I posted this on YouTube recently: a "tour" of a Russian military factory, taken in 1994. The operation produced pile driving equipment for railroad troops. Having spent a good deal of time in machine shops, factories and foundries, what struck me was the scale of the operation and the vertical integration of the production. The …
Circling the Wagons Around Evolution
The Department of Biological Sciences of Lehigh University (from whence my grandfather graduated in 1912) took the rather bold step of publicly opposing the concept of intelligent design as articulated by one of its own faculty members, Dr. Michael Behe (author of the opening shot in this debate, the book Darwin's Black Box.) How times …
Direct Derivation of the Equation of Motion for an Undamped Oscillating System in Phase Angle Form
Note: this article was mangled during a site platform transition; however, it was duplicated a while back and you can see it properly here. And now for something completely different... The equations of motion for linear vibrating systems are well known and widely used in both mechanical and electrical devices. However, when students are introduced …
If You Don’t Like Unscientific Policies, Choose Scientific People
From the "GeoCurmudgeon" column in the March/April 2009 Issue of GeoStrata: Consider the nine wonders of the modern world; the nine men who comprise the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, led by PRC President Hu Jintao, a hydraulics engineer; Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, a geotechnical engineer; five other engineers; and two economists. …
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The War on Plastic Retail Bags is Stupid
Even if Apple is waging it: AppleInsider's Prince McLean reported Saturday that Apple's retail stores are implementing a new "no plastic bags" policy in order to cut back on unnecessary packaging. According to the report, customers making more than a comfortable handful of purchases in the store will be offered assistance to their car or …
Melinda Gates Wants an iPhone: After They’ve Boosted all the Rest…
But Bill is, unsurpisingly, against it: Microsoft founder head Bill Gates has banned the use of products made by arch-rival Apple from his house, his wife has revealed. But the blockade could backfire on Gates, 53, after Melinda admitted there are times she feels envious of her friends' iPhones. She told Vogue magazine that the …
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Transportation and Infrastructure Upgrades Already Slow Out of the Gate
I was afraid that this was going to happen: When President-elect Barack Obama announced last month that he would revive the economy with the largest public works program since the dawn of the Interstate System of highways, advocates for the nation's long-neglected infrastructure were euphoric. Some hoped that the time had finally come to bring …
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Planned Obsolescence? Not Here!
One common complaint people have with many things they buy these days is that they are designed with the idea that they will, at an appointed time, wear out and become useless, requiring their replacement. But that wasn't the case with my old family business, the Vulcan Iron Works. At the right is a pile …
Apple Tax? Absurd!
Microsoft is getting desperate these days: With Apple's last Macworld keynote speech just hours away, Microsoft is again talking up the idea of an "Apple tax" that people pay when they opt for a Mac over a Windows PC. What Gates' Gang doesn't want to think about is something that any car dealer--and most Macintosh …
Some Thoughts on the Teaching of Evolution
It's gratifying for me to see that there are a more than a few who would not uncritically accept Laura Lorentzen's "Why We Must Teach Evolution in the Classroom" in the Summer 2008 edition of the Phi Kappa Phi Forum. Having done the "Masada" deal with that publication myself, I'm glad that there are some …
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Positive Infinity 