5 comments about Do-It-Yourself Gunpowder Cookbook.

1. This book tells you exactly how to make gunpowder from manure, wood, baserock and many other simple around the house and free from the land type materials. I found this book very useful and informative.



2. Although the book is very interesting, it really didn't have in it what I thought would be in it. I actually bought the book for my husband, who is into model rocketry and is making his own rocket engines and I thought this book would be informative enough to teach him to make the black powder that goes in them. Well, it is...if you have ten years to wait for everything to cure and get to a point where it's "good" enough to use for black powder. I really did think he could put the knowledge he gained there to work immediately and therefore I was disappointed in the content of the book. If you have ten years to wait for everything to come together then this is a book for you. If you want to put the knowledge to work for you right away, forget it!



3. This book is moderately interesting for its history of gun powder, although culturing your own salt peter or sulfur seem like they would be more trouble than they are worth



4. Iv'e read some drivel that the processes in this book are too hard to follow, or that they take too long to bear fruit. Look, if you don't want to leach out potassium nitrate, go buy it. I won't tell you where I get it, but if your'e making gunpowder you should be resourceful enough to find your own. Charcoal shouldn't be a problem, and you can order large quantities of sulfur for a good price. Also, you can buy all of these items, follow the processes in the book for putting it together, and still pay less for black powder than you would at the store. It's kind of funny, but I had more success with the sugar and rust recipe than with the traditional black powder. The burn rate was absolutely amazing, and the noise from my fence post driver cannon was too. The only reason that the techniques for resting all the ingredients from the earth were included in the book was to give you an idea of how to make powder from the ground up IF YOU HAD TO. You can easily go buy the ingredients, skip to the recipe pages of the book, and make gunpowder. I wouldn't recommend it though, because it's a very interesting book. I'd say the most important part of the book are the safety rules. I can personally attest to the importance of these. Just remember, someday you will accidentally ignite this stuff. It's a fact. So keep your batches small and separated. Also, if your'e making over fifty pounds of it you might consider an explosives manufacturing license.



5. Ok, this book is ok. There are only two different recipes to make is the problem, but I did give it three stars because it has good information and tells you how to get the materials without having to buy them at the store. It also looks like the recipes could take quite a while to make.

5 comments about Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics, 2nd Edition.

1. I am both satisfied with amazon service and with the book.



2. The postulational approach is really great. This book tooks away all the question I had about the connection between thermodynamics and statistical physics. I think it's a good idea to read Fermi's thermodynamics also. To see how smart one can be when using thermodynamics.



3. Although the edition was correct, the book was a paperback when I specifically paid for hardbound. Even more frustrating was the fact that it was not eligible for return.



4. I've read Callen's book twice. It never gets old. I wish it went into greater depth on the connection between the thermodynamics theory as originally developed by Carnot, and the reformulation by Gibbs and Boltzmann. But even despite this omission I give it 5 stars.



5. Callen's axiomatic presentation of equilibrium thermodynamics inarguably is not only one of the best textbooks on thermodynamics specifically but also one of the most elegantly written science textbooks in general. The mathematical formalism of thermodynamics and its consequences are logically and completely espoused. Numerous problems are supplied throughout in an effort to complement and reinforce concepts. The putatively paradoxical statement: "generality is simultaneously the strength and weakness of thermodynamics" is succinctly "justified" in an appendix to the text: An Interpretative Postlude which discusses the underlying symmetries of the physical laws and their relationship to thermodynamic extremum principles. The spartan chapters on "thermostatistics" add insight to thermodynamics in a way that
   is similar in spirit to "atoms and molecules" in introductory undergraduate thermodynamics lectures and therefore, should not be necessarily dismissed.

5 comments about Introduction to the Thermodynamics of Materials, Fitfth Edition.

1. not timely delivered, the condition of the book is not good



2. I used this text in a thermo of materials course after using the Gyftopoulos text for a general thermo course. In comparison, I found the Gaskell text horrible. For a 4th ed, there are a tremendous number of typos and equation errors, the nomenclature is a little odd, and the equations aren't general, they inherently assume P = 1atm etc. I don't recommend this text.



3. Thermodynamics is one of those topics covered in multiple branches of science such as physics, chemistry, geology, materials science, chemical engineering, etc... This book approaches the subject from materials science and is meant to serve as the book for a one or two semester course in thermo. First of, it is not meant for beginners to thermo. I used this book in a course taught by one of the best instructors in my department, after having taken two easier courses in thermo. Yet I still found it difficult. Second, the math is advanced enough that one should not take the course without having differential equations. Third, the example problems can get quite difficult real quickly; and not all have solutions. But overall, the text is a good reflection of the subject; difficult and time-consuming to master.



4. I used this book for my course in Materials Thermodynamics, and I must say that it's got some pretty good material and also some poor parts. In particular Gaskell usually does a good job of explaining his derivations, but there are times when the typographic errors get in the way and you sit there for an hour, until your teacher finally tells you that Gaskell made a mistake.
   
   Another annoyance is that Gaskell's solutions in the back of the book are sometimes wrong, which means that it may be difficult to use a self-teaching book. In addition, Gaskell's solutions to some configurational entropy problems are just completely unconventional and nonsensical from an intuitive standpoint -- my teacher told us to disregard his method entirely.
   
   The text does have some pluses: it has plentiful diagrams, excellent thermodynamic appendicies, and in general does a good job of rigorously explaining every concept. It's definitely not a beginner's book, but Thermodynamics is a complex topic and there are certain assumptions made of the reader in any Thermodynamics textbook.



5. Great Resource. There are a few typos that have been addressed in the later edition, but overall this edition flows well and is well organized.

5 comments about Introduction to Nuclear Engineering (3rd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Series in Nuclear Science and Engineering).

1. I have used this book effectively for the past three years of my Nuclear Engineering Graduate degree and have a fond place for it in my heart. Admittedly there are better texts out there and the book has many typos and errors, but the advantage it has is the text is written so straight forward and plainly that most, if not all of the errors, can be found readily by the reader.
   
   Overall, I recommend this book to someone who is new to the nuclear engineering field and is uncertain where to start with his or her study of the subject. Once the foundation has been laid by the material presented in this text the reader is ready to pursue other books, which may be more accurate, but not nearly as clear in their presentation of concepts. (such as Duderstadt and Hamilton.)



2. Excellent reference text for nuclear engineering undergrads.
   
   Book not limited to neutronics coverage, goes a bit into radiation protection, and other essential topics that are a must read for any serious reader.



3. I read the book cover-to-cover. For a third edition, it has an astounding number of typos and errors - dozens per chapter - many math blunders - a few conceptual mistakes. It's fairly distracting from the material. The reader is constantly second-guessing the text - looking for the next mistake, which is never far away. There's something dysfunctional about this publishing team - to continue ignoring the huge number of errors - now into the third edition. (The list of "errata" at the Prentice-Hall website is obsolete. All of those have already been corrected - printed 2005. Their list says nothing about the hundreds of errors in our copy.)



4. First, the caveat to my review: I am probably unique among the reviewers of this book in that I am not a nuclear engineer. I have a strong educational and professional background in chemistry, physics, and math, and have been working on projects involving engineered safety systems and risk management in other technologically advanced industries. I have recently become involved in talks with representatives from the nuclear industry. For my own preparation I undertook the long hard slog through the Lamarsh-Baratta book, "Introduction to Nuclear Engineering" (Third Edition) to help me grasp background information and concepts in this field. Although I was sometimes initially unclear about the use of units (barns, dollars, etc.) and nomenclature (meat, safe shutdown earthquake, etc.) I generally found the text to eventually explain them adequately. One critique is that at some points in the text the authors use terminology freely without first defining it, only to define it much later. I found this and the relatively large number of typographical errors to be distracting.
   
   This is clearly a very complex subject, and would no doubt be helped by good classroom instruction. Nonetheless, I still found considerable value in the book. I liked chapter seven, "The Time-Dependent Reactor" particularly well, and especially found sections 7.3 and 7.5 "Control Rods and Chemical Shim" and "Fission Product Poisoning" to be enlightening. I found the commentary on reactor stability and the explanation of post-shutdown Xenon-135 buildup and reactor deadtime extremely helpful. I also found section 7.6 on incore fuel management useful.
   
   From my experience in aviation (where it is a common parameter), I enjoyed the discussion of the utility of the Reynolds number in section 8.4, and found the ensuing discussions of turbulent flow, liquid metals, and boiling heat transfer to be fascinating. My safety systems background is primarily in aviation, where it is stressed that every design is a compromise: I was pleased to see the same acknowledged on p. 455 by Bill Minkler (who now writes the "Backscatter" commentary for "Nuclear News") with his quote that reactor design is "the art of compromise."
   
   I was pleased with chapters nine ("Radiation Protection") and eleven ("Reactor Licensing, Safety, and the Environment"), which are the most directly applicable to me. The concept of "Relative Biological Effectiveness" is well covered beginning on p. 472, and the discussions of radiation protection are helpful. I found the section dealing with deterministic versus stochastic effects of radiation on pp. 479-480 to be helpful, and thought the glossary of radiation protection on pp. 539-542 to be a valuable reference. I wanted to better understand the principles of Monte Carlo analysis, which is covered in chapter ten, and while much of the discussion was helpful, it was a bit more general than I had expected.
   
   The overview of reactor licensing in chapter eleven is quite helpful, although becoming a bit dated. The discussion of multiple barriers to prevent to escape of radiation begins on p. 623 and provides an excellent general overview to the safety systems involved at a reactor site. Section 11.4 ("Dispersion of Effluents") was excellent overall, with plume formation and diffusion of effluents well covered for all Pasquill conditions (except G). This was an area new to me, as I have minimal meteorological knowledge, and I found the qualitative explanations and illustrations to be excellent, although the mathematical reasoning was at some points a bit hard to follow.
   
   The discussion of Design Basis Accidents (and particularly LOCA scenarios) beginning on p. 681 is excellent, as is the recap of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents which follow. I was pleased to see the introduction to risk management beginning on p. 711, which discusses 10CFR50.34a requiring operators to keep radioactive materials in effluents "as low as reasonably achievable." Oddly, the book the fails to name the acronym that logically follows from this (ALARA, of course) or discuss its use in the contemporary nuclear community to any significant degree.
   
   There is a lot of great content here, and while I am sure that I missed some of the more intricate mathematical nuances of the book, I think it was helpful to me overall. The book is sometimes a bit unclear, and some of the mathematical reasoning seems a bit fuzzy. A bigger complaint is that each chapter has numerous problems at the end, yet there is no answer key to determine if you did the problem correctly.
   
   I don't claim to have as much experience in the field as the vast majority of people who will read and review this book, but I do believe that overall the book, while not perfect, gives a good introduction to the subject, and will serve as a valuable reference in the future.



5. This book is well written, and covers a lot of important material reasonably well. You will learn a lot by reading it.
   
   It does however have one huge defect for anyone who because of poor quality teaching, or because they are just really interested in the field, has decided to use the book to teach themselves Nuclear Engineering. There are no solutions to any problems in the book. Most textbooks, at least introductory text books, give numerical answers to selected problems. This makes it possible for a student to do a problem, and ensure that he did it correct. Without it working problems is an exercise in futility as you will never know if you did them correctly. Since working out problems is the single best way to learn a technical subject you are probably best looking elsewhere for a book to learn from.

2 comments about Drilling Technology in Nontechnical Language.

1. The book explained the field well, but it referred, more than once, to a non-existant 'further reading' section. It also referred to a list of acronyms, supposedly containted within, which wasn't in the book either. It could really use an editor.

   Diagrams were great, so were the pictures. It certainly did its job...but maybe not worth $60 plus.




2. The book explained the field well, but it referred, more than once, to a non-existant 'further reading' section. It also referred to a list of acronyms, supposedly containted within, which wasn't in the book either. It could really use an editor.

   Diagrams were great, so were the pictures. It certainly did its job...but maybe not worth $60 plus.

5 comments about Bioprocess Engineering: Basic Concepts (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall International Series in the Physical and Chemical Engineering Sciences).

1. im going to use this book the next semester in the univesity of puerto rico, mayaguez campus, and i need a copy of it to be sure, if this one is what I want. If you can help i'll be glad of you



2. This was the book for my introductory bioprocess engineering course. I felt it covered the quantitative areas, such as enzyme kinetics, bioreactor design, stoichiometry, etc.., quite well. However, the qualitative sections, such as DNA replication, metabolic pathways, and cell function, etc.., are explained way too quickly and lightly for someone with little or no training in Biology. Upon reading a few pages into one of these qualitative sections, you quickly find the author throwing terms at you that he never defined (to be fair, it would take an extra 100 pages to define all of these terms). Also, the text has some really unfortunate typos, typos so severe they may actually hinder your learning (subscripts change for no reason, two different constants given the same symbol, etc.) Biology folks will be happy, but ChEs with no knowledge of Biology may want to stick to the section on bioprocess engineering in Fogler.



3. This volme I have purchased yesterday from the local Book Seller. I had gone through first three chapters. Since I am teaching Biochemical Engineering to my Undergraduate and Post Graduate students for last three years, I understand this volume is very much helpful in addition to some volumes I have in this subject like, Biochemical Engineering by Humphrey, Aiba and Millis (Academic Press), Fundamentals of Biochemical Engineering by Baily & Ollis (Mc Graw Hill). However, in teaching the tutorials in this subject, an instruction manual consisting of solution of unsolved problems given at the end of each chapter of the book would be very much helpful. I have collected a such instruction manual (solutions to unsolved problems given in the Fundamentals of Biochemical Engineering)(Gift copy) from McGraw Hill Publishing Company . I hope any such volume might be available for Bioprocess Engineering by Shuler and Kargi. If so, I would appreciate for detail information and way to procure it. It will not only help the teacher but the students as well.



4. Pros: Good layout and order of material. Fairly clear in bridging theory with practice.
   Cons: Bad binding, had to replace once already. Some of the example questions are put together poorly; i.e. bad data, poor use of equations and material.
   Overall: 5 stars for effort and material, 1 star for quality and thoroughness = 3 stars overall.



5. Good overview and introduction for bioprocess engineering. However, it's not so good if you want to know more detail, but it does say it covers "basic concepts", which is what it does in a clear concise way.

2 comments about Forget the Gas Pumps--Make Your Own Fuel.

1. This is another example of someone trying to make money by marketing old ideas in a time when the ethanol industry is on the verge of a major contribution to alternative fuels. The trouble with this book and so many others like it is that the author has not updated the book to keep up with technological advancements in the alternative fuels field. This book is totally useless in the 21st cenbtury unless maybe you own a 1955 Edsel with a carburetor.



2. This is a response to the above reviewer who found the book useless. A lot of people still have old tractors, pickups or cars older than 20 years. Also, any late model fuel injected car can run 50% alcohol with no problem. If you use Swifty brand gas, you are already using 10% ethanol. Plus, if you can't afford to put gas in that big block Chevy to cruise around in, remember that top fuel dragsters and indy cars both run on alcohol. Plus, the hi-compression motors of the old days love this stuff. Stills are pretty easy to make. I have a friend that brews up his own moonshine on the stove with a converted pressure cooker.

3 comments about Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism.

1. Unit Operations is every bit as brilliant - and damn fun a read - as those of us lucky enough to've had early glimpses at Bogost's project had hoped.
   
   It's tempting to write a review of this book in the form of a treatment for a mega-million-dollar console game, and that temptation seems to me no accident: this book will change the way you pay attention to ALL, in both senses of the word, coded systems you yourself use.
   
   The backstory of the book's authoring is itself almost too Hollywood (or new Hollywood, since EA, Blizzard, and LucasArts are the MGM, WB, and Disney of our era): author was a Chief Technology Officer for an A-list interactive marketing agency in L.A.; author leaves the biz to become a professor working on recombining the DNA (and languages and ontologies) of software development with the DNA (and languages and ontologies) of literary and cultural criticism; his mutant creation is now on the loose.
   
   Your mission, reader, is to...
   
   To what? Because in the game of Unit Operations, the first-person shooter is transformed into something of an Eleatic archer: where before our attention would just race to the next target, Unit Operations teaches us new ways to listen to the Bow.
   
   The open-source software movement has from its beginning been particularly well-attuned to games with written language's units of operation. Unit Operations provides a long-awaited common ground for both technological and literary culture.
   
   Not since first reading Geertz' Interpretation of Cultures have I had the sense of encountering so path-breaking a work in the level of its critical innovation and the clarity of its readings.



2. A bulging boutique of bottom-up beats bearing from baroque battles to bogus babalities.



3. Bogost's begins with a promising venture into the video game territory. This time we are promised that video games are distinguished from books and films, and that the "ludology" of video games is recognized as an independent field. Bogost uses philosophy in order to accomplish this mission. Although when it comes to critical arguments, Bogost's approach is mainly Badiousian, he sets forth a rich array of classical and contemporary philosophies, from Plato to Spinoza, Deleuze, and Harman. I have this feeling that at some point Bogost emphasizes too much on the narrative and cultural aspects of video games and therefore, his project falls into the same category of mainstream cultural critiques of video games. But there are sections which penetrate right into the structure of games and their architecture. In these sections, Bogost uses a heavy deal of Badiou's axiomatic set theory to back up his theory of unit operations. This is not essentially a negative point but he could develop a genuine theory of his own and eliminate the risk of associating video games with philosophy which for the most part has the same restricting role of literature (the narrative) and cinema (the filmic) for video games. Overall, Unit Operations is a rich and an insightful book, but falls short in some of its ambitions.

5 comments about Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (The Mcgraw-Hill Chemical Engineering Series).

1. This is a solid thermo textbook. Goes over concepts and theories fairly well. There are plenty of worked out examples throughout the chapters and appendixes so you know what you're doing. The authors explain everything in a clear and cohesive manner. Somethings are overwhelming, but it is thermodynamics. Plenty of appendixes for steam tables, interroplation, unit conversions, and virial equation constants, etc.
   
   I suggest you get the Schaum's outline as a good reference too.



2. No one can even think about any flaw for that book. Wonderful book. Amazon's service is the best too



3. As far as text books go, this one is not bad. It's decently well written and put together. There are a lot of graphs and diagrams to explain the material.There are not as many example problems as there need to be, but the questions at the end of the chapter are very straightforward. Not a very extensive reference section either.



4. This edition of the Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics is much more friendly version to the reader than former ones. It also has more industry related problems. Another change with respect to the former ones is that The example problems are exposed and solved in the SI system of units, which is a more globally used system than the English one.
   
   It is a classic book for chemical engineers and a must read book either as a main textbook or as an alternate textbook, for anyone planning to do undergraduate or graduate thermodynamic courses in that discipline.



5. It is a great condition book, however, it was shipped very slowly, and I didn't receive it until 2 weeks after the purchase.

5 comments about The Properties of Petroleum Fluids.

1. This book is fairly well written, with examples that pertain to the exercises at the end of each chapter. It includes an appendix, well equipped with relevant graphs and charts. The only flaw would be that they tend to pull numbers out of nowhere in examples, without showing where they came from. Overall, this book was more effective than the professor who taught the class. A good buy for all little petroleum engineers.



2. working in a research institute specialized in oil industry, i find this book always a reference.. and though i have read it, studied it several times.. it keeps on capturing me and helping me. i highly recommend this book, it s amust have for a petroleum engineer.



3. This book gives you step by step explanations for the basics of petroleum reservoir engineering.



4. This is definitely a very important book to have for people that study/work in the Petroleum industry.



5. I am using the second edition to help with my understanding of viscosity, permeability, compressibility, PV diagrams and other calculations.
   
   The book is titled "An introduction". However, the detail in the book is at an intermediate level. You need to have at least some basic scientific and mathematical knowledge to make the best of this book. As an example, it is clearly a level above Dr Hyne's Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Geology.
   
   The book does not go into great background detail and is more focused on calculations and examples of how they are derived and applied. If this is what you want this book for (as it was for me), it does a great job.
   
   It has an exemplary index that is very useful in finding exactly what you are looking for.