The Evolution of Useful Things A Book by Henry Petroski Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, ingenuity. Spike and sponShaped and reshapedForm follows failureTheir wrongness is somehow more immediateA small corner of the world of things+23 More The evolution of devices formfunctioninventionprogressfailure
The Sheaves A Poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson www.poetrynook.com Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled, Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned; And as by some vast magic undivined The world was turning slowly into gold. Like nothing that was ever bought or sold It waited there, the body and the mind; And with a mighty meaning of a kind That tells the more the more it is not told. So in a land where all days are not fair, Fair days went on till on another day A thousand golden sheaves were lying there, Shining and still, but not for long to stay— As if a thousand girls with golden hair Might rise from where they slept and go away. farmingseasonschangemelancholy