Download Free The Inventor And The Tycoon Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Inventor And The Tycoon and write the review.

A Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book of the Year Nearly 140 years ago, in frontier California, photographer Eadweard Muybridge captured time with his camera and played it back on a flickering screen, inventing the breakthrough technology of moving pictures. Yet the visionary inventor Muybridge was also a murderer who killed coolly and meticulously, and his trial became a national sensation. Despite Muybridge’s crime, the artist’s patron, railroad tycoon Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University, hired the photographer to answer the question of whether the four hooves of a running horse ever left the ground all at once—and together these two unlikely men launched the age of visual media. Written with style and passion by National Book Award-winner Edward Ball, this riveting true-crime tale of the partnership between the murderer who invented the movies and the robber baron who built the railroads puts on display the virtues and vices of the great American West.
The pixel as the organizing principle of all pictures, from cave paintings to Toy Story. The Great Digital Convergence of all media types into one universal digital medium occurred, with little fanfare, at the recent turn of the millennium. The bit became the universal medium, and the pixel--a particular packaging of bits--conquered the world. Henceforward, nearly every picture in the world would be composed of pixels--cell phone pictures, app interfaces, Mars Rover transmissions, book illustrations, videogames. In A Biography of the Pixel, Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith argues that the pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media, and he presents a few simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital image making. Smith's story of the pixel's development begins with Fourier waves, proceeds through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital movies from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. Today, almost all the pictures we encounter are digital--mediated by the pixel and irretrievably separated from their media; museums and kindergartens are two of the last outposts of the analog. Smith explains, engagingly and accessibly, how pictures composed of invisible stuff become visible--that is, how digital pixels convert to analog display elements. Taking the special case of digital movies to represent all of Digital Light (his term for pictures constructed of pixels), and drawing on his decades of work in the field, Smith approaches his subject from multiple angles--art, technology, entertainment, business, and history. A Biography of the Pixel is essential reading for anyone who has watched a video on a cell phone, played a videogame, or seen a movie. 400 pages of annotations, prepared by the author and available online, provide an invaluable resource for readers.
How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow. Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first mass-culture celebrities.
Tailored specifically to librarians’ point of view, this book will inform and empower libraries to work effectively with Friends groups for greater fundraising, engagement, and advocacy outcomes.
Do you ever think big things for God? Born into a wealthy family and endowed with a large inheritance after the death of his father, Henry Parsons Crowell had many opportunities to try his hand at business, a passion that suited him well. His shrewd business sense eventually brought him to the top of the oatmeal business, and to the potential for even greater wealth, if only he would compromise his values. But Crowell was a man of integrity and compassion. Read this compelling story of a man who, in his youth, struggled with a debilitating and life threatening illness. He was a man who survived the loss of two wives, a man who faced opposition in almost every venture he engaged upon, and a man who, through it all, thought big things for God. Whether it was in his home-based Bible studies, his business lunches with great leaders, his work to rid the city of Chicago of debauchery, or his contributions to the Moody Bible Institute, Henry Parsons Crowell was a man who above all sought to share Christ with those around him. See how the vows Crowell made as a young man to give glory to God through his stewardship came to fruition in this inspiring biography of one of the faithful men of God.
In the early 1880s, only a few wealthy people had electric lighting in their homes. Everyone else had use more dangerous lighting, such as gas lamps. Eager companies wanted to be the first to supply electricity to more Americans. The early providers would set the standards—and reap great profits. Inventor Thomas Edison already had a leading role in the industry: he had invented the first reliable electrical lightbulb. By 1882 his Edison Electric Light Company was distributing electricity using a system called direct current, or DC. But an inventor named Nikola Tesla challenged Edison. Tesla believed that an alternating current—or AC—system would be better. With an AC system, one power station could deliver electricity across many miles, compared to only about one mile for DC. Each inventor had his backers. Business tycoon George Westinghouse put his money behind Tesla and built AC power stations. Meanwhile, Edison and his DC backers said that AC could easily electrocute people. Edison believed this risk would sway public opinion toward DC power. The battle over which system would become standard became known as the War of the Currents. This exciting book tells the story of that war, the people who fought it, and the ways in which both kinds of electric power changed the world.
"[A] penetrating biography…Munson makes vivid the genius’s eventful life." —Barbara Kiser, Nature Nikola Tesla invented radio, robots, and remote control. His electric induction motors run our appliances and factories. In the early 1900s, he designed plans for cell phones, the Internet, death-ray weapons, and interstellar communication. His ideas have lived on to shape the modern economy, yet he has been largely overlooked by history. In Tesla, Richard Munson presents a comprehensive portrait of this farsighted and underappreciated mastermind. Drawing on letters, technological notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor whose most famous inventions were the product of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences—Tesla conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust. Clear, authoritative, and highly readable, Tesla takes into account all the phases of Tesla’s remarkable life and career.
A myth-busting biography of Nikola Tesla, the “enigmatic figure whose life and achievements appeal to historians, engineers, scientists, and many others” (Library Journal). Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest electrical inventors who ever lived, was rescued from obscurity in recent years, restored to his rightful place among historical luminaries. We’ve been told that his contributions to humanity were obscured by a number of nineteenth-century inventors and industrialists who took credit for his work or stole his patents outright. Most biographies repeat this familiar account of Tesla’s life, including his invention of alternating current, his falling out with Thomas Edison, how he lost billions in patent royalties to George Westinghouse, and his fight to prove that Guglielmo Marconi stole thirteen of his patents to “invent” radio. But what really happened? Newly uncovered information, however, proves that the popular account of Tesla’s life is itself very flawed. In The Truth About Tesla, Christopher Cooper sets out to prove that the conventional story not only oversimplifies history, it denies credit to some of the true inventors behind many of the groundbreaking technologies now attributed to Tesla, and perpetuates a misunderstanding about the process of innovation itself. Are you positive that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? Are you sure the Wright Brothers were the first in flight? Think again! With a provocative foreword by Tesla biographer Marc J. Seifer, The Truth About Tesla is one of the first books to set the record straight, tracing the origin of some of the greatest electrical inventions to a coterie of colorful characters that conventional history has all but forgotten. Includes photographs
USA Today Bestseller Leslie North invites you to indulge in a steamy billionaire romance with an unforgettable bad boy billionaire and the smart-talking woman who tames him... Reclusive billionaire inventor Gavin Burrows still thinks about Sarah Hanson—the woman he had a brief but memorable fling with three years ago. So he’s shocked when the pretty American woman shows up at his castle door pleading with him to not end his contract with his gardeners, who happen to be Sarah’s aunt and uncle. Sarah is desperate to complete the garden, but Gavin is desperate, too. He’ll do almost anything to get his mother to stop playing matchmaker—even if that means making a deal with Sarah to pose as his fiancée. She gets her garden, he gets his mother off his back. At least with Sarah posing as his fake fiancée, he can avoid all his mother’s marriage prospects. Coming from a large and rambunctious family, all he’s ever really wanted was to be alone to work on his inventions. He certainly won’t let one gorgeous gardener get in his way. Sarah would never tell Gavin this, but that summer three years ago? She’d fallen hard for him. As an only child, Sarah has always wanted a large family, so when she learns he considers having a big, loud family akin to having the plague, she now realizes Gavin is definitely not the man for her. Still, she can’t resist the opportunity to restore Gavin’s historic garden to its former glory, so when he offers, she reluctantly agrees to pose as his fiancée and prays she can shield her heart. But even though she knows it’s temporary, she surrenders to their smoldering attraction and falls hard all over again. When Gavin’s parents throw them an engagement party, the guilt over all their lies begins to weigh heavy—as does the realization she’ll once again be left heartbroken. As the garden she’s created turns out to be a spectacular achievement, Sarah can only wonder if her love for Gavin will wither or finally bloom into something just as grand…
"Mankind is Noodlekind" For three days in January 2007,the most e-mailed article in The New York Times was "appreciations: Mr. noodle," an editorial noting the passing, at age ninety-six, of Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen. Ando's existence came as a shock to many, but not to Andy Raskin, who had spent three years trying to meet the noodle pioneer. The Ramen King and I is Raskin's funny and, at times, painfully honest memoir about confronting the truth of his dating life-with Ando as his spiritual guide. Can instant ramen lead one to a committed relationship? And is sushi the secret to self-acceptance? A true tale of hunger in its many forms, The Ramen King and I is about becoming slaves to our desires and learning to break free.