Stray Reflections

When asked "What is the goal of a writer?" author Anne Lamott responded, "To help others have this sense of wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds."This is what Jawad Mian achieves with Stray Reflections, an intimate account of his journey through life and lessons learned along the way. He delivers distilled infusions of clarity and inspiration in short chapters for reading in quiet moments at home or at the office.In his own search for meaning, Jawad draws from such sources as Rumi, Emerson, Goethe, Buddha, Confucius, Seneca, and many others. To read Stray Reflections is to be immersed in the timeless wisdom of the great poets, saints, and philosophers. This book is an antidote to the great angst of modern life.

It is 1958, and as Laika, the Sputnik dog is launched into space, Golly Murray, the Cullymore barber's wife, finds herself oddly obsessing about the canine cosmonaut. Meanwhile, Fonsey 'Teddy' O'Neill, is returning, like the prodigal son, from overseas, with brylcream in his hair, and a Cuban-heeled swagger to his step, having experienced his coming-of-age in Butlin's, Skegness. Father Augustus Hand is working on a bold new theatrical production for Easter, which he, for one, knows will put Cullymore on the map. And, as the Manchester United football team prepare to take off from Munich airport, James A Reilly sits in his hovel by the lake outside town, with his pet fox and his father's gun, feeling the weight of an insidious and inscrutable presence pressing down upon him.From the closed terraces and back lanes of rural Ireland to the information highway and global separations of our own time, The Stray Sod Country is at once an homage to what we think we may have lost and a chilling reminder that the past has never really passed.With echoes of Peyton Place, and Fellinni's Amarcord, and with a sinister, diabolical narrator at its heart, this is at once a story of a small town - with its secrets, fears, friendships and betrayals - and a sweeping, grand guignol of theatrical extravagance from one of the finest writers of his generation.

Thoughts Of A Stray Mind is a rare window into the mind of a teenager trying to find their way in the world. This is a must-read for teens who will relate to the author's insightful depictions of both everyday challenges and extraordinary, but often shared, events. This book speaks to teens. It brings meaning to all kinds of experiences. Luke Yates writes candidly, through poetry, about feelings so often diminished by adults and buried deep by high school peers.

Stray light is defined as unwanted light in an optical system, a familiar concept for anyone who has taken a photograph with the sun in or near their camera's field of view. In a low-cost consumer camera, stray light may be only a minor annoyance, but in a space-based telescope, it can result in the loss of data worth millions of dollars. It is imperative that optical system designers understand its consequences on system performance and adapt the design process to control it. This book addresses stray light terminology, radiometry, and the physics of stray light mechanisms, such as surface roughness scatter and ghost reflections. The most-efficient ways of using stray light analysis software packages are included. The book also demonstrates how the basic principles are applied in the design, fabrication, and testing phases of optical system development.

Articles on various topics; Islamic law, foreign policy of Pakistan, Indo-Pakistan conflict of 1965, etc.

Logos of: CSIRO and Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) at foot of title page.