Author Archive
Douglas Corrigan
Early life
The son of a construction engineer and a teacher, he was named Clyde Groce Corrigan after his father, but legally adopted the name Douglas as an adult. The family moved often, until his parents finally divorced and shared custody of their children. Corrigan finally settled with his mother, brother Harry, and sister Evelyn in Los Angeles. Quitting high school, he went to work in construction.
In October 1925, Corrigan saw people paying to be taken for short rides in a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane near his home. He paid the .50 for his own ride. A week later, he began flying lessons, spending non-flying time watching and learning from local aircraft mechanics. After twenty lessons, he made his first solo flight on March 25, 1926.
Software Engineer Jobs ? Skills in Demand
Individuals who are looking to start careers in software engineering will find that this field holds a wide array of opportunities and prospects for all qualified candidates. There is evidence that in the next few years, software engineering will become the fastest growing profession in many developed economies. This is good news for the software engineering job market because both employers and job applicants alike will find it easier to meet their respective recruitment needs. However, as more individuals choose careers in software engineering, the job market will become increasingly competitive. On the other hand, if more people choose careers in software engineering, it will be less likely that there will be occurrences of skills shortages within this engineering field. Project managers, information systems managers, programmers and systems designers are examples of some of the most lucrative software engineering roles. There are also certain key skills and attributes which are always in high demand in the software engineering industry. These include analytical, communication and problem-solving skills.
Ecowriting: Advice to ESL on Effective Scientific Writing in Environmental Science and Engineering (Languages and Linguistics)
A critical aspect of the scientific process is the ability to communicate ideas and research results effectively to a large community of scientists. Thus, effective writing skills are essential to successful scientific careers because achievements are demonstrated through the number of scientific publications a scientist or an institution has. For most non-native English speaking contributors however, English is a real barrier to publishing their research work because their contributions are frequently rejected due to merely English language quality and not scientific content. Mostly affected are novices scientists and graduate students. As much as most of them strive to learn English, concurrent learning of regular and technical or scientific English hampers effective scientific writing skills. This book is needed to help those with limited English skills stand up to the challenge. Read the rest of this entry »
Did You Know That Porsche Once Built Airplanes And Tanks?
Okay, not really but the founder of Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche, was an important developer in the engineering of airplanes and race cars plus in tank building for the Wehrmacht.
Many people do not realize what a prolific inventor this man was, he had over one thousand patents issued! Early in his automotive engineering career Ferdinand was chief engineer for none other than Mercedes Benz, after being dismissed for disagreeing with their engineering methods he started his own engineering firm in Stuttgart where he was responsible for the design of the Volkswagen Beetle that be came so popular.
A Brief History of Ovation Acoustic Guitars
The history of Ovation Guitars is unique because its founder, Charles Kaman, was actually an aeronautical engineer designing rotor blades for helicopters. It was this experience that caused him to contemplate standard guitar structure and eventually lead to the development of the round-backed composite body. Traditional guitars have wooden backs and sides, so this feature differentiates Ovation Guitars from the competition. This revolutionary move came about in the 1960s.
Kaman was unique because he was both an engineer and a guitar player. He not only understand the instrument from the perspective of a player, but also his observations related to helicopter blades and materials and how they related to the guitar caused these innovations. So, he approached what he perceived as standard guitar design problems from an engineers perspective- to define the problem and find solutions. To him, guitars and helicopters were related because in helicopters, you want to remove vibrations but with guitars, you want to keep the vibrations in to generate the sound.