标签: technical

On the one hand, I would say that I'm generally an upbeat sort of person. I tend to look for the silver lining in most clouds and I'm definitely a full-fledged member of the "glass half full" fraternity. (I even have the t-shirt and know the secret handshake.) On the other hand, some things do tend to niggle at me. One of these things is the sneaking suspicion that we are in danger of losing track of how to do things at the most fundamental levels. If you go back to 1900, for example, there were legions of craftsmen who could create the most wondrous artifacts out of sheet metal by hand. These days, by comparison, we have incredibly sophisticated computer-aided design tools and computer-controlled fabrication machines that can do a lot of the "thinking" and the manufacturing for us—the downside is that it's becoming almost impossible to find anyone who is capable of doing this sort of thing without having access to these tools and machines. Is this really important? Does it really matter? Well, actually I think it does, although I find it difficult to articulate why (I'd appreciate any help you would care to give here). Until recently, one of the things that used to cheer me up was the presence of a small Internet-based company called Lindsay's Technical Books. These tomes were billed as "Exceptional technical books for experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, and 'Thomas-Edison-type'". I've ordered a few odd items from them over the years (some of these items were very odd indeed), and I still have their January 2007 Catalogue #637 in my office, as shown below:   The idea was that Lindsay and friends gained access to old engineering books that were no longer under copyright and were now in the public domain, and they re-printed them on-demand for a modest fee. For example, one series of books explained how to go about building a machine shop from scrap. This started with the construction of a small charcoal foundry, and then led onwards and upwards to building a metal lathe, a metal shaper, a milling machine, a drill press, and so on and so forth. Just glancing through this old catalogue again and cherry-picking a few items for your delectation and delight, we see books on topics like the design of magnets and electromagnets, armature winding and motor repair, making neon signs, electroplating, silver printing (making photographic prints on paper with egg whites), making casts, building a forge, making your own woodworking tools, blacksmithing, working with wrought iron, building a pipe bending machine, working with sheet metal, building a wind turbine, building your own generators and inverters to generate your own electricity, building an alcohol-producing still, the distillation and rectification of alcohol, glass working, barrel making, manufacturing your own bricks and tiles... and the list goes on, and on, and on! In fact, while glancing through this old catalogue as I was penning this column, I ran across one item that is of particular interest to me at the moment with regard to a current hobby project. This little beauty is the 1893 printing of a book titled Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements by Henry T. Brown. Actually, if the truth be told, the full title of this book (the original version of which came out in 1868) is as follows: Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing all those which are most important in Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines, Mill and other Gearing, Presses, Homologous, and Miscellaneous Machinery; and including many movements never before published and several which have only recently come into use. Wow! Now that's what I call a title! As I said, this type of thing is currently of interest to me, so I immediately bounced over to Lindsay's Technical Books website at www.lindsaybks.com . Oh the shock! Oh the horror! They've retired, and Lindsay's Technical Books is no more. Suffice it to say that I was not wearing my happy face. But then I thought to myself: "Maybe a copy of this book is still available somewhere in the world," so I had a quick Google (it's alright, no one was looking) and I was amazed to find that there's a paperback reprint version on Amazon. Even better, it turns out that Google has a digitized copy you can download as a PDF for free by clicking here . I just did so to discover that this little beauty is all I had hoped for and more. Here's an example page:   I cannot wait to spend some quality time rooting through this little rascal. I'd also like to send some "Good Thoughts" to Henry T. Brown. I bet he never imagined that the book he wrote in 1868 would still be finding new readers in 2013. I also bet that if he knew how I'd just downloaded his masterpiece over the Internet he would have been completely blown away. So, maybe we aren't in danger of losing the knowledge of the masters. Maybe we've reached the "cusp" where we can digitise all of this stuff and preserve it before it disappears into the mists of time. What do you think?  

My idea of being a manager is that it is something you either want to do or something you hate doing. Some people I know began their careers with a management position (to be followed by a steady climb up the management ladder) as one of their main goals in life. For myself, I chose the technical path – I prefer to work on my own or as part of a team, but I really haven't enjoyed being a manager on the several occasions when this dubious honour has been thrust upon me. Not that I have anything against managers, you understand – someone has to do it (bless their little cotton socks) – and as long as my managers keep on giving me pay rises I'm all for them (grin). Thinking back, I've known some really great managers in my time. I've also known a lot of mediocre managers along with a few absolute drongos. I recall one really dreadful manager (who shall remain nameless) from early in my career. This was the sort of guy who would try to take all of the glory. When we had visitors, for example, he would being them down to the lab to show them whatever system we were working on, and you could hear him saying things along the lines of "No one knew what to do; it looked like the project was going to be a disaster; and then I had a flash of inspiration and realised that we needed to lighten the tribulating grockles and reverse the oscillating field stabilisers." Then he would wander off with the visitors in tow. The bottom line was that this manager always did his best to grab all of the credit – he never acknowledged any of the contributions made by the people who worked for him. By comparison, I recall one really amazing manager called Peter Miles from my days at Cirrus Designs in Manchester, England (Cirrus Designs was eventually acquired by GenRad). If Peter were to bring visitors into our lab, you would hear him saying things like "Well, everything is working now and exceeding our expectations, but this is all due to my amazing team. For example, we couldn't work out how to graunch down the tattle-butts, but then our new intern John came up with a really cunning solution. Look, here's John now – John, come over here for a moment will you..." Then Peter would introduce the young engineer John to the visitors and sing his praises, and John would spend the rest of the day walking around with a great big beaming smile on his face. The thing was that, although Peter always made out that it was the team who had done everything, it was obvious to anyone with eyes to see that he was the enabler of his team's success. I've known (and still know) managers who have reached their level of mediocrity and who are scared of losing their position (or worried about some other thing), so they hire people who are less able than themselves and they actively try to hobble anyone who shines brighter. By comparison, I've also known managers who always try to attract the brightest and best to their teams, irrespective of whether those people are intellectually or technically superior, because they know that if the team shines then everyone wins. Which manager do you think is the more successful in the long run? Which manager would you rather work for? The reason I'm waffling on about this here is that I just finished reading Empower Your Inner Manager by Ian Mackintosh, who president of OCP-IP . Ian earned his Master of Science degree in microelectronics from Southampton University in England, so he "knows his onions" on the technical side of the fence. Ian also has executive management experience across the board, from start-up companies to large corporations, so he also knows what he's talking about when it comes to management. Now, there are a mind-boggling number of management books out there, but most of them focus on how to learn different aspects of management, like time management, or how to motivate, or how to delegate or ... stuff like that. Ian's book is different. What this book does is: * List the most-significant skills and behaviours possessed by well-developed managers. * Explain the specifics involved in mastering these skills (it doesn't teach you how to develop the skills you lack, but it suggests where you can go and what you can do to remedy the situation). * Help you to determine your own strengths and weaknesses regarding the various skills. * Help you determine those skills you need to personally target in order to support your immediate growth and career needs. * Help you design a self-improvement plan to target specific positions and to manage your progress along your chosed career path. * Provide you with the ongoing ability to revisit and reassess your growth needs as they evolve in the future. As Ian says: "Competition for management jobs continues to intensify with each passing year. If you are betting your financial welfare on your next management position and subsequent promotions, you will now need to be much better prepared to capture those increasingly scares opportunities than you might previously have realised." Empower Your Inner Manager is of interest to just about anyone who wishes to move into a management role, or who is already established on the management ladder. In the case of someone who wishes to become a manager, this book will set you on the right path by teaching you what you need to know and showing you how to determine what areas you need to focus on. If you are already a manager, this book will help you identify those areas in which you are strong, and those which could use some improvement. Although I personally have no interest whatsoever in becoming a manager myself, I'm all for managers becoming better at what they do, because that will make the world a better place for the rest of us. So if you want to be a manager – or if you have already donned the undergarments of authority and stride the corridors of power – I would really appreciate it if you would read this book.  

Engineering Investigations is a blog space where you describe how you cracked a baffling technical problem and talk about ingenious solutions you developed to solve it. It celebrates your achievements and seeks to inspire others. What: Describe a memorable experience in which you solved a baffling technical problem, involving irate bosses or customers (or both). Send how to submit your posts. How: -- Be no more than 1,000 words -- Be an original work that has not been published elsewhere -- Describe a real-world engineering investigation -- Be technically accurate and accessible to an audience of engineers -- Be submitted to engineeringinvestigations@gmail.com When: There's no deadline and no limit to the number of posts. Write as often as you solve an engineering problem. We start this blog with a few classics from EE Times.