Escaping The Amazon

Alex de Bruyn was still in his early twenties as he stared out forlornly into the vast Atlantic Ocean from the French Guiana shore. Decades prior, Papillon and Dreyfus contemplated the same thoughts of escape. Following a boyhood dream and quest for glory, de Bruyn joined the French Foreign Legion. To thwart desertion, he was shipped off to a backwater French colony in the Amazon, serving in the elite jungle unit, the 3e REI. Given a false identity, de Bruyn proved himself an extraordinary legionnaire. But well into his first contract, he became disenchanted by life in a rogue army where one was ordered to kill upon demand. Without a passport, de Bruyn decided to risk his life and escape modern-day Devil's Island by sea. In the process, he dodged local gangs, drug kingpins, and was falsely imprisoned. Finally, in a rickety dinghy, during hurricane season, he commenced his suicidal attempt to cross the Atlantic. Half-drowned and dying of thirst, de Bruyn was prepared to lose his life, but in the divine process of surviving, he found it. This is his white-knuckle account of pain, glory, and redemption.

"This book, from the previously unpublished manuscript in the National Library of Ireland, is a valuable and deeply detailed edition of the diary kept by Casement during his journey into the South American rainforests. He had been sent by the British government to report on atrocities against tribal people while being forced to collect rubber in the Putumayo region in the north-west Amazon. Genocide among the Amazon Indians has continued, but external investigations of this kind have been rare. The way in which Roger Casement carried out his work is still relevant to all kinds of humanitarian and whistle-blowing activities. It is also a key text charting Casement's transition from observer to anti-imperial revolutionary and Irish independence leader, culminating in his execution by the British government in August 1916 after the Easter Rising."

ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ: True Stories of Jail Breaks and Great Escapes Despite their place in popular culture, jail breaks are an incredibly daring prospect for any criminal to undertake. In most countries, escaping from jail is a very serious offence and will certainly result in a harsher punishment once the subject has been re-captured. Depending on the severity of the crime for which the offender was originally imprisoned, an attempted jail break can result in a significantly longer sentence. The cases covered in this volume are a combination of those prisoners who went to extreme lengths in order to free themselves from the confines of jail, those who broke free as a declaration of their innocence, and those who simply pounded at the first opportunity to escape. The fascination of each case cannot be over-stated, as well as the unimaginable bravery and audacity each one required.

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A practical, real-world introduction to AWS tools and concepts Amazon Web Services for Mobile Developers: Building Apps with AWS presents a professional view of cloud computing and AWS for experienced iOS/Android developers and technical/solution architects. Cloud computing is a rapidly expanding ecosystem, and working professionals need a practical resource to bring them up-to-date on tools that are rapidly becoming indispensable; this book helps expand your skill set by introducing you to AWS offerings that can make your job easier, with a focus on real-world application. Author and mobile applications developer Abhishek Mishra shows you how to create IAM accounts and try out some of the most popular services, including EC2, Lambda, Mobile Analytics, Device Farm, and more. You'll build a chat application in both Swift (iOS) and Java (Andoid), running completely off AWS Infrastructure to explore SDK installation, Xcode, Cognito authentication, DynamoDB, Amazon SNA Notifications, and other useful tools. By actually using the tools as you learn about them, you develop a more intuitive understanding that feels less like a shift and more like a streamlined integration. If you have prior experience with Swift or Java and a solid knowledge of web services, this book can help you quickly take your skills to the next level with a practical approach to learning that translates easily into real-world use. Understand the key concepts of AWS as applied to both iOS and Android developers Explore major AWS offerings for mobile developers, including DynamoDB, RDS, EC2, SNS, Cognito, and more Learn what people are talking about when they use buzzwords like PaaS, IaaS, SaaS, and APaaS Work through explanations by building apps that tie into the AWS ecosystem Any job is easier with the right tools, and Amazon Web Services for Mobile Developers: Building Apps with AWS gets you acquainted with an ever-expanding toolkit for mobile app development.

"This book will not only demonstrate how developers can utilize Amazon Web services to create cool mashups but will also help them convert it to money-making mashups - 'cashups.'" —Jinesh Varia, Amazon Web Services Developer Relations Team Amazon.com is advancing the boundaries of the Internet through their powerful suite of web services. Innovative developers are combining Amazon data with other freely available sources to create new and interesting applications known as Mashups. This book teaches you the techniques behind mashup applications and for the first time shows you how to build them yourself. The examples in this book show you how to integrate Amazon web services with APIs from Yahoo!, eBay, Google and YouTube. You'll learn how to combine data from disparate sources to create new applications using next generation browser techniques such as AJAX, JSON and Dynamic Scripting. You will learn how to re-purpose web service data so that it can be consumed from mobile devices such as a cell phone or PDA. Because both the theory and code are explained, you'll be able to easily take the lessons in this book to build your own killer mashup applications. Expert web services developer Francis Shanahan guides you through the basics of web service consumption using XML, SOAP and REST. Next generation browser techniques such as AJAX are illustrated in easy to follow step by step examples. He also completes the picture by introducing advanced techniques to enhance performance such as the multi-threading web service features of ASP.NET 2.0. With this book, you'll discover how to: Build a generic AJAX library from the ground up Consume publicly available APIs such as Yahoo!(r) Search, Google(r), eBay(r) and YouTube Use SOAP to expose Amazon data as RSS Convert Amazon data directly into JSON using XSLT Plot Amazon.com customers on Yahoo Maps Use the OpenSearch API to build your own search service Access Amazon data from your cell phone using WML Who this book is for This book is for developers who have some prior experience with web technologies such as Javascript(r) and ASP.NET. This book covers a wide range of technologies and techniques including ASP.NET 2.0, WML, REST, RSS, SOAP, XML, XSLT, AJAX and JSON. Everything in the book is built using free tools and explained in detail, along with the source code which makes this a useful resource regardless of experience level.

Holocaust movies have become an important segment of world cinema and the de-facto Holocaust education for many. One quarter of all American-produced Holocaust-related feature films have won or been nominated for at least one Oscar. In fact, from 1945 through 1991, half of all American Holocaust features were nominated. Yet most Holocaust movies have fallen through the cracks and few have been commercially successful. This book explores these trends--and many others--with a comprehensive guide to hundreds of films and made-for-television movies. From Anne Frank to Schindler's List to Jojo Rabbit, more than 400 films are examined from a range of perspectives--historical, chronological, thematic, sociological, geographical and individual. The filmmakers are contextualized, including Charlie Chaplin, Sidney Lumet, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino and Roman Polanski. Recommendations and reviews of the 50 best Holocaust films are included, along with an educational guide, a detailed listing of all films covered and a four-part index-glossary.

The Complete Guide to Building Cloud Computing Solutions with Amazon SimpleDB Using SimpleDB, any organization can leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s powerful cloud-based computing platform–and dramatically reduce the cost and resources associated with application infrastructure. Now, for the first time, there’s a complete developer’s guide to building production solutions with Amazon SimpleDB. Pioneering SimpleDB developer Mocky Habeeb brings together all the hard-to-find information you need to succeed. Mocky tours the SimpleDB platform and APIs, explains their essential characteristics and tradeoffs, and helps you determine whether your applications are appropriate for SimpleDB. Next, he walks you through all aspects of writing, deploying, querying, optimizing, and securing Amazon SimpleDB applications–from the basics through advanced techniques. Throughout, Mocky draws on his unsurpassed experience supporting developers on SimpleDB’s official Web forums. He offers practical tips and answers that can’t be found anywhere else, and presents extensive working sample code–from snippets to complete applications. With A Developer’s Guide to Amazon SimpleDB you will be able to Evaluate whether a project is suited for Amazon SimpleDB Write SimpleDB applications that take full advantage of SimpleDB’s availability, scalability, and flexibility Effectively manage the entire SimpleDB application lifecycle Deploy cloud computing applications faster and more easily Work with SELECT and bulk data operations Fine tune queries to optimize performance Integrate SimpleDB security into existing organizational security plans Write and enhance runtime SimpleDB clients Build complete applications using AJAX and SimpleDB Understand low-level issues involved in writing clients and frameworks Solve common SimpleDB usage problems and avoid hidden pitfalls This book will be an indispensable resource for every IT professional evaluating or using SimpleDB to build cloud-computing applications, clients, or frameworks.