The United States Air Force's chief scientist, Mark Lewis, spoke at the 15th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' space planes, hypersonic systems and technologies conference. During the interview he speaks to the topics of hydrogen fuel, space tourism and other issues.
After downloading the podcast, just rename the file extension from aspx to mp3. It will play fine.
Although I consider myself a software geek, I know very little about this field ... Genetic Programming. However, before you think I'm talking about genetic engineering of plants and animals, read on. This field studies nature, and tries to learn lessons for solving technical problems ... an intriguing idea. You may now download a very detailed manual on the process, A Field Guide to Genetic Programming. Here is how the book's web site describes the area:
"Genetic Programming is a systematic, domain-independent method for getting computers to solve problems automatically starting from a high-level statement of what needs to be done. Using ideas from natural evolution, GP starts from an ooze of random computer programs, and progressively refines them through processes of mutation and sexual recombination, until solutions emerge. All this without the user having to know or specify the form or structure of solutions in advance. GP has generated a plethora of human-competitive results and applications, including novel scientific discoveries and patentable inventions."
I am definitely adding this manual to the Engineering Learning Wiki's manual section. If you are interesting in learning more about this discipline, a trip to the University of Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory would be worth your while. Besides, any lab which refers to their blog at IlliGAL must have a sense of humor. I leave you to figure out the play on words!
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Okay ... I've been pushing the unconference. You don't even have to come to Minnesota. However ... if you were in the Twin Cities this weekend, you could attend with me. My thanks to Brian Kopp for saying my presentation sounded worth attending.
If you have no idea what an "unconference" is, link to this earlier post ... learn ... and attend one in your region. They are held all over the world.
Most of us don't get to hang out in Silicon Valley. I decided to take a few days of vacation and come out to Mountain View and see some friends. Little did I realize that my trip would bring me out to ground zero during the 15th anniversary of the world wide web. Link to the Web Guild to read the announcement and watch the video.
I decided I couldn't let this historic date pass without some recognition ... ponder ... ponder ... how does one say Happy Birthday WWW ? With web sites! Thus via the Internet Wayback Machine I decided to give you the history of the web ... #10 Downing Street style!
The oldest year I could find was 1997. Click upon any thumbnail for an expanded view.
1997 on ...
The next time you're trip is delayed due to the high volumes air traffic, envision this! (beautiful air traffic plot animation set to music ... one day in the life of air traffic over the United States):
One complaint I often hear from older engineers is how many of their younger brethren don't have hands-on experience in the "shop". If that description might apply to you, or you just could use some occasional help with a machining problem, link on over to the Virtual Machine Shop! It has some great drawings, tutorials, animations, etc. I added this content to the mechanical engineering section of the engineering learning wiki.
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Toyota has changed the economic and business landscape. Author and professor Jeffrey K. Liker explains that this success was the result of consistently applying four key management principles for organizational excellence-Philosophy, People, Problem Solving, and Process. The Lean Blog has now published a three part series / podcast of interviews with Professor Liker on his new book, Toyota Culture. In this book he notes that a key aspect to Toyota's success is culture ... in fact it is the "heart and soul of the Toyota Way"
I'm off to Seattle early tomorrow for the annual China Tomorrow Education Foundation annual benefit dinner. I will be one of their keynote speakers. I owe a dept of gratitude and thanks to my buddy, Dj, who has taught me the meaning of dedication and compassion. While I help the children from afar except for an occasional trip to southern China, Dj left a high paying job with Microsoft to help educate the children.
If you have a few extra dollars, help me rebuild the LingYun dorm. Send a pledge via email to Rich Hoeg, at rhoeg@comcast.net. Thank you!
Stormbringer commented yesterday about a very cool tool, WikiBooks2PDF. This simple and easy to use tool allows one to convert Wikibooks to pdf for offline use. Just do the following:
Following up on yesterday's post (my thanks to Peter Skomoroch over at Data Wrangling Blog), I've added the following courses to the Engineering Learning Wiki and it's embedded Google Co-op search engine. The links given below take you to the correct wiki section.
Remember to check out the courses page of the Engineering Learning Wiki. This page has the search engine and lists the LARGE curriculums (i.e. not just individual courses).
I've just discovered a wealth of new engineering videos /lectures courtesy of Peter Skomoroch over at Data Wrangling Blog. Over the next few weeks I will review the courses and add some of the better content to the Engineering Learning Wiki. Here are just two examples:
I built this Google Co-op search engine for myself, and decided I might as well make it available to everyone. The index is the "mobile friendly web pages" of the Internet Tablet Talk Forum. Thus, the search engine and your results will load much quicker via your Nokia N800 or N810 tablet.
The Connectbeam Blog has an interesting post today, it's title: Should Facebook Be Banned from Work? Gardner’s Nikos Drakos versus Ray Valdes. Given the fine reputation of the Gardner Group, I recommend you link over to Connectbeam and read up on this issue. The problem of access to web 2.0 / social networks is one facing many corporations. While there is obviously content on YouTube and Facebook which is detrimental to polite society and not work focused (or worse), many companies now use YouTube for marketing. I actually found a great professor, Jake Blanchard, via one of his YouTube video / tutorials. He now teaches MatLab courses for my company.
I just completed a major upgrade of the Engineering Learning Wiki Manuals Section. You will find virtual manuals ranging from Control Systems to JAVA Programming. Thus, be you hardware or software oriented, please take a look. A major share of the upgrade was integration of content from Wikibooks.
I hope you also appreciate the fact that none of my sites have advertisements (this blog, the Engineering Learning Wiki, my Google Co-Op Search Engines, and my Feedburner RSS Feed). For both the wiki and search engines, the default is to display ads. With Google Co-Op I had to work my way through an involved process to turn the advertisements, and with Wikispaces I actually had to spend my own money to make the site ad free. Thus, if you like what you find, give me feedback, or better yet ... content suggestions for this blog or wiki! You may contact me at richardhoeg{at}gmail{dot}com.
Finally, in its short virtual lifespan, it has been gratifying to see the Engineering Learning Wiki grow to over 100 unique users per day ... and the trend is upwards. Please help continue this growth by adding a post on your blog about my engineering learning efforts. Thank you.
WikiBooks has a great new free engineering manual available, either on-line or via downloadable pdf:
To learn more about WikiBooks, and access additional books, read my earlier post. Note: This information is reposted from April 26, 2007 to clear up a comments problem.
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