IntenseDebate - Aurian

13 years ago @ ChEnected - The Peltzman Effect: D... · 0 replies · +1 points

As a safety eng, I see Peltzman working his magic on almost every project, so this post is pretty relevant. Interesting to note, though, it that the effects aren't only evident in hands-on operations.

In a design environment that has multiple engineering checks, it might be easy to fall into relying on the system of hierarchical/matrix sign-off to ‘catch’ any discrepancies. Assuming that 'the system' designs out any engineering errors is just as dangerous as assuming that the alarm will go off when the tank is full.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - Chemistry “Add-In”... · 1 reply · +1 points

What a great tool! Thanks for sharing, John.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - International Women’... · 0 replies · +1 points

We had a Women's Day lunch in our office, which was attended by both men and women.

I work at an eng consultancy that is gender/family/race friendly, so really it was just an excuse to organize some social time.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - To Be or Not To Be... ... · 0 replies · +1 points

You raise a good point regarding having the drive to put together an objective analysis, Dale. It’s not something that many citizens would put the time and effort into executing (unfortunately). Perhaps if the status-quo for citizen complaints were of a higher standard, then this would have been more of a non-event.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - To Be or Not To Be... ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I certainly agree that it'd be worth discussing if he'd actually used the title - to garner credibility, support or otherwise - but as it stands it seems as though the man should be congratulated for executing a good analysis. I love that you take the DOT engineer's criticism as confirmation of a job well done!

The engineers' licensing board will be investigating Cox for “practicing engineering.” I wonder if “practicing engineering,” as governed by the board, needs to be defined as both the use of engineering tools/techniques and the claim to the title of engineer together.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - A Day Without Chemistry · 0 replies · +1 points

Great clip, Douglas. Thanks for sharing.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - The Principle of Fail-... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree with Elizabeth, Peter - good first post :-).

I am currently working in offshore tech safety, and this is pretty relevant. I think one of the greatest dichotomies that we constantly fight is the fact that an engineer has to maintain their focus on a fail-safe design while constantly convincing the commercial stakeholders that failure is not really a possibility. It's pretty important to remember to step back once and a while and consider your design from a different angle, so that you aren't becoming too focused on "well built" at the risk of "fail-safe."

13 years ago @ ChEnected - Three Wikipedias? · 0 replies · +1 points

Great post, Cory. I agree that although Wikipedia is great for crowd-sourced information (which some might argue is the same as a peer-review), it cannot be a replacement for referencing. Since there is no way to confirm the credentials of those reviewing the online material, it is necessary to use online sources as the starting point with a view to confirming via published texts or papers.

That said, the proper skeptic still wouldn't take the published information as a given truth either!

13 years ago @ ChEnected - When Business and Chem... · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks for this post, Elizabeth. I can't comment on being surprised by the judge's decision or not (since news of this case didn't make it to Oz), but it's certainly interesting to hear the outcome.

13 years ago @ ChEnected - Symphony of Science · 0 replies · +1 points

I certainly don't have anything that can top that, Kent, but Tom Lehrer's 'The Elements' never fails to make my inner nerd smile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYW50F42ss8.

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