..What Goes Up, Must Come Down

His Idea was to Require that Industry discharge waste water upstream from their freshwater intake. 

..Don't let Your Fingers do the Walking

He only planted grass--and he was roundly criticized: "What could he have been thinking?" 

Six weeks later he returned and installed sidewalks--right where the tenants had worn  pathways: taking their route, not the architect's. 

..The 5% Solution

ARCO's solution: instead of trying to "ring-out" that last one or two percent from all of the newer modern automobiles; they bought up and destroyed  3000, Old model, polluting automobiles. 

Since one old car put out 30 times the pollution of a modern auto, it was the same as removing 90 thousand modern autos from the streets. Or, it is like reducing every modern auto's pollution--in the city of LA--by roughly five additional percent. It only cost between 3 and 4 million dollars. Want to guess how much it would cost--us all--to further reduce modern automobile's pollution by 5%?

This is about something so near perfection in design and implementation, that nothing ever broke or wore out. Until on its 100th birthday it all fell to dust. No single part or material was weaker or stronger than any other: thus when any part failed they all failed. 

Try topping that! 

   The Principal decided that something had to be done, so she called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the mirrors, she asked the custodian to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it into the toilet and then cleaned the mirror.  Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirrors.

  --There are teachers and then there are Teachers...

Ultimately my friend, who is very good at her job, decided that the patient really knew best what "Worked," so she returned the old bent broom to her.

This is a Great example of the definition of Engineering: Finding the BEST Solution for the Problem! And most importantly, being open to all possibilities in finding that solution!

TV Repair, The Easier Way: 
In my younger days, I use to repair television sets for a living. But I gave it up after a short time because of the stress of dealing with my customers. Years later, a friend and I were comparing notes about our days as TV repairmen. I related how it really bothered me, when returning a set to the customer's house, usually in the daytime, and how the "lady of the house" would say how the picture had been so much better before the set broke and before I worked on it --no matter what the problem had been. 
  My friend said that had also been his experience. but that he had found a surefire cure that worked every time. He described how he would get behind the set, and while turning the Vertical Hold control--rolling the picture first one way and then the other--he would ask the Lady of the House to look at the "pictures" and tell him which picture looked the best. At this point she would get real serious and tell him: "no ... no ... go back one; one more... That's it ... No ...back one more. Oh ... yes... that's it ... that's it ... a perfect picture!" 

Sounds like a Broken Washing Machine to Me
On kwajalein, Island--somewhere in the pacific ocean--an engineer friend of mine, who was married and living in dependent housing, had a problem with his washing machine. It made a strange noise, and he couldn't diagnose it. Since he lived in the middle-of-nowhere, he mailed a tape recording of the strange sound to the manufacturer. After a couple of weeks, in the return mail, he received the correct part with instructions. 

A Woman Troubled with Break-ins 
A young woman, living alone in New York City, was continually having her apartment broken into. Each time there was a break-in she would add one more door lock, but to no avail. At seven locks, she got the bright idea of only locking some of the locks and leaving the others unlocked. It worked! No more break-ins: The burglar would unlock the locked locks, but would lock the unlocked locks.

K I S S  (Keep It Simple Stupid) 
Any "Yo Yo" can make it complicated. More than likely, the simpler the solution: the smarter the designer. Simple is Beautiful 

Thomas Edison and the Light Bulb: 
Once upon a time in the East, Thomas Alva Edison had a, newly hired, young engineer determine the volume of one of his light bulbs. The young engineer went off with calipers and notepad in hand to do the task. Three days later he returned with the answer--carried to the 3nd decimal place.

Edison took the bulb, broke the neck off, filled it with water, then emptied it into an empty beaker. And, comparing the results, he held up the beaker alongside the answer written on the engineer's notepad, and asked, "Aren't the answers about the same?" They were nearly the same. He told the young engineer that sometimes the simple way is more than ample, and other times it isn't, and the trick was knowing which was which. 

Damn, the Smokies are Everywhere
In fighter competition between the services, because their--million-dollar--Hostile Warning Systems in their multi- million-dollar airplanes, were less than reliable: some F-4 pilots went out and bought $100 "Fuzz-Busters" to detect "enemy" lock-on. 

The Pen is Mightier than the...
During the Apollo program, NASA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing an ink pen that would write reliably in zero-g.  The Russians, faced with the same problem, used pencils. -From: Larry Boyers

Those Can't be Real
Some sophisticated aircraft simulators use a $10 million dollar Cray computer to generate real-time graphic images for the pilots. However, there are some simulators that use a remote controlled TV camera that dollies on X & Y overhead rails in a diorama. These images are as realistic (sometimes, more so) than the $10 million system--at a fraction of the cost. 

No Sweat What looks easy, may be easy, ... or Not! 
Underestimating a project or design can be disastrous, not only to the project, but to you, your reputation as a designer, and the horse you road in on. I keep on learning the same lesson: if it looks like "Duck Soup," it is more often NOT! 

My Way is Best or Bust! 
Most problems can be solved in more than one way. And, every way has some advantages and some disadvantages. Optical solution is great, except it may have a problem with ambient light; magnetics are also great, except unexpected stray magnetic fields can cause you grief. Use thermistors, "yea, that's the ticket," except ambient temperature is a problem, and on it goes... 

To Use or Not to Use a Microprocessor 
Use the technology or scheme that is appropriate for the problem at hand. Be careful that you're not guilty of having an idea looking for a home. 

Now having said that: if you do find real justification for using a computer in your design, and if there is spare computing power left over: there is a phenomenon of force multiplication--a step function of efficiency, if you will--whereby all new functions to be added to the "system" are virtually free. This is a very powerful concept! 

Hardwired: Softheaded 
Look at your design from several view points: think of the design in terms of its expected lifetime; future costs of production; revisions of present and future functions, etc. Ask yourself: "Self, am I designing a million dollar dead end?" Often I can "do a job" faster, using hardwired "stuff," and avoid the time consuming design of a microprocessor based system with its necessary lines of code; and, it may be absolutely the right approach. However, I may pay a fatal penalty for that "speed to market." I can--and have--ended up with a "house-of-cards," that will come tumbling down around my neck--and other body parts. Dedicated or hardwired is not flexible, if it were, one would call it softwired. Ten pounds of shit in a one pound bag is sometimes possible, but where do you put that eleventh pound that invariably shows up? 

If You Don't Think Too Good, You Shouldn't Think Too Much 
When you have a design problem: The first thing you don't do is read how others did it. The first thing you should do is several preliminary designs, using only yourself as a resource. This approach--while seeming counter intuitive--will pay off big time! You will get insights into the problem that using "cookbook" solutions prevent. Einstein said, to him, reading stifled original thought. Though most of us are below Mr. Einstein's level of competence--in his field, or pasture--he did have a point. Once you have an idea you like, it is very difficult to think of other ways to do the same thing. But the trick is to think of all the ways of accomplishing the task, before you pick a favorite. 

Boy, am I Satisfied with That Design! 
At the design stage: when you have a design that you are satisfied with, you stop thinking about it in a critical or adversarial way. In fact, you become blind to its faults, and defensive if anyone scrutinizes it with a critical eye. Hence: Design Reviews. You have to have them, to find the land mines that the designer invariably overlooks--before he steps on it. 

Being Best Isn't Always Good Enough 
It is not always the best technical idea that is chosen: either by management or the buying public. As a kid I believed that if you built the better mouse trap, the world would beat a path to your door. Say, I better remember that, I might have just coined a phrase. In this life the idea chosen from the several out there, are usually chosen based more on political considerations than on technology--or common sense for that matter.

Hey! That's My Idea, I Thought of That 
A lot of people think of the same idea, but usually only one person takes it to the "Market Place." Don't get caught up in the "What If," syndrome. You can bet: of those ideas you say, "Gee I thought of that...," You can pretty-well bet, there are several other people out there who probably had the same idea, and, like you (and me) they too--just stood there. However, you should be proud of the fact that YOU--independently--had an "original idea." This is good! 

In 1994, Bell Labs has demonstrated a 3.5 inch hard drive with 50,000 Mbytes of storage. That is equal to a box of DD/DS 3.5 inch floppies, nearly 8 feet on a side (an average room). More recently, they have demonstrated density ~ 45Gbits/in ²

50 Gbits/sec data rates, on optical fiber, operating at distances up to 19,000 km @ error rates < 10 -10,  No Errors!  --using Soliton pulses on Dispersion-shifted optical fiber with Erbium-doped-fiber optical amplifiers every 30km to 100km. --More recently: No repeaters were required!

Optical Amplification, yielding Bandwidths > 40-THz, using Erbium-doped fiber pumped by 1330nm a 15mW diode LASER. 

Optical fiber LASERs yielding pulses of 17 fsec pulses. 17 fsec = 60 Tbits/sec = 1.8 million bibles/sec = 12,500 CD/sec = 115 movies/sec ... 

ASICs: > 1 million transistors that can be developed on PCs, by an individual in his "garage." 

CCD imagers with dynamic ranges: > 90db at room temperature; and quantum efficiencies: > 90% when chilled. Film used by astronomers has a quantum efficiency ~ 0.001%

PIEZO material operating at acoustic frequencies > 1000 MHz 

A >1000 MIPS desktop computer for about $3500 (RISC, SUN SPARK Station, etc.). 

Windows machines (WinTel) operating with  similar power, at a quarter the price. 

Digital HDTV 

Digital Consumer Camcorders 

Consumer GPS Receivers < $100

Wireless computing 

Digital, DBS Cellular telephones  --GOD Help US!