Taking the Mask Off... was a hard book for me to write.What started out as daily journal entries that centered around losses, regrets, family, and the beauty of nature, all written during COVID isolation but covering my entire life's experience were now over 150 handwritten short stories contained in four 5 x 7-inch memorandum books filled in front to back.It took me six months to realize that my writings were more than simple journalling; they were therapy. Therap...

In 1974 a message was beamed towards the stars by the giant Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, a brief blast of radio waves designed to alert extraterrestrial civilizations to our existence. Of course, we don't know if such civilizations really exist. But for the past six decades a small cadre of researchers have been on a quest to find out, as part of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.However, the act of transmitting raises troubling questions about the process of ...

Nearly sixty years ago, Nobel Prize-winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled across a mysterious hiss of faint radio static that was interfering with their astronomical observations. In it, they had found the key to unravelling the story of the Big Bang and the origin of our universe. That signal was the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the earliest light in the universe, released 379,000 years after the Big Bang. It contains secrets about what happened during the very first tiny ...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch a double sunset on Tatooine, stand among the sand dunes of Arrakis or gaze at the gas-giant planet Polyphemus from the moon Pandora? In Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact, Keith Cooper explores the fictional planets of films such as Star Wars, Dune and Avatar, and discusses how realistic they are based on our current scientific understanding and astronomical observations. The real exop...

The premise of this book is that it is simply impossible to determine, with any degree of confidence, as to whether there is a transcendent, creative being which is responsible for the existence of the universe. Therefore, the conclusion that inevitably flows from this realization is that the most intellectually honest position to espouse is one of agnosticism. A corollary of this idea is that it is also impossible to know if our lives are anything more than a random sequence of events ord...

Engineering a Compiler, Third Edition covers the latest developments in compiler technology, with new chapters focusing on semantic elaboration (the problems that arise in generating code from the ad-hoc syntax-directed translation schemes in a generated parser), on runtime support for naming and addressability, and on code shape for expressions, assignments and control-structures. Leading educators and researchers, Keith Cooper and Linda Torczon, have revised this popular text with a fres...

This is a journey taking you into a young woman’s unbelievable reality while trapped in a world that could have physically, emotionally and spiritually destroyed her-- a world from which only a few successfully escape and even fewer recover. You will get insight into her childhood, teenage, college and young adult years. Her dad shares his pain and purpose as their relationship and their destinies unfold. Where or to whom do you run to when you realize you have made a terrifying, possibly ...

'The finest translation in and for our time' (Kevin Crossley-Holland) Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separate and very ancient Celtic motifs of the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th century poet. His telling comprehends a great variety ...

Sexually confused and more than a little lost, Trevor Machine, teenage front man for up-and-coming indie rockers Horror Hospital, walks a rocky road toward fame and fortune. But making it to the top may mean gambling away every last trace of his integrity, and Trevor's soul hangs in the balance as he discovers the dark side of success.A groundbreaking cult classic, adapted from Dennis Cooper's story "Horror Hospital" from the collection Wrong, Horror Hospital Unplugged is now avail...

In today′s society, many young people feel marginalised and unable to find their own voice. It is vital therefore that youth workers are able to work with them to tackle this in a meaningful way. Drawing on the real experiences and difficulties faced by youth workers, this book will help those who want to work with young people in an empowering way. The concepts of empowerment and participation are explained, explored and critically analysed, along with the key notion of resilience. This i...

From the earliest days of aviation where the pilot would drop simple bombs by hand, to the highly agile, stealthy aircraft of today that can deliver smart ordnance with extreme accuracy, engineers have striven to develop the capability to deliver weapons against targets reliably, safely and with precision.Aircraft Systems Integration of Air-Launched Weapons introduces the various aspects of weapons integration, primarily from the aircraft systems integration viewpoint, but...

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late...