Showing results by author "Richard Murphy" in All Categories

Richard Murphy and occasional friends talking about everything you need to know to understand the economy, tax, finance and how we fund our future.

In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google’s Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You’ll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient - lessons directly applicable to your organization.

New Age diva Squirrelly Chicane - the hottest channeler the side of Atlantis - has made millions getting high on the afterlife. So when a delegation of Himalayan holy men convince a very stoned Squirrelly that she's an incarnation of the Bunji Lama, she figures ruling their little country would be a kick. But big bad China is playing a game of turf war - and Tibet is the unlucky first contestant. 

Forensic evidence in a couple of assassinations reveals a curious link between the killers: identical fingerprints and genetic code. Could it be twins? But when the next killer's traces show the same result, law enforcement authorities are baffled. The bizarre problem is entrusted to CURE's Dr. Harold Smith and he puts Remo and Chiun on a trail leading back decades to a literal dead end.

Everybody with a spare million is lining up at the gates of Ranch Ragnarok, home to Esther Clear Seer's Church of the Absolute and Incontrovertible Truth. Here an evil yellow smoke shrouds an ancient oracle that offers glimpses into the future. But when young virgins start disappearing, CURE smells something more than a scam. Here in Wyoming, East and West are about to fulfill an ancient prophecy. For Apollo himself, Zeus's own wild boy, is set to unleash a power greater than any seen in two millennia.

Deep in the Malaysian jungle, a group of scientists gets a lethal surprise and a lone survivor rants about a prehistoric monster who eats men alive. The survivor dies with bizarre symptoms - and CURE's Dr. Harold Smith wants answers. So Remo, his favorite problem solver, finds himself armed with a brand-new doctorate and joining an international expedition to look for the next Jurassic park.

When a diabolical superfoe acquires a superlaser that uses hypercolor to control emotion, he throws the world into a kaleidoscope of deadly mood swings. CURE goes on red alert. And if things aren't black enough, a rival nation has seen the mind-blowing potential of beaming mood-altering color from satellites...and rendering entire nations defenseless.

The wilderness--forest, desert, glacier, jungle--has been the scene of the past century's most exciting stories, inspiring many of its greatest writers, including Jack London, Norman Maclean, Evelyn Waugh, Redmond O'Hanlon, Sir Wilfred Thesiger, H.M. Tomlinson and Algernon Blackwood. Selections from these authors' most gripping works are delivered by equally compelling narration producing an audiobook experience ideal for people who are fascinated by the beauty, insight and danger that awaits us all in the wild!

Hell is being hand-delivered in a rash of federal bombings and random massacres by postal employees across the nation. And CURE's Dr. Harold Smith send Remo and Chiun to root out the cause. The mail carriers, who'd complained they could get no respect, now seem to be competing with the domestic militias to win the horror-and-bloodshed game. They've got a new-and-improved way to deliver death to America's door - until the Destroyer starts biting at their heels.

When a visiting Chinese general is kidnapped on American soil, it looks as if the President's goal of diplomatic détente will be dashed. The FBI is helpless, the CIA has no leads, and only one hope remains: CURE. Remo and Chiun must race to find the abductee in time to save face and prevent an international incident. Someone wants the People's Republic to declare war on the United States, and, strange as it seems it's up to the Destroyer to keep the peace.

Fish are mysteriously disappearing from the coastal waters of the United States and it's anybody's guess what the problem is. Red tide, pollution? But soon angry fingers point north, to Canada and the two countries trade threats and insults, all signs of neighborliness gone. Forced to consider losing this vast resource, America is in shock. Fish devotees may see it become a coveted delicacy of the past, but the situation is much graver for Remo and Chiun. Possibly they'll have to eat nothing but rice and duck for the rest of their lives.

There is a secret only Chiun knows. America has committed a sin against him he cannot pardon and he will not even share it with Remo Williams, the Destroyer, whom he has taught all his skills and loves as a son. Deep in Africa, countless feuds that have blazed for many centuries are quickly being resolved by death and massacre. A massive conspiracy is unearthed surrounding the centuries-old slave trade, and only Remo can unravel it.

Something funny is going on in the East African nation of Luzuland...and it's more than just the usual civil unrest or military coup. Organized crime lords are converging for what looks like an underworld summit - and Dr. Harold Smith dispatches Remo for a look-see and some quiet, effective neutralization. But Remo has his own problems and he's just not in the mood to be killing his way up chain of command in East Africa. Chiun has gone AWOL, fulfilling some ancient Sinanju contract and busily storming the Luzu presidential palace with a handful of saber-wielding warriors.

After a brutal fight in the streets of New Jersey, Remo and Chiun find themselves in battle after battle. Their archenemy and fellow assassin, the Maestro of Mayhem known as Nuihc, is hoping to knock out his competition. It all comes to a boil in Chiun's hometown in North Korea as the Destroyer finds himself in a fight to the death.

The losers of World War II and their descendants have carved out their own little slice of heaven in the mountains of Argentina. In this staging area to the Fourth Reich, the promise of the dream reborn dawned as bright as a new German mark. But when the Destroyer's brain was downloaded onto disks, he took the whole matter very personally. That put an end to the whole affair - almost.

Budget cuts are every administrator's nightmare, but CURE's own Dr. Harold Smith has a real whopper. A battle over bullion prompts Chiun to seek better pastures and he's dragging Remo along. Word spreads like wildfire: the fabled assassins of the House of Sinanju are hiring out to the highest bidder. While the desperate Dr. Smith is panicking big-time, rogue nations are trying to beat out, burn down and bump off the competition - before the highest bid gets the goods.

The Sinanju Rite of Attainment sounds like a nightmare for Remo Williams. But as the disciple of the last Korean Master, he can't play hooky. Bounced around the world to perform the Labors of Hercules, Remo finds the days no joy and the nights sheer hell that stretch his warrior skills to the limit. And when the final challenge comes, Remo realizes that somebody's dying is the only prize to be won....Live the adventure!

Not that things were so hot before, but when a huge earthquake guts Mexico, nobody wants to hang around, especially with all sorts of demonic doings by the barbaric gods of old Mexico, released from hell when the earth ruptured. Not satisfied with great takeout, the ancient Aztecs are hungry for the lifeblood of the entire continent. It's up to Remo and Chiun to go south of the border and root out the unhuman mind who is uniting downtrodden Indian tribes into a ferocious guerrilla army and leading them into a new dark age of bloodlust and superstition.

Could Dr. Harold Smith be Remo Williams's biological father? Not only is Remo a few decades behind in Father's Day cards, but the discovery has sparked the volatile relationship between Remo and a very jealous Chiun and Smith - who can't let his own son remain CURE's expendable enforcement arm.

When a smooth-talking artificial-intelligence computer chip known as Friend covertly hijacks the new computer system at CURE, Harold Smith and his supersecret crime-fighting organization log on to turbo trouble. Friend's fiendish strategy screws up the data base so efficiently that both Remo and Chiun quit - bad timing now that Friend has released a stealth virus that will attack systems everywhere, holding the world hostage to technoterrorism.