On 17 November 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was fired on a video call. The firing quickly made headlines around the world. A week later, Altman was back running the company he had co-founded-and most of the directors who voted to fire him were themselves removed from the board. It was a demonstration of the then 38-year-old Altman's power to bend reality to his will, and of how vicious and personal the rush to create this world-changing technology is. In The Optimist, acclaimed reporter Keach Hagey tells the Altman story so far: from his childhood in St. Louis to his first startup experience, his time leading Y Combinator, his recruitment of a superior team at OpenAI, the machinations that led to his temporary removal and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting-edge while fending off rivals including Elon Musk. Based on more than two hundred interviews, The Optimist is an essential portrait of an individual whose vision of the future is already shaping our lives.
Early-morning jackhammering from construction down the block. The dull roar of jet overflights. Your officemate's phone conversations. Noise is everywhere, disrupting our sleep, ratcheting up our stress, destroying our concentration-yet it's a problem that many of us shrug off once the immediate annoyance passes. In Clamor, Chris Berdik reveals noise as one of the most pervasive, yet underacknowledged, pollutants in our daily lives, the harms of which extend far beyond our hearing, from our children's learning outcomes to our longevity to the natural world around us.We systemically neglect life's sonic dimension at our peril-not only driving up the racket but failing to harness sound's great potential. Berdik introduces us to the researchers, rock stars, architects, and many others who are finding surprising ways to make our world sound not only less bad, but better. Rising above the ever-increasing din, Clamor is an urgent-and ultimately inspiring-call to reconsider our relationship to our world's soundscapes.
The Norton Library edition of A Farewell to Arms features the complete text of Hemingway's 1929 novel. Mark Cirino provides an insightful introduction and targeted explanatory notes to help readers engage with the themes and achievements of the novel.The Norton Library is a growing collection of high-quality texts and translations-influential works of literature and philosophy-introduced and edited by leading scholars. Norton Library editions prepare readers for their first encounter with the works that they'll re-read over a lifetime.Inviting introductions highlight the work's significance and influence, providing the historical and literary context students need to dive in with confidence.Endnotes and an easy-to-read design deliver an uninterrupted reading experience, encouraging students to read the text first and refer to endnotes for more information as needed.An affordable price (most $10 or less) encourages students to buy the book and to come to class with the assigned edition .
The Norton Library edition of Great Expectations features the complete 1861 first edition text. Daniel Wright provides an insightful introduction and targeted explanatory notes to help readers engage with the themes and achievements of the novel.The Norton Library is a growing collection of high-quality texts and translations-influential works of literature and philosophy-introduced and edited by leading scholars. Norton Library editions prepare readers for their first encounter with the works that they'll re-read over a lifetime.Inviting introductions highlight the work's significance and influence, providing the historical and literary context students need to dive in with confidence.Endnotes and an easy-to-read design deliver an uninterrupted reading experience, encouraging students to read the text first and refer to endnotes for more information as needed.An affordable price (most $10 or less) encourages students to buy the book and to come to class with the assigned edition.
Anna Fort wants to be a supportive wife, even if that means accompanying her husband for the winter of 1918 to a remote, frozen island estate so he can finish his book as the guest of an eccentric millionaire. When she learns three girls are missing from a school run by their host, Anna realizes finding them is up to her-even if that means risking her husband's career, and possibly her life.Her husband's masterpiece-in-progress features strange meteorological anomalies along with wild speculations about "facts" he believes scientists hide from the public. Most people think Charles Fort is a crackpot. That's about to change now that wealthy Claude Arkel is his patron.Yet Anna is sure something's not right on Prosper Island, though the alarming return of her "troubles" makes her question her own sanity. Is the figure in the woods really the ghost of her long-lost friend Mary, or a product of her disturbed imagination? Accompanied reluctantly by a fellow guest, the elegant and troubled Stella Bixby, Anna embarks on a dangerous quest to find the missing girls before Arkel finds her-or her own mind unravels.A contemporary feminist tale with a dreamlike, gothic setting, King Nyx reintroduces readers, twenty-five years after her acclaimed debut, to one of our most astonishingly imaginative storytellers.
Today, human exceptionalism is the norm. Despite occasional nods to animal welfare, we prioritize humanity, often neglecting the welfare of a vast number of beings. As a result, we use hundreds of billions of vertebrates and trillions of invertebrates every year for a variety of purposes, often unnecessarily. We also plan to use animals, AI systems, and other nonhumans at even higher levels in the future. Yet as the dominant species, humanity has a responsibility to ask: Which nonhumans matter, how much do they matter, and what do we owe them in a world reshaped by human activity and technology?In The Moral Circle, philosopher Jeff Sebo challenges us to include all potentially significant beings in our moral community, with transformative implications for our lives and societiesThis book explores provocative case studies such as lawsuits over captive elephants and debates over factory-farmed insects, and compels us to consider future ethical quandaries, such as whether to send microbes to new planets, and whether to create virtual worlds filled with digital minds. Taking an expansive view of human responsibility, Sebo argues that building a positive future requires the shedding of human exceptionalism and radically rethinking our place in the world.
"Art has poisoned our life," proclaimed Dutch artist and De Stijl cofounder Theo van Doesburg. Reacting to the tumultuous crises of the twentieth century, especially the horrors of World War I, avant-garde artists and writers sought to destroy art by transforming it into the substance of everyday life. Following the evolution of these revolutionary groups, How to Be Avant-Garde charts its pioneers and radical ideas.From Paris to New York, from Zurich to Moscow and Berlin, avant-gardists challenged the confines of the definition of art along with the confines of the canvas itself. Art historian Morgan Falconer starts with the dynamic Futurist founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, whose manifesto extolling speed, destruction, and modernity seeded avant-gardes across Europe. In turn, Dadaists Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings sought to replace art with political cabaret, and the Surrealists tried to exchange it for tools to plumb the unconscious.He guides us through the Russian Constructivists with their adventures in advertising and utopianism and then De Stijl with the geometric abstractions of Piet Mondrian. The Bauhaus broke more boundaries, transmuting art into architecture and design. Finally, the Situationists swapped art for politics, with many of their ideas inspiring the 1968 Paris student protests.How to Be Avant-Garde is a journey through the interlocking networks of these richly creative lives with their visions of a better world, their sometimes sympathetic but often strange and turbulent conversations, and their objects and writings that defied categorization.
Wherever there's a rule, there is someone with the power to apply or ignore it-or add to it, in the interest of justice. From enforcing chores to issuing life sentences, decision-makers deliver flawed and sometimes arbitrary outcomes. But is their use of discretion good or bad overall? As a society, should we seek to minimize or maximize discretion, with all its potential for bias and other kinds of human error?Reframing our understanding of justice and ethics, philosopher Barry Lam argues that while use of discretion-whether by a sports referee, a parent, a police officer, or a judge-can never be perfect, removing it has even more problematic effects. Mandatory arrests and sentencing laws have not eliminated bias, but have corrupted the courtroom, institutionalized lying, and brought about even more unjust and arbitrary results. Fewer Rules, Better People is a bold, riveting treatise that sheds new light on political debates about law and justice while aiming to prepare us for the imminent threat of more "perfect," discretion-less rule-enforcement by AI.
Biologically, race does not exist. But in our social world, it remains decidedly important. Mainstream scientists embrace these truths, yet misinformation about human variation and genetics persists in our society. What is the true relationship between the two? And how should we talk about identity in science and medicine?In deeply researched, masterful prose, sociologist Dr. Rina Bliss guides us through the invention and evolution of the concept. She reveals how the myth of distinct, biological races endures in medicine, science, and social policy-warping our understanding of complex topics like intelligence, disease susceptibility, and behavior. Even well-intentioned researchers add to the confusion by introducing racial analysis in contexts where it doesn't belong, resulting in misleading reports that amplify harmful assumptions and ignore the social forces at work. At a time when misinformation about our bodies and identities is dangerously prevalent, Bliss unmasks what's truly real about race: namely, racism's impact on our bodies and lives.
A prevailing narrative goes: Bob Dylan, the voice of Sixties counterculture, disappeared in the 1970s in a haze of substance abuse, made arguably the worst music of his career, and was finally put to bed in the 1980s-only to be resurrected in 2016, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dylan's concerts once began with an announcer intoning a deadpan version of just such a narrative. That is not this story.Drawing on thousands of pages of archival materials, After the Flood reveals Dylan's output during the last three decades as his most ambitious yet. Across an abecedarium of chapters surveying his albums, performances, films, and books since the early 1990s, celebrated poet Robert Polito shows how Dylan evolved a late musical style that has embodied and resisted its era-interweaving Ovid and Americana, film noir and the Civil War. Imaginatively researched, After the Flood is both an essential revision and continuation of the Dylan saga.
What does it mean to be human in a world where machines, too, can be artists? The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery has long transformed the world, but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands, David Hajdu examines the new, increasingly urgent questions about technology's role in culture.From the life-size mechanical doll that made headlines in Victorian London to the doll's modern AI-pop star counterpart, Hajdu traces the fascinating, varied ways in which inventors and artists have sought to emulate mental processes and mechanize creative production. For decades, machines and artists have engaged in expressing the human condition-along with the condition of living with machines-through player pianos, broadcasting technology, electric organs, digital movie effects, synthesizers, and motion capture. By communicating and informing human knowledge, the machines have exerted considerable influence on the history of art-and often more influence than humans have been willing to recognize. As Hajdu proclaims: "before machine learning, there was machine teaching."With thoughtful, wide-ranging, and surprising turns from Berry Gordy and George Harrison to Andy Warhol and Stevie Wonder, David Hajdu takes a novel and contrarian approach: he sees how machines through the ages have enabled creativity, not stifled it-and The Uncanny Muse sees no reason why this shouldn't be the case with AI today.
Already used at over 270 schools in its first edition, Let's Talk is well liked by students and instructors because it is approachable, interesting, and easy to read, with just enough detail on writing, reading, and research. The second edition continues to bring a stronger focus on listening, curiosity, and open-mindedness than any other book of its kind, and now adds timely new coverage of the need for conversation, the role of argument in all kinds of writing, and the use of AI, all in a more interactive ebook with over 30 videos.
Already used at over 270 schools in its first edition, Let's Talk is well liked by students and instructors because it is approachable, interesting, and easy to read, with just enough detail on writing, reading, and research. The second edition continues to bring a stronger focus on listening, curiosity, and open-mindedness than any other book of its kind, and now adds timely new coverage of the need for conversation, the role of argument in all kinds of writing, and the use of AI, all in a more interactive ebook with over 30 videos.
The music theory text that students read and understand.
The Laboratory Manual for Introductory Geology provides an engaging way to learn geology, focusing on active exploration and real-life applications. Allan Ludman and Stephen Marshak are influential researchers and expert teachers who know how to make geoscience exciting for students. They introduce and reinforce key concepts and skills through rich illustrations, accessible explanations, intuitive labs with easy-to-follow instructions, and pedagogical tools that help students think like geologists.?The manual's modular chapters make it flexible and easy to assign with any introductory geology textbook, especially Marshak's Earth: Portrait of a Planet and Essentials of Geology. To make the lab experience more dynamic, the manual is supported by interactive resources, including 3D models of geologic specimens, videos, animations, interactive simulations, and Google Earth activities.?New to this edition:A reorganized Table of Contents designed to follow the typical sequence of the geology lab course.Revised and expanded discussion of plate tectonics, which is introduced in Ch. 2: The Way the Earth Works: Examining Plate Tectonics and further explored in a brand-new Ch. 10: Plate Tectonics II: A Deeper Understanding, which builds on the coverage of minerals, rocks, rock deformation, and earthquakes presented in the preceding chapters.New and revised exercises and activities based on reviewer feedback, including the earthquake epicenter exercise central to Ch. 9 and two groundwater pollution exercises in Ch. 14.?Coverage of recent geological events, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, accelerating climate change, and glacial retreat.
Written by master teachers Poundie Burstein and Joe Straus, the workbook that accompanies Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony, Third Edition, provides your students the practice they need to master music theory. The workbook contains hundreds of exercises-more than could ever be assigned in any one class-offering you the flexibility to construct assignments that best meet the needs of your students. The Third Edition has been revised with new exercises based on new selections in the Third Edition .
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