Machines Books

Both of the authors are instructors at the University of Cincinnati in the Fashion Design Program. This is a textbook designed for students to use who have no prior background in machine knitting and are required to produce several graments by the end of the quarter. I believe the authors expect the students/reader to provide the creativity and authors provide the technical knowledge needed to produce what the students have designed. I found the book to be an excellent beginning to understanding and being able to use a knitting machine.

Lots of pictures, which are all in black and white.

Close to 90 percent of this book is identical to the manuals that come with the machines - very basic. The DVD does show the casting on, knitting, intarsia, transfering stitches and binding off taking place, but no sound.? I finally got to see a linker in action. There is a chapter on blocking and assembling a sweater. The final chapter has a couple projects . . . a scarf, hat, sweater and slippers. I actually made 2 sets of slippers - which uses the 'short-rowing' technique.

Not a very creative book, I was expecting to learn to do some fancy stitches on my machine. But, if you've lost your manual(s), this is your book.

As a complete amateur to machine knitting (or even hand knitting) I found this book to be a very useful. I do not have access to classes of any form for machine knitting in my area and the book/DVD format helped clear up some of the frustrating areas that occur with the learning curve. I expect to continue to use this book/DVD as I learn more & more in this interesting craft.

An excellent book, clearly illustrated with b/w photos, easy to understand instructions and very well presented. Oh yes, the video was handy also.

I am so glad I picked this book up. I am impressed with all the information in it. It goes over the basic things like what each part is, that people who have been using knitting machines for sometime would probably not get much use out of. For a new person to knitting machines it is great. It would be great for someone thinking about a knitting machine.
Okay, then it goes into techniques in different stitches, fixing jams, using a punchcard feature on machines with punchcards, different hems, ribbing, different edgings (scalloped edge, rolled edge, twisted cord edge and more). Some other things included encasing a clsed edge band, incasing a cut edge band, welt pocket, finishing techniques. It shows how a linker works (not one on the machine, a seperate one) and then goes into projects. On top of all this there is a included DVD showing this information. Not everything is on DVD, but alot. There is lots of pictures. I really recommend this book.

I have been searching for this book for such a long time. I must have read it a million times as a child in the 70's. It was my absolute favorite. Now that I am an early childhood educator (and a mother), I can't wait to share this book with my students and my children!

Just like Mr. Phil Schreiber said in his review below, this book is one I have remembered my entire life. My brother received this book for a B-Day gift back in the mid 70's and I was fascinated by it. I am now 36, and still can see the drawings. This book enspired me to dream...even if the dream isn't worth dreaming about. What a gem this story truely is!

How can I succintly sum up just how inspiring this book was to me as a child? The tale of a young boy who decides to build a plane in his barn and imagines all the positive actions he'll achieve in it, from winning races to helping people out. A boy who, when his dreams are hopelessly dashed, is unperturbed and already looking to the next challenge. Masterful! Like Paulo Coelho for the younger generation! Whatsmore, Beautifully illustrated and one book your child will read over and over and over. Trust me; I did!
p.s. have bought a copy to read to my niece and my own children when they appear on the scene!

If I could only explain just how this book has inspired me. I was givin this book from my parents in the early 70's and somehow till this day has been a part of me and Im 35 now! I love how the boys discovery leads to a creation and how his dreams inspire his desire to perfect his project. Win races, rescue people, deliver mail, give birds a place to rest when flying. When he decides it is just right, he finally tries to get it out of the barn just to have it fall to pieces! Even after his terrible failure he still isnt willing give up trying to create..."tomarrow Ill build a rowboat" Terrific.

I remember reading this book over and over as a small child. I read it so many times that I wore out the binder on the book. It's a story of a small boy and how he builds a flying machine out of scrapes and paints it with all the colors he can find in the family shed and takes off on an adventure around the world. I would love to find this book and keep it around for future generations to read, not only this story but all the other wonderful stories written by Marianna Mayer. Thank you.....C.M.....

Mr. Elting E. Morison's book Men, Machines, and Modern Times is a collection of essays regarding transformation that he wrote and presented during the 1950's and 1960's. At first thought you might be inclined to dismiss any book that is over fifty years old that pertains to transformation process and innovation. Well, to begin with one of the most useful essays doesn't pertain to something that is fifty years old but rather to a problem that is over one hundred years old, titled Gun Fire at Sea: A Case Study of Innovation.

If you are interested in innovation I believe you do yourself a disservice by dismissing this book because of its age. The essays in Men, Machines, and Modern Times are eerily relevant to today and anyone interested in transforming their organization, whether it be a business, government, education system, military, or any other entity would be extremely well served by reading this book. I would also suggest coupling it with a book titled The Myths of Innovation by Mr. Scott Berkun.

Below is a small sampling of items I found intriguing in Men, Machines, and Modern Times...

* First, it is easier to make a regulation than to abolish it. (pg 53)
* Second, it is easier to conform to a regulation, even when it is inappropriate to do so, than it is to seek a sensible exception. (pg. 54)
* Regulations tend to multiply (pg. 58)
* In order to make the pattern work, one seeks to eliminate every uncertainty and variable that might disturb the scheme. So the tendency in every regulating body is to reach out and extend rules over the whole range of human activity. That is why questionnaires get longer and the set of regulation more detailed. That is also why red tape has its unpleasant connotations. (pg. 58-59)
* It mattered not that in thirty years planes had increased their potential and radar had been invented. The conditioned reflexes and unhappy memories of the previous experiment interfered with the cool and wholly rational calculations of present possibilities. (pg 73)
* To live safely in our society, let alone manage it, will require a continuous education until a man dies. (pg 85)

This is purely and simply one of the best books ever written on the process of innovation and the interaction of technology, culture, systems, and individual personalities. If you are interested in the process of transformation or the development of technological change then this book should be on your short list. It should be required reading at every senior military school and for anyone who is really interested in transforming the health system.

This slender volume is actually a series of lectures given between 1950 and 1966 at Cal Tech and was influenced by a 15 year process of dialogue in a regular monthly meeting on the subject of technology and society. It reflects the insights and wisdom of a lifetime of thought about people and technology.

For those who care about transforming military institutions the chapters on Lieutenant Sims' reform of naval gunnery in 1900 and on the building of the best steam warship in the world in 1868 are marvels of bureaucracy confronting technology.

Consider just a few insights from Morison:

"It is possible, if one sets aside the long-run social benefits, to look upon invention as a hostile act--a dislocation of existing schemes, a way of disturbing the comfortable bourgeois routines and calculations, a means of discharging the restlessness with arrangements and standards that arbitrarily limit." (p.9)

When Sims reports remarkable success with a new system of gunnery he has learned from an innovative British officer ((Percy Scott) there are three stages of response from Washington:

"At first there was no response. The reports were simply filed away and forgotten. Some indeed, it was later discovered to Sims's delight, were half eaten away by cockroaches,
"Second stage; It is never pleasant for any man's best work to be left unnoticed by superiors and it was an unpleasantness that Sims suffered extremely ill.
"Besides altering his tone, he took another step to be sure his views would receive attention, He sent copies of his reports to other officers in the fleet. Aware as a result that Sims's gunnery claims were being circulated and talked about, the men in Washington were then stirred to action. "p29

The response was first that our ships were as good as the British so the problem was with the men and that meant the officers were not doing their job. "most significant: continuous-aim fire was impossible. Experiments had revealed that five men at work on the elevating gear of a six-inch gun could not produce the power necessary to compensate for a roll of five degrees in ten seconds. These experiments and calculations demonstrated beyond peradventure or doubts that Scott's system of gunfire was not possible." p. 30, note this is about a system that was actually being used with amazingly more accurate results. Sims' reform was not a theory it was an existing fact, which the Navy simply denied.

As Morison notes "Only one difficulty is discoverable in these arguments: they were wrong at important points."
"In every way I find this second stage, the apparent resort to reason, the most entertaining and instructive in our investigation of the responses to innovation." p. 30

"Third stage: the rational period in the counterpoint between Sims and the Washington men was soon passed. It was followed by the third stage, that of name calling." p.30

As things got worse Simms took the ultimate risk "he, a lieutenant, took the extraordinary step of writing the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, to inform him of the remarkable record of Scoot's ships, of the inadequacy of our own gunnery routines and records, and of the refusal of the Navy Department to act. Roosevelt, who always liked to respond to such appeals when he could, brought Sims back from China late in 1902 and installed him as Inspector of Target Practice, a post the naval officer held throughout the remaining six years of the Administration. And when he left, after many spirited encounters we cannot here investigate, he was universally acclaimed as 'the man who taught us how to shoot." p.31

Morison concludes "the deadlock between those who sought change and those who sought to retain things as they were was broken only by an appeal to superior force, a force removed from and unidentified with the mores, conventions, devices of the society. This seems to me a very important point; the naval society in 1900 broke down in its effort to accommodate itself to a new situation. The appeal to Roosevelt is documentation for Mahan's great generalisation that no military service should or can undertake to reform itself. It must seek assistance from outside. " p.38

Whatever field of change interests you this is a book well worth reading and thinking about.

A must read if you work with people assimilating new technology. Through timeless and entertaining historical vignettes, Elting Morison describes the trials and tribulations of birthing sometimes revolutionary technologies from about 1830 (The Bessemer Process) through the early computer years (1966). He places man at the center of the technological universe struggling with the dilemna of assimilating new technologies while simultaneously trying to cling to past ways. Morison describes a continuous battle between entreprenuers and new adopters on the one hand and resistors on the other. He proposes that a process of more carefully testing and introducing new technologies may not only help soften the resistance to change, but also lead to less risky social adoption.

Vignettes include the Bessemer Steel Process, the revolutionary USS Wampanoag steamship, introduction of pasteurization and the early years of the computer.

Initially, I read this book in college but did not understand. Twenty years later, as a quality change person, I picked up the book and read through different eyes. It profoundly changed me.

A superb look at the wonderous and creative spirit that enabled the twentieth century to excel in engineering and science.
The events depicted in the book tell of an age where the industrial revolution was nacent and men brimmed with ideas on how to construct and create a new society for mankind. A fine read for anyone interested in the art of technology and of engineering history in the U.S.

Elting Morison was a historian .. at MIT. I thought that curious, until I read his book. In a serious of beautifully wirtten historical essays, he traces the development and introduction of revolutionaly new processes or techiniques which profoundly changed the way things were done. But most interesting, and instructive, are the insights he provides as to what must be done to effectively introduce significant changes. For anyone who is frustrated by the time it takes to get things done, and who is interesting in learning how to shorten the process, this is a MUST read.

Mathews weaves the histroy of the California initiative process with the rise of Arnold. It's not a page turner, but it's fun to read about the personalities and quirks of the political "leaders" in California.

THE PEOPLE'S MACHINE: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AND THE RISE OF BLOCKBUSTER DEMOCRACY could have been featured in our Politics section but is reviewed here for its far-reaching interest to general biography readers as well. Author Joe Mathews is the reporter who covered Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times, so he's well steeped in the background of a famous actor who became the governor of the nation's largest state. But this covers more than his rise to power: it surveys his political struggles within the system and the new type of system he made from his celebrity image and contacts. An excellent blend of in-depth analysis and biographical information results.

When a Holywood icon merges with California style democracy, something new emerges - a governorship with the people instead of for the people. Joe Mathews offers a fascinating review of a learning process by one of the globes most prominent actorts, Arnold Schwarzenegger. This extremly well-written book is less a reference to Schwarzeneggers movies than an account of what it needs to become a leader beyond tv-ads, polling tests and confrontative politics. Direct Democracy looks like becoming the next big thing - not only in America's most populous state.

This book is a fascinating look at a different type of politician. Far from being simply a movie star now "playing" Governor, Mathews' book demonstrates that Schwarzenegger gets involved in the details of public policy to an extent much greater than one would expect. It also is apparent that Schwarzenneger is actually interested in trying to solve some of the state's long term problems, rather than simply staking out positions for political advantage. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand recent California political history (assuming it can be understood!)

I won't spend a lot of space going over the same ground as the two capsule reviews, but suffice to say that Los Angeles Times writer Joe Mathews has done an extraordinary job examining Schwarzenegger and how he came to be governor of California, in terms of both the man's strengths and weaknesses. While making the typical mistakes one expects of someone "new" to California politics (though he met Howard Jarvis and closely followed the machinations involved with Prop 13 many years earlier in the late 1970s), Schwarzenegger comes off smarter than one might expect.

Mathews' paralleling Arnold's business accumen and showmanship and to Hiram Johnson's much earlier version of direct democracy makes for a fascinating (and I agree page turning) read on the Governator, a Republican by party affiliation, but hardly in lock step with the GOP leadership.

Joe Mathews has managed to keep whatever personal feelings he has about Schwarzenegger in a file drawer somewhere, and takes an honest look the campaign and beyond with wit, vigor and good old-fashioned in-depth investigative coverage. In the end, whatever popularity Schwarzenegger maintains with California voters has been earned through trial and error, and hard work, as has everything he's attained all his life.

This cookbook has turned out to be a favorite of ours, and my husband frequently says Why don't we try another recipe out of "Pizza Bread book"....we have enjoyed ALL the things we have created from this wonderful book! I think any new bride who has a bread maker should have this book! thank you Lora Brody for your wonderful recipes!

Being stuck in Dallas without a large quantity of great Italian food is not good. With this book my husband has learned to make great crusts. With some fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella and pancetta our friends say, "I think that this is the best pizza I've ever eaten!"

I bought this book because I absolutely love focaccia, but am forever spoiled by the ease of the bread machine. This book brings the two together beautifully! I made the Pesto Focaccia first, because I make my own pesto every summer and freeze it, and this was a great way to make use of it. It turned out really well, and it feels good to hear "Oh my gosh, this is great!" when you try something new! I can't wait to try some of the stuffed pizza recipes, they sound wonderful. The recipes are well written, instructions are clear, and there are a couple of very helpful sections in the beginning that go over equipment, ingredients and "Secrets for Success". There are also lots of hints throughout the book, in fact, there is one after almost every recipe. I also liked the fact that the book is spiral bound, yet hardcover. It lays flat for easy reference, which I found convenient. The only drawback is the lack of pictures. I am a sucker for a cookbook with LOTS of pictures, and I really missed them in this one.

The Rustic Sourdough Focacia is great (though I make it in a baking pan instead of a cookie sheet - it's just too loose and thin otherwise)! Add some camelized onions to the top to make it even better.

This cookbook has turned out to be a favorite of ours, and my husband frequently says Why don't we try another recipe out of "Pizza Bread book"....we have enjoyed ALL the things we have created from this wonderful book! I think any new bride who has a bread maker should have this book! thank you Lora Brody for your wonderful recipes!

Lots of great ideas and techniques. I've just started doing fiber arts/art quilts and this book has been very helpful.

It was the first of the several books to arrive that I ordered on one day. Condition was exactly as stated.

Excellent details. This book helps to free you up, so that you can spend more time on the creative process. Once you master her techniques, your work just seems to flow.

This book is a great resource for anyone who is making or has made the transition from traditional to freely expressed quilts. The author gives really clear instructions on how to form curves in both the quilt construction and the borders. The curves are all done with the topstitched method, using freezer paper, so there is no seam matching. Her own quilts are colourful and exuberant, and her passion comes through on every page. There are very clear instructions at each stage, and patterns for three small quilts to try out some of the ideas. It would not be suitable for complete beginners, but is not scarily difficult.

I prefer improvising and it really liberates my skills. Thanks for the useful tips to make it easier.

Though in places a bit heavy-going for a non-specialist readership, SDIMM is a first-rate introduction to the information sciences. As an overview of state-of-the-art technology, SDIMM may be dated, but the problems it describes are timeless -- and fascinating. Anyone interested in how information is measured, moved, and translated to the media of minds/brains and computers, would do well to read this exceptional book. Here's hoping RL makes future contributions to the popular science literature.

This is a popular computer book about data compression and data representation. It was first published way back in 1989 and now eleven years later it's not in the slightest bit out of date. How many popular computer books can you say that about?

Althought this book has been written 20 years ago, it is still very
fresh today. The bandwidth with which we communicate, and
our capacity for storing information have increased in the intervening
years, however the fundamental questions that are addressed here
have not changed much. In the first couple chapters, the author starts
with a very precise definition of what information and capacity mean.
This part is merely 50 pages in length, but makes this book worth
owning on its own - I wish somebody gave it to me when I was
learning about information theory.

The remainder of the book is devided into chapters dealing
with different aspects of information: text, speech and pictures,
including problems associated with their storage, processing
and intrepretation. The presentation is insightful, informative,
and, given that it is addressed to an audience of non-mathematicians,
surprisingly precise. Each chapter ends with a ligh-hearted essay,
some of which I found to be deceptively deep and insightful.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I'd strongly recommend this book for anybody interested in how things have evolved in computing. Great insight into stuff we take for granted like compression algorithms, error correction.

I read this book over and over and love it every time. It covers topics that I teach from the standard texts, but it covers them in a way that makes it all make so much more sense to my students. This truly is an amazing book!

I am thoroughly pleased with the recipes I have found in this book. Every one I have tried has turned out beautifully. It is almost impossible to find good spelt flour recipes, particularly for the bread machine and this book instructs how to use spelt flour to make most baked goods. If you are looking to bake healthy bread or just to expand your baking experiences, I recommend "Smart Bread Machine Recipes" thumbs up to the professional as well as the everyday home cook as there is a little something here for every baker to learn!

This is a great book for anyone who owns a bread machine and wants to make different types of whole grain breads. I have found many whole grain baking bread books, but none that were specically targeted for the bread machine. This book is made specifically for bread machine bakers, which is great. She explains all the different types of flours, grains, etc. This is very helpful to learn how to make appropriate subsitutions, etc. I really like this book and am looking forward to consuming a wide variety of whole grain breads!

This book has great recipes for wholegrain breads. If you're looking for recipes that avoid white flour and have healthy wholegrains instead, this is the book for you.

For the most part, it is also low sugar, which is why I purchased it. There are a few recipes with honey and molasses, though. My husband has raved about all the breads I've made from this book. It gives recipes for 1 and 1 1/2 pound loaves.

This book consists of all whole grain bread machine recipes. The first part goes into detail about all the components necessary to create healthy breads/rolls, etc. in the bread machine. All ingredients are described in an easy to read manner. There are recipes using "ordinary" whole wheat flours. Then there are the recipes using the more exotic flours, such as spelt and kamut. While some of these flours are expensive and sometimes hard to find, I have tried many of the recipes and have never been disappointed. I have purchased the book many times for friends and recommend it highly as a means to increase fiber and grains in products that are very tasty and are created from this easy to understand recipe book.

I have made 3 of the bread recipes so far and the bread has turned out very good. I would recommend this bood for anyone looking for low fat bread recipes, there are several that require alot of manual work outside the bread machine.

I saw Soft Machine open for Hendrix in Cincinnati years ago. I had never heard of them, but they are the ones I remain active fans of. And by association, Robert Wyatt (never knew "Wyatt" was actually his middle name until I read this book) and Kevin Ayers, Hugh Hopper, etc.

Too bad "Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous" has such a cheap-looking cover (why use such a grainy b&w photo on a book about such a colorful band?), because what's inside is first rate! I actually skipped to the part about first trio version of the Softs (the band I had seen, first hand), read through Hopper's departure, then skipped back to the original quartet. But it's all good, Then there are the extensive discographies, a listing of every performance and recording session, and a section about what the various members are doing now. It's all there. Throughly researched and engagingly written.

Graham Bennett's book Out-Bloody-Rageous is clearly a labor of love, loaded with valuable historical information and quotes from a multitude of interviews with all concerned parties, a well-written, fun to read history with a fan's sympathetic tone, though not uncritical when the need arises. The biggest revelation for me was how the early Soft Machine had significant cultural ties to a great many artists, writers, musicians and movements; everything and everyone from Alfred Jarry's 'pataphysics, Terry Riley's tape loop experiments, Gurdjieff, Ornette Coleman, Elton John, The Proms, Burroughs, Marsha Hunt, the BBC and "My Boy Lollipop" (and so much more) found their way into this band's swirling universe at some point in time. The in-depth accounts of Soft Machine's disastrous late 60s US tours supporting the Jimi Hendrix Experience are alone worth the price of the book. All at once enlightening, charming and in-depth, this is a must for any fan of Soft Machine, psychedelic rock, jazz-rock and European culture of the 60s and 70s.

Of all the books on bands and or people I have none more exhaustively then this book. It is very well research, full of the smallest details disogaphies, live gigs and interviews. It is the sort of book you don't have read from the begining either you could pick a section and read from there. The writter obviously loves this band and it shows through out. It is as detailed in the early years as it is in the later years. This is the book for fans and lovers of sixties music. Graham Bennett shows respect for their story and music but also the era. It s a lot of fun reading I am sure you will not be disappointed

If you love the Soft Machine in particular, and the Canterbury music scene in general, you really owe it to yourself to read this thorough and well-researched book. The fact that Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers are on the cover should tell you that there is a long explanation of the origins and early history of the band, which make for by far the most fascinating reading. This band was truly an artifact of the mid-1960s London psychedelic culture, before settling down into a long stint as a progressive jazz-rock band. While the band was arguably much better in its later jazz-rock incarnations, there was an innocent rawness to those early days that has rarely been captured elsewhere. After you read this book, you will need to buy the compilation CD of the same name, then you should track down "Jet Propelled Photographs" to complete the picture.

I'm amazed that there's enough interest in this british progressive Jazz-Rock band,so that someone would do a hardcover biography.Author Bennett accuarately covers the many personel changes that took the group from the progressive psychedelic sounds of the Robert Wyatt era,through to the Jazz-Rock fusion of the Karl Jenkins era,which saw the group continue with no original members for several albums,following the departure of founding keyboardist Mike Ratledge.Bennett has interviewed the majority of the musicians who have passed through the group,notably,Robert Wyatt,Hugh Hopper,Elton Dean,Kevin Ayers,Roy Babbington,John Abercrombie and John Etheridge,but Mike Ratledge wasn't interviewed.Apparently,most of the musicians recall a frosty,uneasy atmosphere in the group,and as many members departed for monetary reasons as for musical reasons.There were clashes between the "free-blowing" Jazzers and the song-oriented progressive rockers in the group,and,for many of the musicians,being in the group didn't pay enough money to live on.An exhaustive index of the shows the group played is included,as are some interesting photos.The list of recording sessions tends to suggest that there is little or nothing in the way of studio outtakes from the group's album sessions,though concert tapes and radio/T.V. broadcasts continue to supply prolific flow of CD's.Bennett's book makes the subject matter well worth reading,and leaves you craving more information.But at least we've got this book,the closest thing to an official biography that you're going to get.Out-Bloody-Rageous that this book exists.If you like Soft Machine,you won't be disappointed.

This is a wonderful book! Great step by step projects.
Also one of my hand painted valances is displayed in this book!!!!

Finally a book with clear instructions and pictures. I would recommend this to anyone just starting to sew....I didn't feel like throwing up my hands half-way through as I have with other "step-by-step" beginner books.

Step-By-Step Sewing Course: Essential Techniques For Making Over 150 Creative Home Projects is the result of the collective efforts of the Reader's Digest editorial staff and offers the novice needle-crafter a comprehensive and thoroughly "user friendly" instructional guide to the art of fabric sewing and textile crafting. Enhanced with a wealth of step-by-step illustrations, Step-By-Step Sewing Course offers sewing students as wealth of practical tips and expert guidance through a series of more than 150 outstanding sewing projects ranging from quick and easy bedspreads, tablecloths with lace panels, and decorative window treatments for every type of window, to shower curtains and bath mats, pillows with romantic ruffles, duvet covers, padded fabric headboards, gift bags for special occasions, and so much more. An ideal addition to personal, school, and community library needlecraft reference collections, Step-By-Step Sewing Course is very strongly recommended as an ideal "how to" guide to the fun and skilled standards of sewing.

Learn to sew by doing -making gifts and custom furnishing with the home - with the help of the easy STEP-BY-STEP SEWING COURSE from Reader's Digest Books. There're no obstacles to success here: bedspreads, tablecloths, duvet covers and more are presented along with tips on what equipment is needed and how to use it, while pages packed with bright color photos each step of the way assure completed projects and in-progress projects are equally successful. Plenty of other guides cover sewing and present projects - but few with the bright color and ease of STEP-BY-STEP SEWING COURSE.

I found this book to be a delight! The beginning section on "Sewing Techniques" covers everything to get you started in home sewing from knowing your sewing machine to selecting fabric. The book continues with sections on Beginner, Intermediate, and More Experienced Projects. Techniques at the various levels are also explained in detail. The pictures are very helpful and easy to understand. I can't wait to begin a project from this book.