Johnny Ashford, former sitcom-star, drives drunk through a storefront andgets tossed in jail. His aspiring actress girlfriend bails him out and he begins seeing a hypnotherapist, who sends him to his "happy place": 1980's Atlantic City, where he relives his childhood on the boardwalk and the Electric Century casino, hardly noticing shadowy specters all around. His addiction shifts from alcohol to his hypnotic trips to the boardwalk. When his girlfriend winds up there, Johnny has to figure out how to save their lives and escape the Electric Century ...

This book is about how electricity has profoundly changed the way we live, work, and play. Some twenty topics are covered, with an abundance of graphs and images to build a comprehensive picture. Each looks at the developments, and the people who initiated them, together with how one led to the next and their subsequent impact on society. Topics include electric supply, lighting through X-rays, and all those appliances that make our homes so comfortable. Most homes at the end of the twentieth century were full of electrical equipment, much of which was regarded as essential. It ran from lights, washing machines, fridges, freezers, kettles, telephones and so on, to the more subtle things such as wipers and starter motors on cars. In 1900, in all but a tiny minority of houses, there were none of these things. It is very difficult for us now to imagine a world without electrical equipment everywhere, and yet it has only taken a century. The Electric Century examines how we got from then to now. The nineteenth is often described as the century of steam from the impact it had on employment and transport, and The Electric Century makes a similar claim as the description of the twentieth. Electricity and the equipment using it are so pervasive that they have affected every corner of modern life.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BUSINESS BESTSELLER • The riveting inside story of Elon Musk and Tesla's bid to build the world's greatest car—from award-winning Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter Tim Higgins. “A deeply reported and business-savvy chronicle of Tesla's wild ride.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review Tesla is the envy of the automotive world. Born at the start of the millennium, it was the first car company to be valued at $1 trillion. Its CEO, the mercurial, charismatic Elon Musk has become not just a celebrity but the richest man in the world. But Tesla’s success was far from guaranteed. Founded in the 2000s, the company was built on an audacious vision. Musk and a small band of Silicon Valley engineers set out to make a car that was quicker, sexier, smoother, and cleaner than any gas-guzzler on the road. Tesla would undergo a hellish fifteen years, beset by rivals—pressured by investors, hobbled by whistleblowers. Musk often found himself in the public’s crosshairs, threatening to bring down the company he had helped build. Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter Tim Higgins had a front-row seat for the drama: the pileups, breakdowns, and the unlikeliest outcome of all, success. A story of impossible wagers and unlikely triumphs, Power Play is an exhilarating look at how a team of innovators beat the odds—and changed the future.

From DC's Young Animal pop-up and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance! There's a voice in the head of Liam James questioning everything he does - from his job at a nursing home to keeping his relationship with his girlfriend afloat. Liam suffers from anxiety, and the only thing that quiets it is music, which makes a weekly DJ gig his one saving grace. But Liam's life changes forever when he receives a black hole in the mail (yes, you read that right), one that takes up residence in his chest, grants him insane superpowers, turns him into a celebrity, and draws him into a cosmic conflict beyond his wildest imagination. Collects Collapser #1-6.

In the history of electronic communication, the last quarter of the nineteenth century holds a special place, for it was during this period that the telephone, phonograph, electric light, wireless, and cinema were all invented. In When old Technologies Were New, Carolyn Marvin explores how two of these new inventions--the telephone and the electric light--were publicly envisioned at the end of the nineteenth century, as seen in specialized engineering journals and popular media. Marvin pays particular attention to the telephone, describing how it disrupted established social relations, unsettling customary ways of dividing the private person and family from the more public setting of the community. On the lighter side, she describes how people spoke louder when calling long distance, and how they worried about catching contagious diseases over the phone. A particularly powerful chapter deals with telephonic precursors of radio broadcasting--the "Telephone Herald" in New York and the "Telefon Hirmondo" of Hungary--and the conflict between the technological development of broadcasting and the attempt to impose a homogenous, ethnocentric variant of Anglo-Saxon culture on the public. While focusing on the way professionals in the electronics field tried to control the new media, Marvin also illuminates the broader social impact, presenting a wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electronic media.

The book's text and many photographs introduce readers to the renowned teachers and researchers who are still well known in engineering circles. Electrical engineering is a protean profession. Today the field embraces many disciplines that seem far removed from its roots in the telegraph, telephone, electric lamps, motors, and generators. To a remarkable extent, this chronicle of change and growth at a single institution is a capsule history of the discipline and profession of electrical engineering as it developed worldwide. Even when MIT was not leading the way, the department was usually quick to adapt to changing needs, goals, curricula, and research programs. What has remained constant throughout is the dynamic interaction of teaching and research, flexibility of administration, the interconnections with industrial progress and national priorities. The book's text and many photographs introduce readers to the renowned teachers and researchers who are still well known in engineering circles, among them: Vannevar Bush, Harold Hazen, Edward Bowles, Gordon Brown, Harold Edgerton, Ernst Guillemin, Arthur von Hippel, and Jay Forrester. The book covers the department's major areas of activity -- electrical power systems, servomechanisms, circuit theory, communications theory, radar and microwaves (developed first at the famed Radiation Laboratory during World War II), insulation and dielectrics, electronics, acoustics, and computation. This rich history of accomplishments shows moreover that years before "Computer Science" was added to the department's name such pioneering results in computation and control as Vannevar Bush's Differential Analyzer, early cybernetic devices and numerically controlled servomechanisms, the Whirlwind computer, and the evolution of time-sharing computation had already been achieved.

Consumer electronics and computers redefined life and work in the twentieth century. In Inventing the Electronic Century, Pulitzer Prize-winning business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., traces their origins and worldwide development. This masterful analysis is essential reading for every manager and student of technology.

One hundred years ago electric cars were the most popular automobiles in the world. In the late nineteenth century and at the start of the twentieth century, they outsold every other type of car. And yet, within a couple of decades of the start of the twentieth century, the electric car had vanished. Thousands of battery-powered cars disappeared from the streets, replaced by the internal combustion engine, and their place in the history of the automobile was quietly erased. A century later, electric cars are making a comeback. Fears over pollution and global warming have forced manufacturers to reconsider the electric concept. A History of Electric Cars presents for the first time the full story of electric cars and their hybrid cousins. It examines how and why electric cars failed the first time - and why today's car manufacterers must learn the lessons of the past if they are to avoid repeating previous mistakes all over again. The book examines in detail: Early vehicles such as the Lohner-Porsche petrol-electric hybrid of 1901; Key figures in the history of the electric car development such as Henry Ford; Sir Clive Sinclair's plans to build a number of electric vehicles, designed to sit alongside the Sinclair C5; The return of the electric technology to vehicles as diverse as the NASA Lunar Rover, commuting vehicles and supercars; Future developments in electric cars. For the first time the full story of electric cars and their hybrids are examined.The hidden past of the electric automobile is uncovered and its future developments are discussed. Superbly illustrated with 300 colour photographs, many of which are rare and original sketch designs. Nigel Burton has written and lectured on cars and automotive history for more than twenty years.

The only scientist to ever appear on the British twenty pound note, Michael Faraday is one of the most recognisable names in the history of science. Faraday's forte was electricity, a revolutionary force in nineteenth-century society. The electric telegraph had made mass-communication possible and inventors looked forward to the day when electricity would control all aspects of life. By the end of the century, this dream was well on its way to being realised. But what was Faraday's role in all this? How did his science come to have such an impact on the lives of the Victorians (and ultimately on us)? Iwan Morus tells the story of Faraday's upbringing in London and his apprenticeship at the Royal Institution under the supervision of the flamboyant chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, all set against the backdrop of a vibrant scientific culture and an empire near the peak of its power.

Following the critically acclaimed An Illustrated History of Electric Lighting (2016), Professor Emeritus Adam Allerhand of Indiana University, USA, is back with yet another masterpiece. Starting from 1300 BC and progressing steadily to the present, this book is the ultimate guide to the history of the science of electricity. It is the result of 15 years of research through a vast and daunting literature which is hard for beginners and experts alike to navigate, bringing together many widely scattered and obscure facts that have hitherto eluded even the most ardent aficionados. There is particular emphasis on practical applications, including electricity for illumination, communication, medicine and industry. For non-specialists with an interest in the subject, fret not, for the text is written with a minimum of technical jargon, and is richly illustrated with over 100 images, many of them created by the author.