Common Sense 101 - Engineering - December 16, 2012 Edition

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Common Sense 101: Engineering And as I said, in a not-too-distant future all this capability could be provided in an even smaller package —one’s wrist-watch—thereby enabling you to say goodbye even to your cell phone. Voice recognition would make keying in text unnecessary, and fingerprint-and-retina recognition make passwords history. The point is that you should be able to add a whole lot of functionality to your product in a relatively inexpensive way. So why not do it? Leonardo da Vinci, "Angelo Incarnato" (Angel Made Flesh), Charcoal on paper, 1513-1515. “This is the only surviving erotic drawing by Leonardo [...]. According to some sources other (homo)erotic images " existed but were destroyed by a French priest after Leonardo’s death to ‘keep his dignity intact’. “The Angelo Incarnato once belonged to the Royal Collection, but vanished mysteriously only to show up again in 1990, causing a stir: No one liked it, no one wanted to see it, and whenever it was shown, it was shown cropped to hide the obvious. It wasn’t the first time either that it was tampered with, as is visible by the smudge marks over the " " " erection, where someone at some point in time tried to erase it.” —Nykolai (a.k.a. “The Leonardian”). Page 78
W 39. Ouch! hat’s up with manufacturers making things in such a way that that you get hurt using them? The worst culprits, in my experience, are wheelchairs. Not so much for those who ride in them, but for the attendant care people. I know: my late wife was in a wheelchair, and I got hurt innumerable times when helping her. (And, to add insult to injury, the wheelchair cost almost as much as a small car.) Hard corners, sharp edges, places where skin can get caught between hard bits of metal or plastic, pots and pans with handles that can get too hot to handle—you name it, manufacturers clearly don’t give a damn how much their products hurt the people who have to handle them. What, as I asked before—and I ask again—is up with that??? Well, you—the engineers—are the front line in humanity’s defence against this outrage. What you need to do is step in right from the beginning, and make everything safe. Arguably the easiest thing to rectify is hard edges and corners. They do hurt, and there’s absolutely no reason why anything that can come into contact with skin should have them. In this respect I applaud the dishmakers: all cups and saucers have rounded edges, and have had them for centuries. The question is, why hasn’t everything else also been designed that way? It’s not like it would drive up the price of your product by a million dollars—no matter what your product may be. Another sore spot is places where you can get burned. This mostly applies to objects in the kitchen, like pots, pans, oven racks and stoves—while using them you easily get burned by them when they’re hot. Surely there’s a way to put guards in place that would prevent this from happening: guards made out of silicone, say, that would not get hot no matter how hot the food gets! Cookware is designed to be put on the stove or in the oven for chrissake. Would it hurt to make it so that lifting it off the stove—or even just lifting the lid to see if the stew is done—doesn’t burn the cook? Fortunately some cookware manufacturers are taking this principle to heart, by providing heat-resistant silicone handles to all their cookware: but by no means all. Of course one can get also burned repairing or checking things like car engines, which also get hot. Why don’t they design car engines with burn-protection installed, by covering those parts which need checking—like the oil-reservoir cap—with silicone as well? (Of course the best thing would be for engines to not need checking or fixing at all, as we discussed earlier.) Anyway, the point is, we should not have to put up with this nonsense. Nobody should get hurt using a product. Not children, not adults, not seniors with Alzheimer’s, not even idiots who don’t know how to use it. It bears repeating: SAFETY FIRST! Page 79
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Common Sense 101: Engineering Laser
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Common Sense 101: Engineering by La
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T Dedication his book is dedicated
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T The No-Small-Print Warranty he pr
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I Introduction am not an engineer.
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25. Everything should be easy to ge
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E 1. Good Intentions verything shou
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Good Intentions The boom problem co
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T 2. Oh, the Humanity! here’s a d
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M 3. Come Together, Right Now ost t
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A 4. Do it Yourself nd when I say
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T 5. Get Lost here’s also another
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T 6. I Like to Move it, Move it ake
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O 7. You C A N Take it With You f c
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T 8. Cleanliness is Next to Godline
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T 9. The Pyramids here’s an Arabi
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I 10. Heirlooms n the old days, peo
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11. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth
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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
Page 87 and 88: C 36. Friction ontrary to what most
Page 89 and 90: O 37. Wireless f course we all get
Page 91: O 38. Swiss Army Knife nce upon a t
Page 95 and 96: T 40. Square Peg in Round Hole here
Page 97 and 98: D 41. Paint Job id you know that a
Page 99 and 100: W 42. Break Down hy do so many thin
Page 101 and 102: O 43. Deterioration ne of the worst
Page 103 and 104: T 44. Corrosion here are corrosive
Page 105 and 106: O 45. Rock and Roll ne of the worst
Page 107 and 108: T 46. R.T.F.M. hat stands, as you s
Page 109 and 110: W 47. Pinch Me hen I was a very you
Page 111 and 112: I 48. Shocking am a fairly good han
Page 113 and 114: R 49. Leaks emember the Exxon Valde
Page 115 and 116: B 50. The Future is Where You’ll
Page 117 and 118: The Future is Where You’ll be Spe
Page 119 and 120: Write or draw something. Be an arti
Page 121: 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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