Timing
One of the things that I was totally oblivious to (and unprepared for) prior to starting this tenure track position was how critical timing is when dealing with proposals. I’m fortunate enough that I do have some money coming in from proposals, so that’s a good start. However, now that I have money coming in, I need students to work on projects. Unfortunately, my funded projects are on topics that where none of my current students are working. And the topics for my current students are sufficiently different that it would be unwise to switch them to a different project. Thus, I’m in a time crunch where money has been funded but there are no students around to support. This is one of several issues with timing that I’ve seen. I’m going to point a few issues below but feel free to comment below and add some more. Are there…
Work Hard, Play Hard?
DrWife sent me an article that she read titled Why we have to go back to a 40-hour work week to keep our sanity by Sara Robinson at AlterNet which makes a compelling case for why the 40 hour work week was initiated and why it’s need for us to be economically successful as a society. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so now. It’s OK, I can wait. … There, all finished. The article essentially discusses how people are not that much more productive working more than 40 hours per week (or 8 hours in a day) and the work efficiency drops off significantly. There are many facets to discuss based on this article, ranging from the current unemployment level in the US to the work-life balance that many of us would like and overall human rights issues that the NY Times has pointed out in articles about China’s…
Compress Yourself
We’re always trying to eke out more power from less. All the talk about green design and sustainability is really a way in which we can live our lives and power our machines using fewer resources: not just because it’s environmentally friendly but because it’s cheap as well. Compressors play a large role in making our machines more efficient and more powerful. Thermodynamically a compressor is the same thing as a pump only a compressor works on gas or vapor and a pump operates on liquid but both typically increase the pressure of the working fluid. The pump may be increasing the pressure to increase flow but the compressor might be making a vapor more dense for its next stage in the process. The most common compressors are axial flow and centrifugal types. In an engine, a compressor is usually housed in a turbocharger where the purpose is to increase…