The New York Times bestselling author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels draws on the latest data and new insights to challenge everything you thought you knew about the future of energy For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing--including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people. And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency,” reality has proven Epstein right: * Fact: Fossil fuels are still the dominant source of energy around the world, and growing fast—while much-hyped renewables are causing skyrocketing electricity prices and increased blackouts. * Fact: Fossil-fueled development has brought global poverty to an all-time low. * Fact: While fossil fuels have contributed to the 1 degree of warming in the last 170 years, climate-related deaths are at all-time lows thanks to fossil-fueled development. What does the future hold? In Fossil Future, Epstein, applying his distinctive “human flourishing framework” to the latest evidence, comes to the shocking conclusion that the benefits of fossil fuels will continue to far outweigh their side effects—including climate impacts—for generations to come. The path to global human flourishing, Epstein argues, is a combination of using more fossil fuels, getting better at “climate mastery,” and establishing “energy freedom” policies that allow nuclear and other truly promising alternatives to reach their full long-term potential. Today’s pervasive claims of imminent climate catastrophe and imminent renewable energy dominance, Epstein shows, are based on what he calls the “anti-impact framework”—a set of faulty methods, false assumptions, and anti-human values that have caused the media’s designated experts to make wildly wrong predictions about fossil fuels, climate, and renewables for the last fifty years. Deeply researched and wide-ranging, this book will cause you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the future of our energy use, our environment, and our climate.
This international bestseller, with more than 5 million copies sold, offers a field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations and conflict resolution—whether in the boardroom, in your community, or at home. Life is a series of negotiations, and negotiation is at the heart of collaboration—whether you are a business executive, a salesperson, a parent , a community leader, or a spouse. As a former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss gives you the negotiation skills to be effective in any situation: negotiating a business deal, buying (or selling) a car, negotiating a salary, acquiring a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner, or communicating with your children. Taking the power of persuasion, tactical empathy, active listening, and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any difficult conversation or challenging situation. This book is a masterclass in influencing others, no matter the circumstances. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference distills the Voss method, revealing the skills that matter most when it comes to achieving your goals in both your professional and personal life. Step-by-step, Voss show you how to: * Establish Rapport * Create Trust with Tactical Empathy * Gain the Permission to Persuade * Shape What Is Fair * Calibrate Questions * Transform Conflict into Collaboration * Spot Liars * Create Breakthroughs by Revealing the Unknown Unknowns Never Split the Difference is your definitive source for effective business communication, defusing potential crises, winning people over, and achieving your goals at work and at home.
Principles of Economics is a university-level textbook offering a comprehensive, engaging, and easy-to-read overview of the field of economics that is valuable to the university student, the general reader, and the professional economist. Saifedean Ammous’ first book, The Bitcoin Standard, is an international best-seller that has been translated into 37 languages. The book garnered praise from respected scholars, successful entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and countless readers worldwide for its engaging and enlightening presentation of sophisticated economic and technical concepts, delivered in a style accessible to the general reader. With its sequel, The Fiat Standard, Ammous established himself as one of the world’s most effective communicators of economic ideas, whose writing resonates with a growing global readership. In Principles of Economics, his most ambitious and elaborate work to date, Ammous offers readers a potent antidote to the modern economics textbook. After two decades of learning and teaching economics at university level, Ammous became aware that most economic textbooks confuse more than they illuminate and most university students tasked with reading them learn very little that is useful and actionable. The culmination of four years' work, this book uses the underappreciated approach of the Austrian school of economics to introduce the principles, methods, and concepts of economics in a readable, engaging, and informative manner. Rather than relying on mathematical analysis of aggregates and arcane theoretical models, the book uses the clear written word to effectively illustrate key economic concepts. The book first presents the Austrian school method and the foundational concepts of value and time. With these foundations laid, the second part of the book explores how humans act individually to achieve their ends under scarcity—in other words, how humans economize. A chapter is dedicated to detailed overviews of labor, property, capital, technology, and energy, and each topic is accompanied by vivid examples explaining its relevance to the reader. The third part of the book examines economizing in the social context, with chapters examining trade, money, the market order, and capitalism—important concepts that are often shrouded by misconceptions in most modern treatments. The fourth part of the book presents the Austrian perspective on monetary economics, laying the groundwork through a detailed discussion of time preference, followed by a discussion of banking and credit, and the business cycle and its monetary origins. The final section of the book explains why respect for property rights in an extended market order is the basis for human civilization, how the market order protects against aggression, and the failures of monopoly provision of defense.
Arthur L. Guptill's classic Rendering in Pen and Ink has long been regarded as the most comprehensive book ever published on the subject of ink drawing. This is a book designed to delight and instruct anyone who draws with pen and ink, from the professional artist to the amateur and hobbyist. It is of particular interest to architects, interior designers, landscape architects, industrial designers, illustrators, and renderers. Contents include a review of materials and tools of rendering; handling the pen and building tones; value studies; kinds of outline and their uses; drawing objects in light and shade; handling groups of objects; basic principles of composition; using photographs, study of the work of well-known artists; on-the-spot sketching; representing trees and other landscape features; drawing architectural details; methods of architectural rendering; examination of outstanding examples of architectural rendering; solving perspective and other rendering problems; handling interiors and their accessories; and finally, special methods of working with pen including its use in combination with other media. The book is profusely illustrated with over 300 drawings that include the work of famous illustrators and renderers of architectural subjects such as Rockwell Kent, Charles Dana Gibson, James Montgomery Flagg, Willy Pogany, Reginald Birch, Harry Clarke, Edward Penfield, Joseph Clement Coll, F.L. Griggs, Samuel V. Chamberlain, Louis C. Rosenberg, John Floyd Yewell, Chester B. Price, Robert Lockwood, Ernest C. Peixotto, Harry C. Wilkinson, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, and Birch Burdette Long. Best of all, Arthur Guptill enriches the text with drawings of his own.
Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers chart a crash course through the errors of modern economic theory and the world's broken fiat currency system with a hopeful destination: Bitcoin Is Venice. What if a global, digital, sound, open-source, programmable currency was monetizing from absolute zero? What might economies look like under a Bitcoin standard that pushes beyond Hernando de Soto’s abstraction of “capital” as "economic potential energy?" What might this new form of capital do to our current governing bodies? Can Bitcoin bring about a new global Renaissance? With Farrington and Meyers, the discussion is as revolutionary as the answers. "Entertaining and erudite, this is a manifesto for a more ethical monetary and financial system, for capitalism in its purest form and for 'number go up' technology. This book bridges the gap between the concept of an open-source sound money and the practical reality of an ethical and workable financial system." --Harris Irfan, author of Heaven’s Bankers “A great deep dive into how Bitcoin provides a transmission mechanism to a world of truth, freedom, and abundance.” --Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow “Perhaps you found it surprising that a human rights advocate be asked to write the foreword to a book about finance and economics. But read the book, and you’ll understand why I’ve been tasked with preparing you for this journey. This isn’t simply about how money and finance work -- though you’ll learn a lot about that along the way -- it’s a book about how we can, and how we must, harness the power of Bitcoin to secure liberty in the electronic age.” --Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer, Human Rights Foundation All profits from Bitcoin is Venice are donated to the Human Rights Foundation. Allen Farrington is a regular contributor to Bitcoin Magazine. Read more of his insights on the world of finance and society at www.bitcoinmagazine.com.
"With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks — write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example — The Artist’s Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone’s got it."—The New York Times "Morning Pages have become a household name, a shorthand for unlocking your creative potential"—Vogue Over four million copies sold! Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery. The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors. A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.
COMPTON CROOK AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL. NEBULA AWARD FINALIST. New Science Fiction Adventure Series! National Bestseller in trade paperback. An agent for a spy organization uncovers an alien alliance in nearby interstellar space—an alliance that will soon involve humanity in politics and war on a galactic scale. 2105, September: Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan uncovers a conspiracy on Earth’s Moon—a history-changing clandestine project—and ends up involuntarily cryocelled for his troubles. Twelve years later, Riordan awakens to a changed world. Humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel and is pioneering nearby star systems. And now, Riordan is compelled to become an inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan’s mission: travel to a newly settled world and investigate whether a primitive local species was once sentient—enough so to have built a lost civilization. However, arriving on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he’s been given is anything but secret or safe. With assassins and saboteurs dogging his every step, it's clear that someone doesn't want his mission to succeed. In the end, it takes the broad-based insights of an intelligence analyst and a matching instinct for intrigue to ferret out the truth: that humanity is neither alone in the cosmos nor safe. Earth is revealed to be the lynchpin planet in an impending struggle for interstellar dominance, a struggle into which it is being irresistibly dragged. Discovering new dangers at every turn, Riordan must now convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to survive as a free species is to face the perils directly—and to fight fire with fire. WINNER OF THE COMPTON CROOK AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL About Fire with Fire: “Chuck Gannon is one of those marvelous finds—someone as comfortable with characters as he is with technology, and equally adept at providing those characters with problems to solve. Imaginative, fun, and not afraid to step on the occasional toe or gore the occasional sacred cow, his stories do not disappoint.” —David Weber "If we meet strong aliens out there, will we suffer the fate of the Aztecs and Incas, or find the agility to survive? Gannon fizzes with ideas about the dangerous politics of first contact.” —David Brin "The plot is intriguing and then some. Well-developed and self-consistent; intelligent readers are going to like it." —Jerry Pournelle "[T]he intersecting plot threads, action and well-conceived science kept those pages turning." —SF Crowsnest About Starfire series hit, Extremis, coauthored by Charles E. Gannon: “Vivid. . . Battle sequences mingle with thought-provoking exegesis . . .” —Publishers Weekly "It’s a grand, fun series of battles and campaigns, worthy of anything Dale Brown or Larry Bond ever wrote." —Analog About Charles E. Gannon: "[A] strong [writer of]. . .military SF. . .[much] action going on in his work, with a lot of physics behind it. There is a real sense of the urgency of war and the sacrifices it demands." —Locus
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. continues the Saga of Recluce, the long-running, best-selling epic fantasy series. In a new story arc, From the Forest follows the early life of a man known by many names depending on who you ask―hero, tyrant, emperor. Alayiakal, who will one day be known by many names ―not all of them flattering―has to climb the ranks of Cyador’s Mirror Lancers, fighting against unforeseen weapons and ancient technology. Alayiakal, however, has secrets of his own to protect: his ties to the Great Forest and his magus abilities. He must silently pretend to be a conventional soldier favored by fate―until that very same fate forces him to choose. Saga of Recluce #1 The Magic of Recluce / #2 The Towers of the Sunset / #3 The Order War / #4 The Magic Engineer / #5 The Death of Chaos / #6 Fall of Angels / #7 The Chaos Balance / #8 The White Order / #9 Colors of Chaos / #10 Magi’i of Cyador / #11 Scion of Cyador / #12 Wellspring of Chaos / #13 Ordermaster / #14 Natural Order Mage / #15 Mage-Guard of Hamor / #16 Arms-Commander / #17 Cyador’s Heirs / #18 Heritage of Cyador / #19 The Mongrel Mage / #20 Outcasts of Order / #21 The Mage-Fire War / #22 Fairhaven Rising/#23 From the Forest Story Collection: Recluce Tales Other Series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. The Grand Illusion The Imager Portfolio The Corean Chronicles The Spellsong Cycle The Ghost Books The Ecolitan Matter
Join the technological revolution that's taking the financial world by storm. Mastering Bitcoin is your guide through the seemingly complex world of Bitcoin, providing the knowledge you need to participate in the internet of money. Whether you're building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this revised and expanded third edition provides essential detail to get you started. Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, has already spawned a multibillion-dollar global economy open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides the knowledge. You supply the passion. The third edition includes: * A broad introduction to Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain—ideal for nontechnical users, investors, and business executives * An explanation of Bitcoin's technical foundation and cryptographic currency for developers, engineers, and software and systems architects * Details of the Bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principles * New developments such as Taproot, Tapscript, Schnorr signatures, and the Lightning Network * A deep dive into Bitcoin applications, including how to combine the building blocks offered by this platform into powerful new tools * User stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts
Economic Policy contains six lectures Ludwig von Mises delivered in 1959 for the Centro de Estudios sobre la Libertad in Argentina. The lectures were posthumously edited by Mises’s wife, Margit, and George Koether, a student and long-time friend of Mises. This volume serves as an excellent introduction to what Mises sees as the simple truths of history in terms of economic principles. In straightforward language, Mises explains topics such as capitalism, socialism, interventionism, inflation, foreign investment, and economic policies and ideas. Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century. Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar and trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education and was a senior staff member at FEE from 1951 to 1999.
Have you ever ventured into the intriguing domain of the Apocrypha within the inaugural edition of the 1560 Geneva Bible? A meticulously preserved treasury of ancient religious texts, it comprises a unique anthology of writings excluded from the Hebrew Bible but included in the Septuagint, offering a glimpse into the enigmatic world of antiquity. While not universally accepted as canonical, the Apocrypha yields profound insights into the human experience and matters of faith. The Apocrypha and the Geneva Bible (1560) are both significant entities in the realm of Christian literature and biblical scholarship. Here's a detailed description of each: Apocrypha: The term "Apocrypha" refers to a collection of ancient texts that are not included in the canonical Bible of most Protestant denominations but are part of the biblical canon of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. These texts are considered by some to be of historical and religious value but are not considered divinely inspired Scripture by all religious traditions. The Apocrypha includes a diverse range of writings, including historical narratives, wisdom literature, and theological treatises, dating from the intertestamental period (roughly 300 BCE to 100 CE). Some of the most well-known books within the Apocrypha include: Tobit: A narrative about a pious Israelite named Tobit and his son Tobias, which contains elements of wisdom literature and angelic intervention. Judith: The story of a courageous Israelite widow named Judith who saves her people by seducing and beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes. Wisdom of Solomon: A philosophical and theological work attributed to King Solomon, which extols the virtues of wisdom and righteousness. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus): A collection of ethical teachings and maxims attributed to Jesus Ben Sirach, promoting practical wisdom and piety. 1 and 2 Maccabees: Historical accounts of the Maccabean revolt against Hellenistic oppression, detailing the exploits of the Jewish leader Judas Maccabeus and his brothers. These texts provide valuable insights into the beliefs, practices, and historical context of Second Temple Judaism and the early Christian era. Geneva Bible (1560): The Geneva Bible was one of the most influential English translations of the Bible during the Protestant Reformation. It was produced by English Protestant exiles who had fled to Geneva, Switzerland, during the reign of Queen Mary I of England, also known as "Bloody Mary" due to her persecution of Protestant dissenters. The Geneva Bible was first published in 1560 and quickly became popular among English-speaking Protestants for its accuracy, readability, and extensive study aids. Discover the secrets and marvels of this sacred text, which exerted an undeniable influence in its time, surpassing even Coverdale's Bible in popularity and inspiring luminaries such as William Shakespeare. As the first mechanically and serially printed Bible made directly available to the general public, its impact was profound. With its Calvinist origins, this Bible served as the primary text for English Protestantism in the 16th century. It was embraced by notable figures such as William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell and his soldiers (in the soldier's pocket Bible version), John Knox, John Donne, and others, and found its way to America through the Puritan pilgrims aboard the Mayflower.
Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much? In Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, Scott Horton explains how since the end of the last Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, successive U.S. administrations pressed their advantage against the new Russian Federation to the point that it finally blew up into a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine. From NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, to “shock therapy” economic policy, the Balkan and Chechen wars, color-coded revolutions, new missile defense systems, assassinations, Russiagate and ultimately the brutal conflict in Ukraine, Provoked shows what really happened and why it did not have to be this way.