Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation trilogy—one of the cornerstones of modern speculative fiction—in a single hardcover volume.It is the saga of the... Galactic Empire, crumbling after twelve thousand years of rule. And it is the particular story of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, the only man who can see the horrors the future has in store—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and violence that will last for thirty thousand years. Gathering a band of courageous men and women, Seldon leads them to a hidden location at the edge of the galaxy, where he hopes they can preserve human knowledge and wisdom through the age of darkness.In 1966, the Foundation trilogy received a Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series, and it remains the only fiction series to have been so honored. More than fifty years after their original publication, the three Foundation novels stand as classics of thrilling, provocative, and inspired world-building.

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of... psychohistory, can see into the future—to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun—or fight them and be destroyed.

In response to the success of the first edition of Foundation Game Design with Flash, Rex van der Spuy has revised and updated all the code to meet... current programming best practices, and the focus is now on accurate ActionScript 3.0, regardless of the IDE that you use. We’ve all sneaked the odd five minutes here or there playing the latest Flash game that someone sent around the office, but creating those games is trickier than it looks. The aim of Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0 is to take you, even if you’ve minimal multimedia or programming experience, through a series of step-by-step examples and detailed case studies—to the point where you'll have the skills to independently design any conceivable 2D game using Flash and ActionScript. Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0 is a non-technical one-stop shop for all the most important skills and techniques a beginning game designer needs to build games with Flash from scratch. Whether you're creating quick blasts of viral amusement, or more in-depth action or adventure titles, this is the book for you. Focused and friendly introduction to designing games with Flash and ActionScript Detailed case studies of Flash games Essential techniques for building games, with each chapter gently building on the skills of preceding chapters Modern best practices and new content on ActionScript 3.0 Also covers asset creation in Photoshop and Illustrator What you’ll learn How to build interactive movies and objects with Flash A thorough grounding in ActionScript 3.0 and good programming practices, with minimal prior programming experience required How to build interactive storybooks, space-shooter, adventure and drag-and-drop games To master collision detection, enemy AI systems, player control, managing game data, basic physics and trigonometry To make use of design patterns and object-oriented programming techniques to build robust games Strategies for making games fun to play and easy to build Who this book is for This book is for a non-technical, creative person who wants to learn the art of video game design, but has no idea where to start or where to look for help. It is a lucid, friendly and step-by-step guide though all the technical and creative issues involved in game design with Flash and ActionScript. The book treats programming as a creative artistic tool, and will help anyone who may be afraid of programming come to love the subject as much as the author does. The techniques in the book are comprehensive enough to form the basis of career as a game designer, and form a solid foundation for continued study of programming and ActionScript. This book is the missing link that will guide and inspire any curious and creative person turn a good game idea into a reality. Table of Contents Programming Foundations: How to Make a Video Game Making Objects Programming Objects Controlling Movie Clip Objects Decision Making Controlling a Player Character                      Bumping into Things Object-Oriented Game Design                               Platform Game: Physics and Data Management           Advanced Object and Character Control Using Flash Professional

If you want to get into developing web sites, the most important thing you'll need is a solid understanding of Hypertext Markup Language, or... HTML—the most common language used to write web site content. The most recent version of the language is HTML5, and it contains a whole host of new features to give you more power when creating websites. Foundation HTML5 with CSS3: A Modern Guide and Reference incorporates practical examples to show how to structure data correctly using HTML5, along with styling and layout basics using the latest release of Cascading Style Sheets, CSS3.  This book is forward-thinking because all the featured code and techniques are standards-compliant, and it demonstrate best practices—you won't waste your time on outdated, bad techniques. Your web pages will work properly in most web browsers and be accessible to web users with disabilities, easily located using popular search engines, and compact in file size. Even if you already know HTML5 and CSS3 basics, this book will still be useful to you. It features comprehensive reference tables, so you can look up troublesome attributes, codes, and properties quickly and easily. What you’ll learn Standards-compliant HTML5, not outdated techniques Styling and layout basics using CSS3 Who this book is for Web designers and developers who want to bring themselves up to speed in the correct usage of HTML5 and CSS3, or those starting out in modern web development. Table of Contents Getting Started HTML and CSS Basics The Document Structuring Content Embedding Media Linking the Web Constructing Tables Building Forms Page Layout with CSS Putting it All Together