Showing results by narrator "Andrew Joseph Perez" in All Categories

The Santo Daime is a syncretic religion that arose in the Amazon region of Brazil in the middle of the twentieth century and now has churches throughout the world. Its spiritual practice is based around the sacramental use of ayahuasca, a psychedelic brew consumed only within regular ceremonies. In Liquid Light, G. William Barnard—an initiate of the religion and a scholar of religious studies—considers the religious practice and transformative inner experiences of the Santo Daime community.

You never know what's out to get you. Though you might think you're safe from monsters and menaces, everyday objects can turn against you, too. A mysterious microwave. A threatening board game. A snowman that refuses to melt. Even your own heartbeat has its secrets. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. When you stop to listen, each beat sounds more menacing than the last.

Enormous legal cross-border flows of people, goods, and finance are embedded in the region's history and prompted by the need to respond to new opportunities and challenges that originate on the other side. In Border Economies, James Gerber examines how the interactivity and sensitivity of communities to conditions across the border differentiates them from communities in the interiors of Mexico and the United States. Gerber explains what makes the region not only unique but uniquely interesting.

In AI for Good: Applications in Sustainability, Humanitarian Action, and Health, a team of veteran Microsoft AI researchers delivers an insightful and fascinating discussion of how one of the world's most recognizable software companies is tackling intractable social problems with the power of artificial intelligence (AI). In the book, you'll see real in-the-field examples of researchers using AI with replicable methods and reusable AI code to inspire your own uses.

In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing t….

Like any established profession, coaching is full of unexamined assumptions. These need to be regularly questioned and tested to keep the profession vital and valuable. Coaches need to engage in the same kind of scrutiny and self-examination that offers such powerful benefits to their clients.

The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace cannot be understated. But when half-baked and underdeveloped strategies are implemented, they often do more harm than good, leading the very constituents they aim to support to dismiss DEI entirely.

AI is at the forefront of everyone's minds: from students and artists, to CEO's and service workers. But what exactly is AI, and how does it influence our everyday lives? And more than that, what does it mean for our future? Is there a way for us to retain our "humanness" in a world ever-reliant on tech? This groundbreaking book argues that the key technology we use to make strategic, political, and ethical decisions is flawed.

In The Predictive Edge: Outsmart the Market Using Generative AI and ChatGPT in Financial Forecasting, renowned AI and finance researcher Dr. Alejandro Lopez-Lira delivers an engaging and insightful new take on how to use large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to find new investment opportunities and make better trading decisions. In the book, you'll learn how to interpret the outputs of LLMs to craft sounder trading strategies and incorporate market sentiment into your analyses of individual securities.

The Introductory Sociology CLEP Test Study Guide teaches you what you need to know to pass the CLEP test. This study guide is more than just some sample test questions. Our easy-to-understand study guide will teach you the information. We've condensed what you need to know into a manageable book - one that will leave you completely prepared to tackle the test.

In The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the story of how the neoliberal economic model came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric was elected president, vowing that "If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave." More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century—but is now on the retreat.

Anger is everywhere - and it has real risks, including heart disease and depression. So, how can you break free from painful, self-defeating, and dangerous anger traps? Drawing on the gold standard treatment for anger-cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) - and informed by the no-nonsense approach of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) - this workbook is chock-full of powerful tools, exercises, and self-assessments to help you overcome destructive anger, once and for all.

One year after his sister’s death, Edward decides to follow through with their dream of opening their guesthouse as a vacation rental. At first, Jax seems like the ideal guest. He’s everything Edward wishes he could be: handsome, outgoing, and without a care in the world. But as the days pass, things don’t seem to be going as well as Edward expected. Jax is inserting himself into Edward’s life, conveniently bumping into him at his work, and then there are the dates he brings back to the guesthouse. The dates Edward never sees leave.

Jesse Mathis's life was in shambles. He lost the woman he loved just months before their wedding, his career as a surgeon was at an all-time low, and his forbidden feelings for his best friend were growing more confusing by the day. Taking a step back from his once perfect life, Jesse makes a mistake that threatens to change his future forever. Forced to deal with the dark secrets that now threaten his happiness, can Jesse decide where his heart truly lies? And will admitting his feelings destroy the only safe thing he has in his life—the girl who's always had his back?

It may seem that day trading is only for savvy investors who know the ins and outs of the marketplace—but it doesn’t have to be. All it takes is the right information and staying on top of the market. Day Trading 101 simplifies all the terms, strategies, and processes involved in day trading, helping even the novice investor find financial success. With information on recognizing trading patters, mastering trading options, keeping tabs on the market, establishing strategies to make the most profit, and understanding trading lingo, this guide can get you on track to becoming a smart investor.

The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance—similar to bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images. There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief—with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires, werewolves and more.

In The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet, Carlos Moreno delivers an exciting and insightful discussion of the deceptively simple and revolutionary idea that everyday destinations like schools, stores, and offices should only be a short walk or bike ride away from home. This book tells the story of an idea that spread from city to city, describing a new way of looking at living that addresses many of the most intractable challenges of our time.

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history.

In The Spirituality of Dreaming, leading dream scholar and expert Dr. Kelly Bulkeley brings us a set of time-honored methods to stimulate innate dreaming capacities and amplify their impact in our waking lives. Relying on years of research, data analysis, and interviews, Bulkeley offers wisdom and strategies from "big dreamers"—people who have vivid, intense dreams and remember them.

At least 200,000 people have died in Mexico's so-called drug war, and the worst suffering has been in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. How did it get so bad? After three decades studying that question, Howard Campbell doesn't believe there is any one answer. A rigorous yet moving account, Downtown Juárez is informed by the sex workers, addicts, hustlers, bar owners, human smugglers, migrants, and down-and-out workers struggling to survive in an underworld where horrifying abuses have come to seem like the natural way of things.