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![]() Free Download Gerald Nachtwey, "Strictly Fantasy: The Cultural Roots of Tabletop Role-Playing Games " English | ISBN: 1476675716 | 2021 | 199 pages | EPUB, PDF | 5 MB + 11 MB Role-playing games seemed to appear of nowhere in the early 1970s and have been a quiet but steady presence in American culture ever since. This new look at the hobby searches for the historical origins of role-playing games deep in the imaginative worlds of Western culture. It looks at the earliest fantasy stories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the fans-both readers and writers-who wanted to bring them to life, at the Midwestern landscape and the middle-class households that were the hobby's birthplace, and at the struggle to find meaning and identity amidst cultural conflicts that drove many people into these communities of play. This book also addresses race, religion, gender, fandom, and the place these games have within American capitalism. All the paths of this journey are connected by the very quality that has made fantasy role-playing so powerful: it binds the limitless imagination into a "strict" framework of rules. Far from being an accidental offshoot of marginalized fan communities, role-playing games' ability to hold contradictions in dynamic, creative tension made them a necessary and central product of the twentieth century. ![]() Free Download Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts by Roberta Mazza English | September 24, 2024 | ISBN: 1503632504 | True EPUB | 272 pages | 1.8 MB In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, announced a recent purchase of a Biblical artefact―a fragment of papyrus, just discovered, carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how could Green acquire such a rare item? The answers, which Mazza spent the next ten years uncovering, came as a shock: the fragment had come from a famous collection held at Oxford University, and its rightful owners had no idea it had been sold. ![]() Free Download Stoats, Weasels, Martens and Polecats (Collins New Naturalist Library) by Jenny MacPherson English | July 4th, 2024 | ISBN: 0008334935 | 496 pages | MOBI | 95 Mb A definitive account of the bright-eyed assassins of the British countryside. ![]() Free Download Special Volume in Memory of Ilya Prigogine: Advances in Chemical Physics, Volume 135 By Stuart A. Rice (ed.) 2007 | 334 Pages | ISBN: 0471682330 | PDF | 20 MB This series provides the chemical physics field with a forum for critical, authoritative evaluations of advances in every area of the discipline. This stand-alone special topics volume reports recent advances in electron-transfer research with significant, up-to-date chapters by internationally recognized researchers.Content: ILYA PRIGOGINE : HIS LIFE, HIS WORKBy Radu BalescuTIME ASYMMETRY IN NONEQUILIBRIUM STATISTICAL MECHANICSBy Pierre GaspardQUANTUM AND CLASSICAL DYNAMICS OF NONINTEGRABLE SYSTEMSBy Ilya Prigogine, Tomio Petrosky, and Gonzolo OrdonezSTATISTICAL MECHANICS OF A GRAVITATIONAL PLASMABy Yves PomeauINVERSE PROBLEMS FOR REACTION-DIFFUSION SYSTEMSWITH APPLICATION TO GEOGRAPHICAL POPULATION GENETICSBy Marcel O. Vlad and John RossCARNOT EFFICIENCY REVISITEDBy C. Van den BroeckDNA IN CHROMATIN: FROM GENOME-WIDE SEQUENCE ANALYSISTO THE MODELING OF REPLICATION IN MAMMALSBy A. Arneodo, B. Audit, E. B. Brodie of Brodie, S. Nicolay,P. St. Jean, Y. d'Aubenton-Carafa, C. Thermes, M. Touchon,and C. VaillantBIOLOGICAL RHYTHMS AS TEMPORAL DISSIPATIVE STRUCTURESBy Albert GoldbeterAuthor IndexSubject Index ![]() Free Download Paul E. Quast, "Speaking Beyond Earth: Perspectives on Messaging Across Deep Space and Cosmic Time" English | ISBN: 1476690006 | 2024 | 298 pages | PDF | 21 MB Since the dawn of the Space Age, small cohorts of humanity have broadcast signals towards other stars, fabricated "space-time capsules" to "speak for Earth" aboard interstellar probes, deposited collections of "space oddities" on other astronomical bodies, and permanently incised the memory of our species across the deep-time legacy of the Sol System. Many of these purposeful "messages" are the consequence of age-old behaviors, traditions, and material practices using modern aerospace technologies. Most attempt to preserve narratives of human experience in social exchange devices for imagined, exotic audiences. Looking back upon this accumulative history of "messaging from Earth", how do we begin to interpret such an eclectic portrait of Earth for ourselves? ![]() Free Download Space Vehicle Maneuvering, Propulsion, Dynamics and Control: A Textbook for Engineers by Ranjan Vepa English | PDF EPUB (True) | 2024 | 553 Pages | ISBN : 3031655176 | 88.2 MB This textbook introduces space vehicle maneuvering, propulsion, dynamics and control, and discusses the space environment and its influence on the spacecraft propulsion system. This is followed by an in depth description of Keplerian celestial mechanics, co-planar and non-planar orbital transfers involving both impulsive and continuous manoeuvers, and perturbation effects that characterize the real non-Keplerian nature of orbital motion. Dr. Vepa then explains the use of restricted two-body and three-body dynamics as descriptors of spacecraft motion, the limitations of these approach in terms of orbital perturbations and an understanding of the physical source and influence of these perturbations, and principles of the optimal synthesis of trajectories. Featuring many exercises, design case studies, and extensive use of MATLAB/SIMULINK and MATLAB analytical tools, the book is ideal for graduate students, post graduate students, researchers, as well professionals in the industry. ![]() Free Download Joel S. Baden, "Source Criticism " English | ISBN: 1666764094 | 2024 | 156 pages | EPUB | 660 KB Source criticism has been at the center of biblical studies for the last two centuries. In that time, it has produced a wide range of theories and approaches, often conflicting. This book provides a concise overview of the major approaches and positions in the field, helping the reader understand where scholarship has been and where it currently stands, and situating each major development within its broader intellectual and social context. ![]() Free Download Sociology of Music: History, Theory, Methodology and Practice English | 2024 | ISBN: 303161755X | 292 Pages | PDF EPUB (True) | 39 MB The textbook provides students with insight into and overview of the basics of social research on music. It addresses the Who, What, When, Where, Why, How of music research through four perspectives from the sociological study of music: a historical survey of the social study of music (when), theoretical points of view (what), and methodological (how), and pragmatic aspects (who, why & how). The other Ws (where and why) are included within the four main perspectives. The four perspectives - history, theory, methodology, and practice - are complementary. Some of the names included in the theory and practice of music are also listed as a part of the history of music sociology, and vice versa. In this way, the book encompasses what Howard S. Becker has conceptualized as an art world, Kurt Blaukopf as musical practice, and Christopher Small as musicking. Covering all the relevant details yet concise in structure, this book is ideal for students of the sociology of music, musical education, musicology and of arts and aethestics. ![]() Free Download Smart Computing with Open Source Platforms by Amartya Mukherjee and Nilanjan Dey English | 2019 | ISBN: 0815359551 | 240 Pages | True ePUB | 10.7 MB ![]() Free Download Singing with the Mountains: The Language of God in the Afghan Highlands by William Sherman English | 2023 | ISBN: 1531505678 | 276 Pages | PDF | 3.83 MB |