James L Adams—People and Products

Time Knowledge, and Airplanes

In my recent South America travels, I had a good opportunity to read as well as sleep (both benefits of air travel).  I particularly liked a book entitled Present Shock by Douglas Rushkoff  (Penguin, N,Y., 2014)—obviously a friendly take-off of Alvin Toffler’s 1970’s book Future Shock. 

 When I joined the Stanford Faculty in the 1960’s, there was much attention being paid to personal growth, alternate states of consciousness, eastern religions. and living in the “now” in the U.S.  The country is at this point more sophisticated in such things, but according to Rushkoff, may be living too much in the “now”, or at least in the present.  His book examines the interaction between time, information, and life.  I found it most readable, very interesting, and worthy of inclusion in the excellent books now coming out on the brain, information overload, and human problem solving. More information is contained in the “recommended books” column on the left of this bog.

 In his introduction, Ruchkoff points out that perhaps we are now living more in the “now”, but that we are not necessarily more aware of what is going on around us.  To quote him, “we tend to exist in a distracted present, where forces on the periphery are magnified and those immediately before us are ignored.  Our ability to create a plan—much less follow through on it— is undermined by our need to be able to improvise our way through any number of external impacts that stand to derail us at any moment”.  

 Rushkoff is a major user of the internet, as well as a critic of the role it can take in both helping and distracting us.  The book is full of examples and a large amount of insight into problems we face in handling information that is designed to seem both powerful and instantly digestible.  I was taken by one analogy he makes between small bits of information traveling rapidly through time (Twitter?), which he refers to as streams, and information pools more stationary in time (books, Wikipedia?) which he refers to as ponds.  He validly makes the point that streams are shallow and fast moving and fun to play in, but perhaps do not always lead to valid conclusions (can you really tell what people want in the future by sampling what they have just bought?). Ponds, on the other hand, feature depth, complexity, and information more meaningful over time, but require time and effort to fish.  To confuse matters, some internet formats, such as e-mail messages, can have characteristics of both streams and ponds, as can books, depending on whether you glance at the summary and scan them, or actually read them.

 Rushkoff’s book is well worth reading, and should make you think more deeply about how you are dealing with the overwhelming amount of information available to you, not only through the internet, but due to improved communication in general, as well as increased travel and globalism. 

 Are you not reading books any more because you can get the information you need in more “efficient” ways?  You may be fooling yourself (or others may be fooling you).  Maybe you should spend less time playing in streams and more fishing in ponds.   

 

Chile and Engineering Education

 A few months ago I accepted an invitation to serve on an international advisory board for a new program entitled Chile New Engineering 2030.  This has turned out to be more work than I expected, but a most educational and rewarding experience.  The purpose of the program is to encourage Chilean engineering schools to pay more attention to what Chile is calling the “third mission” in these schools (the first teaching, the second research).  This includes, technology transfer, innovation, entrepreneurship, and encouraging the schools to better match Chilean economic needs.  Also  taking  advantage of the new entrepreneurship network resulting from Start Up Chile, as well as new approaches to teaching and learning.

 The rest of the world should take note.  During the 1940’s and 50’s, engineering schools moved rapidly from the more pragmatic material of the 1930”s to much greater use of mathematics and science.  In the U.S. this was partly due to the remarkable advances of technology during World War II, and partly due to the Cold War, which pitted the U. S. against the Soviet Union in such areas as nuclear explosives, missiles, navigation and detection schemes, and space exploration and exploitation.  There were break-through developments in solid state electronics and then sophisticated electronic computers that added to the increased emphasis on the application of science and theoretical research,  and increased funding to universities from government and business to help this along.

 And it was convenient for engineering professors, since science and mathematics have a great deal of panache in academia, and engineers were able to take over much work that had previously been called applied science and applied mathematics.  Since that time, research and graduate study in engineering has become ever more fond of theory, to the point where some work that has high intellectual cachet, may not show any application for a very long time —if ever.

 Chilean universities, like those in many countries, have been following the directions of leading universities in countries such as the U.S., England, and Germany,.  and rapidly increasing factors such as the percentage of faculty members with Ph,D. degrees, the number of Ph.D. degrees awarded per year, the number of papers published in refereed academic journals, and their position in global rankings. But do they really need M.I.T.’s and Caltechs?

 The goal of this phase of Chile New Engineering 2030 was to choose two or three engineering schools who would be funded to increase their efforts in this “third mission” and serve as models for other schools.  A total of some U.S.$50,000,000 was to be awarded, so the competition was fierce. Those of us on the advisory board, members of CORFO (the government agency responsible for the program), and a number of independent evaluators had read the proposals submitted.  The week of March 3 was spent  in Santiago listening to oral presentations of each proposal, asking questions of the presenters, and discussing the results.  Those of us on the board were asked to choose the proposals that we thought best, but since we were an advisory board, I do not yet know the final result.  But one conclusion that I reached yet again while reviewing the proposals, is that the U..S., may be a bit complacent in our pride of our engineering schools.  We may be following a model that has been successful in the past, but not guaranteed to be as effective as products, customers, economies, and overseas competition continue to change in the future.

 The other members of the advisory board are Dado Banatao. a member of the U.C. Berkeley Chancellor’s Executive Advisory Council, and Managing Partner of Tallwood Venture Capital, Teck Seng Low, CEO of the National Research Foundation of Singapore, Alvaro Fischer, Chairman of the board of Fundacion Chile, Norman Fortenberry, Executive Director, American society for Engineering Education, and Johan Malmqvist, Dean of Education, Chalmers University of Technology, and co-founder of the International CDIO Initiative.  A good group.  We are to meet once a  year in Santiago to review the progress of the chosen schools, and I look forward to working with them again.

 Oh, and the reason for my internet silence since March 3^rd,  is that I was more than busy the first week, and Marian and I followed it with some fine outback time in Chile and Peru, visiting friends and mountains.  And as you no doubt know, everyone should take vacations from the internet.

 

 

 

Fastenerphobia (Job's disease) and Disapointment with Japan

 My wife Marian drives a 2004 Acura TSX, a sporty little car destined to become a classic.  She takes very good care of it.  But recently, she broke a tail light while backing into a tight spot.  Clearly it needed to be replaced— a small problem, thought I.

 

  Although only a small piece was missing, (see the photo) these days one must buy a “tail light assembly” rather than a lens, but I found one on the internet for “only” eighty dollars (It would have cost twice as much at a dealer) I ordered it, waited two weeks for my notice that it was not in stock, and ordered one from another company, which arrived in a couple of days.

 

 Upon examining the wounded tail light, I found no screw heads that would allow me to simply remove the old one and install the new.  When I opened the trunk, I found a cover behind the tail light, and upon removing it found three nuts.  I removed them, which was not easy because the opening was neither large enough or aligned enough to go straight in with a socket wrench,  the projecting screws required an extra long socket, and of course they had been tightened to heroic car-assembly-plant torque.  But to my surprise, after much tugging and swearing, the assembly would not come loose from the car.

 

 Internet time.  I found a large number of unhappy posts by people that shared my problem, and unbelievably, it was necessary to remove the  back bumper cover, which covers not only the bumper, but a large part of the back of the automobile, and among other things covers two more bolts that needed removing to get the tail light loose. This took  much wallowing in the dirt and number of different tools, but I finally loosened it enough to change the assembly, (see photo here) cut my hand  replacing the bulbs I had removed to get the old assembly free, and put the car back together.  The happy result is at the left.    But unfortunately, the process of replacing the tail light slightly lowered my very high opinion of Japanese automobiles.  Tail light lenses break.  Why should one have to re-move large body panels to replace them—or even taillight “assemblies”

What has happened to the once happy sport of maintaining an automobile?  I changed this light because I do love to maintain cars, and I don’t want to think of what a dealer would have charged for the part plus shop time at $125 an hour. But  observe the two photos below, one of the tail light from a 1966 Chevrolet pickup, and one of a tail light and a back up light from a 1975 Jaguar XKE (pardon the dirt, they both belong to me and are working classics.)  Note the screws that can be easily removed to replace the lenses (originally available for a few dollars at most).  Isn’t there a certain functional elegance there?  What’s going on? incidentallly, notice that the Jag rear fender does not need a plastic cover over it.

One of the many apocryphal stories one hears about Steve Jobs is that he once summarily fired an   employee who showed him a prototype in which a screw was visible.  Apple products such as the  iPhone are clearly designed to be taken apart (at some expense) in an Apple store when, for instance, a new battery is needed.  In fact the internal screws are specially designed so that ordinary screw drivers do not work (a screwdriver that does plus new battery are available on the net, as well as instructions for separating the pieces of the shell.)  Hiding fasteners seems to be part of the new sleek visual look.  I agree it can be beautiful, but the beauty pales if something quits working and one wants to take it apart.

The final photograph shows the back of my old favorite Samsung phone.  A quarter turn of the screw (done with almost any thing including a coin), reveals the battery and the SIM card, just lying there waiting to be removed and replaced if desired.  It also doesn’t mind being dropped once in a while and being stuffed into my pocket.

 

 

 

PRODUCTS SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO BE DISASSEMBLED, AS WELL AS ASSEMBLED.