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Engineering

Sabine Hossenfelder on a fusion energy milestone (plus . . .)

2.5 MJ in, 3.15 MJ out . . . not counting the inefficiency of lasers: Counting 400 MJ to get the 2.5 MJ from the lasers, that is not yet “there” but it is a step. Here is another recent attempt, based on firing two plasma “donuts” at each other: The Helion people explain the challenge involved, here. Let us watch as we inch towards a fusion world. END

L&FP, 62: The Systems (and Systems Engineering) Perspective — a first step to understanding design in/of our world

Our frame going forward, is knowledge reformation driven by application of the adapted JoHari Window, given obvious, fallacy-riddled ideological captivity of the intellectual high ground of our civilisation: Ideological captivity of the high ground also calls forth the perspective that we need to map the high ground: If you want some context on validity: So, we are now looking at ideologically driven captivity of the intellectual high ground and related institutions of our civilisation, leading to compromising the integrity of the knowledge commons through fallacy riddled evolutionary materialistic scientism and related ideologies. Not a happy thought but that is what we have to deal with and find a better way forward. We already know, knowledge (weak, everyday sense) is warranted, Read More ›

At Evolution News: Nearly All of Evolution Is Best Explained by Engineering

Question: If someone proposed Darwinism for the first time today, now that we know all that we know about the hard-to-fathom complexity of life, would people as readily accept it? Read More ›

How engineering destroys faith in Darwinism

Brian Miller: Biologists wedded to scientific materialism have argued that life is so different from human artifacts that they can dismiss engineers’ conclusions about organisms’ limited evolvability. The central fallacy in this argument is that nearly every difference between human creations and life makes the latter ever more challenging to design. And the challenges translate into more daunting obstacles for any evolutionary scenario. Read More ›

Why a mechanic infers design. Karsten Pultz explains

Pultz: Empirical evidence (from the world of engineering) supports the assumption that complex functional systems like motors do not arise via random changes to already existing systems. Empirical evidence, even from biology itself, also supports the common knowledge that random changes to functional systems disturb, disrupt, or destroy function. Read More ›

Dragon Docks with the International Space Station

Vid: Ponder the exacting systems engineering, reliability testing, required qualifications and multiple i/o instrumentation and control involved. Observe the precise, corrective jets to keep the process under control. This, is how a good future is going to be built: near earth colonisation and Lunar colonisation are the first stages to Solar system colonisation. (Note, they are expected to remain on the ISS for 30 – 119 days.) Blue Danube is extra, but it speaks to the cultural patterns that lie behind that precise docking exercise and all the rich promise it reflects. END

Energy transformation vs. the ghost of Malthus

Our civilisation is haunted by the ghost of the Rev. Thomas Malthus. His core vision of resource exhaustion and population crashes haunts our imaginations. As BBC profiles in brief: Malthus’ most well known work ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’ was published in 1798, although he was the author of many pamphlets and other longer tracts including ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent’ (1815) and ‘Principles of Political Economy’ (1820). The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to current thinking at the time. He argued that increases in population would eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself and based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way Read More ›

The growth of the Internet, 1990 – 2019

Of general interest — and especially observe the rise of China, India and Nigeria: Food for thought. END PS: Jawa points to some interesting points of data with images worth highlighting. First, number of sites (where approx. 200 mn are regularly active): Likewise, it is noted by tekeye that “[d]espite there being over 1.5 billion websites only a few hundred dominate the Internet. Less than 1 million, or 0.1%, account for over 50% of web traffic. To get an idea on how much such a small percentage of the total websites dominate look at The Internet Map.”

The Code 1202 glitch during the LM descent to the Moon

Why did the LM’s “mini” computer throw a restart glitch during the descent? Eyles — who wrote the code — tells the story: We are here discussing the LM’s mini computer, which used IC’s to effect an unprecedented small size (and “only” 70 lbs, in a box Eyles describes as 1 ft x 2 ft x 6 inches): Spoiler alert: a switch had been bumped, a radar overloaded the tiny 36,000 word memory and reset was triggered. Armstrong took over manual pilot and rode over a crater that was headlined at the time as an emergency leading to a blood pressure and heart rate surge. A successful landing was effected (I recall, listening after church as my late Dad tuned Read More ›

Apollo 11 Moon landing + 50 years today

A moment of triumph and a giant leap for mankind. Live stream: Let us remember and let us learn. Hopefully, back to the Moon then onward to Mars, the Asteroid belt and solar system colonisation across this century — our real hope. And, a positive focus going forward. END

AI and hopes for fusion power

A recent news item suggests that AI may help bring fusion power to the table on the long used but challenging Tokamak toroidal reactor architecture. This would be a major positive use of AI technology, if it proves sufficiently reliable: Artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science that is transforming scientific inquiry and industry, could now speed the development of safe, clean and virtually limitless fusion energy for generating electricity. A major step in this direction is under way at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University, where a team of scientists working with a Harvard graduate student is for the first time applying deep learning — a powerful new version of Read More ›