Machine Design Blogs

There was a catch-phrase used by the staff of candidate Clinton running for his first term in office: It’s the economy, stupid. It kept campaign workers from getting distracted from the main campaign issue. Well, we might be well served by a take-off on that phrase when it comes to why more kids aren’t pursuing careers in science or math-related fields: It’s the jobs, dummy.

At least that is a conclusion that can be drawn by a recent report from Rutgers and Georgetown University researchers. They contend that there are plenty of kids talented in science and math coming out of high school, but most of them tend not to pursue advanced degrees or careers in these fields. And the reason seems to track back to a lack of career opportunities in math and science.

The authors write that the fall-off in top-performing high school grads pursuing studies in STEM “may indicate that the top high school graduates are no longer interested in STEM, but it might also indicate that a future in a STEM job is not attractive for some reason.”

You can read an Education Week write up of the report at this link, which also contains a link to the full report:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/28/10engineer.h29.html?tkn=ZQ[FHhMHPmR0MnDTN3v8WfWt%2FKowJkPYxxn2

Mashable, a “social media guide,” says, “One of the sticking points with the otherwise highly convenient Google Voice service has been that you had a choose a new number to use with the service. If you had an existing number that everyone already knew and wanted to switch over, you were pretty much out of luck.” But now you can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Read the whole article.

A reader sends this item:

Teaching Math In 1950 ….. A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960 ….. A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970 ….. A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980 ….. A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990 ….. By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees. (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005 ….. El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es 4/5………….

[Reference to 1990’s education

** Courtesy of Nilesh Panandikar]

Here is a new use for a super-high-speed video camera: Studying coin flip biases. It turns out that the mechanics of flipping a coin with your thumb introduces a frisbee-like action that makes the facing-up side of the coin more likely to come up when the coin stops. The results have implications in NFL overtime decisions as well as any other issue decided with a coin flip. Physorg.com has an item that goes into the details:

http://www.physorg.com/news175267656.html

Skooba Design, which provides such products as “checkpoint friendly” laptop carriers, is holding a nifty contest:

According to the contest site, "We are on the hunt for the Master of the Digital Universe, the gadget freak to end all gadget freaks. The Master might have the most gadgets, or the coolest gadgets, or both. The Master might rack up 200,000 frequent flier miles a year and do business in 25 countries, while traveling with an extraordinary tech arsenal. The Master might have drawers and closets full of more retired gadgets than anyone else. The Master might have all of the above.

If you think you deserve to be named Master of the Digital Universe, we want to hear from you. We want your story. It’s not necessarily just about a laundry list of all the stuff you own (although if that’s what you want to send, that’sOK too). It’s about the big picture. This is a subjective contest, to be judged by the product designers, marketing, and management team at Skooba Design. So if you think you’ve got a story, sell it. Tell us what you’ve got, what you carry, how you travel, how you use your tech, why you’re always two steps ahead of every technology development, whatever it may be. The better the picture you paint, with words, images or video, the better wecan judge your story.


Go for it!

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1478-full.html#201319

The folks at AVWeb did some back of the envelope calculations about whether it was feasible for a six-year-old to be lifted 8,000 ft by a relatively small helium balloon. Their conclusion: doubtful. You can see their analysis at the link above.

Here’s an interesting bit about some of the evidence used to make the case for global warming. We’ll quote exerpts from a post by the author of “Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know” on the National Review site:

“……the weather data that go into the historical climate records that are required to verify models of global warming aren’t the original records at all. Jones and Wigley, however, weren’t specific about what was done to which station in order to produce their record, which, according to the IPCC, showed a warming of 0.6° +/- 0.2°C in the 20th century.

Now begins the fun. Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, wondered where that “+/-” came from, so he politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?…………..

………….Roger Pielke Jr., an esteemed professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, then requested the raw data from Jones. Jones responded:

Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e., quality controlled and homogenized) data.

The statement about ‘data storage’ is balderdash. They got the records from somewhere. The files went onto a computer. All of the original data could easily fit on the 9-inch tape drives common in the mid-1980s. I had all of the world’s surface barometric pressure data on one such tape in 1979.”

So, did the evidence really ever exist? You can read the whole item here:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10578