The useful way to look at any blade is as a solution to a specific material. Something dense, something soft, something with skin, something that must not be crushed -…
The thing worth understanding first is that a rope is not a long thing. It is an enormous number of short things arranged so that pulling on the assembly squeezes…
The useful way to think about any bond is as a chain with three links - surface, adhesive, surface - and a chain fails at whichever link is weakest. Here…
The distinction worth holding is between measuring and comparing. A ruler asserts a length and can be wrong about it. The instruments below compare one thing against another, or against…
The useful question about any unusual shoe is what it was standing on. Almost every answer is a property of the ground rather than a preference of the wearer. Here…
Look at any vernacular building and the roof tells you the weather before anybody mentions it. Here are eleven of the things a roof is arguing with.
1. The Steep…