A Novel Approach to Explaining How Aircraft Are Able to Fly

So there I am, thinking: "as we've all got that run-up-to-Christmas, end-of-term feeling, wouldn't it be nice to write something amusing in the newsletter this week?" And would you believe it, in comes the perfect email from a reader, who we shall call Bob R (mainly because that's his name). I'm instantly hooked, because the email reveals exactly how the lift required for an aircraft to take off is furnished by the passengers pulling up on their seat armrests. Brilliant.

Now, before I go any further, I'm normally very reticent to pass on "funnies" which get sent round by email, because nine times out of ten we've all seen them before. However, this item, "A Novel Approach to Explaining How Aircraft Are Able to Fly", was new to me, and I hope it's one you haven't seen either. I can't date it, although I found a couple of fairly obscure newsgroup references to it on the web from a few years back. And I can't find an author, but if you know where it came from, please tell me.

As it systematically offends most European nations in a most stereotypical way, I've put it on my website rather than Engineeringtalk's! Without further ado then, off you go to:
http://www.chrisrand.com/aircraft.html
(and it's perfectly safe for office viewing, by the way)

Space news junkies haven't known which way to turn this week

Space news junkies haven't known which way to turn this week, what with news that NASA plans to explore Pluto and beyond, and even the UK is going to be investing seriously in the next European mission to Mars. The current Mars Express has just provided the first concrete evidence of significant amounts of water under the surface of the planet, and would you believe it, those plucky NASA rovers there are still going strong. You want a great piece of engineering? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Spirit" and "Opportunity".

These vehicles were due to operate for six months. Both have now operated through a full Martian year - that's 687 of your puny days, Earthman. Both keep finding new variations of rock in areas they are exploring on opposite sides of Mars. The delighted team behind the mission are even able to undertake what they call some "bonus science" such as watching the a meteor shower as Mars passed through the debris trail left by a passage of Halley's comet.

Sure, they're not racing around like golf buggies - Spirit has managed around three and a half miles in all that time, and Opportunity just over four. Cautious doesn't begin to describe it. But it's worth going back to the wonderful Internet Archive to see what the hopes and dreams of the NASA team were this time two years ago.

And, as ever, up-to-date stuff is at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/

Product designers should be concentrating on getting the name back more from artists than from social planners

It's been quite amusing in 2005 to see wider media coverage about "design" and what it is. A new initiative from the UK's Design Council this week to "improve national life through design" provoked one national newspaper to explain that there's a whole new wave of design out there which deals with services and business models, and this is causing "shock to the design world".

This attitude, however, comes from people who think that design is about catwalks and posters, and there are rather a lot of those folks out there, many in positions of influence, academic or otherwise. They would take it as read that designing anything has to start with a charcoal sketch. You and I, on the other hand, probably get just a tiny bit irritated if the public's idea of a designer is not someone who actually thinks about how the product is going to be made, or maintained, or even how it will operate. We might politely say: "I think you're referring to a stylist, or an artist, not a designer".

So I suspect many engineering designers will feel more in common with some of these "new designers" working on intangible things such as services and business models, than they do with clothes stylists or graphic artists. I've always considered working out production flows through a plant to be as much of a true design challenge as work involving mechanics. According to the same newspaper report, the new Master of the Faculty for Royal Designers for Industry criticised these "new designers" by saying it is "very worrying that the term designer is so abused. Can we please have our name back?" I'd agree. But I think product designers should be concentrating on getting the name back more from artists than from social planners.