I'm writing an article that deals in part with the career of MIT civil engineering prof John B. "Bud" Wilbur, class of '26. Did you or any of your mentors/elders know him? Please get in touch! #mit#engineering
By weaving popsicle sticks together in a specific pattern, there is a build up potential energy (stored energy) in the bent and twisted sticks. When released from one end, this stored potential energy is converted into kinetic energy (energy of motion) as the sticks rapidly unfurl & fly through the air in a chain reaction. #science#physics#energy#engineering
After crisis in interstellar space, stream of Voyager 1 data resumes. Before its computer crashed, the venerable NASA probe may have entered mysterious new region beyond the Solar System.
"Thomas S. Mullaney’s new book, The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age, published by the MIT Press, unearths the forgotten history of Chinese input in the 20th century. In this article, which was adapted from an excerpt of the book, he details the varied Chinese input systems of the 1960s and ’70s that renounced QWERTY altogether."
Attacco agli ATM riuscito! Un Tasso del 99% di Efficacia Spaventa tutte le Banche Europee
Nello spazio #digitale si sta diffondendo attivamente un nuovo tipo di #malware#ATM. Il suo tasso di successo, secondo i suoi autori, raggiunge il 99%.
Questo #software dannoso, chiamato “EU ATM Malware”, è in grado di #hackerare quasi tutti gli sportelli #bancomat in #Europa e circa il 60% degli sportelli bancomat in tutto il mondo, il che rappresenta una #minaccia significativa per la sicurezza bancaria globale..
Iter & West: Nuclear Fusion Gaining Momentum at Cadarache
Nuclear fusion is advancing rapidly, including within France. On one hand, the CEA’s WEST reactor has completed its experimental campaign by setting a new record. On the other hand, the final poloidal field coil for ITER has been delivered.
This vendor exhibited a camera that can take 100,000 frames per second, other vendors had demonstrations where you could see individual droplets in a shower.
My office at work currently has 4 women and 1 man.
I have been the “only” woman in an office full of men so many times - this is the first time it’s been reversed! And I’m having so much fun! (Sorry, Thomas, for all of the silliness!)
Overcrowding problem on China’s #ArtificialIslands in the #SouthChinaSea could be solved with tunnels, according to a #Chinese#ocean#engineering project team that says it has developed an excavation method to overcome the limitations of the soft coral sand.
After a rapid expansion of its presence in the contested #Spratly#reef chain that began about a decade ago, #China eased back on construction in recent years in a bid to soothe the nerves of neighbouring countries
Why Boeing needs to be run by engineers and not bean counters
Really insightful video about what has gone wrong.
Among the points Casey makes is that Boeing imported Jack Welch's GE management culture.
This has included a focus on short-term profits over engineering, and practises such as stack ranking.
Boeing, as a major defence contractor and (direct and indirect) employer, is too big to fail.
And Casey argues that either the Board or, if they're unwilling, the US government, needs to clear out the senior management and introduce an engineer-led management team:
So…the “Slack will now train AI using your data” thing is not as much of a five alarm fire as I’d first assumed:
“We do not develop LLMs or other generative models using customer data.” ← GOOD.
“Data will not leak across workspaces.” ← Or so they say. They •are• training across workspaces, but sounds like recommender systems and not generative models, so…we’ll see. Seems fraught. Still, that public commitment does mean something — legal exposure, at least.
The bad news: platform owners don’t have a vision and are out of ideas for how to innovate their #ecosystems, all in the name of #efficiency.
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum’s character from Jurassic Park: The most brilliant minds of #engineering are optimized to execute and have not bothered to consider whether they should.
The good news: “real” #innovation will happen from the experienced middle, not the top.