Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Engineering

In an era of seemingly instant change, it's easy to think that today's revolutions - in communications, business, and many areas of daily life - are unprecedented. Today's changes may be new and may be happening faster than ever before. But our ancestors at times were just as bewildered by rapid upheavals in what we now call “networks” - the physical links that bind any society together.

In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.

Legendary investor Jim Rogers gives us his view of the world on a 22-month, 52-country motorcycle odyssey in his best-selling business/adventure book, Investment Biker, which has already sold more than 200,000 copies.

Before you invest another dollar anywhere in the world (including the United States), read this book by the man Time magazine calls "the Indiana Jones of finance". Jim Rogers became a Wall Street legend when he co-founded the Quantum Fund. Investment Biker is the fascinating story of Rogers’s global motorcycle journey/investing trip.

In Station Blackout, Chuck Casto, the foremost authority on responding to nuclear disasters, shares his first-hand account of how he led the collaborative team of Japanese and American experts that faced the challenges of Fukushima. A lifetime of working in the nuclear industry prepared him to manage an extreme crisis, lessons that apply to any crisis situation.

Long-distance motorcycling is not a pastime but an obsession. In this candid, eloquent, sharply observed book, Melissa Holbrook Pierson introduces us to this strange endeavor and the men and women who live to ride impossibly long distances, eating up road, almost without cease. And who find it nothing but fun.

Former Top Gear Stig Ben Collins shares expert skills and wisdom refined over a 20-year career as one of the best drivers in the world - from Le Mans Series racing to NASCAR, piloting the Batmobile and dodging bullets with James Bond. Ben's philosophy of anticipation, smoothness and speed, honed over thousands of hours of elite-level performance, is really about economy of motion - which also gives you greater control, safety and fuel efficiency. How to Drive is about driving better, not faster.

In a world of self-driving cars and big data, smart algorithms and Siri, we know that artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day. Though all these nifty devices and programs might make our lives easier, they're also well on their way to making "good" jobs obsolete. A computer winning Jeopardy might seem like a trivial, if impressive, feat, but the same technology is making paralegals redundant as it undertakes electronic discovery and is soon to do the same for radiologists.

Many dream of dropping everything and just traveling around the world. It's a common dream, but few imagine embarking on that journey by bicycle. Exposed to the elements, legs burning, all your possessions strapped to you and your bicycle - it doesn't paint a relaxing picture, but this is just what Pierre-Yves Tremblay did.

The promise of green jobs and a clean energy future has roused the masses. But as Robert Bryce makes clear in this provocative book, that vision needs a major re-vision. We cannotand will notquit using carbon-based fuels at any time in the near future for a simple reason: they provide the horsepower that we crave. The hard reality is that oil, coal, and natural gas are here to stay.

In Trade-Off, Kevin Maney shows how these conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. He shows that almost every decision we make as consumers involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience between the products we love and the products we need.

In The Design of Future Things, best-selling author Donald A. Norman presents a revealing examination of smart technology, from smooth-talking GPS units to cantankerous refrigerators. Exploring the links between design and human psychology, he offers a consumer-oriented theory of natural human-machine interaction that can be put into practice by the engineers and industrial designers of tomorrows thinking machines.

On 25 May 1982, at a critical juncture in the Falklands War, the destroyer HMS Coventry was attacked by Argentinean aircraft. In a devastating strike, she was hit by three bombs, two of which exploded inside her hull, killing 19 of her crew and leaving many others badly injured. Within minutes Coventry had capsized, and would finally sink the following day. It was the first occasion since the Second World War that a British captain and crew had to abandon a stricken ship.

This is a dramatic and little-known story of the First World War, when the actions of a few men shaped the fate of nations. By 1914, Germany had ships and sailors scattered across the globe, protecting its overseas colonies and “showing the flag” of its new Imperial Navy. After war broke out on August 4 there was no hope that they could reach home. Instead, they were ordered to attack Britain’s vital trade routes for as long as possible.

On Monday, August 30, 1920, the S-Five, the newest member of the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines, departs Boston on her first cruise. Two days later, as part of a routine test of the submarine's ability to crash dive, her crew's failure to close a faulty valve sends 75 tons of seawater blasting in. Before the valve can be jury-rigged shut, the S-Five sits precariously on the ocean floor under 180 feet of water. They have little air, no water, and only the dimmest of light by which to plan their escape.

As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

Before becoming an instructor in the Navy's Topgun program, Dave "Bio" Baranek was just another kid with a dream. Upon graduating from college, he joined the Navy with the goal of becoming a fighter pilot. But, his eyesight waning, he knew that he would never be able to reach that goal. Undaunted, he plowed ahead and found his niche as a radar intercept operator in the backseat of the sleek, new Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband.

American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.

The story of NASCAR's legendary racer - newly revised Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s name virtually assured that his life would not be ordinary. Over the past decade, he has fulfilled that destiny. His father, one of the most successful drivers in the history of international motorsports, gave his son more than his name. Dale Earnhardt Sr. placed Dale Jr. in position to follow the footsteps and tire tracks he had left from Darlington to Daytona, from coast to coast, from one championship to the next.

Brandjam, the follow-up to the groundbreaking best-seller Emotional Branding, presents a powerful new concept from renowned designer and business guru Mark Gobe. The Brandjam concept is about innovation, intuition, and risk. Gobe explains how design is the "instrument" companies can use for jazzing up a brand - how design puts the face on the brand and creates an irresistible message that connects buyers to the product in a visceral way.