Best Selling Books by Mark Burgess

When Little Wolf cannot fall asleep, he decides that he needs a teddy bear and goes into the woods to see if he can find out where to get one.

"Designed for rock, blues, and jazz guitarists; Covers left-hand techniques like proper position, multi-finger and multi-string exercises, double stops, triads, bending, and more"--Cover.

Promise Theory bridges the worlds of semantics and dynamics to describe interactions between autonomous agencies within a system. It provides a semi-formal language for modelling intent and its outcome, which results in a chemistry for cooperative behaviour. This book is aimed at scientists and engineers. It introduces readers to promises in a practical manner, keeping within the paradigm of `voluntary cooperation''. The book draws on examples from the real world, with a special emphasis on computers and information systems.

This collection contains seven stories, and each mystery adventure is packed with puzzles to solve.

My first experience of an agency was back in the mid 1990s. Since then I have set up and built various successful businesses in the property, marketing, recruitment, publishing and digital sectors. Over all those years I have always remained connected to the estate agency industry in one way or another but the crazy thing is that although my journey over the last 25+ years has been one of discovery and development, the estate agency industry itself has remained largely unchanged. I can still relate with all of the issues and processes that take place on a day-to-day basis, as if feels like it was only yesterday that I worked in estate agency myself. The techniques and technology being used in the big wide world seem to have somehow passed traditional estate agency by and my Proptech company, Iceberg Digital, is on a mission to bring that tech, process and reasoning into estate agency and help traditional agents modernise their business. In this book Mark breaks down some of the key issues that currently exist in most estate agency businesses and explains how those issues can not only be solved but also what needs to be done in order to reinvent your processes and how they will open your eyes to a whole new dawn in estate agency - one where your current competitors simply can''t compete.

Captain Cat and his enthusiastic but incapable animal crew set off on a humorous journey. Turning a wheel completes the verse on each spread of illustrations by revealing the correct rhyming word and the section of illustration to match the choice.

A book about what it means to be in controlIt is a few years from now ... and society''s addiction to smart mobile communications is beginning to drive a wedge between communities all over the world. Citizens no longer talk to their neighbours, they connect electronically through buddy-lists and address-books, using virtual reality meeting places. Society is dissociating into little more than special interest groups and rival gangs, where institutional government and the rule of law have little meaning.Meanwhile, companies large and small analyse `big data'' to track the trajectory of the world, planning out ways to manipulate it to their advantage, and religious organizations imitate the mob to win back their own control. ``Dumbing down'''' and dropping out---the spoilt and the greedy watch the tumble-drier of commerce process an existence that is going nowhere. So much for the knowledge-based economy.In this world of overt information, a new arms race for control is gathering pace. In a desperate effort to cement new public loyalties and consolidate fragmenting government power, American media giant PhoxHollywood is tasked to create a carefully crafted computer game to train citizens into compliance. It is free for everyone on the planet and it entices people to meet and interact as never before. But the game''s moral agenda attracts unwanted attention from the press who claim that it is merely a front for Whitehouse propaganda.When a religious group moves to secure its own share of the power, an unlikely constellation of citizens, from around the globe, interested only in their own futures, unwittingly find themselves pulled together by circumstances, and playing a game of their own... Originally written as near-future science fiction between 2003-2005, in the tradition of John Brunner and Ayn Rand, this novel looks increasingly plausible today as a commentary on the effect of social media and technological propaganda forces in modern society.

Featuring two stories printed back-to-back, this science-fiction book tells of the adventures of Zoe, her trusty robot, Minor, and the Space Pirates, Captain Slogg and his crew. Inspired by Star Trek and Doctor Who, this is by the author of Lucky Thunder and The Cat''s Pyjamas.

Quite soon, the world{u2019}s information infrastructure is going to reach a level of scale and complexity that will force scientists and engineers to approach it in an entirely new way. The familiar notions of command and control are being thwarted by realities of a faster, denser world of communication where choice, variety, and indeterminism rule. The myth of the machine that does exactly what we tell it has come to an end. What makes us think we can rely on all this technology? What keeps it together today, and how might it work tomorrow? Will we know how to build the next generation{u2014}or will we be lulled into a stupor of dependence brought about by its conveniences? In this book, Mark Burgess focuses on the impact of computers and information on our modern infrastructure by taking you from the roots of science to the principles behind system operation and design. To shape the future of technology, we need to understand how it works{u2014}or else what we don{u2019}t understand will end up shaping us. This book explores this subject in three parts: Part I, Stability: describes the fundamentals of predictability, and why we have to give up the idea of control in its classical meaning Part II, Certainty: describes the science of what we can know, when we don{u2019}t control everything, and how we make the best of life with only imperfect information Part III, Promises: explains how the concepts of stability and certainty may be combined to approach information infrastructure as a new kind of virtual material, restoring a continuity to human-computer systems so that society can rely on them.

A living ghost storyHow many ways can a man become a ghost of his former self?When exactly did Benjamin Lamarck pass from the world of the living? One day this esteemed University Professor finds himself adrift somewhere between the dreamy spires of Oxford and angular towers of New York, confused and frustrated by his inability to connect to the living. Clues of a life he has apparently departed haunt him like a cloud of black smoke. Then he meets Giles Divad, a shadowy presence who offers him a way out of his isolation, if only he can learn to blend in with the crowd.Now, assailed by a faceless mob that wants to make him one of the crowd, Lamarck is seized and wiped of individuality, only to regain it by clawing onto the places that were once important to him, in his former life. Then, a young girl forces him to confront the truth of his past, and give it meaning, as he wanders about the episodes of his former life seeking purchase. Perhaps it is still not too late to reconnect with his wife and daughter.

Caractacus Algernon Tobias Crusoe is swept overboard and finds himself on a desert island. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.

Cfengine is a free software package for automating the configuration and maintenance of networked computers. Its purpose is to implement policy-based configuration management. A System Engineer''s Guide to Host Configuration and Maintenance Using Cfengine describes all aspects of using Cfengine 2. Beginning with the fundamentals of Cfengine itself, the booklet takes you though the policies, shows you how to build an infrastructure. It then covers host monitoring and anomaly detection, as well as the management process. Finally, the booklet provides case studies and sample policies and a section on extending Cfengine through additional modules and methods.