in "Railway Bazaar" and when the literary train pulls into the station, you want to step off quickly, grab a refreshment, then reboard for another ride.
Old Friends like this do need revisiting every so often.
A Wondrous Adventure aboard the Orient Express.......2007-06-12
If you always dreamed of traveling, then do it the easy way by reading one of Paul Theroux's accounts of his travels. They are funny and insightful and grand adventures. Check out these lines:
"The sad engineer would never go back to England; he would become one of these elderly expatriates who hide out in remote countries, with odd sympathies, a weakness for the local religion, an unreasonable anger, and the kind of total recall that drives curious strangers away."
Speaking of young foreign travelers, Theroux says:
"Occasionally, I saw an amorous pair leave their compartment hand in hand to go copulate in the toilet.
Most were on their way to India and Nepal, because
`the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.'
But the majority of them, going for the first time, had that look of frozen apprehension that is the mask of the face of an excapee."
Theroux has a great quote in the beginning of the first chapter--"The journey is the goal."
Always a pleasure to read Theroux.......2007-05-23
I've read a bunch of his travel books now. I always find them fun to read. This one, however, I found a little more difficult than the others. To me often it was like a crazy quilt of scenes and I felt overwhelmed at times. I enjoyed learning about the Sikhs and northern India in general. But what do I know about the Biharis vs. the Bengalis? I formed pictures, but felt I didn't know what it was all about. Though after reading what he writes about India, I never want to go there. But then I found it so interesting to read about how the people of Japan are so entertained by violent sex with blood and murder. That young girl with the comic book depicting all that violence! Why is that so entertaining to them? Well, Americans like that stuff too. But I'd rather read about what it is really like than about some phony everyone is so loving to everyone else sort of thing. And I will never forget the one-legged man, hopping ahead so fast that Paul couldn't catch up with him. All in all, I am immensely grateful to Paul Theroux for his showing me all these things around the world while I am safely ensconced in my comforable easy chair at home.
Aboard a Legendary Ride.......2007-04-16
Theroux seems like he's doing a phenomenology of travel here: recording the exotic vignettes of his railway journey, yet not creating a travelogue a la Lowell Thomas. His observations are keen, sometimes cynical; he certainly doesn't sugar-coat his descriptions for his audience's benefit.
Is he the curmudgeon that his critics villify him as? Certainly YES! His acerbic wit and the intense depictions of the scenes are made possible because of his grumpy ways. Like I said: this guy does not sugar-coat things. He calls it like he sees it - that's why it's great writing. The "readable" factor transcends his complaining and occasional snap judgements that some reviewers misinterpret as him being a misanthrope.
Theroux can evoke the images: the smell of rancid onions wafting from a dirty newspaper; the character profiles that put you right there in the
oppressive heat; the landscape sketches that feel familiar yet are on the other side of the world. This book almost reads like literature.
What about the "entertainment value"? - Doesn't get much better than this.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
Not a book for those curious about Asia.......2006-07-27
One question that might come to mind while reading this book is "Why?" Why in the world would one bother to travel all the way across Asia and back, restricting that journey almost exclusively to sitting in trains? Like P.J. O'Rourke, Theroux seems to be interested only in drinking and describing what a horrible time he is having in horrible places. He rarely stops to see anything, and even when he does those stops are very brief. Even the few genuinely beautiful places he bothers to see are often described in rather deprecatory terms (see, for example, his description of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar as "a copper-gilt gazebo in the center of a tank"). The only places he seems to have liked at all were Istanbul, Peshawar, the Ashau Valley in Vietnam, and Kyoto (incidentally, one of the few bits of the book worth reading is his account of his meeting with the great Turkish novelist Yasar Kemal in Istanbul). Indeed, the attitudes he expresses about the people in the countries he visits are so appallingly and consistently contemptuous, with absolutely no attempt at understanding, that they border on the racist. The reviewers who refer to Theroux as a curmudgeon and a misanthrope are expressing mild judgments, in my opinion. The stars I am giving this are for the interesting descriptions of Vietnam (the one place where he seems to have tried to practise some empathy with the locals) and the underbelly of the Japanese soul. But I recently picked up a copy of Michael Palin's book "Himalaya" and am looking forward to what I hope will be an approach refreshingly different from that of Theroux.
Book Description
More than ever before, the Renaissance stands as one of the defining moments in world history. Between 1400 and 1600, European perceptions of society, culture, politics and even humanity itself emerged in ways that continue to affect not only Europe but the entire world. This wide-ranging exploration of the Renaissance sees the period as a time of unprecedented intellectual excitement and cultural experimentation and interaction on a global scale, alongside a darker side of religion, intolerance, slavery, and massive inequality of wealth and status. It guides the reader through the key issues that defined the period, from its art, architecture, and literature, to advancements in the fields of science, trade, and travel. In its incisive account of the complexities of the political and religious upheavals of the period, the book argues that Europe's reciprocal relationship with its eastern neighbours offers us a timely perspective on the Renaissance as a moment of global inclusiveness that still has much to teach us today.
Customer Reviews:
poorly understood.......2007-08-03
This book belongs in the category of art revisionism. Art is based on exchange of ideas among cultures, but claiming Islamic origin to the Italian and European Reneissance is simply misleading. This book plays into the hands of art and history diletantes, who will walk away with the impression that the genious of the Renaissance rests in Baghdad, not in Florence. I recommend it for scholars, who can correctly esteem its value, but not lay readers with a revisionist agenda.
Not quite what I expected........2006-11-03
I found the first few chapters very informative and interesting but the book as a whole has the flavor of a PhD dissertation, several points extensively discussed.
Was Renaissance a western-only phenomenon?.......2005-03-22
Between XIV and XVI century a silent revolution changed the landscape of Europe in such a way that nothing after Renaissance looked as before: every field showed the mark of its passage.
Today we still praise the age of Salutati, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus, Montaigne, Copernicus and Galileo, Bacon and Shakespeare. Just to name few of the leading figures.
Europe, for a brief period and for the last time, was able to regain a common universal language and Latin appeared to recover its universal supremacy over all the other languages.
In no period before Enlightenment we observe so many discoveries, a so grand progress in almost every field.
Traditionally this revolution has been described as a only-European achievement.
Mr. Brotton with this excellent study is trying to question this euro-centric thesis and show the - many - points of contact between European Renaissance and those other cultures in the east (Arab, Turkish, Chinese and Indian) - and in the west (the newly discovered native Americans) - that came in contact with it.
The result is fascinating, specially in the many suggestions and in the looming new portrait of the era.
So far, this is the best introduction I have had the chance to read to the argument. And most praiseworthy is the ability to combine all this material into about 200 pages, with a style clear, readable, full of examples and always interesting.
The inquiry can be roughly reduced to three questions:
- was Renaissance the last stage of a slow evolution or a ground-breaking revolution?
- was Renaissance a only-European phenomenon?
- if Renaissance was not confined to the European "enclave", why other cultures were not able to benefit from it?
Espousing a mild evolutive perspective, Mr. Brotton is able to show how many - scattered at first - aspects that we use to associate with Reinassance, were already well present in other cultures and slowly transferred during the period ranging from the XIII and the XIV centuries.
A leading role was played by the huge development of commerce - a first stage of the process we call today globalization.
Not just spices, but also silk, rugs, and goods as disparate as tulip bulbs and home furniture. This expansion of commerce was caused by contingent factors: the Crusades, the decadence of Byzantine Empire, the closing of the silk road due to Tartar invasions in the northern steppes, the expansion of the Turkish empire first in Anatolia and then in the Balkan Peninsula, Spanish Reconquista and the flow of translation from Arab to Latin in Toledo, the rise of Italian maritime republics (not just Venice, but especially Amalfi and also Pisa and Genua)....
So while Latin heritage was autonomously rediscovered from the dust of monastic libraries, for the Greek heritage a leading role was played first by the Arab translations (specially in geography, medicine and philosophy), then by the Greek Byzantine refugees (specially cardinal Bessarion) and lastly - maybe marginally - by the library of Mehmet the conqueror.
But the Arabs are to be praised for numeracy (Fibonacci introduced Arab numbers), business (paper money, double entry, banking) seafaring instruments (sextant) and a wealth of hypotheses (heliocentrism) still to be tested in the west.
So why in the West Renaissance in the end represented such a definite break with the past while other cultures lagged behind ?
Mr. Brotton very consistently explain this difference with the impact of the discovery of the printing press. Gutenberg made the true difference: it permitted the diffusion of literacy, the rediscovery and circulation of classical culture, the infective spreading of heresies and it provided a true arena in which the new science could be debated.
This is so far the most complete and convincing explanation of the singularity of Renaissance. And I appreciated very much the careful investigation of other hypotheses and the unassuming and almost conversational stile in which it is described - not to detriment to precision and accuracy.
We are presented with a multifaceted analysis of contemporary paintings, literature, history to give a pleasant and complete portrait of the period, ranging from the most intellectual achievements up to economic upheaval, social conditions and role the new discoveries in the changing landscape.
Possibly the main deficiency of the book is in its effort to synthesize a so momentous argument in so few pages. As a reader I'd be glad to learn more about the factors that led to the decadence of the Renaissance cultural model at the beginning of XVII century - and the ideal link between renaissance culture and Enlightenment.
If you've been so patient and kind to follow me up to this path, there can be a chance you share some of my passions and could be interested in other books I had the opportunity to read in the past about the same argument:
- Dimitri Obolensky - The Byzantine Commonwealth - interesting survey on the decline of the Byzantine empire and the orthodox legacy
- "Scribes and Scholars" by L.D. Reynold & N.G. Wilson, still unsurpassed introduction to classical philology. One of the few books in which academic and poetical are not incompatible adjectives
- "Greek Thought and Arabic Culture" by Dimitri Gutas, a very interesting survey of the continuous exchanges from East to West and back from the rise of the Persian Empire to the advent of Islamism
- "My Name is Red" by Ohran Pamuk a fabulous novel (a must read for sure) that uses Bellini's portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror to illustrate the clash between the artistic tradition of the West (art like mirror of an ideal reality) and the Eastern tradition (art like symbol and not representation)
You are truly welcome if you want to suggest other readings or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.
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