tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142679722011-12-15T02:41:25.273ZEditorial comment from Chris Rand, Editor, EngineeringtalkChrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comBlogger501100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1138208577976311172006-01-19T17:02:00.000Z2006-01-25T17:03:41.306Z

The nuclear power industry has shown in the past few weeks that it's not lost its touch when it comes to PR and setting the media agenda. Nuclear power is very much back on the list of political hot topics, and there's a strong possibility that the government might opt for a nuclear strategy as the "least worst" option for our country's future. The main battles then will be to convince the public

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1138208519107577612006-01-12T10:00:00.000Z2006-01-25T17:01:59.106Z

Blogs were, I suppose, the biggest thing on the internet in 2005, with millions of people worldwide taking the opportunity to publish their thoughts to the world. Or more likely, to their Mums. To read much of the discussion on the trend, you'd think that nobody had ever written diaries, opinion pieces or whatever online before the blogging services made it so much easier.One thing blogging has

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1138208308693205142005-12-15T10:00:00.000Z2006-01-25T16:59:38.330Z

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

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1134597076540235852005-12-08T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-14T21:51:16.553Z

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

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133882508265175942005-12-01T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-06T15:21:48.266Z

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

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133882412908836062005-11-24T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-06T15:25:16.443Z

A survey published by the Chartered Management Institute conducted over the past few weeks found that three in ten senior managers in the engineering industry have taken a decision "against their better judgement" in the past six months. Of those, 20% claimed undue pressure from colleagues affected the way they made decisions and 12% suggested they lack the time to consider problems carefully. A

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133882322084126622005-11-17T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-06T15:25:40.790Z

Sir Joseph Whitworth was one Britain's greatest mechanical engineers, famous for the standard screw thread named after him, some revolutionary machine tools and his hexagonally rifled guns. A legacy to encourage and support engineering apprentices includes an awards scheme dating back to 1868, with the aim of bringing science/engineering and industry closer together. Awards of three and a half

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133882225959641612005-11-10T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-06T15:17:36.420Z

"Please don't change the format of Engineeringtalk", wrote one reader in our survey last week. Because of the 'plain text' format, "as it looks like any other email, I can read it at my desk without others thinking I'm not working".I have to admit, I'd not thought of that one. Nor had I considered the situation of the reader who wrote that "it's all very well downloading and browsing through

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133882124185266312005-11-03T10:00:00.000Z2005-12-06T15:15:24.186Z

With the clocks going back last weekend here in the UK, we've had the annual debate about whether it's all worth it. I'm with the newspaper correspondent this week who suggested we move to "Greenwich Generous Time", whereby the clocks change *every* weekend, going back by an hour on Saturday night to give us all an extra hour in bed, then moving forward again at 9am on Monday morning. Nice.More

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133881936687177262005-10-20T10:00:00.000+01:002005-12-06T15:26:16.593Z

So, as an engineer, is "ethics" important to you? The Royal Academy of Engineering thinks it should be. "Engineers have a profound impact on the world in which we live. To ensure that this impact is always directed towards the public good, it is essential that we operate with a real commitment to honesty and integrity," says Lord Broers FREng FRS, President of the RAEng. "We can only be proud of

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133881867062863412005-10-13T10:00:00.000+01:002005-12-06T15:26:51.403Z

We grew up accepting the words "cosmonaut" and "astronaut" to describe the same thing, and it may be that the next generation will be even more familiar with the word "taikonaut", after China's second manned space mission launched successfully this week. The Chinese space programme is ambitious, but pedestrian in comparison to the US-Soviet "space race" of the sixties. Two years have gone by

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1133881368270090592005-10-06T10:00:00.000+01:002005-12-06T15:09:28.983Z

JCB announced a major order from the US army this week for 500 "high speed diggers". The 12-tonne High Mobility Engineer Excavators (HMEEs) have a top speed of 57 miles per hour, can lift more than two tonnes and dig to a depth of almost four metres. What makes this particularly interesting to me is that it's another spinoff from a great piece of market-research-led design a few years ago. The

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1128122089113799522005-09-29T11:00:00.000+01:002005-10-01T00:14:49.116+01:00

This week there have plenty of bemused commentaries on the subject of UK industry having to import people with technical skills from continental Europe and beyond, in much the same way as the medical profession has been required to do so for many years. Headed by a number of major construction projects, there are increasing UK demands for technicians and engineers, which have coincided with the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1128121956559317092005-09-22T11:00:00.000+01:002005-10-01T00:12:36.566+01:00

Right, firstly, the "NASA going back to the moon" story. Let's skirt around the politics and assume it really is going to happen. Does anyone else feel, like me, slightly disappointed that more than forty years on, the best idea out there is a bigger better version of what was done before: "Apollo 2.0", as it were?The real advances in space engineering since Apollo have been in satellite

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1126860292665281742005-09-15T10:00:00.000+01:002005-09-16T09:44:52.666+01:00

It's a wonderful feeling to know that our little email newsletter for engineers has grown to be one of the largest design engineering publications in the world. However, to ensure we continue, free of charge, we need to carry on growing, and we do ask for your help in this respect from time to time. If every one of you reading this could get a few colleagues to join our circulation, it'd give the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1126860128254723362005-09-08T10:00:00.000+01:002005-09-16T09:42:08.256+01:00

I've written before about the embarrassment of having to explain to my four-year-old that we used to be able to fly from London to New York fast enough to "arrive before we left", but that his Dad's generation mucked it all up and you can't do that any more. Men landed on the moon before we even had colour TV to watch it on, but, er, we can't do that any more either. Somewhere along the way we

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1126860009849137082005-09-01T10:00:00.000+01:002005-09-16T09:40:09.860+01:00

Looking back over several years' worth of these editor's columns is, as you'd imagine, quite entertaining. But not in a "wasn't technology quaint?" way. No, more frustratingly, it's completely the opposite: most of the things which I was appealing for five years ago on behalf of customers still haven't been done today.Sure, at least most of your suppliers have probably got rid of the "skip intro

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1125008375893432532005-08-25T11:00:00.000+01:002005-08-25T23:21:42.996+01:00

The launch this week of Google Desktop 2 (and if you use a Windows PC but don't have it yet, I thoroughly recommend it) is part of a growing trend to "bring the web to users". And this trend signals a fundamental change in the way we're using the web. Let me explain what I mean.First there was email. It "pushed" information to people. In many ways, it's more important than ever. However, it's

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1124648977238986342005-08-18T10:00:00.000+01:002005-08-21T19:29:37.243+01:00

Here in the UK it's been A-Level results day, when tens of thousands of our best and brightest find out if they've got the grades they need to go on to university. As usual, conservative commentators will be full of "it-wasn't-like-that-in-my-day" stuff, claiming that standards are falling and the qualifications aren't worth the paper they're written on any more; however, we should remember that

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1124649103872830302005-08-11T10:00:00.000+01:002005-08-21T19:31:43.873+01:00

A few weeks ago, I asked the question: "Where else is there to go for CAD technology?" and most of the suggestions seem to involve better ways of transferring ideas and visualisations from the mind to the screen. Whilst the latest generation of 3D solid modelling CAD is awesome to work with once the product has been defined, it still has to be created using a mish-mash of adding blocks and

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1123198613090236442005-08-04T10:36:00.000+01:002005-08-05T00:38:43.836+01:00

The headline in this year's "Which?" report on car reliability was the ascent to the top category of Ford, joining the various Japanese brands which have been camped there for years. It can't be a coincidence that Ford's reliability has coincided with a period where its design in general has been held in such high regard. All of its mainstream models, such as the class-leading Focus, have been

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1122971039887207372005-07-28T10:00:00.000+01:002005-08-02T09:26:46.233+01:00

I don't often discuss in this slot what's in the rest of the newsletter, preferring to leave that to speak for itself. I know that many of you read right through the whole publication, judging from the large number of "clickthroughs" that even the items several screen-scrolls down get!However, I would like to draw attention to some of the excellent technical background articles we receive each

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1121938409098195892005-07-21T10:29:00.000+01:002005-07-21T10:33:29.103+01:00

I've often referred to how disappointing it is that the only "engineers" the public can name are car mechanics on TV soap operas, but let's make an exception. Yes, tributes need to be paid to the fictional Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise, following the death yesterday of actor James Doohan. "Scotty" may have been representative of the old school ship's engineer, but it

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1121336115113243132005-07-14T11:11:00.000+01:002005-07-14T11:15:15.116+01:00

I've been writing about CAD software since the days when everything came on a five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy. I remember a press conference in a pub introducing AutoCAD Release 9, the successor to 2.6, at a point when that product had begun to dominate the booming PC-based CAD market. And if you were there, you'd never forget the chaos which followed UK developer PAFEC's decision to respond by

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120722854816021942005-07-07T08:52:00.000+01:002005-07-07T09:25:40.636+01:00

The European Parliament yesterday overwhelmingly threw out the proposed so-called "software patent directive", a move which could be good or bad news (depending on how you look at it) for any of you whose products involve software, whether it's machinery, control systems or whatever. Whilst it would seem to be a victory for anti-patent campaigners, it's also being claimed as a good thing by the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120733771622185822005-06-30T11:55:00.000+01:002005-07-07T11:58:57.666+01:00

Last week I wrote about the underexploited development resource which every manufacturer has in the form of its customers. Many development projects which might have been a success never actually become real products because of flawed research or simply bad management calls. However, another approach is to just throw everything out there, not worry about failures, and see what sticks. It's

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120732205488571662005-06-23T11:25:00.000+01:002005-07-07T11:56:38.170+01:00

There seems to be increasing academic interest in the process of collective invention, a concept which has been largely facilitated by the communications revolution of the past ten years. Traditionally, technological change has been considered to be the preserve of individual inventors, whether they're true individuals or single corporations.Now, however, consumers are increasingly developing

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120733668003505512005-06-16T11:53:00.000+01:002005-07-07T11:54:28.010+01:00

No prizes for guessing the star of the Paris Air Show this week. According to a BBC report, even onlookers at Boeing's chalets on the side of the runway were awestruck at the giant Airbus A380. Whilst its economics are questionable, its wow-factor most certainly is not. Watch the display flight at the BBC website (link top right).Despite its focus on longer range, mid-size aircraft, Boeing is

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734122618542002005-06-09T11:59:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:03:54.506+01:00

I was so pleased to see a decent article in the mainstream press recently about the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, that astonishing project going on in London at the moment. I was even more pleased to see another ...and another. The cover story on the Sunday Times colour supplement. A whole special issue of The Guardian's G2. Where will it end? Is engineering newsworthy at last?I'm assuming the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734373763716912005-06-02T12:04:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:06:13.763+01:00

I spent yesterday at a conference which was discussing how to get more traffic to websites through the search engines, but for me it was as much with a web user's hat on as a website operator's. The good news is that to defeat the increasing number of websites out there full of machine- generated rubbish, which I'm sure we've all seen (and quickly left), the main search engines are concentrating

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734531582428302005-05-26T12:06:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:09:20.403+01:00

Our "Request Free Details from the supplier" service has been one of the biggest success stories of this newsletter, consistently receiving over 1,000 requests a week. It allows you to make an information request to a manufacturer without having to rummage around a manufacturer's website looking for contact details or an enquiry form. More importantly, because your request gets forwarded to the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734924248234612005-05-23T12:14:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:15:24.250+01:00

I know that if you want Art, you'll go to a gallery, but I'm going to talk Art now anyway. That's because tomorrow sees the unveiling in London of the remarkable "Weee Man", the name of which alone is guaranteed to get it plenty of media coverage.The Weee Man is a sculpture, and doubtless as switched-on engineers, you'll guess it's got something to with the European Union's WEEE (Waste Electrical

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734617062711082005-05-19T12:09:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:10:17.063+01:00

A major success was achieved this week within the sometimes tortuous legal and political machinations of the European Union, moving us closer to an EU-wide system for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The European Parliament has voted to recommend implementation of a new directive covering professions such as engineers, architects, accountants and doctors. It's regarded as a

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734719154928572005-05-12T12:10:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:11:59.156+01:00

So have we moved on from the situation in the 1990s, when an IMechE survey asked the Great British Public to name an engineer, and the most popular answer was the car mechanic from Coronation Street? Another survey suggests not really.Less than a quarter of over 1000 people contacted could name a living scientist or engineer. The figure dropped to 19% amongst women, and just 12% overall in

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734796406569982005-05-05T12:12:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:13:16.406+01:00

In the rocketry hall of fame, the Skylark hasn't ever been in the same league as the Saturn V ...or even the Black Knight. But let's hear it for this magnificent piece of engineering, which has outlasted almost every other rocket design ever, and which had its 441st - and last - launch on Monday. The 13-metre rocket lifted off from the Esrange launchpad in Sweden carrying scientific experiments,

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120734996959526622005-04-21T12:15:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:16:36.960+01:00

I can't remember the last time we had quite so many new products and technology articles arrive in seven days, but I suspect that it's something to do with the Hanover Fair last week. Every major manufacturer must be aware by now that as soon as it announces a product, a vast, silent audience out there reads about it almost instantly via the internet. Yet still many of them delay perfectly good

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735054262920572005-04-11T12:17:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:17:34.263+01:00

There's an obsession with "ownership" of businesses in this country which irritates me a lot. When a business "falls into foreign hands" it's perceived as some sort of national setback. It is not. When jobs get transferred overseas, it might be, but what would you rather see? A Japanese company opening up a plant here, or a British one opening a plant overseas? I'm not even sure what we mean by

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735104830537432005-04-07T12:18:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:18:24.830+01:00

So here in the UK the General Election has finally been announced, and (Royal Weddings apart) we're all set for four weeks of politics dominating the news. Overseas readers will find it amazing that in this country, which usually tends to have 'snap' general elections called at a month's notice, most of the public still finds the whole process a bit tedious! I think a dose of the six-month (or

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735162272656482005-03-31T12:18:00.000+01:002005-07-07T12:19:22.273+01:00

We're quite excited here in the Engineeringtalk offices because the next few days will probably see the circulation of the newsletter reach 50,000, which is quite a milestone. While that figure makes us one of the largest design engineering publications in the world, we're well aware that it's still a long way behind, say, a paper-based giant like "Machine Design" (which will be familiar to

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735301217578642005-03-24T12:19:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:21:41.216+01:00

I've always tried to keep up to date with changing safety legislation, although I don't envy those of you (particularly machine builders) for whom it's not just an interest but a necessity. We publish our fair share of news items on Engineeringtalk on safety-related topics, but it wasn't until we launched a specialist newsletter in this field at the start of the year that I really began to

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735461153218542005-03-17T12:23:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:24:21.156+01:00

Few people expected yesterday's UK budget statement to address manufacturing-related issues strongly. With an election coming up at some time in the next few months, any governing political party might be forgiven for concentrating on helping individuals, especially those like senior citizens who get out and vote in numbers.But then again, what the manufacturing sector wants is stability, and the

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735561919070632005-03-10T12:24:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:26:01.920+01:00

The Society of Engineers, the third oldest professional engineering body in the UK, has voted to integrate with the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) after 150 years of existence. It describes the move as "showing acceptance of change, realism and pragmatism - good attributes of engineers and engineering". Long-time Engineeringtalk readers will know how much I regret the fragmented

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735691264832902005-03-03T12:26:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:28:11.266+01:00

The UK's own walking design engineering advertisement, James Dyson, has been doing the PR circuit highly effectively in the past few weeks, promoting the news that his company's range of vacuum cleaners is now the number one in the USA by revenue (although with the machines being two or three times the price of many competitors, he does have an inbuilt advantage there). In a series of interviews,

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735753896441642005-02-24T12:28:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:29:13.896+01:00

Thanks for the interesting comments (rather too many to discuss here!) concerning suppliers' websites. It would seem that you're much more satisfied with the ease of getting to information now than a few years back, which is good. Several readers responded to praise their suppliers who have bothered to put such relatively mundane things as operating manuals on their websites, especially those

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120735950279083392005-02-17T12:31:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:32:30.280+01:00

Using manufacturers' websites every day, we tend not to notice steady changes - a bit like when Auntie Flo says: "hasn't your little boy grown since I last saw him six months ago?" and you realise that actually, yes, he has shot up. I suspect websites are improving, although it's difficult to go back in time and get an overall impression of what we had to contend with, say, five years ago. That

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120736011430975302005-02-10T12:32:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:33:31.430+01:00

From this autumn, anyone buying a new car in the UK will be able to assess how environmentally (un)friendly a vehicle is through a new system of colour-coded labels announced by the Department for Transport today. You'll have seen the same sort of scheme used in refrigerators and other white goods, although in my local showroom almost everything seems to have an "A" on the front, which I'm not

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120736110562385772005-02-03T12:33:00.000Z2005-07-07T14:03:51.173+01:00

Living in a self-proclaimed "high-tech university city" like Cambridge, as I do, fascinating technology crops up everywhere. Go out for a meal in the evening and the chances are you'll be eavesdropping on folks at the next table discussing some new project which will change the world (or sink without trace, even if it seemed like a good idea at the time). Standing outside school the other

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120736338328299022005-01-27T12:35:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:38:58.330+01:00

Between 1986 and 1999, I wrote for a dozen or more UK-based engineering magazines in one capacity or another. Many of them are now long gone, usually either closed, merged into others and quietly retired, or only maintained now on a website (remember "Engineering Materials and Design", "What's new in Design", or the UK's "Design Engineering" magazines?). Was it something I said?Being sent out

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120736398539270932005-01-20T12:39:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:39:58.540+01:00

No prizes for guessing the major engineering news of the week: the rolling out of the Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial airliner. Whilst not the massive leap forward in size over existing airliners that the Boeing 747 was on its introduction, the A380 still represents something special.Political and business controversy exists over the subsidies given to the manufacturer by European

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14267972.post-1120736467415444822005-01-13T12:40:00.000Z2005-07-07T12:41:07.416+01:00

As we enter our sixth calendar year of publishing Engineeringtalk, I'd like to highlight one area of coverage with which we're not traditionally associated: longer, in-depth technical articles. You might think that old-fashioned trade magazines are still the place to find the best selection of these, but as it happens, we've always published far more each month than any paper-based engineering

Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966799870606281387noreply@blogger.com