http://reader2.com/hydephenhttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: software business startup people coders managing

]]>Thu, 07 Sep 2006 16:22:41 GMTitem_id_3924_1489hydephsoftwarebusinessstartuppeoplecodersmanaginghttp://reader2.com/hydephYossarian says, "You're talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive."
"Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?"
"To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."
"I can't think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy."
"The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."
Mirabile dictu, the book holds up post-Reagan, post-Gulf War. It's a good thing, too. As long as there's a military, that engine of lethal authority, Catch-22 will shine as a handbook for smart-alecky pacifists. It's an utterly serious and sad, but damn funny book.
by hydeph]]>Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:53:38 GMTitem_id_717_1489hydephhttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Once inside the craft, the team makes an astounding discovery: The controls are marked in English. Further inspection of the mile-long craft shows that there is room for a crew of 20, but no signs of the crew. They are surprised to discover a large, gleaming, metallic-looking sphere with a concealed door.

As each of the team members decides to enter the sphere, the line between reality and illusion begins to blur. Their behavior begins to become irrational. Each begins to distrust the other. Each must face their own inner demons. As time runs out, the team must surface and forget the terrifying experience of the sphere.
by hydeph
Tags: scifi eti]]>Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:47:08 GMTitem_id_1106_1489hydephscifietihttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Does life feel like a never-ending race against the clock?

These days, many of us live in fast forward – and pay a heavy price for it. Our work, health and relationships suffer. Over-stimulated, over-scheduled and overwrought, we struggle to relax, to enjoy things properly, to spend time with family and friends. The Slow movement offers a lifeline. It is not a Luddite plot to abolish all things modern. You don’t have to shun technology, live in the wilderness or do everything at a snail’s pace. Being “Slow” means living better in the hectic modern world by striking a balance between fast and slow. In Praise of Slow is the first handbook for the emerging Slow movement. Through a blend of anecdote, reportage, first-hand experience, history and intellectual inquiry, it explains how the world got so fast and why slowing down can pay dividends in every walk of life. To illustrate the benefits of deceleration, the book travels from a Tantric sex workshop in London to a meditation room for executives in Tokyo, from a Chi Kung squash class in Edinburgh to a SuperSlow exercise studio in New York City, from a TV-free household in Toronto to Italy, the home of Slow Food, Slow Cities and Slow Sex movements. Wherever you go, whatever you do, the message is the same: slower is often better.

In the United States, the book is called In Praise of Slowness.

In the rest of the English-speaking world, it is called In Praise of Slow.
by hydeph
Tags: life meditation stress slowness]]>Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:27:59 GMTitem_id_3207_1489hydephlifemeditationstressslownesshttp://reader2.com/hydeph
But the plans of the Dante Club come to a screeching halt when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only the members of the Dante Club realize that the style and form of the killings are stolen directly from Dante’s Inferno and its singular account of Hell’s punishments. With the police baffled, lives endangered and Dante’s literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find a way to stop the killer.

The brunt of the burden falls to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose unique literacy in both poetry and medicine continues to pull him into the center of the struggle. An outcast policeman, Nicholas Rey, the first and only black member of the Boston police department, places his future on the line after discovering the secrets of the Dante Club. Together, they find the key to the murders where they least expect it: closer than they could have imagined.
by hydeph]]>Wed, 05 Jul 2006 23:34:09 GMTitem_id_574_1489hydephhttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: stories scifi short compilation]]>Mon, 03 Jul 2006 15:08:58 GMTitem_id_24512_1489hydephstoriesscifishortcompilationhttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph]]>Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:56:04 GMTitem_id_3340_1489hydephhttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: mystery historical poe]]>Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:50:42 GMTitem_id_23275_1489hydephmysteryhistoricalpoehttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: science psychology life]]>Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:41:10 GMTitem_id_335_1489hydephsciencepsychologylifehttp://reader2.com/hydeph
• Is it possible Christ did not die on the cross?
• Is it possible Jesus was married, a father, and that his bloodline still exists?
• Is it possible that parchments found in the South of France a century ago reveal one of the best-kept secrets of Christendom?
• Is it possible that these parchments contain the very heart of the mystery of the Holy Grail?

According to the authors of this extraordinarily provocative, meticulously researched book, not only are these things possible — they are probably true! so revolutionary, so original, so convincing, that the most faithful Christians will be moved; here is the book that has sparked worldwide controversey.
by hydeph
Tags: religion conspiracy]]>Tue, 30 May 2006 02:11:11 GMTitem_id_5161_1489hydephreligionconspiracyhttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price....
by hydeph
Tags: cyberpunk scifi technology computers]]>Sun, 28 May 2006 21:07:28 GMTitem_id_763_1489hydephcyberpunkscifitechnologycomputershttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.
by hydeph
Tags: vampires]]>Thu, 25 May 2006 18:51:27 GMTitem_id_7775_1489hydephvampireshttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: vampires]]>Thu, 25 May 2006 14:35:52 GMTitem_id_387_1489hydephvampireshttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: fantasy harry_potter]]>Mon, 08 May 2006 14:03:37 GMTitem_id_418_1489hydephfantasyharry_potterhttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Still, Cayce is her father's daughter, and the danger makes her stubborn. Win Pollard, ex-security expert, probably ex-CIA, took a taxi in the direction of the World Trade Center on September 11 one year ago, and is presumed dead. Win taught Cayce a bit about the way agents work. She is still numb at his loss, and, as much for him as for any other reason, she refuses to give up this newly weird job, which will take her to Tokyo and on to Russia. With help and betrayal from equally unlikely quarters, Cayce will follow the trail of the mysterious film to its source, and in the process will learn something about her father's life and death.
by hydeph
Tags: cyberpunk scifi]]>Mon, 08 May 2006 12:52:27 GMTitem_id_1725_1489hydephcyberpunkscifihttp://reader2.com/hydeph
The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to England's shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princess's behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.

No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britain's newborn monetary system.

Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the "holy grail" of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouse's manufactory.

Everything that was will be changed forever ...

The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion.
by hydeph
Tags: scifi]]>Mon, 08 May 2006 12:43:48 GMTitem_id_14495_1489hydephscifihttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Meanwhile, back in Europe ...

The exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, master of markets, pawn and confidante of enemy kings, onetime Turkish harem virgin, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession -- her child.

While ...

Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, nobles are beheaded, dastardly plots are set in motion, coins are newly minted (or not) in enemy strongholds, father and sons reunite in faraway lands, priests rise from the dead ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended.
by hydeph
Tags: scifi]]>Mon, 08 May 2006 12:43:04 GMTitem_id_22940_1489hydephscifihttp://reader2.com/hydeph
Daniel Waterhouse possesses a brilliant scientific mind -- and yet knows that his genius is dwarfed by that of his friends Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Robert Hooke. He rejects the arcane tradition of alchemy, even as it is giving birth to new ways of understanding the world.

Jack Shaftoe began his life as a London street urchin and is now a reckless wanderer in search of great fortune. The intrepid exploits of Half-Cocked Jack, King of the Vagabonds, are quickly becoming the stuff of legend throughout Europe.

Eliza is a young woman whose ingenuity is all that keeps her alive after being set adrift from the Turkish harem in which she has been imprisoned since she was a child.

Daniel, Jack, and Eliza will traverse a landscape populated by mad alchemists, Barbary pirates, and bawdy courtiers, as well as historical figures including Samuel Pepys, Ben Franklin, and other great minds of the age. Traveling from the infant American colonies to the Tower of London to the glittering courts of Louis XIV, and all manner of places in between, this magnificent historical epic brings to vivid life a time like no other, and establishes its author as one of the preeminent talents of our own age.
by hydeph
Tags: scifi]]>Mon, 08 May 2006 12:41:59 GMTitem_id_22941_1489hydephscifihttp://reader2.com/hydeph

Both sides of human nature, however, are tied to our biology. This theme of the duality of human nature, hovering between beast and angel, is brought home in Our Inner Ape by looking at our two closest animal relatives, the chimpanzee and the bonobo. The chimpanzee has a reputation as murderous and power-hungry, whereas the bonobo, the hippie of the primate world, seems to prefer to "make love - not war." Both apes are equally close to us on the primate family tree, but comparisons with chimpanzees have thus far dominated the media and literature. This is because until recently little was known about the bonobo. The bonobo's female dominance, cooperative nature, and use of sex to restore peace poses a challenge to certain male-biased theoriesthat equate humanity's aggressiveness with progress.

Over the last few decades, biologists have popularized the image of humans as driven by "selfish genes," doing only what is good for themselves. This message fit the Reagan-Thatcher Zeitgeist of greed as the foundation of the free-market system. Well before Enron and the spate of corporate scandals, however, Western cultures have been placing increasing emphasis on moral responsibility and community. Also within biology, the tone of the debate about human nature has changed drastically over the last few years, from the right of the strongest to the evolution of morality and commitment. This seems the right time, therefore, to present a more complete picture of human nature and human ancestry, one that tries to accommodate both the chimpanzee and the bonobo within us.
by hydeph
Tags: science nature humans]]>Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:43:33 GMTitem_id_10287_1489hydephsciencenaturehumanshttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: wilde]]>Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:06:32 GMTitem_id_23352_1489hydephwildehttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: drugs]]>Wed, 15 Feb 2006 03:33:53 GMTitem_id_20009_1489hydephdrugshttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: fantasy harry_potter]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:07:40 GMTitem_id_415_1489hydephfantasyharry_potterhttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: spanish intermediate course]]>Thu, 12 Jan 2006 20:54:27 GMTitem_id_17522_1489hydephspanishintermediatecoursehttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: french intermediate course]]>Thu, 12 Jan 2006 20:52:32 GMTitem_id_17523_1489hydephfrenchintermediatecoursehttp://reader2.com/hydeph by hydeph
Tags: security pc linux windows reverse_engineering]]>Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:25:24 GMTitem_id_17206_1489hydephsecuritypclinuxwindowsreverse_engineering