Bill Hobby has spent most of his life in and around Texas government, including a record eighteen years as the state's lieutenant governor. His candid recollections about his days in office, as well as his take on what state government should and should not do are part of How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics, published by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. "Nostalgia is not my purpose," Hobby writes in the book's preface. "But I do hope to convey something of my admiration for the people that I had the honor to work with, the spirit of the times, and a sense of how things actually worked--at least in the legislative process." His no-holds-barred opinions about everything from partisan politics to efforts to rewrite the Texas Constitution to government wiretaps and the war on drugs are included, as are his memories of working with Texas politicians Ben Ramsey, Dolph Briscoe, Bill Clements, and Ann Richards. Hobby's years as lieutenant governor coincided with Texas's transition from a state dependent on oil and agriculture to one with a more diversified economy strengthened by the technology and health care industries. Through it all, Hobby emphasized the need for Texas to make education a priority. He enjoyed the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, especially appropriations and redistricting. "To help people, government has to work," he says. "Make the system work."

Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you. Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others? Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software? Do design patterns actually make better software? What effect does personality have on pair programming? What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart? Contributors include: Jorge Aranda Tom Ball Victor R. Basili Andrew Begel Christian Bird Barry Boehm Marcelo Cataldo Steven Clarke Jason Cohen Robert DeLine Madeline Diep Hakan Erdogmus Michael Godfrey Mark Guzdial Jo E. Hannay Ahmed E. Hassan Israel Herraiz Kim Sebastian Herzig Cory Kapser Barbara Kitchenham Andrew Ko Lucas Layman Steve McConnell Tim Menzies Gail Murphy Nachi Nagappan Thomas J. Ostrand Dewayne Perry Marian Petre Lutz Prechelt Rahul Premraj Forrest Shull Beth Simon Diomidis Spinellis Neil Thomas Walter Tichy Burak Turhan Elaine J. Weyuker Michele A. Whitecraft Laurie Williams Wendy M. Williams Andreas Zeller Thomas Zimmermann

The One Reason For Success - and Failure - Lies Within You Have you ever had a complete melt-down, a real failure of your world-view, where the world has gone to hell and stayed there? Sad to tell you: it's your own damned fault. What makes it worse is to find out that everything you ever needed to succeed is already programmed into you - and has been since you were born. What's In Part II: - Get introduced to the actual world, the one that the authorities have been hiding. It has it's own rules. - Learn them and start to find the villains which have been keeping you down. - Discover why only a handful each generation makes themselves great. - See how the culture itself is rigged to keep you from ever climbing to your native-born success. The trick to this is that we can change and improve our beliefs at any time. We only have to decide to do it and then do it. This book lays out the journey ahead. The second best time to start is today. Get Your Copy Now.

A parody of the way things really work.

"Roger McGough's witty text offers many weird and wonderful explanations ... Chris Riddell's artwork makes the whole an imaginative feast" - Bookseller Runner-up for the English Association 4-11 Award for the Best Children's Picture Book. Nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal. From the minds of the former Children's Laureate Chris Ridell, and award-winning fellow of the Royal Society of Literature Roger McGough, comes a fun-filled book of how things work. Have you ever wondered how a toaster works? Or a fridge-freezer, or a washing-up machine? In this fun-filled book of how things work, Dudley, the techno-wizard dog, provides the answers. Roger McGough's delightfully ingenious text and Chris Riddell's striking illustrations take children from the furthest realms of fantasy into the fascinating world of technology to discover the workings of familiar machines, making it an exciting book which will delight again and again. At first, it describes how a child thinks things work... (gnomes in the toaster) and then Dudley tells you how the various household appliances really work. Includes all the appliances a curious child would be interested in: the dishwasher, the fridge-freezer and more. A funny, imaginative 'how things work' book for ages 4–7.

World-leading productivity expert Graham Allcott's businessbible is given a complete update for 2019. Do you waste too much time on your phone? Scroll throughTwitter or Instagram when you should be getting down to your real tasks? Isyour attention easily distracted? We've got the solution: The Way of theProductivity Ninja. In the age of information overload, traditional timemanagement techniquessimply don't cut it anymore. Using techniques includingRuthlessness, Mindfulness, Zen-like Calm and Stealth & Camouflage, this fullyrevised new edition of How to be a Productivity Ninjaoffers a fun andaccessible guide to working smarter, getting more done and learning to love whatyou do again.

A powerful lesson in what is really important in business, this remarkable book by an ultimate insider takes the lessons of the peddler and reveals how they can be used by the rest of us. Reminiscent of bestsellers such as "Who Moved My Cheese?" and" The One-Minute Manager, What the CEO Wants You to Know" is simple, direct, and of immense use to everyone in business.