Quote:
Originally Posted by artdutra04
I really need to stop myself and my fascination in new technology saving mankind from all our problems before I write enough to fill a novel.
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A very wise man once told me, "You never solve a problem, you merely exchange it for a different one that is hopefully easier to live with"
As Mr Rotolo said earlier, conservation of energy and finding new sources of energy are good things and should be pursued merely because they are good things. As an Engineer, I like things that are efficient and elegant. But let's attack the proper problem. Bert Rutan has some compelling arguments and they are backed up by these more recent revelations of messing with the data.
When I was developing information on the structural capabilities of new materials. Occasionally we would be tempted to throw out the results of a test coupon because it would lower the strength value we would later use in designing parts. Before we could do so, we would have to explain
to our customer exactly why that particular coupon was not "typical". Maybe there was a machine malfunction or it had been dropped or nicked or did not meet the tolerances for that test. If we could not, that data point was used in our calculations and rightly so. Even if we could disallow a particular test, it stayed in the record and the reason for elimination noted. You don't design airplanes on what you wish the material properties to be, nor on what the vendor (who has an obvious vested interest) says they are. People die that way.
But apparently some people have decided that we collectively will make policy decisions affecting billions of people based on data they fudged to make it look the way they wanted. With that approach I can pretty much guarantee that any solution they come up with will be harder to live with than the problem they set out to solve.
ChrisH