‘The Righteous Mind,’ by Jonathan Haidt
via nytimes.com
My main blog is at http://www.ribbonfarm.com. I use posterous to create quickie blogs for other purposes.
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/13/machines.html
The magnificent machine pictured above is a closed-die forging press, one of the biggest in the world. (For reference, check out the men standing at its foot, down there on the left.) It and nine other huge forges were built in 1950s by the U.S. government, in a long-forgotten endeavor called the Heavy Press Program. I wrote about the press and the program in the March Atlantic, and Maggie kindly invited me to write a bit more here, because — well, first of all, because just look at that thing. It stands nine stories tall (four of them are hidden under the floor), weighs 16 million pounds, exerts 50,000 tons of compressive force, and, like Vulcan’s own waffle iron, squeezes ingots of solid metal between its jaws until they flow like batter.
"James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”
But Nancy Leveson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, says increasing complexity is also making systems more vulnerable to accidents. What’s more, she says traditional safety engineering approaches are not very effective in keeping new and fast-evolving systems safe. For example, engineers typically evaluate the safety of a system by checking the performance of each of its components. Leveson argues that safety — particularly in complex systems — depends on more than a system’s individual parts.For the past decade, Leveson has been championing a new, more holistic approach to safety engineering. In addition to analyzing systems’ technical components, her approach — dubbed STAMP, for System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes — addresses the impacts of human, social, economic and governmental factors on safety.
Last week, Leveson hosted a three-day workshop at which more than 250 safety engineering professionals from around the world gathered to learn about STAMP and to explore the event’s theme, “Engineering a Safer World.” The event also coincided with the publication of Leveson's new book on the topic, titled Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety.
Gold Post Technologies, Inc. (“GPT”) is a data technology solutions company that seeks to create cost effective technology answers for the corrections and public safety industry. GPT worked closely with law enforcement and probation and parole agencies to develop a complete comprehensive Probationer Monitoring Solution. Not just a tracking tool, but an integrated management solution that takes the probation or parole officer out of the office and into the field, making it easier for municipalities and agencies to scale up or down monitoring of assigned county clients. This elasticity keeps agencies and municipalities within budget, and allows immediate response to unexpected changes in the client population. Whether it is integrating probation management systems on remote access tablets, installing a reporting and tracking “App” on a smartphone, or monitoring probationers through a two way communications and tracking system, GPT is the pioneer in post-release supervision solutions.
Just got to know these guys. Innovative application of data tech.
