Technology & Engineering Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed

Last Train to Paradise is acclaimed novelist Les Standiford's fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller and the true mastermind behind Standard Oil, concocted the dream of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. The financiers considered the project and said, Unthinkable. The engineers pondered the problems and from all came one verdict, Impossible. . . . But build it they did, and the railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for twenty-two years. Once dismissed as Flagler's Folly, it was heralded as the Eighth Wonder of the World until a will even greater than Flagler's rose up in opposition. In 1935, a hurricane of exceptional force, which would be dubbed the Storm of the Century, swept through the tiny islands, killing some 700 residents and workmen and washing away all but one sixty-foot section of track, on which a 320,000-pound railroad engine stood and gripped its rails as if the gravity of Jupiter were pressing upon it. Standiford brings the full force and fury of this storm to terrifying life. In spinning his saga of the railroad's construction, Standiford immerses us in the treacherous world of the thousands of workers who beat their way through infested swamps, lived in fragile tent cities on barges anchored in the midst of daunting stretches of ocean, and suffered from a remarkable succession of three ominous hurricanes that killed many and washed away vast stretches of track. Steadfast through every setback, Flagler inspired a loyalty in his workers so strong that even after a hurricane dislodged one of the railroad's massive pilings, casting doubt over the viability of the entire project, his engineers refused to be beaten. The question was no longer Could it be done? but Can we make it to Key West on time? to allow Flagler to ride the rails of his dream. Last Train to Paradise celebrates this crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition, a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature's wrath.From the Hardcover edition.

Les Standiford, Les Staniford (Author), Del Roy (Narrator)

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Going Wireless

Going Wireless delivers the unexpected by showing how wireless is transforming every type of enterprise from micro-businesses to multi-national conglomerates. Award-winning technology journalist Jaclyn Easton begins with an in-depth look at owning your customers and clients through mobile commerce -- whether your company focuses on consumers or business-to-business. From there you will learn about the advantages of wirelessly fortifying your mobile workforce of itinerant executives, sales personnel, and field service technicians as well as how wireless is dramatically redefining customer service, marketing, and advertising. Going Wireless also delves deep inside the corporation. First you'll find out why most companies are "handsizing" in addition to deploying wireless technology to rejuvenate warehouses, supply chains, procurement procedures, data collection, competitive intelligence, and much more. The best part is that these scenarios are supported by over 40 brand-name success stories, including: • How Sears saves millions by wirelessly enabling 100 percent of their appliance repair technicians; • How the Gap proved that by sewing wireless technology in their clothing they could reduce labor distribution costs by 50 percent; • How McKessanHBOC -- a Fortune 40 corporation -- used mobile technology to entirely eliminate all their manifest imaging costs. While most people associate wireless with cell phones and Palm handhelds, you'll also learn that wireless has been around for over 100 years and has spawned mobile options you've never heard of and is being used in ways you've never imagined. This makes Going Wireless the perfect book for executives and managers who need a comprehensive overview of the wireless options that can make their companies more competitive, more productive, and more profitable.

Jaclyn Easton (Author), Jaclyn Easton (Narrator)

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What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Information Frontier

Here's some of what just happened: Millions of ordinary, sensible people came into possession of computers. These machines had wondrous powers, yet made unexpected demands on their owners. Telephones broke free of the chains that had shackled them to bedside tables and office desks. No one was out of touch, or wanted to be out of touch. Instant communication became a birthright. A new world, located no one knew exactly where, came into being, called "virtual" or "online," named "cyberspace" or "the Internet" or just "the network." Manners and markets took on new shapes and guises. As all this was happening, James Gleick, author of the groundbreaking Chaos, columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and-very briefly-an Internet entrepreneur, emerged as one of our most astute guides to this new world. His dispatches-by turns passionate, bewildered, angry, and amazed-form an extraordinary chronicle. Gleick loves what the network makes possible, and he hates it. Software makers developed a strangely tolerant view of an ancient devil, the product defect. One company, at first a feisty upstart, seized control of the hidden gears and levers of the new economy. We wrestled with novel issues of privacy, anonymity, and disguise. We found that if the human species is evolving a sort of global brain, it's susceptible to new forms of hysteria and multiple-personality disorder. What Just Happened is at once a remarkable portrait of a world in the throes of transformation and a prescient guide to the transformation still to come.

James Gleick (Author), Dan Cashman (Narrator)

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The Best and the Second Best of Car Talk

It's a laugh-out-loud collection of wisecracks, automotive first aid, and roadside philosophy. Tom and Ray have gathered the most outrageous and humorous segments from their weekly call-in radio show, including "Eggs Prestone," "Bad Hair Days," "Clinton Sends Vowels to Bosnia," "Gail, the Tollgate Fugitive," and the Tappet Brothers personal favorite, the tale of Max and his little Schnauzer.

Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Author), Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Narrator)

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From the Literal to the Luminous

Mikela Tarlow (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

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Car Talk: Men Are from GM, Women Are from Ford

When a question about anti-lock brakes becomes and entree for dispensing marital advice, you know you've entered the world of Click and Clack, the Car Talk guys. Together they dish up sage advice, car guidance, and fun as they irritate, pontificate, and finally illuminate life for the less fortunate of us who are mechanically disinclined. Listen in to learn how your car life merely reflects your love life. And feel the deep relief that comes with knowing you're not the caller whose relationship laundry is being strung up the pole for all listeners to enjoy

Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Author), Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Narrator)

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Car Talk: Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father When It Comes to Cars

It's a fact: 98% of what fathers say is dead wrong. Join famous syndicated radio talk show hosts and ingenious car experts Click and Clack as they bring this little known fact to light. Car Talk: Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father ... is a hilarious collection of the Tappet brothers' favorite calls over the years about fathers, fatherly advice, and fatherly negotiations around the use of cars and car care. Fathers may be wrong most of the time, but Tom and Ray show us why we love them anyway.

Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Author), Ray Magliozzi, Tom Magliozzi (Narrator)

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Cyberselfish

This enormously controversial take on high tech culture "combines common sense with an old-fashioned humanism to make sense of the current high-tech gestalt. " -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times. Paulina Borsook has been stirring up a ruckus in Silicon Valley since her days as a regular contributor to Wired magazine. She ruffled feathers again with Cyberselfish, a spirited, funny, gimlet-eyed look at the worldview of the digerati-one she terms "violently lacking in compassion, ravingly anti-government, and tremendously opposed to regulation. " PublicAffairs' new trade paperback edition is updated throughout, and includes a new afterword by the author addressing the cat calls, jeers, and cries of "foul" from the world of high tech that greeted the hardcover. In Cyberselfish Borsook journeys through and rants about high tech culture, profiling the worlds of ravers, gilders, cypherpunks, anarchocapitalists, and other Silicon Valley life forms; and exploring the theory and practice of what she dubs "technolibertarianism" in all its manifestations. Whether she is attending Bionomics conferences or hanging out with Wired staffers, reading personal ads or evaluating high-tech's sorry philanthropic record, Borsook is full of original observations, mordant wit, and furious passion that readers wake up to the social and political consequences of having computer geeks run the world. Cyberselfish raises the hackles of high techies and clarifies what makes the rest of us so nervous about the brave new cyberworld.

Pauline Borsook (Author), Paula Parker (Narrator)

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In the Blink of an Eye: The FBI Investigation of TWA Flight 800

July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 mysteriously fell from the sky, claiming the lives of all 230 people aboard. Associated Press reporter Pat Milton offers a rare inside look at the investigation of the unexplained explosion and the experts who struggled to find the truth behind one of America's most disturbing aviation disasters. Early in the evening, fishermen off the coast of Long Island, New York watched in astonishment as a commercial plane burst into flames, then plummeted into the ocean. While the country reacted with shock and sorrow, the FBI set in motion an exhaustive search for answers that would last two years. In the Blink of an Eye takes you through the sequence of events surrounding the tragedy and reveals those most affected by it: rescue workers, investigators, and the victims and their families. Pat Milton, who covered the chilling disaster from day one, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Richard Poe's thoughtful performance brings you as close to the real cause of the crash as possible.

Pat Milton (Author), Richard Poe (Narrator)

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The Age of Spiritual Machines

Ray Kurzweil is the inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era, an international authority on artificial intelligence, and one of our greatest living visionaries. Now he offers a framework for envisioning the twenty-first century--an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future takes us through the advances that inexorably result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain by the year 2020 (with human-level capabilities not far behind); in relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers; and in information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways. Optimistic and challenging, thought-provoking and engaging, The Age of Spiritual Machines is the ultimate guide on our road into the next century.

Ray Kurzweil (Author), Alan Sklar (Narrator)

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Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age

On December 16, 1947, two physicists at Bell Laboratories, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, jabbed two electrodes into a sliver of germanium half an inch long. The electrical power coming out of that piece of germanium was 100 times stronger than what went in. In that moment, the transistor was invented and the information age began. Crystal Fire recounts the story of the transistor team at Bell Labs, led by William Shockley, who shared the Nobel Prize with Bardeen and Brattain. While his colleagues went on to other research, Shockley grew increasingly obsessed with the new gadget. He went on to form the first semiconductor company in what would become Silicon Valley. Above all, Crystal Fire is a tale of the human factors in technology: the pride and jealousies coupled with scientific and economic aspirations that led to the creation of modern microelectronics and ignited the greatest technological explosion in history.

Lillian Hoddeson, Michael Riordan (Author), Dennis McKee (Narrator)

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Re-Creating Community

The pace of technology and shifting scientific paradigms have shaken the foundations of our planet. Robert Theobald compares the acceleration of change in our lives to riding the rapids: 'We can decide whether we're going to go down the rapids and enjoy ourselves, or go down the rapids and be terrified. But we can't say we're not going to go down them at all.'

Robert Theobald (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

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Technology & Engineering Audiobooks in Science & Technology