Once upon a time Linus Torvalds was a skinny unknown, just another nerdy Helsinki techie who had been fooling around with computers since childhood. Then he wrote a groundbreaking operating system and distributed it via the Internet -- for free. Today Torvalds is an international folk hero. And his creation LINUX is used by over 12 million people as well as by companies such as IBM.

Now, in a narrative that zips along with the speed of e-mail, Torvalds gives a history of his renegade software while candidly revealing the quirky mind of a genius. The result is an engrossing portrayal of a man with a revolutionary vision, who challenges our values and may change our world.

Since the AIA Guide to New York City was first published in 1967, it has been recognized as the ultimate guide to the metropolis's buildings, in all five boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island -- from nineteenth-century brownstones and tenements to modern high-rise apartments and museums. The latest edition of this urban classic takes a fresh look at the architectural treasures that define New York -- from its most characteristic landmarks to its less famous local favorites.

To prepare this edition -- the first revision since 1987 -- Norval White has visited and revisited more than 5,000 buildings, making this by far the most complete guide of its kind. This generously illustrated handbook presents the structures of the New York City--from the magnificent to the obscure -- in over 3,000 new photographs, more than 130 new maps, and hundreds of revised and new entries. Beyond the skyscrapers and historical buildings, the guide also leads the way to the city's bridges, parks, and public monuments.

From the tip of the Empire State Building to the brownstones in Brooklyn, the AIA Guide to New York City reveals how the city's spirit, fortitude, and character are captured and expressed in its architecture. Thoughtful and humorous descriptions include fascinating bits of local information that bring the city's history to life, telling the stories behind the bricks and mortar. Together, the maps, photographs, and expert critiques invite you on a special grand tour of the city at your own pace.

This guide is a definitive record of New York's architectural heritage and provides a compact, authoritative directory for lovers of New York City all over the world. Its portability and encyclopedic quality make it an ideal traveling companion for any walker in the city. For the sightseer, the architect, or anyone on a casual stroll, the AIA Guide to New York City is the book to grab on your way out the door.

This collection is the first to examine the effects of bilingualism and multilingualism on the development of dialectal varieties of Spanish in Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Nineteen essays investigate a variety of complex situations of contact between Spanish and typologically different languages, including Basque, Bantu languages, English, and Quechua. The overall picture that evolves clearly indicates that although influence from the contact languages may lead to different dialects, the core grammar of Spanish remains intact.

Silva-Corvalán's volume makes an important contribution both to sociolinguistics in general, and to Spanish linguistics in particular. The contributors address theoretical and empirical issues that advance our knowledge of what is a possible linguistic change, how languages change, and how changes spread in society in situations of intensive bilingualism and language contact, a situation that appears to be the norm rather than the exception in the world.

With the demise of apartheid in South Africa and the movement towards a post-apartheid society in South Africa, questions concerning the nature of apartheid and the identities it fostered are inevitably raised. Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse addresses these issues by revealing both their historical specificity and their implications for the full development of a democratic post-apartheid order.

The analysis covers the institution of apartheid as a new form of social division, the transformationist project which characterized it during the 1970s and 1980s, and the disarticulation of that project from the mid 1980s to the present. Central to this analysis is the contention that apartheid, as a failed hegemonic project, can only be understood in its full complexity if attention is given to the specificity of the mode of social division it instituted. The book thus seeks to trace the construction and contestation of the central axes around which its political frontiers were organized.

Drawing on a combination of post-Marxist and post-structuralist theorizations of social division and identity formation, Norval develops an account of apartheid discourse which avoids the twin pitfalls of essentialism and objectivism. She offers an analysis of contending visions—including the discources of the far-right, Inkatha, the new National Party and the ANC—for the future of South Africa, and investigates the prospects for the elaboration of non-racialism as a new political imaginary.

Understanding plant dormancy is of great consequence to the sustainable and efficient procurement of food and fiber for nutritional and economic benefits. The term plant dormancy embraces the processes that bring about a programmed inability within a plant to grow and develop in spite of suitable environmental conditions. Dormancy plays a crucial part at a variety of significant stages in the life cycle of many plants. Seeds, buds and tubers are all included in this book and the relationships between dormancy, development and the environment are explored.

Papers have been contributed from leading workers in the field and have been developed from the First International Symposium on Plant Dormancy held in Oregon. The book brings together work that considers the genetic regulation of plant dormancy and its physiological and biochemical manifestations. Molecular techniques to help in the elucidation of processes and paradigms are discussed, and there are also examples of the use of modelling in the study of dormancy. Overall, the book presents a valuable review of plant dormancy for crop scientists, plant physiologists, plant molecular biologists, horticulturists and all those involved in investigating and managing plant dormancy.