Well another marathon work gig is done, 43hrs in 3 1/2 days, working against deadline, what can ya do, hustle and meet it.
But this time it was painting, not exactly mindless work
but you could call it ‘rote working’ which leaves the majority of one’s brain free for fun stuff like books on tape… er, iPod.
First “Balance” by Nik Wallenda of tightrope-walking fame, but within the first few minutes turned out that Nik has a direct
line to God Almight and that without God’s safety line holding him up he’d be nothing{my words}.
Gag me with spoon, that was that for Nik.
Then came “Winter King”, by Thomas Penn about 'The Dawn of Tudor England" - interesting re-listen, but another sad reminder
that the folks in power are self absorbed and blind to everything in the world but their own shortsighted interests - damn the price.
Same as it evaa was.
Then, “The Universe Within”, by Neil Shubin, who also wrote the most excellent “Your Inner Fish”
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/your-inner-fish-neil-shubin/1102811347?ean=9780307277459
quite the interesting review of evolution on Earth, despite having a slightly scattered trajectory and his superficial treatment
of historic figures - such as Galileo’s trials and tribulation,
which crossed over into downright irritation when he discussed William Smith,
one of the under appreciated super stars of the Geologic Enlightenment, the man who created “The Map That Changed The World” !
The Map that Changed the World - Wikipedia] -
besides omitting that Smith was a canal builder, what pissed me off was that he neglected to mention that the 2nd geology map printed by
George Bellas, (who had contempt for Smith’s low born status among other grudges and made the first map a financial disaster)
of the Geology Society of London was a plagiarism of Smith’s map.
Earth Sciences | College of Engineering and Physical Sciences
The Geological Society
But, other than those minor irritants, Shubin does an excellent job of reviewing the evolution of our Earth, adding a few new pieces to my understanding,
along with reviewing a whole bunch of other stuff. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the wonder of Earth’s evolution.
Then there was “Consider the Fork”, by Bee Wilson which is basically a historical review of the tools of cooking - Lots of fun that one,
then the revelation that almost made me forget I was on top of scaffolding.
Szilárd Leó and Albert Einstein, invented a thing called the “Einstein refrigerator” which was an absorption refrigerator which has no moving parts, operates at constant pressure, and requires only a heat source to operate, think propane refrigerators!
It was jointly invented in 1926 by Albert Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd and patented in the US on November 11, 1930 - it appears Szilárd did most the technical work with Einstein the patent expert helping make it happen (U.S. Patent 1,781,541)
"From 1926 until 1933 Einstein and Szilárd collaborated on ways to improve home refrigeration technology. The two were motivated by contemporary newspaper reports of a Berlin family who had been killed when a seal in their refrigerator broke and leaked toxic fumes into their home. Einstein and Szilárd proposed that a device without moving parts would eliminate the potential for seal failure, and explored practical applications for different refrigeration cycles." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigeratorand what's that got to do with atomic bomb, well nothing, but . . .
"Szilárd was directly responsible for the creation of the Manhattan Project. He drafted a confidential letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the possibility of nuclear weapons, warning of Nazi work on such weapons and encouraging the development of a program which could result in their creation. In August, 1939 he approached his old friend and collaborator Albert Einstein and convinced him to sign the letter, lending his fame to the proposal.[16] The Einstein–Szilárd letter resulted in the establishment of research into nuclear fission by the U.S. government and ultimately to the creation of the Manhattan Project" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leó_Szilárd