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1.2GW of offshore and onshore wind was installed last year

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

1.2GW of offshore and onshore wind was installed last year

I drove up to my parents the other day via a route I had not taken for a year, along the route a new wind farm had sprung up, dozens of multi MW turbines, apparently most went in over a period of only a few months once the tracks cables and bases were in place. Several a week being finished off. Now the support crew is something like twenty full time maintainers. Not sure if this is really the hope of the industrial heartlands, it’s not bad but heatedly the sustained work the towns these behemoths rise near, need.

Same with the sea based units, though the ports the support vessels sail from will get more than the maintenance base of a land based array.

Multi material 3D printing // The Engineer

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Kinda creepy actually.

…multi-material 3D printing aims to address inefficiencies by reducing the number of manufacturing steps for one object. Compared with single material 3D printing, it allows a functional product to be created with different properties without the need to bring together components. It increases speed to market by allowing organisations to prototype increasingly complex parts and reduces waste products by using exactly the right amount of material required.

OK THAT’S Funny

Image

3rd Power Law, 0 Complexity premium, working memes for 3D Printing

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

A 3-D printed table … with holes and all. Photo: rosemarybeetle / Flickr

WIRED http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/an-insiders-view-of-the-hype-and-realities-of-3-d-printing/

3-D printing is indeed an important fabrication technology, because it has the marvelous ability to make anything regardless of the complexity of the form.

BUT

Everything from cost and time to amount of material increases exponentially: specifically, to the third power. So if we want something twice as big, it will cost 8 times as much and take 8 times as long to print. If we want something three times as big, it will cost about 27 times more and takes 27 times longer to print. And so on.

Love simplifying memes, these are two great ones that help the mind focus on the issues involved when ‘discussions’ dealing with potentials are taking place.

Also in the article:
The reminder that these are not replicators, not yet anyway.

AND

That many of the technologies enabling 3D printing are enabling CNC machining, laser-cutting, robotics and more, at DIY / hobbyist scale.

21st Century Opportunity > Making The New Everything…

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

MIT Technology Review : Business Report : The Next Wave of Manufacturing

You Must Make the New Machines // Economist Ricardo Hausmann says the U.S. has a chance to invent the manufacturing technology of tomorrow.
From MIT Technology : read more: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509281/you-must-make-the-new-machines/

The basic knowledge is here, the ideas and innovation, even the entrepreneurial spirit, the problem is have we tied ourselves down with rules regulations taxes monopolies etc?

To The Moon!

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Vision of an international research base on the Moon. Credit: ESA

New report indicates private industry interested in building moon base: by Bob Yirka

Two months ago NASA commissioned Bigelow Aerospace to conduct a survey of the corporate sector to learn about private enterprise plans for space exploration. While the report has not yet been completed, Bigelow president Robert Bigelow and NASA’s head of space operations William Gerstenmaier held a teleconference with reporter’s to discuss findings thus far
Bigelow told those on the line that he and his company have surveyed approximately 20 of the biggest names in aerospace, including some foreign entities. He says the major area of interest for aerospace companies right now is in establishing a permanent presence on the moon. Gerstenmaier responded by suggesting NASA would welcome such a development as it would work well with the agency’s future plans.

Binge Watching Is Changing Our Culture

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

WIRED // From Arrested Development to Dr. Who, How Binge Watching Is Changing Our Culture
BY GRANT MCCRACKEN 05.24.13 6:30 PM

Dr. McCracken is onto something, his modest article provides some ideas with strong explanatory powers. To me It also says that media (creative side) adapts to society quite rapidly, while corporate side ($ collecting mechanisms) tries to slow change and rent seek.

Wired BotW // Einstein Tower, Potsdam, Germany

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Einstein Tower, Potsdam, Germany
The 1920s-era Einstein Tower was built to prove one of general relativity’s predictions — that gravity would cause a shift in the sun’s spectrum. Although it never succeeded, it was one of Germany’s most important observatories for many years, up until its partial destruction during WWII. A fan of Einstein, architect Erich Mendelsohn molded concrete into graceful curves to evoke Einstein’s theories. Located at the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, the observatory is still in use as a solar observatory, though it splits time as a tourist attraction as well. The tower is skewered by a 1.5-meter solar telescope that visualizes solar magnetic fields and their location within sunspots.

Amazing what you can do with concrete, this sort of thing ought to be easier with 3D printing tech….

Wired // Pilates PC-24 Jet Set Roughing it…next they’ll pu floats on it

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

Pilatus Aircraft has been producing airplanes since the 1940s, but the Swiss firm’s newest model, the PC-24, is its first jet. Pilatus didn’t want to just be another jet maker. Instead, the company borrowed from its very successful single-engine turboprop, the PC-12, to create a jet that can do everything conventional business jets can do and fly in and out of relatively short, unpaved runways. Oh, and it has a big cargo door as well.

A short piece at Wired…not a real airplane yet, the above is one hell of a rendering. Pilatus’ world trotting PC-12 is the air ambulance of choice in the nether regions of the world…it’s also a preferred discrete ride for SOCom, one wonders what they will do with the PC-24?

Walter Russell Mead // jobs jobs jobs

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Sci Fi Engineer

As always lots of great thought at The American Interest read more at: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/05/22/jobs-jobs-jobs-2/

First, make hiring easy and cheap.
Second, put the service economy and especially small business and entrepreneurship front and center.
Third, we need to feed the state to the people even as we individualize its services.

That third one had me puzzled till I read the explanation, which is a good description of what the statesmen of the past have done.

A characteristic of American political economy going back to colonial times has been the use of the resources of the state to promote the welfare of what today we would call the middle class. For much of our history we “fed the state to the people” by turning over publicly owned lands at low and ultimately zero cost. The public lands, which once included virtually all of the continental United States, were a possession of almost infinite value, but it seemed wiser (and more politically sustainable) to the leaders of the day to make them cheaply available to the people rather than to hoard them or try to retain a larger share of their value for the public purse.