A wild ride through the dark heart of American health and health care, plus sex, drugs, and stem-cell wars.PHYSICAL is the story of a hard-living, happily married, middle-aged American (the author) who gets a three-day "executive checkup" at the Mayo Clinic and is thereby forced to confront his mortality, not to mention glove-wearing doctors and the pair of dominatrix-esque technicians who supervise his stress test quite strictly. James McManus must understand his revised actuarial...

Why abolition does not work, and why we need to rethink the 'institution', from leading Spinozist thinker.Abolish Everything? confronts the question of whether it is possible or even desirable to envision a world without institutions such as the state, police, and money, among many other examples. Drawing on Spinoza’s philosophical corpus to reconceptualize the notion of the “institution” itself, Lordon tests this question against solutions provided by a w...

Triangulations, and more precisely meshes, are at the heart of many problems relating to a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and in particular numerical simulations of all kinds of physical phenomena. In numerical simulations, the functional spaces of approximation used to search for solutions are defined from meshes, and in this sense these meshes play a fundamental role. This strong link between meshes and functional spaces leads us to consider advanced simulation methods in which ...

The battle has been joined. On this first day, Massena desperately holds onto Aspern, the French cavalry charges again and again, but the Emperor cannot seem to break the Austrians. Louis-Francois, stuck on the wrong side of the only available bridge, impatiently waits for repairs to conclude. Not only are his official messages delayed, but he’s also dying to send news to Miss Krauss in Vienna. However, his friend Stendhal, who’s remained with the beautiful Austrian lady, makes some upsett...

Moscow is now in French hands, but a large part of the city has burned down, and it’s been emptied of all food, fodder and warm clothes. Even as winter approaches, and against the advice of his generals, Napoleon insists on staying, convinced that the Czar will soon surrender to him. But both soldiers and civilians increasingly suffer from hunger and the cold, and the terrifying Cossacks constantly harry any troops sent out to forage for food …

The terrible Russian winter has engulfed the retreat, and the Grande Armée is no more. Mercilessly harassed by the fierce Cossacks, a few thousand men only continue to trudge forward, weak, starving, emaciated, leaving a trail of frozen dead behind. And as Russian regular forces prepare to surround and trap them, the weather suddenly turns warmer, making rivers impassable. To escape, they will have to somehow cross a river whose name would soon become synonymous with tragedy: the Berezina ...

Master Microsoft Fabric from basics to advanced architectures with expert guidance to unify, secure, and scale analytics on real-world data platformsKey FeaturesBuild a complete data analytics platform with Microsoft FabricApply proven architectures, governance, and security strategiesGain real-world insights from five seasoned data expertsPurchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBookBook Description...

A brilliantly funny look at the tumultuous recent past from the Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist.Remember when everything was going to go to hell when Y2K struck?That didn’t happen, right?But what did happen? To provide a little perspective on a really messed-up millennium (so far), the one and only Dave Barry slips into his historian’s robe (it’s plush terrycloth) and revisits the defining moments in our country’s recent history. As an added bonus, ...

George Bush was a throwback to a different era. A patrician figure not known for his eloquence, Bush readily dismissed ideology as "the vision thing." Yet, as Timothy Naftali argues, there was no person of his generation better prepared for the challenges facing the United States as the Cold War ended. Bush wisely shepherded Soviet reformers through the liberalization of their system and skillfully orchestrated the reunification of Germany. And following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 199...

May 1809. Napoleon’s Grande Armée has taken Vienna and is preparing to cross the Danube, but the Austrians are waiting for him in Essling. The carnage can begin … Louis-François Lejeune, young colonel attached to the emperor’s staff, meets his old friend Henri Beyne in occupied Vienna. He also meets the beautiful Anna Krauss, with whom he is madly in love with. Nearby, though, Napoleon is attempting to crush the Austrian army, and organising the crossing of the Danube for his troops on a s...

In "Harmonies of Political Economy," Frédéric Bastiat brilliantly interweaves economic theory with an accessible literary style, presenting a compelling argument for the principles of free market economics. Written during the mid-19th century, the book reflects the philosophical underpinnings of classical liberalism and provides insightful critiques of protectionism and state intervention. Bastiat famously employs wit and parables to elucidate complex economic concepts, making this work ...

Napoleon is furious. It appears the battle can no longer be won. The French cavalry is so exhausted it can’t even gallop when charging. Ammunition is running out, while losses mount horrifically – both in men and in irreplaceable officers … But the Austrians have paid an equally steep price, and a complete defeat may yet be avoided. Louis- François, Paradis, Fayolle … Who will survive the terrible bloodbath – the better to serve again in the next one?