I am not sure if I have ever expounded on my theory on the path to the middle class in the M&O blog. The theory is simple: Only maritime provides a reliable path to the middle class for those who seek it. There are very good technical and economical reasons for that assertion, which I may make… Read more »
As American parents, my wife and I went through the usual terrors of teaching the offspring to drive. Once we were reasonably sure our youngest could drive on her own, she asked us if we would pay for her Street Survival class. We had never heard of this program, and this is a shame, because it… Read more »
Capt. Terry Ogg published a thoughtful article on safety culture and training on Linkedin. The title is “Why it’s time to deep-six our current safety culture,” but within the article he provides an even better meme: The Whac-a-Mole Safety Game. The meme explains the tendency to simply hit at every possible human error that occurs and… Read more »
By traditional training I am not a Naval Architect. I actually studied to become an Aerospace and Ocean engineer. My education at Virginia Tech as an Aerospace and Ocean engineer was nothing more than a lucky coincidence, since it allowed me to indulge my youthful passions of sailing, flight and space. Over the years I ended… Read more »
The year is not quite over, but, since I wrote a 2012 top 10 Maritime Things blog, I now feel somewhat driven to think about a 2013 top 10. Like last year, the subjects I am picking may not be entirely 2013 subjects, but they certainly came to the fore to me in this year…. Read more »
Engineering is an unusual profession. While it is often thought to be related to math and science and thought to be exact, it actually is a very complex blend of perspiration, inspiration, communication, confusion, calculation and evaluation and the math and science is only a tiny part of a much larger whole. This makes it… Read more »
We all like to kid about acronym soup, and it is pretty difficult to keep up with all the new ones. I remember that as a young engineer I was always hesitant to ask in public, because I was afraid that asking the question would prove my ignorance. Somewhere in my career I crossed that… Read more »
On a recent trip to Sicily to deal with construction issues on a number of high speed catamarans, I saw this forklift parked in a director’s reserved parking spot. I like it. I am not sure a forklift operator is trying to make a point or if a director is making a point, but there… Read more »