Losing Our Edge in High Performance Computing?

Our Department of Energy and National Security Agency would like for you to believe this: As China, the US and Japan near the finish line in exascale race, the DOE and NSA are sounding the alarm that the United States is at grave risk of losing its dominant position in high performance computing. According to …

An Anglican Divine Gets the Point

Growing up at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church was my first exposure for the rector to have an earned doctorate.     That exposure came from Hunsdon Cary, who "oversaw" the beginning of the Church Mouse resale shop and whose relatives got the property boot from Jon Bruno.  This has generally not been the case with the churches I …

Soils in Construction, Now at Waveland

It’s official: the construction management textbook Soils in Construction, Fifth Edition by W.L. Schroeder, S.E. Dickenson and D.C. Warrington is now at Waveland Press. As someone who has dealt with contractors for his entire working career, I know that an understanding of the essentials of soil mechanics and foundations is crucial for successful–and profitable–completion of […] …

What College Used to Look Like, and a History of Tau Beta Pi

What a "college man" used to look like, in this case my grandfather, C.H. Warrington, who is at the right. He started out at the University of Illinois but ended up at Lehigh, where he graduated with a Civil Engineering degree in 1912. (It was another eighty-five years before a member of the family would …

A Merry Christmas/Joyeux Noël from Positive Infinity

Above is a Christmas card sent by my great-uncle, James N. Warrington.  Evidently the Francophone bent in the family predates marrying into the progeny of New France.  Yohttps://vulcanhammer.info/2017/08/18/california-series-pile-hammers/u can read more about him and his accomplishments here.

God as Mathematician? Why Not?

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku lays it out: “I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence,” Kaku said, as quoted by the Geophilosophical Association of Anthropological and Cultural Studies. “To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped …

Show Us the Money, Donald Trump

Glenn Harlan Reynolds laments the way campuses (or campi, really) have reacted to the lachrymose response to Trump's victory: The response to the shock has been to turn campuses into kindergarten. The University of Michigan Law School announced a ”post-election self-care” event with “food and play,” including “coloring sheets, play dough [sic], positive card-making, Legos …

NPO VNIIstroidormash: Soviet Construction Equipment Technology

On my companion site vulcanhammer.info, I have posted several articles on Soviet (and after that Russian) pile driving equipment, such as diesel hammers, concrete pile cutters, and vibratory and impact-vibration hammers. These are very specialised topics, even by construction industry standards; here I want to present some photos of more general interest to you heavy …

A Little Lesson in Subsidiarity

One of pot shots that Hillary Clinton and her operatives made at conservative Catholics is that they used terms like “subsidiarity” that no one understood. Since they may be right about that, I think an illustration is in order. Many of you know that I teach Civil Engineering. Six years ago, my department head (who …

Buoyancy and Stability: An Introduction

Note: this post has moved and has been updated extensively. You can go to the new post by clicking here.

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