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This text discusses the growing importance of intangible assets and the role it has played in some of the big economic changes of the last decade. The authors argue that the rise of intangible investment is an underappreciated cause of phenomena from economic inequality to stagnating productivity. The authors bring together a decade of research on how to measure intangible investment and its impact on national accounts, showing the amount different...

"From one of the world's most highly regarded social scientists, a transformative book on the habits of mind that lead to the best predictions Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions...

"With The Powers That Be, Scott L. Montgomery cuts through the hype, alarmism, and confusion to give us a straightforward, informed account of where we are now, and a map of where we're going. Starting with the inescapable fact of our current dependence on fossil fuels - which supply 80% of all our energy needs today - Montgomery clearly and carefully lays out the many alternative energy options available, ranging from the familiar, like water and...

Weather is the foundation of our daily lives, and it's a triumph of science, technology and global cooperation. Blum takes readers on a tour of the infrastructure behind the weather forecast, the people who built it, and what it reveals about our climate and our planet. Our tools allow us to predict weather more accurately than ever, and yet we haven't learned to trust them. Blum visits old weather stations and watches new satellites blast off. He...

Klosterman "visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past, [asking] questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content...

"In this second thrilling installment of the Gunnie Rose series, Lizbeth Rose is hired onto a new crew for a seemingly easy protection job, transporting a crate into Dixie, just about the last part of the former United States of America she wants to visit. But what seemed like a straight-forward job turns into a massacre as the crate is stolen. Up against a wall in Dixie, where social norms have stepped back into the last century, Lizbeth has to go...

"The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive...

Pearce chronicles nearly 200 years of demographic issues, beginning with efforts to contain the demographic explosion, from the early environmental movement's racism and involvement in eugenics to coercive family-planning policies in China and India.

Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction.

"One of the most stunning achievements of moral philosophy is something we take for granted: moral universalism, or the idea that every human has equal moral worth. In What We Owe the Future, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill demands that we go a step further, arguing that people not only have equal moral worth no matter where or how they live, but also no matter when they live. This idea has implications beyond the obvious (climate change) - including...