Showing results by narrator "Shawn Jain" in All Categories

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values, and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent—the Virtual elite—and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water, or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive "Ten Percent Thief" steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city.

Half-vampire Cat Crawfield and her vampire husband Bones have fought for their lives, as well as for their relationship. But just when they've triumphed over the latest battle, Cat's new and unexpected abilities threaten to upset a long-standing balance...

The holidays are fast approaching, and the Belvedere siblings are a mess. Liz, a Hollywood showrunner and responsible eldest, has no idea how to follow up her hit show’s first season, or how to deal with her giant crush on its star, Violet Grace. Birdie turned her chronic middle-child syndrome into a career as a stand-up comic, but since she spends more time wooing women than working on new material, she’s facing one-hit-wonder status, especially once she gets axed by her manager.

Digital transformation of the business landscape is well underway, and businesses are being reshaped faster than ever before. Agility and adaptability are now critical components of these businesses' survival. But building these traits requires a holistic approach with an unrelenting focus on automation. How does one go about developing that focus? Vijay Tella, Scott Brinker, and Massimo Pezzini deliver a guide to implementing automation in the real world, avoiding jargon and vague bromides in favor of concrete examples.

I try to enjoy the reputation I've earned as a hotshot music exec, even as I'm careful to hide my checkered past. But after another unfortunate scandal catches me with my pants down (literally), I'm forced to clean up my image. Enter Owen: my best friend's little brother. The adorkable sweetheart is my wholesome polar opposite, which makes him perfect for a little fake relationship publicity. Owen's just out of the closet. He acts shy, but the more time we spend together, the more I glimpse his surprisingly filthy imagination. And the more I can't stop thinking about him.

This wasn't supposed to happen to me. I'm supposed to be at the top of my career. Untouchable. Worshiped. Finally proving to all the jerks in my life that I made it. I'm at the top. Then a video that shouldn't exist leaks and everything comes crashing down. I'm about to lose it all and I can't seem to get out of my own way. My agent banishes me to a place that technology can't touch while he tries to salvage my career.

It's totally normal for two straight guys to do this when they're alone, right? That's what I keep telling myself after I meet Reggie. I'm a pro tennis player, and I usually spend my life on the court. But an embarrassing injury in the middle of the US Open sidelined my career, landing me in the hands of my new athletic trainer. Reggie is a big old jock with an easy smile, and my grumpy butt has never met anyone like him. We start hanging—at the gym and at his place, on the tennis court and out at the bar. I haven't had a real friend in years, and Reggie's big heart warms me deep inside.

Through compelling case studies, including those of Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Sony, Amazon, and Google Books, Vaidhyanathan shows that the modern intellectual property systems reflect three centuries of changes in politics, economics, technologies, and social values. Although it emerged from a desire to foster creativity while simultaneously protecting it, intellectual property today has fundamentally shifted to a political dimension.

A romantic getaway for vampires Cat Crawfield and her husband Bones is cut short when they’re called on to guard a spoiled heiress with a price on her head, and an undead hitman on her trail. What starts as a simple bodyguard job ends up being a fight for survival that neither Cat, nor Bones, saw coming.

His sanity restored, Felix Harrowgate knows there's only one way back to the life he once knew as one of an elite society of wizards: return to Melusine and restore the Virtu, the source of the city's power and protection. After all, it was the manipulations of Felix's former master that destroyed the magical orb. Now that Felix has determined his course of action, there's a very specific companion he needs for this epic journey.

It’s the summer before senior year. Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small, rural town by their queerness, their good grades, and their big dreams. But they have plans for the summer, each about to embark on a new adventure. Gabriel is interning at an environmental nonprofit in Boston. Reese is attending design school in Paris. Sal is volunteering on Capitol Hill for a senator. Heath is heading to Florida, to help out at his aunt’s boardwalk arcade.

Joey thinks he's broken. I think he's beautiful. Joey's body began betraying him years ago. With his world in chaos, his new friends search for a Daddy to cherish him. When his ex-boss volunteers for the position, Joey panics. Can Daddy Tucker's gentle touch and soothing presence reassure Joey that he can trust him with all his pain, or will fear of being broken beyond repair keep him from the man he's wanted for years? Welcome to The Tap Tavern where this chosen family of boys are braver than they think, and their Daddies are ready to be what they want and so much more.

Commodities For Dummies gives you a complete overview of the basics of investing in commodities. Step-by-step explanations, plus the most up-to-date market information and global events, make it easy to invest in the stuff the world is made of. This book helps you identify the most valuable commodities to add to your portfolio, use commodities as a safe haven in shifting economic times, and come out on top. Learn quick, with real-life examples, expert advice, and basic explanations to get you involved in energy, agriculture, and metals.

Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological Fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book focuses on ideologies' factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, their normative commitment. In exploring this phenomenon, the book combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities.

The little-engine-that-could story of how a band of scrappy entrepreneurs are reviving the enterprise of manufacturing clothing in the United States.

As an intelligent, beautiful woman raised in a small mountain village, Gini never would have imagined a place like The Mansion exists. Stolen by Darius into a dark underworld where the famed Mullah Omar arranges pleasure marriages to the highest bidder, Gini fights for survival. At first frightened by the dangerous man who keeps her prisoner, Darius slowly becomes the one light in her dark world.

As global business and geopolitical conditions have changed radically, it is imperative that supply chain strategies and operations transform to thrive in a volatile environment. Leaders at corporations, public agencies, national security, and public health recognize the importance of resilience, agility and flexibility. Breakthrough Supply Chains provides a comprehensive view of end-to-end supply chains and dispels the common myths about them.

Amrita Sidhu belongs: in her Indian extended family, in her Sikh faith, in her California home. But when a family fight makes up her father's mind to take a job across the country in Ohio, she's torn from the fabric of her community and left to find her footing in a new high school and a new life. In Ohio, Amrita meets Dave Gill, who's funny, part-Indian, and also Mormon. At a series of Bollywood movie nights with friends, they begin to connect—despite the pressure they both feel not to date outside their own faith.

After a life-changing summer, four friends are finally ready for senior year. Gabriel is thrilled to create his school's first LGBTQ+ advocacy group, but his long-distance relationship is fading from summer love to something else. Heath feels secure for the first time in years, but with his future riding on a baseball scholarship each pitch triggers his anxiety. Reese is set on pursuing a career in fashion design, but his creativity takes him in an unexpected direction. Sal wants to be in politics. After a chat with his aunt, he is ready for an unlikely path.

In Not with a Bug, But with a Sticker: Attacks on Machine Learning Systems and What to Do About Them, a team of distinguished adversarial machine learning researchers deliver a riveting account of the most significant risk to currently deployed artificial intelligence systems: cybersecurity threats. The authors take you on a sweeping tour—from inside secretive government organizations to academic workshops at ski chalets to Google's cafeteria—recounting how major AI systems remain vulnerable to the exploits of bad actors of all stripes.