For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang―"a gifted observer of contemporary China" (Ross Douthat)―has been living through the country's astonishing, messy progress. China's towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time. But rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout the society. This reality―political repression and astonishing growth―is not a paradox, but rather a feature of China's engineering mindset....

"A canny, insightful, and very readable take on the brave new world of work."—Kirkus ReviewsAs COVID has receded, companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, and Twitter have severely restricted or even eliminated remote work. Ditto for countless, less iconic firms and small businesses. At a high level, executives and managers at these organizations are trying to turn back the clock to 2019.There's just one problem, though:...

On February 28, 2013, after pleading guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, John Kiriakou began serving a thirty month prison sentence. His crime: blowing the whistle on the CIA's use of torture on al Qaeda prisoners.Doing Time Like a Spy is Kiriakou's memoir of his twenty-three months in prison. Using twenty life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. Including his ...

Japanese myths present a significant barrier to entry for Westerners. The primary sources are arcane, and their translations are not accessible to the non-specialist. Japanese deities (kami) have multiple, long names, and the myths exist in different and conflicting versions. Finally, the sheer number of kami makes grasping the pantheon difficult.Japanese Mythology: A Guide presents key Japanese myths in a format that is both rigorous and understandable. Matthieu Felt brin...

Get started writing for magazines, and learn to make a living at it.ANTIOXIDANTS: MIGHTY CANCER WEAPONS describes how large quantities of antioxidants (AOs) can benefit cancer patients of both orthodox and alternative oncology. It explains how and why a super abundance of AOs are able to create an inhospitable terrain for the cancer cells, with a potential for their demise. It speaks of cancer prevention, how AOs positively affect blood flow, how they alkalize the body, hydrate cells, attr...

Large language models (LLMs) are not just shaping the trajectory of AI, they're also unveiling a new era of security challenges. This practical book takes you straight to the heart of these threats. Author Steve Wilson, chief product officer at Exabeam, focuses exclusively on LLMs, eschewing generalized AI security to delve into the unique characteristics and vulnerabilities inherent in these models.Complete with collective wisdom gained from the creation of the OWASP Top 10 for LL...

A "normal" Caribbean hurricane travels from east to west, but Lenny was anything but normal. Spawned south of Cuba in 1999, this late-season storm defied all predictions by moving steadily east toward the Leeward Islands. Eventually building almost to Category 5 strength, Lenny squatted for two days between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin, whipping the ocean with 155 mile-per-hour winds and sixty-foot seas.In its path in the Anegada Passage were three sailboats and their unfortun...

Barliona: a virtual world jam-packed with monsters, battles—and, predictably, players. Millions of them come to Barliona, looking forward to the things they can't get in real life: elves and magic, dragons and princesses, and unforgettable combat. The game has become so popular that players now choose to spend months online without returning home. In Barliona, anything goes: You can assault fellow players, level up, become a mythical hero, a wizard, or a legendary thief. The only rule that...

Ron Dimon's thought-leading second edition of the book originally entitled Enterprise Performance Management Done Right, published in 2012, is a practical roadmap for using Connected Planning to develop an agile organization and to navigate the complex Enterprise Performance Management landscape.According to esteemed author, researcher, and management professor Dr. Christopher Neck, "In the same way that one needs to be self-leading to finish a grueling marathon, an organi...

A provocative, irreverent biography of Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, BORN WITH A TAIL chronicles a time when Americans could welcome a macabre showman into their living rooms via *TheTonight Show*, before a ginned-up hysteria known as the Satanic Panic would put a target on his shiny, shaven head*.***When Anton LaVey burst onto the San Francisco scene right before the Summer of Love, he parlayed his eerie obsessions into a philosophy...

Nations have long sought to use technology as a power-multiplier for their own ambitions. In the twenty-first century, at a time of unprecedented innovation, the United States and China are in a race to achieve technological superiority. But how will this affect long-standing trade ties and the international landscape?Techno-nationalism holds that a nation's economic strength and its national security—even its social stability—are linked to the technological prowess of its institut...

During the twentieth century, Vietnam and Poland were both victims not only of devastating wars, but also of socialist planned economies that destroyed whatever war hadn’t already. In 1990, Vietnam was still one of the poorest countries in the world, while Poland was one of the poorest in Europe. But in the three decades since then, both countries have drastically improved their citizens’ standards of living and escaped the vicious cycle of national poverty.In this book, Rainer Zit...