Engineering, Bitches!

[Kashmir]

Engineering really gets my juices going. If I learn of an elegant mechanism, remarkable new material, etc., I get more enjoyment out of it than, well, anything I guess. Better than sex.

However, most engineering I don't get excited about. The Burj Khalifa? The latest iPad? Whoop de friggin' do.

Timeless forms are what really interest me. There will never be a time when a number of currently extant mechanisms won't be used. They'll be made of stronger, longer lasting materials, smaller or larger than they are now, but they're fundamentally the same thing. A gear is a gear. A ball-valve is a ball-valve.

Elegant mechanisms are still being devised, and probably will continue to be into the unforeseeable future.

Let's look at some.

The harmonic drive.

The rolling contact robot joint.

The scrollerwheel.

The "zero length" robot manipulator.

Singularity-free robot wrists: 1 2 3

[ImGod]

I work in the power industry and it amazes me that people came up with this design hundreds of years ago and that power plants have had large versions for almost a century rotating at 3600 rpm.

http://www.millwrightmasters.com/Sch...m_turbines.htm

I worked on a power plant once that was built in the 1920s and was controlled by 3 people. One watched the a small panel of gauges in a room and checked the boiler flame by a serious of mirrors that showed him the image of the main flame several hundred feet away. The other two walked around all day and adjusted valves manually after looking at pressure gauges.

The main steam turbine control was a simple flyball governor like this;

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo.../governor.html

[Kashmir]

The vacuum flask.

The Stirling engine. Note, they can be run in reverse to provide extreme refrigeration.

[Qingdai]

Yet engineering itself was (or is) one of the last fields to have affirmative action scholarships for women and minorities, because engineers themselves tend to be racists, misogynistic assholes.
WTF is up with that?
I have a couple of students that are ex-engineers (mechanical and electric) that got out as soon as they could.

Or as my dad used to say, "I never met an engineer I ever liked."

[Stormlight]

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

. . . because engineers themselves tend to be racists, misogynistic assholes.

Me Dad was an engineer, he was virulently anti-racist to the point of disowning half his family, hired women, and would you call someone who woke you up at 3 AM to appear with a match-book taped to his forehead screaming:

Me Dad: Son! Son! Wake up!

Moi: W-w-w-what?

Me Dad: What am I?!!

Moi: . . .

. . .

. . .

. . . I have no fucking idea, Dad!

Moi: A Polish* miner! Go back to sleep!

an asshole?




Well, I did, but I am a man, so . . . no wait . . . never mind. . . .

--J.D.

*Invokes the Chris Rock Rule.

[Kashmir]

Shatter proof ceramic. That's the one thing biology really does well: turn shitty materials--like chalk and apatite--into adequate materials by giving them the right structure at the micro scale.

Black platinum? That's right.

Gorilla Glass, makes your ephemeral jeejah possible.

The Nuytco prehensor.

Not so much current engineering, but a peek into the future.

[Kashmir]

Inflatable structural elements.

[Qingdai]

New Orleans from engineering, "WE FUCKED UP"

Corps of Engineers: We Fucked Up - Ray in Exile

Engineering kills salmon.
Fuck you, who needs food?
http://www.psmfc.org/habitat/salmondam.html

[Qingdai]

Top ten engineering diasters:
Top 10 Worst Engineering Disasters

I had forgotten about the walkways that killed 114, but am happy the included the Molasses disaster. Imagine drowning in industrial molasses. Fun.

[Kashmir]

This thread is supposed to be for celebrating engineering, which by a huge margin has improved humanity's condition upon this planet. Actually, we wouldn't even be here without it, knapped points and blades are engineering.

People aren't omniscient, that mistakes are made occasionally is hardly remarkable.

[ceptimus]

Engineers, by designing and installing sewers, water supplies and the like have probably saved many more lives than the medical profession ever have.

[Qingdai]

How lovely for them.
Just because you want a thread to go a certain way, doesn't mean that that's a go.

Chinese High-Speed Rail Section Collapses - WSJ.com

[ceptimus]

I'm an engineer. It makes me sad that Qingdai is therefore predisposed to think I'm a racist misogynistic asshole and someone that her father wouldn't have liked.

[Kashmir]

Bingo.

I don't know what her deal is. Has an axe to grind, apparently, and so takes a massive crap in a good-natured thread. And has a very parochial view: how can minorities be discriminated against in lands where they're not minorities? Don't they do engineering too? Walking around China, "There's a fucking lot of minorities here!"

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Kashmir

I don't know what her deal is. Has an axe to grind, apparently, and so takes a massive crap in a good-natured thread.

A good-natured thread with "Bitches!" in the title? It was massive crap already, dude.

[Kashmir]

Gorlov turbine.

Thermoacoustic heat engine.

Aramid. Invented by a woman!

[Kashmir]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

A good-natured thread with "Bitches!" in the title? It was massive crap already, dude.

Words, at least in the English language, have different meanings depending on the context and tone.

[Kashmir]

Ductal concrete.

[Qingdai]

I'm taking a rather subtle crap in your thread. Especially from one who likes to hissy fit in other threads. Bitch.:

[Kashmir]

I can't speak for others, but I'm going to ignore your further contributions to this thread--it's going to be a celebration, no matter your inexplicable, prejudiced attempt to make it otherwise. Best way to frustrate a bully is to remove the rise they desire.

[thedoc]

You shouldn't ignore anyone, you can always use them as a bad example.

Even engineering mistakes are useful, unless you don't learn from them.

[Qingdai]

Werner VonBrau, there was some good natured rocket engineering. Nazis, CIA yes indeed the accomplishments of engineering are certainly free of any cultural outlook.

[Doctor X]

But what do those bitches know?

--J. "A RIVER to My People!" D.

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Werner VonBrau [Sic--Ed.], there was some good natured rocket engineering. Nazis, CIA yes indeed the accomplishments of engineering are certainly free of any cultural outlook.

Incidentally, I had a poster on ANOTHER FORUM [Boo. Hiss.--Ed.] take a veritable shit-fit when informed that Werner was a willing participant in the Nazi party--helped him. He claimed that the only reliable sources on Braun were his aubiographical works and, yes, the heavily bowdlerized works from his period. Cannot have a Nazi leading Our Triumph over the Commies, can we?

No we cannot!

More recent history? That, like, showed the pictures of him:



in his SS uniform hiding behind someone who, rumor also has it, had something to do with the SS and some gazpacho thing or something? Well, that was "modern revisionism!"

Quite the melt-down. Oddly enough, some British posters were not very amused by Braun's hiLARiOUS quip that he had been "aiming for the Moon but hit London."

--J.D.