September Scientiae: What's in your toolbox?

This month's Scientiae Carnival topic is especially appropriate for a pseudo-engineer such as myself. One of the managers here at MegaCorp would regularly ask interviewees: What's in your toolbox? He meant it literally. Not what skills do you have to pull from, but what do you actually have at home in your garage (or apartment) and what do you work on.

 

There's two schools of thought to what makes a good engineer. There's the "you need to be hands on" theory, and the other group that wants you to have top notch analytical and software skills. I'm more on the theoretical side, maybe I'm still in school or maybe leftover from my humanities training. But that means I try to work on my "hands on" side too. So here's my toolbox:

• A good drafting pencil. True we don't use blueprints anymore or do our lettering by hand, but it's still nice to know you have the tools. And can tell the youngsters how it used to be. Oh wait I'm a youngster!
• My TI-83. We all love the calculator we learned on/used the most, and this is mine. No fancy integrations, but a few programs I like and the ability to stack commands.
• A solid modelling program. Essential for any design engineer. If you're an EE of a CivE I guess you can get away with AutoCAD or something, but the rest of us need 3D.
• Matlab. An engineer's friend, or bitterest enemy at times, but unfortunately required.
• Excel. Don't hate on MS, and don't hate my spreadsheets!
• A good toolbox:
• Nice set of screwdrivers, or a screwdriver with a removable tip
• Nice set of wrenches and sockets, metric and US-silly-units
• Hammer, sledgehammer, wire stripper, wire cutters, bolt cutter
• A few good hoses and some fittings. Never know when you'll need to go through your box and rig up a quick hose for something.
• Calipers. Digital might be nice, never leave home without them.
• Miscellaneous parts. Some old servo motors, unused piping, you never know, right?
• Coffee; the day doesn't start without it.

So if you didn't post for the Scientiae, what's in your toolbox?

Greener than thou

There's a new Swiss report talking about battery powered hybrid vehicles. Apparently the actual supply of the metal and the power to process that metal is what costs the most. Extracting the lithium, and transporting materials, is not as significant a contributor. The Register reports that the study indicated an efficient diesel car would do less environmental damage than a battery powered hybrid, but you have to dig for that tidbit.

 

Most of the report is spent describing the environmental impact of manufacturing and transporting batteries, and how (naturally) batteries made from recycled materials or using hydropower to process rather than coal have a lower environmental impact (duh!). But here's the clincher:

A break even analysis shows that an ICEV would need to consume less than 3.9 L/100km to cause lower CED than a BEV or less than 2.6 L/100km to cause a lower EI99 H/A score. Consumptions in this range are achieved by some small and very efficient diesel ICEVs, for example, from Ford and Volkswagen (13, 39).

That's 78 and 90 mpg respectively for those of us in the states. As for the models the study mentions I'm not sure. Looks like Volkswagen has a 1.6L diesel TDI Golf that comes in around 80ish mpg highway available in Europe. But that's at the top end, using only a particular technology of theirs. Yeah it's there, and it's around the corner, but that's the efficiency necessary to beat a battery right now. Because even with not fantastic mileage, you're still getting less CO2 emissions. And we're not seeing those kinds of mpg numbers in the states anytime soon. Not to mention when it looked like diesels were coming over here in droves just not seeing that either. I guess Prius owners like to feel high and mighty about their choice just as much as non-Prius owners like to use battery manufacturing and disposal as excuses they are still doing the right thing. When in fact, best I can determine from the city, disposal between a hybrid with a lithium battery vs a "normal" car had near the same environmental impact. That could also be Europe's recycling requirements coming into play.

 

Still, both the report and the article (and the recent Cash for Clunkers bit of pork legislation) fail to get the obvious. It's generally environmentally friendlier to keep driving your old clunker around, even if it gets terrible gas mileage. The cost to manufacture a new car is no small thing. Buying new cars creates demand for more new cars. Even if these new cars use less petrol, you're often better off keeping your car a few more years, if being environmentally friendly is what's important to you.

Signs you are irritated...

When the mere sound of the printer invokes an irrational response.

 

Rational mind: My colleagues need to print documents.

 

Irrational mind: Omg, someone's printing again? I'm so tired of that noise! And why is it always these 80 pages reports that just won't stop? Should I just record that sound and loop it on my iPod? Is that the sound I'm destined to hear for the rest of my f@#$ing life?! Can't you people stop f@#$ing printing sh#% for two minutes?!?

Engineers At Odds

More on the quibbles over engineering that led up to the BP oil spill. As I spoke about last time, a Halliburton engineer spoke out about recommendations he had made that he felt were ignored by BP. Now a BP engineer testified to the same committee despite two other BP engineers taking the fifth and not testifying. To quote the Coast Guard Captain Nguyen, the Co-Chair of the committee, "You're a very brave man for showing up today."

As engineers, especially ones who argued additional safety measures weren't necessary, it'd be easy to just not say anything. Pass the blame up to executives who likely made the ultimate decisions here. But the fact that the Halliburton engineer is still out there saying in his best judgment they needed more centralizers and now the BP engineer is saying he felt the cement was poured straight and that additional centralizers weren't needed, makes me believe they both believe strongly in what they're saying. It's very possible this whole incident was not responsible for the eventual blow.  And engineers often have their own styles. Many want more and more safety mechanisms that actually accomplish nothing. It's not a clear judgment call. Like I said before, if we listened to every concern we probably would have never gone into space or to the moon. I don't think that clears BP or Halliburton of ignoring safety concerns of their own engineers. But it does make this a more interesting investigation. The emails they keep quoting I could see coming out of any major company involving any big project or test. I'm sure those that sent the emails never anticipated they would be read, re-read and scruitnized word by word by an angry public or focused investigators.

Brave New Galaxy

Lyric Semiconductor announced it's new design for a microchip: the probability processor. Yes it sounds a little like Douglas Adams' infinite improbability drive from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

Lyric's new technology is part physical changes and partly different construction in how circuits process information. They claim it will yet again shrink processor size and give a speed boost. But for now the applications would have to be tested one by one and Lyric is looking at error and fraud detection and other things where it would seem most logical to be looking from a probability perspective. So is this something new and revolutionary? An impossible design? Or just normal advancements beefed up with marketing?

Mystery Science Car Manual

I was looking for some information and stumbled upon the surprising fact that Chevrolet has all its car manuals for its latest cars online in easy PDF format. Of course, being able to find scanned car manuals is nothing new. But having the official ones all on an easy to access page is pretty nifty. So I was leafing through and just had to laugh. Here's why.

What's up with this "safety" mechanism? How am I supposed to keep my kidnap victims in my car? Or more importantly, how effective is my trunk as a zombie catching device when the zombie can just open the trunk and get the heck outta there?

I assume this means we should anchor babies in car seats so they don't float away. That or training our kids early to be sailors when we run out of oil and can't drive around in cars anymore.

In the US we have air bags. In Canada and Mexico, you just hold a beach ball on your lap. It's probably just as effective. That or they were too lazy to figure out how to spell "air bag" in Spanish or French. Or possibly the translation of air bag is something disgusting in one of those languages. Anyways, why complain when hanging out in your car is like a day at the beach!

This is pretty good. Not only does this car have some powerful ultrasound or see-through device that can clearly see your fetus but apparently it's really darned uncomfortable to drive when your pregnant. Look how unhappy that woman looks. Motion vibes are coming off her back she's so uncomfortable. The auto manual also reminds us, like the airplanes, that the best way to protect your kids is to save your own life first.

Maybe this is a clever graph for the BP oil spill. Or a new mode of transportation.

"You can lose control of the vehicle if you try"... to sleep while driving. Also not recommended. Or maybe she passed out from the jolting experience of adjusting her seat too fast.

I hope helpless adults doesn't include Project Engineers. Because they're pretty helpless. But I still reserve the right to leave them in my car if necessary. Since clearly locking them in the trunk won't work.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

I've created this handy guide to help people out. Click for full size!