Not So Fast

We're raising our kids in a high-speed, high-pressured, 24/7 world. Pushing children to get ahead, we cram everything possible into our days to maximize their chance at success. We're overloaded, overextended, overcommitted, and over-caffeinated. And we're paying a price: Our relationships are anemic; our health, in jeopardy. Half-awake and half-hearted, we can't sustain this pace. But how can we possibly downshift without missing out? Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families explores the jarring effects of our over committed culture and offers refreshing alternatives. Author Ann Kroeker relates her own story of how embracing a slower everyday pace resulted in a more meaningful family and spiritual life. Practical ideas and insight will spark creativity and personal reflection. Plus, ponder real-life stories from parents who chucked the high-speed lifestyle and reaped the rewards of richer relationships. Not So Fast offers hope that families struggling with hurried hearts and frantic souls can discover the rejuvenating power of an unrushed life.

There's a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, "How's the water?" The younger fish are puzzled. "What's water?" they ask. Many of us today might ask a similar question: What's technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we're so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail to perceive all the ways it might be shaping us. Usually when we hear the word "technology," we automatically think of digital devices and their myriad applications. As revolutionary as smartphones, online shopping, and social networks may seem, however, they fit into long-standing, deeply entrenched patterns of technological thought as well as practice. Generations of skeptics have questioned how well served we are by those patterns of thought and practice, even as generations of enthusiasts have promised that the latest innovations will deliver us, soon, to Paradise. We're not there yet, but the cyber utopians of Silicon Valley keep telling us it's right around the corner. What is technology, and how is it shaping us? In search of answers to those crucial questions, Not So Fast draws on the insights of dozens of scholars and artists who have thought deeply about the meanings of machines. The book explores such dynamics as technological drift, technological momentum, technological disequilibrium, and technological autonomy to help us understand the interconnected, interwoven, and interdependent phenomena of our technological world. In the course of that exploration, Doug Hill poses penetrating questions of his own, among them: Do we have as much control over our machines as we think? And who can we rely on to guide the technological forces that will determine the future of the planet?

GENTRIFICATION ON THE BLOCK, A SHOWMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE, ETHICS GONE. THIS IS THE 1980S. Mark starts out in suburban New Jersey, where housing developments and shopping malls provide cover for medical scams, divorces and abortions. He moves on to film-biz-saturated Los Angeles, harboring Afghan freedom fighters and damaged survivors of Hollywood’s entertainment-making machine. Back east in rapidly gentrifying New York City, he falls in with art snobs, literary luminaries and real estate operators, all making the most of trickle-down economics. Law school and extreme anxiety are on the horizon, followed by a foray into France and encounters with Eastern religion, an early wave of terrorism and the burgeoning right wing movement that is its corollary. Everyone is looking for anything but what they already have. Mark is no exception.

In Flash Boys, Michael Lewis alleged that the entire U.S. stock market is rigged. This is an extraordinarily serious accusation. If it is true that a conspiracy of stock exchanges, banks, regulators and high-frequency traders has rigged the market, this has profound implications for every aspect of our financial system. It's rather surprising, then, that this book alleging a vast high-frequency trading conspiracy included no high-frequency traders. Flash Boys lacks a single insider's account, and it shows. Electronic trading is extremely complicated, and if you neglect to talk to any electronic traders, you're probably going to get it wrong. Flash Boys: Not So Fast, written by a former high-frequency trading executive and regulatory compliance expert, provides the missing insider's perspective on today's stock market and answers the question of whether or not Michael Lewis is right. Not So Fast reviews the alleged scams described by Lewis and applies the same rigorous analysis that real trading strategies are subjected to, methodically walking through them step by step and explaining what is actually possible in today's markets and what is not. Extensively researched and documented, Not So Fast provides a clear, accurate picture of how today's markets operate, including what works, what doesn't work, and what changes need to be made.

Providing fully updated advice to parents, guardians, and other adults who supervise teen drivers, this second edition of Not So Fast will help to guide and empower readers. Parents will learn priceless information in teaching teenagers how to evaluate the circumstances of every driving trip, how to say "no" when necessary, how to prepare a "flight plan" for each drive, and how to put safety before convenience. Parents will also benefit by understanding the real dangers and risks in teen driving by recognizing the limits of driver training programs and will thus becoming more informed and proactive in their supervisory role. Current statistics, updated research, and additions dealing with hands-free devices as well as drowsy driving, make this new edition a valuable resource for anyone concerned about teen drivers. Proceeds from sales will support a memorial fund—set up in honor of Hollister's son, Reid, who was killed in an automobile accident in 2006—which subsidizes education and other traffic safety causes.

When four friends head off to the park, careful planning rules the day. Safety: Bike Safety.