A Spectacular Failure

by Virginia La Grand

Author	: Virginia La Grand
Publisher	: Brill
Total Pages	: 246
Release	: 2012-01-01
Genre	: Literary Criticism
ISBN	: 9401208638

GET BOOK

This study examines Defoe’s three-volume Robinson Crusoe series in the light of the ‘banter’ style he developed as a pamphleteer. That heavily ironic style had brought him renown but also put him in the pillory. The present study explores for the first time Defoe’s complaint that readers and pirate abridgers misread his tale of the would-be trader Robinson Crusoe. Using Discourse Analysis and Relevance Theory to examine the early abridgements of Volume I and Defoe’s subsequent two volumes, this study argues that Defoe’s greatest success is also a peculiar failure.

The Risk Factor

by Deborah Perry Piscione

Author	: Deborah Perry Piscione
Publisher	: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages	: 258
Release	: 2014-12-23
Genre	: Business & Economics
ISBN	: 1137474661

GET BOOK

Our most revered business icons of the last few decades are the bold risktakers, such as Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs. Yet in today's stock market-driven economy, companies are playing it safe, with too many leaders focused on short-term gains, rather than value creation. The result is a static business culture that generates forgettable results—even as the world demands big solutions. So how do we get back in the risk-taking game? In The Risk Factor, Deborah Perry Piscione takes the most comprehensive look at this crucial, undervalued leadership behavior, and outlines how companies must support risk-taking across the enterprise. Exploring the heroes of risk, including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and technologists, and the role risk-taking and failure tolerance play in their success, she makes a compelling case not only for big, flashy mergers or acquisitions, but also for unorthodox choices in everything from leadership to corporate social responsibility. Drawing on case studies from a wide range of now-famous giants (Netflix, Salesforce) and successful start-ups (Tesla, NetApp), she distills lessons for both new entrepreneurs and established companies whose longtime risk aversion has cost them more than they realize.

Spectacular Flops

by Michael Brian Schiffer

Author	: Michael Brian Schiffer
Publisher	: Eliot Werner Publications
Total Pages	: 354
Release	: 2018-12-31
Genre	: Technology & Engineering
ISBN	: 1733376941

GET BOOK

Many technologies begin life as someone's vision of an ambitious, perhaps audacious, technology that is expected to have a revolutionary impact on consumers-whether families, companies, or societies. However, if this highly touted technology fails "prematurely" at some point in its life history, it becomes a spectacular flop. Employing a behavioral perspective, this book presents a sample of twelve spectacular flops encompassing the past three centuries-ranging from the world's first automobile to the nuclear-powered bomber. Because technologies may fail from many different causes, spectacular flops pose a special challenge to the author's long-term project of furnishing generalizations about technological change. Instead of constructing generalizations that apply to all spectacular flops, this book provides limited generalizations that pertain to particular groups of technologies bounded by parameters such as "long-term development projects" and "one-off projects." The reader need have no prior familiarity with the technologies because basic principles are introduced as needed.

Outside Inn

by Ethel May Kelley

Author	: Ethel May Kelley
Publisher	:
Total Pages	: 332
Release	: 1920
Genre	:
ISBN	:

GET BOOK

The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures

by Stephen Pile

Author	: Stephen Pile
Publisher	: Faber & Faber
Total Pages	: 264
Release	: 2011-10-20
Genre	: Humor
ISBN	: 0571277306

GET BOOK

THE SUNDAY TIMES HUMOUR BOOK OF THE YEAR 'One of the few books to make me laugh out loud' Sunday Express With Stephen Pile's The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures, celebrate the very best in failure with this all new collection of outrageously funny misadventures from the author of the classic number one bestseller The Book of Heroic Failures. Anyone can be a success, but it takes real and original genius to foul up big time. These are the all-time greats, Gods in the field of failure, surreal artists, who spurn mere drab success ('I'm a winner, Lord Sugar') to explore the vast, magical, life-enhancing possibilities of getting it wrong. Any of us could make a mistake, but these great souls can turn the simplest everyday task into a scene of jaw-dropping wonder. These are the immortals. Failure is everywhere. The Book of Heroic Failures, takes us on an all-new and mind-bendingly hilarious tour to celebrate the most spectacular and absurd failures of the last twenty-five years. There are 235 stories in total spread from the Outer Hebrides to America, Ireland, Australia, Europe and Africa. From the most driving test failures (959), the most pointless election (in Dakota, in which not even the mayor voted), the worst robbery (when two different sets of bank robbers struck simultaneously) and the worst mugger (who left his victim $250 better off), to the holidaying rugby team of fifty-somethings from Dorchester who, due to a mis-translation, ended up playing the top team from Romania live on state TV, this is the ultimate book to make you feel better about yourself and the world around you.

Incentivology

by Jason Murphy

Author	: Jason Murphy
Publisher	: Hardie Grant Publishing
Total Pages	: 249
Release	: 2019-06-01
Genre	: Business & Economics
ISBN	: 1743586140

GET BOOK

Rewards. Punishments. Prices. The Nobel Prize. Candy Crush. Incentives take more forms than you might expect and they can be hard to spot, but they shape our lives in ways that we rarely examine. Some incentives are obvious, like for example, publicly committing to doing something you dislike in order to motivate you to do something difficult, like lose weight. But, many of the most powerful incentives are accidental, and invisible even to those who designed them. Some are tame – and some are most definitely not. Whether it’s bounties for criminals or Instagrammable meals, training your dog or saving the planet, incentives regularly backfire, go missing, mutate and evolve. Without oversight, their unintended consequences can have very global effects. In Incentivology, economist Jason Murphy uncovers the huge incentive systems we take for granted and turns them inside out. In lively, entertaining prose he explores the mechanisms behind many spectacular failures and successes in our history, culture and everyday lives, and shows us how to use (or lose) incentives in our world at large.

Special Forces Afghanistan

by Peter Telep

Author	: Peter Telep
Publisher	: Penguin
Total Pages	: 308
Release	: 2008-01-02
Genre	: Fiction
ISBN	: 1101207523

GET BOOK

The men of ODA-555, better known as Triple Nickel, were the first unit to hit Afghanistan after 9/11. Taking the War on Terror to the enemy’s front door, their bravery isn’t just the stuff of legend—it’s the stuff of life in the Special Forces. Captain James Pharaoh and his Special Forces team are still fighting the hard fight against a fanatical and deadly foe. The new leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is Sheik Hassan—a ruthless Jihadist with sinister new plans to defeat the Western infidels. But it seems that whenever Pharaoh gets close to nailing Hassan’s hide, the terrorist slips away. It turns out that a pair of rogue CIA agents are running their own operation for certain American politicians with their own agenda—and it’s costing lives every day. Now, Pharaoh is caught between the dirty dealings of his own government, dissension within his own team, and finding Hassan before all hell breaks loose…

Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security

by Ted G. Lewis

Author	: Ted G. Lewis
Publisher	: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages	: 396
Release	: 2014-10-13
Genre	: Technology & Engineering
ISBN	: 1118817664

GET BOOK

"...excellent for use as a text in information assurance orcyber-security courses...I strongly advocate thatprofessors...examine this book with the intention of using it intheir programs." (Computing Reviews.com, March 22, 2007) "The book is written as a student textbook, but it should beequally valuable for current practitioners...this book is a veryworthwhile investment." (Homeland Security Watch, August 17,2006) While the emphasis is on the development of policies that lead tosuccessful prevention of terrorist attacks on the nation’sinfrastructure, this book is the first scientific study of criticalinfrastructures and their protection. The book models thenation’s most valuable physical assets and infrastructuresectors as networks of nodes and links. It then analyzes thenetwork to identify vulnerabilities and risks in the sectorcombining network science, complexity theory, modeling andsimulation, and risk analysis. The most critical components become the focus of deeper analysisand protection. This approach reduces the complex problem ofprotecting water supplies, energy pipelines, telecommunicationstations, Internet and Web networks, and power grids to a muchsimpler problem of protecting a few critical nodes. The new editionincorporates a broader selection of ideas and sectors and moves themathematical topics into several appendices.

Protecting England and Wales from Plant Pests and Diseases

by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Author	: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher	: The Stationery Office
Total Pages	: 40
Release	: 2004
Genre	: Technology & Engineering
ISBN	: 9780215019639

GET BOOK

Following on from a NAO report on this topic (HCP 1186, session 2002-03; ISBN 0102923590) published in October 2003, the Committee's report focuses on the work of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in trying to prevent plant pests and diseases from entering the country and in managing and preventing the spread of outbreaks when they occur. The main impacts from plant pests and diseases are economic ones, and DEFRA spends £8 million each year on import controls and a further £14 million researching the diagnosis and control of pests. Its work is subject to two main international agreements, as well as WTO requirements that stipulate import controls must have a scientific basis and must not be used as a barrier to trade. Recommendations include that DEFRA should: reassess current inspection targets using cost-benefit analyses; establish a peer review system to provide assurance on the quality of inspections; work with industry and supermarkets to improve food labelling to raise consumer awareness of the UK's standards for plant health; address the inconsistencies in current farmer compensation arrangements and explore the feasibility of alternatives such as insurance or levy schemes.