Awesome Surveying Album and Music Offers

First published in 1972, The Great Bridge is the classic account of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. Winning acclaim for its comprehensive look at the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, this book helped cement David McCullough's reputation as America's preeminent social historian. Now, The Great Bridge is reissued as a Simon & Schuster Classic Edition with a new introduction by the author.

This monumental book brings back for American readers the heroic vision of the America we once had. It is the enthralling story of one of the greatest events in our nation's history during the Age of Optimism -- a period when Americans were convinced in their hearts that all great things were possible. In the years around 1870, when the project was first undertaken, the concept of building a great bridge to span the East River between the great cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the pyramids. Throughout the fourteen years of its construction, the odds against the successful completion of the bridge seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project. But this is not merely the saga of an engineering miracle: it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and of the heroes and rascals who had a hand in either constructing or obstructing the great enterprise. Amid the flood of praise for the book when it was originally published, Newsday said succinctly "This is the definitive book on the event. Do not wait for a better try: there won't be any.".
Price: $19.86 [Notify me when price goes down.]

If you already possess some background in Civil 3D but want to broaden your understanding of this popular civil engineering software, Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009 will provide you with detailed coverage of advanced topics like surveying, LandXML and LDT Project Transfer, cross-sections, pipe networks, visualization, project management, and data shortcuts. Many of the featured topics and techniques, directly applicable to the civil engineering profession, are previously undocumented. Practical tutorials, tips, tricks, real-world examples and easy-to-follow explanations detail all aspects of a civil engineering project..
Price: $35.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The design of structural steel members has developed over the past century from a simple approach involving a few basic properties of steel and elementary mathematics to a more sophisticated treatment demanding a thorough knowledge of structural and material behavior. Steel Structures:Design and Behavior, 5/e strives to present in a logical manner the theoretical background needed for developing and explaining design requirements.  Beginning with coverage of background material, including references to pertinent research, the development of specific formulas used in the AISC Specifications is followed by a generous number of design examples explaining in detail the process of selecting minimum weight members to satisfy given conditions.

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Price: $118.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From its debut in 1995 as a 32-page quarterly magazine to its zenith ten years later as a 180-page bimonthly, No Depression magazine grew from humble beginnings It became the most prominent publication covering American roots music, starting from the point where country combined with rock 'n' roll and tracing the common bonds through genres that include bluegrass, folk, blues, gospel, soul, jazz, indie, Cajun, conjunto, and beyond. Along the way, No Depression grew to be acknowledged as one of the finest music magazines ever published, often compared to the 1960s origins of Rolling Stone or the 1970s heyday of Creem, receiving awards from the Utne Reader, ASCAP, and the International Country Music Conference, and cited by the Chicago Tribune in 2004 as one of the nation's Top 20 magazines in any category.

In early 2008, No Depression announced that its May-June issue, ND #75, would be its finale as a bimonthly magazine. To ward off the disappearance of No Depression in print, the University of Texas Press stepped into the vacuum, arranging for a new semiannual ND "bookazine" to be published each fall and spring. The first installment—to be called No Depression #76, reflecting continuity with the magazine's history—will be issued this fall and will carry on the publication's tradition of outstanding long-form writing about major and influential American roots musicians, along with quality photographs and other elements all presented via the graphic design imprint of ND art director Grant Alden. This book/magazine hybrid is essentially groundbreaking territory in both of those publishing worlds.

Sharing the editorial vision for the bookazine will be Alden and Peter Blackstock, co-founders of No Depression and its co-editors from the beginning. Many of the senior editors and contributing editors who helped shape the voice and tone of the magazine will contribute to the bookazine, which will feature entirely new content in every issue: Unlike ND's previous project with UT Press (2005's The Best Of No Depression: Writing about American Music), these will not be anthologies of previously published works, but rather entirely fresh creations every six months. If you loved No Depression magazine, this is where it lives on, in print.

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Price: $12.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended..
Price: $2.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Discover BIM: A better way to build better buildings

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a new approach to design, construction, and facility management in which a digital representation of the building process is used to facilitate the exchange and interoperability of information in digital format. BIM is beginning to change the way buildings look, the way they function, and the ways in which they are designed and built.

BIM Handbook: A Guide to Building Information Modeling for Owners,Managers, Designers, Engineers, and Contractors provides an in-depth understanding of BIM technologies, the business and organizational issues associated with its implementation, and the profound advantages that effective use of BIM can provide to all members of a project team. The Handbook:

• Introduces Building Information Modeling and the technologies that support it

• Reviews BIM and its related technologies, in particular parametric and object-oriented modeling, its potential benefits, its costs, and needed infrastructure

• Explains how designing, constructing, and operating buildings with BIM differs from pursuing the same activities in the traditional way using drawings, whether paper or electronic

• Discusses the present and future influences of BIM on regulatory agencies; legal practice associated with the building industry; and manufacturers of building products

• Presents a rich set of BIM case studies and describes various BIM tools and technologies

• Shows how specific disciplinesowners, designers, contractors, and fabricatorscan adopt and implement BIM in their companies

• Explores BIM's current and future impact on industry and society

Painting a colorful and thorough picture of the state of the art in Building Information Modeling, the BIM Handbook guides readers to successful implementations, helping them to avoid needless frustration and costs and take full advantage of this paradigm-shifting approach to build better buildings, that consume fewer materials, and require less time, labor, and capital resources..
Price: $62.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Paper or plastic? Organic or conventional? In a world that is rapidly going "green," how does the average person make decisions that are smart for the family—and good for the planet? The Green Guide is here to help, with the concepts and choices for Earth-conscious living. Presented in concise, information-packed chapters, this up-to-the-minute resource touches on every aspect of our lives, from grocery shopping to housecleaning to work, travel, and investing—enabling consumers to make informed decisions and simple changes that impact the planet in big ways. Easy-to-follow information and hundreds of fascinating sidebars, fact boxes, and other key elements recommend how you can replace unhealthy and environmentally damaging practices and products with more wholesome, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing alternatives. Neither scholarly nor scare-mongering in tone, the lively text has been written in partnership with a board of noted experts—offering readers the most authoritative, engaging, comprehensive, and in-depth reference of its kind.

Created by two of the strongest brands in conservation and the environment, and drawn from more than ten years of reputable coverage in The Green Guide newsletter, on-line and in print, this comprehensive resource is destined to become a must-have for millions of families and the first name in household reference books in this up-and-coming category..
Price: $10.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What "really constitutes an architectural atmosphere,” Peter Zumthor says, is "this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty ... under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way.” Zumthor’s passion is the creation of buildings that produce this kind of effect, but how can one actually set out to achieve it?

In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Peter Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses. Images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him. From the composition and "presence” of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design.

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Price: $25.06 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency.



"Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change, and seeks to understand the qualities of a system that must be maintained or enhanced in order to achieve sustainability. It explains why greater efficiency by itself cannot solve resource problems and offers a constructive alternative that opens up options rather than closing them down.



In Resilience Thinking, scientist Brian Walker and science writer David Salt present an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience. The book arose out of appeals from colleagues in science and industry for a plainly written account of what resilience is all about and how a resilience approach differs from current practices. Rather than complicated theory, the book offers a conceptual overview along with five case studies of resilience thinking in the real world. It is an engaging and important work for anyone interested in managing risk in a complex world. .
Price: $20.38 [Notify me when price goes down.]