Prayer works

On Friday, I came to the conclusion that I had dropped an almighty clanger at work. The passive emergency bypass weir that I had designed for the XYZ screen could not possibly work. It would be overflowing all the time, not just in emergencies. What is more, it was impossible to fix the error - it simply can't work. It's the wrong approach to the problem. And I felt that I had gone wrong, negligently, in my calculations.

So my last act on friday was to email the project reviewer - who was working over the weekend - to let him know. (ie we are struggling to meet deadlines which we will be penalised for missing)

I then spent the whole weekend worried and trembling in anticipation of the ... no I can use that word on a Christian blog, lets say 'telling off' that I would get on monday. I asked my woife and kids to pray, which they did.

So, when I arrived, rather than having the usual cup of tea and blog surfing session before starting, I went straight to the reviewer, and found that he wasn't as cross as I expected. For a start, my error was not a negligent one. I had thought I had not completed an iteration or a common sense test, but in fact I had just missed out a required freeboard somewhere else in the calculation - a simple error rather than a really stupid one. And furthermore, I had now discovered a flaw with the type of screen proposed by my mechanical engineering colleagues, and we are now referring the matter to the manufacturer to get it resolved.

Now the cynic will say that all that would still have been the case had we not prayed. But the Bible teaches that our timeless God knows our prayers before we speak them, and I think it says he is already sending the answer.

So I remain convinced - prayer works.

Engineering for sexual health

Listening to “Start the Week” on BBC Radio 4 on the way to work this morning…

The logic starts in Kensington High Street. There used to be pedestrian guard rails along the edge of the pavements (that’s sidewalks to you Americans), but these were removed and there has been a reduction in the number of accidents because drivers are now being more careful, taking more responsibility for themselves. (This is corroborated by articles in New Civil Engineer - the magazine of the Institution of Civil Engineers)

The next step is the increase in smoking among teenagers co-incident with an increase in advertising for nicotine patches as part of ‘no-smoking’ policies – the kids now think that they can give up when they want to.

This leads the discussing on to America. [I’m only reporting what I heard on the radio here] Apparently Oprah Winfrey has been complaining about an increase in oral sex among teenagers. But this has happened in the states which have introduced stricter abortion laws for that age group, with requirements to tell parents etc. So, the kids feel less safe having sex, and go for the intimate ‘kissing’ instead, and this has resulted in a reduction in sexually transmitted diseases.

Clearly, tough love works, whereas excessive protection (guardrails, abortion etc) can be counterproductive.

Faith and the Environment

Hmmm

One of the environmental Professional Institutions of which I am a member is supporting an event promoted by AntiApathy (they're good) in partnership with elements of the sex industry to promote awareness of climate change.

Whilst I welcome every effort to communicate this message to everybody, I wrote to the Institution suggesting that the event would also promote casual attitudes to sex and relationships. I illustrated a domino effect of how this attitude contributes to family breakdown, which has incresased the number of single parent families, which according to the BBC correspondent is a factor in the current housing crisis in this country. This means developers are building more houses, which means more roads, more quarries, more central heating boilers churning out carbon, and of course more climate change. I suggested if the Institution supports the event it is shooting itself in the foot.

They liked my ideas and wrote back asking me to write an article on the contribution of social changes to climate change for the institution's professional magazine.

Help!

It's OK to have a rant in an email, and to tenuously link together loads of effects with little substantiation in that context, but to do so to the standard required for the magazine is a tougher call.

Very scary video

I have been invloved in this type of case before through my job but this is the first time I have seen it on video.

When a water pipe stops for some reason, the momentum of the flow behind tries to keep on coming and sometimes there is only one way for it to go.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5fe_1176635740