...An Interview with the Unknown Who do you interview when you haven’t stepped outside of your Christian bubble since you left College Station? The only thing I knew to do was pray that God would provide me the wisdom of who I should interview. Thirty minutes later, I received a text message from a good friend of mine that I hadn’t talked to in a couple months. A couple minutes later I received another text message from a different friend as well. Both were non-believers. Automatically, I looked up and thought, “Thank you Lord but can you work that fast all the time? I would really appreciate it.” Both of these friends are non-believers. Laura, the first to contact me, is someone I have known for around 2 years. Logan, is someone that I used to be best friends with but grew apart when I started to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I was so torn of who to interview. I knew God brought me both of them for a reason. As I sat there weighing to see who I should choose, I decided to interview both. For you to understand both of them a little more, let me give you a brief summary of who they each are. Laura is an Oil and Gas lawyer in downtown Houston. I met her at a bible study Christmas party 2 years ago. She was and still is an atheist. Nevertheless, we hit off instantly and have been friends ever since. Logan is someone, like I stated earlier, who I used to best friends, but with unfortunately we grew apart. Logan is a 22-year-old male student at University of Houston...
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..."Why is Sex Fun? is the best book on the subject I've read. This lively exploration of our sexual heritage offers fascinating reading for anyone curious about why lovers do what they do." -Diane Ackerman, author of A Natural History of the Senses "I am so jealous of Jared Diamond, for he writes with such an elegant simplicity! Here, he takes a loot at the endlessly fascinating topic of human sexuality His convincing arguments should persuade xm that there are very special reasons why we evolved to use sex for recreation as well as for procreatim whereas most other mammals are denied that pleasure.... It is a great little book, by one of the worlds foremost biological philosophers." -ROGER Shohl Professor of Physiology Monash University Australia "Once again Jared Diamond provides us with answers to questions we may never have stopped to ask, but wish we had. In this long essay Diamond explains that recreational sex, while not unique to humans, is a rare behavior in the animal world. Above all, we learn, sexual activity divorced fron procreation is not only part of what it is to be human, but the very crux of our evolutionary success." -Bettyaxn Kevles. author of Naked to the Bonn Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Centnty The Science Masters Series is a global publishing vonture consisting of original science books written by leading scientists and published by a worldwide team of twenty-six publishers assembled by John Brockman. The series was conceived by Anthony Cheetham of Orion...
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...when looking at childhood from 50 years ago and comparing it to childhood today there is a huge difference. Today toys seem to be targeted at children of ages 1-10 years old but not for children above that age (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research). Children seem to be pushed into the spotlight of adult activities such as the fashion and glamour world in the case of beauty pageants (Daily Mail Online 2011). There also seems to be more of a focus on older children playing on computer consoles with violent games which depict realistic and gruesome actions. These computer games also depict real life situations such as the war in Afghanistan and give these older children the opportunity to play as a soldier in this scenario. Content What is childhood? Childhood is not to be confused with being a child, it is a completely different idea altogether. In modern day society, childhood is a social construct which is not seen as a natural or biological stage of life, but as being created out of the idealism of socio-cultural values. This creation is shown in the way that children are taught to behave, how to dress, and how they should be treated appropriately. This being said there are also other factors that would exhibit...
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...Philosophy vs. Science by Joseph Rowlands The historical relationship between science and philosophy has not been a friendly one. Philosophers like to start with their conclusions, and work to prove them. When it came to trying to figure out what the world was like, philosophers tended to argue about what the world should be like. Science was born as a rejection of this method. Its goal was to figure out what the world was really all about, and its primary tool was actual experimentation. We've all seen philosophy at its worst. Philosophers are often completely disconnected from reality and, more recently, don't care. Rationalism, the view that only deductive knowledge is really reliable, is commonplace. Philosophers often expound their ideas from armchairs and ivory towers, where the facts of reality don't concern them. It's not surprising science would want to distance itself from philosophy. It becomes even more personal for the scientist when he's told that he must conform to preconceived views of the world. It started with Galileo having to renounce his scientific views on astronomy, but continued through the ages. Countless other scientists have had to hide their views on topics like evolution, the age of the earth and the existence of glaciers, with a range of punishments from the inquisition and burning at the stake to losing their jobs or financing. Philosophy, often in the form of religion, does not seek the truth. It seeks believers, and the truth is an...
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...Summary The man-apes of the world, who lived by gathering berries and nuts, were facing a lack of food. A giant monolith appeared on Earth one day and began to experiment with many of them, probing and developing their minds. Among those in whom the monolith took an interest was Moon-Watcher, the only man-ape who walked fully upright. At night, a few select man-apes were taught and during the day, they innovated. Moon-Watcher discovered that he could fashion tools with which to kill animals for sustenance—the man-apes' hunger problem was solved. Time passed and the man-ape evolved. His brain grew, he invented language and organized into civilizations, and he invented weapons—first knives, but then guns and finally nuclear missiles. Such innovations had been central in man's dominion over earth, but "as long as they existed, he was living on borrowed time." Eager to embark on another space mission, Dr. Heywood Floyd arrived at the Florida launch location after meeting with the president. He offered no comment to the press, nor would he reveal the details of mission to the crew that served him so faithfully on board or to his Russian friend whom he encounters at the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. space station, a stop on his journey to the Moon. Upon his arrival, Floyd is greeted by a top official of the Moon colony and whisked off to a meeting. A lead scientist explains that they had found a magnetic disturbance in Tycho, one of the Moon's craters. An examination of the area had revealed...
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...Philosophy and Design Pieter E. Vermaas • Peter Kroes Andrew Light • Steven A. Moore Philosophy and Design From Engineering to Architecture Pieter E. Vermaas Delft University of Technology Delft the Netherlands Andrew Light University of Washington Seattle USA Peter Kroes Delft University of Technology Delft the Netherlands Steven A. Moore University of Texas Austin USA ISBN 978-1-4020-6590-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-6591-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007937486 © 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com Contents List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design in Engineering and Architecture: Towards an Integrated Philosophical Understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Kroes, Andrew Light, Steven A. Moore, and Pieter E. Vermaas Part I Engineering Design ix 1 Design, Use, and the Physical and Intentional Aspects of Technical Artifacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
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...Chapter 1 What is social psychology? LEARNING OUTCOMES When you have finished studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1 Outline the main differences between experimental and critical approaches to social psychology. 2 Describe the three main ‘metaphysical battles’ between them. 3 Trace the origins of social psychology through the work of William McDougall and William James, and the contributions made by Völkerpsychologie and crowd psychology. 4 Describe the two contrasting images of ‘the person’ in social psychology. 5 Identify the roots of and describe the historical development of both experimental and critical social psychology. 6 Describe the main elements of Modernism and Postmodernism, and how these relate to contemporary social psychology. 7 Explain how these two approaches are different, and why they cannot be integrated. Introduction On a March night in 1964, Kitty Genovese was attacked by a maniac as she came home from work at 3 A.M. Thirty-eight of her Kew Gardens neighbors came to their windows when she cried out in terror – but no one came to her assistance. Even though the attack, which resulted in her death, lasted more than half an hour, no one even so much as called the police. . . . The thirty-eight witnesses to Kitty 3 4 FOUNDATIONS AND PRINCIPLES Genovese’s murder did not merely look at the scene once and then ignore it. Instead they continued to stare out, fascinated, distressed, unwilling to act but unable...
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...NOTE: This PDF document has a handy set of “bookmarks” for it, which are accessible by pressing the Bookmarks tab on the left side of this window. ***************************************************** We are the last. The last generation to be unaugmented. The last generation to be intellectually alone. The last generation to be limited by our bodies. We are the first. The first generation to be augmented. The first generation to be intellectually together. The first generation to be limited only by our imaginations. We stand both before and after, balancing on the razor edge of the Event Horizon of the Singularity. That this sublime juxtapositional tautology has gone unnoticed until now is itself remarkable. We're so exquisitely privileged to be living in this time, to be born right on the precipice of the greatest paradigm shift in human history, the only thing that approaches the importance of that reality is finding like minds that realize the same, and being able to make some connection with them. If these books have influenced you the same way that they have us, we invite your contact at the email addresses listed below. Enjoy, Michael Beight, piman_314@yahoo.com Steven Reddell, cronyx@gmail.com Here are some new links that we’ve found interesting: KurzweilAI.net News articles, essays, and discussion on the latest topics in technology and accelerating intelligence. SingInst.org The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence: think tank devoted to increasing...
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...TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT A RESOURCE BOOK Edited by Adil Najam Mark Halle Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT A RESOURCE BOOK Edited by Adil Najam Mark Halle Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz Trade and Environment: A Resource Book © 2007 International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the Regional and International Networking Group (The Ring). Trade and Environment: A Resource Book Edited by Adil Najam, Mark Halle and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz ISBN 978-1-895536-99-7 Published by International Institute for Sustainable Development, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, The Regional and International Networking Group This publication is available online at http://www.trade-environment.org http://www.iisd.org http://www.ictsd.org http://www.ring-alliance.org Cover photos from iStockphoto. Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, not-for-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Trade and Environment: A Resource Book The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD, http://www.iisd.org) contributes to sustainable development by advancing policy recommendations on international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change, measurement and assessment, and natural resources management. Through the Internet, we report on international negotiations and...
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...Environmental Studies For Undergraduate Courses Erach Bharucha Textbook for Environmental Studies For Undergraduate Courses of all Branches of Higher Education Erach Bharucha for University Grants Commission Natural Resources i Preliminary Pages.p65 1 4/9/2004, 5:06 PM Credits Principal author and editor – Erach Bharucha Unit 1 – Erach Bharucha Unit 2 – Erach Bharucha, Behafrid Patel Unit 3 – Erach Bharucha Unit 4 – Erach Bharucha Unit 5 – Shamita Kumar Unit 6 – Erach Bharucha, Shalini Nair, Behafrid Patel Unit 7 – Erach Bharucha, Shalini Nair, Behafrid Patel Unit 8 – Erach Bharucha, Shambhvi Joshi Case Studies – Prasanna Kolte Co-ordination and compilation – Behafrid Patel Textbook Design – Narendra Kulkarni (Mudra), Sushma Durve Manuscript review and editing – Chinmaya Dunster, Behafrid Patel Artists – Sushma Durve and Anagha Deshpande CD ROM – Jaya Rai and Prasanna Kolte © Copyright Text – Erach Bharucha/ UGC, 2004. Photographs – Erach Bharucha Drawings – Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Environment Education and Research All rights reserved. Distributed by University Grants Commission, New Delhi. 2004. ii Environmental Studies for Undergraduate Courses Preliminary Pages.p65 2 4/9/2004, 5:06 PM Vision The importance of Environmental Studies cannot be disputed. The need for sustainable development is a key to the future of mankind. The degradation of our environment is linked to continuing problems of pollution, loss...
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...The Diamond of Sustainable Growth A Historical Framework for the study of political economy and economic development George David Smith, Richard Sylla, Robert E. Wright( NYU Stern School of Business For most of its existence, humanity neither enjoyed nor understood economic growth, or society’s capacity for creating wealth. Prior to the 18th century, the aggregate incomes of particular societies may have increased a little for short periods in a few places, but most of the time incomes hovered not far above the subsistence level. Powerful leaders and ruling classes could accumulate vast wealth, but this was normally achieved through the redistribution of incomes from the weak to the powerful, and certainly not through the creation of wealth as we know it today. Going back centuries, to paraphrase the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, human life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Peace and good weather were more likely to summon forth children more than prosperity. Whenever war, pestilence, and drought returned -- and they always did -- people died in droves. To many observers, humanity appeared doomed to spend eternity wet, cold, hungry, and grief-stricken. In the late 18th century, the English proto-economist Thomas Robert Malthus warned that the mass of humanity, quite aside from the foregoing perils, was doomed to a life at the margins of starvation, as surges of population growth would inevitably outstrip the finite sources...
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...Psychology /Users/user-f465/Desktop feL82809_ch01_002-047.indd Page 3 8/2/10 9:46 PM user-f465 /Users/user-f465/Desktop Key Concepts for Chapter 1 MODULE 1 What is the science of psychology? ● What Psychologists at Work are the major specialties in the field of The Subfields of Psychology: Psychology’s Family Tree psychology? ● Where do psychologists Working at Psychology PsychWork: Licensed Social Worker work? MODULE 2 What are the origins of psychology? ● What are the major approaches in contemporary psychology? ● What are psychology’s key issues and controversies? ● What is the future of psychology likely to hold? A Science Evolves: The Past, the Present, and the Future The Roots of Psychology Today’s Perspectives Applying Psychology in the 21st Century: Psychology Matters Psychology’s Key Issues and Controversies Psychology’s Future MODULE 3 What is the scientific method? ● What role Research in Psychology do theories and hypotheses play in The Scientific Method psychological research? ● What research Descriptive Research methods do psychologists use? ● How do Experimental Research Psychological Research psychologists establish cause-and-effect relationships using experiments? MODULE 4 What major issues confront psychologists conducting research? Research Challenges: Exploring the Process The Ethics of Research Exploring Diversity: Choosing Participants Who Represent ...
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...copyright © 2010 by Peter Bollinger All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Cartoons by Sidney Harris, copyright © Sciencecartoonsplus.com BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. eISBN: 978-0-553-90707-0 www.bantamdell.com v3.0 The Grand Design The Grand Design The Grand Design The Grand Design E EACH EXIST FOR BUT A SHORT TIME, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us...
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...The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies Ulrich Beck I N THIS article I want to discuss three questions: (1) What is a cosmopolitan sociology? (2) What is a cosmopolitan society? (3) Who are the enemies of cosmopolitan societies? What is a Cosmopolitan Sociology? Let me start by attempting to nail a pudding to the wall, that is, defining the key terms ‘globalization’ and ‘cosmopolitanization’. At the beginning of the 21st century the conditio humana cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally. ‘Globalization’ is a non-linear, dialectic process in which the global and the local do not exist as cultural polarities but as combined and mutually implicating principles. These processes involve not only interconnections across boundaries, but transform the quality of the social and the political inside nation-state societies. This is what I define as ‘cosmopolitanization’: cosmopolitanization means internal globalization, globalization from within the national societies. This transforms everyday consciousness and identities significantly. Issues of global concern are becoming part of the everyday local experiences and the ‘moral life-worlds’ of the people. They introduce significant conflicts all over the world. To treat these profound ontological changes simply as myth relies on a superficial and unhistorical understanding of ‘globalization’, the misunderstandings of neoliberal globalism. The study of globalization and globality, cosmopolitanization and cosmopolitanism...
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...STARS WITHOUT NUMBER For Eden, who gave me a reason. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..............................................................................................................5 Character Creation ....................................................................................................7 Psionics ...................................................................................................................25 Equipment ..............................................................................................................33 Systems ...................................................................................................................59 The History of Space ...............................................................................................71 Game Master’s Guide ..............................................................................................78 World Generation ...................................................................................................87 Factions .................................................................................................................113 Adventure Creation ...............................................................................................128 Alien Creation .......................................................................................................138 Xenobestiary ........................................................................
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