sync

The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder, Revised Edition
$15.95
It's amazing how many behaviors are characteristics of 'sensory processing disorder'!This book lists behaviors and their causes, how to get help, and what type of treatment to expect. It has hypothetical case studies, contrasts with other disorders with similar symptoms, and questions for evaluation. The disorder is little known but very widespread. It's important that parents -- and other adults -- be aware of its existence and that help is available -- and that life only gets harder and harer without help! That's why I'm talking about it to all my friends. I really think every parent and educator should read this book.

Pro Sync Framework
$49.99
Simply reading the concepts behind the Sync Framework (whether in this book or on msdn) makes the technology seem very complicated and tedious to incorporate into an application. The reason for this (I believe) is that the Sync Framework has many moving parts. Working through the code examples provided by the authors quickly shows that while there are many moving parts, each part is actually quite simple and it's rather intuitive how everything comes together to form a very powerful synchronization platform.

This book does a wonderful job of "teaching by example". Work through the examples and adapt them to handle synchronization between two simple custom datastores and in a day or two you'll finally understand how this this framework works and how truly flexible and powerful it is.

I'm very thankful for this book!

N Sync - Live at Madison Square Garden
$11.98
Irrespective of the fact the only 2 songs I can get emotionally invested in are "Tearin' Up My Heart" and "It's Gonna Be Me." It was an overall great concert and consequently a great DVD. It has over 30 camera angles, the costume changes were great, the "I Got Paid" performance was a bit disappointing but that is more so due to my spite of the selection process for who qualifies to dance with *N Sync and how only bimbos seemed to qualify.

That aside, it is a great purchase especially if you want to at some stage memorise the 'It's Gonna Be Me" since it is the Thriller dance of our post generation Y Generation.

Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
$16.99
I enjoyed this book. The author does an excellent job of bringing the subject to life, following the history of the research and using clever analogies to gently guide the reader through the significant ideas of sync. Artfully woven in are stories that introduce us to the personalities of those who have made contributions to the field. I often get bored by such biographical details in books, but Strogatz did an excellent job with it -- the book is a surprisingly lively read. You really get from this book a sense of how researchers struggle and collaborate to solve problems in fits and starts, and how exciting it is when those rare breakthroughs are achieved.

So I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes pop science, but there were a couple of things I wish Strogatz had done differently. First, there were many times when, after reading a key paragraph and grokking what it meant, I thought "why didn't he give us a diagram showing ...?" There are a few diagrams in the book, but not many -- perhaps one fifth of what I personally feel was warranted.

The other disappointment -- and in all fairness I have felt this way about many other books as well -- I wish the author had not tried so hard to shield us from the math. I'm pretty sure publishers consider explicit formulas the "kiss of death" for such books, but hey, couldn't you squirrel off in the appendix a section or two about "The Math of Sync" for those who are not allergic? Just a sample -- something to give the idea. As it is, I feel like I got the aroma of the soup but didn't actually get to taste it.

Still, it's a good read, and I congratulate the author.