Using the HTML5 Filesystem API

Big Data is made up of lots of little data: numbers entered into cell phones, addresses entered into GPS devices, visits to websites, online purchases, ATM transactions,

One of today's most widely read philosophers considers the shift in violence from visible to invisible, from negativity to excess of positivity.Some things never disappear -- violence, for example. Vi

Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and r

Using MPI is a completely up-to-date version of the authors' 1994 introduction to the core functions of MPI. It adds material on the new C++ and Fortran 90 bindings for MPI throughout the book.

Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy o

In Voice and v, Julie Anne Legate investigates the syntacticstructure of voice, using Acehnese as the empirical starting point. A central claim is that voice isencoded in a functional projection, Voic

Investors and analysts often need to look into a firm's operations more deeply than traditional financial statements and models allow. This book describes newly developed tools for using operations me

Cognitive electrophysiology concerns the study of the brain's electrical and magneticresponses to both external and internal events. These can be measured using electroencephalograms(EEGs) or magnetoe

Innovators across all sectors of society are using information and communication technology to reshape economic and social activity. Even after the boom -- and despite the bust -- the process of struc

Using the inspiration of Leonardo da Vinci to build a new, humanistic computing that focuses on users' needs and goals.

Monetary Policy in Interdependent Economies provides the first comprehensive overview of the implications of using game theory to analyze interactions among national monetary policymakers. It synthesi

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 1996.Job Creation and Destruction is the culmination of a long, ongoing research program at the Center for Economic Studies. Using the most complete plant- level da

This book presents a coherent approach to the fast moving field of machine vision, using a consistent notation based on a detailed understanding of the image formation process. It covers even the most

Imagining a future in which humans fundamentally reshape the natural world using nanotechnology, synthetic biology, de-extinction, and climate engineering.We have all heard that there are no longer an

The word "architect" is a noun, but Doug Patt uses it as a verb--coining a term andmaking a point about using parts of speech and parts of buildings in new ways. Changing the functionof a word, or a r

What lessons does the current economic crisis in Sweden offer for other economies? Written in a clear and precise style and using modern theories of macroeconomics and economic policy to analyze Swede

This important study shows that an understanding of product differentiation is crucial to understanding how modern market economies function and that differentiated markets can be analyzed using disc

This collection of 17 essays by the author offers a comprehensive theory of mind, encompassing traditional issues of consciousness and free will. Using careful arguments and ingenious thought-experim

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) specification is widely used for solving significant scientific and engineering problems on parallel computers. There exist more than a dozen implementations on co

An optimistic--but realistic and feasible--action plan for fighting climate change while creating new jobs and a healthier environment: electrify everything.Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now―but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint―optimistic but feasible―for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith’s plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future. Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fue

The history of hunting, from Stone Age hunter-gatherers to today’s sport hunters.Hunting has a long history, beginning with our hominid ancestors. The invention of the spear allowed early humans to graduate from scavenging to actual hunting. The famous cave paintings at Lascaux show a meticulous knowledge of animal behavior and anatomy that only a hunter would have. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series traces the evolution of hunting, from Stone Age hunting and gathering to today’s regulated sport hunting. Humans have been hunting since we became human―but did hunting make us human? The authors consider and question the “hunting hypothesis of human origins,” noting that according to this theory, “hunting” meant hunting by men. They explore hunting in the Stone Age and how, beginning some ten thousand years ago, the spread of agriculture led to the emergence of empires and attempts by elites to monopolize hunting. They examine the democratization of hunting in the Am

A concise and engaging exploration of how we understand happiness.What does it mean to feel happiness? As a state of mind, it’s elusive. As a concept―despite the plethora of pop psychology books on the subject―it’s poorly understood. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, psychologist Tim Lomas offers a concise and engaging overview of our current understanding of happiness. Lomas explains that although the field of positive psychology, which focuses on happiness, emerged only in the last twenty-five years, interest in the meaning of happiness goes back several millennia. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, from philosophy and sociology to economics and anthropology, Lomas offers an expansive vision of what happiness means, exploring a significant range of experiential territory. After considering such related concepts as wellbeing and flourishing, Lomas traces ideas of happiness from the ancient Buddhist notions of sukha and nirvana through Aristotle’s distinctio

A hallucinating, insomniac, and increasingly fragile flaneur wanders the streets of Paris over the long Easter weekend of 1960.Paris, Easter weekend 1960. The French composer Jacques Besse sets out on a marathon stroll through the city that begins on Good Friday, when he leaves his brother’s house on rue de Turbigo, and ends on Easter Monday, when, having declared himself Mars, the god of war, to mystified restaurant-goers, he ambles back toward Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The Great Easter―a memoir in the form of a novella, or perhaps a novella in the form of a memoir―is the first-person account of a hallucinating, insomniac, and increasingly fragile flaneur’s unending ambulation. The Great Easter was first published in French in 1969 and became famous a few years later when in their milestone work Anti-Oedipus Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari referred to Besse’s walk as the quintessential “double stroll of the schizo.” (Besse was a patient at Guattari’s psychiatric clinic La Borde.) Bess

Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English.Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny.Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of inf

A guide to the ethical questions that arise from our use of industrial robots, robot companions, self-driving cars, and other robotic devices.Does a robot have moral agency? Can it be held responsible for its actions? Do humans owe robots anything? Will robots take our jobs? These are some of the ethical and moral quandaries that we should address now, as robots and other intelligent devices become more widely used and more technically sophisticated. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, philosopher Mark Coeckelbergh does just that. He considers a variety of robotics technologies and applications―from robotic companions to military drones―and identifies the ethical implications of their use. Questions of robot ethics, he argues, are not just about robots but, crucially and importantly, are about humans as well. Coeckelbergh examines industrial robots and their potential to take over tasks from humans; “social” robots and possible risks to privacy; and robots in he

The socially constructed phenomenon of whiteness: how it was created, how it changes, and how it protects and privileges people who are perceived as white.This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the socially constructed phenomenon of whiteness, tracing its creation, its changing formation, and its power to privilege and protect people who are perceived as white. Whiteness, author Martin Lund explains, is not one single idea but a shifting, overarching category, a flexible cluster of historically, culturally, and geographically contingent ideals and standards that enable systems of hierarchical classification. Lund discusses words used to talk about whiteness, from white privilege to white fragility; the intersections of whiteness with race, class, and gender; whiteness in popular culture; and such ideas as “colorblindness” and “reverse racism,” which, he argues, actually uphold whiteness. Lund shows why it is important to keep talking and thinking about whitene

Why, surrounded by screens and smart devices, we feel a deep connection to the analog―vinyl records, fountain pens, Kodak film, and other nondigital tools.We’re surrounded by screens; our music comes in the form of digital files; we tap words into a notes app. Why do we still crave the “realness” of analog, seeking out vinyl records, fountain pens, cameras with film? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Robert Hassan explores our deep connection to analog technology. Our analog urge, he explains, is about what we’ve lost from our technological past, something that’s not there in our digital present. We’re nostalgic for what we remember indistinctly as somehow more real, more human. Surveying some of the major developments of analog technology, Hassan shows us what’s been lost with the digital. Along the way, he discusses the appeal of the 2011 silent, black-and-white Oscar-winning film The Artist; the revival of the non-e-book book; the early mechanical clocks th

Twelve visions of living in a climate-changed world.We are living in the Anthropocene―an era of dramatic and violent climate change featuring warming oceans, melting icecaps, extreme weather events, habitat loss, species extinction, and more. What will life be like in a climate-changed world? In Tomorrow’s Parties, science fiction authors speculate how we might be able to live and even thrive through the advancing Anthropocene. In ten original stories by writers from around the world, an interview with celebrated writer Kim Stanley Robinson, and a series of intricate and elegant artworks by Sean Bodley, Tomorrow’s Parties takes rational optimism as a moral imperative, or at least a pragmatic alternative to despair. In these stories―by writers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, and Australia―a young man steals from delivery drones; a political community lives on an island made of ocean-borne plastic waste; and a climate change denier tries to unmask

A devastating, compelling account of the federal government's leading role in bringing about today's climate crisis.In 2015, a group of twenty-one young people sued the federal government in Juliana v. United States for violating their constitutional rights by promoting climate catastrophe and thereby depriving them of life, liberty, and property without due process and equal protection of law. They Knew offers evidence supporting the children's claims, presenting a devastating and compelling account of the federal government's role in bringing about today's climate crisis. James Gustave Speth, tapped by the plaintiffs as one of twenty-one preeminent experts in their climate case, analyzes how administrations from Carter to Trump―despite having information about the impending climate crisis and the connection to fossil fuels―continued aggressive support of a fossil fuel based energy system. What did the federal government know and when did it know it? Speth asks, echoing another famous

Why an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology.Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions--but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done. A focus only on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies is not likely to lead to success. The best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing the company culture to be more agile, risk tolerant, and experimental.The authors draw on four years of research, conducted in partnership with

Can we change the minds of science deniers? Encounters with flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, coronavirus truthers, and others."Climate change is a hoax--and so is coronavirus." "Vaccines are bad for you." These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed--they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don't believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it's important to do so. Science denial can kill.Drawing on his own experience--including a visit to a Flat Earth convention--as well as academic research, McIntyre outlines the common themes of science denialism, present in misinformation campaigns ranging from tobacco companies' denial in the 1950s that smoking ca

A concise introduction to content and the content industry, from the early internet to the Instagram egg.From the time we roll out of bed to check overnight updates to our last posts, likes, and views of the previous day, we're consuming and producing content. But what does the term “content” even mean? When did it become ubiquitous? And at what cost? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Kate Eichhorn offers a concise introduction to content and the content industry, examining the far-reaching effects content has on culture, politics, and labor in a digital age. Eichhorn traces the evolution of our current understanding of content from the early internet to the current social mediaverse. The quintessential example of content, she says, is the Instagram egg―an image that imparted no information or knowledge and circulated simply for the sake of circulation. Eichhorn explores what differentiates user-generated content from content produced by compensated (althoug

An exploration of echo not as simple repetition but as an agent of creative possibilities.In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Amit Pinchevski proposes that echo is not simple repetition and the reproduction of sameness but an agent of change and a source of creation and creativity. Pinchevski views echo as a medium, connecting and mediating across and between disparate domains. He reminds us that the mythological Echo, sentenced by Juno to repeat the last words of others, found a way to make repetition expressive. So too does echo introduce variation into sameness, mediating between self and other, inside and outside, known and unknown, near and far. Echo has the potential to bring back something unexpected, either more or less than what was sent. Pinchevski distinguishes echo from the closely related but sometimes conflated reflection, reverberation, and resonance; considers echolalia as an active, reactive, and creative vocalic force, the launching pad of sp

An accessible introduction to the study of language in the brain, covering language processing, language acquisition, literacy, and language disorders.Neurolinguistics, the study of language in the brain, describes the anatomical structures (networks of neurons in the brain) and physiological processes (ways for these networks to be active) that allow humans to learn and use one or more languages. It draws on neuroscience, linguistics―particularly theoretical linguistics―and other disciplines. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Giosuè Baggio offers an accessible introduction to the fundamentals of neurolinguistics, covering language processing, language acquisition, literacy, and speech and language disorders. Baggio first surveys the evolution of the field, describing discoveries by Paul Broca, Carl Wernicke, Noam Chomsky, and others. He discusses mapping language in “brain time” and “brain space” and the constraints of neurolinguistic models. Considering la

Two distinguished linguists on language, the history of science, misplaced euphoria, surprising facts, and potentially permanent mysteries.In The Secrets of Words, influential linguist Noam Chomsky and his longtime colleague Andrea Moro have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on such topics as language and linguistics, the history of science, and the relation between language and the brain. Moro draws Chomsky out on today’s misplaced euphoria about artificial intelligence (Chomsky sees “lots of hype and propaganda” coming from Silicon Valley), the study of the brain (Chomsky points out that findings from brain studies in the 1950s never made it into that era’s psychology), and language acquisition by children. Chomsky in turn invites Moro to describe his own experiments on language and the brain, and Moro does so, drawing a distinction between where questions (where in the brain language happens) and what questions (what actual information is passed from one neuron to another). Chom

A philosophical guide to passengerhood, with reflections on time, space, existence, boredom, our sense of self, and our sense of the senses.While there are entire bookstore sections―and even entire bookstores―devoted to travel, there have been few books on the universal experience of being a passenger. With this book, philosopher Michael Marder fills the gap, offering a philosophical guide to passengerhood. He takes readers from ticketing and preboarding (preface and introduction) through a series of stops and detours (reflections on topics including time, space, existence, boredom, our sense of self, and our sense of the senses) to destination and disembarking (conclusion). Marder finds that the experience of passengers in the twenty-first century is experience itself, stretching well beyond railroad tracks and airplane flight patterns. On his journey through passengerhood, he considers, among many other things, passenger togetherness, which goes hand in hand with passenger lonelin

A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and politically empowering and why all students need access to computer science education.This lively graphic novel follows a diverse group of teenage friends as they discover that computing can be fun, creative, and empowering. Taylor, Christine, Antonio, and Jon seem like typical young teens―they communicate via endless texting, they share jokes, they worry about starting high school, and they have each other’s backs. But when a Black man is shot and killed by police in their city, they are outraged―and then they learn that he had been misidentified and tracked by an artificial intelligence program. How can an algorithm be racist? And what is an algorithm, anyway? In school, they decide to explore computing classes, with mixed results. One class is only about typing. The class that Christine wants to join is full, and the school counselor suggests that she take a class in “Tourism and Hospitality” instead. (R

How we can achieve healthy growth--more regenerative than destructive, restoring equity rather than exacerbating inequalities.In Tomorrow's Economy, Per Espen Stoknes reframes the hot-button issue of economic growth. Going beyond the usual dialectic of pro-growth versus anti-growth, Stoknes calls for healthy growth. Healthy economic growth is more regenerative than destructive, repairs problems rather than greenwashing them, and restores equity rather than exacerbating global inequalities. Stoknes--a psychologist, economist, climate strategy researcher, and green-tech entrepreneur--argues that we have the tools to achieve healthy growth, but our success depends on transformations in government practices and individual behavior. Stoknes provides a compass to guide us toward the mindset, mechanisms, and possibilities of healthy growth.

A practice-based guide to applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health challenges; updated and expanded with post–COVID-19 innovations. This book offers a practice-based guide to applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health challenges that range from drug packaging to breast cancer detection. Written by pioneers in the field―Bon Ku, a physician leader in innovative health design, and Ellen Lupton, an award-winning graphic designer―the book outlines the fundamentals of design thinking and highlights important products, prototypes, and research in health design. This revised and expanded edition describes innovations developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis, including an intensive care unit in a shipping container, a rolling cart with intubation equipment, and a mask brace that gives a surgical mask a tighter seal. The book explores the special overlap of health care and the creative process, describing the development of such prod

The bestselling author and recipient of the 2018 Holberg Prize, Cass R. Sunstein, explores how more information can make us happy or miserable, and why we sometimes avoid it--but sometimes seek it out.How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week's weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people'