Author: Chris Gammell

Chris Gammell is an engineer who talks more than most other engineers. He also writes, makes videos and a couple podcasts. While analog electronics happen to be his primary interests, he also dablles in FPGAs and system level design.

Categories
Analog Electronics Life Music

Breaking my Wurlitzer 200A

“Hmm, I should really get a sound sample for the before and after on my piano. I’m so confident I can get this thing to work that I want some evidence how broken it was prior to my genius fixing of this machine.”

POP. ZAP. HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

“EEP,” thinks Chris.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM….

So it seems that I may have broken the amplifier on my Wurlitzer 200A. This after I took my sweet ol’ time getting all the replacement parts in from Mouser. After they finally arrived, I scheduled a time to work on the piano on the weekend to try and fit into my relatively busy schedule.

First inspection of the board shows that this piano has definitely had work done on it before. There are multiple places where the solder joints have been over done with solder (too much globbed up in one place). The resistors and capacitors also do not appear to be the originals, though they still appear to be pretty old and could be the originals.

So what do I think happened? In my onomatopoeic description at the beginning of this article, you may have guessed that there was a short to ground (the “ZAP”). This happened because I was dumb enough to try turning on the piano when it was not bolted to the chassis. The circuit board likely shorted from one of the high potential points to the chassis, which is grounded. In the process, high amounts of current either caused a part to fail catastrophically through material failure (a PN junction having too many carriers “break through”) or thermally (an electrolytic capacitor exploding due to high temperature).

I have a very primitive multimeter intended for use on power lines and such, so it could only tell me the there is 2 volts DC at the speaker output. This is definitely not healthy for the speaker nor the system and leads me to believe the output coupling capacitor may have broken. I will update more once I borrow my friend’s advanced multimeter.

Categories
Politics Work

To break or not to break

Even though I got the capacitors and transistors in for my Wurlitzer 200A, I decided to write about something else before I started documenting the hopefully successful re-build of my vintage piano.

Generation Y has a strong reputation of feeling entitled and wanting to do things their own way. The question I have today is:

To break or not to break?

Should the spirits and ideas of young upstart Millennials be squashed in order to show them the ways of a company? When we bring in new employees into an organization, what is their greatest strength? Is it their new ideas? Or is it their ability to perform the normal tasks, but maybe better than their predecessor? Is it their ability to stand out or to fit in? Is it to buck the bureaucracy or to massage it? Let’s look at some situations.

Any time an employee comes into a new situation, you might expect them to have some modesty or humility. Apparently with Generation Y this is not happening, they instead expect to be placed into positions of authority, without knowing much at all. I know, I was a perfect angel :-).

What are some of the things that new people might shake up when they move into a new job?

  1. Offerings from employers – We see this happening in preparation for the new employees of the younger generations. Look at Google, Facebook and any other young software company. The culture is  a more all-encompassing experience and more is being offered to younger workers. What they don’t tell you though, is that even though there may be all those great perks like free meals and dry cleaning, they expect you to be working…a lot. A friend of a friend who now works at Google claims he has been there for months and still hasn’t plugged in his refrigerator at home.
  2. Methodology/Paradigm – This is the change that requires the most caution. Sure, sometimes the methods have been developed because one person or another wants to keep their job or because “that’s how it’s always been done” (no one remembers why). But sometimes, things are done a certain way because they are keeping it simple and it just happens to be the best way to do something. It is also possible, it is the lesser evil among many other options. It is in these situations, where it seems glaring that changes are required, that newer employees might be tempted to shake things up, but in fact would be disturbing things. (Completely Random Side Note: who doesn’t love the word paradigm? If you say it like it’s spelled, you sound like you’re calling out the mascot for Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks Cereal!)
  3. Workplace Culture – More and more young people entering the workplace have seen Office Space and read Dilbert before they’ve experienced it. As such, they have certain biases and are immediately looking to make workplaces more laid back areas where they feel comfortable doing work. There could be an entire discussion regarding the idiosyncrasies of Gen Y, but I’ll leave that to others.

These are not necessarily bad things for any of the generations involved. But a lot of people already in these jobs will be inclined to “break in” or “season” some of the new recruits, especially when it comes to point 2 above. Of course hazing comes to mind, but really I think a better way to say it is “institutionalize” or “teaching”. There are often certain ways to do things that are better than others. One example might be teaching a newer employee how to best measure the current of an op-amp. The new employee might have TONS of ideas of how to do this (probe the voltage across an output resistor or capacitor, crack open the case and probe the tiny silicon chip, simulate the entire thing in SPICE and try to correlate it to a real world model, etc). However, the learning could have been guided by a senior adviser who might know the fastest way to do that task.

In my first job, we were consistently told that we were brought in to shake up the organization. They wanted to hear our ideas and for us to give our input. The problem was that we had never done anything like what we were tasked to do, so much of our input was either ridiculous or ignored (I will point to my own examples first, I was crazy!). I believe the reason they brought us into the company in the first place as inexperienced new workers was to quickly acclimate us to the new environment and type of work. Sure, there won’t be too many great new ideas from the new employees, but they had shown us how things should be done from the beginning. The asking for ideas of the new employees was instead a really great way to appease our needs to contribute, even if it was never implemented.

Is it bad that younger people want to try something new at a job? Should their ideas be squashed if it is “known” that there is a better way? (quotations imply there might be a better way that had never been found)

I’d say it’s fine to try stuff out and even to try and change things at a new work place. The important thing is to remind the younger and new employees to consider all of the costs involved with changing something. It can be expensive and time consuming to do something a new way and in the end might make it a worse solution. If anything, Generation Y needs to know that their ideas are alright to have and even to act on, but that sometimes the best thing to do for a company and for ones own time is to use solutions that are readily available.

What do you think?

Categories
Analog Electronics Learning Life Work

What is an engineer?

I’ve been having what some would call an identity crisis. How, you ask? I’ve been working on digital electronics.

*GASP*!

I found out that in the early 90s and even earlier, analog engineers routinely switched from working in the analog domain to the digital domain…because it was paying really great. Not only that, most analog engineers had the expertise to do what most early digital engineers were doing (basically stringing together a lot of digital gates in DIP packages). It wasn’t until later that digital engineers started acting more as programmers and VHDL/Verilog experts.

So why do I bring this up? Because I’ve been thinking about the versatility required from engineers in general, not just analog or digital engineers. Routinely engineers are asked to switch modes or tasks or careers in order to get a job done. It’s not that other professions are never asked this; it’s just that the chameleon-like requirement placed on engineers seems to define the profession. Allow me to explain.

What is an engineer?

An engineer puts theories into practice using available devices and elements. They create new products and pass on knowledge through design iterations and trial and error. Their work should be directly applicable to the real world (sometimes in the form of an end-product, sometimes not) and hopefully able to be reproduced successfully in the same form for multiple parties (mass manufacturing). Engineers are often rooted in math and science but require a wide range of skill-sets in order to properly construct an end product.

I think it is important to note that an engineer is different from a scientist, although the line can often be blurred (especially when looking back at the inventors of the early 20th century). In modern times a scientist is usually tasked with pushing the barrier and finding new theories and concepts. This means that the concept will not necessarily be available in product form right away (although this is not always the case), as the product form must be iterated upon and improved for production.

Another interesting point is how the above definition manifests itself in higher education. When I was in school, the focus was definitely on making engineering scientists, that is engineers who are taught to research new methodologies and concepts with the final product in mind. There was much less focus on using existing products (i.e. discrete transistors) to create something new or to solve a problem. I do not think that it is a huge problem, as some of my classmates went on to work on their Master’s degrees or to work in research labs. The rest of us trying to break into industry were a little more strapped on what is expected from an engineer. Let’s go over what some of these things might be.

  1. Flexibility — This could be a theme of this article. Engineers have to be flexible and think on their feet. Again, I’m not saying scientists and other professions do not have to do this, only that it is required for many engineers. I went into my first job (working in a fab) as an electrical engineer student and ended up looking at chemical reactions and doing process engineering. The company I worked for didn’t want an electrical engineer, they wanted and engineer, someone they could teach their methods to and who could pick up the nuances as quickly as possible. I think it’s also important to note that they didn’t just hire engineers, they also hired scientists (don’t worry, I like scientists).
  2. Science and math knowledge — No surprise here, you have to know the basics in order to really get going in the field. However, I think that the interesting thing is that the basics is usually the majority of what you need. I used Ohm’s Law more often in practice than I use the knowledge of how to do the third integral of a sphere.
  3. Design re-use and not trying to re-invent the wheel — This was actually the reason I wanted to write this post, to point out that engineers often enter the field thinking they will be designing every piece of a system from the ground up. First off, this is irresponsible. The industries would never have standards if every engineering firm was trying to redesign a buck-boost converter everyday. Instead, engineers use optimized solutions available from vendors. Not only does it help standardize, it saves time.
  4. KISS — This directly relates to the above point. You have to keep it simple, because there are only 24 hours in a day. I have claimed to be a system designer before (or at least will be). To design a full system, you have to look at the simplest and fastest solutions because they are often the best and most elegant solutions. Not only that, if you don’t do it as fast and simple as possible, someone else will, and then you’ll lose out on a customer, contract, etc.
  5. Learning is pain — Even though continual learning is one of the main reasons I got into engineering, it’s not always fun. It’s not a great feeling when someone asks you to do something and then you have to slink away because you have no clue how to do it. Hopefully you’re slinking to go learn about it and not running away, but that is dependent on the person. The point is, learning is a difficult process and we really learn the most when we’re in situations that stretch us to the limits. In my experience, I always learned more in classes where I worked to get a C than in the ones where I breezed by and got an A.

Engineering is a field I entered because of the myriad things I could work on throughout my career. I did not switch to the digital domain for the money. I switched to digital work because I was asked to and it has been really interesting so far. Programmable logic is something I’ve worked on in the past and something I’m sure will become more prevalent in the workplace as design requirements become more stringent and timetables get shorter. If you are an engineering student or an aspiring engineer reading this article, I would highly suggest the profession (just make sure you note the above points). If you’re an experience engineer, please feel free to leave your experience in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Categories
Life Renewable Energy

This may sound a little corny…

Ah summertime. What a great time of year. There are tons of things to do, but none match the splendor and diversity of a county fair…especially in middle of nowhere Ohio. Between eating pizza subs, watching horses pull stuff and admiring the great bounty of mullets that only rural areas could give us (“Strong crop of mullets on the back 40 this year, Pa!”), I found something genuinely interesting.

In a cramped show trailer, I happened upon a nice older gentleman whom I’ll call Hank (cotton candy causes memory loss). He was selling a range of products from CornStoves.com, which is a distributor for a range of pellet stoves. Neither the website nor the product is particularly flashy; basically there is a thermostat that controls a hopper, which can hold wood pellets, or sometimes grain. When it gets below the set temperature, the thermostat kicks on and releases a few of the tiny pellets into the already raging, but compact fire (500°F and up in those tiny piles). This method allows for only using the amount of energy needed and not much more. Depending on whether the system is a boiler or a furnace, the pile of burning pellets then heats liquid or air respectively and then goes through a heat exchanger. I immediately asked Hank if my house would smell like popcorn, but he calmly explained that the heat exchanger would not usually allow that. He was nice enough to humor me though, and told me that it might smell like popcorn outside my house. He also told me that a retrofit system for an existing 1500 sq. ft. house would cost about $5000 or so. It would tie into an existing furnace’s ducts and then kick on instead of the regular furnace (with the option to use the original furnace). I though this was a pretty interesting idea.

So why now? Well, energy prices don’t really seem to be going back down anytime soon (even if oil prices are falling temporarily). And while corn prices seem high at the moment, you can always plant more corn next year…you can’t make more oil. Also, I tend to think that farmers are over planting corn this year because of the high prices. Who wouldn’t want to get close to double what they were getting a few years ago? If corn AND oil are both high, these systems have the benefit of being versatile; they can use any range of bio-fuels, from wheat to rye to recycled paper pellets. The most commonly found feul is compressed wood pellets, which are made from sawdust at mills and elsewhere. All will have varying energy densities (which will change how much heat an individual pellet will output), but the pricing will often make up for the differences. Hank also told me that with a boiler, the cost would be about 60% less to heat a home (because heating oil will be higher this winter than natural gas). It would be about 40% cheaper with a furnace. Disclaimer: These facts are all from Hank, the salesman. Actual results may vary, but he seemed pretty genuine.

So why this solution as opposed to something else? It’s simple, stupid. Really simple, so much so that these systems have been around for a while (think wood burning stoves, but with pellets). But now there is a renewed focus on this solution. Sure there are geothermal house heating solutions and communities with steam pipes going to houses and solar thermal towers and on and on. For most people though, those things are not an option for an existing house in an existing neighborhood. Sometimes there aren’t any other resources that can be harvested naturally (wind, sun, heat from the earth, etc), so people have to buy fuel. It’s a reality we’ll all have to face. There are downsides, as in any issue: you have to clean the system weekly, it’s not carbon neutral, it’s dependent on prices of fuel sources, it burns food that could feed some people (not feed corn, but some of the other types of things). I’m not saying you should go out an buy one, that’s Hank’s job to convince you. But it’s another way to reduce dependence on foreign oil and maybe help some local farmers too.

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Analog Electronics Blogging Supply Chain

Why I love open source

There are so many great examples of open source these days. I find more and more that I can accomplish just about any task, either online or in the real world, with the aid of open source, especially software. For a relatively recent grad, I appreciate any opportunity to save money for the future. This could easily be the same case if I ever have the opportunity to start a business, as not many entrepreneurs relish the thought of paying thousands for an enterprise solution software package (such as Oracle). Let’s look at a few examples:

  1. Blogging – There are tons of sites out there that will give you space to host your blog either because they want exposure for their own site or have advertising motives. My blog is done published using WordPress, a wonderful free software. You can either have them host at their site or you can install their software really easily on your own hosting site. It’s amazing how well developed the software is and how easy it is to post and maintain online content. I remember when I first tried making websites back in the 90s I was so overwhelmed that I never ended up getting a site online. Now it’s a snap!
  2. Software – This is where the most open source opportunities come from and is really what drove the advances in open source. Here are some of my favorites.
    1. Wikipedia – This has to be one of the most prevalent examples on the internet today, not only of free software, but free information that is surprisingly accurate. The amazing thing about it is how effective it is as a standalone website. Google just about anything these days and a Wikipedia entry is likely to be at the top of the results. Why? Because Google works by popularity and whatever site the most people link to is usually the top hit on the results page (with some other criteria in there too). So many people link to Wiki articles though, that they often shoot to the top. Wikipedia is kept accurate and up to date by its contributors and moderated by some superusers, but has been shown to be effective as less and less people watch TV and instead spend their time online helping moderate content.
    2. Linux – A favorite of mine, this is the Windows killer that people have been talking about for years. It’s getting close, but Apple will probably chip away at Microsoft’s dominance first. Either way, it’s amazing how far the Linux systems have come from even just a few years ago. There are myriad releases available that suit different needs of users, but Ubuntu is the most popular now thanks to a user interface that is simple, similar to Windows and to be honest is spectacular. An add-on, once called Beryl, now Compiz-Fusion, is a spectacular interface that started following some of the OS X features (from Apple) and then was heavily copied in Microsoft’s Vista (flop). If you need some free software that does a tremendous job and is well supported, go with Ubuntu.
    3. PHP/MySQL – More software that makes this blog and many like it possible. WordPress is written in PHP, an open source software protocol that pulls from online databases. MySQL is the language that makes those databases possible. It is used in some of the most powerful sites on the web and is a simple standard to learn.
  3. Clothes – This one is definitely more unorthodox, but makes sense. A company called Threadless.com offers the opportunities to submit designs that are voted on by users and then they manufacture the most popular versions of the shirt and sell them. The artist gets a cut of the profits and the company doesn’t have to maintain an in-house staff. The situation is reminiscent of freelance photographers; it may not be the best for the artist, but it produces some spectacular work for the end user. Another company started doing this recently for shoes too. Soon you may be able to have an entire wardrobe based off of user created clothing!
  4. Music/Radio – Radio isn’t quite open source in the traditional sense, but online radio stations such as Pandora and Slacker are removing the need for big-wig dictated content. Allowing the user to decide what they will listen to more specifically than a station type with lots of songs you don’t want to hear (“104.8, playing hits from the 80s, 90s and today!). These online stations allow for you to pare down the specific genre you enjoy and then they will play songs from within that category
  5. Analog – This site is about analog, right? Well of course I’m going to include an example how this works.
    1. My favorite example is the open source tube amp project called AX84.com. Me and a friend built up an amp using the schematics and directions on this site; anyone is free to add their own variations and improvements to the base model to share with everyone. Some of the audio samples on the page show that these amps really can crank out some vintage, fuzzy tone that players the world over love.
    2. Another good example is the board layout from vendors. Often times a vendor will give an evaluation board in order to help sell a product (so the user can evaluate how well the product works before buying thousands of them). They will also offer the schematics of the eval board so that the user can directly copy it if necessary and save development time. Although the user does not usually share their modified end product, the fact that the board design can be re-used without a royalty payment makes it more “open” than “closed” source.

With all the free-ness of open source, why do companies do it? Why does anyone do it? Well, there still is an economically positive nature to open source. In the case of the clothing, Threadless.com still can make money through efficient production and distribution. They pass the cost of design to their submitters who make commission on their work. For the software companies, often times the open source version is available for companies to modify under the GNU public license (GPL) agreement, which says that if modifications are made that are not significantly different from the original that the changed version must be made available to the public. Sometimes when a company decides to deviate the software from the open source version, they decide to sell the new product and often times will offer professional support for the new version. Yet another way that open source providers can make money is through advertising revenues. A good example of this is Pandora, even though they are severely threatened by legislation that recently doubled the price of playing a song. Finally, sometimes, there is no revenue stream. People sometimes release open source information and products out of the goodness of their hearts or out of boredom.

Open source will continue to drive innovation because it allows for a free flowing of ideas. The fact that these ideas are free for all to use and modify and then share will ensure that more people will add to the collective knowledge and provide more open source products.

Categories
Analog Electronics Blogging Learning Life Supply Chain

A quarter century retrospective

When I started writing on my blog, I promised myself that it would not be about personal issues (“my roommate won’t pickup his socks!”) or rants about everyday happenings (“The people at the grocery store are slow!”). But I feel that reviewing the past 25 years of my life is good from a historical perspective and in terms of this blog so readers know more about where I’m coming from.

I am constantly amazed at how lucky I have been. I was born a white middle class male to loving parents and into a great family that encouraged my academic and intellectual achievement. I was also born in the United States of America, in an English speaking community that was voted one of the safest in America throughout my childhood. I’d say this already puts me in the top .1% of the world in terms of being dealt some great cards. Add to that the opportunities I’ve had with the school I was able to attend and the jobs I successfully interviewed for and I can’t think of many better situations. On top of all that, I work at a great company with lots of educational opportunities and I do something I really enjoy.

So not to sound like an Oscars speech, but I would like to thank so many people that made the past 25 years of my life possible. I want to thank my parents and sisters for being there for me and putting up with me. I’d like to thank all of my teachers throughout school that encouraged me, especially my high school physics teacher that inspired me to go into engineering. To all of my friends that are kind enough to click on my blog on a regular basis and give me great feedback on all things in my life, not just this blog. To our pound puppy Lola, who licks my face at every available chance and sits next to me whenever I need a canine friend. And saving the best for last, to my beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, who encourages me every day and loves me even when I’m writing about electronics and trying to explain it to her at 11pm.

That’s all for now. I thought one mushy post interspersed with serious posts wouldn’t be too bad, so I hope you enjoyed. Getting older always seems to have a stigma of life going faster and getting more hectic, but I think of it as more opportunities for learning and meeting new people. I’m sure this year will be another great one. If not, at least I can now rent cars with out that silly under-25 surcharge. Woo!

Categories
Health Learning

The Brain

My friend Trevor has an intriguing post about methods of mapping the brain. This is of interest to me because of how I have been reading “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil. Trevor talks about research into “seeing” water flow in the brain, as opposed to glucose or electrical signals or bloodflow. It’s a really cool idea to help understand how the brain works and how it could help humans relate to the world around them.

So why am I interested in the brain? Well, as Ray says, mapping the brain will result in technology beyond anything we could ever imagine for future technology. Using the biologically evolved model of the brain will allow us to leap past prior research in digital and analog technologies to create more advanced computers sooner. This will eventually allow for humans to choose to either become hybrid (biological/machine) beings or even completely machine beings, with transferred knowledge from the biological counterparts. This is also the idea he refers to as “The Singularity”…when human intelligence is surpassed by machine intelligence and machines begin to evolve on their own. Not to worry, he also claims that the machines will consider us “their biological forebears” and they will respect us (and not dominate us and turn us into batteries).

For more reading on/by Kurzweil, be sure to check out The Law of Accelerating Returns, upon which he bases many of his arguments. Some of the ideas he has are pretty radical and optimistic, but they are definitely possible in this lifetime. If you’re not interested in that, make sure you read Trevor’s post (or an part of his blog), it’s quite intriguing.

Categories
Analog Electronics Politics Renewable Energy Supply Chain

Solar Automation and Micro-Factories

I have a friend who alerted me to a company out in New Mexico known as Solar Automation. They don’t make solar panels; rather, they make the equipment to make solar panel arrays. However, what I find most intriguing about the company is their concept of Micro-Factories. In the case of Solar Automation, the basic idea is that a small team of people are capable of creating solar arrays by soldering the tiny wires with non-lead solder. This same concept could be expanded to many other applications, including mechanical or auto assembly, textiles, food preparation (already done at caterers, really).

Although it exists on a slightly larger scale, China epitomizes the Micro-Factory model. They have large labor pools using simple equipment to make incrementally more complex equipment. One example might be a board house that hand assembles and solders through-hole part boards. This could instead be done in a large facility with automation on expensive equipment. However, the cost for the equipment would likely mandate a large overall throughput for the factory in order to justify the cost of the equipment. Conversely, a smaller hand soldering operation could easily scale the number of people required to make an order of boards. As for energy savings, there can be higher efficiency with a laborer using a low wattage soldering iron as compared to heating lamps or continuously heating a wave solder machine.

The pivotal point in this argument is whether or not the end product requires increasing complexity in the machines that construct it. Solar is a good example. The panels themselves are not particularly complex, mostly they are tons and tons of PN junctions that convert incident light into flowing electrons. However, the chemicals and the semiconductor processing equipment is very complex.

So what are the benefits of Micro-Factories?

  1. Local workforce – With the exception of a privileged few (non-whiners), no one will contend that the US and the world economy is hitting some tough times. Local jobs are outsourced or cut outright. Mom and pop shop workers are now greeters at WalMart. Why not instead allow lower education workers have a job creating something useful for society and the environment, rather than peddling trinkets made 6000 miles away? Added bonus: Your workers do not have to travel from far away to work, thereby cutting down on costs and emissions.
  2. Simple training – Training is not cheap. If you ask people at Samsung, I was training for roughly a year and a half to do my job (and promptly left for a new one). It takes times to get into the swing of things at companies, no matter the task. Why not make the task simpler? The Solar Automation takes a complicated end process and allows simple training to quickly begin.
  3. Built in quality control (eyes) – While this would hinge on the enthusiasm of the workers (and therefore dependent on myriad other factors), it’s a fact that most computers do not notice something innately wrong with a process. Most people will notice if a solar panel is discolored or if a wire is hanging off where it’s supposed to be connected. Until the day when computers are smarter than humans (and cheaper), people will implement a natural form of quality control.

What are the drawbacks, you ask?

  1. If you give a mouse a cookie (cutter job), he’s going to want benefits – My own views about benefits and healthcare aside, it’s a fact that people expect some form of benefits, most easily represented in business as overhead. It expands beyond healthcare and such (think tables and chairs and other things that people expect from jobs), so you might have to label the job as “an alternative workplace” where compensation is higher (in the event you don’t want to/have to provide benefits). Doesn’t mean you can’t have a productive workplace though.
  2. In the solar example, there are still high material costs (the actual solar cells), so the margins will be squeezed. In general, assembly jobs are meant to be high volume, low margin endeavors, so there are risks when material costs rise; doubly so if your revenues are stagnant (because of contracts or otherwise).
  3. Sometimes it’s still cheaper to ship repetitive jobs overseas or automate a process. That’s all there is to it.

Micro-Factories could be a great way to increase employment, mobilize a stagnant workforce and help cut down on emmissions. I would highly suggest you check out the Solar Automation page and leave comments on other places you have seen similar ideas implemented.

Categories
Analog Electronics Politics Renewable Energy

Stealing stars and leaving the Barons in the dust

I recently had a high school friend visit and while watching the Olympics and having some beers, conversation turned to China (and the rest of the world). I know, I know, I’ve recently talked about the Olympics and China and such; But this is different. The conversation moved to energy and how it relates to national security, which I also have read about recently in a trade journal. Basically he brought up the astute point that renewable energy needs to be our number one priority in the coming years. We’re not talking 20 or 30 years…we’re talking 2 or 3. Really, it’s that important.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Let’s say America reduces its energy dependence and busts its hump to get renewable energy contributing to say 40% of the country’s need (imagine a breakthrough that would allow this). What happens next? Well, if it was overnight (which it wouldn’t be), oil demand and prices would more than likely fall overnight too. Not to worry, I’m sure somewhere along the way that the demand would be filled by large countries that manufacture goods and want some newly cheap energy. But what about (the) US? In succession, we’d be able to say “Goodbye! No Thanks! Don’t Need it anymore!” to: Iraq…Iran….Russia….Venezuela….and China (though we probably wouldn’t with China, they make our stuff, right?). Almost all of the conflicts the US has with other countries center around oil! I would imagine it’s not going to stop with these countries either. Oil will become the driving force behind global conflicts for years to come, followed only by the fight for potable water. So why not go over the oil barons’ heads and make our own energy and let the wind and sun give us all the power for free?

40% of energy coming from renewable energy? Does the US have the brainpower to achieve that? No, not unless just about every scientist and engineer was capable of dropping what they’re doing and shift all their focus to working on energy. But there’s tons of smart scientists and engineers all over the world. What a break! In fact, there are engineers already doing a lot of this renewable energy work already. So maybe we could achieve two things here…first, the US would get scientists to help develop energy solutions that would allow us to ignore the tyrants of the world; second, the US would continue to maintain our most important resource going to the future: intellectual capital.

For the past 100 years, the US has been a leader in technology because of its innovators. These best and brightest minds created everything from electronic building blocks to the computers in which they were utilized. And now we’ve seen not only jobs going overseas, but a lot of the best minds are popping up outside this country too. Not only that, a lot of the top minds are coming to the US to study and then following jobs home to their native countries. So another solution for the benevolent (or otherwise) forces in the world: lure them to the United States and claim them as our own. While intellectual capital may have been one of our greatest resources that is arguably losing ground to the rest of the world, the US still has something that many other countries do not. What other countries have Hollywood, New York City, Chicago, LA, National parks bigger than certain countries and so on and so forth? Where do people want to move for jobs and stay and live and raise families? I think that the US needs to utilize the drawing power of our entire country, our availability of opportunities and our lifestyles (whether people agree with the decadence of western culture or not).

The future of the world in regards to energy is very uncertain; the US will remain a world power only if we are able to recruit the best minds, keep them here and have them help to create a world run on renewable energy.

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Learning Life Politics

Conformity vs. Individualism

The other morning I heard a great story on NPR about people in China and their interest in basketball. I was really interested to learn how they believed basketball allowed them to express their individuality. One of them dreamed out loud of being able to dunk and how this was their ultimate dream of freedom.

Aside from the question of how many different ways there are to dunk, it got me thinking about Chinese culture and how it has contributed to their success over the past 8 years or so. It is no secret that the Chinese culture, and specifically the government, stresses conformity. One might think that this would hinder the technological progress in China, but they are quickly becoming a technology leader in the world (it is important to note that a good deal of the continued success of China is companies outside the country driving progress…but not all of it). Add to that how more and more design work is being offshored, due to the low cost and higher supply of design engineers. A slew of questions have popped up in my mind when I think about these kinds of things.

Does conformity hurt a culture?

I would argue that when it comes to academics and business, conformity helps. In school, this is obvious. If you are in a classroom with 50 other students, every student is expected to know that 2 + 2 = 4. Sure, this is a simple example, but the academic system is usually based upon reaching a solution that someone else (the textbook, your teacher, the government, etc) wants you to reach. Further, the extremely competitive nature of academia in China has parents encouraging this behavior, even outside the structures of academia (no, I am not suggesting that 2 + 2 does not equal 4, nor that you should tell your teacher so to be unique, just that conformity can travel beyond the walls of a school). Academic stress happens in America too, I just feel like it is more ubiquitous in China.

What about in business? This too has some benefits. Think about a production line in China, cranking out iPod after iPod, all made to be the exact same, with the outliers and the bad production techniques tweaked to remove these expensively bad units. The faster each unit can be made the same, the cheaper that unit will be, and the happier the company selling it will be. The concept was created in the wake of World War 2, when the Japanese began to focus heavily on quality control; today, the Chinese benefit from these methods of conformity.

So business and school both seem to be havens for conformity. But what about situations that require some ingenuity? What happens when the product that is made so fast and becomes so cheap and ubiquitous that the public is clamoring for a newer and shinier device? (an iPhone instead of an iPod, for example) Who will create the technology that will drive the next revolution? What about when there are students that rise to the top of their class and go on to get a PhD? What happens when the smartest student goes to the best school and gets the highest degree possible after conforming to all the standards placed before them? Then they stare out into the abyss and try to figure out something new, only to realize that no one is there telling them what they need to figure out. I’m not saying this happens, only that it is an interesting scenario and it begs the question: is absolute conformity a good thing?

Is the academic system set up for failure eventually?

This is an extension of the above idea about PhD students. I know many PhD students (in the US) who tell me about their research being only that which their advisor wants. Further, while they are working on their research, they are hoping and praying that there are not any other students about to publish similar results as their own. Perhaps this is why we see more PhD students who are from outside the US (studying at US schools) or are getting PhDs at international institutions–because the fastest paper published is the most important, not the most creative. Perhaps the conformity aspect of academia extends beyond the simple math equations into the upper echelons of higher education. I think the scariest part is the students who eventually become the teachers. If you think about the rigor involved in obtaining a professorship these days, it can include 1 or more PhDs, multiple post doctorate positions and continual paper publishing throughout one’s career. This basically means that the most astute students of the system (those that best navigate the conformity requirements placed upon them) are the ones that become the teachers. These same people then expect the same (or more!) out of the rising students. One has to wonder when this sort of thing will stop.

Another point about the academic system that confuses me is whether or not the students who exhibit some amount of individuality are more or less successful. I would like to think that those with bright new ideas rise to the top, but I am not so sure that this happens. Perhaps instead the ones that conform the quickest and those with the best advisors do the best. Personally, I have never heard of an academic phenom that did not have a spectacular advisor guiding them through the world of academics.

What is individuality?

Well, the idea is that an individual is capable of defining themselves as different from all other people. Does this happen very often? No, of course not. Even this article I am writing now has been conceived and written about many times over. But I view individuality as the opposite of conformity; it is bucking the norm, even if others do too (some small amount of them, of course. If the majority buck the trend, it becomes the new trend).

How does individualism affect creativity?

Creativity is a nebulous and fickle thing. Further, I don’t think that individuality breeds creativity; instead, I believe creativity breeds individuality. This is important to engineering because without creativity, engineering would essentially stop in its tracks. There would be no new methods, no new products, no intellectual progress. Most importantly (and realistically), there would be no financial gain and therefore no more funding to teach and advance engineering. Of course this also extends outside of engineering; art programs, humanities, economics, language (?)…none of these would be funded if there was no creativity and new ideas. Instead, the money would focus on getting the best value from what is already being made. If this is the case, Seth Godin points out not to follow the money.

Does too much individualism breed a sense of entitlement?

I think it’s important to view the other side of this issue. What happens when students are given the freedom to express themselves and the means to do so? In the extreme cases, I think that students are more prone to laziness, replication (copying others) and a sense of entitlement. Let’s look at an American student as it is interesting to contrast the difference from a Chinese student. Many newly graduating students are demanding higher salaries, more responsibilities and have less experience. Some people justify it (and rightly so), but does that mean we’re worth the more than our last generation? I’m not so sure.

C’mon people, of course the extremes of conformity and individualism will have their faults. Of course there will be some mixing of the two that will produce the best engineers and the best students. However, I would really love to hear from you about your opinions on individuality and conformity.