Image of Harvey Littleton's glass work: Flickr user vigilant20

Some tricks require dedicated practice, persistence, and flexibility. We practice plenty of tricks at Osborne and we're happy to share them. Practicing flexibility is one of the tricks that helps us develop new electromagnetic products.

Often a design will pass through many iterations in the course of becoming a single physical prototype. And complex circuits may require more than one major revision to the first prototype. Insightful changes save a lot of time and expense in the development cycle. It's essential that these ideas come from all members of the production team, because the sooner the good ideas surface, the faster a team can identify and implement opportunities for innovation, the shorter time frame required to reach a stable release. In this way, flexible teamwork during all stages of early development will get your concept to market faster.

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Image: Flickr user Vintage Roadside

Image: Flickr user LarsenPhotography

Sure it would have been fun if they won.

The Wings have won a number of titles in recent history. They're very good. It's nice when they win and it's not what you'd call a novel experience for the people of Detroit. The Wings win a lot. They won just last year.

Maybe at times it's more important to look at the economic impact that the games have on the city. Much of that benefit is rightfully retained by the Wings organization, the players, and the owners of Joe Louis Arena. Even so, these grand spectator events help bring a lot of money into town, and some of that money supports local businesses. Spectator sports are a major element in Detroit's economic plan. We can assume that the downtown area's investment in sporting pays off best during events like the Stanley Cup playoffs. An extra home show in a championship final is nothing to sniff at.

It's unpopular to suggest, but didn't the Team have good reason to lose the game six? It would have been a perfectly rational economic decision for professionals in their position.

A lot of fans are emotionally attached to the outcome of the final game. Let's keep the event in perspective. Spectator sports are elaborate and expensive theater productions. It's naive to deny the occasional tension between financial interests and the ideal of pure sport. Detroit has plenty of idealism, the Team plays with integrity and their championship victories are exciting! Yet they shouldn't be seen as a win at all costs endeavor. In this sense, perhaps we can view their loss as a testament to the professional maturity of the team.

Image: NPR

Did you catch the recent NPR story about the US electric grid? NPR created some interesting online content to accompany the story - check it out:

NPR's Visualizing the US Grid.

Some details caught my attention:

Less coal. Large sections of the US are powered by less than 30% coal. In other words, many populous and energy hungry states have proven that coal is not as essential for economic growth as coal politics might lead you to think.

Nuclear states. Vermont (71%) and South Carolina (52%) are the only two states with over 50% nuclear.

Gas states. Top 5 Gas states: Alaska (57%), Texas (49%), California (47%), Louisiana (47%), Nevada (47%).

Hydro states. Hydro is dominant in the Pacific Northwest; second only to coal in Montana.

Oil states. 79% of Hawaii's electricity is generated with oil. Florida (17%) and New York (16%) also use oil. Otherwise the national average is 1% or less of each state's grid portfolio.

Solar states. Advances in solar technology are making PV a more viable option across the country, even in states with relatively low average irradiance. Impressive the degree to which high insolation states (Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico) dominate the solar map (compare: 2004 solar radiation map).

Wind technology. Wind speed capacity map suggests that we should look forward to a hugely disruptive design breakthrough in wind generating technology. Perhaps it'll be a variation on the high altitude approach?

Distributed generation. Are the states without any massive scale generation facilities better prepared to transition their grid in the direction of more distributed generation? Do they have a technological advantage in terms of managing a major increase in productive nodes?

Image: Flickr user Graffiti Land

The US EPA http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/wire-cable/wirecable-factsheet.pdf life cycle factsheet for wire and cable outlines the four following stages for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA):

* Raw material extraction or acquisition and material processing;
* Product manufacture;
* Product use/maintenance; and
* End-of-life disposition.

When dealing with transformers and inductors, we find it helpful to call attention to an additional stage:

* Re-manufacturing/downcycling

The re-manufacturing/downcycling stage fits into the chronology after Product use/maintenance and before End-of-life disposition. It's important for designers to be aware of the re-manufacturing/downcycling stage early in the product development process.

Image: Flickr user Athena's Armoury

What factors do engineers consider when they specify aluminum or copper windings?

A high percentage of low voltage transformers rated 15 KVA or larger use aluminum windings. Osborne's utility industry clients report that nearly all new service entrance connections at commercial industrial facilities use aluminum conductors. The technology has become commonplace over the past 30 years. Price is an important factor in the rise in popularity of aluminum.

Aluminum commodity prices have been lower than copper in recent years. The result is that aluminum windings have an economic advantage for many applications.

Engineers should not allow raw material costs to overshadow other important points of comparison such as circuit performance and energy efficiency.

More points to consider:

Characteristic:	Aluminum	Copper
Thermal Conductivity:	0.57 (Cal/s-cm-K)	0.94 (Cal/s-cm-K)
Electrical Resistivity:	2.69 (X 10^8, Ohm-m)	1.673 (X 10^8, Ohm-m)
Coefficient of Expansion:	23.5 (X 10^6, 1/Deg.C)	17.0 (X 10^6, 1/Deg.C)
Tensile Strength	12,000 (lb/in)^2	32,000 (lb/in)^2

Source: "Electronic Engineers Handbook", Donald G. Fink, McGraw-Hill, 1997.

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Van Jones image from Flickr user andrea.kerbuski.

This week the State of Michigan released a 2009 Green Jobs Report.

Click here to download the report (link at bottom).

The report offers a number of recommendations. Please add remote collaboration to the top of that list. Technology transfers, both into and out of the State, will be essential to a vibrant green economy in Michigan.

There are viable and green economic models emerging in all corners of the US. Additionally, some of the most sophisticated sustainable business practices and experimentation are happening outside the US; most notably in the European Union, Japan, and Australia.

Michigan's green economy will grow along with the global green economy. With investment in remote collaboration technologies, Michigan can become a vital source and destination for the best green innovations.

The thrill of rapid acceleration is an experience that gets in your blood; and once it's there, it's tough to shake. I'm talking about a neurological sequence, changes in your biochemical system, changes that trigger an unmatched rush of excitement, adrenaline, joy.

If you have a taste for this particular self-indulgence, this need for speed, then you need to know about Mission Motors:

An electric motor offers something no gasoline engine can match: over 100 ft-lbs of gut-wrenching torque wherever and whenever you want.

Congratulations to Edward and the rest of the team at Mission Motors! Click on the link and check out their awesome new bike.

One of Osborne's areas of research and development in the past few years has been in the use of remote collaboration tools. We work with Socialtext hosted workspaces for internal and external project management. Recently Jeff Osborne gave a brief tour of Osborne's workspaces to Jeff Brainard (then of Socialtext) and Brad Kenney (IndustryWeek). Brad produced two interesting articles on the topic. One article is an overview of performance metrics related to wiki use The next article is a more in depth story about Osborne's history of working with Socialtext. In Brad's words:

"The result has been the gradual creation of a culture of empowerment and accountability, wherein Osborne's workforce adapts this cutting-edge tool to fit needs both old and new."

Thanks Brad!

Have you tried the spec tool yet? It´s pretty fun. Check it out.

Our programmers are calling this the alpha version of the spec tool. We think it´s good enough to share and we know there are some bugs. You´re invited to help direct the process of improving the tool. Please share any fixes or features that you´d like to see. We´ll continue to rely on your opinions to guide future tool upgrades. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.