The E=MC2 pages. (via Einstein Archives Online)

Anyone who is a fan of Albert Einstein will be excited to hear, over 80,000 digital scans of his documents are available to all of the public with access to the internet, right now. This is all due to the effort of the Polonsky Foundation UK. The foundation hopes to have Einstein's complete body of work finished by the end of 2012.

After Einstein's death in 1955, he left the rights to all his documents and his image to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They launched the project on March 19, 2012 to photograph all of his groundbreaking scientific research, such as papers on his Theory of Relativity, along with non-scientific papers such as letters to family, fans, and his lady acquaintances. In addition, the archive will be easily navigated using a search engine with options such as search filters.

Einstein is considered one of the greatest scientists of all time. He revolutionized the scientific world and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. These new publications will allow anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the genius, access to his personal life and work.

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Engineering On Friday (comic strip) finds a gem burried in the Eienstein archives, see more after this link.

Chinese youth at an internet cafe (via BCG report)

Not surprisingly the most populated country in the world also has the most Internet users. The Chinese Internet community has now grown to over half a billion due to a sky rocketing popularity of a micro blog called 'weibos.'

The role of weibos in sharing information has allowed the community to spread the news and communicate about corruption, injustice and even organizing protests challenging the government’s extreme authoritative structure.

In 2010, about 457 million people were online in China, at the end of 2011, 56 millions new users were added to this community. The sharp increase happened in cities and is slowing down. But in rural or poorer areas there was not much growth at all. A similar increase of 53 million was also seen in the mobile phone Internet users.

The Chinese Internet Network Information Center released some eye opening statistics about China’s Internet use. Only 24.3% of the population in Chinas poorest province, Guizhou, uses the Internet. While in Bejing, 70% are on the web. Even though 30% of Chinese school children go online, only 0.7% of the communist parties cadres use it.

The growth of weibos has been particularly astounding. From the 63 millions weibos users reported in 2010, now the CINIC Chinese Internet Network Information Center tallies 250 million users.

Weibos users first spread news of a successful rebellion of people in the southern Chinese province of Wukan against communist officials and the news of a deadly high-speed train crash, which opened conversations about the expensive project.

The Chinese government takes down anything that they seem as harmful to the government, but a quarter billion users are nearly impossible to control so large cities are trying to oblige weibos users to use their real names. Very much like what many think SOPA will bring to the U.S.

Whatever futile restrictions the Chinese governments put on internet users, the Chinese internet community is surely demonstrating what open communication and information exchange can accomplish. The people set the trends and the rest of the world will undoubtedly follow.

Eavesdropper

Not much more than showing face, it seemed companies setup at CES 2012 to say ‘they are still here and relevant.‘ Take Kodak for example. Despite facing financial ruin, their sizable booth showed nothing more than what they sell at the moment. RIM followed suit with a large collection of what they sell now. Microsoft had more conceptual “things to come” exhibits than actual new innovations.

Although the major companies had nothing to truly wow anyone, it was with the smaller companies’ unveilings where the EXPO truly shined.

• PrimeSense showed off their Kinect competitor product,  as tired booth girls danced away to interactive menus.

• AikenLabs had a 9 axis controller for a new way to interface with video games.

• The Leonardo lets people sculpt in 3D to accompany the ever growing 3D printer adoption.

• Surely DYNAMICS employees tried to get people excited about their multi-credit card, a swipable single card containing several other base credit cards.

• The cell phone that lasts 15 years from SpareOne.

• Company Spawn brings electromagnetic tracking into the physical board game world, sure to find their niche.

Walking the 1.83 million square feet of CES 2012 could not hide the overall trend from me, it was at every corner. Connecting to devices, interfacing, controlling in natural way seems to be the focus of as the processing power faded into the background. It only makes sense as devices like the iPhone has the apparent same performance as it did over 5 years ago.

Another trend was omnipresent; accessorizing and protecting one’s gadgets. With hundreds companies selling thousands of gadget add-ons and protective products, it was fairly apparent. Despite what these products do, it comes down to interfacing with the device itself. If it is only to customize it with stickers or a case that fits one’s personality.

Although many have unique ways of interfacing, it all felt like works in progress.

I believe it was Microsoft’s “things to come” exhibit is a telltale mark of what to expect next year. Like the Kinect integration with Windows and the PC/Tablet connectivity of Windows 8, a matured human-machine-interface. As every company continues to hone their devices, CES 2013 will show the future 2013 deserves, and beyond. It was a very lackluster farewell for Microsoft, who sold their floor space to never return to CES again. Lackluster, but poignant.

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CES fun fact:

• I walked over 220,000 steps, pedometer checked on the last day.

• Microsoft sold floor space to Hisense and Dish Network.

• Over 100,000 different iPhone cases, few think Android phones are worth considering despite Android’s market dominance.

• 20+ companies were selling new headphones, though none did anything different with the sound than any headphone set to date.

• 3 companies introduced a liquid application that would almost completely waterproof an electronic device.

• 99% percent of people are there to make a deal of some sort with a company.

• Total floor space was 1.83 million square feet.

• Many people snuck into the event.

Read more about some of the tech at CES 2012:

Goodbye Keyboard and Hello Glove, The Sign Language HMI

"You put in 4 kilometers of speaker wire?"

A very large power generation plant purchased an engineered fire protection system for the additional coal/gas burning turbines that had recently been installed.  The project got a green light and was then passed on to the companies diverse, or should I say motley gang of crack engineers.  We’ve got all kinds: mechanical, fire, an acoustical engineer, an architect, and me, the only electrical guy.

Then came the usual rounds of Coffee and meetings, revisions, another revision, revising the last revision, hurling blame back and forth, too much coffee, until project completion.

Parts and plans are shipped/emailed to the installation contractor after the customer approved some ridiculously high rev lettered design.  A few months pass and I get a message from the boss, "the contractor is having trouble with the fire control system network, call them." 

I did call them, and their story that went something like this; 

The contracting crew had pulled approximately 4000 meters of twisted pair to link all the gas detectors, flame detectors, heat detectors, cut-outs, shut-offs, low level switches, high level switches, solenoid valves, bells horns and flashing lights to the FACP (fire alarm control panel). The twisted pair starts and ends at the FACP. After all this effort, the network would not work. They thought “hey this is an electrically noisy environment, let’s use signal extenders," and indeed, they did.  They even went so far as to use more than the maximum number of network extenders allowed by the manufacturer (8 if I remember correctly). Even all this signal repeating horsepower couldn’t take care of the problem. 

I did not have any explanation. Nothing about the design was pushing any sort of limit. When I designed the network, I didn’t say “I don’t know about this one, guys”. Tensions were getting high in the office, and the blame for this nonfunctioning network was swinging in my direction.  Then I thought, “What kind of wire did they use? Surely, they used what was specified." I felt like I was reaching but at this point exploring the more unlikely explanations was all I had.

It turns out that they did not use the twisted pair specified. The contactor was given a choice between three different makes of Belden wire, all chosen specifically for their compatibility with the network. What they used instead was speaker wire! Yes, they pulled 4 kilometers or 2.485 miles, of speaker wire.

In the email hailstorm which ensued, I asked why they would do something so unbelievably stupid. They responded with “it looked the same as the other wire." Meaning that, because it was twisted unshielded wire of the proper gauge, they thought it would work the same as what I had specified. I told them to pull the wire out and replace it. They refused, told me I was wrong and demanded an alternate solution. I told them that there was nothing I or anybody else could do.  Silence filled the air for a bit. Then they emailed me a release of some kind that shifted liability for the electrical portion of the install from them, to me. 

Of course, I didn’t sign that release, and the contractor eventually had to replace all of that wire, and when they did, the network functioned flawlessly.

This story carries on from a conversation with a fellow engineer.

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One of my favorite pictures of Steve Jobs. Here he is demonstrating the iPhone 4 to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on June 23rd, 2010.

I have never been a huge fan of Apple Computer's products or the lifestyle philosophy that comes along with them. I am not afraid to admit that I have been a Steve Jobs fan the whole time. Although the film "Pirates of Silicon Valley" portrayed him as a self-important narrow-minded big shot, the real-world  Jobs was far from it. It was his foresight and creativity that have won me over.

When Jobs was terminated at Apple, he said, "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." When I have lost jobs in the past, I thought of his words for a moment. I always knew something better was coming along. 

Jobs went on to found NeXT Computer. The NeXT workstation was far ahead of its time. When PCs at the time had 4 MB of RAM and 20 MB harddrives, the NeXT system had 64MB RAM and a 660 MB drive. The NeXT platform stayed ahead of the everything else in the computing world. (Oddly enough, much like what the iOS products have compared to contemporary products.) What Jobs showed was what was needed for the future. The lesson, never settle for good enough or just to get the job done. Instead, strive for more.

"There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will." - Steven Jobs

Without the NeXT platform, the world would not have two of the most ground breaking video games in history. John Carmack of id Software used the "NeXTcube" to build the games Wolfenstein 3D and the original Doom.

Around the time of his dismissal at Apple, Jobs bought the company The Graphics Group, which was later renamed to Pixar, for $10 Million. (5 of which was for operating capital.) Although it took nearly 10 years to create its first film, Toy Story, the company turned into an almost $10 Billion dollar megacorp. That is an increase of 1000% on the initial investment.

We all know how the world was changed when Jobs returned to Apple. Arguably, most new mobile products have a design feature spearheaded by Apple, and Jobs by proxy. His interest in touch interfaces brought upon a global shift mobile phones and media players with a better human-machine interface. Although I have been using a touchscreen phone since before his return to Apple, I always wanted more. Jobs showed me, and the world, that so much more was possible.

It is a shame that the announcement of his death was met with a dip in share prices of all the companies in which he had a stake. While the faceless and nameless business types may use his death as a chance to manipulate the market in the perverted way, I remember another Jobs quote that changed my view of my life as an engineer.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish." - Steven Jobs at the Stanford University commencement address, June 2005.

We are all shaped by the world around us. I am very happy to say that Steven Jobs's influence on technology has steered me in a good direction, and will continue to do so for the rest of my time.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” - Steven Jobs to the Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993

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Steve Jobs facts:

His name is listed as inventor or co-inventor on 338 US patents.

He was a Buddhist. Which accounts for much of his philosophy and outlook on life.

Was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. (With Wozniak)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted him into the California Hall of Fame.

(images via Apple.com and archive photography)

When  it comes to writers, they need isolation and quiet to focus on their  work. This is the common thought when it comes to writers. People  generally respect that standpoint. Software engineers are writers too,  right? They need quiet and isolation for the majority of time to work as  well. One Java developer works from home for long hours on his  programs. He has said, "I can't be at the office being distracted every  few minutes. I'll get nothing done." What he needs is a place to create,  focus, and work. The same requirements apply to anyone who creates,  even embedded engineers.

Recent  studies have shown that for a worker it takes about 30-45 minutes to  get into "the zone" and focus on the tasks at hand. This is particularly  the case with writers and engineers. Once distracted, is it common to  jump back into the groove? No, the studies show that it takes another  30-45 minutes to return to the original task. So, within an hour and a  half, with one distraction, an engineer does zero work, in the most  extreme cases.

Distractions  come in many flavors. For example, I remember one job I had I was  working on software and hardware for a solo project. The office I was at  was recently remodeled with the low-walled cubicles that would let  everyone see each other. The down side was, we could also hear each  other. I was working on a rather sticky aspect of my project one day,  and the people around me were pretty free of responsibilities. For  almost half that day I had to listen to two people behind me talk about  sharks. Yes, the great fish. I could not concentrate at all. I just  ended up pecking away at my project, essentially giving up for the day.

Any  form of communication allows someone to interrupt. IM, text messages,  email, and of course, phone calls all pull us away from the task at  hand. Anyone who gives tips on ways to manage distractions  at work  always say," turn off your phone and emails, so you can stay focused."

An  engineer friend of mine tells me how he refuses to answer his desk  phone anymore. He said it used to ring about every 15 minutes. It was  either customers who had his direct line, or other co-workers passing  off a customer to him. "That isn't my job," he always angrily confides.  "I am there to do electrical engineering. Design, build, and finish  projects. Not to answer phones or have people constantly stopping by to  talk to me about nothing." He told me he would, at times, take  schematics and his netbook to a store room in the office to hide from  people and distractions.

Studies  reveal that the average worker is distracted 73 times a day. It is  probably less for engineers, but assuredly, not by much. With the 30  minute adjustment period for undertaking tasks, engineers could end up  accomplishing nothing in a day. I can't could the number of times that I  have heard someone say, " I got nothing done today. Too many  distractions."

Every  job I have ever held had this issue. And as I climbed up the echelon,  becoming more critical to projects, distractions have turned into major  stumbling blocks. In fact, I have done my fair share of contract work  from home, or my workshop. There, I accomplished so much more, and so much  faster that it is almost night and day in comparison. Has anyone tried  both in an office and at home? How did the schedule fair in both  situations?

Can you testify to distractions interrupting your progress significantly?

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For a deeper look at this issues, read Maggie Jackson's "DISTRACTED: THE EROSION OF ATTENTION AND THE COMING DARK AGE"