R. Salgado's Blog

U.S. infrastructure woes: A roadblock to growth | Reuters

2011-08-17T11:42:00.000-04:00

U.S. infrastructure woes: A roadblock to growth | Reuters

Tsunami Caught Japan's Nuclear Industry Off Guard - NYTimes.com

2011-03-27T12:18:00.000-04:00

Design is nothing more than siting, configuring, proportioning a system in such a way that it will perform according to needs in a safe manner. So everything that can counter effective and safe performance must be identified and designed against. Excellent engineering means, among other things, not missing nor underestimating potentially threatening outcomes. There is a useful discussion of assumptions made on tsunami threats to the failed nuclear plant in Japan in

Tsunami Caught Japan's Nuclear Industry Off Guard - NYTimes.com.

After any failure of this magnitude, it is common for statements to be made that everything was predictable. We saw this last year with the Gulf of Mexico accident. The reality of the matter though is that, at the design stage, engineers may always miss or underestimate the likelihood of a limit state (undesired system state caused by some event) in connection with some project somewhere, even in important projects like a nuclear power plant. This may happen because it was really difficult to foresee it, because of pressures of economical or political nature (which shouldn't belong in the world of engineering but nonetheless are there, and some may be susceptible to it) or just plain incompetence. I would say that, in connection with this type of project, a sort of "wishful thinking" state of mind, where the "unthinkable" is associated too low a probability of happening, is always the first suspect as a cause of failure.

Japan struggling to 'cool down' nuclear plant, minister says - CNN.com

2011-03-11T13:42:00.001-05:00

Whenever I hear someone talking about how safe nuclear energy is, I always remember a comment a Professor of mine at Berkeley, Richard Goodman, made in class. The point of his comment was that nuclear systems are far too complex (and the risk far too great) to trust engineers, even smart ones, to have a complete handle on. I hope that today's EQ in Japan does not prove that point in too serious a way. That it is a warning to overconfident engineers and scientists is, I believe, beyond dispute.

This and the accident in the Gulf of Mexico last year should hopefully start having an impact on people's perception of how much engineers can really know and do. We deal with complex systems defined by variables with random components. No one can ever assure anyone of anything, and the best we can do is get as much of the physics understood and then quantify our understanding in probabilistic terms as well as we can. If the level of risk after we have done this is not acceptable, it would be better to abandon an enterprise altogether.

Japan struggling to 'cool down' nuclear plant, minister says - CNN.com

Where high speed rail money has been spent - Feb. 17, 2011

2011-02-18T10:36:00.001-05:00

The map shows proposed/funded high-speed rail projects. It is not quite up-to-date, as Florida's governor has regrettably rejected funding for the Tampa-Orlando line (as have other recently elected governors). What is missed here is much more than "jobs". The technology is not even knew anymore. When I was at Studio Geotecnico Italiano in Milan 20 years ago, I remember the intensity with which Italian geotechnical engineers were studying the requirements to provide the sufficient stability and steadiness that these rail lines require for trains to travel safely and effectively at high speeds. That has all been studied, as has the train technology and all other satellite issues. Many countries have such lines today. So the US is really falling behind here in terms of knowledge, technology and competitiveness. It is clear that there are federal and state budget decisions to be made; it is not clear at all that the right ones are being made.

Here is the link to the map and associated article:

Where high speed rail money has been spent - Feb. 17, 2011

Rising seas threaten 180 US cities by 2100 - study | Energy & Oil | Reuters

2011-02-17T10:52:00.000-05:00

Rising seas threaten 180 US cities by 2100 - study | Energy & Oil | Reuters

Biden Announces $53 Billion Rail-Funding Plan - WSJ.com

2011-02-09T16:13:00.000-05:00

Better late than never:

Biden Announces $53 Billion Rail-Funding Plan - WSJ.com

Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension - NYTimes.com

2011-02-07T00:13:00.000-05:00

Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension - NYTimes.com

Progressive Failure in Manaus Port

2011-01-23T18:16:00.000-05:00

There was a failure in a Manaus port recently. I give the details here.

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa: Academically Adrift

2011-01-18T15:51:00.001-05:00

Much is discussed about grade inflation and related issues. For example, what do faculty do if students entering an engineering program are less and less qualified to learn engineering? Do they keep the level where it needs to be or do they do what the system (implicitly) expects them to do? In Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's Academically Adrift, we learn that students are learning little in college (and, in particular, not developing critical thinking, which is perhaps one of the best things the time at college could do for a student). I am not sure that there is enough debate about that or even if people perceive the authors' thesis to be a problem.

Neuroscience, psychology and research funding

2010-12-19T19:09:00.000-05:00

From the NYT's Opinion Pages, a well written article that touches on how some science reporting can be deceiving (but to some degree influenced by how research is funded and also by the desire of universities and funding agencies to report research results that are exciting, visually instigating or captivating).

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/a-real-science-of-mind/?partner=rss&emc=rss

The article starts:

In recent years popular science writing has bombarded us with titillating reports of discoveries of the brain’s psychological prowess. Such reports invade even introductory patter in biology and psychology. We are told that the brain — or some area of it sees, decides, reasons, knows, emotes, is altruistic/egotistical, or wants to make love. For example, a recent article reports a researcher’s “looking at love, quite literally, with the aid of an MRI machine.” One wonders whether lovemaking is to occur between two brains, or between a brain and a human being.

There are three things wrong with this talk.

First, it provides little insight into psychological phenomena. Often the discoveries amount to finding stronger activation in some area of the brain when a psychological phenomenon occurs. As if it is news that the brain is not dormant during psychological activity! The reported neuroscience is often descriptive rather than explanatory. Experiments have shown that neurobabble produces the illusion of understanding. But little of it is sufficiently detailed to aid, much less provide, psychological explanation.

The idea that the neural can replace the psychological is the same idea that led to thinking that all psychological ills can be cured with drugs.

Second, brains-in-love talk conflates levels of explanation. Neurobabble piques interest in science, but obscures how science works. Individuals see, know, and want to make love. Brains don’t. Those things are psychological — not, in any evident way, neural. Brain activity is necessary for psychological phenomena, but its relation to them is complex.

Imagine that reports of the mid-20^th-century breakthroughs in biology had focused entirely on quantum mechanical interactions among elementary particles. Imagine that the reports neglected to discuss the structure or functions of DNA. Inheritance would not have been understood. The level of explanation would have been wrong. Quantum mechanics lacks a notion of function, and its relation to biology is too complex to replace biological understanding. To understand biology, one must think in biological terms.

Discussing psychology in neural terms makes a similar mistake. Explanations of neural phenomena are not themselves explanations of psychological phenomena. Some expect the neural level to replace the psychological level. This expectation is as naive as expecting a single cure for cancer. Science is almost never so simple. See John Cleese’s apt spoof of such reductionism.

The third thing wrong with neurobabble is that it has pernicious feedback effects on science itself. Too much immature science has received massive funding, on the assumption that it illuminates psychology. The idea that the neural can replace the psychological is the same idea that led to thinking that all psychological ills can be cured with drugs.

Very nice (dramatic) video of landslide (with very colorful Italian commentary to make it more interesting)

2010-07-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

This is one one of the best videos of a landslide that I have seen.

Apocalypse in the Gulf: Could a Sinkhole Swallow the Deepwater Horizon Well -- And BP? | BNET Energy Blog | BNET

2010-06-30T16:21:00.000-04:00

For an article in a business website, this article does cover some of the possible technical problems that may lead to even more serious consequences for the Gulf:

Apocalypse in the Gulf: Could a Sinkhole Swallow the Deepwater Horizon Well -- And BP? | BNET Energy Blog | BNET

In the meantime, we continue to hear the analogies that show that people are clueless about risk or are self-interested in some manner. The one that has been repeated many times are that you will not ground all airplanes because one has crashed. I hope it is clear to every objective person that the analogy is totally flawed.

BP-to-Goldman Boards Become Hot Seats for College Presidents - Bloomberg

2010-06-30T06:33:00.000-04:00

BP-to-Goldman Boards Become Hot Seats for College Presidents - Bloomberg

Iphone 4's Design Problems

2010-06-25T08:02:00.001-04:00

It looks like the IPhone 4 could lose the "Phone" in it. If you hold it as a phone, there are serious problems with the antenna reception, as shown in this video. Apple apparently has released instruction on how to hold the phone. Or, as put by the Register: Jobs tells iPhone users to get a grip.

Many Schools Teach Engineering in Early Grades - NYTimes.com

2010-06-17T06:48:00.000-04:00

Many Schools Teach Engineering in Early Grades - NYTimes.com

New Hips Gone Awry Expose U.S. Kickbacks in Doctors' Conflicts - Bloomberg

2010-06-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

It's natural that people are getting frustrated. Current culture values financial rewards and (sometimes undeserved) recognition above all else. This means you can take risky bets that will pay off for long enough to pay you huge bonuses but are eventually certain to produce huge losses (investment banking), outright commit fraud (Enron), get cozy with regulators so no proper engineering is done in connection with something with consequences as devastating as offshore drilling (Gulf oil spill) and now even kickbacks influencing the use of artificial hips and the like, illustrating that engineers and medical doctors are part of the same culture as well:

New Hips Gone Awry Expose U.S. Kickbacks in Doctors' Conflicts - Bloomberg

Still, the level of frustrating is likely to rise further, for it does seem like a (very unfortunate) cultural problem.

How a far-sighted 17th-century scientist saw the future

2010-06-09T10:07:00.000-04:00

An addition to our series of posts on predictions. This link is interesting in that it illustrates the visualization of things to come and the wording used in that process more than in specific predictions as to how and what physical processes would be used to achieve any of the things mentioned.

How a far-sighted 17th-century scientist saw the future

Matthew Stein: The Perfect Storm: Six Trends Converging on Collapse

2010-05-23T22:45:00.000-04:00

Matthew Stein: The Perfect Storm: Six Trends Converging on Collapse

Obama wants drilling safety assurances, names panel | Reuters

2010-05-22T08:08:00.000-04:00

Here is another example of the difficulty that people have with understanding that the world of engineering is definitely not deterministic:

Obama wants drilling safety assurances, names panel
| Reuters

There will always be a risk that something, whether a design detail, or something related to construction or operation will go wrong. The answer is that if the consequences of failure are devastation on the scale we are observing, there must be no offshore drilling. This would be the ultimate assurance: no drill, no spill.

Worry that Gulf oil spreading into major current - Yahoo! Finance

2010-05-17T07:28:00.000-04:00

And it's on to the keys and possibly Broward and Miami-Dade coastline: Worry that Gulf oil spreading into major current

BP: Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well - Yahoo! Finance

2010-05-16T15:48:00.001-04:00

Finally, if reports prove true (update: it turns out it was more of what is referred to in current terminology "spin" or PR), there is some progress in stopping the leak: BP: Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well. It is incredible that there was no plan B and no plan C, and in the meantime so much destruction has happened. However, it is even more disappointing to see the poor understanding displayed by many of the people making the important decisions regarding offshore oil drilling throughout this whole debacle.

When the decision was made to open vast areas off the US coast to drilling was made, it made one cringe to hear how technology had eliminated the risk of spills. This actually was said by many people, believe it or not. The understanding that in any engineering project there is uncertainty, both quantifiable (design and execution or construction uncertainty) and unquantifiable (blunders and gross errors), was clearly missing. Comparisons have also been off the mark. An accident like this is not comparable to the loss of a space shuttle, as bad as that was both times it happened. In that case, one does not destroy entire ecosystems and local economies. The acceptability of risks is totally different. If this disaster does not lead people to change their minds, nothing will.

Another example of how hard it is for our officials to understand engineering and industry is that now our President wants assurances regarding offshore oil drilling. No assurances can be given. There will always be a risk of any number of things, and if things go wrong and the price is devastation, is it worth it?

CHKDSK Utility

2010-05-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

CHKDSK Utility

Oil from Gulf spill may even reach Miami: scientist | Reuters

2010-05-07T20:35:00.000-04:00

Oil from Gulf spill may even reach Miami: scientist
| Reuters

After Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists envision devastation for region

2010-05-04T23:29:00.000-04:00

After Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists envision devastation for region

Feedbooks | Food for the mind

2010-05-03T19:39:00.000-04:00

With the release of the iPad, which will support the ePub format, this eBook format gains some serious traction. The website below has collected a number of public domain titles (which can also be found in the Guttenberg project website):

Feedbooks | Food for the mind

How Your Office Chair May Be Killing You - Bloomberg

2010-04-30T08:38:00.000-04:00

How Your Office Chair May Be Killing You - Bloomberg

Thoughts on Flash

2010-04-29T13:24:00.000-04:00

Thoughts on Flash

Time traveler caught in 1940 photo? - Boing Boing

2010-04-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

Time traveler caught in 1940 photo?

Developers collaborate on list of applications not - Online Best Latest Developers collaborate on list of applications not Price Reviews | Features in India

2010-04-16T08:02:00.000-04:00

Time will tell whether Apple's move to force developers to use obj-C or C++ directly to develop apps for the Apple Store will pay off. This link shows apps developed using one of the now "forbidden" tools:

Developers collaborate on list of applications not - Online Best Latest Developers collaborate on list of applications not Price Reviews | Features in India

U.S. News Rankings Out

2010-04-15T15:42:00.002-04:00

The Engineering School rankings are out:
Rankings - Best Engineering Schools - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report

Link: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/rankings

Gamification: Turning Work Into Play | h Magazine

2010-04-14T20:15:00.000-04:00

Gamification: Turning Work Into Play | h Magazine

10 Simple Google Search Tricks - NYTimes.com

2010-04-13T11:51:00.000-04:00

10 Simple Google Search Tricks - NYTimes.com

MonoTouch Not Supported on iPhone OS 4.0 - General discussion - MonoTouch Forums

2010-04-10T15:10:00.000-04:00

Interesting business case: Novell had developed a piece of software, called Monotouch, to develop applications for the Iphone using Visual C#, a very nice language developed by Microsoft for windows-based architectures but since ported to the Mac OS X and Linux through MonoDevelop. Now, Apple has put a paragraph in the new developer agreement that

apparently prevents use of anything but Apple tools to produce these applications.

Some of the questions:

1) What does Novell do?

2) What do developers who invested in MonoTouch do?

3) Is Apple on its way to become as reviled a monopolist as MSFT once was?

Some interesting and passioned discussion here:

MonoTouch Not Supported on iPhone OS 4.0 - General discussion - MonoTouch Forums

Global Institutional Profiles Project - Science - Thomson Reuters

2010-04-08T18:11:00.000-04:00

Thomson Reuters is preparing a ranking of world universities . It will be interesting to see what comes out of this project. As far as I can tell, it contains not only a reputational component but also data collection about the individual institutions. Here is the link:

Global Institutional Profiles Project - Science - Thomson Reuters

Academic Dishonesty According to Bloomberg

2008-06-20T06:36:00.001-04:00

Scientific Fraud May Be More Widespread Than Thought, Poll Says
By Elizabeth Lopatto

June 18 (Bloomberg) -- About 1,000 potential incidents of fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in scientific research go unreported every year, according to a survey that suggests such misconduct is far more prevalent than suspected.

More...

Jubilee Issue of Geotechnique Available

2008-05-24T10:30:00.001-04:00

The foundation engineering paper in the 60th anniversary jubilee issue of Geotechnique can be downloaded from here.

U.S. News Ranking of Civil Engineering Programs

2008-03-28T09:26:00.002-04:00

2008
1 University of California--Berkeley 4.7
2.University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign 4.7
3 Stanford University 4.5
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.4
5 University of Texas--Austin 4.4
6 Georgia Institute of Technology 4.3
7 Purdue University 4.2
8 California Institute of Technology 4.1
9 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor 4.1
10 Cornell University 4.0 and Virginia Tech 4.0

2007
1. University of California–Berkeley 4.8
2. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 4.6
3. Stanford University (CA) 4.5
4. Georgia Institute of Technology 4.4
5. University of Texas–Austin 4.4
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.3
7. Purdue University–West Lafayette (IN) 4.2
8. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.2
9. California Institute of Technology 4.0
10. Cornell University (NY) 3.9 Northwestern University (McCormick) (IL) 3.9 Virginia Tech

New NAE Members

2008-02-09T13:55:00.001-05:00

New NAE Members:

Amadei, Bernard
Armstrong, Robert C.
Arvind
Assanis, Dennis N.
Austin, Wanda M.
Baughman, Ray Henry
Bhattacharya, Pallab K.
Blumberg, Paul N.
Brown, Gerald G.
Bruschi, Howard J.
Calabrese, Gary S.
Chang, Mau-Chung Frank
Cheng, Stephen Z.D.
Cundall, Peter A.
Dodds Jr., Robert H.
Dwork, Cynthia
Dzombak, David A.
Fiorato, Anthony E.
Fogarty, Thomas J.
Foley, James D.
Fu, Lee-Lueng
Grest, Gary Stephen
Grosz, Barbara J.
Haderle, Donald J.
Harrison, J. Michael
Hudson, John L.
Hunkapiller, Michael W.
Iglesia, Enrique
Kleinberg, Jon M.
Kurtz, Anthony David
Lin, Burn-Jeng
Lipo, Thomas Anthony
Livanos, Alexis C.
Lockett, Michael J.
Luenberger, David G.
Malkin, Stephen
Marr Jr., W. Allen
Martin, John C.
Miller, James A.
Mills, David L.
Nayar, Shree K.
Nikias, Chrysostomos L. 'Max'
O'Neill, Malcolm R.
Raghavan, Prabhakar
Rahmat-Samii, Yahya
Raibert, Marc
Rath, Bhakta B.
Richards-Kortum, Rebecca Rae
Robinson, Stephen M.
Rokhlin, Vladimir
Russell, Thomas P.
Sawyer, Robert F.
Sethian, James A.
Siegel, Paul H.
Singh, R. Paul
Sinha, Kumares C.
Sites, Richard L.
Spaepen, Frans
Suo, Zhigang
Tirrell, David A.
Walt, David R.
Weiner, Andrew Marc
Yeh, William W-G.
Yoon, Roe-Hoan
Yortsos, Yannis C.

New NAE Foreign Associates:

Akasaki, Isamu
Dowling, Ann P.
Healy, Thomas W.
Inoue, Akihisa
Leontiev, Alexander I.
Milner, Arthur John Robin Gorell
Ramm, Ekkehard
van Santen, Rutger Anthony
Watanabe, Tadashi

Seeing the future (Forbes)

2007-10-28T19:24:00.000-04:00

Forbes' special on the future.

WWW Map

2007-10-28T11:02:00.000-04:00

WWW map.

Calculus: Newton and Leibniz or Archimedes?

2007-10-09T13:14:00.000-04:00

Article

What looks like a serious attempt at quantifying the quality of Ph.D. programs

2007-10-06T12:56:00.001-04:00

This company has attempted to rank Ph.D. programs based on objective criteria (journal publications, grants, awards, etc.). It will be interesting to see how well that is done. I haven't had access to it yet.

From a 12th century Baghdad scholar to modern-day web-based software

2007-09-24T13:34:00.000-04:00

This NYT article discusses the concept of an algorithm and its ubiquitous presence on modern-day websites.

Metric_system.png (PNG Image, 1427x628 pixels) - Scaled (70%)

2007-06-24T15:39:00.001-04:00

A little over two hundred years ago, the SI (International System) of units came into being. Although a bit abused (mainly in the US, where it is often referred to as the "metric" system), it has taken over the world. Well, almost all of it. The figure shows the countries that have not adopted it. Good geography practice too!

Metric_system.png (PNG Image, 1427x628 pixels) - Scaled (70%)

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nuclear reactor secrets revealed

2007-06-02T11:37:00.000-04:00

This is rather interesting, in my view. It shows how, for these scientists, the concern for the consequences of their research clearly outweighed an interest in publishing. Extrapolating, this bigger-picture considerations should be more important to a scientist than publishing, securing research funds or any of the other things that academics tend to seek.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nuclear reactor secrets revealed

Outsourcing Versus Immigration - Forbes.com

2007-05-29T18:16:00.000-04:00

Interesting reading for all "knowledge workers". Knowledge, being abstract, is easy to have flow through the Internet, which means these occupations are each time less protected from worldwide competition. The articles has an Atlas showing the countries that are participating in this new way of trading in services.

Outsourcing Versus Immigration - Forbes.com

Web 2.0

2007-05-20T17:33:00.001-04:00

After the pop of the internet bubble, survivors and a number of new companies started pursuing a set of concepts that has become known as Web 2.0. A bit controversial, the term in general applies to the increasing use of the web as a platform for activities that one in the past
would do in a PC or workstation, using DOS or Windows or UNIX and to the increased interactivity and participation of users in shaping services. In a series of brief posts, I will try to very simply outline a number of examples of such activities.

One trend that has been in place for a few years is the mashup or repackaging of existing services. An entertaining example is Gahooyoogle. This service displays both the Yahoo and Google search results side by side. There are plenty more, from the trivial to the more elaborate.

The Surprising Truth Behind the Construction of the Great Pyramids | LiveScience

2007-05-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

The Surprising Truth Behind the Construction of the Great Pyramids | LiveScience

Will Universal Search Mean Universal Domination?

2007-05-17T19:50:00.000-04:00

Will Universal Search Mean Universal Domination?

The difficulty of making predictions

2007-05-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

I have this habit of trying to spot trends. This is useful because trends, despite the absence of any proof, do develop because of something similar to Newton's laws of mechanics. Unless an "external force" comes into the picture, trends tend to stay in place because more and more people jump on the bandwagon, until the "supply" of people finally ends. Spotting trends is helpful in not making wrong predictions. But, as someone said, making predictions is hard, "especially about the future", as the following illustrate. This list expands on the one linked to here.

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television."

"The Atomic bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what is it good for?"
-Engineer at the Advanced ComputingSystems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-Bill Gates, 1981

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us,"
-Western Union internal memo, 1876

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible,"
-A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
-Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
-Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
-Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this,"
-Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy,"
-Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,"
-Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,"
-Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

Source: bigpicture.typepad.com

DRM lobby scrambles to block HD DVD crack - 02 May 2007 - Computing.co.uk

2007-05-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

DRM lobby scrambles to block HD DVD crack - 02 May 2007 - Computing.co.uk

Big Money in Little Screens - New York Times

2007-04-30T19:43:00.000-04:00

Big Money in Little Screens - New York Times

Open Culture: 10 Unexpected Uses of the iPod

2007-04-30T19:41:00.000-04:00

Open Culture: 10 Unexpected Uses of the iPod

Latin phrases used in English

2007-04-26T13:31:00.000-04:00

Latin phrases used in English

Digg.com reveals news stories fade after 1 hour - tech - 24 April 2007 - New Scientist Tech

2007-04-24T20:16:00.000-04:00

Physicists use Digg.com to show that news stories fade after 1 hour - tech - 24 April 2007 - New Scientist Tech

Some very funny and totally wrong predictions of the past | Thought Mechanics

2007-04-23T08:12:00.000-04:00

Some very funny and totally wrong predictions of the past | Thought Mechanics

Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong-News-UK-TimesOnline

2007-04-09T13:11:00.000-04:00

Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong-News-UK-TimesOnline

Speedup Windows XP in Minutes! | Mobile Pedia

2007-04-08T21:16:00.000-04:00

Speedup Windows XP in Minutes! | Mobile Pedia

Robert Heinlein at One Hundred @ Blogcritics.org

2007-04-08T09:55:00.000-04:00

Robert Heinlein at One Hundred @ Blogcritics.org

Building The Infinite Internet - Forbes.com

2007-04-07T14:27:00.000-04:00

Building The Infinite Internet - Forbes.com

How Number Nifty Are You? - Forbes.com

2007-04-07T14:25:00.000-04:00

How Number Nifty Are You? - Forbes.com

Impressive origami

2007-04-07T11:31:00.000-04:00

The Best of Origami

The first time I paid any attention to origami was when I was presented with a gift by Prof. Madhav on one of his visits to Purdue. The gift was a chicken, standing elegantly on its two legs (it has since lost its balance, despite my attempts to set it right by bending it here and there). So I return the gift...

Reuters AlertNet - FACTBOX-Reports by the U.N. climate panel

2007-04-01T20:50:00.000-04:00

Reuters AlertNet - FACTBOX-Reports by the U.N. climate panel

University of Illinois Joins with RIAA

2007-04-01T11:32:00.000-04:00

University of Illinois Joins with RIAA

George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house | News | This is London

2007-04-01T11:31:00.000-04:00

George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house | News | This is London

collision detection: How scientific language erodes public trust in science

2007-03-26T08:14:00.000-04:00

What's in word? If the word is theory, there is a biad that comes with it that many scientists would wish were not there: How scientific language erodes public trust in science

Neatorama » Blog Archive » 11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations.

2007-02-06T19:03:00.000-05:00

11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations.

US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors | Climate change | Guardian Unlimited Environment

2007-01-27T07:30:00.000-05:00

US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors | Climate change | Guardian Unlimited Environment

New Scientist: In the beginning was the bit

2007-01-16T07:39:00.000-05:00

New Scientist: In the beginning was the bit

dilbert.linux.gif (GIF Image, 600x384 pixels)

2007-01-16T07:35:00.000-05:00

dilbert.linux.gif (GIF Image, 600x384 pixels)

Some Interesting and Fun Links

2007-01-13T14:04:00.000-05:00

The economic implications of the Web and the Internet are often discussed. What may be missed in the calculations is how much time people "waste" learning about oddities that they would never have learned about before (and that would not have made any difference to know anyway). This particular one is interesting because every mechanician has to draw a Mohr circle once in a while. When I draw them, I usually warn students that my circles are the worst in the world (a slight exaggeration). This gentleman does not need to do that, and everyone seems to have a lot of fun with his skill. I am sure his teaching evaluations go up by a point or two because of his circle-drawing ability!

Scientists have something to say about doomsday.

The importance of perspective: is there something wrong with this structure?

For aspirng experimentalists and EE students: how to solder.

Struggling with passwords is a real problem. You don't want to write them down for obvious reasons. Then you forget them and have to ask them e-mailed back to you, and then waste considerable time generating a new one because the one that was send to you is absolutely beyond anyone's capacity to remember (of course, as I say this, there will be someone that will show up on youtube with limitless memory...). I am no cryptography expert, but this does seem like the ultimate solution for password troubles and time waste.

Every engineer knows that China has become the manufacturing center of the world, and India the IT/Services center of the world. There have been some other smaller players participating. The news is that China is now becoming too expensive to manufacture the cheap things ("junk") that people in the U.S., in particular, have become used to consuming (note: consume is the right word; we are literally consuming away our planet, but that is another subject).

Apple would like us "Inside the Image" to show us "How scientists see the world".

Missing university lectures? Wanting to watch PBS documentaries without ever leaving your computer? No problem, this site has it all for you. Speaking of never leaving your computer, http://www.sellsbrothers.com/ brings us the figure below. So true...

ABC News: The Science of Evil

2007-01-07T10:12:00.000-05:00

ABC News: The Science of Evil

Ancient ice shelf snaps and breaks free from Canadian Arctic - Americas - International Herald Tribune

2006-12-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

Ancient ice shelf snaps and breaks free from Canadian Arctic - Americas - International Herald Tribune

Some links to start the year with. Happy 2007!

2006-12-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

Another year is behind us. I decided to end the year looking at some of what the Web has of interest that falls on the light side of things. There is bad news out there, including many that are closely related to science and technology (notably global warming and the bird flu), but this is not the time for that.

After the Nasdaq bubble burst of 2000, there was considerable doubt about which companies would survive and what would be of internet companies. A new generation of companies is out with very good stuff, and many new websites and new ideas are out there now. Time magazine has a list of what they consider the 50 coolest websites. Many of these are built on the basis that people want to participate and share and that others are interested in what the first group have to contribute. This led to the controversial, to settle for an uncontroversial word, selection of you as Time Person of the Year.

When I think of the difficulties of being a scientist in the true sense of the word, I always think of Weggener, and the difficulties he met going against the prevailing paradigm in geology in his time when he proposal his continental drift ideas, which eventually led to plate tectonics theory. Tnings have gotten harded in our days. Bureaucratic pressures can make it really difficult for someone intent on doing independent, objective scientific work. A few months ago I saw a 60 minutes' interview with a scientist whose reports were being heavily edited by his superiors, with deletion of anything that sounded conclusive regarding the existence of global warming. Now this about the Grand Canyon puts some geologists in a difficult position.

Back to global warming, I finally saw Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, a few weeks back. It was really well done, and I believe it can be credited with the improvement of the tone of coverage of the global warming issue in the media. Now perhaps he no longer needs to claim credit for having invented the internet, for this movie was a very positive contribution.

Looking for something to do with you head these last days of the year? Try this calculation (in your head!): Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total? 5000? For an answer that is surprising to most who try this and other mind-tripping questions, go here. This comes out of digg.com, one of the 50 "coolest" sites I mentioned earlier, in which news are listed in the order in which they are voted. The website seems to be visited by computer-oriented people in significant numbers, which gives it a nice tech (sometimes nerdy) bias.

Interested in succeeding in 2007? Lots of advice from well known people could help. However, I always consider such things in the context of the role chance plays in life (the best book discussing this in a scientific literate manner is Taleb's Fooled by Randomness).

If you are into best- or worst-of-the-year type lists, this will have what you want.

Finally, a small Chirstmas gift that will help type those foreign characters in the titles of papers written in foreign languages in the list of references of your next paper.

Happy 2007!

The Year Ahead: Tech Predictions For 2007 - Tech News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology

2006-12-25T12:07:00.000-05:00

The Year Ahead: Tech Predictions For 2007 - Tech News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology: "What's ahead in the world of technology in 2007? No one can say for sure, but that doesn't make the tradition of making predictions any less enjoyable. More than many other areas, technology is all about transition. And the year ahead promises transitions in tech that are nothing short of dramatic. "

Healthbolt » What Happens To Your Body If You Drink A Coke Right Now?

2006-12-17T08:33:00.000-05:00

Although I never read it, there was a book many years ago, called Sugar Blues, which described in detail the effects of the consumption of sugar to one's body. A nice timeline of these effects, for a Coke drink, can be found here.

Noise in Computing: A Primer | silentpcreview.com

2006-12-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

In the past, in looking for performance, I found noise in a newly purchased computer. This article discusses computer noise in the context of background noise. In summary, a gamers' PC or a high-performance computational system, unless purchased from special shops, will produce noise of at least 40dB. A good general-purpose system can be purchased that will produce less than 30dB of noise from regular commercial outfits (Dell's Optiplex series, for example, is fairly silent).

SPL (dB) TYPICAL ENVIRONMENT AVERAGE DESCRIPTION

140 30 meters from military aircraft at take off Threshold of pain
120 Boiler shop (maximum levels)
Ships engine room (full speed) Almost intolerable
100 Automatic lathe shop
Platform of underground station (maximum levels)
Printing press room Extremely noisy
80 Curbside of busy street
Office with tabulating machines Very noisy
60 Restaurant, Department Store; Noisiest Gamer PC Noisy
50 Conversational speech at 1 meter; Noisy workstation Clearly audible
35 - 45 Quiet office or library; Typical PC Subdued
25 - 30 Bedroom at night, Quiet PC Quiet
20 - 25 Quiet whisper; Very quiet PC
Background in TV and recording studios Very quiet
15 - 20 Super quiet / fanless PC Barely audible
<15 Sounds of internal organs Normally inaudible
0 'Normal' threshold of hearing Not audible

Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches > Tip #1: Use the Correct Methodology

2006-12-03T18:41:00.000-05:00

Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches > Tip #1: Use the Correct Methodology: "Most people use Google in a very inefficient and often ineffective manner. If all you do is enter a few keywords and click the search button, you're one of those users who don't get as much out of Google as you could. In this article, Google expert Michael Miller shows you how to search smarter — and more effectively."

Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick

2006-12-03T17:25:00.000-05:00

In 1982, almost 25 years ago, I came from Brazil to visit my sister, who was an exchange student at the time. During a couple days spent in New York City, we somehow ended up in a movie theater, of all places, to watch Blade Runner. That was the first of several times I watched the movie, which I consider a masterpiece, on a par with 2001 - A Space Odissey, in the science fiction genre.

Blade Runner is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, a Berkeley author with what I consider rare creativity. His novels are rich in ideas and imagery (according to reports, helped by Dick's use of drugs) but are quick reads. There isn't a lot of time put into character development, for example, but the stories do get you to think. "Blade Runner", the movie (yahoo; amazon), deals with tremendouly appealing issues to me: what constitutes our identity, how we should treat those different from us, the dehumanization of people who authority wants to destroy, the possibility of understanding the meaning of the world and of life to a degree that we transcend ego, and the impact that technology and its close association with profit will have on our world as population growth magnifies the market for technology and thus its role? The movie is, in addition, visually stunning, and way ahead of its time. The acid rain, that never stops falling, hints at problems we have today, with the ever-growing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere responsible for global warming and for increasing acidity of our oceans. The soundtrack, by Greek composer Vangelis, is the best of any movie I have seen.

Interestingly, reception to the movie was initially cool, to say the least. It took some time for people to recognize the quality of this movie and the strength of its story. Eventually, the movie rekindled interest in Dick, with many more of his stories made into movies, A Scanner Darkly being the most recent one.

What got me going with this? I ran into this documentary on google video, which is very well done:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3807826142091223684

What the future holds, or so they think...

2006-11-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

What will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years?

Online lectures - various universities

2006-11-19T16:56:00.000-05:00

online lectures - Internet TV Search Engine swicki - powered by eurekster

A View from Above

2006-11-19T16:54:00.000-05:00

Some very beautiful photos of a variety of things, from volcanoes to residential neighborhoods, from a very consistent angle...

WebПарк.ру: Мир сверху (55 фото)

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

2006-11-04T13:51:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide: "World Fisheries Risk Collapse by 2048, Scientists Say (Update2)

By Alex Morales

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The world's ocean fishing grounds may be almost exhausted by 2048 if catches and pollution aren't limited, according to scientists who conducted a four-year study.

The rate at which stocks in the fishing areas have collapsed is accelerating, the scientists led by Boris Worm of Canada's Dalhousie University said today in the journal Science. A seafood species is said to have collapsed when the catch falls below 10 percent of the maximum annual haul. By 2003, 29 percent of seafood species were in that category, the scientists said."

Image:Snowflake 300um LTSEM, 13368.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2006-10-28T09:35:00.000-04:00

Image:Snowflake 300um LTSEM, 13368.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RealEstateJournal | Ten Innovations That Will Reduce The Amount of Energy We Use

2006-10-22T23:24:00.000-04:00

I'd like to comment on this but need to find the time...

RealEstateJournal | Ten Innovations That Will Reduce The Amount of Energy We Use

A Nice Tool for Dealing with File Type Inflation

2006-10-12T10:50:00.000-04:00

Media Convert - free and on line - convert and split sound, ringtones, images, docs - MP3 WMV 3GP AMR FLV SWF AMV MOV WMA AVI MPG MP4 DivX MPEG4 iPOD PSP OGG WMA AAC MP4 MPC MMF QCP KAR MIDI REALAUDIO FLAC JPG PSD DOC PDF RTF TXT ODG ODP ODS ODT SXW WK1 MDB XLS VOB: "100% free, online file conversion
no installation, no virus and spywares"

Seed: Science 2006

2006-10-11T08:32:00.000-04:00

Seed: Science 2006

A New website on higher-education jobs

2006-10-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

This relatively recent website seems well put together and may be useful to those seeking academic jobs:

Higher Education Jobs

Rodrigo Salgado - Science, Engineering and Technology Blog

2006-09-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

I am teaching theoretical geomechanics this semester. I've compiled this list for my students, which may be of interest to those visiting who have an interest in mechanics:

Rodrigo Salgado - Science, Engineering and Technology Blog

Through our own eyes

2006-09-22T10:11:00.000-04:00

From the NYT, 20060922 , a quote from Chomsky that I wish to save: “We should look at ourselves through our own eyes and not other people’s eyes". This he apparently said to the NYT reporter who called his home to check whether he was alive. The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had indicated in a news conference that he regretted not having had met Chomsky before his death, all of this related to Chavez's recommendation of Chomsky's book, which was propelled by this recommendation to the absolute No. 1 Amazon's bestseller. At any rate, what focused my attention on this quote is the fact that much of the workings of academia is based on looking at yourself through other peoples' eyes and yet here is an academic saying otherwise. Much of academia is based on staying with the program, with the prevailing paradigms, for this brings the fastest benefits, whether it be accepted papers or funded proposals, but most of the great progress in science came from breaking with the prevailing paradigms. I think that this is worth pondering.

Best Scientists

2006-07-16T09:50:00.000-04:00

It was unavoidable that, given what is happening in the world, a quote by Noam Chomsky would find its way to my computer screen: "The best scientists aren't the ones who know the most data; they're the ones who know what they're looking for." I think this is mostly right. It speaks to focus and to reluctance on going off on tangents when you have a clear research goal. There are of course times when one should allow oneself the freedom to scan, and read and take those tangents to see where they might lead, but consistently doing that will probably lead to very few results.

This blog appears as 18th of 100 top engineering blogs:

2006-07-14T00:30:00.000-04:00

18: R. Salgado's Blog BlogShares profile
Last Indexed: 11:20 13 Jul 2006

Where in the world?

2006-07-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

Where in the world are people searching for the terms "foundation engineering on Google? See here.

Top Ten Engineering Flops

2006-06-03T09:05:00.000-04:00

This list of the top ten engineering mistakes ever made illustrates the need for fully visualizing everything that could wrong with a design so that these outcomes may be prevented.

What amazing things a knowledge of mechanics, skill and experience let you do!

2006-05-28T17:54:00.000-04:00

This is one of the coolest videos I have seen: can you poor someone a drink while upside down?

Transitioning from a linear to a non-linear world: what doors does that open?

2006-05-27T10:13:00.000-04:00

I practice in a field that deals with strongly nonlinear materials (granular media). These materials have in esence no linear elastic range to speak of. They can also both strain-harden and strain-soften, depening on conditions. So constitutive models must be very complex in order to capture all the nuances of mechanical response. Numerical challenges also exist. For example, shear strains tend to localize intensely for strain-softening materials. The numerical models needs to capture that. Other numerical challenges include dealing with action near the yield surface. Today, although still expensive, analyses of boundary-value problems using such models and techniques are possible. This will open doors, answer questions in rigorous and realist ways. But will practitioners wish to walk through these doors?

The Geo-Engineering profession has long dealt with the inability of analysis (which has typically been based on linear elasticity and/or perfect plasticity) to provide realistic answers by discounting analysis as simply a tool to provide general guidance. Empiricism has, as a result, dominated. This has left us with a traditional approach to graduate education that has left many unprepared to reap the benefits of the hard work that has been put into arriving to where we are by a generation of mechanicians and analysts. In 5 years or so, the analyses I spoke of will likely be much more economical to perform. The question for me is: will our engineers embrace these analyses and the benefits that can result from them or will they shun them and stick with traditional practices?

The Gutenberg Project

2006-04-29T14:41:00.000-04:00

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top

U.S. News and World Report Rankings: Engineering Schools

2006-04-02T15:29:00.000-04:00

When I was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, the U.S. News Rankings were not yet established as an important reference for students, faculty and administrators. They are now. The new engineering rankings are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. University of California - Berkeley
4. Georgia Institute of Technology
5. University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
6. Purdue University - West Lafayette
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
8. Carnegie Mellon University
9. University of Southern California (Viterbi)
10. California Institute of Technology

As pointed out by Mark H. Karwan, the engineering dean at Buffalo, some of the criteria used in the U.S. News rankings reward schools that have higher numbers of faculty and students. So a Dean, to have her school climb in the rankings, may simply negotiate for a larger number of faculty positions, for example, so that the ascension in the rankings may not necessarily reflect a qualitative improvement in the College. In contrast, in the specialty rankings, perception is everything, as programs are ranked based on an assessment by peer departments at other universities. The question then is: what has changed in a given school to justify the rise or fall in the rankings. Just a few of the questions to ponder when using rankings as a factor in decision making.

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

2006-03-26T12:05:00.000-05:00

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online: "DOZENS of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century, according to research which suggests that global warming will increase sea levels more rapidly than was previously thought.

The first study to combine computer models of rising temperatures with records of the ancient climate has indicated that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft (6m) by 2100, placing millions of people at risk."

Applied Mechanics Research and Researchers

2006-03-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

Applied Mechanics Research and Researchers: "Recently I attended the annual American Physical Society conference held in Baltimore (during the week of March 13th). One of the non-technical sessions included presentations by the APS journal editors--Physical Review A/B/C/D/E and Letters---and a panel discussion related to these journals. Since many of our mechanics and materials colleagues nowadays are interested in publishing in these journals, I thought I should post a link to some of the slides (from the editors presentation) that I found interesting. Many of the slides presented at APS are in the linked pdf file that also includes additional (humorous slides!) regarding reviewer issues.

Essentially, the graphs in the presentation depict a telling trend regarding globalization of research. Until 1995, US submissions to PRL dominated with western Europe and rest of the world following (in that order). In 1995, western Europe overtook US. Since last year, the rest of the world has overtaken BOTH western Europe and US. By the 'rest of the world', the editor is essentially referring largely to China, and partly to India and eastern Europe."