A Skeptical Engineer

Check out this video It may be five years old, but I’m sure the same type of stuff is still going on. In short, it’s a presentation by “immigration” lawyers on how to comply with the legal steps needed to prove no U.S. citizens is capable or qualified for a job the company has already hired (and trained) an H-1b foreign worker to fill. The company must post the job and get no capable or qualified applicants before that immigrant with the job can get a green card and stay in the job another 10 to 15 years. The kicker, and you knew it was coming, is that the lawyer and his team will work with companies to make sure no qualified candidate applies, and if they do, the law firm will supply several legal ways to blackball them.

It might be legal, but it’s certainly slimy.

Any of you engineers seen this practice in action?

Click here for the video.

Susan Straley is the president of Rentapen Inc, a Wisconsin –based machine design and tooling firm that specializes in laser cutting, shims, and tooling fixtures. She is also a heckuva welder. She even has a blog dedicated to spreading the word on proper welding and how to design weld fixtures. She started her blog when she found out that 40% of the engineering workforce would be retiring in less than 10 years and she wanted to collect and share knowledge and experience regarding machine tooling and welding.

Straley usually tackles a subject in each entry, topics such as Using metal adjustment shims in weld fixture design, Seven tips for lean and efficient weld fixture design, and Three ways to detail a V-block jig. And entries are often accompanies by videos.

The NAIS Auto Show makes Detroit the center of the automotive universe for a few days in January and it’s pretty amazing what you can see as you walk the floors.

- For the 12-year old in you, Chevy showed a Camaro decked out in lime-green paint over chrome finish, Hot-Wheel details and logos, and a flat-black racing stripe running from the hood and its eight chrome-lined heat extractors, over the roof and off the rear spoiler. It’s the paint job that really caught my eye — somehow it recreates the shiny, cool, colorful Hot Wheel car-look I remember from my childhood. And staging it on a giant orange Hot-Wheel track is a nice touch.



- For the 18-year old in you, at least if you’re a male, the show still has the traditional bevy of beauties standing around the cars and trucks. One of these days, they just might put an end to this practice. But for balance, I must add that when I went to see what Ford was doing with its trucks, I noticed the company had positioned several flannel-shirted, blue-jeaned guys around the vehicles. It seemed only fair.

- For those with a need for speed, there was the new Corvette, the Audi R8 (complete with a booth babe),



and the eye-popping LF-LC from Lexus.



There were also a nice collection of BMWs, Acuras, and other high-end speedsters, as well as a classic 1952 Mercedes 300 SL.



- For the celebrity spotters, there were several Detroit-area congresspersons, both the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Energy, and way too many auto executives to count. There were also a few “other” stars. BMW, for example, had speed skater Apolo Ohno, swimmer Janet Evans and decathlon champ Bryan Clay introduce the new 3 Series. Ohno is the only one I recognized though, thanks to his trademark soul patch. Now you might ask, what does a German luxury car company have to do with some U.S. Olympians? According to car company, the common threads are speed, agility, and athleticism.

- And finally, for the ultimate soccer-mom mobile, the Maserati Kubang, an SUV built on a Jeep platform and powered by a 6.4-liter V8 Hemi.

And if you want to see more, check out all the fresh new videos from the floor of Cobo Hall when the NAIAS Auto Show was in town!

Ever wonder why no new U.S. car companies have been started up over the past couple of decades? And I’m not counting small shops that are custom building supercars for the super rich or subsidized electric vehicles for the eco-minded. Here’s an editorial from one of my favorite car columnists that connects the dots between government mandated safety and emission equipment, onerous safety standards, and the lack of new car companies. It also tries to explain why the major car companies are more than happy to let Uncle Sam literally have a seat in their boardrooms.

Click here for a link to the article.

Scientists at the Swiss-based CERN recently concluded experiments that seem to show the Sun and its changing magnetic field affect cloud formation in the Earth’s atmosphere. The whole story gets a little ugly, with CERN management stalling and stifling scientists wanting to explore activity that might possibly discredit global-warming models and theories. (Read about here.)

As a college student, I did a bit of mathematical modeling of various systems and studied the models from the Club of Rome (Limits to Growth, anyone?) One thing I learned is that if you don’t know about a causal relationship between two or more variables in your model , or you don’t even know a variable plays an important role, you won’t be including them in your model. I also learned you have to validate your model to have any confidence in it. That’s why I largely ignore predictions coming from climate “experts” based on their own, often proprietary models. And when they claim to have lost the data that went into creating the model, I suspect shenanigans.

So are you convinced global warming is a threat? Or is it just the doomsday prediction du jour?

It’s hard to beat Survival Research Labs when it comes to leveraging leading-edge technology and robotics into true spectacles of confusion and destruction. For example, did you know they were the first ones to have an animal-controlled robot in a live performance? It’s true. Back in the 1980s, they had a guinea pig in a wired-up harness on a six-legged robot and the guinea pig’s movements controlled the robot’s movements.

You can spend a lot of time wandering their website, checking out machines like the Mumbly Peg Stabber and the Flame Whistle. (You can also run into a few dead links, but that’s one of the hallmarks of older websites.) This one is still updated and you can get DVDs of previous SRL shows with semi-pompous names like “Virtues of Negative Fascination” and “A Calculated Forecast of Ultimate Doom: Sickening Episodes of Widespread Devastation Accompanied by Sensations of Pleasurable Excitement.”

But these folks don’t take themselves too seriously, and the founder, Mark Pauline, is a big fan of Machine Design. In fact, he was kind enough to invite me to his workshop and talk me through several of his machines a few years ago. Here’s the article that came out of that interview: Crashing and Burning with Class.

I wanted to put together a Top 10 list of the all–time greatest engineering movies, but I could only come up with two. I’m hoping readers will send in thought provoking suggestions (Hint, hint).

I think my favorite engineering movie is “No highway in the sky.” Jimmie Stewart plays an absent-minded aeronautical engineer with a strong sense of ethics. No chase scenes, no blood or gratuitous skin, just an engrossing human story, which is the hallmark of Neville Shute’s writing. This 1951 movie is based on one of his many books, which also include On the beach, A Town like Alice, and his autobiography, Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer. (For more on this amazing man, check out this link.)

My other favorite is “Flight of the Phoenix,” which also features Jimmie Stewart, along with a top notch cast. The story is about a group of men stranded in the desert and how they “engineer” a way out. Don’t waste your time with the recent remake with one of the Quaid brothers, unless you want to see how 21st century attitudes and technology can ruin a good thing.

Other moves some have suggested as being “engineer-oriented” include “Tucker,” “Real Genius,” “The Fountainhead,” and “Bridge over the River Kwai.”

What do you think? What movies would you recommend to a budding or experienced engineer?

By the way, if you’re a glutton for punishment, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at StephenJMraz.