The name of Ruckers is as important to early keyboard instruments as Stradivarius is to strings. This book describes in close detail the art and technique of the Ruckers family, who produced harpsichords and virginals throughout a period of over 100 years. Dr O'Brien provides detailed information about the construction and decoration of Ruckers harpsichords and virginals, as well as the numbering, pitch, stringing, and the determination of the original state of their instruments. Like Stradivarius violins, Ruckers instruments were later altered, and the nature and musical significance of these alterations are discussed, as is the influence of the Ruckers style on later building practice. The instruments in their original and altered states are considered in relation to the music of the time and to contemporary performance practice. The text is richly illustrated with diagrams and pictures of original instruments, and with plan-view photographs reproduced at a scale of 1:10. The book also contains a partially illustrated catalogue of authentic and fake instruments, followed by extensive appendices.

Originally published: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

The creator of the first robots with real brains, Cobb Anderson finds himself another aged "pheezer" with a bad heart, and when he is offered immortality by his creations, he risks his body and his world. Reissue.

An acclaimed economist reveals that school integration efforts in the 1970s and 1980s were overwhelmingly successful -- and argues that we must renew our commitment to integration for the sake of all Americans We are frequently told that school integration was a social experiment doomed from the start. But as Rucker C. Johnson demonstrates in Children of the Dream, it was, in fact, a spectacular achievement. Drawing on longitudinal studies going back to the 1960s, he shows that students who attended integrated and well-funded schools were more successful in life than those who did not -- and this held true for children of all races. Yet as a society we have given up on integration. Since the high point of integration in 1988, we have regressed and segregation again prevails. Contending that integrated, well-funded schools are the primary engine of social mobility, Children of the Dream offers a radical new take on social policy. It is essential reading in our divided times.

Joe Cube is a Silicon Valley hotshot--well, a would-be hotshot anyway--hoping that the 3-D TV project he's managing will lead to the big money IPO he's always dreamed of. On New Year's Eve, hoping to impress his wife, he sneaks home the prototype. It brings no new warmth to their cooling relationship, but it does attract someone else's attention. When Joe sees a set of lips talking to him (floating in midair) and feels the poke of a disembodied finger (inside him), it's not because of the champagne he's drunk. He has just met Momo, a woman from the All, a world of four spatial dimensions for whom our narrow world, which she calls Spaceland, is something like a rug, but one filled with motion and life. Momo has a business proposition for Joe, an offer she won't let him refuse. The upside potential becomes much clearer to him once she helps him grow a new eye (on a stalk) that can see in the fourth-dimensional directions, and he agrees. After that it's a wild ride through a million-dollar night in Las Vegas, a budding addiction to tasty purple 4-D food, a failing marriage, eye-popping excursions into the All, and encounters with Momo's foes, rubbery red critters who steal money, offer sage advice and sometimes messily explode. Joe is having the time of his life, until Momo's scheme turns out to have angles he couldn't have imagined. Suddenly the fate of all life here in Spaceland is at stake. Rudy Rucker is a past master at turning mathematical concepts into rollicking science fiction adventure, from Spacetime Donuts and White Light to The Hacker and the Ants. In the tradition of Edwin A. Abbott's classic novel, Flatland, Rucker gives us a tour of higher mathematics and visionary realities. Spaceland is Flatland on hyperdrive! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Buy now to get the main key ideas from Carol Leonnig & Philip Rucker's I Alone Can Fix It In I Alone Can Fix It (2021), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig deliver an authoritative behind-the-scenes account of Donald Trump's last year in office and reveal what really happened in the White House during the catastrophic 2020 election campaign. Rucker and Leonnig expose the inner workings of a broken and incompetent administration that failed to control the coronavirus, resulting in the deaths of more than half a million Americans. Their sources were in the room as Trump repeatedly placed his own benefit ahead of the country's good. These eyewitnesses to history describe his reluctance to take the coronavirus danger seriously, even to the extent of infecting himself and others around him. This is the story of a country sabotaged by its own leader, in terms of economics, medicine, and politics, all culminating in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Best friends Mackey and J.R. have waited their whole lives to win the basketball tournament at Rucker Park, where their favorite pro ballers squared off against street legends. But the day of their big game, J.R. is fatally stabbed—and it’s Mackey’s fault, even though he didn’t wield the knife. Now Mackey has a score to settle, but the killer is watching his every move.

The Singularity has happened, and life afterward proves to be more bizarre than we thought. "SF book of the year" (Interzone).

The book contains popular expositions (accessible to readers with no more than a high school mathematics background) on the mathematical theory of infinity, and a number of related topics. These include G?del's incompleteness theorems and their relationship to concepts of artificial intelligence and the human mind, as well as the conceivability of some unconventional cosmological models. The material is approached from a variety of viewpoints, some more conventionally mathematical and others being nearly mystical. There is a brief account of the author's personal contact with Kurt G?del.An appendix contains one of the few popular expositions on set theory research on what are known as "strong axioms of infinity."

Fresh fruit-based desserts from beloved Los Angeles pastry chef and restaurateur Nicole Rucker. Nicole Rucker is responsible for some of the most raved-about and Instagrammed pastries and baked goods in Los Angeles, first as the Pastry Chef at the hotspots Gjelina Take Away and Gjusta, then through her pie company Rucker's Pie and restaurant Fiona. In her debut cookbook, Rucker shares her obsession and her recipes with readers to help them achieve the same kind of magical alchemy she's perfected in fruit desserts. To Rucker, fruit is every bit as decadent as chocolate cake and in this unique guide to crafting desserts, she offers up an enthusiastic ode to baking with seasonal ingredients, from summertime peaches to winter citrus. As much a storyteller as she is a baker, Rucker warmly relays her lifelong passion for fruit with charm and humor. With imaginative adaptations of classic dishes like Peach and Ricotta Biscuit Cobbler and Huckleberry Blondies, Rucker's recipes are for the wide-eyed fruit lover and farmers' market trawler in all of us.