Plotting the Globe

Plotting the Globe
Author: Avraham Ariel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2005-12-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313056463

People use concepts such as time and date to structure their lives on a daily basis. They often measure their travel by marking points arranged along great circles on the globe. Yet most do not understand the origin and history of these terms and the stories of the intrepid adventurers, scientists, and seafarers who shaped our picture of the world today. Ariel transports readers to faraway lands and ancient cultures that span more than 3500 years of exploration. Phoenicians, Spaniards, Portuguese, British, French, and many others star in an epic that stretches from Lapland to Cape Horn, via Greenwich, Paris, the Andes and the Fortunate Islands. This book is a collection of stories and myths about geography, navigation, and geodesy— the science that deals with the Earth's figure and the interrelationship of selected points on its surface-that reaches far beyond dry scientific texts to concentrate on the people behind the discoveries. The knowledge and understanding of abstract notions such as the Prime Meridian, the Equator, and the International Date Line is conveyed through emphasis on the human spirit that motivated the pioneer scientists and sailors. It is a tale littered with heroes and villains, battles, tragedies and international intrigue. Readers will learn of a time when nothing was certain—even the shape and size of the earth were the subjects of fierce competition, conflict, and politics.

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method
Author: Randy Ingermanson
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-07-18
Genre: Creative writing
ISBN: 9781500574055

The Snowflake Method-ten battle-tested steps that jump-start your creativity and help you quickly map out your story.

Python Data Science Handbook

Python Data Science Handbook
Author: Jake VanderPlas
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1491912138

For many researchers, Python is a first-class tool mainly because of its libraries for storing, manipulating, and gaining insight from data. Several resources exist for individual pieces of this data science stack, but only with the Python Data Science Handbook do you get them all—IPython, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-Learn, and other related tools. Working scientists and data crunchers familiar with reading and writing Python code will find this comprehensive desk reference ideal for tackling day-to-day issues: manipulating, transforming, and cleaning data; visualizing different types of data; and using data to build statistical or machine learning models. Quite simply, this is the must-have reference for scientific computing in Python. With this handbook, you’ll learn how to use: IPython and Jupyter: provide computational environments for data scientists using Python NumPy: includes the ndarray for efficient storage and manipulation of dense data arrays in Python Pandas: features the DataFrame for efficient storage and manipulation of labeled/columnar data in Python Matplotlib: includes capabilities for a flexible range of data visualizations in Python Scikit-Learn: for efficient and clean Python implementations of the most important and established machine learning algorithms

Flattening the Earth

Flattening the Earth
Author: John P. Snyder
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 1997-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226767477

Cartographers have long grappled with the impossibility of portraying the earth in two dimensions. To solve this problem, mapmakers have created map projections. This work discusses and illustrates the known map projections from before 500BC to the present, with facts on their origins and use.

Geocomputation with R

Geocomputation with R
Author: Robin Lovelace
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2019-03-22
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1351396900

Geocomputation with R is for people who want to analyze, visualize and model geographic data with open source software. It is based on R, a statistical programming language that has powerful data processing, visualization, and geospatial capabilities. The book equips you with the knowledge and skills to tackle a wide range of issues manifested in geographic data, including those with scientific, societal, and environmental implications. This book will interest people from many backgrounds, especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS) users interested in applying their domain-specific knowledge in a powerful open source language for data science, and R users interested in extending their skills to handle spatial data. The book is divided into three parts: (I) Foundations, aimed at getting you up-to-speed with geographic data in R, (II) extensions, which covers advanced techniques, and (III) applications to real-world problems. The chapters cover progressively more advanced topics, with early chapters providing strong foundations on which the later chapters build. Part I describes the nature of spatial datasets in R and methods for manipulating them. It also covers geographic data import/export and transforming coordinate reference systems. Part II represents methods that build on these foundations. It covers advanced map making (including web mapping), "bridges" to GIS, sharing reproducible code, and how to do cross-validation in the presence of spatial autocorrelation. Part III applies the knowledge gained to tackle real-world problems, including representing and modeling transport systems, finding optimal locations for stores or services, and ecological modeling. Exercises at the end of each chapter give you the skills needed to tackle a range of geospatial problems. Solutions for each chapter and supplementary materials providing extended examples are available at https://geocompr.github.io/geocompkg/articles/.

The Plot to Control the World

The Plot to Control the World
Author: Dan Kovalik
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1510745017

Russia’s foreign policy is following the lead of the United States. As politicos and pundits wring their hands about alleged Russian collusion and meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections, Dan Kovalik reminds us that the US has been meddling in other countries’ elections and democratic processes for decades, and with terrible results. While the US holds itself out as a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world, the US’s actions stray quite far from this pretense. From Vietnam in the 1950s, when the US blocked elections which would have allowed the Vietnamese people to vote for a unified country and for their own president, to the overthrow of democratic governments in Iran and Guatemala and the consequent installation of brutal regimes which killed tens of thousands, the US has undermined democracies in ways which make the alleged Russian “meddling” (the sum total of which involve claims of social media posts and computer hacking) look like mere child’s play. The Plot to Control the World details these instances of US interference and other instances of meddling in other countries’ democratic processes, such as in Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela, Greece, the Congo, Honduras, and even in Russia in the very recent past. These examples put the current allegations against Vladimir Putin and Russia into historical context and challenge the reader to consider that, if the US does not want other countries to interfere in its elections, it may be high time for the US to stop its interference in other countries around the world.

The Seven Basic Plots

The Seven Basic Plots
Author: Christopher Booker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 737
Release: 2005-11-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1441116516

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling. But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose. Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years. This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

Plotting Apocalypse

Plotting Apocalypse
Author: Jennie Chapman
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1617039047

It is the not-too-distant future, and the rapture has occurred. Every born-again Christian on the planet has, without prior warning, been snatched from the earth to meet Christ in the heavens, while all those without the requisite faith have been left behind to suffer the wrath of the Antichrist as the earth enters into its final days. This is the premise that animates the enormously popular cultural phenomenon that is the Left Behind series of prophecy novels, co-written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and published between 1995 and 2007. But these books are more than fiction: it is the sincere belief of many evangelicals that these events actually will occur--soon. Plotting Apocalypse delves into the world of rapture, prophecy, and tribulation in order to account for the extraordinary cultural salience of these books and the impact of the world they project. Through penetrating readings of the novels, Chapman shows how the series offers a new model of evangelical agency for its readership. The novels teach that although believers are incapable of changing the course of a future that has been preordained by God, they can become empowered by learning to read the prophetic books of the Bible--and the signs of the times--correctly. Reading and interpretation become key indices of agency in the world that Left Behind limns. Plotting Apocalypse reveals the significant cultural work that Left Behind performs in developing a counter-narrative to the passivity and fatalism that can characterize evangelical prophecy belief. Chapman's arguments may bear profound implications for the future of American evangelicalism and its interactions with culture, society, and politics.

Earth Abides

Earth Abides
Author: George R. Stewart
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 325
Release: 1993-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0899683703