Challenge: Remembering Little Achievements in Design and Engineering

 

There are all sorts of awards out their for big, fancy, world changing developments in design and engineering. Things like the space shuttle, the international space station, the hubble space telescope, the mars rovers, developments in nanomaterials, some of the huge damns and skyscrapers, new methods of generating power, etc. all come to mind as the sorts of inventions or developments that will end up vying for such prizes.

Today, I was struck by the fact that many design enhancements or developments in our world are smaller, more banal or pedestrian, and yet for all that, incredibly useful. I think many of these are under-rated. So I thought I would throw out a small challenge to my reader(s):

Try to think of one or two small design enhancements or small inventions that you've seen over the past 15 or so years and post a line or two about them here. The idea is to identify the sort of thing that is a small invention, device, or feature enhancement and therefore that wouldn't probably make any sort of lists of bigger, more spectacular achievements, but yet one that has the sort of utility that makes you say 'hey, that was a good idea!' and the kind of ubiquity that should mean the other reader(s) would know what it was (or would understand why it was good even if they didn't).

So, bonus points (I'm keeping score) for the best replies!

I'll start with my own first candidate:

The screw-top orange juice carton

Now, this little baby was, if you think about it, a neat development. Maintains the same form factor generally (means package needs to change very little overall and larger scale shipping containers require no changes) as older cartons and keeps orange juice fresher for longer, makes for more convenient pouring, means you don't have to wrestle with reticent cardboard spouts (that can tear while opening and then where does that leave you?), and generally seems so obvious that you say 'wow, why didn't they think of that beforehand?'.

Of course, if it was so obvious, why did none of us think of it?

I hope the packaging designer who came up with this got a raise or a share of the patent revenues. He probably didn't, but it has now become fairly ubiquitous and it is a highly functional design.

So, what else have you got?

 
 

The New Wheels

 

I have a cadre of friends who think any vehicle needs a name. I'm not so sure about that myself, but I'd hate to be different from the norm (Lord knows, that rarely occurs).

Names suggested to date are Haggis and Kato. I kind of like Kato because that would portray me in a sort of Peter Sellers fashion. While not exactly a flattering comparison, I do find the good Inspector to be a man of principle, of conviction, and of unwitting humour that amuses many. There could be far more ignoble people to be compared to.

So far my only thought to add to the list is Darth. That would apply more with the (not included in this image) black winter rims.



I'll take suggestions, if you can think of a funnier or more fitting appellation for the new transportation.

For those who are interested, it's a 2010 Ford Escape XLT AWD with a 3.0 litre V6, 6 speed automatic transmission with overdrive, heated leather seats, a tow package, and a power moonroof. It comes with SIRIUS satellite radio (quite awesome), traction control, ABS, stability control, probably some form of hill descent control, and so on. It has some pretty amazing gas mileage (8-9 L/100 km in hybrid of city and highway driving so far, which is well over 30 MPG(Cdn)).

 
 

Concious Thought vs. Unconcious Thought: Sleep On It!

We may out-think ourselves if we try to use concious thought in matters we have expertise in along with greater amounts of pondering, rather than going with the first answer we come up with.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20091027/sc_livescience/whysleepingonithelps

They do raise some caveats about the research later in the article. One caveat I don't think they mention that I would raise is that some sorts of complex tasks require not just a single decision, but a series of them to reach a solution or endpoint. I'm not convinced that these sorts of complex problems (such as in engineering or medicine) would not defy this simplistic analysis. But for a lot of less involved matters, just letting the idea percolate underneath the concious level might be advantageous.

I know I myself have had a number of epiphanies about work at times not related to work and likely for this sort of reason. Take a problem home, get something to eat, watch some TV, and when you wake up (or just before you finally fall asleep), an answer you missed in the heat of the days activities makes itself readily apparent.

Belated Anniversary Celebration

My cousin Alan from Missouri (well, Scotland, but living in Missouri), me old Mum and me old Dad, and a couple of family friends (a lovely Irish couple who are my second family and very dear to me) joined me for a belated celebration of my parent's 41st anniversary.

It was an imperfect meal - I ran out of time to create the rosemary potatos and the waldorf salad with pear. But what was left went down well. The menu was:

• Phylo pastry filled with goat cheese and cranberries (tasty!).
• Phylo mini-quiches with smoked Gouda and ham (ditto).
• Round of drinks: Waterloo Dark, the Gerwurtztraminer wine, a Waterloo Dark, a Steam Whistle, a Rye and Ginger Ale, a Laphroig Quarter-Cask (cut with a small bit of Evian) and me drinking a Ginger Ale.
  
• A spinach salad (spinach and field greens, some orange bell pepper, some radish and alfalfa sprouts, tomato, some poppy seed, and a dressing of the users choice - creamy dijon, raspberry vinagrette, or zesty italian (made a separate salad with iceberg lettuce instead for Dad as he's no fan of spinach).
• Wine with Dinner: Pinot Noir and the Gerwurtztraminer.
• Main course was Beef - two outer eye of round roasts (no bones, trimmed of fat, each about 2-2.5 pounds) done in beef stock and Guinness, with Worcestershire, Browing Fluid, a hint of Tobasco, Montreal Steak Spice, powdered Garlic (lazy!), a touch of Cumin, fresh ground pepper, a touch of sea salt, and with half of a purple onion for the roasts to rest on in crock pot. Also made a lovely gravy from the juice.
  
• Long grain wild rice (microwave sort... but it was pretty good).
• Steamed carrots and broccoli.
  
• Irish Soda Bread and Becel (thanks Toni!)
• Pre-Dessert Course Drinks: More Laphroid and a nip of Evian, some Irish Breakfast Tea, more wine.
• Some date squares to hold the diners over until dessert was ready (from the Antrim Truck Stop bakery - good!)
  
• Dessert, about fifteen minutes later: Black forest cake (with candles notionally arranged to look like the number 41, although allegations of them looking like a 9 were made by certain cheeky cousins) and home-made Coconut Ice Cream (500 ml 18% table cream, 1.5 cups unsweetened coconut, one can (400mL) coconut milk, 250 ml of 3.25% homo milk, 3/4 cup of sugar (and 35-40 minutes in the new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker).
  

It was generally agreed the home made ice cream was a success and that coconut was another worthy flavour (the first batch was vanilla with raspberries).

The clean up will take probably 3-4 dishwasher loads in my dinky little apartment dishwasher and there will be leftovers to recycle into new salads and other meals, but the result was overall a smashing success. Setting the Crock Pot probe cook mode to 140F was a good choice - it left the roast a bit pinkish with a wee bit of blood inside (I think it got a bit overcooked last time).

Over all, a good night. My cousin met my second family and vice versa. I got to hang out with some good people and the work was worth it since everyone seemed replete when they tottered out.

And then I took the weight off of my feet and killed some Zombies on Left 4 Dead for a couple of hours and had a beer myself. A good day.

Everyday Hero

 

Man joins the US Army to pay for his wife's cancer treatments.

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=He%27s+in+the+Army+now+-+JSOnline&expire=&urlID=412930745&fb=Y&url=http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/64677772.html&partnerID=380639


Sometimes you read something that shows you how good you have it and how much tougher the situation of someone else can be.

We don't know how this story ends. It is clear to me that this is a story about the human ability to endure and to pursue Hope instead of giving in to despair.

We need more of that sort of courage in the world.