Rube Goldberg and the Electrification of America

Hugh Pickens writes "Alexis Madrigal has an interesting essay in the Atlantic about the popular response of people in the 19th century to the development of the electric power industry in America. Before electricity, basically every factory had to run a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine, transmitting power from a water wheel or a steam engine to the machines of a manufactory but with the development of electric turbines and motors the public believed engineers were tapping mysterious, invisible forces with almost supernatural powers for mischief. 'Think about it,' writes Madrigal. 'You've got a wire and you've got a magnet. Switch on the current — which you can't see and have no intuitive way to know exists — and suddenly the wire begins to rotate around the magnet. You can reverse the process, too. Rotate the magnet around the wire and it generates a current that can be turned into light, heat, or power.' And that brings us back to Rube Goldberg, a cartoonist who was was shockingly popular in his heyday and whose popularity closely parallels the rise of electrification in America. 'I think Goldberg's drawings reminded his contemporaries of a time when they could understand the world's industrial processes just by looking. No matter how absurd his work was, anyone could trace the reactions involved,' writes Madrigal. 'People like to complain that they can't understand modern cars because of all the fancy parts and electronic doo-dads in them now, but we lost that ability for most things long ago.'"

Comments

Understanding

[dr_strang]

I derive a great amount of personal satisfaction from learning and understanding how things work. I find I'm definitely a minority in that respect. It saddens me.

Re:Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

I derive a great amount of personal satisfaction from learning and understanding how things work. I find I'm definitely a minority in that respect. It saddens me.

I actually find that most people are interested in understanding how things work. However, most people don't have time to learn advanced physics or learn how other things work because they are more worried being busy raising kids, feeding their family, maintaining social relationships, or dealing with crime in their neighborhood.

It's just the nerds that grew up in suburbia and never leave their computers who think that they are special.

Re:Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually find that most people are interested in understanding how things work. However, most people don't have time to learn advanced physics or learn how other things work because they are more worried being busy raising kids, feeding their family, maintaining social relationships, or dealing with crime in their neighborhood.

I find the opposite. Your average American wouldn't bother learning how things work even if they had all the time in the world. When I try to explain computer concepts to my kid-raising, family-feeding, social-relationship-maintaining co-workers, they usually just shake their heads and say "that's way over my head."

Given the extra time, most of them would probably spend it watching TV, going out to eat, or reading trashy novels.

Re:Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

whomever modded this as redundant is an ass clown whose mod auth should be taken away. That person should also be sterilized so as not to pass on said ass-clownerey. How is the first real post possibly redundant?

Re:Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a redundant elitist viewpoint

Re:Understanding

[TeknoHog]

I actually find that most people are interested in understanding how things work. However, most people don't have time to learn advanced physics or learn how other things work because they are more worried being busy raising kids, feeding their family, maintaining social relationships

Raising a family and having a social life are choices. Nobody is forced to do either.

I generally feel that some of the basic human needs are (1) being loved and accepted, and (2) doing your own thing. Everyone has to balance between these two, since they are conflicting to some extent. I think nerds/geeks are simply the ones who choose to do a little more of (2).

Re:Understanding

[Locutus]

I bet that if you asked a dozen people in their 30s what makes an electric motor work, you'd be lucky to get one who was even close to understanding the basics of how it works. The automobile is the same, people are not taught any of the basics of this thing they drive around in and control. And I constantly hear brakes squealing, belts squealing, and sometimes even u-joints screaming and clunking. The drivers are clueless as to what is going to happen as they keep driving the vehicles to the point of part failure.

Just look at how "computers" are taught in most schools. They teach the students what to click on instead of teaching the concepts of those things. This is also why I get so much opposition to teaching word processing using something other and Microsoft Word. They think it must look like MS Word or they don't feel the students are learning anything of value. Most all of the teachers are lacking in the understanding to teach anything but a step by step process and then checking off "Teaching The Word".

yes, it is very sad.

LoB

Re:Understanding

[Hans Lehmann]

So it's only nerds that spend the time to understand how anything actually works, while you Real Americans can't bothered with such unnecessary details. No wonder our country is going down the shit hole, too many people think just like you.

Re:Understanding

[sjames]

There was a time (at least in my region of the country) where knowing how a car works was just a natural part of manhood. Some knew more than others but all needed to know at least some to be a real man.

That was in addition to all of the other things.

That and many other things that used to make our society strong are victims of the growing number of hours adults in a household must apply to employment in order to tread water.

Re:Understanding

[frog_strat]

Raising a family and having a social life are choices.

That's a pretty simple version of choice / free will you have there. Check out the book The Illusion Of Conscious Will for another version,

Re:Understanding

[TeknoHog]

Obviously, a lot of choices are done under social pressures. There is a kind of positive feedback loop, in that social pressures usually favour the social choices. On the other hand, doing your own thing with sufficient success usually makes you stand out in a positive way, thereby increasing your social status as well.

But there are few external forces that drive you to do your own thing. For example, you don't become a great musician if you only think of the potential fame and fortune. There needs to be an inner drive for music.

Re:Understanding

[Ephemeriis]

I derive a great amount of personal satisfaction from learning and understanding how things work. I find I'm definitely a minority in that respect. It saddens me.

I actually find that most people are interested in understanding how things work. However, most people don't have time to learn advanced physics or learn how other things work because they are more worried being busy raising kids, feeding their family, maintaining social relationships, or dealing with crime in their neighborhood.

It's just the nerds that grew up in suburbia and never leave their computers who think that they are special.

Your mileage has obviously varied from mine...

I spent the last 7 years of my life working for a small IT shop providing support to local businesses, private individuals, college students, and anyone else with a broken computer.

It's been my experience that folks simply do not care to learn how things work. It isn't a matter of not having time, they just don't care. They've got their job, their set of tasks, and that's all they care about. They don't want to know anything more than that.

Obviously there's individual variation. I find computers interesting, so I've learned a lot about them. Some other person finds plants interesting and has learned a lot about gardening. And not everyone is averse to learning about new things.

But I've found an awful lot of people just aren't curious. They don't know how something works, they don't care how it works, and they'll actively resist learning about it.

I've tried to teach people how to work the computers they're sitting in front of... How to use the software that's necessary for them to do their jobs... And they'll almost instantly declare that something is beyond them as soon as you vary one hair from their daily routine. Try to explain that you can move an icon to a different place on the screen? "I just don't understand those computer things..."

I'm not sure that your average human being has ever been terribly curious. Maybe it's always been somewhat atypical.

But curiosity is definitely being discouraged these days. You aren't supposed to ask too many questions. You aren't supposed to do anything too unusual. Better not do anything suspicious...

Geeks, almost by definition, are curious creatures. Not just IT geeks. Anyone with the drive and passion to really find out how things work - be it a computer programmer, an automotive mechanic, a structural engineer, a geologist, or whatever - is going to fall outside of the social norm. That's why they're called "geeks".

Re:Understanding

[10101001 10101001]

Clearly these teachers need a lesson in marketing! To explain why they should be teaching Word they need a qualifier, like "Word is good".

So, it should be "Teaching The Good Word". You can then thank Microsoft and Government for teaching a whole new religion in school.

PS - And for those who believe in inerrancy, "Teaching The Good WordPerfect"; is it any wonder lawyers stuck with WordPerfect for so long?

Re:Understanding

[c_forq]

I see where you are coming from, but I think a computer is different than most things in that it is all abstract. Explaining how a blender or a rear differential work is far more intriguing because there are actual moving parts and things that happen. I know I am constantly learning how different parts of cars work (valve engines and rotary engines for example) but have not spent any time trying to understand microcode or how cores on a processor work.

Re:Understanding

[c_forq]

That time still exists in many (maybe most) places in America. It wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager, and when I grew up it was expected you at least knew the basics (how to hook up a battery to jump start an engine, change a tire, etc). Engines have become complex beasts though, and even the kids in the auto classes couldn't be counted on to diagnose a problem in a newer car without plugging into it.

Re:Understanding

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Try finding out how the offside rule in soccer works sometime; preferably from a soccer fan. I suspect you will learn to commiserate with your fellows ambivalence towards technology.

Re:Understanding

[sjames]

The amount of knowledge is shrinking though. It used to include how to do a brake job, thermostat, starter, fuel pump, etc. It wasn't until the job called for pulling the engine that the knowledge needed became less common (and then mostly because of the additional tools needed compared to the rarity of needing to do it).

Most of that was just a matter of diagnosing the problem, then being able to disassemble remembering where everything goes and then putting it back together correctly with the new parts.

That's also why it used to be that garages primarily ripped women off. They assumed that men were probably pretty sure what was wrong and just didn't have the time or tools to fix it.

Of course, plugging in to a car for diagnostics shouldn't be a big deal, it's just that auto makers have made sure the equipment remains proprietary and expensive when a usb plug and some freeware should be able to do the job.

Re:Understanding

[apoc.famine]

Do you want to know why? Dig up your state standards for education. Read through, and be amazed. Most of it is vague bullshit. Occasionally, we ask kids to memorize a bunch of facts, then spit them out on a bubble sheet. That's the federal mandate of NCLB. Education has been heading this way for decades now. We just formalized the decision that "knowledge = memorizing" in the last decade. Because memorizing is hard, we skim the surface of a bunch of stuff, and never teach kids how or why. Just what. It's really depressing. Here's a Math, Science, and Technology standard from New York:

MST-7-E: Realize ideas-Constructing components or models, arriving at a solution, and evaluating the result

I don't know about you, but I'm glad that we've set that standard for graduating seniors. It will take them far!

Re:Understanding

[Nursie]

And why should they teach anything other than "the Word"?

Because clearly that's all the teacher had to learn and look at her, she's an IT teacher in a school!

Unfortunately this was all too common, I had hoped that in the 15 or so years since I last had a computer class of that style that things might have changed.

Re:Understanding

[hitmark]

Makes one wonder if more people would be interested if one could fire up a animated flowchart of what happens when one click something at any time.

Re:Understanding

[hitmark]

i guess this is appropriate right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Re:Understanding

[Pingmaster]

I used to do pretty much all of the work on my older cars; replacing fuel lines, struts, ball joints, doing body work etc. It of course saved me some money in mechanic bills, but would take me a whole lot longer to do since I didn't have any of the specialized equipment that they have there. These days though, I have a mechanic do everything, even oil changes. Now, I don't have to spend my weekends fixing vehicles, nor do I need to spend thousands of dollars on tools that are only useful for auto mechanics. Instead, I can use that time on stuff that I want to do, which to me more than balances out the time not wasted in a pool of oil under my car.

Re:Understanding

[Reality Master 101]

I bet that if you asked a dozen people in their 30s what makes an electric motor work, you'd be lucky to get one who was even close to understanding the basics of how it works.

Define "works". I'm willing to bet that very VERY few people really understand how an electric motor actually works. Sure, some could say "it uses brushes that switch on/off electromagnets at synchronized times," but *HOW* does it work? What is an electromagnet actually doing to convert electrical energy into physical movement? What is a magnetic field? Why does it cause certain metals to move?

I'm reminded of this (rather profound) video of Richard Feynman being asked what, exactly, is magnetism and he explains just how difficult these questions are to answer.

My point is that you lament that certain people don't even know about brush and electromagnets, while a physicist might lament that you have very little idea what is actually happening with electromagnetic forces. Now, you might reply, "I don't need to know Deep Physics to have a basic understanding of how a motor works!"

And I would say, "exactly." We are all ignorant, just different levels of ignorance. It really doesn't matter how a motor works to most people's lives. Sure, it's interesting, but then, so is knowing how to shoot a proper jump shot in basketball.

Re:Understanding

[IICV]

Given the extra time, most of them would probably spend it watching TV, going out to eat, or reading trashy novels.

So what you're saying is that your co-workers are more interested in figuring out how people work than computers? This is a fairly common orientation of priorities.

Re:Understanding

[sjames]

It's fine to have someone else actually do the work for practical reasons. That's quite different from having them do it because you have no clue where to begin.

Re:Understanding

[Locutus]

the article was about a century ago people understood how their power systems worked at the basic level. No, they did not know the exact forces or how much friction there was or how water might be used to reduce friction. They knew about how stuff moved and they generally understood it and used it. Today, people do not understand the basic concepts and they just move levers and push buttons and things happen.

It reminds me of an old scifi book I read years ago. It was about scientists and their families being sent away from Earth in a space craft. For a couple of generations there were people who understood and maintained the ship but by the 3rd or 4th generation, they had no clue and the ship was falling apart just as they arrived. I think there was one old guy who kept himself alive longer by moving up to the zero g point of the craft so his heart could hold out so he could keep them all alive long enough to reach a habitable planet.

We're moving forward but fewer and fewer know what is going on around them. I constantly hear people saying things like, that's nice you built that or fixed that but I don't have the time so I just hire people. Well, the fact really is that they don't know how to do it. They know their one little specialty and hire someone else to do simple things like fixing a faucet or a garbage disposer. very sad and not good. IMO

LoB

Re:Understanding

[Jedi Alec]

Oh, please. I don't give a rat's ass about soccer/football, and even I understand the offside rule. If all else fails, just write it out in pseudo-code in order to illustrate it to a typical /. nerd ;-)

Re:Understanding

[Burning1]

The funny thing is, if one of those kid-raising, family-feeding, social-relationship-maintaining co-workers tried to tell you how to change a diaper, how to have a rewarding social relationship, or how to not act like a tosser, you'd probably blow them off.

Sure, you might show some interest in it if you encountered the right teacher or already had an existing interest, but if someone interrupted your work day to talk about how to make friends, you probably wouldn't be so inclined to listen.

Re:Understanding

[Afty0r]

Just look at how "computers" are taught in most schools. They teach the students what to click on instead of teaching the concepts of those things.

So... at age 3 did you get taught how to tie your shoelaces, or did you get taught how to strip the hide off an animal, cure the leather, and stitch it to the sole?

Or did you spend that time learning things that may actually be of use to you?

Re:Understanding

[The_mad_linguist]

I *can* do plumbing, but I just hate it. My hatred for plumbing grows faster than an infant whale, suckling itself on the the fat-rich milk of the task's inherent irritation.

So I don't.

Re:Understanding

[thegarbz]

I bet that if you asked a dozen people in their 30s what makes an electric motor work, you'd be lucky to get one who was even close to understanding the basics of how it works.

Define "works". I'm willing to bet that very VERY few people really understand how an electric motor actually works.

That's all good and fine but the real problem stems from people not even investigating that very first step. Sure not everyone is going to be an electrical engineer, and based on what I saw going through and coming out of uni not all electrical engineers understand how motors work either despite physics being one of the standard questions. The real problem is most people aren't interested in even the first step, the very basics, and ultimately that basic level of understanding is what will prevent them from being conned in real life.

Define "works" you say? I would expect that a curious person knows that a motor spins because of electro magnatism. That's it. An engine spins because of an explosion creating a force on a thingamabob that turns the wheels. I expect people to know it rains because water evaporates, condenses and falls from the sky. That is basic curiosity that is sadly missing from too many people. That basic curiosity that would look at a Rube Goldberg machine and actually follow through what actions happen from start to end and then laugh at the design. If for a moment you thought, "that boot in TFA would never kick the ball at the right angle" then you're no longer "many people" you're now a geek who loves understanding.

Re:Understanding

[Eraesr]

Many people here are making the capital mistake of filing people that have no interest in understanding technological systems in the "dumb uneducated" group. It's only all too natural that most people can't be bothered to learn how a PC works on the inside, or even how a car works. People are simply interested in different things.

Another point is that these days, systems have been becoming more and more complex and harder to understand. That's the whole point of the original article. People need to start specializing in stuff, so it's not surprising that the people who are willing to learn about something narrow their scope of knowledge in favor of a deeper understanding of things.

On the other hand, in todays information age, there's so much to know that people tend to learn just a tiny amount of stuff about a whole range of subjects. The information and knowledge is handed to them on a gold platter, ready for consumption, but in most cases, that information is just basic knowledge. The peak of the proverbial iceberg. So people know a lot without really knowing about anything.

Re:Understanding

[dbIII]

I've found that even if it's part of their job some people don't care. People who've been using MS Windows for ten years don't want to go near the "start" button. If there is no desktop icon they start screaming for help. If a different username is on their login they start screaming for help as if they have forgotten their own names.

Re:Understanding

[L4t3r4lu5]

Around here you're absolutely the majority. It's almost the definition of a nerd: A person who is dissatisfied with the explanation "It just works."

Re:Understanding

[drinkypoo]

Amen to that. I let a shop do a rear wheel bearing in my pickup because it's a crappy job if you don't have a nice puller. I let another shop do a U-joint in my driveshaft because I was on the road and didn't have any tools with me. I'm in the middle of a fuel pump replacement (thanks for all the room to work and the ability to see everything, Ford... no wait, there's no room to work and I can't see shit, fuck you!) and already replaced the actual injection pump on my pickup.

Re:Understanding

[Abcd1234]

Damnit, how am I supposed to feel superior to the "normals" out there if you go and post fucking reasonable things like this?? The very defining characteristic of my being is now in question... thanks a lot, jackass. :/

Re:Understanding

[Bakkster]

passBall(player Passer, player Receiver)
{
if(Receiver.opposingPlayersBetweenSelfAndOpposingGoal.isLessThan(2)) {Receiver.isOffside = TRUE;}
else {Receiver.isOffside = FALSE;}
Passer.kickBallTo(Receiver);
if(Receiver.touchBallFirst == TRUE && Receiver.isOffside) {callPenalty(offside);}
else {return;}
}

Re:Understanding

[Locutus]

you are in the minority then and of course, I'm also not talking about _just_ knowing how to do plumbing.

LoB

Re:Understanding

[IvoryRing]

This.

I am willing to bet that most (not all) people that complain that "people today don't know how to fix a faucet" haven't spent hours under a sink, trying to wrestle the stupid plastic (why plastic, since that means it will deform under the least misalignment) nut that's corroded (yeah, neither the plastic nor the brass significantly corroded in the years it's been there, but gunk has migrated into those threads) into place up inside a space you can barely see, using a crappy-ass specialty tool which keeps pinching your fingers better than said corroded slippery worn plastic nut. Have I mentioned the under-sink cabinet space is not nearly big enough to fit your body comfortably into? Have I mentioned that the edge of the cabinet is digging into your kidney or rib the whole time? And did i forget the drip drip of water and sweat and grime making the whole thing even more of a pain in the ass? Oh, and the space you have to work with? Take a look at your kitchen sink. Eyeball the distance between the back of the sink-well and the wall behind it. Notice how deep the sink-well is. Guess what, there is no magic cavern inside - you have to get your hand, tool, light and vision up inside that space to reach the nut. The task itself is simple - "unscrew these two plastic nuts". If it was on my workbench, it would be a 5 second task. Where it is, it's a multiple hour struggle with horribly awkward angles and mystery filth dripping in your eyes.

For those that think I must be incompetent, I'll have you know it took a matter of minutes to put the NEW faucet & nuts in place once I had the old one out and it works like a charm.

It's no wonder people hire someone else. It isn't because we don't know HOW to turn a wrench. It's because getting the job done is a pain in the ass and it is worth the cost to avoid it. If I did the task all the time, I'd work out the little tricks to make it go smoother, and I'd just learn to get used to the filth of it. In the end, I respect the plumbers that do the work, and I say "better them than me".

Re:Understanding

[operagost]

ODB II testers are less than $100 US. The specification is published by the SAE, so you can write your own freeware. You might have to buy a book to read the spec, though.

Re:Understanding

[Locutus]

it was the lace tying which was taught and important at that stage. Later on, someone showed me how cloth was made and it took no time to figure out that a shoelace was made of cloth. At a summer camp there was gimp( a plastic covered thread ) which we were taught how to braid different ways and it became clear that ropes, cables, etc were braided and different braids give different strengths or characteristics.

Those are basic skills which help to explain more complex things even though I don't know exactly how the machines create the ropes or cables. What I got from the article is that we are skipping all the basic understanding of what goes on behind the buttons, levers, knobs. And I'm talking basics, not knowing how a transistor works, how a chip is made, etc.

I was in a Dr office recently and the label printer was spitting out label after label after label and the 5 people behind the desk were clueless. They unplugged the printer and plugged it back in and it continued spitting out labels. They were stupefied. I said to turn the printer off and then go into the printer spooler and cancel the print job. Only one had a clue as to what I said. She said something like, "the printer icon were I can see the print files?". I said yes, it should be under the control panel or whatever Microsoft is calling that these days. Voila, she canceled the job and turned the printer back on and was able to print labels again. Printing and print spoolers are a basic part of using a computer and they do _no_ need to know minute details of how it works, just the basics of its function and purpose. If I were not there, they probably would have had to pay someone hundreds of dollars to so this one little thing and many of their customers would have had to deal with delays.

We should be getting smarter as a society but it appears we are getting dumber. IMO

LoB

Re:Understanding

[operagost]

I feel that these well-spoken gentlemen have a good understanding of magnetism.

Re:Understanding

[Anonymous Coward]

ODB II testers are less than $100 US. The specification is published by the SAE, so you can write your own freeware. You might have to buy a book to read the spec, though.

ODB II only covers emission problems. Most cars have far more codes and those are proprietary. So, yes, if the engine code says my O2 sensor is bad, that will work, but there are plenty of other problems which aren't under ODB II.

Re:Understanding

[sjames]

That's exactly it. They provide the bare minimum they are required to by standards and obfuscate the rest so they can collect more money with their certified mechanics and tools program.

It takes big brass ones to collect more money because your product wasn't more reliable!

Re:Understanding

[sjames]

Auto engineers are incredibly bad at providing decent access for repairs. If they're going to put the fuel pump in the top of the gas tank, how hard would it be to include an access hatch in the trunk floor to get to it?

Engineers that think it's OK to make you half disassemble the car to change a spark plug should be sentenced to travel the country doing exactly that for free until the last such vehicle is crushed.

Re:Understanding

[gfreeman]

Dear girls,

You're in a shoe shop, second in line at the register. Behind the shop assistant operating the register is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have.

The 'opposing' female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire.

Both of you have forgotten your purses.

It would be totally rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes.

The shop assistant remains at the register waiting.

Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma.

She prepares to throw her purse to you.

If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes.

At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and, *whilst it is in flight* you could nip around the other shopper,
catch the purse and buy the shoes.

Always remembering that until the purse had *actually been thrown* it would be plain wrong to be forward of the other shopper.

Re:Understanding

[heypete]

If a different username is on their login they start screaming for help as if they have forgotten their own names.

*sigh* This happens at work all the time.

Windows XP caches the last-used username and domain (be it the domain or the local computer name) in the login screen. We frequently do hands-on maintenance on computers and so change the "Log in to..." field from the domain to the local computer name, then use the local admin account. We can't change it back to the domain and the user's old username without knowing their password (which we don't have). Every single one of the hundreds of users we support are fine with this, and know to change the username from "administrator" back to their username, and the "Log in to..." field to the domain. This one user doesn't, and freaks out every time this happens, even claiming that "administrator" is trying to "hack" her computer. We've explained this to her a few dozen times, but it just doesn't click.

We also migrated users from using Outlook for calendar purposes and they now use Google Calendar. Again, everyone understands how this works except for this one user. We walked her through setting up a new Google Account, got her Outlook data imported, and everything was working fine. A few weeks later, the Google login cookie expired, and it prompted her for her Google Account and password. This was outside of her brain's Standard Operating Procedure, so she followed the previous steps we provided, then freaked out when "all of [her] calendar data is gone! It's been hacked! I have to type in hundreds of things all over again by hand!". Turns out she just created a new Google Account, set up the calendar again, but didn't import any of the Outlook data. Naturally, the new account didn't have her information. After finally figuring out what's going on, we had her remember her old Google Account information, log back in, and everything returned. Convincing her that her information had not been hacked and that she's likely to need to log into her Google Account at intervals in the future was difficult, but seems to have stuck.

Although the pay and benefits are nice and it's funding my time in grad school, some days I hate my job.

Re:Understanding

[drinkypoo]

Auto engineers are incredibly bad at providing decent access for repairs. If they're going to put the fuel pump in the top of the gas tank, how hard would it be to include an access hatch in the trunk floor to get to it?

Nissan(/Infiniti) and Subaru both do this, among others. Chevy and Ford are known for not doing it. I haven't really taken an exhaustive survey otherwise. I've personally done fuel pump replacements on Nissan and Subaru vehicles and there's generally 4-6 bolts holding down a hatch, then 4-6 more bolts or a screw-on plastic unit on the tank itself. Easy as pie. The Subaru fuel pump even plugged into a via connector on the fuel pump lid so you'd only need a 10mm wrench to make the swap if you had a prewired replacement pump. My replacement came from a Legacy; my 240SX pump was from an Infiniti I20. ALL of these vehicles have a common type of pump and you can swap pretty freely, although it's safest to use a pump from a vehicle with the same power or more.

Re:Understanding

[amirulbahr]

I think you are creating a false dichotomy. I acknowledge that to some this is going to make me sound like a giant tosser, but the two are not equivalent.

Human progress, in terms of expanding and giving the species a better standard of living is driven by technological innovation. Kid-raising, family-feeding and social-relationship-maintaining are a part of being human. To say that there is a choice between understanding how technical things work, and being a good member of society is simply not true.

For thousands of years people have known how to raise kids, be part of a society and feed their families. In another thousand years people will still have that basic part of being human under control. Where we are in a thousand years in terms of life-spans, standards of living, number of people able to live happily, well that depends on the people wanting to know how things work and wanting to do things better.

Re:Understanding

[rubycodez]

sorry, our best model of electromagnetism (and the weak force), quantum electroweak theory, has problems. That little business of "renormalization", that's a huge brushing-under-the-rug.

So an honest physicist will tell you we don't understand electromagnetism. He has an ignorance too.

Re:Understanding

[tehcyder]

Um, offside is never a penalty offence.

"Penalty" means something specific in proper football.

Re:Understanding

[Burning1]

I'm not at all trying to say that there is a choice between being technically and socially savvy. I'm just pointing out that showing disinterest in the technical does not automatically make someone a mundane person.

I used child rearing as a point, because it's something that's very important to life, and yet I can imagine a lot of technical people being completely indifferent to the subject.

As a side note: Given the OP's attitude, I think their approach to education is much more of a turn-off than the subject matter.

On the subject of parenting:

Speaking as someone who worked with young children for a living... There are lots and lots of parents who could use a lot of training on how to raise a kid...

I see it every day. Great parents are far outnumbered by adequate parents, and there is a disturbing number of bad parents.

We instinctually know how to fuck, and how to feed a kid until he or she is 18. We don't instinctually know how to raise a kid to be a productive member of modern society.

As a side note... I've noticed that a lot of people who are into technology seem to have a fairly low opinion of themselves. If not understanding computers makes someone an idiot, it follows that knowing a lot about computers is nothing special. I prefer to think of it from the opposite perspective... Understanding complex systems is something special, and it's understandable that it's not for everyone.

Lost the ability?

[Nursie]

I don't think the ability in the example is lost, it just wasn't part of everyday life or part of education.

Unlike the car bit, electricity is not a hard concept to get if it's not treated as something alien and new. Or maybe that's just the way it seems to someone like me that could understand basic physics...

Re:Lost the ability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, please explain to us peons how fuckin' magnets work!

Re:Lost the ability?

[Nursie]

It's a goddamned miracle or magic or some shit, clearly, as was explained to me in Physics class.

Re:Lost the ability?

[T Murphy]

Well if something isn't working right one of the first things to check is "is it on"*. With something mechanical you usually have movement or sound to tell you the answer to that. For a circuit, you have to go get your multimeter- you can't really observe the circuit unaided. Anyone who has worked with breadboard circuits knows how tedious it is to debug a circuit compared to a mechanical device. It may not be magic, but it is always going to be more abstract than physical systems.

*As in you're checking if the "on" switch is actually doing anything.

Re:Lost the ability?

[DigiShaman]

Well actually, yes. That would be correct. While we understand magnetism as a force and how it can be generated, we still don't know WHY or HOW it even existed since the creation of the Universe. Pretty much like gravity and the strong force too.

So while we are very good at understanding our Universe compared to 100 years ago, fundamentally the laws are still "magic or some shit".

Re:Lost the ability?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the universe has order. Everywhere we look we see natural laws. We might not understand why they are, but we see them. Anywhere else we see order we logically conclude there was a designer. Well, of course in most cases. In this case we of course know that there is no reason for all of the order and structure we have observed. Cannot give the whacko creationists any thing to cleave to.

Re:Lost the ability?

[jesset77]

With something mechanical you usually have movement or sound to tell you the answer to that. For a circuit, you have to go get your multimeter- you can't really observe the circuit unaided.

So in short, it's easy to forensically sift out symptoms from the constant noise a mechanical device generates in the process of wearing itself down to a stub, but it's so difficult to diagnose problems in solid state electronics with no noise to analyze.

Yeah, I guess that's a tradeoff. Just wait until you're working on quantum computers and no multimeter in the world will get you past Heisenberg's velvet rope to find out what really went wrong. ;D

Re:Lost the ability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cute, but not really true, or logical. Well, it depends on your definition of "we". If your definition only includes you and your fellow creationists, then I have no problem with what you're saying (until we get to the word "logically" and the highly personalized definition you would need to be using). Order of all kinds arises in all kinds of systems that have any kind of basic rules. Ever see the game/simulation "life". I'll admit, the game itself is intelligently designed, but the results are not and all kinds of complex examples of order can be seen by starting with random data. I've made all kinds of systems with simple rules, that start from random or simple start points and come up with surprising examples of order, and I definitely would not claim to have designed the results. For that matter, random number generators are created with rules to try to avoid any order in the results and it turns out that avoiding the emergence of order is a very, very, very hard problem.

So, when I see order, I think it can be beautiful, but I don't conclude there's a designer. Spheres are ordered shapes, for example, so I can see how to people who can't think, the fact that all visible celestial objects are spheres could be seen as proof of design. But all you need is a basic understanding of materials and you understand that there's a limit to how big a mountain can be before it flattens under its own weight. Same thing for the depth of a valley. So a spherical shape is natural for a large enough object where the principle force acting on its parts is its own gravity. Crystals also can seem like they must be designed until you understand how their shape is a simple result of their composition and growth. Layering of materials? Can seem like design, but fairly easy to observe it happening on the small scale. Development of all kinds of complex organic reactions also can look like design, but we're more and more understanding how they arise. For most of us, it's not so impossible to look at all the kinds of life out there and envision how the more complex forms evolved from the simpler ones. Watching ontogeny take place in a human embryo, it seems very obvious that it's recapitulating phylogeny. The fact that all mammals have essentially the same skeleton, really jumps out at the reasoning person. If you're of the mindset that complexity of that sort has to be design, then the question arises of who designed the obvious deception into the system. I suppose in your world view it was Satan? Either that, or it's a test of faith by an all-powerful, all benevolent deity who condemns you to a fate of eternal pain and suffering if you fail the test by applying the intelligence He bestowed upon you? Yeah, ok.

Re:Lost the ability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblig: http://abstrusegoose.com/281

Re:Lost the ability?

[hitmark]

Not just sound, movement. Any mechanical system have something that moves. And movement is something our brains are tuned for (how else to spot a predator or prey?).

Re:Lost the ability?

[Fumus]

Since they were invented by Apple, they just work!

Re:Lost the ability?

[tehcyder]

electricity is not a hard concept to get

Once you get beyond "it is something invisible that does stuff", yes it is.

Poem from the early days of electricity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.

Hillaire Belloc

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, tax the rich, and the workers go jobless.

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's more motivated to create wealth: someone who gets to keep all their profits or someone who has to give up part of them?

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[lennier]

Neither by neoclassical economic thinking - both are rational economic actors who are purely motivated 'on the margin', ignoring any past losses or any future strategic thinking, and so both will be happy for whatever money they get regardless of the money that goes to tax. (Which as we all know is a huge empty pit of inefficiency containing nothing but jobs, roads, police and standards, none of which any red-blooded two-fisted industrialist needs.) Nevertheless, a tax dollar paid is in the past and off the margin, so they will both forget all about 'who moved their cheese' and simply adapt to their current short-term situation. So both should work at 100% motivation forever!

Oh wait, laissez-faire doesn't work when you apply it to capitalists themselves? Who knew!

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[Anonymous Coward]

you and all of your let-the-market-sort-it-out tea party buddies forget one thing:

the wealthy are occasionally wealthy because of their own brilliance and hard work. For them, good job. However, in most cases, wealth and privilege begets wealth and privilege. Take for example a CEO of a major corporation. He does little for the day to day operations of the corporation. Sure, what he does has a major impact, but does it have such a high impact that he deserves 40x that of an educated professional who works for the corporation and makes significant contributions to the day to day workings? No. And yet, that CEO can leave the company, gutting it and just take the next big job. Having sat in the big chair, he will most certainly do it again. Have you ever looked at the board of directors listing of any corporations? Often, very often, its the same people who sit on multiple boards. These people are filthy rich and will never be anything but.

You're telling me that someone who simply sits on boards and collects money, and yet cannot be held responsible for evil done by the corporation somehow deserves a free pass just because he is rich?

Tea party people are often the poor and uneducated. It's sad to see them manipulated by the entertainment corporation backed by one of the super-rich elite (FOX News) into backing these super rich and their rights to not be taxed.

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[vakuona]

Tea party people are often the poor and uneducated. It's sad to see them manipulated by the entertainment corporation backed by one of the super-rich elite (FOX News) into backing these super rich and their rights to not be taxed.

This is almost a uniquely American problem. Some Americans seem to have been sold the fantasy of the American dream, the one in which they _will_ (not "may") become fantastically wealthy and therefore they need to vote now, to stop these tax rises which will obviously hit them soon. (See Joe the plumber). So they will vote down their own interests now, because those will cease to be their interests when they become wealthy. Astonishing. Fox didn't even need to pay lobbyists to get such a result.

Re:Poem from the early days of electricity.

[operagost]

No, the problem is that not only do people not understand what the American Dream is, they don't understand that the way to get it has changed. It's not to collect stuff (that's usually worthless crap in time) or be famous. The American Dream has always been to have what you need, have a solid plan for the future, and in general to succeed. Unless you work very, very hard, and are a little lucky, you won't get that by being an employee. Yes, one way of getting there is by getting a powerful, high-paying job like that of a corporate CEO. But he's still an employee, and you could say he had some of that luck I was talking about. The way to the American dream is to acquire assets and make smart investments. Maybe if people used their savings and credit to buy assets (no, your personal house or car doesn't count), they wouldn't be so concerned with getting the "rich" to pay their "fair share". Unfortunately, since the death of the pension plan (except for all those union workers), we've been told that the way to have a secure retirement is to throw our money into the stock market and rely on social security for the rest.

These people are filthy rich and will never be anything but.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them live beyond their means and are actually quite poor when their debts are taken into account. We think every CEO has a golden parachute because we always hear about those; but if a truly bad CEO gets fired, how many months do you think they could maintain their lifestyle before going broke?

They didn't understand the machinery either.

[John Hasler]

They were just familiar with it.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[couchslug]

They had to understand most of it to operate it properly.

Back in The Day, when Popular Mechanics literally MEANT "popular mechanics", machines didn't stay functional without understanding operators and frequent maintenance.

Get the spark advance and throttle wrong on a Model T Ford and it won't start, or won't run properly if it does start. Changing transmission bands was routine, as was carrying spares. The reason old machines had LOTS of CONVENIENT access covers was that they were necessary.

http://www.cimorelli.com/projects/relining_transmission_bands/relining_model_t_transmission_bands.htm

If you drove a car, you were expected to be able to not only swap a spare wheel when you got a flat, but be able to repair the flat by patching the tube. Materials wore quickly and lubricants weren't very good, so a "grease pit" was a common feature of HOME garages. Brakes were trash by modern standards, so DIY brake jobs were very common for many decades.

High personal involvement with what one used and drove was standard through the 1950s.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh the good old days! When having a woody had a different meaning.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[jesset77]

High personal involvement with what one used and drove was standard through the 1950s.

God, that sounds about like the requirement to run computers these days too.

I wonder when our industry will grow as mature as 1950's automotive, where knowing how to operate the steering wheel, foot pedals, signals, wipers, lights, pamphlet worth of road policies and how to talk to a mechanic can get you anywhere you want to go?

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[Anonymous Coward]

High personal involvement with what one used and drove was standard through the 1950s.

I can testify to this. I have a scope from 1965, and bare components is the name of the game. The manual for each part includes schematics, calibration notes, and complete troubleshooting instructions since a "Field Engineer" to come and fix things if they break was considered a mere luxury (it's moot though, since the thing works fricking perfectly and has never needed repairs).

These days, you'd be lucky to find anything like that for sale...what I just described sounds more like an arduino than some consumer hardware.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[fishbowl]

There's some premise here that not many people understand how things work, but there are enough people who do that there's some pretty stiff competition for technical and mechanical jobs, so I'm unable to see the problem.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[hitmark]

ipad?

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[jesset77]

ipad?

But that's just it. If computing is like taking your model T out on the highway, then Ipad is like a train. don't got to maintain it, but you're only going where they want to take you and paying through the nose all the way there.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[bostongraf]

Everybody understands some part of the tools they are using. Whether it is "I type and letters appear on the computer screen" or "the engine won't turn so the battery is dead".

However, all systems have always had some black boxes that are simply accepted. The people that were running water wheel mills...how much did they understand of glaciers waxing and waning impacting their waterway that is being tapped? People that could maintain cars in the 50s and 60s...How much did they understand of why fuel + oxygen + spark = combustion? Or about how pulses of exhaust can hinder engine performance if not handled perfectly? Or how to make rubber for use on tires?

Every one of us exists with black boxes that, even though we may be curious, never get peered into. Sometimes, just being able to use a tool is enough.

Re:They didn't understand the machinery either.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Does it make me strange that I want a "grease pit" in my next garage? Oh well, I have always been strange.
My car is 21 years old. I understand every single part in it, and can usually fix it myself.
My motorcycle is 30 years old and the same can be said for it.

That said I am not fanatical about always fixing it myself. Some things require special skills. I had a hard brake line fabricated in a shop, because I have never done it and it takes practice to do it right. I am getting my motorcycle painted this winter, and I will be paying someone to do it, because I was an exceptional job. I could slap a coat of paint on, and it would look pretty good, but I want a bike that people drool over. :) (OK, maybe I would prefer if they just drooled near my bike.)

Understanding is not the same as prediction

[TheLink]

I think Goldberg's drawings reminded his contemporaries of a time when they could understand the world's industrial processes just by looking

I think predict would be a more accurate description. Understanding is not the same as prediction, though it helps make better predictions.

I could could predict that something would fall in a certain scenario even though I don't understand much about gravity. Most of us nerds aren't satisfied with mere prediction, we seek understanding (which helps us make better predictions). But "normal" people don't care that much about understanding stuff, they are happy with just being able to predict stuff. So keep the windows and icons in the same places and they will be happy that they can repeat the same steps to get their stuff done.

So yes, from the electrical age to the computer age many things have become less predictable. A live wire that's deadly could look the same as one that has no electricity flowing in it.

But in the US anyway, flip a switch and you can turn the lights on fairly predictably. More predictably than gathering firewood, starting your own fire from a "magical match" or even a flint (do normal people actually understand how matches work?), or being able to get enough tallow to make your own candles for the night.

So other things have become more predictable.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[pjt33]

To be honest, I find matches easier to understand than flint + steel.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[slimjim8094]

Flint and steel is pretty straightforward, though a bit unintuitive. If struck right, you'll actually knock bits of steel off - these have a lot of kinetic energy since you were moving the (much bigger) objects pretty quickly. The blob of steel will glow red hot and light stuff on fire.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[Guignol]

What a nice, insightful post, I started reading it not getting it and pondering 'wtf' but eventually I got your point, thanks it was nice to read.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[AJWM]

If struck right, you'll actually knock bits of steel off - these have a lot of kinetic energy since you were moving the (much bigger) objects pretty quickly. The blob of steel will glow red hot and light stuff on fire.

There's a little bit more to it than that: tiny bits of iron (thus with a high surface area to volume ratio) will spontaneously combust in air, so they're actually burning, not just glowing. The kinetic heat helps that happen with somewhat larger bits. That's why it works with iron or steel but not other metals to which the same energy transfer argument would otherwise apply (like bronze).

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[TheLink]

Yep, that's why steel wool can be dangerous in some scenarios...

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[slimjim8094]

Quite right, I should've made that more clear. My main point is, the steel (ideally) isn't doing anything to the flint, but the other way around.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[pjt33]

Cool. Thanks.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

The kinetic energy is not the entire story, or you would've been able to strike sparks from most metals. The pieces of steel actually ignite and burn. Normally steel won't burn because the heat is conducted away, but a small particle with a large surface area compared to mass will get hot enough to sustain the reaction. Steel wool can burn for the same reason - until the molten blob of iron and oxide becomes too large to keep hot.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that is not how it works at all.
 
  Iron is pyrophoric. The flint breaks small pure chunks off, and they auto-ignite.
 
http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/flint-and-steel-what-causes-the-sparks/

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[bar-agent]

Flint and steel is pretty straightforward, though a bit unintuitive.

Based on other follow-up responses, this does not, in fact, appear to be the case.

Re:Understanding is not the same as prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never played with 2 chunks of flint, and no steel, apparently.

most people still don't understand electricity now

[roman_mir]

Most people today likely couldn't explain what electricity is even if they remotely understand what it does... sort of.

I think it only makes sense to build a religion around electricity.

There could be a stone with some writings on it, like:

1. Thou shalt not touch naked electrical wires with bare hands, etc.

There could be real 'magic' performed, with things shining and flying and moving and doing some other work, even moving the dead carcasses of animals!

It'd be wonderful.

Niagra falls

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the electricity generation station was built there, all the land above the falls was covered in factories, all with their own water wheels.
An alternative plan to electricity was to have around 100 mill races, each making about 500hp, and keeping the factories on site.
Also, they experimented with using hydraulic and mechanical power transfer as a way to transmit power to the nearby towns.

in the 80's

[mjwalshe]

when i did my mech eng BTEC we still had to learn how to design old skool belt drives :-)

New Complexities in Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think most people who have opinions against the computerization of cars have negative opinions because they don't understand it. I'm a programmer, and I have a negative opinion of the computerization and software control of cars for quite another reason ... it simply isn't necessary.

How do you know if your car is transmitting your location to a 3rd party ? Answer ... you don't.

How do you know if the software controlling the throttle doesn't have bugs ? Ask the Toyota owners who found themselves driving into buildings.

How do you make modifications to the vehicle to increase performance / increase gas mileage ? Answer ... you have to rip out all the un-necessary junk the manufacture put in it.

Mechanics at car dealers are already incompetent when it comes to servicing vehicles. I bought a used car from a couple, who had taken it to a dealer, and paid $100 for the dealer to say "Sorry, we can't find anything wrong with it." That is why the couple sold the car to me, without telling me the engine would spontaneously shut down. 15 minutes of searching on the web, and $60 later, and I fixed the car. This process would have taken much longer had the car had all it's systems "computerized."

Good luck fixing your On-Star'd ... Computerized transmission, computerized throttle control, computerized braking system, computerized POS on the side of the road. It's not gonna happen.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[hedwards]

Isn't necessary? Electronic Stability Control and Anti-lock Breaking Systems are hugely important to safe drive, and they aren't something that you can do without computer systems of some sort. Likewise, systems to monitor the tire pressure, while not strictly speaking necessary, do go a long way towards avoiding blowouts.

And would you really want to drive a car where the airbag wasn't controlled by a computer?

Sure it means that you can't fix it yourself, but honestly, how many people are going to be able to do it themselves anyways? That's not exactly simple equipment to work on, and the results of getting it wrong are potentially lethal.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[hardburn]

It's very much necessary. There have been big gains made in efficiency by computerizing spark timing and fuel injector mappings. It's been a boon to reliability, too; how many people these days even know what the term "loose distributor cap" means?

Engines today almost never fail mechanically, precisely because of all those electronic sensors. They'll keep going even with shockingly bad maintenance practices.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[couchslug]

"How do you make modifications to the vehicle to increase performance / increase gas mileage ? Answer ... you have to rip out all the un-necessary junk the manufacture put in it."

Computers allow plenty of performance modification, and there is a thriving aftermarket for gasoline and diesel performance computer mods and related parts.

Computerized vehicles are different, but have been hotrodded for decades. Retrofitting computerized systems has big driveability benefits, which is why EFI is common on offroad trucks. I'm in the process of raping a TBI 350 from a wreck to stuff into my Chevy C-30 because I'm tired of fucking with carbs and want a clean idle for running my winch. If it were for speed I'd go TPI, but the donor truck was 400 bucks and TBI is adequate for the job.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[bcmm]

And would you really want to drive a car where the airbag wasn't controlled by a computer?

I'd like the airbag to be controlled by something too simple to be considered a computer.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[GuyFawkes]

My 1990 MB W124 diesel has ABS, yet it doesn't have a single computer anywhere on board, no ECUs, nothing.

The interesting fact is more modern cars with the same basic systems PLUS computers are LESS reliable, and always generating system problems and failures.

Often, the fault is not the "computers" themselves per se, hardware wise, not even software wise, it is the peripherals (eg MAF senders etc) that die, and then take the whole system down.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[hobo sapiens]

60K between oil changes? That guy does not deserve a BMW. He needs a chevy vega.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

If he did that to a Vega it would be a No Va pretty soon.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system#Early_Anti-lock_Brake_System

Not a computer in sight... In the 20s computers were people. In the 40s they filled buildings... Anti lock invented in the 20s.

Computer controlled ABS lets for better stability in a turn and uneven slick surfaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag#History

Computer controlled air bags lets you do things such as figure out the velocity of the car and put just enough air in so you dont smash the person as much.

Small computers for cars did not come about until the early 80s (at least common place). As by that point they were small enough and reliable enough.

Dont let the fact you grew up with computers shade the fact that these dudes created some amazing things without them, AT ALL. Not even to calculate things we wouldnt think twice today about pumping into a computer.

Now on the other hand computers have made our cars a zillion times more reliable. But also a zillion times more complex. For example the AC/Heater control on my car just ate itself. Back in the day it would have been a matter of put a scope on it and find the short and replace the shorted wire/part. These days I will probably have to pull half the dash apart and then junk the whole part as it would take me a week to find the 1mmx1mm surface mount resistor that probably ate itself.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[paulmer2003]

Electronic stability control and ABS are hugely important to drive safely? Hahaha. Clearly nobody ever taught you how to drive. If you take a moment and learn how to properly threshold brake, your braking times will be LESS than with an ABS car if you just panic stop and hold the pedal to the floor. Traction control is just nanny shit...if you need a computer to cut throttle because you are losing traction obviously you can't drive for shit and should stay the fuck off of the road. This whole engineer cars to the lowest common denominator is a shame....do we really need all of these thoughtless morons commanding 4,000 pound hunks of plastic, metal and glass? NO.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[westlake]

I'd like the airbag to be controlled by something too simple to be considered a computer.

I want the airbag to fire when needed and only when needed.

Simplicity for it's own sake is not a virtue.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[Colonel Korn]

Electronic stability control and ABS are hugely important to drive safely? Hahaha. Clearly nobody ever taught you how to drive.

If you take a moment and learn how to properly threshold brake, your braking times will be LESS than with an ABS car if you just panic stop and hold the pedal to the floor.

Traction control is just nanny shit...if you need a computer to cut throttle because you are losing traction obviously you can't drive for shit and should stay the fuck off of the road.

This whole engineer cars to the lowest common denominator is a shame....do we really need all of these thoughtless morons commanding 4,000 pound hunks of plastic, metal and glass? NO.

While it may be the case that a skilled driver can brake better than an ABS system, I'll just note that ABS isn't meant to help you stop more quickly - it's to give you more steering control during your stop. As much as they get derided, Consumer Reports testing experimentally demonstrated this behavior dozens of times over a decade ago.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

"Electronic Stability Control" ... completely unecessary, not to mention, lacking on most vehicles ever manufactured.

"Anti-lock Breaking Systems" ... does not need a computer to control.

"systems to monitor the tire pressure" ... completely unecessary

"And would you really want to drive a car where the airbag wasn't controlled by a computer?" ... airbag systems do not require computer control.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[sjames]

The car I learned to drive had no anti-lock brakes or airbags. Certainly no air pressure monitoring. I've never had a blowout. I fixed it myself whenever it needed it.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[sjames]

The simpler the mechanism is up to a point, the more likely it is to fire every time it is needed and not when it isn't.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[fishbowl]

"The interesting fact is more modern cars with the same basic systems PLUS computers are LESS reliable, and always generating system problems and failures."

A few infamous failures aside, I think I'd confront you on our assertion that contemporary cars are less reliable in general than previous ones. You'd need to be specific.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[Late Adopter]

The way I was first instructed airbags work was as a simple piece of metal attracted to a magnet, completing a circuit. When a sudden enough force occurs, the metal is dislodged, the circuit breaks, and the airbag fires. No computer necessary.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[hardburn]

your braking times will be LESS than with an ABS car if you just panic stop and hold the pedal to the floor.

[citation needed]. ABS was invented in F1 for a reason, and I doubt that reason is that they've been hiring crummy drivers.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[hardburn]

The first-generation airbags that used that system often caused more damage than they prevented.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[thegarbz]

That's not really true and the downside is the less likely you will be informed if it's not likely to fire, like that little light that lit up on my dashboard to tell me my airbag was not working.

Simplicity is a great thing for debugging but does not decrease probability of failure. Classic case in point you have a valve that is held open by air, with a bigarse spring to close it when the air is removed, a standard failsafe trip valve. The single most simple mechanism of hooking it up is to have a solenoid that dumps air from the valve and the spring forces it to close. Yet a better option would be to have two solenoids in parallel in case one fails. Yet an even better option would be to have positional feedback along with a partial stroke test unit which will jog the valve ever so slightly to ensure that when the air is removed the valve will also move and isn't physically jammed.

The last option is complicated and relies on quite a lot of a smart computer gear compared to 1x air, 1x spring, 1x 24V power and 1x solenoid. But I know which I would rather stake my life on. And just like my trip to the mechanic a few years ago, I'd much rather bet my life on an airbag which told me when I started the car that it wasn't working, rather than finding out the painful way.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[thegarbz]

The interesting fact is more modern cars with the same basic systems PLUS computers are LESS reliable, and always generating system problems and failures.

Define less reliable. One of the things computer systems have added is the ability to do self diagnostics. Suddenly the addition of information will produce more indications of something going wrong. Aside from the fact that your MB does have a "computer" controlling the ABS, would you rather have a computer that will light up the ABS light on your dashboard when something goes wrong? Or would you rather know about it as you contemplate the last moments of your life as your car is falling from the edge of a cliff?

If I very suddenly drop the clutch in my car and bring it close to stalling, the ECU lights up a light on my dashboard telling me something just went wrong and will rev limit the car to about 2000 rpm. Your average joe may think that is unreliable but actually something just did go wrong, and I'd rather know about it before one of the pistons leaves the top of the engine block.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[jodio]

You are full of it when it comes to threshhold braking and ABS. Show me a study where a professional driver can stop in a shorter distance with the ABS off (Aside from heavy snow where lock-up provides greater stopping power). You won't find one. Even more so when the road surface is irregular or partially ice covered.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[sjames]

You're imagining the complexity in the wrong place. Take your last example. The mechanism of action is still (i presume) solenoid dumps air, spring closes valve. The rest is to the side. The mechanism of action is still quite simple.

Now, re-arrange that so it's computer gets a signal, uses a series of heuristics to compare it to previous signals and activates the solenoid if it concludes the alarm is valid. Now you have a complex firing mechanism and it will sooner or later get someone killed.

Now, as for a failsafe trip valve: to be failsafe the solenoid is energized to HOLD the air. When the solenoid de-energizes for any reason (including it's own failure), the air is released and the big valve closes. However, that would not be a good way to handle airbags since firing the airbag is not a safe default action, it's just less unsafe than a crash without an airbag.

Of course, airbags HAVE killed children in what would otherwise have been a simple bump with no injuries (and so it really shouldn't have fired at all), so they might not be the best example. Many vehicles include a simple de-activation mechanism so the airbag can be disabled on the passenger side in case a child sits there. Seatbelts, whose mechanism of action is MUCH simpler, don't have that problem.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[infinite9]

Isn't necessary? Electronic Stability Control and Anti-lock Breaking Systems are hugely important to safe drive,

The car I learned to drive in (and later took to college with me) had no power steering, no power windows, no power locks, no on*star, no gps navigation doodad, no power brakes, no air bags, no ABS, no stability control, no air conditioning, no fuel injection, no engine computer, no catalytic converter, and no automatic transmission. It had 60hp. I had no cell phone. And somehow, I managed to live through this harrowing experience without having a single auto accident.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[h4rr4r]

ABS is not important if you know how to drive.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[thegarbz]

My example covered the final element only but the idea still holds that complexity does not necessarily increase the probability of failure on demand. Actually quite the opposite applies and the complexity actually is required to meet the probability of failure no demand requirements. The idea all rests on countable faults.

Going back to the solenoid yes the solenoid in a failsafe position denergizes to trip. However in the case of a solenoid 1 single countable fault (solenoid jamming which trust me does happen) will cause the entire final element to become inoperative. The same can be said for logic of your machine. If each machine is a simple device taking an input and producing an output, than any countable fault anywhere will cause a failure, be it fail safe or unsafe.

Now I agree with you adding a computer for the sake of adding a computer is always a bad idea. You need to add a computer with a goal. But a computer designed in a safe way will easily have a far lower probability of failure on demand than a simple mechanical device by sheer virtue of how it can be programmed. Everything can be made redundant, you can add multiple inputs, multiple outputs, multiple logic processors, multiple online testing systems, and despite all the complexity that will be as safer than any simple alternative.

I hate to repeat my trip to the mechanic story again but this is exactly what makes it so relevant. My airbag was not working. The little computer in the car lit up the airbag light on the dashboard and my manual said take it for a service. I don't care if it failed because it was complex. I don't care what failed, be it the airbag, the computer, I don't even care if it was a false alarm. What I do care about is that it told me, and the problem was rectified.

There are three options that a simple non-complex airbag system would have provided me:
1. The airbag goes off in the middle of the night and I come back to my car pissed.
2. The airbag goes off while I'm driving and will most likely cause a severe accident.
3. The airbag doesn't go off when I need it most.

Complexity != unsafe
Simplicity != safe
But quite critically: complexity != safe either! It all comes down to design.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[sjames]

The problem with putting it all under computer control (as opposed to having the computer monitoring the system from the side) is that you introduce a great many countable faults and a bit of uncertainty depending on how well the system is designed.

If the computer was to the side, you still get your warning light and if you're in a crash, you get a better chance that the PLC with one and only one purpose in life fires the airbag and saves you a terrible injury while the computer was busy resetting due to an unanticipated priority inversion problem.

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[thegarbz]

Wait-up, now we're talking PLCs. They are effectively computers. I think this is the crux of our slight disagreement with what actually constitutes a computer. I think we can agree that some kind of computerised supervisory control is good, and that a multi-million line program controlling the entire car from head to toe is bad.

I think we're drifting from the original discussion that not all things non mechanical are bad :)

Re:New Complexities in Cars

[sjames]

The PLCs I'm thinking of are much simpler, more like a network of relays. They happen to be quite flexible in how they are "wired" based on a binary pattern, but they're not really a proper "computer".

But yes, in general it's not electronic or computer control I object to including the combinatorial complexity that a GP computer brings to the system.

It is acceptable to MONITOR the system using a much more complex system so long as it cannot prevent the correct functioning of the system and the system doesn't depend on it in any way to behave safely.

A good well known example of that principle being violated is the Therac-25. The previous version had electro-mechanical interlocks that prevented the fatal errors.

Rube & the interwebs

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like ol' Rube rigged his web site the way he rigged his machines, but this time it's broken. ;-)

Distributor caps and a strobe light

[istartedi]

Tuning your car by rotating the distributor cap with a strobe-light "timing gun" aimed at the marks on the pulley.

Sigh...

It was nowhere near as efficient as the all-electronic, computer-based thingamabobs that tune your car 100 times a second; but it was something teenage boys could understand, and frequently did.

There are too many reasons now for them not to give teenage boys a USB interface to all the wonderful stuff going on under the hood. It would probably be even more fun than rotating that stinking cap...

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[couchslug]

Teenage boys are still car geeks, if car forums are to be believed.

They grew up with EFI and don't know they shouldn't be able to understand it.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[Sulphur]

Car analogy to computer analogy to Rube Goldberg Machine.

Turn knob to tune latest thingamabobs and gimcracks.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[Oceanplexian]

I'm a car geek and also into technology and computers. I have arguments with my "mechanically inclined" friend about carbs vs efi all the time. If you understand integrated devices and can plug in a multimeter, it's actually easier to work with computers. I can diagnose a fueling problem on my VW by plugging in my laptop and getting statistics.

1 - Car is running like crap, bogs when driving
2 - Plug in computer and get code (let's say the Coolant Temp sensor is malfunctioning)
3 - Plug in multimeter into said sensor and get voltage
4 - If the voltage is not between x and y, replace the sensor.
5 - If all else fails, replace the ECU for a total of $50 at a junkyard

How is this so difficult? Technology makes cars easier to work on, it's just that tech hipsters don't want to get dirty and car-geeks don't want to use that new fangled computer stuff.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[kaizokuace]

seriously! I don't have mod points so I give you high five!

These days being a techy or being a car guy crosses over. I can't believe you friend argues that carbs are better than EFI! Yes carbs are more manly cuz you can go in there and just tune it with your hands and it sounds awesome and smells badass. But carbs gotta be tuned all the time and arent exact and can't be controlled on the fly during the whole engine range. Computers can do that for us. Also electronic parts don't need to be tuned. You just replace! Easy as pie.
People just don't wanna have to learn something that they have no clue about. It makes me sad that there seems to be so many more people these days that dont know shit about computers. Like the kids now dont know shit! people think they should cuz they are all texting or using devices and such but all they are doing is using stuff. Knowing how stuff works is a trait that should be more popular but it is not.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[thegarbz]

Why is this even up for discussion? Just show him these pictures:carb vs fuel injector

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[infinite9]

How is this so difficult?

I'll give you an example. I have a 97 dodge caravan minivan. Next time you get a chance, look at a chiltons or haines repair manual for this car. Look up the procedure for bleeding the brakes. The instructions talk about the normal procedure, then finish up by telling you to take it to the dealer where they hook it up to a $10,000 ABS computer that advances the pump. Then you take it home and bleed the brakes again. As an alternative, you can take the car out and slam on the brakes to advance the pump yourself. It would have been trivial to create a "jumper" procedure to make this happen yourself. But they intentionally left out this feature.

I'm waiting for the day when the gauge cluster in a car is replaced with an LCD display. When something in the car breaks, it tells you on the display exactly what's broken. Instead, we get "reserved" engine codes that only the dealer can read with their $50,000 code reader. I'll stop complaining about car repair when the manufacturers stop making cars that are intentionally hard or impossible to repair without expensive computers or kung-fu one-use tools. Don't even get me started on water pumps driven by the timing belt.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Most of the folks that I know that advocate carbs over EFI do so because they want to be able to work on their vehicles on the side of the road. According to them, having an EFI system means that if things go to hell when they are stuck out in the boonies, then they can't break out the toolkit then and there and fix it. When I try to point out to them that proper maintenance should prevent the need to fix your shit out in the boonies, they get belligerent.

Re:Distributor caps and a strobe light

[kaizokuace]

also carrying all those extra tools kills your gas mileage ;p

They transmit force with photons

[pjt33]

They work with light.

Re:They transmit force with photons

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual photons, actually. There's no real light being transferred.

I'm glad modern OS's aren't Goldberg machines!

[pigiron]

Oh wait...

\lim_{tech \to commodity} = iMac

[FuckingNickName]

I find "visual" mechanics, i.e. anything which supposedly can be deduced by cursory visual observation rather than a consideration of theory and careful experimentation, most difficult of all. Sometimes I go so far as to wonder whether people who stare at an engine and start waffling in detail about what bit does what, how and why are simply regurgitating what they have read in a book.

Contrast with quantum mechanics, which may not be "intuitive" to those who find classical mechanics so. But it is precisely why it makes me feel more comfortable. I rely on the facts presented, not on everyone's favourite harbinger of prejudice, common sense, and her sister in arms, the crude analogy. Anyway, it would not have taken thousands of years of human civilisation, including a mathematical and scientific component, to reach F=ma if classical mechanics were really that obvious.

Re:\lim_{tech \to commodity} = iMac

[blahplusplus]

"Anyway, it would not have taken thousands of years of human civilisation, including a mathematical and scientific component, to reach F=ma if classical mechanics were really that obvious."

You're forgetting systems of social organization and hierarchy have direct effects on whether scientific thinking is even possible. I'm sure many individuals of the ancient world made great progress towards scientific thinking but due to political or environmental (economic) circumstances beyond their control stopped this process. I see scientific progress as a matter of fits and starts area's of world history where it can incubate before some upheaval takes place that prevents reaching conceptual "singularity".

Re:\lim_{tech \to commodity} = iMac

[Anonymous Coward]

I find a lot of the issue is with familiarity. When I was "learning" calculus, one of the big things we worked on was recognizing patterns which would allow us to reduce large, complex problems to a group of simpler equations that we knew how to solve. I use "learning" in quotes because I was terrible at it and I never could, and still can't, see those patterns that my friends look at and solve in a half second. I understood the theory, I understood how to derive and prove all the equations we were using, but I could only ever simplify the problems to pre-solved ones after a lot of trial and error until I hit on something that I knew.

I find the same to be true with car engines. They're not "regurgitating from a book" anymore than my friends were. They see an engine, a large, complex machine. They understand how all the different parts that make up an engine work. You give them a new engine and they start looking for those patterns that make sense, simplifying it into small systems. "Oh, that series of round holes..those are the cylinders, they do this:..." From there, they derive what the pistons are, which leads to the crankshaft, and so on and so forth.

However, if I give those car guys a tunnel boring machine, they probably won't have a clue. This would be analogous to giving someone who was really good at classical mechanics some quantum mechanics equations. They could, eventually, figure it out. It's based on the same stuff that the other is, just with some other things and some things they've likely never seen before. They're looking for totally different patterns, equations that aren't being used, devices that aren't ever existent in their field of work.

I think most of the arguments in this entire article are based on one thing: depth. You wonder whether someone who talks about an engine actually understands how every little piece of it works. Well, I wonder if people who work in quantum mechanics understand everything about the structure of the chips in the computers that run your simulations. At some point, to avoid simply overwhelming your brain, you simply have to make assumptions that certain things "just are". If you stop to consider everything and carefully experiment about everything, you will die of old age before you make it out of the delivery room. But some things can be deduced by cursory observation based on previous experimentation. "Why did that apple fall? Probably because of gravity, like the first one I tested." "Why is that piece of machinery needed? Probably to reduce the risk of damage from high RPMs, like on that engine I installed something like it on because of damage." "Why did that particle react that way in our experiment? Well, it reacted the same way as the other one from that other experiment where we proved x, so probably because of x."

Or I could just be completely misunderstanding your argument. Your 2nd paragraph is nigh incomprehensible. I've tried experimenting, I've looked at replies and what they thought it meant, and I can't, for the life of me, conclusively decide what you were trying to say :/

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[PolygamousRanchKid]

There could be real 'magic' performed, with things shining and flying and moving and doing some other work, even moving the dead carcasses of animals!

Thomas Edison tried the electrocuted animal thing back during the War of Currents, when he and Tesla were in a huff about whether AC or DC was better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

Apparently, the folks back then were not terribly impressed. Maybe the ancient Romans would have gotten their rocks off at seeing an elephant being electrocuted.

O tempora o mores!

Sign me up!!!!!!

[Twinbee]

Can I subscribe to your newsletter - I am going through a difficult time with my faith in the FSM atm, so I am desperately seeking the real truth. Someone sent me this as a present, and I still have nightmares that these things will haunt and eat me. Please help - I am at my wits end. :(
http://www.venganza.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/cupcake1.jpg

Re:Sign me up!!!!!!

[roman_mir]

sure you can, but my newsletter will be distributed via very high voltage and current, this way the recipient will be able to testify with actual physical evidence that he/she is talking to god through me and the mail. You'll be receiving the first transmission in 24 hours from now, all you have to do is stick 2 wires in the closest to you electrical outlet and exactly 24 hours from now you'll have to grab both of the wires and hold onto them as hard as you can.

The BIG ELECTRON, our GOD will be speaking to you directly right then and there.

This'll also take care of your FSM nightmares.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[garyebickford]

IMHO 'magic' is anything that the user doesn't understand (which is true at some level of everything) - for some folks, turning on a light switch is performing magic. But then there's this...

The Ark of the Covenant may have been a really big capacitor - two layers of conductor (gold foil) separated by acacia wood, with the two layers each connected to one of the cherubim that rose above and reached toward each other - essentially forming two points for an arc to traverse under the right circumstances. In the desert, this might well build up a pretty good charge. I think some folks at MIT once built a replica, borrowing the gold from somewhere - it could hold a one farad charge IIRC.

And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth [his hand] to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook [it].
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for [his] error; and there he died by the ark of God.

(Blue Letter Bible.

Actually, electricity is simpler

[Animats]

If you read documents from the early history of the telegraph industry, you find that it was considered easier to hire and train "electricians" than "mechanics". People who could understand and fix printing telegraphs, which are complex mechanical devices, were hard to get. People who could wire up simple key-and-sounder Morse systems, maintain the batteries, and use the things were cheaper and easier to train.

Building working mechanical devices is hard, and designing complex ones is very hard. There aren't that many good mechanism designers, and there never were. Edison was one. All the good Teletype machines were designed by one man, Edward Kleinschmidt. Only a few people ever designed good mechanical calculators. It was really tough before CAD; when Burroughs was designing the first good adding machine, he had to draw on zinc sheets with scribing tools, because paper wasn't dimensionally stable enough. Even today it's tough. You have to design within the limits of what can be manufactured, what can be manufactured cheaply, what doesn't need an excessive parts count, what will wear well, and such.

Bad mechanism designers today tend to build things that have too many moving parts and are overly expensive to build. If you build mechanical devices from standard components, the way you build electronics, you get a big kludge.

Re:Actually, electricity is simpler

[noidentity]

If you read documents from the early history of the telegraph industry, you find that it was considered easier to hire and train "electricians" than "mechanics". People who could understand and fix printing telegraphs, which are complex mechanical devices, were hard to get. People who could wire up simple key-and-sounder Morse systems, maintain the batteries, and use the things were cheaper and easier to train.

It's not that electricity is simpler, it's just that it leads to simpler solutions for telegraphs. Take something like a deadbolt lock and make an electric version, with a power source, switch, and solenoid, and tell me which is simpler to understand.

Re:Actually, electricity is simpler

[Animats]

Take something like a deadbolt lock and make an electric version, with a power source, switch, and solenoid, and tell me which is simpler to understand.

Electromagnetic lock. One moving part - the door.

Re:Actually, electricity is simpler

[noidentity]

Maybe you missed the part about it requiring a constant power supply of 400mA at 12V DC.

Re:Actually, electricity is simpler

[bar-agent]

Maybe you missed the part about it requiring a constant power supply of 400mA at 12V DC.

That is not hard. Or, more accurately, it is somebody else's problem. The lock is easy.

Rube Goldberg...

[Anne_Nonymous]

...Whoopi's foolish younger brother.

Hate to break it to you.

[HornWumpus]

But that is still the usual way to time a car.

You just don't adjust the timing every 3-6 months like you had to when you had points.

Old 78rpm records are a great example

[ribuck]

If you have an old 78rpm record, you can make a record player in about three minutes, to show kids how sound recording works.

Push a needle through an empty matchbox, put the record on something that you can spin (like the turntable in a microwave). Spin the record and touch the needle to the grooves, and the sound will come out of the matchbox. Kids love it! Then point out the wiggly grooves to them.

A compact disc isn't directly understandable like that. You can teach people how it works, but they can't see it so they just have to take your word for it.

Re:Old 78rpm records are a great example

[Anonymous Coward]

CDs are easy to explain. Your kids can see the rainbows on a CD. A CD player is a box of tiny unicorns, and everyone knows that rainbows make unicorns sing.

Re:Old 78rpm records are a great example

[m50d]

On the other hand, for certain types of devices (e.g. calculators, as mentioned above), the electrical version is far easier to understand. An ALU is a lot simpler to think about than the set of gears that do the same thing.

Re:Old 78rpm records are a great example

[Doctor Faustus]

A compact disc isn't directly understandable like that.

Step one is to go ahead and explain the record. A CD works just like a digital version of a record.

not such "invisible forces"

[turbidostato]

"'Think about it,' writes Madrigal. 'You've got a wire and you've got a magnet. Switch on the current - which you can't see and have no intuitive way to know exists - and suddenly the wire begins to rotate around the magnet."

You have no intuitive way to know current exists? My ass!

Turn on the current and then apply your fingers to the naked wire and then tell me there's no intuitive way to know if current is passing through!

Re:not such "invisible forces"

[rts008]

I'm shocked you would suggest such direct actions! My hair is positively standing on end!

Re:not such "invisible forces"

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Seriously! To date my favorite battery tester is my tongue and a wet finger.

Insightful Novel about EMP devastation to society

[bagboy]

Take a read on William Forstchen's One Second After for an interesting persepective on how we (as a society) would not do well if suddenly thrown into the dark ages. It is very enlightening.

radio waves

[green1]

So now with this knowledge behind us, we are facing exactly the same thing again with radio waves instead of electricity.
All the people who can't conceive of how RF energy works are swearing that we'll all die if we use a cell phone, and much of the public seems to be buying it.

A generation from now radio waves will be common place enough that people don't worry about their cell phone killing them, but some new technology will come about and make everyone paranoid again.

Oh for a bit of science education of the masses...

Re:radio waves

[PPH]

An explaination of radio, attributed (correctly?) to Albert Einstein:

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

Re:radio waves

[hitmark]

Or that the cat is a ghost rather then physical...

Btw. between this and Shrödinger thought experiment about a possibly dead cat in a box, i wonder what physicists of the era had against cats...

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Might want to brush up on your physics. No way in hell it would hold a Farad (ie 1 coulomb per volt). Only very recently can you get 1 farad caps, and they have a peek voltage on the order of 10V or less.

Nothing wrong with belts for some things:

[Hartree]

Belts are simple, cheap and provide some useful slip and stretch in a power transmission system. For short range power transmission (a few inches, or so), they're great. They use a lot less material and can tolerate more misalignment than a gear set or chain and sprockets that span the same distance.

When you have to use lots of them, and transmit the power greater distances (more than a few feet), they become unwieldy.

Another source of savings:

[Hartree]

Nowadays, they use the electronics to compensate for less robust mechanical design. A lot of work and expense used to be put into making mechanical control systems linear and well behaved.

Now, instead you use position sensors and servo motors or other actuators with a microcontroller doing the translation in between. Who cares how bouncy, slippy, or hysteresis laden the system is? You just compensate for it in the software that calculates the control outputs to the actuator.

Re:Another source of savings:

[hasdikarlsam]

Do you think this is a good or a bad thing? Why?

Re:Another source of savings:

[Hartree]

Mostly good. Why do it a more expensive or less effective way?

One downside is that it makes it hard to do repairs on some items. Example: I fix lab equipment. An incubator I was working on uses an RTD temperature probe. It has settings in the software of the microcontroller running the machine to match it to the particulars of the probe. I have no access to those, so I'm limited in what sort of repairs I can do.

Repair and support contracts are very lucrative for some industries, and that leads to companies being unwilling to tell you enough information to fix the item. You're restricted to buying their expensive support contracts or trying to reverse engineer anytime you do a repair.

Congress limited how much car companies could do that, but there is little reason to think they'd do that for more technically oriented items.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Gordonjcp]

Only very recently can you get 1 farad caps, and they have a peek voltage on the order of 10V or less.

Tell that to the box of 47,000uF 100V capacitors I have sitting on a shelf in the workshop. You'd need 21 of those in parallel.

ATTENTION SLASHDOT JANITORS - YOUR SITE IS BROKEN. THE "u" IN "47,000uF" IS SUPPOSED TO BE A MICRO SYMBOL BUT YOUR BROKEN CODE STRIPS OUT NON-ASCII CHARACTERS.

Monckton's long lost brother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly looks that way. Crazy as a bear who has been told 'no, you can't shit in the woods'

Rrelativity is involved

[mangu]

please explain to us peons how fuckin' magnets work!

Well, of course I don't know exactly how fucking magnets work, but ordinary magnets are a side effect of the Theory of Relativity (notice the capitals).

When electrical charges move, the charge is changed by the same proportion as masses are changed by the Lorentz contraction.

It's quite weird in fact, relativistic effects on mass are barely perceptible until you reach a significant speed compared to the speed of light, but that's because mass (as far as we know) is always positive.

Electric charges are balanced between positive and negative, a very, very, VERY small change in them will disrupt the delicate balance and a force will appear: the magnetic force.

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[BluBrick]

Well, of course I don't know exactly how fucking magnets work, but ordinary magnets are a side effect of the Theory of Relativity (notice the capitals).

I see, the capitals are an important aspect of the incantation.

When electrical charges move, the charge is changed by the same proportion as masses are changed by the Lorentz contraction.

I have a magnet, and I have a piece of iron, I have no electricity. What does this charge you speak of come from? And How is it moving?

It's quite weird in fact, relativistic effects on mass are barely perceptible until you reach a significant speed compared to the speed of light, but that's because mass (as far as we know) is always positive.

Hang about just a minute. Exactly what does the speed of light have to do with anything here? If relativistic effects are barely perceptible until you get near the speed of light, why bring up the topic in relation to stationary (or very nearly so) magnets?

Electric charges are balanced between positive and negative, a very, very, VERY small change in them will disrupt the delicate balance and a force will appear: the magnetic force.

I've already told you I have no electricity here with my magnet and my iron. So a force appears out of a change in some mysterious electric charges that have no source? It must be magic!

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all motherfuckers lyin', and gettin' me pissed!!

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Your piece of iron has lots of easily movable electrons. All they need to become an electric current is a force pushing them.

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[BluBrick]

Your piece of iron has lots of easily movable electrons. All they need to become an electric current is a force pushing them.

Shenanigans!

Isn't it the movement that gives rise to the force? (that creates the movement (that gives rise to the STACK OVERFLOW))

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[aquila.solo]

His piece of iron has lots of MOVING electrons. The don't just sit there and slosh about the nucleus; they are in constant motion. When that motion becomes coherent (mostly moving the same direction, or rather with a similar angular momentum vector) you have a net electric current. It's just that the circuits are on an atomic scale.

HTH

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't think I've ever seen a stable magnetic field in a stable system do work if you're implying that they do. If a ferrous object is too far from the magnet, it doesn't move. If it's moved far enough inside the field, it is pulled towards the magnet, but once it hits the magnet and is stuck in place, the system is stable again.

As a thought experiment, consider a strong magnet on top of a block of wood and, under the block of wood, an iron washer is stuck by the magnetic field. Now I think that what you believe that your perception of events here is that the magnet is using energy to resist the pull of gravity. This isn't what's happening, however. If you come along and pull the washer downwards a little, then let go and it springs back up, once again, the magnet is not using up energy, rather you put energy into the system by shifting the position of part of the system.

In other words, fields aren't magic. They don't work quite how you seem to think they do, but that doesn't make them magic.

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[BluBrick]

Actually, I'm saying that the explanation of how magnets work is not quite as simple as mangu made it out to be. Forces such as magnetism and gravity can really be quite difficult to grasp at pretty much anything beyond a functional level (and thus to explain). In fact, the functional is pretty simple to understand. Magnets attract ferrous objects. Current flowing through a wire can impart a magnetic force. A magnet moving near a wire can induce a current. I have seen these things demonstrated in early high school science classes, and I utilise these principles daily. I simply don't understand how the magnetic force operates.

If you tell me it comes from the electric charges in the magnet, then there must be electricity involved, even if it is generated by rubbing wool on amber. But with just a steel magnet and a piece of soft iron, there is no electricity to speak of - two pieces of highly conductive metal both at the same potential, a net zero charge. Now, if there is no electricity around, I need to understand the source of the charges. If the source of the electric charges is the magnetic force itself, then we have a need for a better explanation.

Then there's the further issue of why certain materials are acted on by magneic forces and others are not. If this is to do with moving electrons, why is it that copper, one of the most highly conductive metals is not susceptible to magnetism? No, magnets really aren't that easy to understand, are they? And why is it that iron at high temperatures is non-magnetic?

I know it is not magic, but I don't understand why, so until I read or hear a better explanation, magnetism shall remain barely distinguishable from magic.

Re:Rrelativity is involved

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little silly to consider it indistinguishable from magic. Especially when you consider that everything we experience on a day to day basis basically boils down to either magnetism or gravity. All the interactions you have with solid, liquid, or gaseous matter -- magnetism. Light -- electro-magnetic radiation. When it comes to what we can see or touch or feel, what else is there? We observe it in a million little ways and we understand it all the way to the limit of our knowledge. Saying that it's magic because we don't understand it beyond that is therefore silly because that makes everything in our mundane experiences into incomprehensible magic.

You seem to have a problem with what you see as circular reasoning in the explanations you've been given. It's not circular, it's just that electricity and magnetism are both just part of the same thing. Electrical flow can induce magnetism and moving magnetic fields can induce electrical flow, I just don't get where the problem is. Your problem with it reminds me of when I was eight years old and trying to figure out how a computer started, before anyone had even told me that "booting" a computer was short for "bootstrapping" in reference to Baron Münchhausen lifting himself into the air by his own bootstraps. I understand it better now, I just could not, at the time, understand how a running computer reached a state that seemed to me to require a running computer to reach. But I never, ever assumed it was magic, just that it was something I didn't understand and that my computer books at the time didn't really cover and for which I couldn't really formulate a proper question to the very few people I knew who might be able to explain it.

As for the whole stack overflow problem you have going, it's sort of a false issue. A magnet either pulls another magnetic object in or it doesn't. If it does, it's because the object isn't in equilibrium with the system of which the magnet is a part, if it doesn't, it's because the object is in equilibrium and will sit there forever unless the equilibrium of the system changes. In other words, until something moves.

Going back to your last sentence about how magnetism will remain magic until you, personally, understand it... I think that sentence needs a few qualifiers to avoid coming off as some sort of solipsist philosophy. There are plenty of things I don't understand, the deep fundamentals of the forces that make up the universe being one of them. That doesn't mean that I decide that they are incomprehensible magic simply because I don't understand them.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't a bug, it's a feature, in ./'s eyes at least. They are so paranoid that people might use unicode directional markings to fake mod scores that they just block it all. They are also shitty coders. But I wouldn't want to maintain that clusterfuck of perl either.

It'S sO sPiRiTuAl, AlL tHeSe mIrAcLeS aNd ShIt.

[terminallyCapricious]

No No BrO, i DoN't WaNnA kNoW, dOn'T eVeN tElL mE.

kNoWiNg ShIt JuSt StEaLs Up AlL tHe FuCkIn MaGiC fRoM mY mIrAcLeS lIkE a MoThErFuCkIn ThIeF.

AnD tHaT aIn'T cOoL.

Re:It'S sO sPiRiTuAl, AlL tHeSe mIrAcLeS aNd ShIt.

[endymion.nz]

There's this algae that lives in some ponds in the Nelson region of New Zealand that you can't really see during the day but at night time it fluoresces when the water is disturbed.
It's incredibly awesome whether you think its magic sparkly water or whether you understand the biological processes that are going on but all the people in the former category were very angry with me when I explained it.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[sjames]

The same is true of electricians. Many don't know exactly what electricity is or how it works at the atomic level, nor do they need to. They know how it behaves and how it affects things at the macroscopic level. You don't need a degree in physics to figure out that drawing 10 amps through a wire rated at 5 is a bad idea. All the stuff about electrons and atoms bumping each other is unimportant to the task, "it'll catch fire" just about covers it.

That goes beyond the more typical understanding that is limited to flipping the switch and don't stick your finger in the socket.

O RLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

My 1990 MB W124 diesel has ABS, yet it doesn't have a single computer anywhere on board, no ECUs, nothing.

Shame. Did it break, or did it get stolen? Either way, this guy seems to have your missing part:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190370303982&crlp=1_263602_263622&ff4=263602_263622&viewitem=&guid=a3ca01141280a0b58f929422fff4b052&rvr_id=149029369801&ua=M*S%3F&itemid=190370303982#ht_1039wt_736

Cheers!

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Ellis D. Tripp]

The demonstration in question goes back far before Edison and his ridiculous animal electrocutions.

Luigi Galvani discovered (in 1771) that an electrical spark would cause the muscles in a set of dead frog's legs to twitch and jump:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Galvani

See also "open manufacturing"

[Paul Fernhout]

http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing

Re:See also "open manufacturing"

[Hartree]

I've been following that for some months. Some quite good content on it.

Re:See also "open manufacturing"

[hitmark]

Love your sig.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[sharkey]

...they have a peek voltage...

So, do they have a built-in window to let you peek at the voltage, or do you need specialized equipment?

Um... no.

[EWAdams]

In other words, tax the rich, and the workers go jobless.

No... it's a little satire on 19th century society. It says nothing whatsoever about taxes. What is says is that it is incumbent upon the wealthy to employ the less wealthy rather than doing things for themselves: it is their public duty to have servants, in other words. It was called noblesse oblige -- the obligations of nobility.

Re:Insightful Novel about EMP devastation to socie

[cosm]

Great book. Stock up on .22LR my friend, for it will be yours when the high altitude EMPs arrive.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

It was previously known as the Arc of the Covenant.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Farmer Tim]

These ones have a display.

it is possible to disappear from C-level

[alizard]

Note that Carly "Failorina" Fiorina and Meg Whitman have not been invited to run any public corporatons after each tanked the stock values of the companies they ran. At least Whitman had sense enough to go quietly. Each serves as a director to, IIRC, several corporations. After all, somebody has to support the bloated compensation schemes that pay off CEOs at the expense of their shareholders and employees. But neither will ever run a Fortune 1000 corporation again.

The bad news is that Whitman is running for Governor of California and Failorina for Senator. Both, of course, have teabagger support.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

whoooooooosh.......

They only learn to point and click on the shiny

[dbIII]

It was around 2000 but it still holds true today.
There was a very simple first year practical session I was running for engineering students to do a tensile test on a piece of metal and then plot the results using a spreadsheet. The plan was to drop the existing package and use MS Excel on the grounds that every student knew how to use MS Excel and we could get more done in the time.
It turned into a three hour session on teaching students how to do an incredibly simple line graph because the students didn't really know how to use MS Excel. They only knew how to point and click and had the illusion of familiarity which got in the way of them doing anything. I think about 30% even ended up with a bar graph at some point by completly ignoring the instructions.
The students could do the same task in less than half the time using the very clunky spreadsheet in MS Works, the complete unfamiliarity of which encouraged them to follow instructions instead of clicking randomly and hoping as they did in MS Excel. Some did not complete the two minute task of importing a comma seperated file and generating a line graph within the three hours, let alone anything else. Nobody had that problem with MS Works despite almost none of them seeing it before. It's a crappy spreadsheet and everything SHOULD be faster in MS Excel but perhaps the unfamiliarity actually made them think instead of an infantile pointing at pictures with hope.

Re:Insightful Novel about EMP devastation to socie

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a huge tinfoil hat that covers the whole US.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[m50d]

I built a 100mF capacitor bank in high school. Though yeah, doing it with just one layer of gold would be unlikely to work.

Oblig. Sagan Quote

[InsertCleverUsername]

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
      --Dr. Carl Sagan

But don't worry, we'll soon have machines to understand all that dull stuff for us.

Re:See also MAKE Magazine

[JustABlitheringIdiot]

You can also check out MAKE Magazine for BYO projects. I also highly recommend going to one of the Make Faires if you can. I just went to one in September and it was amazing to see all the people and projects there.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Terrasque]

I think it only makes sense to build a religion around electricity.

And we shall call it The Foundation.

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[operagost]

Forget it. I've told them for seven years that the American flag icon has the stripes wrong (and got modded down), and they can't even be bothered to fix that. What makes you think they'll fix the codepage support?

Re:most people still don't understand electricity

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations--you just invented Scientology. :\