Posts tagged engineering

New Job (by dmd.hashw) In case you were wondering, this is why I haven’t been posting much the last few weeks. 

New Job (by dmd.hashw)

In case you were wondering, this is why I haven’t been posting much the last few weeks. 

Flickr / doodmondang

This is the most effective, yet amusing, image I’ve ever seen illustrating the meaning behind Volts, Amps, and Ohms. 

This is the most effective, yet amusing, image I’ve ever seen illustrating the meaning behind Volts, Amps, and Ohms. 

foxwithsocks:

ralphewig:

Translogic Interview of Elon Musk - probably one of the best interviews with Elon I’ve seen so far. Not only does it have lots of cool footage, but it really drives home what and why SpaceX does what it does. Definitely worth the watch!

Haven’t posted anything space in a while, so here ya go. Elon definitely sounds a bit different than I’d expect.

translogic.aolautos.com

jdotisdancing: Mr. Pearson is now my new favorite person.  How kind! An engineering management degree would be a waste of time. If management is your calling, you’ll progress into that role sometime in your career. A BSME will be your “golden ticket.” 

jdotisdancing:

Mr. Pearson is now my new favorite person.  How kind!

An engineering management degree would be a waste of time. If management is your calling, you’ll progress into that role sometime in your career. A BSME will be your “golden ticket.” 

To the Millions Who Watched The Launch of STS134

foxwithsocks:

complex34:

Thank you for your interest today. Where the hell were you for the other missions? We’ve been sending people into space on the shuttle since 1981. I appreciate your interest now, but we could have used it the past couple of years.

I know it’s all about budget. But did you know that you pay pennies to launch a shuttle? Pennies! You help send men to space without doing a thing and it costs you only a fraction of what you spent on that Mochafrapacapaalpacino.  

We spend hours wondering over what Kim Kardasian wears to a party, but give barely any thought to the men and women who travel to space and push the boundaries of human experience.

All of my friends are sad today. I’m not. I’m pissed. I’m pissed because I just watched as the country who managed to send a man to the moon with less computing power than your cell phone, protected by material that you use in party balloons, just gave up on exploration. I feel let down. We’ve let our space program become bumming rides for gas money with our friends.

We should be on the moon again. We should be on Mars by now.

complex34

Story of my life.

Story of my life.

NASA Helicopter Workshop 2011 (by dmd.hashw)

NASA Helicopter Workshop 2011 (by dmd.hashw)

Flickr / doodmondang

Off to Connecticut tomorrow morning

Gonna get my NASA on. 

Expect photos and some “real” blog posts for once.

richmond77:

Libyan Rebels use machine guns from ‘liberated’ from damaged fighter planes, and mount smaller weapons on remote control toy cars. (via)

- Aidan

complex34: ralphewig: Whispering in a Dragon’s Ear - we’re doing another joint mission simulation with NASA this morning, practicing the operations for the first SpaceX Dragon cargo delivery to the International Space Station later this year. The average person rarely thinks about the thousand little details needed to make a mission like this a reality, before it (hopefully) unfolds in all its history making glory on a live webcast screen. There are literally thousands of things that can go wrong; and so we practice - a lot. Being part of the SpaceX mission ops team, I will have the privilege of a front row seat when the time comes, but it also means getting up at 4am to participate in simulations many times before the actual flight. When you’re circumnavigating the Earth every 90 minutes, local time-zones need not apply. Then again, when the reason you’re getting up is a job like this, rolling out of bed at oh-dark-hundred really isn’t much of a deterrent either :). Total SpaceX fanboy love. Plus, I love the fact that nothing has changed since the 60s. Still working on GMT, still simulating until any imaginable situation can be solved on the fly.  When it’s time for their first manned flight, I’m heading down to watch because of what it represents in humanity’s manned-spaceflight history. The first time a non-government entity puts a man in space will be a massive, wonderful and necessary accomplishment.

complex34:

ralphewig:

Whispering in a Dragon’s Ear - we’re doing another joint mission simulation with NASA this morning, practicing the operations for the first SpaceX Dragon cargo delivery to the International Space Station later this year. The average person rarely thinks about the thousand little details needed to make a mission like this a reality, before it (hopefully) unfolds in all its history making glory on a live webcast screen. There are literally thousands of things that can go wrong; and so we practice - a lot.

Being part of the SpaceX mission ops team, I will have the privilege of a front row seat when the time comes, but it also means getting up at 4am to participate in simulations many times before the actual flight. When you’re circumnavigating the Earth every 90 minutes, local time-zones need not apply. Then again, when the reason you’re getting up is a job like this, rolling out of bed at oh-dark-hundred really isn’t much of a deterrent either :).

Total SpaceX fanboy love. Plus, I love the fact that nothing has changed since the 60s. Still working on GMT, still simulating until any imaginable situation can be solved on the fly. 

When it’s time for their first manned flight, I’m heading down to watch because of what it represents in humanity’s manned-spaceflight history. The first time a non-government entity puts a man in space will be a massive, wonderful and necessary accomplishment.

ralphewig

Revolutionary Eyeglasses You Tune Yourself, No Optician Needed | GOOD Here’s how the glasses work. They have two lenses with a silicon gel in between. You pump in more or less silicon while looking at a reading chart until the letters are crisp and clear, then you have the right prescription. That’s it. Silver—who is an atomic physicist by trade—told the Guardian, “Glasses like these are perfect for use in the third world. We can send them to schools where teachers can direct pupils to set their spectacles to suit each one’s vision. It is as simple as that.”

Revolutionary Eyeglasses You Tune Yourself, No Optician Needed | GOOD

Here’s how the glasses work. They have two lenses with a silicon gel in between. You pump in more or less silicon while looking at a reading chart until the letters are crisp and clear, then you have the right prescription. That’s it. Silver—who is an atomic physicist by trade—told the Guardian, “Glasses like these are perfect for use in the third world. We can send them to schools where teachers can direct pupils to set their spectacles to suit each one’s vision. It is as simple as that.”

GOOD

Mike Rowe Senate Testimony | Discovery Channel

I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening skills gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce.

Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it’s getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They’re retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.

Alabama’s not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn’t a lack of funds. It wasn’t a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.

In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn’t be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative.” Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber, if you can find one, is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.

I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they’re in short supply because we don’t acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

One of the better (and disheartening) things I have read this week.  It is okay to get a little dirty now and then.  You’ll be a better person because of it. 

Make: Online | Printable Strandbeests

Is Theo Jansen insane, or from the future?

blog.makezine.com

thedailymeme: Engineering Professor Happens all the time in my classes. The instructors usually do this so they know who to give sympathy to, and who to give Fs. 

thedailymeme:

Engineering Professor

Happens all the time in my classes. The instructors usually do this so they know who to give sympathy to, and who to give Fs. 

thedailymeme

Guess who was selected to attend the NASA Applied Rotary Wing Engineering Helicopter workshop this summer in Connecticut. 

Me!