Free and Bargain Non-Fiction in May 2014

[SteveGo]

Originally Posted by shootist

I can sum up liberal economics very easily.... Take money from someone and give to someone else.

I believe the term "liberal tradition" refers to the classical liberalism of the last century, not today's politically correct "progressive." Today, the term would be "libertarian." (Don't hurt other people, and don't take their stuff).

Hayek was one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics.

[Athens80]

Originally Posted by SteveGo

I believe the term "liberal tradition" refers to the classical liberalism of the last century, not today's politically correct "progressive."

I believe the term "progressive" refers to championing reform, efficiency, prosperity, scientific methods, civil liberties, democracy, suffrage, education, opportunity, anti-trust, anti-corruption, etc., as practiced in part by political leaders of the last century such as Theodore Roosevelt.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by itisbomb

Galileo's Daughter
by Dava Sobel

is today's Kindle Daily Deal. It can be downloaded for $1.99.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...d_i=1000677541

Below is the blurb:
Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether." Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Dava Sobel's previous book Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story

I have this in hardcover, purchased at a Goodwill. I really should read it, huh?

[GtrsRGr8]

And, it's free (in mobi/Kindle, at least)!

Windows Azure SQL Database Programming & Design. By Kalman Toth. Not rated yet (maybe because none of the three people on the planet who can understand it have seen it yet?). Print list price $49.95; digital list price $41.95; Kindle price $0.00. http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Azure-...ing+%26+Design

Microsoft Windows Azure SQL Database opens new horizons in RDBMS applications. Cloud computing is the future. Azure SQL Database represents the future today. Cloud relational database design and cloud SQL (Structured Query Language) programming teach-by-practical-diagrams-&-examples book for developers, programmers, systems analysts and project managers who are new to relational database and client/server technologies. The Azure SQL Database textbook also for database developers, database designers and database administrators (DBA), who know some SQL programming and database design, and who wish to refresh & expand their cloud RDBMS design & development technology horizons. Familiarity with at least one computer programming language, Windows file system & Excel is assumed. Since the book is career advancement oriented, it has a great number of 3NF database design examples with metadata explanations along with practical SQL queries (over 1,400 SELECT queries) and T-SQL scripts, plenty to learn indeed. Great emphasis is placed on explaining the FOREIGN KEY - PRIMARY KEY constraints among tables, the connections which make the collection of individual tables a database. The database diagrams and queries are based on historic and current SQL Server sample databases: pubs (PRIMARY KEYs 9, FOREIGN KEYs 10) , Northwind (PRIMARY KEYs 13, FOREIGN KEYs 13) and the latest AdventureWorks series. Among them: AdventureWorks, AdventureWorks2012 (PRIMARY KEYs 71, FOREIGN KEYs 90), & AdventureWorksDW2008 (PRIMARY KEYs 27, FOREIGN KEYs 44). The last one is a data warehouse database which is the basis for multi-dimensional OLAP cubes. Sample databases installation instructions are included. The book teaches through vivid database diagrams and T-SQL queries how to think in terms of sets at a very high level, focusing on set-based operations instead of loops like in procedural programming languages. The best way to master Azure T-SQL programming is to type the query in your own SQL Server Management Studio Query Editor, test it, examine it, change it and study it. Wouldn't it be easier just to copy & paste it? It would, but the learning value would diminish rapidly. You need to feel relational database design and the SQL language in your DNA. SQL queries must "pour" out from your fingers into the keyboard. Why is knowing SQL queries by heart so important? After all everything can be found on the web so why not just copy & paste? Well not exactly. If you want to be an database designer & development expert, it has to be in your head not on the web. Second, when your supervisor is looking over your shoulder, "Joe, can you tell me what is the total revenue for March using the cloud database?", you have to be able to type the query without documentation or SQL forum search and provide the results to your superior promptly. The book was designed to be readable in any environment, even on the beach laptop around or no laptop in sight at all. All queries are followed by results row count and /or full/partial results listing in tabular (grid) format. Screenshots are used when dealing with GUI tools such as SQL Server Management Studio. Mastery of the database design & SQL programming book likely to be sufficient for career advancement as a cloud database designer and cloud database developer.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by SteveGo

I believe the term "liberal tradition" refers to the classical liberalism of the last century, not today's politically correct "progressive." Today, the term would be "libertarian." (Don't hurt other people, and don't take their stuff).

Hayek was one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics.

Originally Posted by Athens80

I believe the term "progressive" refers to championing reform, efficiency, prosperity, scientific methods, civil liberties, democracy, suffrage, education, opportunity, anti-trust, anti-corruption, etc., as practiced in part by political leaders of the last century such as Theodore Roosevelt.

Maybe someone would like to read the book and make a report to the rest of the MR class? Would someone like to volunteer? Anyone?

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by itisbomb

Galileo's Daughter
by Dava Sobel

is today's Kindle Daily Deal. It can be downloaded for $1.99.

. . . .

Great find, itisbomb.

This is one that I'd prefer to have as an audiobook. I noticed that it does have a Whispersync companion at a "reduced price of $9.99 [emph. mine, G]." Ack! Even with all of my recent $10 Audible credit left, I'm going to have to pass and hope for a better price somewhere down the line.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Windows Azure SQL Database Programming & Design. By Kalman Toth. Not rated yet (maybe because none of the three people on the planet who can understand it have seen it yet?). Print list price $49.95; digital list price $41.95; Kindle price $0.00.

I downloaded and flipped through it and it's pretty bad. The small amount of prose is as incomprehensible as the blurb, but the bulk of the book is listings of database scripts with little explanation.

I'd be mad if I paid $40 for the book or if I had to maintain his database code after he got fired.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I downloaded and flipped through it and it's pretty bad. The small amount of prose is as incomprehensible as the blurb, but the bulk of the book is listings of database scripts with little explanation.

I'd be mad if I paid $40 for the book or if I had to maintain his database code after he got fired.

What's even worse is that all the sql and ddl examples are formatted as full justify! So you end up with huge spaces in between everything making it difficult to read. The examples are highlighted so they could have easily been formatted correctly.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I downloaded and flipped through it and it's pretty bad. The small amount of prose is as incomprehensible as the blurb, but the bulk of the book is listings of database scripts with little explanation.

I'd be mad if I paid $40 for the book or if I had to maintain his database code after he got fired.

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

What's even worse is that all the sql and ddl examples are formatted as full justify! So you end up with huge spaces in between everything making it difficult to read. The examples are highlighted so they could have easily been formatted correctly.

I'm chastened. In the future I will post books that have material "over my head" only when they are highly rated.

[murg]

Originally Posted by shootist

I can sum up liberal economics very easily.... Take money from someone and give to someone else.

Strangely, this sounds a lot like capitalism...

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by murg

Strangely, this sounds a lot like capitalism...

... or socialism, depending on the individuals involved.

[cromag]

Guys. On topic, please.

(I hate when I have to be responsible.)

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

There may not be anyone who would want this book, but I'm posting this because, if there is someone who wants this book, he or she will save a ton of money--the retail price is $150.00, but it's free now.

The mobi/Kindle version (free) is mentioned at the beginning. Read the description, following that, to learn how to get the book free in other formats.

Hayek, Mill and the Liberal Tradition (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics). Print list price $150.00; Kindle $0.00. No ratings at the current moment (could it be because there are only three people in the world who know what the book is talking about?). http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Tradit...eral+Tradition

Thanks, I grabbed it just because it's such a cost savings on something I might eventually read. I should really read Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" and "The Road to Serfdom" first, especially since I already have them on my e-reader.

So many things to read! So little time!

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

Thanks, I grabbed it just because it's such a cost savings on something I might eventually read. I should really read Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" and "The Road to Serfdom" first, especially since I already have them on my e-reader.

So many things to read! So little time!

I actually downloaded it, too. For all of my joking about the esoteric nature of the stuff in the book, I noticed that among the the chapters were some that I might be able to understand and someday read. Besides, it was free--if I couldn't get any use out of it I wasn't "out" anything.

If this had been a "dead tree" book, I would have had to pass even if it had been free. I would not have had room for it! I have pretty much been forced into ebooks because, quite literally, I don't have any more room in my house to put any more (dead tree) books. I am hoping, little-by-little, to replace some of the traditional books that I own with the ebook versions and give myself some breathing room!

[GtrsRGr8]

The 70th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion is just a few weeks away. This book is about that invasion.

The author, Flint Whitlock, has written several WWII books, all highly rated.

If Chaos Reigns: The Near-Disaster and Ultimate Triumph of the Allied Airborne Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Rated 5 stars from 8 reviews at the present moment. Print list price $29.95; digital list price $14.99; Kindle price $2.51. 412 pages. http://www.amazon.com/If-Chaos-Reign...June+6%2C+1944.

It's also $2.51 at Google Play. It's $2.99 at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Kobo.

“Gentlemen, do not be daunted if chaos reigns; it undoubtedly will.” So said Brigadier S. James Hill, commanding officer of the British 3rd Parachute Brigade, in an address to his troops shortly before the launching of Operation Overlord—the D-Day invasion of Normandy. No more prophetic words were ever spoken, for chaos indeed reigned on that day, and many more that followed.

Much has been written about the Allied invasion of France, but award-winning military historian Flint Whitlock has put together a unique package—the first history of the assault that concentrates exclusively on the activities of the American, British, and Canadian airborne forces that descended upon Normandy in the dark, pre-dawn hours of June 6, 1944. Landing into the midst of the unknown, the airborne troops found themselves fighting for their lives on every side in the very jaws of the German defenses, while striving to seize their own key objectives in advance of their seaborne comrades to come.

Whitlock details the formation, recruitment, training, and deployment of the Allies’ parachute and glider troops. First-person accounts by veterans who were there—from paratroopers to glidermen to the pilots who flew them into the battle, as well as the commanders (Eisenhower, Taylor, Ridgway, Gavin, and more)—make for compelling, “you-are-there” reading. If Chaos Reigns is a fitting tribute to the men who rode the wind into battle and managed to pull victory out of confusion, chaos, and almost certain defeat.