{"product_id":"how-to-isbn-9780525537090","title":"How To","description":"\u003cb\u003eAN INSTANT #1 \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e“How To\u003c\/i\u003e will make you laugh as you learn…With \u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e, you can't help but appreciate the glorious complexity of our universe and the amazing breadth of humanity's effort to comprehend it. If you want some lightweight edification, you won't go wrong with \u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003c\/i\u003eCNET\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e] has science and jokes in it, so 10\/10 can recommend.”\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Simone Giertz\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, the bestsellers \u003ci\u003eWhat If?\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThing Explainer\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhat If? 2, \u003c\/i\u003ecoming September 13, 2022\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. \u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in \u003ci\u003eWhat If?\u003c\/i\u003e, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and fun illustrations, \u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.“The creator of the popular, extremely excellent and not a little nerdy  webcomic ‘xkcd’ cleverly illustrates a guide of complicated solutions to  simple tasks, thinking up Rube Goldbergian solutions to tasks as common  as digging a hole.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The mind behind the webcomic xkcd provides a slew of hilariously overcomplicated instructions for everything from throwing a pool party to winning an election, bringing his signature stick figures – and his singular wit – along for the ride. \u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e is a loving testament to the power of the human brain to take things to absurd lengths.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eGlen Weldon, NPR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e] tackles problems from the mundane—such as how to move to a new house—to those that may trouble a mad scientist building her first lava moat. The solutions are often hilariously, and purposefully, absurd. Embedded in these solutions, however, is solid scientific, engineering, and experimental understanding . . . [for] anyone who appreciates science-based, but Rube Goldberg–esque, solutions to life’s problems.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eScience Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“How To\u003c\/i\u003e is a pure delight, a salty-sweet mixture of hard science and bonkers whimsy.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eBoingBoing \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A brilliant provocation of a book: clamber in for a wild ride.”\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e —\u003c\/i\u003eNature\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A witty, educational examination of ‘unusual approaches to common tasks’ . . . generously laced with dry humor . . . Munroe’s comic stick-figure art is an added bonus. . . .  Apart from generating laughter, the book also manages to achieve his serious objective: to get his audience thinking.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003ePublishers Weekly, \u003c\/i\u003estarred review \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An enjoyable treat for fans of logic puzzles, brain hacking, kaizen, mad science, and other forms of mental stimulation.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Munroe (creator of the webcomic xkcd; \u003ci\u003eWhat If?; Thing Explainer\u003c\/i\u003e) creates another fun series of questions and answers that explore forces, properties, and natural phenomena through pop-culture scenarios . . . With illustrated formulas that humorously explain the science behind Munroe’s conjectures, this book is sure to entertain and educate thinkers from high school on up.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eHow To\u003c\/i\u003e is a gleefully nerdy hypothetical instruction book for armchair scientists of all ages.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eRandall Munroe\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestsellers \u003ci\u003eWhat If? 2, How To\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhat If?\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThing Explainer\u003c\/i\u003e; the science question-and-answer blog \u003ci\u003eWhat If?\u003c\/i\u003e; and the popular web comic \u003ci\u003exkcd\u003c\/i\u003e. A former NASA roboticist, he left the agency in 2006 to draw comics on the internet full time. He lives in Massachusetts.\u003cb\u003eHow to Catch a Drone\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A wedding-photography drone is buzzing around above you. You don’t know what it’s doing there and you want it to stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Let’s suppose you have a garage full of sports equipment— baseballs, tennis rackets, lawn darts, you name it. Which sport’s projectiles would work best for hitting a drone? And who would make the best anti-drone guard? A baseball pitcher? A basketball player? A tennis player? A golfer? Someone else?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There are a few factors to consider — accuracy, weight, range, and projectile size.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One sport I couldn’t find good data on was tennis. I found some studies of tennis pro accuracy, but they involved hitting targets marked on the court, rather than in the air.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So I reached out to Serena Williams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To my pleasant surprise, she was happy to help out. Her husband, Alexis, offered a sacrificial drone, a DJI Mavic Pro 2 with a broken camera. They headed out to her practice court to see how effective the world’s best tennis player would be at fending off a robot invasion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The few studies I could find suggested tennis players would score relatively low com- pared to athletes who threw projectiles— more like kickers than pitchers. My tentative guess was that a champion player would have an accuracy ratio around 50 when serving, and take 5–7 tries to hit a drone from 40 feet. (Would a tennis ball even knock down a drone? Maybe it would just ricochet off and cause the drone to wobble! I had so many questions.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Alexis flew the drone over the net and hovered there, while Serena served from the baseline.\u003cbr\u003e Her first serve went low. The second zipped past the drone to one side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The third serve scored a direct hit on one of the propellers. The drone spun, momentarily seemed like it might stay in the air, then flipped over and smashed into the court. Serena started laughing as Alexis walked over to investigate the crash site, where the drone lay on the court near several propeller fragments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I had expected a tennis pro would be able to hit the drone in five to seven tries; she got it in three.","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300198928613,"sku":"NP9780525537090","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780525537090.jpg?v=1767729429","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/how-to-isbn-9780525537090","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}