A thought experiment is an instrument of the imagination, employed for many purposes-to entertain, educate, explore, or hypothesize. In response to a pandemic and social unrest, David Howell decided to begin such an experiment. He wanted to see what would happen if he became as serene as possible. He set out regularly on his bicycle to parks near his home just to sit still, eventually ritualizing the activity until it became a habit. The result is The Serenity Experiment, a book of reflections on the impact serenity can have on the self as it relates to surroundings and community.

HAPPINESS IS GOOD. BLISS IS BETTER. We have a higher standard of living and more ways to instantaneously fulfill every desire than ever before. Then why are we unhappy? Because happiness isn’t what we really want. Happiness alone is fleeting and not deeply transformative. Bliss is a spiritual state where happiness, profound meaning, and enduring truth converge. With bliss comes an unshakable joy, a practical wisdom, and a lasting solution to our personal and planetary sufferings. Based on a successful seminar taught by Sean Meshorer, a leading spiritual teacher and New Thought minister, The Bliss Experiment contains dozens of stories of real people learning from everyday situations, backed by more than five hundred scientific studies. This is the one essential book that distills and unifies seemingly competing practices, philosophies, religions, and psychologies. Meshorer includes exercises that have worked time and again for people from all walks of life—including him. Meshorer suffers with severe chronic pain and is able to live his life to the fullest through the practices he shares here. Bliss helps with stress, anxiety, and depression. It makes people more successful, better able to see and seize opportunities, and build or improve relationships. Give these ideas and practices twenty-eight days of dedicated attention and you will see results. You only need a moment of bliss to benefit the rest of your life. The text includes links to bonus videos of Sean Meshorer expanding on the book’s themes and demonstrating the exercises.

"The Beauty Experiment" is a fascinating memoir of one woman's journey to reclaim her sense of self-worth--and ultimately redefine what beauty means--through a yearlong extreme "make-under."

Down the centuries there have been various attempts to prove the existence of God, and to demonstrate God's action in the world. Russell Stannard, the distinguished physicist and author, looks at what modern science can bring to the discussion.

The first book in the action-packed trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman is perfect for fans of Stranger Things and James Patterson. Eli Frieden has never left Serenity, New Mexico...why would he ever want to? Then one day, he bikes to the edge of the city limits and something so crazy and unexpected happens, it changes everything. Eli convinces his friends to help him investigate further, and soon it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems in Serenity. The clues mount to reveal a shocking discovery, connecting their ideal crime-free community to some of the greatest criminal masterminds ever known. The kids realize they can trust no one—least of all their own parents.

Presents twenty activities that test the scientific properties of elements of popular children's books, including creating slime, shaking cream into butter, and constructing an air balloon.

Deliver software that does what it’s supposed to do! Behavior-Driven Development guides your software projects to success with collaboration, communication techniques, and concrete requirements you can turn into automated tests. In BDD in Action, Second Edition you’ll learn how to: Implement and improve BDD practices Prioritize features from business goals Facilitate an example mapping session Write automated acceptance tests Scale up your automated acceptance tests Deliver accurate reporting and documentation Around half of all software projects fail to deliver on requirements. Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) helps make sure that yours isn’t one of them. Behavior-Driven Development in Action, Second Edition teaches you how to ensure that everyone involved in a software project—from developers to non-technical stakeholders—are in agreement on goals and objectives. It lays out the communication skills, collaborative practices, and useful automation tools that will let you seamlessly succeed with BDD. Now in its second edition, this revised bestseller has been extensively updated with new techniques for incorporating BDD into large-scale and enterprise development practices such as Agile and DevOps. Foreword by Daniel Terhorst-North. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Behavior-Driven Development is a collaborative software design technique that organizes examples of an application’s desired behavior into a concrete, testable specification. Because the BDD process gathers input from all areas of an organization, it maximizes the likelihood your software will satisfy both end users and business stakeholders. The established collaboration practices and automation strategies in this book will help you maximize the benefits of BDD for your dev team and your business clients. About the Book In BDD in Action, Second Edition, you’ll learn to seamlessly integrate BDD into your existing development process. This thoroughly revised new edition now shows how to integrate BDD with DevOps and large-scale Agile systems. Practical examples introduce cross-functional team communication skills, leading a successful requirements analysis, and how to set up automated acceptance criteria. What’s Inside How BDD positively affects teamwork, dynamics, and collaboration with stakeholders Help teams discover and analyze requirements, uncover assumptions, and reduce risks Make acceptance, integration, and unit testing more effective Automate reporting and living documentation to improve transparency About the Reader For all development teams. No experience with BDD required. Examples in Java, JavaScript, and TypeScript can be easily expressed in your chosen language. About the Author John Ferguson Smart is the creator of the Serenity BDD framework and founder of the Serenity Dojo training school. Jan Molak is the author of the Serenity/JS testing framework, Jenkins Build Monitor, and other CD and testing tools. Table of Contents PART 1 - FIRST STEPS 1 Building software that makes a difference 2 Introducing Behavior-Driven Development 3 BDD: The whirlwind tour PART 2 - WHAT DO I WANT? DEFINING REQUIREMENTS USING BDD 4 Speculate: From business goals to prioritized features 5 Describing and prioritizing features 6 Illustrating features with examples 7 From examples to executable specifications PART 3 - HOW DO I BUILD IT? CODING THE BDD WAY 8 From executable specifications to automated acceptance tests 9 Writing solid automated acceptance tests 10 Automating acceptance criteria for the UI layer 11 Test automation design patterns for the UI layer 12 Scalable test automation with the Screenplay Pattern 13 BDD and executable specifications for microservices and APIs 14 Executable specifications for existing systems with Serenity/JS 15 Portable test automation with Serenity/JS 16 Living documentation and release evidence

The ragtag crew of Serenity--mercenaries, fugitives, and one law-abiding prostitute--pursue fast cash and a little peace along the fringes of space. On a scavenger mission that promises a big payoff, they realize too late that they are being played by an old enemy with a grudge.

Behavioural experiments are one of the central and most powerful methods of intervention in cognitive therapy. Yet until now, there has been no volume specifically dedicated to guiding physicians who wish to design and implement behavioural experiments across a wide range of clinical problems. The Oxford Guide to Behavioural Experiments in Cognitive Therapy fills this gap. It is written by clinicians for clinicians. It is a practical, easy to read handbook, which is relevant for practising clinicians at every level, from trainees to cognitive therapy supervisors. Following a foreword by David Clark, the first two chapters provide a theoretical and practical background for the understanding and development of behavioural experiments. Thereafter, the remaining chapters of the book focus on particular problem areas. These include problems which have been the traditional focus of cognitive therapy (e.g. depression, anxiety disorders), as well as those which have only more recently become a subject of study (bipolar disorder, psychotic symptoms), and some which are still in their relative infancy (physical health problems, brain injury). The book also includes several chapters on transdiagnostic problems, such as avoidance of affect, low self-esteem, interpersonal issues, and self-injurious behaviour. A final chapter by Christine Padesky provides some signposts for future development. Containing examples of over 200 behavioural experiments, this book will be of enormous practical value for all those involved in cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as stimulating exploration and creativity in both its readers and their patients.