J.E. Gordon’s book is a great read. Did you know that arches are so popular because they have to break in 4 places before they will fall down? Amazing factoids and insights for the lay person abound in this book. The technical details occasionally got a bit heavy.

The book comes to this wonderful conclusion:

Is it not fair to ask the technologist, not Only to provide artefacts that work, but also to provide beauty, even in the common street, and above all to provide fun? Otherwise technology will die of boredom. Let us have lots of ornament. … Since we have created a whole menagerie full of new artefacts, … , let us sit down and think what fun we can have in devising new kinds of decorations for them.

I did not expect to find an explanation of the success of Web 2.0 websites in a book on constructions. It was fun to realise that Web 2.0, like successful architecture owes much to skiamorphs, fakes and ornaments!

Thomas P. Hughes “Human-Build World – How to think about technology and culture” compares and contrasts current optimism about the Internet, gadgets and technology with human attitudes to earlier generations of technology. Technology has a much longer history than the popular mind may be aware! A great read for anyone responsible for implementing technology. The book shows that our current rush to technology is part of a picture that has been being drawn for a long time.