A stimulating grab bag of outside-the-box—sometimes out-of-left-field—brainstorms.
As advertised, the author weighs in on everything from space travel to litter boxes in this collection of intriguing but often half-baked proposals.
Ponnapalli, an information-technology specialist who holds a doctorate in physics, offers a raft of ideas to improve the world. On the practical, just-might-work end of the spectrum are wireless gadgets that tweet passengers when their luggage comes up on the airport carousel, a dishwasher you can load from the top without bending over, cars with gas caps on both sides to ease filling-station traffic and a blueprint for a smell-sequestering cat restroom adjoining the house. On the boondoggle end is a grandiose project for an elevator to outer space, built from a series of geometrically increasing skyscrapers. In between are random schemes to modify hockey—a seventh player on the ice per team would boost scoring, the author contends—and make chess either less or more complicated. He offers several short treatments for Star Trek sequels (the Trekkie ethos of improvisational engineering saturates this book) and a surefire scheme to use a supercomputer to calculate a 14,600-term equation that can predict the stock market. The author presents his ideas in a lucid, engaging style, but doesn’t always think them through; his proposal to devote 10 % of the federal budget to paying down the national debt, for example, wouldn’t even close the yearly deficit. Other suggestions, such as his 1,000-calorie-a-day soup, coffee and tea diet, are just too odd to catch on—to judge by the cravings and gorgings noted in his 23-day weight-loss diary, he can’t even stick to it himself. Ponnapalli’s thinking shows both the strength of inspired dilettantism and the need for expert analysis to rein it in. Still, there are some nifty ideas here, and even the questionable ones will provoke reflection.
A stimulating grab bag of outside-the-box—sometimes out-of-left-field—brainstorms.Pub Date: March 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456882396
Page Count: 78
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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