Tags:science
Free Life Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess (Manga) Vol. 7
With the tournament wrapped up, the Immortal Princess Anastasia gets back to exploring the unimaginable limits of the VR MMORPG Free Life Fantasy Online, which now includes summoning her own skeleton servants! But just how useful can they be? And how deep can the study of Alchemy really get? And how can you get to the nether? Anastasia is overwhelmed with new questions, and there's really only one way to get answers! It's time to explore even more of this world!
Cursed Bunny
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATUREA wildly original debut from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. Pre-order YOUR UTOPIA, the new book written by Bora Chung and translated by Anton Hur, coming February 2024! From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique and imaginative, blending horror, sci-fi, fairy tales, and speculative fiction into stories that defy categorization. By turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, here monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of everyday apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own. “The Head” follows a woman haunted by her own bodily waste. “The Embodiment” takes us into a dystopian gynecology office where a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her baby or face horrific consequences. Another story follows a young monster, forced into underground fight rings without knowing his own power. The titular fable centers on a cursed lamp in the shape of a rabbit, fit for a child’s bedroom but for its sinister capabilities. No two stories are alike, and readers will be torn whether to race through them or savor Chung’s wit and frenetic energy on every page. Cursed Bunny is a book that screams to be read late into the night and passed on to the nearest set of hands the very next day. “Like the work of Carmen Maria Machado and Aoko Matsuda, Chung’s stories are so wonderfully, blisteringly strange and powerful that it's almost impossible to put Cursed Bunny down.” ―Kelly Link, bestselling author of Get In Trouble
Your Utopia
By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. "Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung's terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts" (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung's inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too—often between unexpected subjects. Chung's writing is "haunting, funny, gross, terrifying—and yet when we reach the end, we just want more" (Alexander Chee). If you haven't yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.
2.5 Dimensional Seduction Vol. 1
"I have no interest in real girls!" So claims Okumura, the president of the school's manga club. He's your typical otaku, obsessed with a sexy (fictional) 2D manga character known as Liliel. Then the new school year starts, and a (real!) 3D girl named Lilysa whose passion is cosplay joins the club. Lilysa convinces Okumura to become her photographer–and guess who her favorite manga character is? Not only that, but Lilysa is into modeling the fetishy stuff! The boundaries between 2D and 3D start to blur as this hot-blooded romantic comedy unfolds.
semelparous Vol. 1
Ever since they were young girls, best friends Yorino and Haruka have been training to join the ranks of the Bulwarks--soldiers who defend humanity from the kaiju trying to break through. But when Haruka is killed during a routine drill, Yorino's world is shattered. Will she ever be able to open her heart to another? Strap in for intense, apocalyptic romance!
The NPCs in this Village Sim Game Must Be Real! (Manga) Vol. 1
Yoshio is a thirty-year-old shut-in with no job and no prospects, still living at home after all these years. His mundane life is suddenly interrupted when he receives a copy of "The Village of Fate," an experimental game with graphics and A.I. like nothing he's ever seen before. In the game, he takes on the role of a guardian deity who watches over the people of a new village...but he finds that the game characters are so intelligent, so reactive, so human that he starts to wonder if they might somehow be real people. Through his connection to their strangely vivid lives, Yoshio begins to discover the brightness that had been missing from his own existence.
Time Stop Hero Vol. 8
Intent on discovering the secrets of Offshore Rope, Sekai delves into the dungeon under the Great Full Shield. Surely nothing lurks beneath that his amazing power to press pause on reality cannot handle! But Sekai isn't the only player in this game, and he's not ready for the curve ball his enemies are going to throw! Sekai has three days to save the world, but only three strikes before he's out...for all time!
The Complete Aliens Omnibus
In Criminal Enterprise, Thomas Chase wakes up from cryosleep to his first day at a new job - as a pilot for a contraband drug company dropping a shipment on Fantasia, a rock-planet terraformed to hide an elaborate drug manufacturing operation. Everything from synthetic heroin to MX7 is cooked here, in protected caves guard-dogged by the savage Aliens. When Chase's craft touches down on Fantasia, a chain of events begins that cannot be stopped. As criminals and competitors try to take over the drug-empire from the dangerous kingpin, Chase and his brother Pete are caught in the crossfire... with the Aliens adding blood to the mix. No Exit tells the story of Detective Anders Kramm, awakening to a changed world after thirty years of cryogenic sleep. The alien threat has been subdued. Company interests dominate universal trade. Terraforming is big money now, with powerful men willing to do anything to assure dominance over other worlds. But Kramm has a secret. He knows why The Company killed twelve of its top scientists. He knows why the aliens have been let loose on the surface of a contested planet. He knows that the information he has is valuable, and that The Company will do everything it can to stop him from telling his secret to the world. Haunted by memories of the brutal murder of his family, Kramm is set adrift amid billion dollar stakes . . . with aliens around every corner, waiting for him to make a mistake!
Gut Feelings
Why is split second decision-making superior to deliberation? Gut Feelings delivers the science behind Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Reflection and reason are overrated, according to renowned psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. Much better qualified to help us make decisions is the cognitive, emotional, and social repertoire we call intuition, a suite of gut feelings that have evolved over the millennia specifically for making decisions. Gladwell drew heavily on Gigerenzer's research. But Gigerenzer goes a step further by explaining just why our gut instincts are so often right. Intuition, it seems, is not some sort of mystical chemical reaction but a neurologically based behavior that evolved to ensure that we humans respond quickly when faced with a dilemma (BusinessWeek).
Calculated Risks
At the beginning of the twentieth century, H. G. Wells predicted that statistical thinking would be as necessary for citizenship in a technological world as the ability to read and write. But in the twenty-first century, we are often overwhelmed by a baffling array of percentages and probabilities as we try to navigate in a world dominated by statistics.Cognitive scientist Gerd Gigerenzer says that because we haven't learned statistical thinking, we don't understand risk and uncertainty. In order to assess risk -- everything from the risk of an automobile accident to the certainty or uncertainty of some common medical screening tests -- we need a basic understanding of statistics.Astonishingly, doctors and lawyers don't understand risk any better than anyone else. Gigerenzer reports a study in which doctors were told the results of breast cancer screenings and then were asked to explain the risks of contracting breast cancer to a woman who received a positive result from a screening. The actual risk was small because the test gives many false positives. But nearly every physician in the study overstated the risk. Yet many people will have to make important health decisions based on such information and the interpretation of that information by their doctors.Gigerenzer explains that a major obstacle to our understanding of numbers is that we live with an illusion of certainty. Many of us believe that HIV tests, DNA fingerprinting, and the growing number of genetic tests are absolutely certain. But even DNA evidence can produce spurious matches. We cling to our illusion of certainty because the medical industry, insurance companies, investment advisers, and election campaigns have become purveyors of certainty, marketing it like a commodity.To avoid confusion, says Gigerenzer, we should rely on more understandable representations of risk, such as absolute risks. For example, it is said that a mammography screening reduces the risk of breast cancer by 25 percent. But in absolute risks, that means that out of every 1,000 women who do not participate in screening, 4 will die; while out of 1,000 women who do, 3 will die. A 25 percent risk reduction sounds much more significant than a benefit that 1 out of 1,000 women will reap.This eye-opening book explains how we can overcome our ignorance of numbers and better understand the risks we may be taking with our money, our health, and our lives.
How to Stay Smart in a Smart World
'Enlightening, impassioned, powerful' The Times From dating apps and self-driving cars to facial recognition and the justice system, the increasing presence of AI has been widely championed - but there are limitations and risks too. In this book Gigerenzer shows how humans are often the greatest source of uncertainty and when people are involved, unwavering trust in complex algorithms can become a recipe for disaster. We need, now more than ever, to arm ourselves with knowledge that will help us make better decisions in a digital age.Filled with practical examples and cutting-edge research, How to Stay Smart in a Smart World examines the growing role of AI at all levels of daily life with refreshing clarity. This book is a life raft in a sea of information and an urgent invitation to actively shape the world in which we want to live.'Masterful ... an essential read' Gary Klein, author of Sources of Power'One of the world's most eminent psychologists' Spectator
Experts in Science and Society
In today's complex world, we have come to rely increasingly on those who have expertise in specific areas and can bring their knowledge to bear on crucial social, political and scientific questions. Taking the viewpoint that experts are consulted when there is something important at stake for an individual, a group, or society at large, Experts in Science and Society explores expertise as a relational concept. How do experts balance their commitment to science with that to society? How does a society actually determine that a person has expertise? What personal traits are valued in an expert? From where does the expert derive authority? What makes new forms of expertise emerge? These and related questions are addressed from a wide range of areas in order to be inclusive, as well as to demonstrate similarities across areas. Likewise, in order to be culturally comparative, this volume includes examples and discussions of experts in different countries and even in different time periods. The topics include the roles of political experts, scientific experts, medical experts, legal experts, and more.