Kirjahaku

The mathematical theory of games has as its purpose the analysis of a wide range of competitive situations. These include most of the recreations which people usually call "games" such as chess, poker, bridge, backgam­ mon, baseball, and so forth, but also contests between companies, military forces, and nations. For the purposes of developing the theory, all these competitive situations are called games. The analysis of games has two goals. First, there is the descriptive goal of understanding why the parties ("players") in competitive situations behave as they do. The second is the more practical goal of being able to advise the players of the game as to the best way to play. The first goal is especially relevant when the game is on a large scale, has many players, and has complicated rules. The economy and international politics are good examples. In the ideal, the pursuit of the second goal would allow us to describe to each player a strategy which guarantees that he or she does as well as possible. As we shall see, this goal is too ambitious. In many games, the phrase "as well as possible" is hard to define. In other games, it can be defined and there is a clear-cut "solution" (that is, best way of playing).

Condemned by the mother of Jamie Bulger and acclaimed by the critics - for tackling the subject of child killers - this is the controversial new play from the winner of the Sunday Times Playwriting Prize 2001 Few kids have a secret as chilling as Timmy's. Stephanie loves Raquel to death. Acutely topical, darkly satirical and brutally uncompromising - these two monologues explore the shattering of childhood innocence. "The play opens up a moral minefield. Who can, or should, consent to what? Can anyone consent to something on the behalf of another? What power can anyone, a person or a community, have over the mind and life of another? Morris's play sends you out in a state of moral turbulence." (John Peter, Sunday Times)"For once, the play at the eye of an Edinburgh storm is a good one" - Guardian "This 70-minute play would alone have been worth a trip to Edinburgh" - Sunday Times "If The Age of Consent had been written by the sainted Alan Bennett it would be acclaimed as a triumph" - Daily Telegraph The Age of Consent is published to tie in with its London premiere at the Bush Theatre in January 2002

Other Canadian film producers concentrated their efforts on short productions, mostly in government or commercial companies such as Associated Screen News of Montreal. The works of Gordon Spalding, Bill Oliver, and Albert Tessier are discussed in this context. Morris concludes with the founding of the National Film Board which, under the dynamic guidance of John Grierson, was to breathe new life into a moribund industry. In a postscript Morris explores some of the reasons for the unique development of Canadian film making -- particularly its use of natural settings and documentary when virtually the rest of the world's industry was following the Hollywood pattern of studio location and fictional plots -- and examines the relationship of the early industry to later developments in Canadian film making. At a time when Canada's cultural industries are struggling to survive in the wake of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and under the threat of Free Trade with Mexico, Embattled Shadows makes essential reading.

This book is the result of one man's twenty-year quest to solve some of baseball's most enduring mysteries--the "cold cases" of major leaguers about whom virtually nothing is known. (In many instances, the various baseball encyclopedias list only their names and one other word: "deceased.") Some of these mysterious players had negligible professional careers and their time on a major league diamond was more the result of good fortune than anything else; others were stars in their day and then vanished. The Biographical Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research is committed to finding them and award-winning researcher Peter Morris tells the story of some of the most remarkable of the searches that resulted, many of which featured twists so surprising no mystery writer could have invented them.

Most baseball fans want to hear about stellar players and spectacular plays, statistics and storied franchises. "Level Playing Fields" sheds light on a usually unnoticed facet of the game, introducing fans and historians alike to the real fundamentals of baseball: dirt and grass. In this lively history, Peter Morris demonstrates that many of the game's rules and customs actually arose as concessions to the daunting practical difficulties of creating a baseball diamond. Recovering a nearly lost and decidedly quirky chapter of baseball history, "Level Playing Fields" tells the engaging story of Tom and Jack Murphy, brothers who made up baseball's first great family of groundskeepers and who played a pivotal role in shaping America's national pastime. Irish immigrants who tirelessly crafted home-field advantages for some of baseball's earliest dynasties, the brothers Murphy were instrumental in developing pitching mounds, permanent spring training sites, and new irrigation techniques, and their careers were touched by such major innovations as tarpaulins and fireproof concrete-and-steel stadiums. "Level Playing Fields" is a real-life saga involving craftsmanship, resourcefulness, intrigue, and bitter rivalries (including attempted murder!) between such legendary figures as John McGraw, Connie Mack, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb. The Murphys' story recreates a forgotten way of life and gives us a sense of why an entire generation of American men found so much meaning in the game of baseball.

Most baseball fans want to hear about stellar players and spectacular plays, statistics and storied franchises. Level Playing Fields sheds light on a usually unnoticed facet of the game, introducing fans and historians alike to the real fundamentals of baseball: dirt and grass. In this lively history, Peter Morris demonstrates that many of the game’s rules and customs actually arose as concessions to the daunting practical difficulties of creating a baseball diamond. Recovering a nearly lost and decidedly quirky chapter of baseball history, Level Playing Fields tells the engaging story of Tom and Jack Murphy, brothers who made up baseball’s first great family of groundskeepers and who played a pivotal role in shaping America’s national pastime. Irish immigrants who tirelessly crafted home-field advantages for some of baseball’s earliest dynasties, the brothers Murphy were instrumental in developing pitching mounds, permanent spring training sites, and new irrigation techniques, and their careers were touched by such major innovations as tarpaulins and fireproof concrete-and-steel stadiums. Level Playing Fields is a real-life saga involving craftsmanship, resourcefulness, intrigue, and bitter rivalries (including attempted murder!) between such legendary figures as John McGraw, Connie Mack, Honus Wagner, and Ty Cobb. The Murphys’ story recreates a forgotten way of life and gives us a sense of why an entire generation of American men found so much meaning in the game of baseball.

The story of baseball in America begins not with the fabled Abner Doubleday but with a generation of mid-nineteenth-century Americans who moved from the countryside to the cities and brought a cherished but delightfully informal game with them. But Didn't We Have Fun? will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about baseball's origins. Peter Morris, author of the prizewinning A Game of Inches, takes a fresh look at the early amateur years of the game. Mr. Morris retrieves a lost era and a lost way of life. Offering a challenging new perspective on baseball's earliest years, and conveying the sense of delight that once pervaded the game and its players, Mr. Morris supplants old myths with a story just as marvelous-but one that really happened. With 25 rare photographs and drawings.

The only book ever to win both the Seymour Medal and the Casey Award as the best baseball book of the year, Peter Morris's magisterial encyclopedia of the national pastime will surprise, delight, and educate even the most knowledgeable fan. With its thousand-odd entries, A Game of Inches illuminates the origins of items ranging from catcher's masks to hook slides to intentional walks to baseball's reserve clause. Now with new material and completely redesigned in a one-volume paperback, the book remains endlessly fascinating, impeccably researched, and engagingly written.

Today's baseball catcher stolidly goes about his duty without attracting much attention. But it wasn't always that way, as Peter Morris shows in this lively and original study. In baseball's early days, catchers stood a safe distance back of the batter without protective gear. Then the introduction of the curveball in the 1870s led them to move up directly behind home plate, even though they still wore no gloves or other protection. Extraordinary courage became the catcher's most notable requirement, but the new positioning also demanded that the catcher have lightning-fast reflexes, great hands, and a throwing arm with the power of a cannon. With so great a range of required skills, a special mystique came to surround the position, and it began to seem that a good catcher could single-handedly make the difference between a winning and losing team.

From white coats to Bunsen burners the laboratory is a controlled space of experimentation, research and invention. But how have the desired functions of the laboratory influenced the way that the laboratory was constructed, laid out, equipped and operated? And how have developments in chemical practice or theory changed the laboratory and the way it is used? The Matter Factory offers a novel approach to the history of chemistry, showing how the development of the laboratory also helped to shape modern scientific practice.As consumers of leading-edge technology, chemists have driven innovation in laboratory design and the provision of utilities and equipment. For example, the introduction of coal gas into Robert Bunsen's laboratory led to the eponymous burner, which in turn led to the development of atomic spectroscopy. Is the construction of new laboratories, and the provision of new utilities and equipment, an important element in the development of these novel areas of chemistry?This book tackles these questions by looking at a series of shifts in laboratory design, from eighteenth- to nineteenth-century furnace-centred, classical and industrial research laboratories to the creation of the modern laboratory at the end of the twentieth. Previous histories of chemistry laboratories have focused on the research carried out within them or the people who occupied them. This book examines the laboratory space itself and the way it is used, from the scientists who developed it to its architectural design, layout and the materials used in its construction. In addition to the development of well-known features, such as the fume cupboard and the bench, The Matter Factory explores the history of the chemical museum, which is now almost extinct. Fascinating and unique, this book will appeal to practising chemists, scientists and general readers alike. Published in association with the Science Museum, London.

Mary – a bright but slightly frivolous teenager – is wooed by sweet-sounding sirens; the lure of sexual psychopathy with its compulsive quicksands, the trendy student philanthropies, the fake Edens of the devious egalitarian social worker. Her courage and strength of character are the antidote and the solution to these charlatans and other false flags. They enable her to avoid what Kierkegaard calls, ‘The greatest despair of not knowing who you are.’ She evolves into a sound-minded young woman, who also by her love for a poor and lonely fellow student, not only saves him but also deepens her own spirit.

'Charlie, there's plentya shit they do in this part of the world, and the reason we're here is 'cause we're not gonna give it a try. Isn't that so?' The images of war. Snapshots from Abu Ghraib that depict atrocities committed in the name of freedom. Tabloid images of English soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner that are later revealed as fakes. And somewhere between England and America, between savagery and spin, lies the truth. In monologues that mingle fierce irony with humane warmth, heart-breaking emotion with breathtaking intelligence, "Guardians" offers storytelling at its simplest - and its most complex. A disgraced American soldier tells her story. And a clever English journalist tells how he got his. This book is the winner of a Fringe First Award at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

What if bed-hopping among university students was not just inevitable, but mandatory? A sexy radical girl, an over-sexed jock and an ancient professor of Ancient Greek discover that with the lights off, a serious attempt to end discrimination can also be a very dirty joke. Peter Morris's new play is an All-American Undergraduate Sex Farce. Gaudeamus opened at the Arcola Theatre, London in March, 2006.

This short book is an outline of the laws and regulations relating to employment in England and Wales. It is for reference for those employing and employed in the rural community, and will be a primer for university and college students reading land and estate management. It charts the significant changes that have been made to the area of employment law over the last two decades, and highlights the areas that need to be considered in farming and rural land management, such as employment tribunals and ACAS's role in resolving disputes and grievances, seasonal workers, work visas and gangmaster legislation. It clearly lays out the legal requirements of contracts of employment, all aspects of discrimination ranging from age and disability, sexual orientation, marriage, pregnancy, race and religion to unfair or wrongful dismissal and redundancy. It is a precursor or prompt for land managers who seek specialized advice for ensuring appropriate compliance with the variety of topics that employment law now encompasses.

Set in a fractured, depopulated Britain, ‘No Repeat of Yesterday’ is a fast-paced thriller that asks questions about the trust we invest in those who wield power. The 2070s. A military-controlled regime fosters social cohesion via the charade of an external military threat. To this end, RAF pilot Nicole Dibaba conducts spectacular nocturnal raids against unoccupied industrial targets. As millions embrace the apparent realities, alternative voices invade the state-controlled media. Dibaba’s refusal to execute unconscionable orders brings her into conflict not just with her commanders but also with the insidious security apparatus. Ultimately she is confronted with a dilemma from which her conscience might not emerge unscathed.

‘Both Sides Now’ is a riveting Cold War thriller that explores issues of personal agency, trust and ambition as it builds relentlessly to its nail-biting climax. East Berlin, 1975. Ulla Wolfram’s family apply to visit an ailing relative in the West. The authorities reject the request, block Ulla’s university career and force her into a dead-end job. Angry and unwilling to accept her fate, she wrangles with ideas of escape. Across the Wall, an ambitious British student is looking to conduct unprecedented academic research on the eastern side of the divided city. When Jack Gilmore’s plans come to the attention of the ever-watchful Stasi, Ulla soon discovers that her troubles have only just begun.

Challenging popular misconceptions about the origins of key baseball elements, an in-depth fan's resource is organized in an encyclopedic format that contains thousands of entries on the historical beginnings of everything from catchers' masks and hook slides to intentional walks and cork-center baseballs. BOMC.

The Game Behind the Scenes continues and concludes Peter Morris's superb encyclopedia of the national pastime. The initial volume, The Game on the Field, was called by Library Journal "charming, densely packed, yet entirely accessible.... This is heaven for fans of the game and a required addition to all baseball collections." Endlessly fascinating, impeccably researched, and engagingly written, this treasure trove will surprise, delight, and educate even the most knowledgeable fan by dispelling cherished myths and revealing the source of many of baseball's features that we now take for granted. Together, both volumes of A Game of Inches contain nearly a thousand entries that illuminate the origins of items ranging from catchers' masks to hook slides to intentional walks to cork-center baseballs to the reserve clause of baseball's Basic Agreement. The volume on The Game Behind the Scenes concentrates on ballparks, fans, marketing, statistics, the building of teams, and other related aspects of the game—but this is much more than just a reference guide. Award-winning author Peter Morris explains the context that led each new item to emerge when it did, and chronicles the often surprising responses to these innovations. Of few books can it genuinely be said that once you start reading, it's hard to put it down, but A Game of Inches is one of them. It belongs in the pantheon of great baseball books, and will give any reader a deeper appreciation of why baseball matters so much to Americans. Praise for Peter Morris's Volume One: The Game on the Field

Hold on tight and enjoy the thrills and spills of fairgrounds through the ages! Step right up for an all-access pass to the past, present, and pulse-pounding mechanics of the fairground! This book uncovers the rich history behind theme parks – from the Charter fairs of medieval England to the grand spectacles of Victorian steam-powered rides, through to the wild days of Coney Island and the opening of Disneyland. Meet the inventors and dreamers who applied the forces of physics to create heart-stopping thrills. The science of fairground rides is illuminated with clear explanations of how a steam engine works, for example, what forces are at play on a Ferris wheel and a swing boat and why rollercoasters don’t need engines to soar. The pages are brought to life in the beautiful, warm illustrations of Roozeboos, whose bright colours and energetic linework capture all the fun of the fair. A perfect gift book for young historians, budding scientists and thrill-seekers alike. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride!