HI 485 Blogger

2003-06-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

Henry Ford and the Trendy Automobile

There are many technological innovations a century. Some centuries may be more abundantly filled with societal changing inventions. The wheel is one, also the printing press, including electricity, and even the electric light bulb. Wheels are obvious and the printing press spread literacy and intelligence. Electricity spawned the birth of the electric light, and when the power goes out, we really appreciate the light bulb. At the dawn of the 20th century, Henry Ford threw our the most life changing, societal molding, convenient trend up to date, to last well over a century already.

Thomas Edison, in inventing the light bulb, was not trying to turn a profit, whereas Ford was. Edison simply came up with an ingenious invention which would be used for decades. Ford came up with an innovation, like Edison, but he had to make a much larger effort in mass producing and putting his new Model T out in the market. The electric light bulb brought light into the darkest places, the Model T that Ford produced, allowed anyone to get to these newly enlightened places.

Fordism was quite like Taylorism, in that they both had a system, which seemed somewhat scientific to them at the time. They were both structured system with a common goal, have an efficient working force, to produce the best, efficient product to receive the largest profit. Ford paid his workers 5 dollars a day, which was a large salary at the time, to try to get more effort from his employees, and get more output, and a better efficiency.

2003-06-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Natural Nuclear Reactors

Some environmentalists argue that nuclear power is a man-made, artificial technology that is destroying our environment. The link at the end of this has a link to an article by James Lovelock on Natural Nuclear Reactors. He describes a natural nuclear reactor that existed in Gabon Africa, about 1.8 billion years ago. The French received Uranium shipments, which were depleted of the necessary fissionable isotope of Uranium. His article says that “Bacteria could not have debated the costs and benefits of nuclear power.” He also says that there must have been some sort of replenishment, and no problems of waste disposal was necessary, nor harmed the bacteria.

This natural reactor is obviously not on the same scale as our current commercial power reactors, produces much more waste, and has many other hardships associated with them. Nuclear power has existed since the dawn of time, and human-kind has every right to take advantage of it. It is almost a necessity in this ever-present, power-demanding society that is constantly evolving and increasing in efficiency. Living organisms were able to deal with the nuclear power, and the reaction was able to sustain itself throughout ages without interaction from anything, humans in particular. In many ways, our US reactors are modeled after these self-regulating, inherently safe “Natural Nuclear Reactors,” just sort of doped up on steroids.

http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/nuclearGarden/bookTexts/Lovelock_Oklo.html

2003-06-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Technology at NC State and Columbia Spaceship
The beauty of innovation and diverse application can be seen with nuclear technology, right here at NCSU. NCSU has had a research nuclear reactor, the PULSTAR, for most of the 20th century. Despite popular belief, it does not power the campus, and there is no credible accident associated with it. The NRC and the government wouldn’t allow a reactor to be placed on a college campus, in the middle of a large city. For many years, the reactor was used as a training tool for people who would be working at the Sharon Harris nuclear station in Apex. It was also used as a tool in many experiments for classes in the associated nuclear engineering program.

There is a special division in charge of irradiations called Nuclear Services. The manager is in charge of irradiating various samples from crude oil, to fish scales, to human fingernails for numerous agencies, including Duke Medical, the EPA, to forensic investigations. Scott Lassell, the manager of the Nuclear Services, has even irradiated cereal. What Scott is doing, is searching for trace elements in these various samples. He has determined accurate levels of various minerals in the cereal and even levels and times of arsenic poisoning in murder cases. The most recent investigation Scott has been working on is irradiating fragments from the Columbia spacecraft. He is again searching for trace elements in unknown samples to compare with known ones, to help in the recreation of the spacecraft. I was amazed when I found out the Nuclear Reactor Program here at NCSU was helping NASA on the reconstruction of the Columbia. It’s amazing to see how technology has evolved to its multitude of applications and has landed all around us.

2003-06-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Bugs Me
Rachel Carson, from what I got from the reading, is crazy. I’m guessing she’s some sort of Republican, or conservative. Not that that’s entirely bad, but she just gives them a bad name. I felt like I was watching a news story on FOX News. Her comments on “chemical death rain,” “rain of insect-killing poisons,” and “rain of poison falling from the skies” were a bit overly dramatic. The word that made me most irate, and she in fact used it twice in what I read, was the word ‘crusade.’ The word crusade, has a lot of historical context, and is much too powerful of a word for her to use as a description of eradicating the insects.

She does an excellent job of quoting budgets of chemical use versus chemical research, and presents excellent arguments. However, the chapter was very structured, in that it was simplistic to follow her. Suggestions for alternatives were presented, the other side of the argument was shown along with its refutation, and she even somewhat refuted her article, but obviously not as much as the opposing side.

I feel that the conquest and prosperity of humans is underway, and we might have to kill a few insects. She is discussing the topic as if she is not an environmentalist, but an insect rights advocate. She does however graphically explain that as the beetles were being poisoned, earthworms, squirrels, and birds would be poisoned. She reports numbers of tons of chemicals and associated acreage.

2003-06-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

On Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor might have been a lunatic. He might have just been deluded, and caught up in the emergence of these big business. His ideas were not really scientific as they were more commonly simplistic. H might have just coined them as scientific, thinking it would spark more interest to his audience. His ‘scientific’ method, is to basically treat the workers fairly, in a humane moral way. This just seems like a rational method to treat anyone, more so than scientific.

I think his ideas are so popular, because they are sort of common sense. I think that there is some natural tendency to be efficient, which makes his essay popular. People are often trying to save time, 'kill two birds with one stone,' or save money. There are lots and lots of new inventions that advertised as more efficient, saving money and energy. The biggest problem with the automobile, for example, is its fuel efficiency. They have invented new engines which are hybrid, making them much more efficient. So the natural tendency and the logistics are what

2003-06-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Corporate cows

I just recently finished the book 'Fast Food Nation' by Eric Schlosser. It is a well documented and researched book about the fast food industry. There is much discussion about the influence of these indescribably large fast food corporations. These 'restaurants' sell lots of meat, and so the industrialization of nature began. Lots of money was invested in the production of cows. Large land grants were purchased, chemicals to grow the cows faster were created and fed to the cows, and the cows were then slaughtered in a slaughterhouse at an unbelievable rate of about 300 cattle per hour. These corporations managed to get so large by hiring immigrant workers, paying them unfair wages, and subjected them to horrific working conditions where many were maimed and killed with no compensation to family. These corporations also saved money by recycling animal parts that could not be sold, by feeding them to other cows and chickens which spread salmonella and E-coli, and bred new diseases like the infamous 'mad cow disease' along with who knows what else. These corporations were also so powerful and so wealthy that they had rich republican businessmen that were lobbying for them in the US Congress to NOT have OSHA inspections, and to ALLOW for the sale of tainted beef to the US Army and to US elementary schools.

Carnegie was also a man who like the fast food giants, paid his workers poorly, subjected them to horrible working conditions, lobbied against laws like the minimum wage, cut costs to become a very successful businessman making a large profit. However, unlike the fast food giants, Carnegie was able to leave the industry with his profit. He made his fortune he intended on, then quit while he was still ahead.

2003-06-02T17:56:00.001-07:00

Pennsylvania Mine Disaster
I grew up in a region of PA, which was a largely mining district. My high school took a tour of some of the Lackawanna coal mines. I lived in the Wyoming Valley, near the Susquehanna River. When you drive through some of the streets, you can see large coal processing plants, large piles of coal shell that can’t be used, and along the Susquehanna River in a town called Pittston, there is a mine cart with a memorial on it. The memorial is to 12 men that died in the Knox Mine Disaster on January 22nd, 1959. Not many people did in this disaster, but it had somewhat worse effects.
The Knox mining company was mining under the Susquehanna River, where there was supposed to be 50 feet of rock between the mine and the river, and there were to remain a certain amount of coal pillars a certain thickness. The Knox company wanted more coal, so they mined some more out of the roof and the pillars, until the roof caved in. The disaster was so large, it flooded many of the mines in the Wyoming Valley and ended the mining industry. While trying to plug the hole, they threw in over 400 coal cars, bails of hay, and railroad ties. They finally had to dam off the hole, pour in concrete and clay, then add a large concrete top. Also, because of all the deep mines all throughout the area, the valley is sinking, and houses can be heard settling often.

2003-06-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Canals and Railways
As populations increased, specialization became more popular a national market began to appear. Jobs that were initially being done by local tradesmen were now performed by professionals and specialists. This was all reinforced by the increased ability for these professionals to travel longer distances in shorter times due to the new modes of transport.
Canals most obviously seem more expensive having to remove lots of dirt, whereas the rail tracks are laid on the ground. Both modes needed relatively level ground as well. The train however would need to be powered by a steam engine, where as a boat in the canal can be pulled by horses or use the natural current of the river. The ease and quickness of the railway allowed for a track to be eventually laid across the continent. I think to try to dig a canal across the continent was never even thought of because it would be extremely burdensome to say the least. So the railroad is the major aspect of the west coast exploration, but as far as large settlements on the east coast, that sprung up all along canals and linked waterways.
If the colonists relied only on canals and never built the railways, the west coast would not have been reached nearly as soon, and everything else would have been very slow moving, and weather dependent.

2003-05-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Conspiracy
There are many people that believe the landing on the moon was a hoax, it was staged, and if didn’t really happen. This seems pretty preposterous and somewhat perplexing at first. It doesn’t make much sense to stage something like that, but when you consider the amount of national pride that was at stake, at the thought of being second to the communist nation scared many people. Some say that it was staged to

Also, the fact that the space program has not continued moon missions might also lead to believe that it was faked. There have been a few attempts to get Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong to swear on the bible that they did in fact land on the moon, and they would not. Buzz Aldrin also became quite irate when asked. I would probably get pretty angry if I traveled into space, walked on an extra-terrestrial body, and people called me a faker. One of the most popular proofs of the conspiracy, are the video images, and pictures. People say that the lighting is different, the Earth is different, and the stars are different. I can see them being different, but because its in space, not Earth, in which space is an extremely different environment that Earth.

I am quite aware of this conspiracy theory, among many others. I know many people that do in fact believe that the moon landing was staged. I do believe, especially after reading this book that it did happen.

If anyone is interested, there is some info on this theory on the web, but here is a pretty good link.
http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/

2003-05-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Angle of Attack

Angle of Attack provided much information on the developments of the Apollo space mission to the moon. Mike Gray does an excellent job of showing the evolution of the space program. He has explicit examples and interviews with key people. He does an excellent job of having the reader learn who Harrison Storms really was. I myself, along with other people in the class, didn’t even know who he was before hand. The space program branched off of the aviation department and went into full effect when the Soviet Union began launching ships into space. This was a time during the red scare, the spread of communism, and strong nationalism during the post-world war, and a bit of the Cold War. The race to the moon between the US and the Soviet Union was basically an alternative to exploding each other with missiles and possible having millions of soldiers and civilians die. However, von Braun, having worked for Hitler and the Germans did not fully associate himself with the nationalism and the “race to the moon” against the Soviet Union. He was more interested in getting into space.

The book discusses many different aspects in the development of the Apollo spacecraft. The evolution of space exploration seemed to encompass just about every aspect of society, including the presidential support, taxpayer’s dollars, huge corporations investments, and congressional delegation of funds to the highly educated and skilled workers that researched, tested, and built the Apollo spacecraft. The largest influence seems to be the Soviet Union, since it was the group we were trying to defeat.

2003-05-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Horseless Age

People obviously saw that the emergance of new technology was on the brink. The author was writing to upper class wealthy americans, trying to get them interested in automobiles, as opposed to horses. The strange thing about the article, is that he says that "the carriage of the future" will use electricity, and not gasoline. This seems like it is the best alternative to horses without using the weaknesses of gasoline powered engines. The author points out several weaknesses of the horses, saying they "cause ... much disease and unsanitary conditions." There is mention of recharging batteries for electric powered cars, but no mention of the downfalls of gas powered engines.

The author mentions having power wires above the street that one can hook his/her car up to. This is already done with the bussing system in San Fransisco, and is very effective. It may however be somewhat difficult to do on a more personal level. However, it is still a possibility, and although this article was written at the end of the nineteenth century, over a hundred years later at the turn of the 21st century, the possibility of his electric c ars is still present. The article is definatly geared towards the outdatedness of the horse, and the coming of age of the automobile. He is quite liberal in the gas/man/electric powered car, and gives some weaknesses of the latter two, which leads to beleive he would prefer or is geared to gasoline powered.