First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.

Written by two distinguished experts in the field of digital communications, this classic text remains a vital resource three decades after its initial publication. Its treatment is geared toward advanced students of communications theory and to designers of channels, links, terminals, modems, or networks used to transmit and receive digital messages. The three-part approach begins with the fundamentals of digital communication and block coding, including an analysis of block code ensemble performance. The second part introduces convolutional coding, exploring ensemble performance and sequential decoding. The final section addresses source coding and rate distortion theory, examining fundamental concepts for memoryless sources as well as precepts related to memory, Gaussian sources, and universal coding. Appendixes of useful information appear throughout the text, and each chapter concludes with a set of problems, the solutions to which are available online.

Speaking in Styles aims to help Web designers learn the "language" that will be used to take their vision from the static comp to the live Internet. Many designers think that CSS is code, and that it's too hard to learn. Jason takes an approach to CSS that breaks it down around common design tasks and helps the reader learn that they already think in styles--they just need to learn to speak the language. Jason helps Web designers find their voice, walks them through the grammar of CSS, shows them how to write their design specs in CSS, and how to prepare it for screen, printer or handheld devices. Along the way designers will learn to optimize their code, make it accessible, optimize for search engines, mix it up with Flash, and more.