Cosmic Banditos

Book Description

Thousands of fans agree-Cosmic Banditos has been out of print for way too long. So here it is, back by popular demand: A.C. Weisbecker's rollicking novel of high times and hard times-in which he hilariously chronicles the adventures of a group of pot-smoking, number-crunching banditos-in-hiding.

Customer Reviews:

Funniest book ever! Read it........2006-10-22

I admit, I have never read a book which made me laugh as hard as this book did. Let's see... "I grabbed a banana and held it up. 'What are bananas made of?' The old Indian licked his lips. 'Banana stuff,' he replied. This was more or less what I'd hoped he would say. 'And what is banana stuff made of,' I inquired smugly. The old Indian's response to this question took me by surprise. 'The Great Spirit,' he answered without hesitation." Well, I have to say that his answer took me by surprise as well! I just can't say enough how ridiculously fun to read this book. Amazon have to put "guaranteed laugh or your money back" to market this book.

His books will put you in a TRANCE of hilarious adventure.......2006-09-27

Allan Weisbecker is hands down one of the most captivating writers of our time. This book will will not only cause you extreme stomach cramps from laughing so much....it will rip your brain out and throw it to the cosmos....transporting you into oblivion....never to return.....to your own mundane reality. You will then have to read IN SEARCH OF CAPTAIN ZERO to continue your experience within his uniquely hilarious mind and then read his latest masterpiece CAN'T YOU GET ALONG WITH ANYONE. This one I read in a 59 hour marathon ( with a 2 hour catnap in my lazyboy which was unintentional because....) I literally....COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN.....He lets it all hang out....ditched by his USA publishers because they didn't have the balls to publish it. You can only get it on his web site...aweisbecker dotCOM ....Trust me....you won't be dissappointed.

laugh out loud.......2006-07-07

I read this for the first time on a plane trip to somewhere. Laughed out loud the entire book. Am reading again to get myself into the mood for his new book coming out this fall. Cannot wait - but in the spirit of the Don Juan law: anything that can go wrong already has and will be that way forever - so you never know. Some bandito may off him and steal the book before it comes out. If that doesn't make sense to you - you gotta read the book to know what it means. Weisbecker simply rocks.

Romp Roaring Novel.......2005-10-06

This book is great. It is the best comedy novel i have ever read and is easily my favorite book. They are even creating a movie based on the book. Check out the authors website [...] to find out more. His other book In Search of Captain Zero is just good, only its a differt gerne. Anyway this book is really a good read.

carlos castaneda meets hunter s. thompson.......2005-09-16

not bad, not great. an amusing read, very original in content.

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Average customer rating:

Is a good start but needs more...
The arcane made accessible
Great Starting Point in Agent based Modelling
interesting, but describes an old version of the software
Invention - on all levels

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)
Mitchel Resnick
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262680939

Book Description

How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized? Most people assume that the bird in front leads and the others follow. In fact, bird flocks don't have leaders: they are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. And a surprising number of other systems, from termite colonies to traffic jams to economic systems, work the same decentralized way. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams describes innovative new computational tools that can qhelp people (even young children) explore the workings of such systems--and help them move beyond the centralized mindset.

Customer Reviews:

Is a good start but needs more..........2007-06-13

Book needs some more content, it gives a good first level intro but does not develop it into more interesting/advanced things.

50% of the book is a 'sales' pitch for StarLogo.

If you have experience with writing code for simulations this book is a bit light technically.

Still has some interesting ideas in it.

The arcane made accessible.......2006-03-28

On the surface, the book seems focused on computers and even video games. This makes the activities appealing for middle and high school students. However, the ideas in this book are actually relevant to two entirely different fields: 1) genetics, and 2) artificial intelligence. Both these fields have at their centers the concept of complexity arising out of simplicity. Students who work their way though the activites in this book will find that Dr. Resnick offers a window into a deep mathematical world that has applications far beyond computers and games.

Great Starting Point in Agent based Modelling.......2005-10-17

Mitchel Resnick shares a lovely sense of wonder, discovery and fascination in this slim, easily read volume about agent based modelling. Using micro-worlds (termites, ants and other modelling metaphors) Resnick shows us how collective behaviours are more than a simple sum of the parts - and through his experiments using StarLogo programming he shows the nature of emergent behaviours that come through decentralised thinking.

His reading list is a great starting point for anyone fascinated by Complexity and Agent Based Modelling, and so too is his elegant list of guiding heuristics that he has learned through toying with various ants, termites, forest fires and traffic jams.

- Positive feedback (in models) often plays a vital role.
- Randomness can help create order. Random isn't always chaotic.
- A Flock is not a big bird. The behaviour of groups should not be confused with the behaviour of individuals.
- A traffic jam is not just a collection of cars. Emergent objects have an ever-changing composition.
- The hills are alive. Don't just focus on the individual objects - look also at their environment.

This volume helped our research team design approach agent-based modelling, and put us in touch with other avenues of decentralised thinking: for example Network Theory. Best of all, Resnick helped us lighten-up. This book (and its subject matter) has profound ideas, but never loses a delicious sense of awe. Recommended.

interesting, but describes an old version of the software.......2003-09-28

This is a book describing the research of a team at MIT using a version of the educational language "Logo". Running in a simple graphical environment which supports multiple parallel operation of code in the same shared space. Write a few lines of code for an "ant", then let 1000 of them loose. The current version of this "StarLogo" system is written in Java, and available as a free download for anyone to play with.

The use of Logo is both a strength and a weakness of the approach. The strength is that the code is concise and easy to understand. The weakness is that there is only one source of the software, and anyone wishing to try it is limited to the available download. This would not be such a limitation if the book described the same version, but unfortunately things have moved on a lot since the book was written, and few (if any) of the examples will work without alteration.

As well as the development of the StarLogo system, the book covers experiments in emergent behaviour. Typical sections include how parameter and environment changes can affect the growth and development of simulated ant colonies, and a theoretical basis for those "phantom traffic jams" we have all experienced.

This book is certainly interesting if you are interested in developing parallel software simulations, or if you are interested in marginal computer languages, but don't expect the code to work without effort.

Invention - on all levels.......2002-10-14

This book provided the motivating force to write my first, and last, review for Amazon.com.

Over the past 5 years since my first reading Mitchel Resnick's Turtles Turmites and Traffic Jams, the book has come up on numerous occasions related to several topics, two of which most basically:

1) Writing style - Resnick's clear, well-researched, simple yet profound style. His background as journalist and inventor enables TT&T to walk a new line between source material and criticism.

2) Content - Resnick's theoretical application of emergent behavior to education is robust; his practical educational tools (starlogo and later, mindstorms) are a fundamentally clear and wondrous collapsing of idea into artifact.

Book Description

The ISTTT series is the main gathering for the worlds transportation and traffic theorists, and the resulting volume is a field-defining milestone featuring the most promising thinking and theoretical developments. It reflects the major renewal the field is experiencing, with the entry of many new scientists from a variety of disciplines, and the mutual coexistence of a growing number of theoretical perspectives and modelling cultures.

While this volume covers a wide range of aspects of the modelling of transportation processes as complex systems, an overarching theme is the recognition that these systems are a collective expression of individual human decisions. A significant number of the contributions published here therefore deal with some aspect of human behaviour whether as travellers, drivers, passengers, operators, or regulators reflecting the great strides being made in developing theories and mathematical representations of these phenomena.

Book Description

From Pablo to Osama is a comparative study of Colombian drug-smuggling enterprises, terrorist networks (including al Qaeda), and the law enforcement agencies that seek to dismantle them. Drawing on a wealth of research materials, including interviews with former drug traffickers and other hard-to-reach informants, Michael Kenney explores how drug traffickers, terrorists, and government officials gather, analyze, and apply knowledge and experience.

The analysis reveals that the resilience of the Colombian drug trade and Islamist extremism in wars on drugs and terrorism stems partly from the ability of illicit enterprises to change their activities in response to practical experience and technical information, store this knowledge in practices and procedures, and select and retain routines that produce satisfactory results. Traffickers and terrorists "learn," building skills, improving practices, and becoming increasingly difficult for state authorities to eliminate.

The book concludes by exploring theoretical and policy implications, suggesting that success in wars on drugs and terrorism depends less on fighting illicit networks with government intelligence and more on conquering competency traps--traps that compel policymakers to exploit militarized enforcement strategies repeatedly without questioning whether these programs are capable of producing the intended results.

Customer Reviews:

A unique and valuable asset to terrorism literature .......2007-03-29

I've read many books on terrorism and have found many of them well written. This literature is one of the very best. It uses information by practitioners and provides like no other resource. A must for anyone in the terrorism/trafficking field.

Queuing Theory and Telecommunications: Networks and Applications

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Queuing Theory and Telecommunications: Networks and Applications
Giovanni Giambene
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Modeling and Analysis of Telecommunications Networks

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ASIN: 0387240659

Book Description

Queuing Theory and Telecommunications: Networks and Applications provides some fundamental knowledge in queuing theory, as well as essential analytical methods and approaches to be employed to evaluate and design telecommunication networks.

This work provides methods for teletraffic analysis as well as descriptions of current network technologies such as ISDN, B-ISDN, IP-based networks, MPLS, GMPLS, NGN and local access systems, including ADSL-based, Ethernet, Token Passing, and WiFi. Also, numerous solved exercises are provided in order to illustrate the applications of queuing theory in telecommunication networks. The following advanced telecommunication problems are modeled and solved by means of queuing analysis: statistics of the transmission delay for packet data traffic arriving at a transmission buffer; blocking behavior for bursty call arrival processes; characterization of Markovian traffic sources; performance of traffic regulators, analysis of access protocols and more. The author provides readers with a correct understanding of fundamental methods to be applied in the analysis of telecommunications systems.

Queuing Theory and Telecommunications: Networks and Applications is a reference text for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in telecommunications engineering and networking. It will also serve as a useful work for system engineers involved in network dimensioning.

Nonblocking Electronic and Photonic Switching Fabrics

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Nonblocking Electronic and Photonic Switching Fabrics
Wojciech Kabacinski
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387254315

Book Description

This state-of-the-art survey of switching fabric architectures gives special attention to combinatorial properties of switching fabrics – nonblockingness and rearrangeability. Also describing control algorithms proposed to control different architectures, it provides an overview of recent advances in combinatorial properties of switching fabrics, including many new results applicable to nonblocking operation of different switching fabric architectures mostly for multicast connections and multirate connections. It contains a considerable amount of published results, but organized into a coherent volume. Nonblocking Electronic and Photonic Switching Fabrics is intended for network communications engineers and researchers, as well as graduate-level students working on switching theory.

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Definitive reference on ATM
What a great book!
Tedious, pompous...but good on certain select topics
don't even bother with this one
Excellent ATM Reference Book for Data-Comm Engineer

ATM Theory and Applications
David E. McDysan , and Darren L. Spohn
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0070453462

Book Description

The most current, most complete, and most "real-world" guide ever on ATM! This landmark reference is the ultimate "in print" database of ATM technology, services, and applications. From basic principles to detailed real-world examples, this text has it all, including exclusive in-depth treatment of such "hot" new protocols as IP and Tag Switching, Private Network Network Interface (PNNI), LAN Emulation (LANE), Understandable View of ATM Signaling, MultiProtocol Over ATM (MPOA), Available Bit rate (ABR) flow control, and Internet ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP). Traffic engineering and network design considerations are also extensively explained and illustrated. This is a must-have reference that will substantially enable any reader to make smarter technological and strategic business decisions regarding virtually every aspect of how, where, and why to apply ATM.

Customer Reviews:

Definitive reference on ATM.......2002-10-18

This book is packed with everything. It is the definitive reference on ATM. If you just want an overview, the book is not for you. If you want to understand ATM in depth, this is it. It is valuable not only for network engineers, but also for product engineers designing new equipment or software. However, McDysan has also come out with a new book titled ATM & MPLS Theory and Application. Unless you are certain you will never need to know about MPLS, I would suggest getting the newer book. I haven't had a chance to read that one yet, but I would expect it is the excellent equivalent of this book with additional coverage of MPLS.

What a great book!.......2002-08-08

If you work with ATM or need to design networks for ATM, you need to have this book on your shelf. It is the argument-settler and really the best reference on ATM available (that can be understood). Matter of fact, I would go as far to say that this is the only ATM book worth buying.

Tedious, pompous...but good on certain select topics.......2001-12-18

I turned to this book to understand how the various ATM functions work. I had quite a bit of both practical and conceptual networking background prior to opening this book. As such, I've read quite a number of good and bad technical books on various networking topics.

If you'd rather not read the rest of this review here's the gist. Don't buy this book. Instead, buy Oliver C. Ibe's 'Essentials of ATM Networks and Services'. After you've mastered that, use Mark Miller's 'Analyzing Broadband Networks' to see how ATM Layer PDUs are put together and exchanged in various situations like call setup/teardown etc.

Here's the rest of the review.

Within minutes of reading, I got that old My-Head-Is-Swimming feeling. Not because I couldn't understand what the authors were saying, but more so because I couldn't figure out why on earth I was reading stuff that was irrelevant. Here are a few cases in point:

Every ATM book I've thumbed through religiously talks about the B-ISDN model. And when it starts explaining how something in ATM acutally works (say SSCOP), there is no reference to any of the terms that were introduced and defined in talking about the B-ISDN model. Why talk about the model at all then? This book is no exception.

The vast number of initial pages (285 in fact!) dedicated to talking about things like X.25, FR, multiplexing schemes etc. are useless. If you don't know this stuff, you have no business reading a book dedicated to ATM. And if you're just learning this stuff, there's no way you're going to really understand ATM. And of course, these authors couldn't resist the whole 'business drivers for ATM' nonsense.

The only redeeeming part about the book was Chapter 25 on Traffic Engineering. Just goes to show what technical authors can do when they're talking about stuff they know really really well. This is also the chapter where the authors use language relatively more precisely and concisely - a rare blessing in this overall tedious and pompous book.

Someone ask these guys to check out (...)!

don't even bother with this one.......2001-11-08

I work with ATM networks frequently. Sometimes I'm confronted with desperate emergency situations in which a good ATM reference book is critical. I found this book to be poorly organized and extremely tedious. If you're seriously in to ATM and need something that will save you in a pinch, look elsewhere.

Excellent ATM Reference Book for Data-Comm Engineer.......2001-10-18

In my working field, I have to handle ATM network frequently. I run into cutomer's picky questions from time to time, some of them are pretty hard to answer. All I can do, just refer to this great book for these questions. For example, my customer asked me to demo F4/F5 functions in our solution, then, I checked this book and offered great test plans for them.
If you are looking for one book that shows you how to configure ATM switch, please choose other one.

Average customer rating:

Traffic and Granular Flow ' 05

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540476407

Book Description

This book again continues the biannual series of (now six) conference proceedings, which has become a classical reference in traffic and granular research alike. It addresses new developments at the borderline between physics, engineering and computational science. Complex systems, where many simple agents, be it vehicles or particles, give rise to surprising and fascinating phenomena. Topics include highway, pedestrian and internet traffic, long range interactions, two-phase flow, nonlinear pattern formation, data acquisition and technological applications.

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Traffic and Granular Flow ' 03

Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 3540258140

Book Description

This book continues the biannual series of conference proceedings, which has become a classical reference in traffic and granular research alike. It addresses new developments at the borderline between physics, engineering and computational science. Complex systems, where many simple agents, be it vehicles or particles, give rise to surprising and fascinating phenomena. Topics include highway, pedestrian and internet traffic, long range interactions, two-phase flow, nonlinear pattern formation, data acquisition and technological applications.

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Traffic and Granular Flow ' 01

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540402551

Book Description

During the last decade physicists, engineers and computer scientists have joined in an enormously fruitful dialogue about traffic and granular flow. Cars and sand grains have in common, that they interact irreversibly, which is the reason for similar jamming phenomena. The main difference is that car drivers choose their destination and route individually, while grains follow external driving forces. This book gives an overview about the progress in modelling, computer simulation, experiments and field observations, which was reached within the last two years. The contributions are based on the International Workshop Traffic and Granular Flow '01, which took place in Nagoya, 15 - 17 October 2001. Topics include a critical classification of models for highway traffic, new technological applications, friction and arching phenomena in pedestrian traffic, scale free networks and internet traffic, instabilities and fluctuations in avalanches and granular pipe flow.

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