Tim and his friends find out the hard way that you shouldn't question the game master, and you shouldn't make fun of his cape. One minute, they're drinking away the dreariness of their lives, escaping into a fantasy game and laughing their asses off. The next minute, they're in a horse-drawn cart surrounded by soldiers pointing crossbows at them. Tim now has the voice and physique of a prepubescent girl. Dave finds that while he lost a foot or two in height, he somehow acquired a suit of armor and a badass beard. Julian's ears have grown ridiculously long and pointy. And Cooper... well Cooper has gotten himself a set of tusks, a pair of clawed hands, and a bad case of the shits. He also finds that he's carrying a bag with a human head in it - a head that he had chopped off when they were still just playing a game. Shit just got real, and if they want to survive, these four friends are going to have to tap into some baser instincts they didn't even know existed in their fast-food and pizza delivery world. It's fight, flight, or try to convince the people who are trying to kill them that they don't really exist. Meanwhile, a sadistic game master sits back in the real world eating their fried chicken.

The adventure continues. Tim and the C&C gang face their most difficult challenges yet. Horses die. Eyeballs are eaten. People are urinated on. A god is born.

Critical Materials takes a case-study approach, describing materials supply-chain failures from the bronze age to present day. It looks at why these failures occurred, what the consequences were, and how they were resolved. It identifies key lessons to guide responses to current and anticipated materials shortages at a time when the world's growing middle class is creating unprecedented demand for manufactured products and the increasingly exotic materials that go into them. This book serves as a guide to materials researchers and industrial end-users for finding effective approaches to shortages of specialty materials. The lessons in the book are also appropriate to those who use materials and for those involved in manufacturing supply-chain management and industrial design. - Instructs the reader on how to select the most effective strategies to deal with materials supply-chain failures - Discusses technical feasibility, economic viability and the political context - Includes an extensive use of case studies to illustrate key concepts of criticality

Deeming the Whore's Head Inn no longer safe to hide in, the gang decide to take a more proactive role in their pursuit to get back to reality, or at least to keep Mordred from doing so.

The overwhelming majority of a software system’s lifespan is spent in use, not in design or implementation. So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems? In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google’s Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You’ll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient—lessons directly applicable to your organization. This book is divided into four sections: Introduction—Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practices Principles—Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE) Practices—Understand the theory and practice of an SRE’s day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systems Management—Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

Published in 1997, this text focuses on the conundrum between the academics ability to distinguish between failing and non-failing businesses with models of over 85.5per cent accuracy, and the reasons why credit agencies and the like do not act on such information. The author asks, are the models defective?

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Here’s the most clinically oriented critical care text focusing on the adult patient. In full-color and superbly illustrated with clinical photographs, imaging studies, and management algorithms, and with a broad multidisciplinary focus, this text will help you enhance your skills at any level of training. Stands alone as a clinically oriented comprehensive reference. Completely updated and authorship expanded to reflect the evolution in critical care practice. In color for the first time, with new color schematics and treatment algorithms for greater ease of reference. Utilizes key points lists at the end of chapter, to help you make decisions rapidly and easily. Delivers key references that list other useful resources for information. Includes these seven new chapters to keep you on the cutting edge of your specialty: Assessment of Cardiac Filling and Blood Flow Mechanical Ventilation of Obstructive Airways Disease Mechanical Ventilation of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Severe Sepsis and Multiple Organ Dysfunction Stroke Delirium, Psychosis, Sleep and Depression in the ICU ICU Education

The issue of what defines project success (or failure) is complex and often elusive, and dependent on the perceptions of different stakeholders. In this enlightening book Emanuel Camilleri examines the key factors bearing on perceived success or failure. This book is not just about project management, it goes much deeper into the topic of project success by prescribing a project success framework. In chapters dedicated to factors such as leadership, teams, communication, information management and risk management, the author shines a light on the key behaviours in which project managers and others engage and how those behaviours predict success or failure. Practising project managers, project board members and sponsors, struggling to manage conflicting stakeholder expectations, complexity and ambiguity, will learn which factors are vital to determining successful outcomes. Finally, having highlighted the particular skills, abilities and attributes identified by the research, Dr Camilleri offers a diagnostic model for assessing an organization's preparedness for undertaking and successfully managing major projects. Project Success provides a valuable contribution to the literature on this subject, and its application delivers practical guidance that will be welcomed by project professionals at all levels.

This book is the first practical, hands-on guide that shows how leaders can build psychological safety in their organizations, creating an environment where employees feel included, fully engaged, and encouraged to contribute their best efforts and ideas. Fear has a profoundly negative impact on engagement, learning efficacy, productivity, and innovation, but until now there has been a lack of practical information on how to make employees feel safe about speaking up and contributing. Timothy Clark, a social scientist and an organizational consultant, provides a framework to move people through successive stages of psychological safety. The first stage is member safety-the team accepts you and grants you shared identity. Learner safety, the second stage, indicates that you feel safe to ask questions, experiment, and even make mistakes. Next is the third stage of contributor safety, where you feel comfortable participating as an active and full-fledged member of the team. Finally, the fourth stage of challenger safety allows you to take on the status quo without repercussion, reprisal, or the risk of tarnishing your personal standing and reputation. This is a blueprint for how any leader can build positive, supportive, and encouraging cultures in any setting.