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What
Goes Up, Must Come Down
Don't
let Your Fingers do the Walking
Six weeks later he returned and installed sidewalks--right where the tenants had worn pathways: taking their route, not the architect's. The
5% Solution
ARCO's solution: instead of trying to "ring-out" that last one or two percent from all of the newer modern automobiles; they bought up and destroyed 3000, Old model, polluting automobiles. Since one old car put out 30 times the pollution of a modern auto, it was the same as removing 90 thousand modern autos from the streets. Or, it is like reducing every modern auto's pollution--in the city of LA--by roughly five additional percent. It only cost between 3 and 4 million dollars. Want to guess how much it would cost--us all--to further reduce modern automobile's pollution by 5%? |
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Kiss Me You Fool!
In an Oregon middle school a number of girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom, where they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. The Principal decided that something had to be done, so she called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the mirrors, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it into the toilet and then cleaned the mirror. Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors. --There are teachers and then there are Teachers... |
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Engineering Solutions in the Darndest Places (An old Broom still Sweeps Best) A friend, who is a Physical Therapist, visited a new patient who lived out in the country; an elderly lady with limited mobility who used an old broom for support in getting around. The old broom was bowed from years of use. To replace the old broom, my friend set about finding the right "appliance" among her arsenal of canes, walkers, etc. As she would try what seemed appropriate, things were steadily going down hill; everything she tried seemed to only make things worst. Ultimately my friend, who is very good at her job, decided that the patient really knew best what "Worked," so she returned the old bent broom to her. This is a Great example of the definition of Engineering: Finding the BEST Solution for the Problem! And most importantly, being open to all possibilities in finding that solution! |
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TV Repair, The Easier
Way:
Sounds like a Broken
Washing Machine to Me
A Woman Troubled
with Break-ins
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In 1836, Congress
wanted to close the Patent Office;
it
said that everything that could be invented, had been invented; there was
nothing else left to invent.
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K I S S (Keep
It Simple Stupid)
Thomas Edison and
the Light Bulb:
Edison took the bulb, broke the neck off,
filled it with water, then emptied it into an empty beaker. And, comparing
the results, he held up the beaker alongside the answer written on the
engineer's notepad, and asked, "Aren't the answers about the same?" They
were nearly the same. He told the young engineer that sometimes the simple
way is more than ample, and other times it isn't, and the trick was knowing
which was which.
Damn, the Smokies
are Everywhere The Pen is Mightier than the...
The Pen is Mightier
than the...
Some sophisticated aircraft simulators use a $10 million dollar Cray computer to generate real-time graphic images for the pilots. However, there are some simulators that use a remote controlled TV camera that dollies on X & Y overhead rails in a diorama. These images are as realistic (sometimes, more so) than the $10 million system--at a fraction of the cost. No Sweat What looks
easy, may be easy, ... or Not!
My Way is Best or
Bust!
Remember the old saying: TOP To Use or Not to
Use a Microprocessor
Now having said that: if you do find real
justification for using a computer in your design, and if there is spare
computing power left over: there is a phenomenon of force multiplication--a
step function of efficiency, if you will--whereby all new functions to
be added to the "system" are virtually free. This is a very powerful concept!
Hardwired: Softheaded
If You Don't Think
Too Good, You Shouldn't Think Too Much
Boy, am I Satisfied
with That Design!
Sometimes we don't change or improve a design for some pretty dumb reasons: something as simple as not having the part, and being too Damn lazy to order it; or "Gee, that's too much trouble, I'll have to re-draw that whole thing..." I'm not suggesting that These are conscious articulated decisions, they are more like underlying motives. You must guard against listening to that still small voice coming from your left shoulder (Satan), but must, instead, listen to the little guy on the right shoulder (Angel). Being Best Isn't
Always Good Enough
Hey! That's My Idea,
I Thought of That
Entrepreneuring
It is All Things
to All...
The path to the poorhouse is littered with thousand-dollar electronic stethoscopes (>250 at last count), that doctors didn't want. They learned all their sounds in medical school on old run-of-the-mill acoustic stethoscopes, these Hi-Fi sounds meant nothing to them. Gee, did anybody ask the doctors -- other than Dermatologists--if they really wanted, or needed, or would ever use these things? Famous Last Words
____________________________________
First Lieutenant
Syndrome
Gee...Does anybody see an analogy here? Could he be talking about recent graduates? Who made him say that? ... Satan? 57.. Succeeding in technology will depend
most, on your:
The Emporiahas
No Cloths
All you require to succeed in life is your sheep-skin, a word processor/speller, and a laser printer. Dimensions of Steps
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Right now, there is a technology revolution going on in bandwidth and data storage. When I first read the numbers, I thought I had picked up an April-first issue of the magazine. Up until several years ago, 1.5 Gbits/s was about the maximum data rate. That was over a fiber link that had to be repeated every 20 kilometers. The repeaters were buildings with large bays of equipment to convert the received light waves into electrical pulses: demultiplex, check for and correct errors; reformat and re-multiplex the data; and again modulate as light onto the next 20 km span, and so on... until it reached its destination(s). Soliton pulses &
Dispersion-Shifted Optical Fiber
What Light Through
Yond Window Breaks, it is the...
Instead of massive and expensive repeaters
spaced every 20 km, Eribium-doped optical amplifiers are used to amplifier
or boost the light signal (regardless of encoding or protocol being used)
about every 30 km to 100 km. The Erbium-doped optical-fiber amplifiers
are 30 meters of coiled optical fiber, a 10 - 15mW IR LASER diode (~1330nm)
and a few assorted optical filters and beam splitters--and fits in a container
smaller than a lunch box. And, if that wasn't enough: these optical amplifiers
have Bandwidths of > 40THz.
Short is Good
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Data Storage CD ROM about to increase in
density from ~600Mbytes to >18 Gbytes by using shorter wavelength
LASER diodes (visible red, green, and soon blue; and eventually, ultraviolet).
In 1994, Bell Labs has demonstrated a 3.5 inch hard drive with 50,000 Mbytes of storage. That is equal to a box of DD/DS 3.5 inch floppies, nearly 8 feet on a side (an average room). More recently, they have demonstrated density ~ 45Gbits/in 2 50 Gbits/sec
data rates, on optical fiber, operating at distances up to 19,000 km @
Optical Amplification, yielding Bandwidths > 40-THz, using Erbium-doped fiber pumped by 1330nm a 15mW diode LASER. Optical fiber LASERs yielding pulses of 17 fsec pulses. 17 fsec = 60 Tbits/sec = 1.8 million bibles/sec = 12,500 CD/sec = 115 movies/sec ... ASICs: > 1 million transistors that can be developed on PCs, by an individual in his "garage." CCD imagers with dynamic ranges: > 90db at room temperature; and quantum efficiencies: > 90% when chilled. Film used by astronomers has a quantum efficiency ~ 0.001% PIEZO material operating at acoustic frequencies > 1000 MHz A >1000 MIPS desktop computer for about $3500 (RISC, SUN SPARK Station, etc.). Windows machines (WinTel) operating with similar power, at a quarter the price. Digital HDTV Digital Consumer Camcorders Consumer GPS Receivers < $100 Wireless computing Digital, DBS Cellular telephones --GOD Help US! |
Did you hear the one
about the Antenna Engineer?
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Future Subjects:
1) Samuel Morse, a painter, invented the Morse Code; Printer's Devil; Entopy Coding / Huffman Coding; Morse Code: E = "dot" 2) MATS Pilots & Omni Range Nav instrument's
Donut needle
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Links:
http://www.baddesigns.com/
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