Highly Recommended Resources - Hand Picked to save you valuable searching time.

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... here are a few GOOD BOOKS THAT REALLY BELONG IN YOUR PERSONAL LIBRARY ....

The Age of Spiritual Machines : When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - if Ray Kurzweil is right, we've only got until about 2020 before computers outpace the human brain in computational power. Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, shows that technological evolution moves at an exponential pace. Further, he asserts, in a sort of swirling postulate, time speeds up as order increases, and vice versa. He calls this the "Law of Time and Chaos," and it means that although entropy is slowing the stream of time down for the universe overall, and thus vastly increasing the amount of time between major events, in the eddy of technological evolution the exact opposite is happening, and events will soon be coming faster and more furiously. This means that we'd better figure out how to deal with conscious machines as soon as possible--they'll soon not only be able to beat us at chess, they'll likely demand civil rights, and they may at last realize the very human dream of immortality. -- an oustanding must get book!

The Pattern on the Stone : The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work (Science Masters Series) - Danie (connection machine) l Hillis has made a career of puzzling over the nature of information and the mechanisms that put information to use. Now, he's distilled his accumulated knowledge of computer science into The Pattern on the Stone, a glorious book that reveals the nature of logical machines simply and elegantly.

The Century - A LAND MARK BOOK FOR THIS ERA ... coauthored by PETER JENNINGS - - - the news anchor ... "We have sought," write Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster, "to distinguish our story from other histories by holding each chapter up to a litmus test: Have we looked at this time from the perspective of someone who lived through it? And in doing so, have we captured a sense not only of the events of a particular era, but of the mood, the prevailing attitudes?" Thus, the experiences of ordinary men and women come to life in sidebars that appear throughout The Century. Sharpe James, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, recalls the sense of excitement and possibility he felt when Jackie Robinson became the first black ballplayer in the major leagues. Gilles Ryan remembers what it was like to be a high-school student in Dayton, Tennessee, during the Scopes Trial. Connie Chang talks about emigrating to the United States from Korea and establishing a liquor store in Los Angeles, only to have it destroyed in the civil unrest. --- what this boils down to is ... GET THIS BOOK OR RISK BEING LEFT BEHIND IN THE HISTORICAL DUST ...

Microsoft Secrets : How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People - DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW BILL GATES REALLY MADE HIS BILLIONS -- AND HOW HE WILL CONTINUE TO? Read this book ... The description says: Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success? Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets. Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there.