Newsletter 52

Cultivating Progress

We rarely start with a blank sheet of paper. Typically we are building off previous work, often work built up over generations. In aviation that is a history of commercial flying but with hydrogen it is mostly simmering R&D. For solutions to climate change we do not have the luxury of allowing concepts to simmer. When we want to improve how humans do this engineering work, maybe we need to take a rational look at our own personal experiences. Our own track record is the data from which we can build. Happy Reading.

How Ordinary Failure Could Have a Seismic Effect on an Industrial Giant

How Ordinary Failure Could Have a Seismic Effect on an Industrial Giant

This long but excellent article highlights the management culture necessary for engineering the extreme reliability required by airliners, since requirements are necessarily subjective. Even after practicable design engineering, remaining uncertainties need to be, expensively, reduced following failure investigations.

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BBC, July 2024


Hydrogen Power for Motorcycles?

Hydrogen Power for Motorcycles?

"Hydrogen is huge." It is also better classified as an energy carrier than a fuel, but it takes a lot of energy just to make it portable. Nevertheless it is attracting a lot of attention for some forms of transportation, and even a modicum of attention for large motorcycles.

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Cycle Word, August 2024


'Understand Your Energy Rhythms': How to Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

'Understand Your Energy Rhythms': How to Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

Maximizing our effectiveness at work isn’t just a matter of scheduling and prioritizing. We also need to understand and work with our varying energy levels. It’s mostly just a case of treating our bodies as a control volume and applying the first law of thermodynamics I think.

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IMechE News, May 2024


32 Weird Ways to Fight Climate Change That Just Might Work

32 Weird Ways to Fight Climate Change That Just Might Work

In the spirit of submitting bad ideas to inspire good ideas... Many of these ideas seem like what you get when solutions are devised by scientists instead of engineers. In theory these are all workable and effective. In practice there is a difference between theory and practice.

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Live Science, September 2024