FW: packetC Programming (by Peder Jungck)

Subject: packetC Programming (by Peder Jungck)

This book introduces the tools you'll need to program with the packetC language. packetC speeds the development of applications that live within computer networks, the kind of programs that provide network functionality for connecting "clients" and "servers” and “clouds." The simplest examples provide packet switching and routing while more complex examples implement cyber security, broadband policies or cloud-based network infrastructure. Network applications, such as those processing digital voice and video, must be highly scalable, secure and maintainable. Such application requirements translate to requirements for a network programming language that leverages massively-parallel systems and ensures a high level of security, while representing networking protocols and transactions in the simplest way possible. packetC meets these requirements with an intuitive approach to coarse-grained parallelism, with strong-typing and controlled memory access for security and with new data types and operators that express the classic operations of the network-oriented world in familiar programming terms. No other language has addressed the full breadth of requirements for tractable parallelism, secure processing and usable constructs. The packetC language is growing in adoption and has been used to develop solutions operating in some of the world’s largest networks. This important new language, packetC, has now been successfully documented in this book, in which the langu

FW: The Magicians: A Novel [Audiobook] (by Lev Grossman)

Subject: The Magicians: A Novel [Audiobook] (by Lev Grossman)

Amazon Best of the Month, August 2009: Mixing the magic of beloved children's fantasy classics (from Narnia and Oz to Harry Potter and Earthsea) with the sex, excess, angst, and anticlimax of life in college and beyond, Lev Grossman's Magicians reimagines modern-day fantasy for grownups. Quentin Coldwater lives in a state of perpetual melancholy, privately obsessed with his childhood books about the enchanted land of Fillory. When he’s admitted to the surreptitious Brakebills Academy for an education in magic, Quentin finds mastering spells is tedious (and love is even more fraught). He also discovers his power has thrilling potential though it's unclear what he should do with it once he's moved with his new magician cohorts to New York City. Then they discover the magical land of Fillory is real and launch an expedition to use their powers to set things right in the kingdom which, naturally, turns out to be a much murkier proposition than expected. The Magicians breathes life into a cast of characters you want to know if the people you want to know are charismatic, brilliant, complex, flawed magicians and does what Quentin claims books never really manage to do: "get you out, really out, of where you were and into somewhere better. " Or if not better, at least a heck of a lot more interesting.

FW: The One and Only Ivan: A Novel (by Katherine Applegate)

Subject: The One and Only Ivan: A Novel (by Katherine Applegate)

Product Description: I was hesitant to chose this book thinking an animal book would be too silly or something . . . but Applegate's Home of the Brave is one of my favorite books ever so I decided to take a chance. And I am SO GLAD I DID. This book was wonderful heartbreakingly wonderful. I just loved every character both animal and human. Ivan the artistic gorilla, Stella the stoic mother elephant, Bob the tough on the outside but not so tough on the inside dog, and of course Ruby the baby elephant who just wants to be loved. And the humans: George the sympathetic caretaker and his daughter Julie, a bit like Fern in Charlotte's web because she can almost understand Ivan or at least understand his art. Every character was real even Mack the owner of the menagerie, though we hate what he's doing, there is more too him than just badness. The situation was just so sad but so well done the minute I finished the book, I immediately passed it on to my daughter . . . maybe not the best idea to give it to her at bedtime though because I could not get her to turn out her light, she was so immediately drawn into the book. I highly recommend this moving book which teaches compassion towards animals.