I’ve been so busy with technical consulting that I have kind of neglected this blog. It’s time to correct that. As I write this, I’m sitting under a Tiki hut in the Florida Keys, taking a little much deserved (I hope) R&R. One can’t help but notice that the engineering curmudgeon hasn’t been very much of a curmudgeon - yet. So, as long as I’m on vacation I will also take a break from discussing thermal systems and new product development and instead address one of my pet peeves - bring vs take - or what appears to be the systematic removal of the word “take” from the English language.

By way of background, let me relate one of my life shaping experiences. When I was a freshman in college, I was taking the introductory psychology course, the one required of all freshman students, regardless of their major. As you might imagine, there were hundreds of students in each class and the class was very automated by 1970’s standards. The tests were mostly computer generated with multiple choice answers. However, the final exam required essay type answers. I had received, shall we say, less than a perfect score, in part due to misspelling a word. Well, I felt this to be quite unfair since I was supposed to be learning about psychology, not spelling and grammar. So I took it upon myself to look up the professor. Keep in mind the size of these classes, I hadn’t seen or met the professor all semester. Most of the ‘teaching’ was done by his graduate assistants. But I was able to track him down to voice my complaint about how my exam had been scored. I explained how this course was about psychology and besides I was an engineering major and we had a reputation of poor spelling. He looked at me and said ‘Just because you are an engineer doesn’t mean you are incapable of learning’. I was furious. I disliked having to take psychology and sociology courses in the first place, but to have my intelligence challenged because I was an engineering major was too much. Imagine the nerve of someone in the Psychology department impugning the intelligence of an engineering student. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the world does perceive poor grammar, punctuation and spelling as a sign of poor intelligence. Right or wrong, that is the way it is. So while I still consider myself poor at spelling, I do take it seriously. Thank heaven for spell checkers. I also take seriously the meaning and correct use of words.

That brings me to my current and ongoing rant. It seems that the proper use of the word ‘take’ has been almost completely replaced by the improper use of the word ‘bring’. I notice the incorrect use among professional writers and journalists, people who certainly should know better. In fact this is becoming so prevalent that I’m afraid it may soon be acceptable as common usage, if it isn’t already.

Here is the rule, really it’s very simple. When the action is from the point of view of arrival, use ‘bring’. When you come to my house for dinner, please bring a bottle of wine. When the action is from the point of view of departure, use ‘take’. When you go to dinner at someone’s home, take a bottle of wine.

Here is a very useful website. Common errors in English

Check it out, there are lots of helpful discussions on common errors in English.

So, if you don’t want people to perceive you to be of low intelligence, use the words ‘bring’ and ‘take’ properly and help me insure that the proper use of ‘take’ isn’t replaced by the improper use of ‘bring’.

During the recent ASHRAE meeting and technical conference in Quebec I attended an interesting presentation on energy efficiency and Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) presented by Mr. Louis Marmen. My guess is that most people aren’t aware of the magnitude of efficiency improvements that have been made in North America, especially improvements to regulated appliances. The chart below shows what has happened with refrigerators. Note that while the average size of refrigerators continues to increase, the price and the energy consumption decrease. Refrigerators are approximately three times as large as they were 50 years ago, yet they use the same energy and cost significantly less. With increasing energy cost (I anticipate relatively rapid increasing energy cost) we will see this kind of improvement continue. Next time you hear someone talk about how expensive things are, or how inefficiently we use energy in this county, just explain the history of the refrigerator. We in the engineering community need to take credit for the great things that have been accomplished and we need to continue to push for better energy efficiency in all development of new products.

Source: Collaborative Labeling and Standards Program (CLASP) and
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Energy Standards Information System (APEC ESIS)

Gas is well over $3.00/gallon and BP shut down a pipeline in Alaska this week. I’m pretty sure that gas prices will continue to climb.

I’m a firm believer in the free market system. I’m sure that we, as a country will get much more energy efficient as the price of energy climbs. If you listen to the media whine about how much energy we waste and how inefficient we are you can’t help but feel that maybe we tend to use more than our share. But I’ve always thought - “so what? When the cost goes up, we’ll use less, that ’s the way the free market works.” But I do worry about the impact the rising cost of energy may have on our economy. This in turn made me curious about how efficient we are relative to the amount of goods and services we produce. The media always quotes statistics based on energy use per capita. I guess that’s all right. It tells us how much energy we consume per person and clearly we are at the top of the list. But, what it doesn’t really tell us is how efficiently we are using that much energy. We are also consistently at the top of another list - GDP per capita. In other words, we produce more goods and services per person than the rest of the world. Therefore, isn’t it reasonable to expect us to also consume more energy per person in order to produce those goods and services? I went looking for a summary of energy use per GDP$. Google wasn’t able to find such a summary for me, so I created my own. Now, I readily admit that this isn’t an exhaustive study and I’m not an economic analysis expert. But I’ll bet that these numbers are fairly representative of the true picture. I looked in several places for data, including the World Bank’s “World Development Reports” and the CIA World Fact Book. The CIA World Fact Book had the most up to date and easiest to use data, so that’s what I used. I put together the following table.

Overall, I was disappointed. I expected the data to show that we are reasonably efficient in converting energy into goods and services. As you can see in the table above, we have plenty of room for improvement in converting energy into goods and services. I suppose this isn’t such a bad position to be in. There will be some short term pain as we become more efficient and learn to live with higher energy costs. But to me, the table clearly shows that our economy won’t necessarily be devastated by the rising cost of energy. We have plenty of room for improvement.

The free market system works. Higher energy costs will drive increases in energy efficiency. Personally, I think people will be not only surprised at how fast the cost of energy increases, but also how fast we adapt and improve our energy efficiency by developing new or improved products and services, thereby reducing the demand for energy.

This is an excellent business opportunity for anyone who uses energy (and who doesn’t?). Improving the energy efficiency of your products or your operations should be fundamental to your new product development strategy and indeed your overall business strategy.

There are many definitions of curmudgeon. Here are but a few:

wikipedia wiktionary: An ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions.

Merriam-Webster Online: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man

From “Small Winery” magazine, a definition by Jon Winokur:

A curmudgeon’s reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They’re neither warped nor evil at heart. They don’t hate mankind, just mankind’s absurdities. They’re just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. …. They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. … Nature, having failed to equip them with a serviceable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.

Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers. …. They can’t compromise their standards and can’t manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.

Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message. They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettles us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor.

OK, that definition is not only lengthy, but somewhat self serving. Be that as it may, that is the definition we are going with. This weblog (aka blog) will attempt to comment on the sometimes absurdity of the human condition as it relates to engineering, especially engineering required to conduct new product development and to manage the same.

The second point I’d like to make regarding the definition and purpose of this blog is that it in fact isn’t intended to be a weblog (blog) or journal. I don’t need to write down my thoughts and positions just so I can remember them, well acutally I do, but I don’t need to publish them on the internet. The purpose of this blog is to stimulate communication. Please comment on my posts. Your input is sincerely encouraged and indeed required to make this a meaningful experience.