Results 11 to 14 of 14 | « previous
- McMillion$ : the absolutely true story of how an unlikely pair of FBI agents brought down the most supersized fraud in fast food history / by Hernandez, James Lee,author.; Lazarte, Brian.;
- "In March of 2001, Federal prosecutor Mark Devereaux cold-called Rob Holm, the head of security for McDonald's Corporation. Without explanation, Devereaux asked that Holm and several other McDonald's senior executives plan a visit to the Jacksonville, Florida, FBI, and tell no one about their intended destination. It wasn't up for discussion. Upon their arrival, Devereaux watched them closely, looking at body language, checking for tells. To him, they were all potential suspects. Once they were seated in an unremarkable conference room, sealed away in the hyper-secure FBI building, Devereaux began to lay out a shocking conspiracy, one that ran deep into McDonald's most beloved promotions: the Monopoly game. This is where they began to discover from 1989 to 2001, almost every high-value prize winner was actually illegitimate. But how could this happen and who all was behind it? A rookie FBI agent and a brilliant undercover operation led them to one man who brilliantly crafted a near-infallible nationwide conspiracy for fraud. Expanded from the wildly popular HBO docuseries with major new interviews, McMILLION$ traces this massive crime, the intricate web of lies that bolstered it, and the tireless work of the FBI agents that unraveled it all. It is a story littered with tragedy: families torn apart, betrayals, financial ruin, and one suspicious car crash. Yet, there are bright spots in the hijinks of the FBI agents and their co-conspirators. Ultimately, it is a story of what happens when the American dream goes very wrong"--
- Subjects: True crime stories.; McDonald's Corporation.; Fraud investigation; Fraud;
- Minique : a novel / by Maxymiw, Anna,author.;
- "The buzzing in her head gets louder, like there are more bees, and the itching on the top of her mouth is everywhere now, all across her tongue and teeth and the inside of her cheeks, hot, hot, hot. She takes a breath and she sees these men in the forest, sees their hands covered in blood as they skin beavers, ripping the fur from the shiny meat. Montréal, 1680s: Minique has a secret she can't ever tell. She knows there are horrific consequences for girls and women who do not conform. She saw it with her own eyes when Anne, the aubergiste, was viciously marched through town and charged with crimes she didn't commit. Besides, Minique's never had family members to tell. She remembers little of her mother, a fille du roi, who arrived in Montréal on a ship; she rarely sees her father, a coureur des bois who is often away; and she barely speaks with her Tante Marie, a stern, hard woman. Years later, after a string of tragedies, Minique has abandoned the hostility of the town and its people. She has built a home for herself in the woods, outside the boundary of Montréal. But her solitary existence is interrupted when she learns that Antoine de Cadillac, an ambitious Frenchman with a violent past, is after a monopoly of the fur trade in New France. Though initially repulsed by his greed, Minique is powerfully drawn to him. Soon, their paths start to cross in unpredictable ways as Cadillac's determination to learn more about the "witch in the wood" intensifies. They forge a reckless, passionate connection with an ever-shifting dynamic that Minique welcomes until she realizes that everything--down to the core of who she is and the secret she carries--is at stake. By turns fierce, gripping, poignant, and menacing, Minique is historical fiction with a contemporary twist. Here is a one-of-a-kind story about a woman's reckoning with her own power and what she will do to protect it."--Provided by publisher.
- Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Man-woman relationships; Secrecy; Survival; Women;
- The end of reality : how four billionaires are selling a fantasy future of the metaverse, mars, and crypto / by Taplin, Jonathan T.,author.;
- Includes bibliographical references and index."At a time when the crises of income inequality, climate, and democracy, are compounding to create epic wealth disparity and the prospect of a second American civil war, four billionaires are hyping schemes that are designed to divert our attention away from issues that really matter. Each scheme -- the metaverse, cryptocurrency, space travel, and transhumanism -- is an existential threat in moral, political, and economic terms. In The End of Reality, Jonathan Taplin provides perceptive insight into the personal backgrounds and cultural power of these billionaires -- Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreesen ("The Four") -- and shows how their tech monopolies have brought middle-class wage stagnation, the hollowing out of many American towns, a radical increase in income inequality, and unbounded public acrimony. Meanwhile, the enormous amount of taxpayer money to be funneled into the dystopian ventures of "The Four", the benefits of which will accrue to billionaires, exacerbate these disturbing trends. The End of Reality is both scathing critique and reform agenda that replaces the warped worldview of The Four with a vision of regenerative economics that seeks to build a sustainable society with healthy growth and full employment"--
- Subjects: Economics; Equality; Metaverse;
- Supremacy : AI, ChatGPT, and the race that will change the world / by Olson, Parmy,author.;
- Includes bibliographical references and index."In November of 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was an AI chatbot called ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world's two leading AI firms, OpenAI and DeepMind, who now steers Google's AI efforts, has remained elusive -- until now. In Supremacy, Olson, tech writer at Bloomberg, tells the astonishing story of the battle between these two AI firms, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the hazardous direction they could go as they serve two tech monopolies whose power is unprecedented in history. The story focuses on the continuing rivalry of two key CEOs at the center of it all, who cultivated a religion around their mission to build god-like super intelligent machines: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind. Supremacy sharply alerts readers to the real threat of artificial intelligence that its top creators are ignoring: the profit-driven spread of flawed and biased technology into industries, education, media and more. With exclusive access to a network of high-ranking sources, Parmy Olson uses her 13 years of experience covering technology to bring to light the exploitation of the greatest invention in human history, and how it will impact us all"--
- Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Altman, Sam, 1985-; Hassabis, Demis, 1976-; Google DeepMind (Firm); OpenAI (Firm); ChatGPT.; Artificial intelligence;
Results 11 to 14 of 14 | « previous