(Part 2) Best engineering books according to redditors

I like the hula hoop idea.

My go to suggestion is a copy of Basic Training for Dummies with Air Force Confetti between the pages and a Marine Corps bookmark marking Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Make Your Drill Instructor Happy.

And make sure to address it using Navy Rank. They love that shit.

I haven't read any of these books yet (except for the first one), but they're on my wishlist. I do have "Where is my Jetpack?" though and although it's an awesome, beautiful book, it might not be what you're looking for as it has original illustrations rather than vintage one.

Some suggestions:

Little Vintage Book of SciFi - Selections from vintage scifi comic books.

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future

The Wonderful Future That Never Was

the injection molding reference guide
http://www.amazon.com/Injection-Molding-Reference-Guide-EDITION/dp/1466407824

for some more education
http://www.amazon.com/Injection-Molding-Handbook-Tim-Osswald/dp/1569904200

and my favorite by mr john beaumont
http://www.rakuten.com/prod/runner-and-gating-design-handbook/209111541.html?listingId=337818662&scid=pla_google_SynergyDataInc&adid=17260&gclid=CNu51LT84r0CFbBj7AodK38ApA

Amazon link for the lazy/impulsive buyer in us all.

Upvoted for both and the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook is a nice reference too.

https://smile.amazon.com/NASA-Systems-Engineering-Handbook-SP-2007-6105/dp/1780391382?sa-no-redirect=1

There are also historical and geographical reasons, to be fair. Although it's centered around the development of cell phone standards in the UK and not the US, this book has a good section about why cell phone rollout was such a shit show in the US compared to Europe: https://smile.amazon.com/Backroom-Boys-Secret-Return-British-ebook/dp/B004FN1K48/

(ignore the annoying jingoistic tone of the book if you can)

Dandelion Chocolate's Making Chocolate is a pretty informative book. I highly recommend it. Beckett's The Science of Chocolate and Greweling's Chocolate and Confections (as mentioned in this thread) are also great resources.

Highly recommend Mark Klein's book, "Wiring up the Big Brother Machine..and fighting it." Terrific book in which he talks about his experience with the NSA, AT&T and the EFF.
http://www.amazon.com/Wiring-Big-Brother-Machine-Fighting/dp/1439229961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300667710&sr=8-1

Buon Natale!

A History of Technology non é stato scannerizzato, questo é il prezzo piú basso che si trova

Speaking as someone with a MFA in Theatrical Design and Technology and who has worked in film and television the last few years, I never ran across a widely accepted standard.

I setup my layers up in a very straight forward fashion:

0-ghost, 0-very light, 0-light, 0-med...0-very heavy
1-line type (hidden, phantom, etc)
2-Dims, 2-Notes, 2-Notes Red, etc

I'm not sitting at my computer so I can't recall all my layers, but I feel like I approached them as I approached linework as a hand draftsman... And I feel like I change how I do it every year.

For my layouts

Page 1 is Plan and what elevations for (in 1/4" and 3/4" for more complicated objects)
Page 2 to as needed is continuation of elevations
Then I go into details (full or half scale) and renderings as needed


Some excellence books

Drafting for the Theatre https://www.amazon.com/dp/0809330377/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4CUiDbWGFMX9A


Designer Drafting and Visualizing for the Entertainment World, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818911/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JEUiDbK121Y4D

The Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information https://www.amazon.com/dp/0911747397/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DFUiDbGBHHPHK

Architectural Graphic Standards. Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EZI774/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.GUiDbZP96C4H - for theater, don't bother with a brand new edition, I have 3rd (all the drawings are by hand and are shit yourself gorgeous) and seventh? (I would have to check my library). The current edition is needed for current building code, but that typically doesn't pertain to what I do.

Here is my go to book for optimal tap and die drill sizes as well as a whole host of other technical information, formulas, and conversion tables.

Pocket Ref

Here is the Desk Ref version with larger pages.

Desk Ref

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/How-Technology-Works-Things-Work/dp/1465479643&ved=2ahUKEwj_2dHO-9DjAhVnAp0JHbAkAhUQFjAIegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1LuDALWBRad10fdiK2xS3L

I have this book beside me because I love to learn things. Because I know I can use these things in the future.

I am reading a great one. It's kinda obscure . https://www.amazon.com/Art-Doing-Science-Engineering-Learning/dp/9056995006

Answer: A misunderstanding of Kant.

But jokes aside, it seems to hinge on the claim that we do actually have access to the absolute. Meillassoux's argument is that the statements made by science about events that existed outside of possible experience do not make sense within the philosophies that start with the subject's mode of cognition (correlationism). Or else, their meaning for science is very different from their meaning once interpreted through correlationist philosophies. Correlationist philosophies always insert "givenness". "From evidence 'x', I conclude that the universe began 14 billion years ago" turns into something like "From evidence 'x', I conclude it is given to me that the universe began 14 billion years ago".

I used to be incredibly taken by it, but now tend to think it is a fairly naive critique of Kant. A much more interesting reflection on the contradiction between natural science and philosophies of the subject can be found in R. Scott Bakker's review of Catherine Malabou’s Before Tomorrow. Sorry for the massive quotes, but I'm confident you'll find it a fascinating perspective:

>To put it into Kantian terms, the cognitive sciences amount to a metacritique of reason, a multibillion dollar colonization of Kant’s traditional domain. […] The problem, in other words, is both epistemic and social. Epistemically, the reality of thought need not satisfy our traditional conceptions, which suggests, all things being equal, that it will very likely contradict them. And socially, no matter how one sets about ontologically out-fundamentalizing the sciences, the fact remains that ‘ontologically out-fundamentalizing’ is the very discursive game that is being marginalized—disenchanted.

and

>So what do we do with transcendental speculation a la Kant? Do we ignore what cognitive science has learned about the fractionation, limits, and default propensities of human metacognition? Do we assume he was onto something distinct, a second, physically inexplicable order enabling cognition of the empirical in addition to the physically explicable (because empirical) order that we know (thanks to strokes, etc.) enables cognition of the empirical? Or do we assume that Kant was onto something dimly, which, given his ignorance of cognitive science, he construed dogmatically as distinct? Do we recognize the a priori as a fetishization of medial neglect, as way to make sense of the fractionate, heuristic nature of cognition absent any knowledge of that nature?
>
>The problem with defending the first, transcendental thesis is that the evidence supporting the second empirical hypothesis will simply continue to accumulate. This is where the social problem rears its head, why the kind of domain overlap demonstrated above almost certainly signals the doom of Malabou’s discursive tradition. Continental philosophers need to understand how disenchantment works, how the mere juxtaposition of traditional and scientific claims socially delegitimizes the former. The more cognitive science learns about experience and cognition, the less relevant and less credible traditional philosophical discourses on the nature of experience and cognition will become.
>
>The cognitive scientific metacritique of reason, you could say, reveals the transcendental as an artifact of our immaturity, of an age when we hearkened to the a priori as our speculative authority.

and

>[…] rather than turn to cognitive science to “search for the origin of thinking outside of consciousness and will,” the Speculative Realists I encountered (with the exception of thinkers like David Roden) embraced traditional vocabularies. Their break with traditional Kantian philosophy, I realized, did not amount to a break with traditional intentional philosophy. Far from calling attention to the problem, ‘correlation’ merely focused intellectual animus toward an effigy, an institutional emblem, stranding the 21st century Speculative Realists in the very interpretative mire they used to impugn 20th century Continental philosophy. Correlation was a hopeful, but ultimately misleading diagnosis. The problem isn’t that cognitive systems and environments are interdependent, the problem is that this interdependence is conceived intentionally. Think about it. Why do we find the intentional interdependence of cognition and experience so vexing when the ecological interdependence of cognitive systems and environments is simply given in biology? What is it about intentionality?
>
>[…] I’ve spent years now prospecting the desert of the real, the post-intentional landscape that, if I’m right, humanity is doomed to wander into and evaporate. I too was a Derridean once, so I know a path exists between her understanding and mine. I urge her to set aside the institutional defense mechanisms as I once did: charges of scientism or performative contradiction simply beg the question against the worst-case scenario. I invite her to come see what philosophy and the future look like after the death of transcendence, if only to understand the monstrosity of her discursive other. I challenge her to think post-human thoughts—to understand cognition materially, rather than what traditional authority has made of it. I implore her to see how the combination of science and capital is driving our native cognitive ecologies to extinction on an exponential curve.
>
>And I encourage everyone to ask why, when it comes to the topic of meaning, we insist on believing in happy endings? We evolved to neglect our fundamental ecological nature, to strategically hallucinate spontaneities to better ignore the astronomical complexities beneath. Subreption has always been our mandatory baseline. As the cognitive ecologies underwriting those subreptive functions undergo ever more profound transformations, the more dysfunctional our ancestral baseline will become. With the dawning of AI and enhancement, the abstract problem of meaning has become a civilizational crisis.
>
>Best we prepare for the worst and leave what was human to hope.

​

Well one cheap way would be an earthenware and sand chamber with charcoal and a bellows... This is very labor intensive though and you might have an easier time building a small 'box' out of fire brick and run a propane burner into it. Such a structure built into the ground is very well insulated and maintains more consistent heat.You can probably do option #2 for 30 bucks or so...

If you want to go reeeally cheap you can always pit fire them... This involves an ordinary fire pit... slowly dry out the clay on the stones of the fire ring, turning regularly. Then move the pieces closer and closer until they are in the fire. Build a big fire around the pieces and let it burn all night. The slow heating and cooling cycle will temper it and the proximity to the fuel source will give the piece a lovely patina.

One note on using ancient methods- you can make almost anything using ancient furnaces and kilns that you can make with modern ones- you just have to make more of them because your results wont be as consistent and you are much more likely to break or ruin the piece. Size is also a consideration. Try not to get too attached to ceramics you intend to pit fire.

here's a couple of great reference books with great illustrations and directions...
http://www.amazon.com/Primitive-Technology-Book-Earth-Skills/dp/0879059117

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00268EV9K/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0879059117&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1NQEHPV654RVB6RSZE4X

"The Day the Universe Changed"

Reading your entry reminded me of Steven Johnson's [How We Got to Now] (https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Got-Now-Innovations/dp/1594632960) and namely the point he argues is opposite yours ... but sort of tangential.

The "lone inventor/genius" trope is generally a false one -- Edison was rather a PT Barnum-type of huckster -- he even claimed his lightbulbs would "never burn out" . . . if anything I'd put Musk and Jobs in this camp . . . a talking head on top of 10,000 employees doing hard work. Vision is important, don't get me wrong, but leadership and charisma are limited forms of "genius". Henry Ford was a weird thinker and an utterly ruthless capitalist -- not that that didn't lead him down the path to innovative solutions (like owning the whole supply chain, and inventing the charcoal briquette industry to find an outlet for his scrap wood).

Ideas and invention come about through not just one smart person, but rather many ideas being linked together (and you do hint at this also) but don't forget that timing is critical too. We have all seen fusion reactors and space industries move down from the government sector to the private sector not because "people are geniuses" but because computing and materials costs have dropped so much. Not to mention there's a whole generation of young people educated enough to run the computers.

Egypt was great not because of the pyramids, but because the could produce enough calories through farming to feed thousands of people and free them from the tedium of gathering food. They could then focus on art, culture, science, invention.

While you sure need engineering knowledge, learning inventiveness is something different

Two of the best books on the subject :

http://www.amazon.com/Trizics-yourself-impossible-technical-systematically/dp/1456319892/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408460727&sr=1-4&keywords=simplified+triz

http://www.amazon.com/Sparks-Genius-Thirteen-Thinking-Creative/dp/0618127453/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408464654&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=genius+bernstrein

Ignoring your juvenile snarkiness, here are two key texts on the philosophy of technology that I frequently draw from:

Friis, Pedersen, and Hendricks.

Rowman and Littlefield.

These are authoritative edited reference volumes on the topic, and nowhere in either of them is there even a shadow of a doubt that animals are not machines. Anyone who believes otherwise believes in magic. I don't waste my time with that idiocy.