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A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS, the gaming system for popular games like Pac-Man and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that “Atari” became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms—the systems underlying computing. This book, the first in a series of Platform Studies, does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS—often considered merely a retro fetish object—is an essential part of the history of video games.
A boy rides a bicycle down a dusty road. But in his mind, he envisions himself traveling at a speed beyond imagining, on a beam of light. This brilliant mind will one day offer up some of the most revolutionary ideas ever conceived. From a boy endlessly fascinated by the wonders around him, Albert Einstein ultimately grows into a man of genius recognized the world over for profoundly illuminating our understanding of the universe. Jennifer Berne and Vladimir Radunsky invite the reader to travel along with Einstein on a journey full of curiosity, laughter, and scientific discovery. Parents and children alike will appreciate this moving story of the powerful difference imagination can make in any life.
Power is in the mind. The mind is in the network. As the NAU’s "Shift" approaches, the Directorate and Enterprise parties are doing whatever they can both on-Beam and off- to win the citizen’s minds. The Beam itself, however, seems to be evolving. As more and more people become addicted to connectivity, a question arises: Does the Beam serve our minds ... or do our minds serve the Beam? Meanwhile, using politics as cover, an organization is pushing human enhancements further than they were ever meant to go — and maybe more than the struggling NAU with its hyperconnected minds can hope to survive. ★★★★★ "Another homerun for Platt and Truant. Usually second books in a series are the weak link -- that didn't happen in The Beam. Just like the first season I got sucked in to this book and told the kids to just feed themselves poptarts and leave mommy alone already so she could read. An amazing series!" -- Patricia Eimer ★★★★★ "I loved the first season, but this did such a great job of fleshing out the story line that I'm already champing at the bit for the next season." -- BruceIn Baghdad ★★★★★ "A real high-tech futuristic political thriller with a great storyline and a cliff-hanger ending that leaves you wanting for more. Can't wait to read season 3." -- beachbaby
Spiritual warfare is real, and your faith is at stake. Based on Biblical principles, Seeing the Unseen helps you fight back against the enemy. In today’s world, Satan seems to be everywhere, and he seems to have the advantage. But the enemy is not of this world, and the war is in the spiritual world. Satan is trying to attack you and destroy your faith, and the only way to defeat him is to fight back. In this newly revised and updated bestseller, Joe Beam reveal Satan's powerful weaponry—his lies, deceptions, and manipulations—and unmasks his strategy to destroy your life and those you care for. This book will show you his plans and tactics, and teach you where he is likely to strike next and how to fight him. Based on a dedicated study of God’s word, this book is filled with stories of tragedy and triumph and will give you the tools you need to defeat the enemy.
An insider's look at the Jim Beam brand, from a 7th generation Master Distiller Written by the 7th generation Beam family member and Master Distiller, Frederick Booker Noe III, Beam, Straight Up is the first book to be written by a Beam, the family behind the 217-year whiskey dynasty and makers of one of the world's best-selling bourbons. This book features family history and the evolution of bourbon, including Fred's storied youth "growing up Beam" in Bardstown, Kentucky; his transition from the bottling line to renowned global bourbon ambassador; and his valuable business insights on how to maintain and grow a revered brand. Includes details of Fred Noe's life on the road, spreading the bourbon gospel Describes Fred's journey to becoming the face of one of America's most iconic brands Shares a simple primer on how bourbon is made Offers cocktail and food recipes For anyone wanting a behind the scenes look at Jim Beam, and an understanding of the bourbon industry, Beam, Straight Up will detail the family business, and its role in helping to shape it.
Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial ''dead white men,'' are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion? In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius's De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?
With air travel a regular part of daily life in North America, we tend to take the infrastructure that makes it possible for granted. However, the systems, regulations, and technologies of civil aviation are in fact the product of decades of experimentation and political negotiation, much of it connected to the development of the airmail as the first commercially sustainable use of airplanes. From the lighted airways of the 1920s through the radio navigation system in place by the time of World War II, this book explores the conceptualization and ultimate construction of the initial US airways systems.The daring exploits of the earliest airmail pilots are well documented, but the underlying story of just how brick-and-mortar construction, radio research and improvement, chart and map preparation, and other less glamorous aspects of aviation contributed to the system we have today has been understudied. Flying the Beam traces the development of aeronautical navigation of the US airmail airways from 1917 to 1941. Chronologically organized, the book draws on period documents, pilot memoirs, and firsthand investigation of surviving material remains in the landscape to trace the development of the system. The author shows how visual cross-country navigation, only possible in good weather, was developed into all-weather "blind flying." The daytime techniques of "following railroads and rivers" were supplemented by a series of lighted beacons (later replaced by radio towers) crisscrossing the country to allow nighttime transit of long-distance routes, such as the one between New York and San Francisco. Although today's airway system extends far beyond the continental US and is based on digital technologies, the way pilots navigate from place to place basically uses the same infrastructure and procedures that were pioneered almost a century earlier. While navigational electronics have changed greatly over the years, actually "flying the beam" has changed very little.
Five years to the day, almost to the second, after he disappeared form the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, leaving his host body in a catatonic state, the being known as prot (rhymes with goat) has returned. Now, in sixteen more sessions with psychiatrist Gene Brewer, prot reveals that he has come back to escort a chosen few to his home planet, K-PAX. K-PAX is an idyllic planet free of the pain and suffering of earth. Prot has incredible insights into how to cure that suffering, and his radical ideas have made him a celebrity. Now, legions of people are longing to follow him home. But Dr. Brewer has heard it before. Five years ago, he discovered another person buried deep in prot's personality: Robert Porter of Montana. The mystery of Robert's illness and of prot's true origins lie deep within Robert's shattered psyche. Now Dr. Brewer must race against the clock to unlock the secrets of Robert's traumatic past and not only save his patient but maybe humanity.