Arthur Sinclair – författare

Confederate proclamation of nationhood was backed by an energetic and reasonably well equipped land defense. Not so for its coastal and sea defenses; much of its hope of tipping the balance in its contention with the Union rested on international support, trade, and naval defense. In search of a naval arm to counter Northern superiority on the seas, the South turned to foreign sources for a seaborne arm. Confederate agents in England cagily used scarce gold, promises of cotton, and British sympathy to obtain the devastating naval weapons of speedy and deadly raiders. Foremost among these was the Alabama, a screw steamer with full sail power, launched in May 1862. In only twenty-two months of action, this ship engaged nearly 300 vessels and destroyed 55 Northern merchant ships worth millions of dollars.

Two Years on the Alabama is an account of the CSS Alabama, the famous Confederate raider.

In the mid-1980s, the Therac-25 was hailed as the future of cancer treatment. A computer-controlled radiation therapy machine, it replaced physical safety interlocks with software logic. But a microscopic "e;race condition"e; in the code-a millisecond timing error-caused the machine to deliver massive, lethal overdoses of radiation to unsuspecting patients. This book provides a haunting forensic analysis of the software engineering culture that allowed these errors to persist. It exposes how a single programmer's overconfidence and the lack of independent testing transformed a life-saving device into a silent executioner. The investigation traces the harrowing experiences of the victims and the slow realization of the manufacturers. Learn the technical mechanics of the bug that changed the field of software safety forever. It is an essential reference for understanding the ethical burden of automation and the catastrophic consequences of ignoring the "e;human-in-the-loop"e; principle. A devastating study of what happens when we trust the logic of a machine more than the warnings of the people who operate it.