Machine Design Blogs

This item from the Chronicle of Higher Education serves as an interesting commentary on the situation for jobs for people with advanced degrees. There have been commentators who have said it only made sense for foreigners to get a PhD in the US because the costs of obtaining the degree are so enormous. Now even Indian PhD candidates are having trouble justifying the costs of the degree, and they are having trouble finding jobs here when they do get the degree. The result is a reverse brain drain back to India, which has also been predicted by some of the same commentators. And I like the comment at the end by the guy who wanted a PhD in financial engineering and now can’t find a job there.

http://chronicle.com/news/article/6214/for-students-in-india-the-american-dream-is-losing-its-appeal?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Social-networking tools allow for more free-for-all communication than traditional publishing methods because users can quickly and creatively collaborate. But — interesting conundrums can arise. For example, what would you think if you are using something like Twitter, and a competitor of the organization you work for starts “following” you?

SageCircle recently posted guidelines for analysts who use social media that could apply equally well to individuals or businesses: Why analysts need to be more measured in their use of social media.

Watch cool videos of the Transition — a plane that turns into a car!

http://www.terrafugia.com/videogallery.html

Last year, I traveled to Shenzhen, China and am to go again in mid April. The city looks kind of like portions of Florida, with palm trees, wide flower-lined streets, and glittering skyscrapers. It is on the South China Sea, just north of Hong Kong. Important industries there include electronics, chemicals, processed foods, textiles, construction materials, and pharmaceuticals. The occasion of my visit: to attend the CHINA INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL EQUIPMENT FAIR (CMEF). Stay tuned for more to come…

Here is a short but interesting interview with Sherry Turkle, professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has a new book out in which she tracks difficulties that can arise from computer simulations. Here is one of the more interesting quotes:

“There’s a generation that is growing up with the computer as an appliance, and they truly have no understanding of how it works. In my book, I tell the story of a girl who was a power player of the game Sim City. She talked to me about her “David Letterman Top Ten Rules of Sim City,” and rule number 6 was “raising taxes leads to riots” because when she did that, that happened in the game. She didn’t understand that if I had programmed that computer, raising taxes would’ve led to more social services and greater social harmony. She was drawing a set of conclusions about how the world worked based on the simulation. The trouble with that was not that she was using the simulation, but that the simulation wasn’t transparent to her.”

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3659/simulations-may-be-causing-real-trouble?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Here’s something you don’t see every day: An academic who discourages people from pursuing advanced degrees. He is talking about advanced degrees in the humanities, but some of what he says has the ring of truth even for advanced degrees in engineering and the sciences:

“What good is professional training for a job that you are not likely to get, after a decade of discipline, debt, and deferred opportunity? Who are these people who think you can spend from two to 10 years with no realistic career goals in mind? They seem to assume that a graduate student will remain childless, or will have no responsibility to care for elderly parents, or will never have any health problems. They assume that there will always be someone else to pay the bills and wash the clothes, while the bohemian geniuses pursue their exalted calling. It’s a kind of infantile narcissism: placing one’s desires above all the other obligations that adults generally assume………..Even assistant professors, who should know what’s going on, encourage their students to go to graduate school because it is professionally risky to do otherwise. ”

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/03/2009031301c.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

“Let the material do the talking” is one of the ideas behind BMW’s concept sports car GINA. Instead of a metal body, it has one made from stretchable material. Thus, designers don’t have to worry about, say, smooth continuity between the wheel wells and the body — the material naturally takes care of a flow. Also, the car’s headlights act and look like human eyes, blinking open and shut as needed. GINA stands for something like “Geomety shape functions In N Adaptations.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYiEkQYhWY

Toilet paper seems to be the latest environmental guilt trip, judging by this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/article/?id=1239&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The funniest part of this comes from one of the comments posted in response:

“Seriously, the toilet paper problem would be solved if we used just one square of toilet paper, the way that my brother learned from the Marines. Impossible? No, simply take one square, fold it in half twice to make a smaller square, tear off the folded corner, open up the larger piece that now has a hole in it, insert your finger, clean yourself, flush the square, and then unfold the small piece you tore off. Use it to clean your fingernail.”

Guess I won’t be shaking hands with any Marines anytime soon.

My idea: Quit being a whiner. Who needs toilet paper? Use corn cobs.

China might look a lot better than the U.S. right now for those affected by the drastic economic slow-down. After all, the Chinese government is stimulating the economy there in a way that will produce real jobs quickly, in contrast to the ineffective stimulus measures we are seeing here. But don’t apply for your Chinese visa just yet. Listen to the words of Kerri Houston Toloczko, a Senor Analyst for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM):

“Despite its meteoric rise to global economic dominance, China has build a high rise economy on a foundation of mud,” states Toloczko.

“As manufacturing facilities popped up rapidly over the last decade, China filled jobs by encouraging massive migration from outlying Chinese villages into burgeoning factory centers. But in their plan they forgot the needs of the workers themselves.”

In the last year, over 20 million Chinese migrant workers lost their jobs as over 125,000 factories closed. The government heavily subsidized the manufacturing build-up, which has now led to a phenomenon known as “runaway bosses.” As factory owners have no personal investment in their businesses, they are leaving town to disappear into China’s one million villages and among its 1.3B people without first paying wages to their now unemployed workers.

China has no social safety nets that cover unemployment, medical, or retirement benefits, people are desperate and angry, Toloczko says. “China is currently experiencing at least 1,000 demonstrations each day - some of them violent - in factory centers and in rural areas when laid off Chinese migrant workers return home and find no jobs there either.”

The AAM has been championing the idea that the U.S. gets a raw deal when trading with China, and Toloczko sees an opening on that score.

“Although the Chinese government is trying to cure its recession with a $586B stimulus plan, it is distracted by massive social unrest that we don’t have here in the U.S.,” Toloczko concludes. “China is paying the price for shallow growth, manufacturing substandard consumer products and ignoring its social problems. But America’s economy is wide and deep, and built on solid footing. As China pays the price for its economic aggression, this may be our chance to reinvigorate our production capacity and finally level the playing field for our manufacturers.”

Here’s how NASA does it on the Space Station.

http://www.space.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=081119_RecycledUrine&mode=