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In this joyful novel, our narrator is Charles Dickens's tenth child, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn. Sent, as his brother Alfred had been before him, at sixteen years of age, to Australia to learn to 'apply himself', we follow his early Australian adventures in outb...ack NSW learning to become a man from the most diverse and toughest of men. Part of Dickens' motivation was to separate these younger of his children from the Dickens family schism, where Charles had expelled his wife from the family home, keeping her sister Georgie there to run the household and taking up with the actress Ellen Tiernan. Plorn arrived in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father's work. After a very brief stopover he is sent out to become a gentleman stockman on a 2000 square mile station in remotest, semi-arid parts of NSW. Here he inevitably gets enmeshed in a tribe named the Paakintji and various other folk, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women - though he is struck by each one he does encounter. Plorn did not expect he would encounter the same veneration of his father and familiarity with his work in Australia that was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushranging, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women we follow Plorn, and sometimes his brother Alfred, through wonderful adventures as he works to apply himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a romp.
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The definitive and expert guide to the seaweeds of New Zealand's coastal waters.
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This DK children's book aged 9-15 is brimming with more than 20 exciting, educational activities and projects that focus on electronics and technology. Keep your siblings out of your room with a brilliant bedroom buzzer, power a propellor motorboat, build your own bristlebot, mak...e a matchbox microphone, and construct a crane by following step-by-step instructions and using affordable equipment. Super Tech Lab will engage budding scientists and engineers as they experiment, invent, trial, and test technology, electronics, and mechanics at home. Simple steps with clear photographs take readers through the stages of each low-cost project, with fact-filled panels to explain the science behind each one, and to fascinate them with real-world examples. With an increasing focus across school curricula on encouraging children to enjoy and explore STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and maths), Super Tech Lab is the perfect companion for any inquisitive child with an interest in how the worlds of science experiments and technology work, and why.
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Cut your energy bills, stop relying on fossil fuels and reduce your carbon footprint. Living Off the Grid is the essential guide to making sustainable energy work for your home, with practical options that fit your house, lifestyle and budget.
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For a short time in the 1980s NZ had its very own supercar, the Heron MJ1. This is the story of Ross Baker, an A-Grade mechanic from Rotorua, who designed and built the car and whose vision and persistence led to it going into production.
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From the spinning jenny to the combustion engine to the first computer, new technologies have always led workers to panic about being replaced by machines, and yet these fears have always been misplaced. In the past, new technology has always complemented the work of humans. In A... World Without Work, award-winning economist Daniel Susskind shows why this time, with the rise of artificial intelligence, it will be different. The threat is real, but we haven't been asking the right questions about exactly what is at stake. Drawing on almost a decade of research into this topic, Susskind argues that a realistic vision of the future is not one in which machines do everything, but rather in which they do more. As they slowly, but relentlessly, take on more and more tasks, human beings will be forced to retreat to the shrinking set of activities that machines cannot do. And, as we move through the 21st century, the demand for the work of humans is likely to wither away. Yet Susskind reminds us that this technological progress will solve one of mankind's oldest problems - how to make the economic pie large enough for everyone to live on. The challenge now is to properly share out this new economic prosperity, constrain the burgeoning political power of Big Tech, and provide meaning in a world with less work. A World Without Work is an innovative, authoritative and optimistic guide to how we can rise to the challenge of automation. The task ahead, Susskind shows us, is to build a world where everyone can flourish.
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What if the best was yet to come? Recent studies show that our happiness levels peak at age 82, and that our decision-making skills improve as we age. As more of us live past the age of 80, in this ground-breaking book, Dr Daniel Levitin uses cutting-edge research from neuroscien...ce and psychology to demonstrate the benefits of getting older. Packed with engaging interviews with individuals who thrived far beyond the conventional age of retirement, this book also reflects on challenges many readers will recognize. Levitin offers a realistic personal plan full of practical, cognitive enhancing tricks for everyone to follow over the years. Successful Ageing is a radical exploration of what we all can learn from those who age joyously. This book will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens of a society in which the average life expectancy continues to rise.
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Urban communities around the world face increased stress from natural disasters linked to climate change, and other urban pressures. They need to grow rapidly stronger in order to cope, adapt and flourish. Strong social networks and social cohesion can be more important for a com...munity's resilience than the actual physical structures of a city. But how can urban planning and design support these critical collective social strengths? This book offers blue sky thinking from the applied social and behavioural sciences, and urban planning. It looks at case studies from 14 countries around the world - including India, the USA, South Africa, Indonesia, the UK and New Zealand - focusing on initiatives for housing, public space and transport stops, and also natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes. Building on these insights, the authors propose a 'gold standard': a socially aware planning process and policy recommendation for those drawing up city sustainability and climate change resilience strategies, and urban developers looking to build climate-proof infrastructure and spaces. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban studies, resilience studies and climate change policy, as well as policymakers and practitioners working in related fields.
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Explore outer space through interactive augmented reality experiences! Construction of the International Space Station began in 1998, and since then people have been conducting cutting-edge science experiments in orbit. Explore the latest news about space stations with the help o...f augmented reality.
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Explore outer space through interactive augmented reality experiences! Space is a dangerous place for humans. Robots and rovers can explore planets, moons, and comets that are off-limits to people. Learn about space machines and the jobs they do through this augmented reality rea...ding experience.
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