Roadrunner

[John H. Robinson, IV]

On Fri, Mar 01, 2002 at 03:55:36PM -0800, Bob La Quey wrote:
> >
> >just because you are not aware of it does not mean it is not occuring
> 
> Indeed. Our machines should be the same way. They should do their
> own maintenance and we should have no need to be aware of it. Like
> a good ISP or bank. (oops an acronym)

this reminded me - i once saw on techtv or something like that (cnn?
abc?) about an engineer/designer that put little globules of epoxy or
something similar in the fabrication. so when a microminature fissure
occured, chances are it would pop open one of the globules and ``fix''
the microfissure before it propogated.

it's not biological in nature, but it seems act in a similar way.

> >modular! think modular!
> 
> Redundancy too.

yes, abosutely.   6 engines, only need two of them, and have them come
off one at a time in a single unit.

> But why not use Moore's law to get it. Rethink designs in terms of
> maintainability and reliability first.

don;t see how Moore's ``law'' comes into this (i think it should be
called moore's observation, or moore's prediction)

i agree though - maitenanceand reliability should be prime
considerations. for any engineering task.

> Yep. But also think complete life cycle and recycling. IIRC Germany has
> laws proscribing such design for cars.

what? recycling in today's throw away electronics age? pshaw!

seriously, yes, these are also nice design goals.

but this is all arm chair philosophy, right? none of us are going to go
out to the tool shed and build a carbon graphite with epoxy globules
ultralight RC airplane with a big huge mirror and hybrid gas/solar
engines, are we?

i'm not about to . . .

-john