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Floss lives in the city and loves to go to the park and play ball with the children. But her owner's son is a farmer and needs a new sheepdog, so the border collie moves to a Northumberland farm and must learn how to round up the sheep. Children will love hearing about the rural adveritures of Floss in this stunning picture book with accompanying CD read by actor Martin Jarvis.
For ten years, the knowledge seekers at mental_floss have been hunting and trapping the world’s rarest facts, locking them into captivating lists for the world to admire. Thanks to their tireless efforts, Mental Floss: The Book is packed with a decade’s worth of the smartest, quirkiest stories around, including: Five Presidential Fashion Flubs Seven Shameless Abuses of Diplomatic Immunity Five Units of Measurement Weirder Than the Metric System Four Toys That Have Gone to War for America Seven Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever Five Things Your Body Can Do After You Die Six of Baseball’s Strangest Trades Four Foods People Actually Die For Seven Things Walmart Has Banned Four TV Shows That Changed the Course of History Ten “Q” Words That Aren’t “Q-U” Words Four Horrifying Parasites to Keep You Awake at Night Eight Fake Archaeological Finds Five Articles of Clothing That Caused Riots Four Memorable Moments in Cross-Dressing History Five Doomsdays We’ve Already Survived And 124 Other Extraordinary Lists!
History is . . . (a) more or less bunk. (b) a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken. (c) as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis. Match your answers: (1) Stephen Daedalus of James Joyce's Ulysses (2) Henry Ford (3) Arthur Schopenhauer It turns out that answer need not be bunk, nightmarish, or diseased. In the hands of mental_floss, history's most interesting bits have been handpicked and roasted to perfection. Packed with little-known stories and outrageous—but accurate—facts, you'll laugh yourself smarter on this joyride through 60,000 years of human civilization. Remember: just because it's true, doesn't mean it's boring!
A dynamic program for improving memory and sharpening focus Each year, Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars on gym memberships, exercise equipment, and workout videos, all in the name of physical fitness. But what are they doing for their minds? In Dental Floss for the Mind, a leading cognitive scientist and a neurologist team up to offer you a complete program for improving memory and stimulating your mind. This interactive guide features: More than 100 creative and engaging exercises of increasing difficulty to stimulate cognitive skills Targeted exercises for improving the five key cognitive areas: memory, attention, language skills, visual and spatial recognition, and reasoning ability A scoring system for assessing current status, along with prescriptive tips for improving each cognitive area
"With sumptuous, visually stimulating spreads, this book delivers on its promise– to unearth strange stories, bizarre facts, or unexpected details about the books on our shelves. Good for curious readers, whether they want to delve into authors and books they love, feel competent faking knowledge about books everyone else seems to have read, or just dip into and out of literary worlds" – Library Journal Readers rejoice! From Mental Floss, an online destination for more than a billion curious minds since its founding in 2001, comes the ultimate book for lovers of literature. From Americanah to War and Peace, from Chinua Achebe and Jane Austen to Jesmyn Ward and George R.R. Martin, learn surprising facts about the world’s most famous novels and novelists. The Curious Reader will delight bookworms everywhere. This literary compendium from Mental Floss reveals fascinating facts about the world’s most famous authors and their literary works. Readers will learn about George Orwell’s near-death experience during the writing of 1984; meet the real man who may have inspired Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy; discover which famous author kept her husband’s heart after he passed away; and learn about the influence of psychedelics on Dune. The Curious Reader also contains the most-loved book-related articles from 20 years of Mental Floss, including “Cat-Loving Writers,” “Famous Authors’ Unfinished Manuscripts,” “Literary Characters Based on Real People,” and “Books You Didn’t Know Were Self-Published.” This literary miscellany is certain to inspire book lovers, aspiring writers, students, and teachers alike to discover a diverse selection of curated literary works—leading to an expansion of their library!
Free/libre open source software (FLOSS) ecosystems such as Linux have had a tremendous impact on computing and society and have captured the attention of businesses, researchers, and policy makers. Research on FLOSS has been ongoing for almost two decades. From an economic perspective, the most common topics involve motivation and organization. As commercial participation in FLOSS has become common, the question of how to combine FLOSS practice with commercial practice has been the subject of research, particularly with a view to understanding how to ensure sustainability of the ecosystem. This book is based on a Shonan meeting on FLOSS ecosystem sustainability held in June 2017. The meeting brought together a blend of established and young researchers who were actively studying the FLOSS phenomenon. These researchers were drawn from a variety of disciplines including software engineering, human computer interaction, information systems, computer-supported cooperative work, data mining, cognitive science, psychology, operations research, and management. Industry practitioners who were active in the FLOSS space also participated. This book presents the results of discussion on fundamental questions related to the impact and sustainability of FLOSS ecosystems, including: · How does an ecosystem form? How do different stakeholders work together to form a community that develops and maintains valuable and freely available software, and how does an ecosystem with millions of repositories and developers operate given the lack of centralized planning? · How does an ecosystem evolve in response to the environment as technology and needs evolve over time? · How do newcomers learn the protocols and practices of an ecosystem? How would they sustain the ecosystem? What is the relationship between people and ecosystem sustainability?
Ever wonder if there is a synonym for the word synonym? Or why people really hate the word “moist?” Maybe you want to know why we tell a person to take something “with a grain of salt,” or why McDonalds went to war with a dictionary. From obscure words to the best literary insults ever written, this linguistic miscellany is sure to spice up your vocabulary, make you a whizz at word games, and prepare you for plenty of wordy repartee for your next soiree, with some of the most bizarre terms you never knew you needed. A CACOPHONY OF WORDS: Learn the meaning and surprising history of hundreds of words and phrases LOTS OF LISTS: Discover curated collections of literary insults, old-timey words, popular slang, and much more WORD GAME WIZ: Includes tips for mastering popular word games from Scrabble to Wordle WIT FOR WRITERS: Writers looking for just the right word will be inspired by hundreds of unusual and obscure words REFERENCE FOR READERS: Fans of every genre, from Norse Myths to Victorian Romance will find histories, origins, and backstories of the words that make up their favorites reads COMPLETE YOUR COLLECTION: Mental Floss: The Curious Reader, Mental Floss: The Curious Movie Buff, and Mental Floss: The Curious Viewer are also available.
