Download or read book A Brief History of Stuff written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how 30,000 bath toys and the work of amateur beachcombers have helped scientists study ocean currents. Explore how the search for a death ray led to the creation of the microwave oven and ready-made meals. Discover the surprising link between sticky tape and the Nobel Prize. Uncover the extraordinary stories of ordinary objects in this perfect gift for curious minds. From the creators of the A Brief History of Stuff podcast and inspired by the incredible artifacts in the Science Museum Group Collection, this collection of entertaining essays reveals the fascinating history behind some of the most mundane items in our homes.
Download or read book The Story of Stuff written by Annie Leonard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic exposé in company with An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health. Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing critique and steps for a changed planet. The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet. From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these. With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic.
Download or read book Stuff You Should Know written by Josh Clark and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the duo behind the massively successful and award-winning podcast Stuff You Should Know comes an unexpected look at things you thought you knew. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant started the podcast Stuff You Should Know back in 2008 because they were curious—curious about the world around them, curious about what they might have missed in their formal educations, and curious to dig deeper on stuff they thought they understood. As it turns out, they aren't the only curious ones. They've since amassed a rabid fan base, making Stuff You Should Know one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Armed with their inquisitive natures and a passion for sharing, they uncover the weird, fascinating, delightful, or unexpected elements of a wide variety of topics. The pair have now taken their near-boundless "whys" and "hows" from your earbuds to the pages of a book for the first time—featuring a completely new array of subjects that they’ve long wondered about and wanted to explore. Each chapter is further embellished with snappy visual material to allow for rabbit-hole tangents and digressions—including charts, illustrations, sidebars, and footnotes. Follow along as the two dig into the underlying stories of everything from the origin of Murphy beds, to the history of facial hair, to the psychology of being lost. Have you ever wondered about the world around you, and wished to see the magic in everyday things? Come get curious with Stuff You Should Know. With Josh and Chuck as your guide, there’s something interesting about everything (...except maybe jackhammers).
Download or read book A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things written by Raj Patel and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today's planetary emergencies. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding-and reclaiming-the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century.
Download or read book The Right Stuff written by Tom Wolfe and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review), The Right Stuff is the basis for the 1983 Oscar Award-winning film of the same name and the 8-part Disney+ TV mini-series. From "America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek)--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. " Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure; namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers, that made The Right Stuff a classic.
Download or read book Stuff Matters written by Mark Miodownik and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening adventure deep inside the everyday materials that surround us, from concrete and steel to denim and chocolate, packed with surprising stories and fascinating science.
Download or read book Stuff written by John C. Ryan and published by Seattle, Wash. : Northwest Environment Watch. This book was released on 1997 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume takes you to the places and people you touch every day. - BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Pocket Guide To Making Stuff Better written by Quinn Hanson and published by OpsCombinator. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you could simultaneously increase revenue and lower costs, would your company benefit? Would you benefit? This wide ranging book teaches leaders, managers, and individual contributors how to super charge processes to improve customer retention and satisfaction, reduce costs, and increase revenue. The backstory: Industrial Engineering blends the problem solving ability of an engineer, the business acumen of an MBA and the people-focus of a social worker. There is a saying that Engineers make stuff, Industrial Engineers make it better. From construction to banking, manufacturing to professional services, tech to sustainability, product design to destruction, task elimination to automation, sales to project management, IEs have an impact in everything. If there is something at work or at home you think could be better, Industrial Engineering is the skill set to make the change. This book details the tools anyone can use to make huge improvements. Companies like Toyota and Apple have become completely dominant in their industries by using Industrial Engineering tools to improve their operations, iterate quickly, build great teams, and create more value for their customers. For the first time, the tools they used are available to everyone in an easy to digest, weekend read. Industrial Engineering may really be thought of as business engineering. To look at a business, analyze how it is functioning and then design a better way to do things is not simple. The tools needed are not obvious and often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn in a graduate school program. This book is an exploration of dozens of those tools at a fraction of the cost. You'll benefit from this if: - You're interested in improving the you way things are done at work - You have management responsibility or supervise anyone - You're a leader, founder, or advisor to a business - You want to approach your managers with succinct plans to make improvements in your role or at the company - You are looking for a ways to earn a promotion
Download or read book Slavery and Public History written by James Oliver Horton and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating collection of essays” by eminent historians exploring how we teach, remember, and confront the history and legacy of American slavery (Booklist Online). In recent years, the culture wars have called into question the way America’s history of slavery is depicted in books, films, television programs, historical sites, and museums. In the first attempt to examine the historiography of slavery, this unique collection of essays looks at recent controversies that have played out in the public arena, with contributions by such noted historians as Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash. From the cancellation of the Library of Congress’s “Back of the Big House” slavery exhibit at the request of the institution’s African American employees, who found the visual images of slavery too distressing, to the public reaction to DNA findings confirming Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, Slavery and Public History takes on contemporary reactions to the fundamental contradiction of American history—the existence of slavery in a country dedicated to freedom—and offers a bracing analysis of how Americans choose to remember the past, and how those choices influence our politics and culture. “Americans seem perpetually surprised by slavery—its extent (North as well as South), its span (over half of our four centuries of Anglo settlement), and its continuing influence. The wide-ranging yet connected essays in [this book] will help us all to remember and understand.” —James W. Loewen, author of Sundown Towns
Download or read book How History Gets Things Wrong written by Alex Rosenberg and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we learn the wrong things from narrative history, and how our love for stories is hard-wired. To understand something, you need to know its history. Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong. Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It's not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature. Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful. Israel and Palestine, for example, have dueling narratives of dispossession that prevent one side from compromising with the other. Henry Kissinger applied lessons drawn from the Congress of Vienna to American foreign policy with disastrous results. Human evolution improved primate mind reading—the ability to anticipate the behavior of others, whether predators, prey, or cooperators—to get us to the top of the African food chain. Now, however, this hard-wired capacity makes us think we can understand history—what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States—by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story.
Download or read book Railways written by Christopher Valkoinen and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exquisite drawings of locomotives, carriages, and stations offering unparalleled insight into the design and operation of the British railway system.
Download or read book Stuff written by Randy O. Frost and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2010-04-20 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller. “Gripping . . . By turns fascinating and heartbreaking . . . Stuff invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things.”—Boston Globe “Amazing . . . utterly engrossing . . . Read it.”—The Washington Post Book World What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that’s ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a person to sacrifice her marriage or career for an accumulation of seemingly useless things? Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago. They didn’t expect that they would end up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of hoarders. Their vivid case studies (reminiscent of Oliver Sacks) in Stuff show how you can identify a hoarder—piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders “churn” but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage—and illuminate the pull that possessions exert over all of us. Whether we’re savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, very few of us are in fact free of the impulses that drive hoarders to extremes. “Authoritative, haunting, and mysterious. It is also intensely, not to say compulsively readable.”—Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author “Fascinating . . . a good mix of cultural and psychological theories on hoarding.”—Newsweek “Pioneering researchers offer a superb overview of a complex disorder that interferes with the lives of more than six-million Americans . . . An absorbing, gripping, important report.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Download or read book The Way I Heard It written by Mike Rowe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emmy-award winning gadfly Rowe presents a ridiculously entertaining, seriously fascinating collection of his favorite episodes from America's #1 short-form podcast, The Way I Heard It, along with a host of memories, ruminations, illustrations, and insights.
Download or read book Stuff written by Chip Colwel and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 3 million years ago, our ancestors realised that rocks could be broken apart for sharp edges, to cut and slice meat. The discovery made for a good meal. It also changed the fate of our species and our planet. In this lively and learned book, Chip Colwell charts three great leaps in humankind’s relationship with objects and belongings, from the discovery of tools to the production of endless commodities. How did we start out as primates who needed nothing, and end up as people who need everything? With colourful characters, astonishing archaeological discoveries, and reflections from philosophy and culture, Colwell’s quest for answers takes readers to places both spectacular and strange: the Italian cave featuring the world’s first painted art; a Hong Kong skyscraper where a priestess channels the gods; a mountain of trash whose height rivals Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. Humans make stuff, but our stuff makes us human—and our love affair with things may be our downfall. With landfills brimming and oceans drowning in plastic, now is the time for a fourth and final leap for humanity: to reevaluate our relationship to the things that make, and could break, our world.
Download or read book The right stuff written by Ian Hay and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Stuff written by Sharlee Jeter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone has difficult moments in life. But everyone also has the ability to overcome hardships—and to not only survive but thrive. Discover how to realize your own potential with “one of the most inspiring and motivating books of our time” (Wes Moore, New York Times bestselling author). In the face of impossible odds—maybe the devastating consequences of a personal loss, the pain of a collapsed career, the struggle against a powerful disease, or a destructive and toxic relationship—how do you keep going? We may wonder if we have the strength to survive this ordeal before us. Dr. Sampson Davis and Sharlee Jeter want to prove that we do. No strangers to adversity themselves, Dr. Sampson Davis and Sharlee Jeter created The Stuff Movement by interviewing dozens of survivors to discovery how they triumphed over their challenges. These inspirational interviews reveal eleven core elements—founded on attributes we all possess—that empower us to not only survive through hardship, but also thrive. You already have the Stuff. Now learn to use it. “Sampson and Sharlee’s message of the power of positivity, hard work, and resilience is one that we need to hear right now” (Chris Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and you can join the conversation at TheStuffMovement.com. Featuring stories from John O’Leary (On Fire), Mercy Alexander, Rich Ruffalo, Mindee Hardin, Glenn and Cara O’Neill, Sean Swarner, Traci Micheline, Wess Stafford (Too Small to Ignore), Austin Hatch, Debra Peppers, Christine Magnus Moore, Martha Hawkins, Ali Stroker (Glee), Susan Scott Krabacher, Deval Patrick, and more.
Download or read book Meaningful Stuff written by Jonathan Chapman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument for a design philosophy of better, not more. Never have we wanted, owned, and wasted so much stuff. Our consumptive path through modern life leaves a wake of social and ecological destruction--sneakers worn only once, bicycles barely even ridden, and forgotten smartphones languishing in drawers. By what perverse alchemy do our newest, coolest things so readily transform into meaningless junk? In Meaningful Stuff, Jonathan Chapman investigates why we throw away things that still work, and shows how we can design products, services, and systems that last. Obsolescence is an economically driven design decision--a plan to hasten a product's functional or psychological undesirability. Many electronic devices, for example, are intentionally impossible to dismantle for repair or recycling, their brief use-career proceeding inexorably to a landfill. A sustainable design specialist who serves as a consultant to global businesses and governmental organizations, Chapman calls for the decoupling of economic activity from mindless material consumption and shows how to do it. Chapman shares his vision for an "experience heavy, material light" design sensibility. This vital and timely new design philosophy reveals how meaning emerges from designed encounters between people and things, explores ways to increase the quality and longevity of our relationships with objects and the systems behind them, and ultimately demonstrates why design can--and must--lead the transition to a sustainable future.
