non-fiction

When

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When
Daniel H. Pink
Time
Text Publishing Company
2018
256
★★★★☆

Whilst Daniel Pink’s “When” might have suffered a bit from the scientific replication crisis that plagues books of this era, I think it makes an interesting if slightly obvious point — work out what time of day you do your best work, and then work out how to ensure that time is when you do work. I think that perhaps the general trend towards working from home makes this a bit more possible than it would otherwise be, but it’s certainly true that employers of even remote employees do love to impose a schedule based largely on ideas from a different century. Ironically, I say this as someone who naturally gets up early and is pretty smashed by about 9pm. That is, the traditional work day works quite well for me.

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Lunar Outfitters

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This book is the story of the makers of the Apollo Program space suits, International Latex Corporation (ILC). The book is written from the perspective of a former employee, so presumably it's not entirely unbiased, but it's still an interesting read. At a time where more traditional aerospace companies were either focused on converting rubber pressure suits intended for high flying military aircraft, or things which resembled the love child of a space craft and a garbage can, ILC was actively working on what we now recognize as a space suit -- something protective and pressurized that still allowed as much joint mobility as possible. ILC had their stumbles, especially when forced to pair with more traditional aerospace companies who looked down on ILC's background as a garment manufacturer. However, it seems pretty clear in hindsight that they were by far the best prepared in terms of making something actually usable. Ultimately ILC also suffered pretty severely from reduced government funding as the US Federal Government reduced investment in the space program at the end of the Apollo era -- it turns out there aren't heaps of buyers for space suits. This book is both detailed but at the same…

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