{"id":2976,"date":"2014-06-26T14:19:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/?p=918"},"modified":"2014-06-26T14:19:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:19:40","slug":"summer-reading-you-might-enjoy-book-no-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2014\/06\/26\/summer-reading-you-might-enjoy-book-no-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Reading: It looked Good on Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/infohawk.uiowa.edu\/F\/?func=find-b&amp;find_code=SYS&amp;local_base=UIOWA&amp;request=004483144\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-919 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/eng\/files\/2014\/06\/It-looked-good-on-Paper.jpg\" alt=\"It Looked Good On Paper (Book Cover)\" width=\"150\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><em><strong>It Looked Good on Paper: B<span style=\"color: #000000\">izarre Inventions, Design Disasters, and Engineering Follies<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p>Edited by Bill Fawcett<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\">New York :\u00a0Harper,\u00a0c2009<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"It Looked Good on Paper\" href=\"http:\/\/infohawk.uiowa.edu\/F\/?func=find-b&amp;find_code=SYS&amp;local_base=UIOWA&amp;request=004483144\" > Engineering\u00a0TA174\u00a0.I83 2009<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>It Looked Good on Paper<\/em> is a remarkable compendium of wild schemes, mad plans, crazy inventions, and truly glorious disasters. Every phenomenally bad idea seemed like a good idea to someone. \u00a0How else can you explain the Ford Edsel or the sword pistol\u2014absolutely absurd creations that should have never made it off the drawing board?\u00a0<em>It Looked Good on Paper<\/em>\u00a0gathers together the most flawed plans, half-baked ideas, and downright ridiculous machines throughout history that some second-rate Einstein decided to foist on an unsuspecting populace with the best and most optimistic intentions. Some failed spectacularly. Others fizzled after great expense. One even crashed on Mars. But every one of them at one time must have looked good on paper, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The lead water pipes of Rome<\/li>\n<li>The Tacoma Narrows Bridge\u2014built to collapse<\/li>\n<li>The Hubble telescope\u2014the $2 billion scientific marvel that couldn&#8217;t see<\/li>\n<li>The Spruce Goose\u2014Howard Hughes&#8217;s airborne atrocity: big, expensive, slow, unstable, and made of wood<\/li>\n<li>With more than thirty-five chapters full of incredibly insipid inventions, both infamous and obscure,\u00a0<em>It Looked Good on Paper<\/em>\u00a0is a mind-boggling, endlessly entertaining collection of fascinating failures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bill Fawcett is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including\u00a0<em>You Did What?\u00a0 It Seemed Like a Good Idea . . .\u00a0<\/em>,\u00a0<em>How to Lose a Battle<\/em>, and\u00a0<em>You Said What?<\/em>\u00a0He lives in Illinois.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It Looked Good on Paper: Bizarre Inventions, Design Disasters, and Engineering Follies Edited by Bill Fawcett New York :&nbsp;Harper,&nbsp;c2009 Engineering&nbsp;TA174&nbsp;.I83 2009 It Looked Good on Paper is a remarkable compendium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2976"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2992,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions\/2992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}