The Hard Parts

The Hard Parts
Author: Oksana Masters
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2023-02-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1398519944

The remarkable and inspirational story of Oksana Masters, who was born with radiation-induced birth defects and suffered appalling abuse as an orphan, before being adopted and moving to the US, where she went on to triumph over her challenges to win ten Paralympic medals in four different sports. Oksana Masters was born in the shadow of Chernobyl, with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias. Relinquished to the orphanage system by birth parents daunted by the staggering cost of their child’s medical care, Oksana encountered numerous abuses, some horrifying. Salvation came at the age of seven when Gay Masters, an unmarried American professor who saw a photo of the little girl and became haunted by her eyes, waged a two-year war against stubborn adoption authorities to rescue Oksana from her circumstances. In America, Oksana endured years of operations that included a double leg amputation. Still, how could she hope to fit in when there were so many things making her different? As it turned out, she would do much more than fit in. Determined to prove herself and fuelled by a drive to succeed that still smouldered from childhood, Oksana triumphed in not just one sport but four - winning against the world’s best in rowing, biathlon, cross-country skiing and road cycling competitions. This is Oksana’s astonishing story of journeying through a series of dark tunnels - and how, with her mother’s love, she finally found her way into the light. Her message to anyone who doesn’t fit in: you can find a place where you excel and where you have worth.

Software Architecture: The Hard Parts

Software Architecture: The Hard Parts
Author: Neal Ford
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2021-09-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 149208686X

There are no easy decisions in software architecture. Instead, there are many hard parts--difficult problems or issues with no best practices--that force you to choose among various compromises. With this book, you'll learn how to think critically about the trade-offs involved with distributed architectures. Architecture veterans and practicing consultants Neal Ford, Mark Richards, Pramod Sadalage, and Zhamak Dehghani discuss strategies for choosing an appropriate architecture. By interweaving a story about a fictional group of technology professionals--the Sysops Squad--they examine everything from how to determine service granularity, manage workflows and orchestration, manage and decouple contracts, and manage distributed transactions to how to optimize operational characteristics, such as scalability, elasticity, and performance. By focusing on commonly asked questions, this book provides techniques to help you discover and weigh the trade-offs as you confront the issues you face as an architect. Analyze trade-offs and effectively document your decisions Make better decisions regarding service granularity Understand the complexities of breaking apart monolithic applications Manage and decouple contracts between services Handle data in a highly distributed architecture Learn patterns to manage workflow and transactions when breaking apart applications

The Hard Parts

The Hard Parts
Author: Oksana Masters
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2024-02-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982185511

"The United States' most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete tells how she overcame Chernobyl disaster-caused physical challenges through sheer determination and a drive to succeed to win the world's best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-countryskiing, and road cycling competitions."--

Saying Yes to Life

Saying Yes to Life
Author: Ezra Bayda
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2005-07-29
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0861712749

Told in blissfully simple language, the thoughts and messages in "Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts)" provide inspiration for each day. These nuggets of wisdom range from a page-long reflection to a simple aphorism and stress the importance of drawing meaning from life's paradoxes -- opening to the unwanted, recognizing the happiness in difficulty, and living for now rather than later. Page after page reveals truths that can be put into action in the moment, yet also stand up to multiple interpretations and thorough examination. Insightful and never convoluted, "Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts)" is a great companion for life's long journey.

JavaScript: The Good Parts

JavaScript: The Good Parts
Author: Douglas Crockford
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2008-05-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0596554877

Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole—a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code. Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables. When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a programming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including: Syntax Objects Functions Inheritance Arrays Regular expressions Methods Style Beautiful features The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book. With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highly expressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.

Data Science: The Hard Parts

Data Science: The Hard Parts
Author: Daniel Vaughan
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2023-11
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1098146441

This practical guide provides a collection of techniques and best practices that are generally overlooked in most data engineering and data science pedagogy. A common misconception is that great data scientists are experts in the "big themes" of the discipline—machine learning and programming. But most of the time, these tools can only take us so far. In practice, the smaller tools and skills really separate a great data scientist from a not-so-great one. Taken as a whole, the lessons in this book make the difference between an average data scientist candidate and a qualified data scientist working in the field. Author Daniel Vaughan has collected, extended, and used these skills to create value and train data scientists from different companies and industries. With this book, you will: Understand how data science creates value Deliver compelling narratives to sell your data science project Build a business case using unit economics principles Create new features for a ML model using storytelling Learn how to decompose KPIs Perform growth decompositions to find root causes for changes in a metric Daniel Vaughan is head of data at Clip, the leading paytech company in Mexico. He's the author of Analytical Skills for AI and Data Science (O'Reilly).

Just the Funny Parts

Just the Funny Parts
Author: Nell Scovell
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062473506

Just the Funny Parts is a juicy and scathingly funny insider look at how pop culture gets made. For more than thirty years, writer, producer and director Nell Scovell worked behind the scenes of iconic TV shows, including The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown,NCIS,The Muppets, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which she created and executive produced. In 2009, Scovell gave up her behind-the-scenes status when the David Letterman sex scandal broke. Only the second woman ever to write for his show, Scovell used the moment to publicly call out the lack of gender diversity in late-night TV writers’ rooms. “One of the boys” came out hard for “all of the girls.” Her criticisms fueled a cultural debate. Two years later, Scovell was collaborating with Sheryl Sandberg on speeches and later on Lean In, which resulted in a worldwide movement. Now Scovell is opening up with this fun, honest, and often shocking account. Scovell knows what it’s like to put words in the mouths of President Barack Obama, Mark Harmon, Candice Bergen, Bob Newhart, Conan O’Brien, Alyssa Milano, and Kermit the Frog, among many others. Through her eyes, you’ll sit in the Simpson writers’ room… stand on the Oscar red carpet… pin a tail on Miss Piggy…bond with Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy… and experience a Stephen King-like encounter with Stephen King. Just the Funny Parts is a fast-paced account of a nerdy girl from New England who fought her way to the top of the highly-competitive, male-dominated entertainment field. The book delivers invaluable insights into the creative process and tricks for navigating a difficult workplace. It's part memoir, part how-to, and part survival story. Or, as Scovell puts it, “It’s like Unbroken, but funnier and with slightly less torture.”

Willing to Believe

Willing to Believe
Author: R. C. Sproul
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2002-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1585581534

What is the role of the will in believing the good news of the gospel? Why is there so much controversy over free will throughout church history? R. C. Sproul finds that Christians have often been influenced by pagan views of the human will that deny the effects of Adam's fall. In Willing to Believe, Sproul traces the free-will controversy from its formal beginning in the fifth century, with the writings of Augustine and Pelagius, to the present. Readers will gain understanding into the nuances separating the views of Protestants and Catholics, Calvinists and Arminians, and Reformed and Dispensationalists. This book, like Sproul's Faith Alone, is a major work on an essential evangelical tenet.

The Writing Workshop

The Writing Workshop
Author: Katie Wood Ray
Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English (Ncte)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780814113172

Offers advice to teachers on how to conduct writing workshops, providing a rationale for writing workshops, looking at what they have in common across grade levels, and discussing the tone of workshop teaching, getting started with independent writing time, curriculum, focus lessons, assessment and evaluation, and other topics.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)
Author: Sherman Alexie
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2012-01-10
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316219304

A New York Times bestseller—over one million copies sold! A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.