We Americans love to have ourselves a big old time. It's not just our waistlines that have exploded outward since the post-WWII era. Our houses have grown larger, as have the appliances within them, the vehicles in their driveways, the income inequalities between ourselves and our neighbors, and the challenges we face on a rapidly warming planet. In his new book, Size: How It Explains the World, Dr. Vaclav Smil, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, takes readers on a multidiscipline tour of the social quirks, economic intricacies, and biological peculiarities that result from our function following our form.William MorrowFrom SIZE by Vaclav Smil. Copyright 2023 by Vaclav Smil. Reprinted courtesy of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.Modernity’s Infatuation With Larger SizesA single human lifetime will have witnessed many obvious examples of this trend in sizes. Motor vehicles are the planet’s most numerous heavy mobile objects. The world now has nearly 1.5 billion of them, and they have been getting larger: today’s bestselling pickup trucks and SUVs are easily twice or even three times heavier than Volkswagen’s Käfer, Fiat’s Topolino, or Citroën’s deux chevaux — family cars whose sales dominated the European market in the early 1950s.Sizes of homes, refrigerators, and TVs have followed the same trend, not only because of technical advances but because the post–Second World War sizes of national GDPs, so beloved by the... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2023-06-04 14:30:20 UTC ]
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Amazon is the Standard Oil of the 21st century. Its business operations and global reach dwarf those of virtually every other company on the planet — and exceed the GDP of more than a few countries — illustrating the vital importance innovation has on the modern economy. In his latest book, The... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-10-16 15:30:33 UTC ]
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Amazon’s audiobook service Audible and phone apps for reading the holy books of Islam and Christianity have disappeared from the Apple store in mainland China Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2021-10-15 21:01:46 UTC ]
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During the Roaring '20s just about everybody was convinced that dirigibles were not just the future of luxury travel but that these lumbering airships could also serve as platforms for scientific exploration and adventure. Why slog through malaria-infested jungles, parched deserts and frozen... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-09-18 15:30:21 UTC ]
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Art may imitate life but it rarely does so with realistic fidelity. As Naomi Pequette, Space Science Programs Specialist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, argues in her essay "The Sounds of Contact" as part of The Science if Sci-Fi Cinema: Essays on the Art and Principles of Ten Films,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-09-04 15:30:43 UTC ]
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A newly launched professional bookseller certification program aims to boost indie bookselling skills. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Between CEO Elon Musk's often erratic antics, strident competition from existing industry titans, and a public that is still not fully sold on the idea of traveling via electrical charge, Tesla's road to prominence has not been a smooth one. But facing a federal investigation into its driver... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-08-21 15:00:52 UTC ]
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Deep in the heart of Appalachia, modern science and America's bucolic past meet at a unique crossroad of scientific discovery and luddite lifestyles. The Quiet Zone, by journalist Stephen Kurczy, is the story of a sleepy small town that hosts the Green Bank radio telescope. But the presence of... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2021-08-14 15:30:30 UTC ]
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Far fewer politically sensitive titles are on display in the first such event since Beijing imposed sweeping new regulations Booksellers at Hong Kong’s annual book fair are offering a reduced selection of books deemed politically sensitive, as they try to avoid violating a sweeping national... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-15 10:57:25 UTC ]
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An emergency fund has been opened to get quick aid to West London's Saqi Books, a publisher and bookstore reporting severe flood damage. The post Saqi Books in London Hit by Monday’s Flash Flooding appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-07-13 19:52:32 UTC ]
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Internet sensation Jackie Weaver’s first book You Do Have the Authority Here! has gone to Constable, promising "plain old common sense". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-07-07 23:20:50 UTC ]
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Blockbuster projects share one common trait. Do you dream of opening that blockbuster restaurant, writing a New York Times best-selling book, or releasing a chart-topping album? A new study out of Northwestern University suggests a pivotal ingredient.Read Full Story Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2021-04-09 16:21:42 UTC ]
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Vaseem Khan was reading about the history of Mumbai as part of research for his successful Baby Ganesh Agency series—which stars the newly retired Inspector Chopra and the elephant he inherits on his last day of work—when he came across a fact that made him sit up. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-28 16:04:12 UTC ]
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The law firm that successfully sued Apple and five major publishers for colluding to fix e-book prices in 2011 has filed a class action against Amazon, accusing the company of colluding with the Big Five publishers to eliminate price competition from the e-book market. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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If you, like me, could really use some nice library-oriented news right about now, you’re in luck. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the impossibility of going to physical libraries for much of the year, readers borrowed record numbers of ebooks, audiobooks, and digital magazines from public... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-07 15:34:02 UTC ]
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In the modern digital media landscape, we are not the customers — or even the audience — we are the product. Every time we log on, our personal data including where we go, what we search for, who we interact with and what we buy is scraped, siphoned,... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-10-24 15:00:11 UTC ]
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Brooklyn’s Greenpoint library and environmental education center, by Marble Fairbanks and Scape, points to a climate-literate future. Here’s how. I have spent a lot of time in libraries in my day. But not one like this.Read Full Story Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2020-10-23 12:15:29 UTC ]
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Back in 2008, New York Times best-selling author and Boing Boing alum, Cory Doctorow introduced Markus “w1n5t0n” Yallow to the world in the original Little Brother (which you can still read for free right here). The story follows the talented teenage... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-10-17 15:30:50 UTC ]
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Author-illustrator Emily Gravett caps off a busy 12 months with her new picture book Too Much Stuff, a tale about how less can often be more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-01 10:27:38 UTC ]
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Figures for last year show sales of £6.3bn, up 20% on 2015, but the Publishers Association says sector needs government support to weather coronavirusBook sales in the UK hit record levels in 2019, driven by a surge in audiobook and nonfiction titles, according to new figures released as... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-21 23:01:08 UTC ]
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Egmont has snapped up a picture book of "The Great Realisation", Tomos Roberts' poem in response to Covid-19 that has been viewed more than 60 million times since it was posted online in April. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-29 12:53:30 UTC ]
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