Ian Scheffler, journalist and aspiring “speedcuber,” attempts to break into the international phenomenon of speedsolving the Rubik’s Cube—think chess played at the speed of Ping-Pong—while exploring the greater lessons that can be learned through solving it.When Hungarian professor Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik’s Cube (or, rather, his Cube) in 1974 out of wooden blocks, rubber bands, and paper clips, he didn’t even know if it could be solved, let alone tha...

When Hungarian professor Erno Rubik invented the Rubik's Cube (or, rather, his Cube) in the 1970s out of wooden blocks, rubber bands, and paper clips, he didn’t even know if it could be solved, let alone that it would become the world’s most popular puzzle. Since its creation, the Cube has become many things to many people: one of the bestselling children's toys of all time, a symbol of intellectual prowess, a frustrating puzzle with 43.2 quintillion possible permutations, and now a worldw...

A collection of New York Times bestselling author William Gibson’s articles and essays about contemporary culture—a privileged view into the mind of a writer whose thinking has shaped not only a generation of writers but our entire culture...Though best known for his fiction, William Gibson is as much in demand for his cutting-edge observations on the world we live in now. Originally printed in publications as varied as Wired, the New York Tim...

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to co-create the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake—until the games they made tore them apart....

On the 8th of January 2012 a man who discovered at 21 that he had motor neurone disease, which usually means a few years' degeneration then death, celebrated his 70th birthday. Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. Even as a child, he exhibited a fascination for mathematics, science and the sky. At age 21, while studying cosmology at Cambridge, Stephen was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In the two years after this live changing announcement; Step...

The New York Times bestseller: “You gotta read this. It is the most exciting book about Pluto you will ever read in your life.”—Jon StewartWhen the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, “Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York.” Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto’s planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultu...

Strange things are happening in deep space, and then closer to home, and then closer; someone has pulled the plug on the universe.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Douglas Coupland, one of the world's biggest cultural brains, takes an inside look at the global company that keeps us connected, and wonders what all that connectivity is doing to our brains and our sense of ourselves as humans.The incomparable Douglas Coupland reports from inside the corporate offices and science labs of Alcatel-Lucent, a globally influential business whose work is largely unknown to consumers. "Were it to vanish tomorrow," he writes, "our modern...

This book has been produced for entertainment and it's sole purpose is to bring fun and further your knowledge! The quiz questions have been compiled with the readers at home in mind. A whole host of subjects and topics have been covered; ranging in difficulty levels from easy, to intermediate and advanced.Navigation has been made very easy as links have been placed between quiz rounds and answers. There are also links back to the main index page after each questions and answers ro...

Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy--and passion--behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon.Over the last fifty years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment. But as the gaming industry grows in numerous directions and everyone talks about the advance of the mo...

What is there to do, when you have the power to do anything? John can fly, he can see through solid objects, he can take over the world and give it back again, but what he's looking for is something else…At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The twenty-fourth edition in the bestselling bathroom-reading series is jam-packed with over 500 pages of absorbing trivia material.The information miners at the Bathroom Readers' Institute have unearthed a priceless collection of surprising, amazing, head-scratching, and hilarious articles. Divided by length for your sitting convenience, 24-Karat Gold is chock-full of little-known history, random origins, weird news, celebrity secrets, and urban legends. ...