IEEE Spectrum June, 2008 - 5

forum
Michael Rutberg
IEEE Member
New York City

where hAve All
the eNgiNeers
goNe?

T
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10

All the News
thAt Fits...You

G

reg Linden's article, "People Who
Read This Article Also
Read..." [March] presents
personalized news article
recommendations as the
logical extension of the
book and movie recommendation systems used
by sites like Amazon and
Netflix. News, however,
is more than entertainment-it largely defines
people's perceptions of
the world. News recommendation algorithms
based entirely on user
preferences are therefore
inappropriate. For example, say an algorithm
determines that a user
enjoys articles featuring
mostly positive information about a certain political or religious figure.
Would the algorithm then
avoid showing negative
articles about that figure
to that user?
If a handful of
personalized newsaggregation sites do indeed become the public's
primary portal to information on current events,

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * JuNE 2008

he U.S. culture of
abundance and shortterm thinking is at fault
for the dearth of engineers decried in Robert
W. Lucky's column
["U. S. Engineers and the
Flat Earth," Reflections,
March]. U.S. society
reached a tipping point
about 20 years ago, when
we became so wealthy as
a nation that we stopped
deferring our gratification to a future generation
and began to believe that
we could have it all in our
lifetime. Today we lack
scientists and engineers
who have the persistence to endure the challenges and frustration
of difficult but engaging
work, because the societal goals have changed.
In the 1960s there was
a national purpose-to
respond to Soviet challenges, win the Cold War,
and put a man on the
moon before the end of

the decade. Now we have
no overweening objective
to drive us except "consume mass quantities"
and the ethos of "the one
who dies with the most
toys wins."
We need a new Marshall Plan for education that will inspire our
youth to strive for goals
beyond portable gadgets
and flashy video games.
Technology drives
progress, but technology requires a numerate,
literate populace, and we
are eating our own seed
corn if we do not plant
the love of knowledge
and science early on in
the hearts and minds of
our young people.
Ross Bettinger
IEEE Member
Seattle

FightiNg
obsolesceNce

I

just read "Trapped on
Technology's Trailing
Edge" [April]. Until I
retired, I worked with
military missiles and
space applications. One
of the techniques engineers use to get around
the problem of obsolete
parts is to insist that the
interfaces meet wellestablished standards.
That way, subsystems
can be replaced with
new components without replacing the entire
system-or so the idea

bYe, bYe, Buran

R

eaders of "Copying NASA's
Mistakes," the book review by
James Oberg about the Soviet space
shuttle [March], may be interested in
a sequel. On 11 and 12 April 2008, the
German news was full of reports about
the delivery of a Buran test vehicle to the

goes. Unfortunately, the
standards now seem to
have a lifetime not much
longer than the components'. It is also notable
that the standards often
change solely for competitive reasons, not because
of technical inadequacy.
Norman Worth
IEEE Life Member
Los Alamos, N.M.

losiNg our griP

I

n "Top 10 Tech Cars"
[April], the text concerning the 2009
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
states: "The factory did
confirm that the cornering grip is more than
1 g-enough to make you
feel twice your weight in
a perfectly banked curve."
Not correct. The forces
add vectorially. If the
cornering (centrifugal)
force is 1 g, then you must
add it to the downward
force due to gravity. The
resulting force is 1.41 g,
directed at 45 degrees to
the vertical. This is also
the case if the curve isn't
perfectly banked, but if
it is, the force is vertical
on the rotated car frame,
and any car could probably achieve that. It may,
however, be a noteworthy
achievement to manage
this on a perfectly horizontal (unbanked) curve.
Clive Woods
IEEE Senior Member
Baton Rouge, La.

Technik Museum in Speyer, Germany,
where it will be exhibited-a fate more
fitting than what befell the vehicle
Oberg mentions at the end of his review:
being turned into a restaurant.
Edith Borie
IEEE Member
Karlsruhe, Germany
www.spectrum.ieee.org

illustration: dan page

the risk of bias and censorship-inadvertent
or intentional-will be
tremendous. The role of
a free press sometimes
includes telling people
exactly what they don't
want to hear.
http://www http://spectrum.ieee.org http://www.ieee.org http://www.spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2008
