Sterling Reviews

As an avid collector of sterling silver flatware I am grateful for any new publication relating to pattern identification. Unfortunately, this guide is somewhat disappointing. The pattern illustrations and photographs range in quality from fairly good to down right poor. There is no section on hallmarks, an essential element in the identification of flatware patterns. Warman's guide is primarily a price list. As Moran correctly points out in his introductory remarks, merely a "ballpark" valuation. Nevertheless, while not a definative work, one should consider adding this guide to their sterling flatware reference library.

This is the first Seagraves book I have read and will be the last as this book leaves the reader wanting. When I first picked it up, I thought that tackling 1 Emperor in 1 book was a difficult challenge, but 5?! seemed a bit much. Turns out I was correct and not enough background was given on the early Emperors and the book should have been called "Hirohito". By far the most frustrating thing in this book was the lack of "footnotes"-I am not clear on what I was supposed to do; finish reading a page and then turn to the notes section and look up the page to see if there was a note and guess what the note was referring to? Or perhaps I was to read the entire book and then the notes and try to match with the rest of the book? Perhaps the Seagraves should learn about the "*" key to indicate a page where there is a footnote attached or perhaps using small numbers beside passages that require footnotes (what a novel concept!).
Having never read anything they have written before, I am not sure of their qualifications to comment on Japan, but it becomes apparent throughout the book, that their knowledge of Japan is quite superficial.
Definitely a non-read for anyone interested in an in-depth look at Japan from the Meiji era on.

"The Yamato Dynasty", Sterling & Peggy Seagrave's expose on the role of the Imperial Family in Japanese society since the Meiji Restoration is written in a style more resembling a political thriller than history. Sure, the mafia-like grip of Japan's all-powerful financial and business oligarchy over the nation's wealth and economy and the Imperial Family's collusion in willingly playing the part of a stooge in return for a lifetime of comfort and wealth with America's secret backing is a shocking eye opener for readers who know little of Japan's history. Reading the book helps us understand why the Japanese economy remains moribund and in a state of paralysis since the bubble burst in the early 90s. Genuine reform cannot take place because the oligarchs and political leaders pulling the strings will never act against their own interests. Neither will the bureaucracy which feeds from it. A truly damning appraisal of the state of Japan as a nation. Yet, I had difficulty accepting all of the Seagraves' account of it as history because of their highly controversial if not downright sensational style in telling it. If history were written and taught this way in school, you'd have no problems filling up the class. Don't get me wrong. The book makes for rivetting reading. It is absolutely unputdownable. Nevertheless, historians might react with horror at some of the gross oversimplication of the truth as told by the Seagraves. It is not difficult to imagine that that they might call into question the source and accuracy of some of the information used in the book. The Seagraves' monochrome/black and white portrayal of the wide cast of characters also turns history into faction, if not soap opera. I enjoyed 'The Yamato Dynasty" tremendously and would recommend it without hesitation to others. But I would be cautious in reading it as history. Better to judge it as a dramatised story of the Japanese imperial family in the post-Meiji era.

I read this book after reading "The Emperor's General" by James Webb, a great story which gave me some context for the McArthur element in this book. "The Yamato Dynasty" seemed at first to be more historical documentary than story, but having read the first book, I was hooked, and couldn't put it down. I used to skip the bits in the Economist magazine about Japan's economic situation, but this book puts the influences on the economy into fascinating context, and has made me much more interested in what's going on now. It's full of bizarre and amazing little facts that made me want constantly to read bits aloud to whoever was nearby. I would recommend this book to anyone.

I seldom review books, but this one is so disappointing that I felt obligated too. The key thing to note about this book is that Thomas Sterling is not the author, but the "Editor" of the book. Sterling assembled a number of short, loosely related articles and tries to pass them off as a comprehensive book on beowulf clusters running on linux. This book offers no real guidance on building a beowulf cluster or working with an existing one. At best, this book only offers a very general overview of cluster computing.

My supervising professor bought this book for me to use in my senior project and I'm glad it wasn't my purchase. My major complaint is that the code examples in the PVM section are trash. I'm not sure if Al Geist (one of the co-authors of PVM) was rushed or thought that it would be good for students to find and correct errors in the code. Perhaps the best part of the book is Chapter 18 which details the experience at Argonne National Lab of setting up their (massive) cluster, Chiba City. There are many better books out there. Try Parallel Programming by Berry Wilkinson and Michael Allen, Parallel Programming with MPI by Peter Pacheco, or anything by William Gropp.

I've read this book cover to cover, and then gone back to various parts throughout the course of building a large beowulf. It's the best resource I've found so far. I've recommended it other folks who have also had the same experience--it *explains* beowulfs in very clear and readable language. Excellent primer.

The book is a lie. Farnsworth did not invent television. Television was around before Farnsworth was born. Other inventors' patents were used by RCA, notably Kalman Tihanyi, who patented the iconoscope in 1928.

While Godfrey has compiled, and reasonably well organized a great deal of information, his written presentation lacks style and readibility. The quality of writing is what one might expect from a newly-minted PhD attempting to gain recognition by publishing his/her dissertaion. I could not recommend this book to anyone looking for a general Farnsworth biography. For the occasional advanced undergraduate or graduate student studying the history of technology, I would recommend it for its reference value.

When Philo T. Farnsworth was fifteen, and plowing a field, he thougth up the concept that became electronic television. After one year of college, Farnsworth started repairing radio and then got support in the 1920s to develop electronic television. The only competition he faced was RCA and RCA tried to stop him. What followed were years of intense work and bitter frustrations. But in the end, Fransworth was proven to be the creator of television. Although forgotten today, this biography brings back to the public the importance of Philo T. Farnsworth and how the technology he developed back in the 1920s is till used today. An excellent read.

Only this liberal, star struck writer would somehow consider Jimmy Carter a great president. 21% inflation, oil crisis, hostages in Iran, forget about them, Jimmy was great but we are too stupid to know it.

This was written as part of the Miller Center Series on the American Presidency. The information within was taken from oral interviews of Carter and other key officials by academics after the end of the Carter presidency. For those who merely dismiss Carter as a poor president, I highly recommend giving this book a read.

The book, in my opinion, does two things. It goes into the dynamics of Carter's leadership style and also gives information about what was happening behind the doors of the White House.

In a couple words, policy and decision-making were handled two ways: collegial discussion and homework. These are key to Carter's leadership. As an engineer, Carter wished to focus on a problem, do his homework, and then join discussion about the options. As the president, he reserved the right to make the final decision. This follows his engineering and religious background. If there is a problem, solve the problem.

The difficulty that arose from this was his reluctance of engaging in political maneuvering and his focus. In Washington, it is necessary at times to bargain. Carter, leading a country rebounding from the Nixon years, was determined to avoid the political battles as much as possible. In regard to focus, according to Hargrove, his focusing on a problem kept him from noticing the connection with various other problems.

At the end of the book, Hargrove talks about how this leadership style worked, and did not work, in a transition presidency.

Also, Hargrove talks of the different agenda items (like the economic policy and energy policy) and how the collegial style worked. More often than not, not all the departments were on the same page. This led to the administration to appear to be vacillating. Hargrove shows how this process worked in each agenda, which is very helpful. I found this helped me to focus on the specifics.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Carter presidency or anyone who did not like the Carter presidency. This book does have a good perspective on that time in American history.

It's almost unprecedented for me to return a baseball book. It's almost impossible to find a baseball book I won't enjoy. If the book's about the Yankees, the odds of either would be non existent. Well, at least I thought they would be non existent until I began to read this one.

The book contains no new good information & is filled with mistakes. Also, the author's system of rating the players creates a premise that's flawed from the beginning.

If you know enough about baseball to know Snuffy Stirnweiss wasn't an all time Yankee great, then you find this book insulting to your intelligence.

I truly enjoyed this book. Each piece (and there are 50!) takes you back to the particular year! It has all the stats on the individual player in his best season. It has lots of fantastic photos and a terrific section on the 1998 Yankees! At the end of the book, there is a section that allows me to record my own memorable seasons with my favorite team! A must have for every Yankee fan, and those fans of baseball history!

A "Beowulf" is the concept of using a network of low cost personal computers for distributed processing. The book doesn't specify a particular configuration. The author describes the three fundamental parts of a Beowulf system: node hardware, network hardware, and parallel software applications. Three chapters explain how to use the message passing interface (MPI) standard to distribute the work for a program executing on multiple nodes. An example MPI program for sorting is presented. The features of the Linux operating system are covered in Chapter 4 since Linux is a common choice for Beowulf clusters.

I must take issue with some of the other reviewers of this text. I found this book to be a very good overview (and snapshot) of the current status of a rapidly evolving system architecture. It is written at a fairly high level (although it does dip periodically into details) - so the reader gets a good overview of what a Beowulf is, its' components, and many of the issues involved in designing and implementing one. In my view it balances detail and theory quite well.

IT IS NOT (nor do I believe it was intended as) a detailed roadmap of EXACTLY how to build one. The Beowulf architecture isn't so much a single type of implementation, but rather an approach to applying COTS technology to solving computational problems. The details of any single Beowulf implementation depend greatly on the specific computational problem being attacked. (Something that is pointed-out within the book.) The authors therefore took a different approach.

Some of the topics covered in the book WILL, eventually, be outdated: specifically, the section on the PCI bus, some of the material on network technology, and the section on available processors. As COTS technology advances, and as Beowulf architectures change to take advantage of those advances, some sections will become outdated. However, this is unavoidable for any text reviewing the current state-of-the-art. There is also a lot more here that is NOT likely to be outdated within the next several years..

There may also be sections in the text that the reader will already be familiar with, and can therefore skip. This is also inevitable considering the nature of the text and will obviously vary depending on the reader.

I can recomend this text highly as a starting point in learning what a Beowulf is, some of the ways they are put together, and for exploring many important design and implementation decisions. In my own case, it helped me resolve a number of design issues I was wrestling with about my own system. It does not, however, stand alone. After starting with this text, most readers will then certainly need to refer to online sources for further information.

Before I purchased this book I was completely intimidated by the idea of building a Beowulf Cluster. I found this book to be a surprisingly thorough and accessible resource, allowing me to get a great understanding of what was needed. I've just placed my order for the equipment for my first cluster and can't wait to get it up and running!

Whining pretentious "special" child of insufferable ugly american francophiles, (names dropped here), fails utterly at journalism career, but goes home to write book (more names dropped here) supposedly about the life in a vineyard/winery. Between the descriptions of her cool clothes and wonderful parties she finds a little time to run to the chais to ask her wine maker husband basic questions about wine making, that she then inserts into her partylogue as if she knows which end of a corkscrew is up. For pure unadulterated masochism try reading this out loud, preferably to someone who loves you and has a black sense of humor. If an editor has ever seen this book, I would be highly surprised.

A glass of wine will never be the same for me after reading this book! I will be searching for all the delicious flavors and nuances that Joy Sterling and her family look for while turning their grapes into wine. Her wonderful and detailed descriptions show it is no easy task but takes much physical labor, creativity and attention to detail. It involves dealing with the stress of nature's moods as well as turning out fantastic meals for tons of people whether one is feeling like it or not -- all part of the business. And yet the land, lifestyle (and perks!) of living this life seem to amply repay Joy Sterling for all the hard work. I loved her tongue-in-cheek style when describing the events of her life: her father remarking on her not wanting to go to law school with the comment "I guess that means you won't be president" or she and her husband, Forrest, in evening dress, down under the table untying dusty boxes of wine glasses in which to serve their wine at a wine fair! I found this book delightful and informative and will read it again.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Perhaps the best thing is that I am from Sonoma County where most of the events take place. The descriptions of the towns, people and the ever present vineyards really struck home. The obvious joy that the author takes in her life and the wines her family makes permeates the book. She obviously lives a life different from the average person but seems to know it and appreciate all she has. Many local people are mentioned but almost always in a positive and entertaining way. The explanation of grape growing and wine crafting made me feel that even a non-wine drinker like myself could learn to appreciate the difference between good and bad wines.

The stickers in the book have to go in order in order to make the book understandable... I found myself putting all the stickers in it, because my son (age 4) didn't want to put them where they belong (let alone put them in straight)...

The stickers come off easily, and I suspect that in a few days they will be all over... These stickers are not REUSABLE... and will lose there stick... Just like any other normal sticker. the book is skinny and flimsy! I'm not impressed...

The front of the book shows sticker that go on the pictures... not the case at all... It's more like read 5 words and figure out what the picture represents... blah.

The butterfly on the cover of the book that looks like a sticker isn't even in the book.

Another thing... when I was pealing out the stickers... I ended up bending the flimsy book up... grrr.

the first and last page are the sticker pages... which the used up sheet can not easily be removed... I did try but gave up before destroying the book for good.

As a fan of the Galdone version of 1977, I found this retelling unappealing. It's far too wordy - the sparse text of the 1977 version is better suited to sustaining a spooky mood. The beast is too visible (the imagination makes better monsters). I suppose some people need a happy ending to everything, but I prefer to leave my listeners with an unsettled feeling. Before you purchase this version, seek out the earlier one and make an informed decision.