This volume is a departure from the customary Asimov approach to explaining-it-all—perhaps the doing of co-author Frenkel. First, the book is heavily focused on the business/economics of industrial robots (IRs). Then, it deals extensively with personalities, especially Joseph F. Engelberger, "Father of Industrial Robots" and founder of Unimation: a plain-speaking pioneer whose earthy remarks punctuate many chapters. On the other hand, there is less than usual how-it-works explanation; and since what's here is below par, that's just as well. (The reader risks becoming benumbed by, for example, a lengthy take-out on ways to operate a mechanical arm in three dimensions.) The Asimov touch is evident however, in the etymologies—Karel Capek's coining of the Czech word robota in his play R.U.R., the roots of words like automation—and the historical background: the literary and social history of robots from Hero of Alexandria to Frankenstein, from clockwork to feedback mechanisms to the present. There is a good discussion of persistent problems in developing sensors (visual, tactile); a smattering of theory on artificial intelligence; and a serious discussion of the impact of robotics on labor and society—flavored by Asimov's well-known Laws of Robotics (i.e., robots must obey human orders). The authors argue that the IR changes will be evolutionary, and should not cause massive layoffs of either blue or white collar workers. As state-of-the-art reportage on the current use of robots in materials handling, assembly, etc., the book provides a useful global picture, along with thoughtful analysis. For an array of robot topics, erratically handled, see Minsky, below.
Pub Date: June 6, 1985
ISBN: 9999861903
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harmony/Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1985
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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