AdamSmith

That is the damned truth! I used to consult to a now-extinct French software company. First time there, my jaw dropped when we went in to lunch at 11:45 am, to a table set with foie gras pate and Sauternes. Followed by 2 more wine pairings with the main course and dessert. After that, we all pretended to go back to work, but you can imagine.

I thought I was talking about those Germans. As, like you, a rooter for Boeing, it does give me no end of pleasure to watch the Germans and French inside EADS forever struggling to forebear each other.

Yes, the 'dry rub.' You know those Germans.

There's the nub. An engineering manager at BMW once told me his company follows an "iron law" -- never try to change both the PRODUCT and the PROCESS at the same time. Boeing forgot that.

Yes. But, in addition to the O-ring example, I have seen too many other cases where engineering management overruled engineering itself as to what the "conclusions" should be. Rolls needs to update its engineering culture. I can't tell whether the resistance (ignorance?) is from management, or from within the engineering culture itself. Wish I knew; if I did, maybe I could sell them more consulting. But I am serious that RR is a materially more primitive engineering culture than GE or Pratt. I wish they were not. But they are Jurassic by comparison. Just a fact. They have paid me US$ to tell them that. Many smart individuals, but a fucked-up set of work processes, and of methods to inculcate project learnings and competitive intel into corporate knowledge.

Of course I take your points in this and the related thread that (1) Boeing is arguably the best in the world, (2) they had to go to composites, (3) their outsourcing and globalization experiment (a) turned out not to be quite flight-ready, (b) but (my point now, not yours) may still turn out to be the right way to do these things, but this first venture had to be undertaken, to prototype the process and go thru the inevitable hard knocks (feel free to disagree & debate!), (4) test flights can fail, (5) etc. But I repeat my broken record that, possibly, composite materials simply were not engineered to be the structure itself. I had a long conversation with a materials engineer the other day where he convinced me of that. Eek. Time will tell. Also & separately, having looked firsthand at the engineering and manufacturing work processes & conceptual thinking inside GE Aircraft Engines, Pratt, and Rolls, I have to say that Rolls is the most backward of the 3. Of course their engines get certified & are airworthy. But they have a pretty antiquated engineering culture, & I do sincerely wonder how long it can keep up with the increasing demands on performance, economy, etc. compared with its competitors, whose engineers and managers I think are a half-century ahead in their mode of thinking. Just a few light thoughts for the afternoon.

Ai yi yi... All this, and now the Rolls Royce engine trouble to boot. Boeing tells analyst: 787 deliveries 'will take longer than expected' Boeing management is telling Wall Street that the 787 Dreamliners already rolled out onto Paine Field are "in various stages of final assembly" and that delivery of those jets "will take longer than expected, particularly those with the Rolls-Royce engine." By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter Boeing management is telling Wall Street that the two-dozen 787 Dreamliners already rolled out onto Paine Field are "in various stages of final assembly" and their delivery "will take longer than expected, particularly those with the Rolls-Royce engine," an analyst reported Tuesday. In a note to investors, Robert Stallard, aerospace analyst with RBC Capital Markets, relayed the news after briefings from Boeing senior management in Chicago, including CEO Jim McNerney. Stallard concluded that after the initial Dreamliner is given to All Nippon Airways in mid-February, the ramp-up of 787 deliveries will likely be "longer and shallower" than previously expected. He projected just two dozen Dreamliner deliveries in all of 2011. Previously, Wall Street analysts had been projecting around 80 deliveries next year. Although the jets rolled out so far are painted in the livery of the airlines that will eventually take them, much of the interior installation work is missing due to earlier supply-chain problems. The Rolls-Royce engine is a specific problem because Rolls is working to apply a fix to its engines after one blew up during a ground test in England in August. Of the 25 Dreamliners that have so far rolled out through the Everett assembly plant's doors to the flight line, 17 are to be fitted with Rolls-Royce engines. After those early airplanes are delivered, Stallard said, Boeing's leadership believes the supply-chain pipeline will flow more smoothly. "McNerney thinks that most of the risk in the ramp-up process will be retired after the first 40-50 deliveries," Stallard reported. Stallard offered better news on production of Boeing's other jets. While the 787 assembly line will stay sluggish at best, the other assembly lines will be pumping out jets faster than they have ever done. Stallard said McNerney indicated the production rate of the Everett-built 777 wide-body, at five aircraft per month but set to rise next summer to seven per month, could go even higher depending on the progress Airbus makes with its rival A350-1000. And the analyst said McNerney may push output of the Renton-built 737 single-aisle — now at 31.5 jets per month — even beyond the 38 per month scheduled for 2013. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013385417_dreamliner10.html

Our soft work, that is.

How do mandrake roots rate? http://weeklyrot.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/mandrakeplants.jpg

How a halfway competent company does it... Barnes & Noble Shakes Up Management The Wall Street Journal Barnes & Noble Inc. tapped the president of its Web site, William Lynch, as its new chief executive. He succeeds Steve Riggio, who held the post since 2002. The company will move further into selling books online and through digital downloads, but retain its stores as key elements as it begins the next chapter of its growth, its new CEO said. "Electronic sales and digital books will be the key to our future," Mr. Lynch said. Mr. Lynch, 39 years old, joined the bookseller in February 2009 and has worked to develop the company's e-commerce business and launched its digital commerce platform, including the big-selling Nook e-reader. Before that, he had worked at home-shopping company HSN Inc., running HSN.com... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704207504575129313539265910.html?mod=WSJ_Small+Business_sections_management

Seems that rehab is not only for Tigers but also for Chimps... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35602234/ns/technology_and_science-science/

This was great. It reminded me, among other things, that back in 1991 when Magic Johnson announced he had contracted HIV from having hundreds (did he say thousands?) of post-game hookups with anonymous women, the sex-addiction brigades did not come pouring out of the woodwork, as they inevitably do today. http://espn.go.com/gen/s/2001/1105/1273720.html Wonder what has changed since then?

Absolutely. Never seen him remotely like that before. ...not the whole story with Tiger, but some aspect of it... http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/309386.full.gif

...Of course, how much of it really is Boeing? Just came across this -- simplified! -- graphic: http://www.3dcic.com/images/stories/press/787.jpg

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story in which several scientists are sitting around a table, thinking about humor. One of them observes that nobody ever seems to know where really funny jokes come from. The only form of "humor" that one ever actually sees being created, or creates oneself, is puns. From this, they eventually deduce that humor is an experiment being conducted on humans by an alien race. All the funny jokes are concocted by these aliens, who then inject the jokes into human circulation, and observe the results. The only thing we can originate, in weak imitation, is puns. In the denouement, they further realize that, now they have seen through the aliens' experiment, they have invalidated it. Thus, for the rest of H. sapiens' existence -- no more new jokes! Except for our own puns.

...doesn't hold a candle to my MadAve idol: http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2007-09/mr-clean.jpg

No question they had to go to composites. Well worth the risks. Just expressing, yet again, my obsessive sense that the risks have probably not been characterized as fully as they think, or would have their customers believe. Acknowledging the financial strain this would have caused, I still would like to have seen a longer physical-prototype-test cycle. As I said before, I dread flying in what will necessarily be, in early deliveries, an airborne test lab.

What did I say about those composites? Further evidence that there is perilous engineering overconfidence, or maybe engineering-management hubris or at least insensitivity (again, can you say "O rings"?), about our engineering understanding of these critters.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26641652/

Right. And then the thing is not planned to reach full power until late this year.

>"Large Hardon Collider" Missed this first time around. Funniest thing here in months! > a video that you and Derek might post on Rentmen Would take its place in a long & distinguished line of porn titled with wordplay. My favorite was this one... http://pic.aebn.net/Stream/Movie/Boxcovers/a9012_xlf.jpg

>I also found watching the >sex between escort and client unnervingly deflating--it made >me feel that it was time for me to stop hiring escorts, >because I wouldn't be able to get those images out of my >mind. First, thanks for the pointer to this film. I'm intrigued. Second, and only barely on point to your interesting point above -- a few times with one escort or another, we've gotten around to doing it in front of the mirror. Sometimes it's been a great turn-on; other times it was disconcerting, to say the least, to see oneself in mid-hump. We now release this thread to its original topic. :-)