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Review: Engines of Our Ingenuity
In a timely and very entertaining new book, mechanical engineer and radio commentator John Lienhard recounts the history of human invention and the ways in which technology and ingenuity have affected human history, from the genetic mishap that created wheat, to the monks who built the first mechanical clocks, to the rise of modern computing.
For centuries engineers were a marginalized species, toiling away to design and build the modern world even though few people understood or appreciated what they did. But a few particularly literate engineers -- technologist/writers like Samuel Florman -- created a small but potent literary genre devoted to technology and its impact on society. John Lienhard's "Engines of Our Ingenuity" is a worthy example of this genre -- the author is a mechanical engineer and professional writer -- recounting the history of the world's tinkerers and technologists, from Archmides and his screw pump to the monks who came up with mechanical clocks (an artifact of medieval monasteries) to modern engineers.
Lienhard (who hosts an NPR radio program on technology and creativity believes that technology is a mirror of humanity, and his book is a highly readable affirmation of that theory. He writes about technology with humor, insight and a reservoir of historical perspective. He also warns about the dangers of unthinking technology, and of the technological hubris epidemic in America.
But Lienhard also chronicles one of the world's earliest genetic mishaps -- the accidental creation of modern what by starving farmers. This and other anecdotes provide a bit of pause in the age of the Human Genome Project, when it seems as if the tools to bend evolution's rules are close at hand.
Fittingly, he also refers to the Code of Hammurabi, one of the first codified systems of law, dating back to the days of Babylonian dominance. That code dictated that if a mason constructed a building which collapsed and killed the owner, the mason would be summarily executed. Imagine the bloodbath if modern engineers and inventors were held accountable that way.
"Getting things right is a far bigger worry in today's dense technology than it was thousands of years ago," Linehard writes. "Yet while we do not threaten to amputate surgeon's hands or kill engineer's children, our resulting technologies are still surprisingly safe. Only one person in ten million dies each year from the structural failure of a building. And tens of millions of Americans safely make commercial flights between the rare fatalities that do occur."
Lienhard also traces in Enginesthe strange ways in which technologies evolve -- like the fact that telephone companies took decades to figure out that people's interest in phones was primarily social, not commercial.
He offers an inventive take on the rise of the computer which, he suggests, basically invented itself. "We instinctively build machines that resonate with us," he says. "The technologies of writing and printing each altered the way in which we see the world. Each opened our eyes to the expanded possibilities they presented to us. Each profoundly changed our civilization."
This is not only an entertaining but an informative and useful book in a world in which technology has become a central social, cultural and economic force. Few people really want to talk much about it, or understand its history. Lienhard trains his sights on the intersection of technology and culture, and there could hardly be a more timely, entertaining or relevant book on the subject, especially for people who care about technology and it's impact on society.
Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
I mean, damn... don't be so paranoid. You're acting just like Katz! *grin*.
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seumas.com
The irony is just too wonderful..people on a site like this bouncing off the ceiling cause they couldn't filter out a writer they don't like. Has to go into one of the books..Mmmm...
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I have an idea (apologies to those who actually want to talk about this good book). How bout you all get blocking software for your filtering software..sort of like a double condom? That might protect you..
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Here are just a few of my favorite episodes of the Engines of our Ingenuity:
- No. 833: FERMAT'S LAST STAND, in which Dr. Lienhard examines the solution to Fermat's Last Stand... and concludes we may have lost something in its proof
- No. 157: THOMAS CRAPPER, in which Dr. Lienhard debunks the myth that Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet.
- No. 984: FAILED CONSERVATION?, in which Dr. Lienhard points out the counterintuitive relationship between efficiency and consumption.
Those of us who live near the University of Houston, where Engines is produced, are lucky to have been able to hear this radio program for many years. May it continue many more.--Jim
> How the fsck is this offtopic? There are 5 or 6 other posts about Katz below this and how this one slipped through. Who is doing this moderation?
/. page to get started on meta-moderation. (Sorry, ACs need not apply.)
Start meta-moderating, and maybe you'll get a chance to straighten it out.
Visit the FAQ linq at the upper left of the main
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That's the same thing I thought when I started hearing the radio shows. The show is pretty good, however, and I don't necessary have a problem with John Katz' articles either :P
Ok, so we have a story about new anti-drug-speech legislation being hidden in a bankrupcy bill. They do this so the legislation can slip in hopefully without being noticed.
Shortly thereafter, we have a Jon Katz article posted by timothy. I assume this was done so his writing could slip in under my Katz filter.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Imagine the bloodbath if modern engineers and inventors were held accountable that way.
Finally a use for the DMCA: no more excecutions!
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
Please mark these as posted by Jon Katz so that my Katz filter would work.
I've long since stopped complaining about his bad writing, recycled opinions and weak overall composition, since I finally just filtered him out. I've been much happier since then, but if he gets to post around my filters, I get to complain.
So should the engineers be held accountable, or the government officials?
I've been bothered for some time about the differences between the concept of professionalism in engineering, and the lack of any such concept in the management and bureaucratic fields. Engineers take tests and work under the guidance of qualified mentors in order to obtain a Professional Engineer license. This is so they can "sign off" on designs that people's lives depend on, putting their qualification and reputation on the line. I'm not sure of all the legalities in terms of being sued for engineering malpractice, but there is certainly the risk of losing one's license if a design turns out to be flawed, or a calculation incorrect.
Managers and bureaucrats seem to get a pass on this kind of structured responsibility. While they often have more power than engineers, their profession is "too uncertain", "too difficult", etc, for them to be held accountable when they screw up. Of course they can be fired, at least managers in private industry can be fired (I'm not so sure about government bureaucrats), but they aren't held up to the same professional standard as engineers. It's almost like politics, where good intentions and sincerity seem to be more important than having a good plan, or actual results.
"Since no one reads Katz anymore..."
/. have killfiltered _anyone_. Any person, regardless of whether you agreed with what they have said in the past may have someting valuable to say in the future. I'm sure you are all the the same "parrots" who screech about free speech issues too. Hypocrites. Stop trying to be cool ok boys? Try to contribute. If anything kills the interesting banter here, its YOUR Katz-bashing, and all the whining about moderation.
Idiot. I doubt that even a significant minority of the regular readers of
Another Example for you: The Interstate 5, Cal Highway 14 Interchange. The Sylmar Quake in '71 knocked it down, a photo of the wreckage was even featured on one of the Doobie Brothers albums (can't remember which one). They rebuilt it the exact same way, and what do you know, it fell down the on the next big quake that came in the area, Northridge in '94. Now that's not just bad design, thats reimplementation of a failed design. We should be knee deep in the heads of Caltrans engineers after that.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
As mentioned in the article, John Lienhard does a radio program as well- it's actually more of a commentary on a single topic than a program, running somewhere around 5 minutes long. It's used a filler material by a lot of NPR stations.
:-)
Anyway, he's done a bazillion of these shows, and I'm guessing they were the primary source material for the book (which I haven't read). Fortunately, the transcripts (all 1500+) are available on the web. They're interesting reading and good for at least a few hours of time wastage.
There are transcripts of the show available at the University of Houston.
Because the &^#% review was written by &^#% Katz but was POSTED by &^#% timothy so the &^#% filter didn't work like it should.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
even better listen to him on the radio, ot read the transcripts of his radio show at http://www.uh.edu/engines/ . I live in Houston where this originates and have had the privelifge of hearing Dr. Leinhard speak in person and to have a (albeit quite brief) conversation with him. He is given to a pariculary well rounded perception of events that have shaped our societ(y)(ies). He has been working quite some time on putting the content of his excelent radio commentary into book form and though I have not yet obtained my own copy ( I will soon) I understand that he has done an excelent adaptation to the different medium.
morturii
Just when thought it was safe to read Slashdot...
Katz!!!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Didn't know he was running a bookstore now...
This book annoyed me. It was like this single person (who was probably white and over 30!) felt that he could decide whatever went in it. What gave him the right to ignore the many experts under the age of 30 that could have contributed to his ideas? Imagine how much better this book could have been if millions of experienced Open Media readers had been able to review it at Beta stage and submit patches!
After all, we all know that closed source Old Media books are full of stupid bugs, like bad grammar, typos, and people not closing brackets. Conversely, Open Media never has these problems because "With enough eyeballs all typos are shallow".
So, let's have no more of this Old Media. Why wasn't this book submitted under that GPL-like license for books? Where's the website? I mean, this one person OWNS ALL THE RIGHTS TO THIS BOOK. Come on guys wake up! Did you know that most US schools have 100% of their library books under restrictive licenses enforced by greedy publishing companies and authors who won't share their code! We have to change this, because even though almost all publishing companies are pretty nice and let you photocopy stuff for personal use, THEY MIGHT BE BOUGHT UP BY MICROSOFT AT ANY TIME and then Bill would take our books away!
Come and join Open Media books project to work on our Open Media implementation of all the books ever written. We are currently working on "See Spot Run" and have implemented most letters apart from vowels. This should be ready for alpha release soon.
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Fittingly, he also refers to the Code of Hammurabi, one of the first codified systems of law dating back to the days of Babylonian dominance. That code dictated that if a mason constructed a building which collapsed and killed the owner, the mason would be summarily executed. Imagine the bloodbath if modern engineers and inventors were held accountable that way.
This idea was stressed and reinforced when I was taking engineering classes. We realized we had responsibilities akin to a doctor, except a doctor has a hard time killing hundreds of people at one time.
Now, I may be an old fart, but this was only 15 years ago, I can't imagine it has changed much (BS Aerospace, 1988).
So, Mr. Katz, I'm having trouble imagining the bloodbath, can you name a few? The double decker highways collapsing in Oakland or Japan? I'm sure a foolish company put in an earthquake resistant bid for those, and I'm sure they weren't the low bidder. Some government official decided those highways didn't need to be earthquake resistant, maybe we should execute them.
You might want to execute the builders too, if you use shitty materials, the best design in the world won't help.
Oh yeah, Salon has a review on a similar book, Collapse, when buildings fall
down.
Also, could we extend your analogy to journalists? Can we execute a journalist if a suicidal teen reads their work?
Of course, engineers and inventors aren't held accountable that way, but then, the only people that are held accountable with a penatly of death are poor, retarded minorities (unless you live in an enlightened country).
George