Common Sense 101 - Engineering - December 16, 2012 Edition

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Common Sense 101: Engineering Texas (among others) as well. I leave it to y’all to figure out where the stench is coming from. (Oh—and let me know when you do, please.) Love and war in ancient Greece. “Gays in the military were the norm, not the exception. It was those effeminate straight guys, who went in for mathematics and philosophy and all that other mind stuff, who were NOT drafted to fight the Trojans.”—Masters and Johnson, see http://tinyurl.com/be7ql3r. These were the gays, remember, who whupped the collective ass of the greatest empire of their time—the Persian Empire—not just once but three times: at " " " Marathon, at Salamis and finally, and decisively, at Gaugamela. Page 22
11. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is f course it’s no use making your product last forever unless your customers know about it. And what Obetter way of doing so than offering a no-questions-asked lifetime warranty? That’s what Sears does for its Craftsman brand tools. They offer a lifetime warranty on them. And it’s so easy to get them to honour it that all you have to do is bring the broken item back. They’ll give you a new one on the spot, whether you have the receipt or not. Craftsman brand tools are, therefore, among the most desired tools on the planet. Why should Sears get all the benefit, though? Why can’t all products be made with a life-time—or even an afterlife-time—warranty, like the Great Pyramid? You might say “It’s not really feasible with many products”, but no, that’s not really so. All you need to do is start giving your product—whatever it may be—a lifetime warranty right from the get-go. Then, when it breaks down, it will, natch, come back to you for repairs. You make a note of which part has broken down, and beef up that part so much that it won’t break down again. In a rather short time, that way, all the parts will be beefed up so much that your product will virtually never break down. (I say “virtually” because, yes, given some freak occurrence it may break down, in rare instances, but in such cases, the cost of repairs will be so small as to make little difference to your bottom line. And your sales will have gone up so much to compensate, that you won’t mind in the least.) But of course you can always design it robust enough not to break down in the first place. Russian fighter planes have always been designed with landing gear capable of allowing them to land on grass airfields, for instance. It was a directive from TsAGI—the Russian counterpart of NASA—and all the Soviet aircraft designers had to follow it. I’m guessing that’s because even Russian paved airfields are full of potholes. If their fighters couldn’t land on Russian grass fields they probably couldn’t land on Russian paved fields either. If American fighters had tried to land on them they’d likely have been destroyed without a shot being fired. And the Russians would, of course, have been laughing their heads off. The same thing with Russian space rockets, which are routinely launched in sub-zero temperatures. If the mercury falls to almost freezing at Cape Canaveral they cancel the launch. But at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where the Russians have their launch pad, it’s sub-zero half the year, so they can’t afford to cancel a launch just because it gets a bit chilly. Of course the Russians are used to this sort of thing. In Oymyakon in Siberia—one of the two coldest continuously-inhabited settlements in the world—there is, I understand, a single boiler for heating water for all the houses. (Only a few hundred people live there, so it’s no big deal.) The hot water is piped to the houses through insulated pipes. The boiler simply does not break down. It gets so cold in Oymyakon—the name is probably Russian for “OMG”—that if you wear glasses outdoors they freeze to your face, and truck owners have to light a bonfire under their fuel tanks to bring the diesel fuel from a solid to a liquid state in the morning. (I’m not kidding: that’s what it says in National Geographic.) So if the hot water boiler were to break down it would be a disaster—the pipes would all freeze and burst and they’d have to wait till summer to replace them. So the boiler doesn’t break down. It’s designed not to break down. This sort of engineering is not confined to Russia, either. Some American fridges built in the ’fifties are still running. They’re not very energy-efficient, but that’s due to old technology. The point is that they still run. And, of course, steam engines built in the nineteenth century are in perfect working order. They are in museums, because it’s uneconomical to actually use them, but they could be used. And it’s not just big robust things that can be made to last forever: delicate mechanisms can be made to do the same. Chronometer watches made in the days when ships actually sailed the oceans—I mean, sailed with sails—still work … and work accurately enough to calculate the longitude. Yes, we have more accurate chronometers now, and GPS allows us to forgo calculating the longitude anyway, but those old watches still work. In fact, in days gone by the one thing you typically inherited from your Dad was his watch. At least if you were the eldest son. (If you were the daughter you probably inherited the crockery, from your Mum.) Though neither the watch nor the crockery carried a lifetime warranty, they could have. So why can’t cars—and the roads they drive on—be offered with lifetime warranties? There’s absolutely no reason they can’t be. And the first company to do so would probably corner the market. Who Page 23
Page 1: Common Sense 101: Engineering Laser
Page 5 and 6: Common Sense 101: Engineering by La
Page 7 and 8: T Dedication his book is dedicated
Page 9 and 10: T The No-Small-Print Warranty he pr
Page 11 and 12: I Introduction am not an engineer.
Page 13 and 14: 25. Everything should be easy to ge
Page 15 and 16: E 1. Good Intentions verything shou
Page 17 and 18: Good Intentions The boom problem co
Page 19 and 20: T 2. Oh, the Humanity! here’s a d
Page 21 and 22: M 3. Come Together, Right Now ost t
Page 23 and 24: A 4. Do it Yourself nd when I say
Page 25 and 26: T 5. Get Lost here’s also another
Page 27 and 28: T 6. I Like to Move it, Move it ake
Page 29 and 30: O 7. You C A N Take it With You f c
Page 31 and 32: T 8. Cleanliness is Next to Godline
Page 33 and 34: T 9. The Pyramids here’s an Arabi
Page 35: I 10. Heirlooms n the old days, peo
Page 39 and 40: I 12. Maintenance t’s simply not
Page 41 and 42: T 13. Coolth he word “warmth” i
Page 43 and 44: D 14. Quark o you remember Quark? I
Page 45 and 46: A 15. What’s in a Name? ctually,
Page 47 and 48: I 16. Something Old, Something New
Page 49 and 50: I 17. The Eliminator kea has a phil
Page 51 and 52: A 18. The Sum of its Parts pparentl
Page 53 and 54: I 19. Don’t be Shy t’s no use h
Page 55 and 56: B 20. K.I.S.S. y K.I.S.S. I mean—
Page 57 and 58: I 21. Deliver Us t bears repeating,
Page 59 and 60: I 22. Easy, Pal! t all started in t
Page 61 and 62: A 23. Play it Again, Sam few years
Page 63 and 64: O 24. Upgradability ne problem Stra
Page 65 and 66: W 25. The Numbers Game hen you firs
Page 67 and 68: M 26. Recycling aybe some day whate
Page 69 and 70: E 27. Cool it, Man! verything shoul
Page 71 and 72: O 28. The Dark Side ne of the worst
Page 73 and 74: W 29. Finders Keepers, Losers Weepe
Page 75 and 76: J 30. It’s a Steal ust about ever
Page 77 and 78: O 31. Check this out! nce upon a ti
Page 79 and 80: Y 32. Autopilot ou know that airlin
Page 81 and 82: W 33. It’s Standard hen you go to
Page 83 and 84: W 34. Waterproof hat could be so ha
Page 85 and 86: W 35. The Rotary Club e often derid
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C 36. Friction ontrary to what most
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O 37. Wireless f course we all get
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O 38. Swiss Army Knife nce upon a t
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W 39. Ouch! hat’s up with manufac
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T 40. Square Peg in Round Hole here
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D 41. Paint Job id you know that a
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W 42. Break Down hy do so many thin
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O 43. Deterioration ne of the worst
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T 44. Corrosion here are corrosive
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O 45. Rock and Roll ne of the worst
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T 46. R.T.F.M. hat stands, as you s
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W 47. Pinch Me hen I was a very you
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I 48. Shocking am a fairly good han
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R 49. Leaks emember the Exxon Valde
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B 50. The Future is Where You’ll
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The Future is Where You’ll be Spe
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Write or draw something. Be an arti
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T About the Author he author is a n
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Common Sense 101 - Engineering - December 16, 2012 Edition

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