Publisher: Thomson Delmar Learning
Authors: Deborah E. Bouchoux
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Cite Checker: A Hands-On Guide to Learning Citation Form (The West Legal Studies Series)
Publisher: Thomson Delmar Learning |
| ISBN: 0766818934 List Price: $22.95 Amazon Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Win at Checkers (Dover Books on Chess)
Publisher: Dover Publications |
| ISBN: 0486203638 List Price: $5.95 Amazon Price: $5.95 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 4 Reviews: Summary: Win at Checkers The strategies and tactics in this book are great; however, the writing style of the author is a little stiff and makes it a bit more difficult to follow through parts of the book. It should be noted that there are actually few good checkers book published at all. Chess is more complex, and therefore tomes upon tomes have been published about it. However, the relative simpleness of the game of checkers should then draw many more people to learn how to play this game. Becoming skilled at checkers, then, is one of the objectives the author has achieved (the book was first published in 1956 and is a revision of the work originally published by A.S. Barnes in 1941). This book, truly, is a classic. Summary: A Great Way to Get Started If you know little about "real" checkers this is the book to get you started. It is entertaining and witty and helps you learn conceptual thinking about the game. It covers tactics ("pitches" and "shots") and important endgame positions. I didn't rate it 5 stars because it is really light on opening play; you'll need another book such as Reinfeld's for that. The book is inexpensive yet contains hours of useful instruction. If you've played on-line, stared at the board and wondered "what next" or if you're losing because of blunders, this is THE book to read first. Summary: No Longer Dog Meat! I began playing checkers at YAHOO a few months ago. Got killed. When I was a young boy (48 now) I remember getting beat at checkers by my older sisters to the point where I would get so angry that I'd throw the board across the room during the game. And so, once again I was getting stomped by 15 year old Austrailians. I read this book. And re-read it. And studied it. Now I WIN most of the time. It's a very fast way to become a good intermediate player. Buy it! Summary: |
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1001 Commonly Misspelled Words: What Your Spell Checker Won't Tell You
Publisher: McGraw-Hill |
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| ISBN: 007135736X List Price: $12.95 Amazon Price: $10.62 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Correct Spellings and More The thing I really like about this book is the system it uses to help you find the correct spelling of lots and lots of words. Arranged alphabetically are all the possible phonetic ways different words could be spelled with the correct spelling next to it. The incorrect spellings are in one font and the correct spellings are in another. There are also numerous explanations of the words, including sources, usages, and so on. These are very entertaining to read. I highly recommend this book. Summary: You CAN Look Up the Words You Can't Already Spell! When I was in high school, I and a few good friends made a pretty good hobby out of tormenting (in a good way, of course) one particular English teacher in our school. One of my favorite tactics in this teacher's classroom was to blurt out, in mock consternation, "How do you spell ______?" whenever I couldn't spell a word. Why? Because a) I was young and immature and a legend in my own mind, and b) the teacher always fell right into my trap... "Look it up in the dictionary!" he'd scream, without fail, pitching me a nice softball right over the plate ... "But HOW," I whined, "am I supposed to look up a word when I can't spell it in the first place?!" (GLARING SCOWL) Problem was, I was only half-kidding with most of my questions (though I'd never admit as much to the teacher). Often it really WAS difficult (not to mention time-consuming) to look up the words I didn't know, especially if their spellings weren't very intuitive. I guess that's why I'm enjoying my copy of "1,001 Commonly Misspelled Words." With this handy book, you don't need to know how to spell a word already before looking it up. You need only know how to pronounce it -- because you can then look it up phonetically. Why didn't someone think of this before?! Once you get to the word's phonetic spelling, you can then see the correct (though often counterintuitive!) spelling. Plus, you might get a little story about the word or, better yet, some sort of nemonic -- er, I mean mnemonic -- device so that you can remember how to spell it in the future. I only wish the book included more words. But in any case, it's a nice tool -- especially for a writer type like me. I would think it might also make a good gift for new college students and others who will be tearing their spelling hair out from time to time in the years to come. Highly recommended! Summary: |
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The SPIN Model Checker: Primer and Reference Manual
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional |
| ISBN: 0321228626 List Price: $59.99 Amazon Price: $59.99 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: enables programmatic verification of a design If you are a programmer [and why else would you be reading this?], then you have experience in debugging conventional code, running on single CPU machines. But what about software running concurrently on several machines? There is an inherent non-determinacy that can cause debugging to be very awful. In answer, Holzmann and others came up with the SPIN model. He is the main proponent and, fittingly, authored this standard text on it. The basic idea is to represent code by a logic model. Where the code might be already written, or, more usefully, not yet. That is to say, you are doing a top-down approach and working on a design. The model is written in a special language. Then, the SPIN model checker can programmatically test this model for bugs. Especially in concurrent mode. En route, the book teaches you of the usefulness of finite state machines in modelling. This programmatic testing is far more robust than manual inspection of the code. The book shows in detail how to use SPIN. The end result is an automated testing of your model. To be sure, you still have to map from your model to the actual code. But this can now be done in confidence that your design was correct. Summary: Essential reference for SPIN users If you are serious about using SPIN, this is the book that should be on your desk. Highly recommended. Model checking is all about finding bugs in software. Powerful tools should be handled with care. And SPIN is not any The book of course explains SPIN's modelling language Promela and the verification algorithms are explained and all optimization algorithms The book is nicely structured into four parts: Intro, Foundation, Although the book includes some introductionary chapters to SPIN, the Summary: |
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Precious Moments by Enesco Collector's Value Guide 1999: Secondary Market Price Guide & Collector Handbook
Publisher: Collectors' Publishing Company |
| ISBN: 1888914440 List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: This item is currently not available. |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Highly Recommended, Easy to Use! This is a must for collectors! Each page presents 10 figurines (ornaments, tender tails, etc)in color with a full description of Issue Dates, retired dates, original retail price, figurine number, and how much it is worth according to the symbol. Also on the bottom of each page is a slot to pencil in how much your PM is worth and the price you paid for it. At the end of the book, there is a portion dedicated to calculate the total worth of your collection. The first portion of the book has a history of PM and a listing of the most valuable figurines. It also states how to take care of them, etc. The best feature is the indexes. You can search by the title or the stock number (which is on the bottom of the figurine). This book can be helpful if you purchase PM over an on-line auction. You can find out how much the figurine is worth before placing a bid. It has saved me money! Summary: Thoughts about the book "And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." --Luke 12:15 Summary: Must Have for Precisiouse Precious Moments Beautiful book with a lot of helpful information. Authors obviously spent long time researching Precious Moments. Many pictures and good descriptions will help novice and advance collectors. Summary: |
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How to Win at Checkers
Publisher: Wilshire Book Company |
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| ISBN: 0879800682 List Price: $10.00 Amazon Price: $8.20 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Packed with Information Reinfeld has truly excelled in this book about checkers. This is the most complete book on checkers you will ever find, in or out of print. The book covers tactics such as traps and shots and then goes on to cover just about every important opening to at least some degree, often with main-lines and numerous variations. Finally, the section on endings is quite complete; nowhere else can I find the four kings vs. three situation covered. Whenever I have a question I turn first to this book and almost always find an answer. Be aware that information is packed tightly into every page and you will need to study each situation carefully, playing through the variations on a second board. For instance, opening variations are often contained in a few lines of commentary; you will lose out if you don't pay attention to these variations. It is clearly not a book for dabblers, but one which requires substantial effort, which will be well rewarded. This book does not get a lot of attention from the experts, perhaps because Reinfeld's is known primarily as a chess writer. In fact this book is a must-have for serious beginners and intermediates. If you combine this with The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Checker Puzzles you have enough study material for months, and your game will improve rapidly. (Don't be put off by the cover photo, which is full of errors and serves to trivialize and stereotype the game of checkers. The contents are what matters.) Summary: Excellent coverage of topics, let down by typesetting I found this book to be a very good introduction to checkers. It covers, in depth, sacrifices (pitches) to set up two-for-one exchanges, and the "five positions" that most commonly occur in the endgame. The analysis of openings is thorough, and a major plus for me was the section on forcing draws from "losing" positions. Only two things stopped me from ranking this book at 5 stars - the pictures of the boards are just too big, and are sometimes two pages back from where the written analysis takes place. Also some sample historic games would have been nice. The author has used an appendix to describe different versions of checkers around the world and this is, frankly, useless. That space could have been better used by a couple of analysed historic games. Other than these minor peeves, it is an excellent book. I would not hesitate to recommend it to a checkers enthusiast from beginner to intermediate level. Summary: Learn Strategy! Reinfield's book is a must for the serious checker player. He covers various situations, openings and endgames, and provides the reader situation problems to solve on his/her own. My game was improved by reading this book. Summary: |
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One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers
Publisher: Springer |
| ISBN: 0387949305 List Price: $44.95 Amazon Price: $29.67 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: A Gripping Read Well I never thought that title would describe for a book on a project to create a world champion beating chequers playing program! I originally read the first half of the book when staying with a friend. When I got home I had - for the first time in my life - to buy a book merely to read half of it, so un-put-downable is it. The book requires no technical knowledge either or computers of of draughts (and to an extent if one approaches it expecting technical insights in to either one will be disappointed). In practice it's such a good read as the story is well told and gathers momentum the nearer the author gets to the goal. It is focused on the people and the project and not the technicals. Schaeffer recounts his hopes, feelings and motivations with a brutal honesty - never shying away from an accurate description when authorial licence might have presented him in a better light. Summary: Very interesting! Once I started to read this book I found it difficult to put down. Granted I am addicted to playing checkers against my computer when taking breaks at work, but still.... This is very interesting material for checkers players and computer programmers alike. However, I do have a couple of problems with the book. First, it is very poorly edited. There are a number of grammatical mistakes, [one right on the first paragraph], the author at times goes into unnecessary tangents and, in general the book is too long and repetitive. In addition, it bothered me that, perhaps because of the author's familiarity with chess, he decided to use chess notation to describe the games. This makes it more difficult for checkers players to follow the games while reading the book. The author/editor should have made the effort to use checkers notation or to provide better diagrams. Summary: OK, But I enjoyed reading this book but as a serious checker player was hoping there was a detailed list of new moves , 4, against 3, Ect.. a listing of cooks, detailed, a checker learning experence Something teaching me, some new endgames, something. New openings, challenging the existing openings. Im sure computer/checker players would love this book Since Jonathan chose to not use standard numeric notations as in most checker books, the helpful way would have identified the notations in each illustration of the checker board. Summary: |
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The Fact Checker's Bible
Publisher: Anchor |
| ISBN: 0385721064 List Price: $13.00 Amazon Price: $10.66 Usually ships in 24 hours |
Avg Cusomer Rating: 2 Reviews: Summary: Fact Checker for the New Yorker=Safety Expert at Chernobyl [...] If someone knew nothing about the publication the author worked for, the New Yorker or the others she discussed, like the NYT, the book would seem to be informative. In reality the book itself is [...]. It would be like a book on safety published by the former manager of the Chernobyl Power plant. If you want to get quickly to the heart of the deception(and get a good laugh); skip to the back of the book and read the parts about fact checking for TV news programs. If you have made a serious effort to study and research the truth, the facts about current events and contemporary political debate; then you know that the New Yorker constantly lies and deceives its readers. It is little more that a trade publication for the New York left. To put it another way.; A lawyer pleads with a Judge to be lenient with his client who has just been convicted of a double homicide, on the basis that his client is an orphan. The authors idea of fact checking is to confirm the fact, by proper research into government records, that indeed both of the defendants parents are dead. The fact that the reason they are dead is that the defendant, their son, murdered them is conveniently overlooked. Summary: Sharpen your reading and writing skills Fittingly, the descriptions of THE FACT CHECKER'S BIBLE given in the blurbs above exactly match Sarah Harrison Smith's book. Despite an enviable r�sum�, something in Smith's tone suggests youthful excitement---inasmuch as she still finds it exciting to track down the ten thousand details that a writer has already dug up in order to ensure that she or he has got them all right. (In literary studies, those people are called critics and biographers.) But considering the number of scandals concerning plagiarism, fabrication, and sheer audacity in American journalism during recent years, this demanding task is a necessary one---even though it is surrounded by so many legal pitfalls that it sounds like Hell, Inc. (Her chapter on fact-checking poetry and fiction comes off as a little comic, albeit unintentionally, and suggests it is likely that she writes neither: when creating imaginative literature, accuracy is swell but plausibility is paramount.) Far from being addressed only to colleagues in the profession, this brisk handbook will educate anyone who writes anything, and readers who wish to become better judges of everything they read---in the news, in their own area of expertise, or for pleasure. Smith maintains the fine line where skepticism does not sour into cynicism, and makes better critics of us all. Summary: |
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