Bouler added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

I'll try again but I thought my URL was OK. But, as to your
writing it vs. reading it, let me respectfully refer you to your
exact words, in English, of course, right under your [snip] -
"here you can read what I WROTE". Did I misunderstand/misconstrue
your intent here?

My mistake, I must have had a black out and thought wrote was the
past tense of read (sorry sir;-)

I had similar problems when trying to learn written French in
college. In English, the past-tense of "read" (reed) is also "read"
but is pronounced "redd".

Yes I know, but sometimes I'm only human and make mistakesgrin

Ain't that the truth! Hope you didn't feel insulted or ****ed off at me.

[big snip]
Without going off in the tall weeds on lots of techie stuff,
mathematicians and statisticians describe it two ways that may be
useful in understanding where the rivet failure theory fits into
the entire Titanic investigation. First is the principle that some
types of data or testing are termed NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT,
meaning it may be necessary to test for failed rivets to explain
the Titanic sinking but it is not sufficient on its own and one
must look further for a complete and proveable explanation.

Second is the principle of determining "root cause". ALL problems,
failures, anything that goes bad may have one or more causes,
perhaps dozens, or even thousands of causes, but there is only ONE
so-called root cause. Some equate this with "most important cause"
but that is inaccurate. Perhaps the best example I can cite is the
1985 space shuttle disaster where it blew up 85 seconds into
launch. Some hundreds of causes were found and resulting in nearly
1,000 engineering changes to the shuttle and its booster rockets.
But, the ROOT CAUSE turned out to be O-rings on the fuel tanks that
failed and allowed leakage during a cold-weather launch. This is
the first launch of a space vehicle in below-freezing weather at
Cape Kennedy in Florida. Continuing just a bit, the cold weather
itself was also a cause of the disaster, of course, yet it couldn't
have caused it solely but ONLY because the O- rings failed. In the
theory of statistics, specific failure mode analysis (sorry for the
jargon but it is necessary to be precise and accurate here, please
just accept it, OK?) one strives to identify ALL the modes of
failure then use deductinve reasoning based on the facts found and
inductive reasoning based on facts NOT found to arrive at a
conclusion as to the most likely root causes in descending order of
importants and probability of likelihood. Then, using the
probability and statistics methods of positive, negative, and null
hypothesis testing, one attempt to isolate the ONE cause which MUST
be fixed in order to prevent a future failure.

I completely understood the above and rememberd he horrible view of
that disaster on TV.

At last, I'm on the right track with stories of enough technical detail
that my international friends can also more easily comprehend. Thanks for
the feedback, Bouler, I'll try even harder the next time some technical
subject comes up.

Als I see you're very accurate and logic in explaining the problem.
I think its the same accuracy you use in engineering cars.
Ik don't have that background with cars nor with ships so I'm not an
expert on nautical things, I just love ships..

Bouler, don't EVER sell yourself short, my good friend! We ALL have
gifts, we ALL have strenghts, and we ALL have weaknesses. Friends don't
dwell on shortcomings but they do try to accentuate the positive, that's
what it is all about, I think.

Engineering of most anything from software to cars to airplanes to ships
to houses to bridges and tunnels - EVERYTHING is a pretty exact science.
Trouble is, engineering is also the art of compromise as it is NEVER
possible to forsee all failure modes much less test for them and design
around them. Financial considerations often preclude such things as
planning for 100 year rains or flood even though when one occurs it is a
tragedy. That's what laws and regulations are for, the provide some cost-
benefit guidance even though no value can ever be placed on the loss of
even a single human life.

That said, what IS both SAD and TRAGIC is when a company building
anything CAN recognize risks and test for them and CAN design for them
but doesn't because the bean counters, i.e., the financial crowd, claim
it is too expensive. So, all too many people lost their lives on the
Titanic because there weren't enough life boats, no matter what the hell
did or didn't cause the actual sinking.

Please remember also, Bouler, that one doesn't need a PhD in engineering
to love ships or cars or buildings, and it is a damn good thing as I
could never have cut even a master's program much less a doctorate.
People who are passionate about their hobbies and love for fine pieces of
design and engineering excellence can often accumulate more information
than the so-called experts basically because of the can't-see-the-forest-
for-the-trees syndrome, meaning experts are often too mired down in
minutia to see the beauty of their work as passionate buyers or hobbyists
do.

I get used to your technical jargon (Learning fast because I want to
kwow what you're writing)
My dictionnary was my friend the last days;-)
Important is I need not to know all the words to undrstand you.
Combining and a little logic helps a lot.

I've come to know you are a very intelligent person, Bouler, and one with
even more tenacity than I have, which is also considerable. Use your
dictionary, Wikopedia (or, however it is spelled), Google, whatever you
like - OR - ask me to clarify my thoughts and define my jargon, whichever
works for you. And, as I discussed I think last night, if I am more than
a bit verbose, it is for a reason. Besides liking to write, I prefer to
offer more info than less because you then have the option of ignoring
some and concentrating on what you really want to know. If I practice a
laconic style of writing, which means brevity/briefness to the max, if
what you're looking for gets left out, well, it's left out forever.

Have a great day and we can cover anything left over via E-mail if you
like.

Specific to my mistake on this one, though, my intentions were MOST
honorable because my intent was to HONOR you for what I perceived
as an important contribution to the collective pool of knowledge
about the Titanic sinking. Sorry that I already knew about the
rivet theory but I was about to flood you with complements for
superior knowledge of the sinking based on careful research that
enabled the ABA to quote you directly. So, again, please accept my
apologies for both misunderstanding you and for snowing you under
in what must've looked to you like I was trying to refute your
expert testimony. You are far more the nautical expert then me, I
just have a few - very few! - tricks up my old-time engineer's
sleeve when it comes to understanding the science behind the
sinking's many theories. But, you can trust and I thank you for the
fact that I now have a Favorite in IE6 pointing to the ABA article.

I'm glad to stand on my feeth again, when you were talking that I
wrote that article I was sitting on a cloud for a while but fell off
and that hurts grin

Good one, my fault really.

In my case, my mother was Polish written and spoken bi-lingual and
I picked up a few words here and there because we went to
Massachusetts every year when my father was laid off at the
Plymouth Plant and heard lots of Polish spoken at family
gatherings. And, in my stay in West Germany in the Army circa 1971,
I picked up enough to order a good meal anywhere - "eine wiener
schnizel mit pomme frits und salade, und eine bier, bitte, snell!".
grin

Feeding yourself is very important so I can imagine this sentece was
a lifesavergrin

Yep, besides which they taste good. I also used to like a wurst, either
pork or beef but it's a little messy to eat the German way, with the
sausage in one hand and the bread in the other taking alternating bites
rather than making a sandwhich kind of meal. Also, I found that unless
you're fluent enough in German, in the smaller town gasthauses (guest
houses, combination bed & breakfast hotel and restaurant) you are going
to get a standard vinegar and oil salad dressing and horseradish mustared
on the wurst whether you want it or not, so I learned to like it.

These are exactly what I was referring to that I believe are still
in use in cars today. We call these "pop rivets", perhaps the
English translation of "popnagels", I don't know that.

nagel=nail in English so it's understandeble.

Suspected that even though I can't translate.

Bouler, I am neither a car mechanic nor a car designer, I had a
relatively minor role early in my career in the development of
front and rear car SEATS. But, through my long career as I changed
from pure engineering into a variety of jobs related to computers
and CAD, I began to get to know more and more people from
technicians and mechanics to designers and draftsmen, engineers,
supervisors, managers, chief engineers, all the way up the vice
presidents within Engineering and Manufacturing. That's not
bragging, it was just necessary for me to know these people in
order to do MY job of supporting their job by providing CAD
training and support and OA (Office Automation) support to their
people. Naturally, the more I could glean about the product
development process, the better I was able to do this.

Ok, but you spend energy to learn stuff t make yourself and other
people working as a team, I respect that very much.
Is CAD Computer aided design or has it something to do with the
computerprogram autocad?

It does indeed mean Computer Aided Design and CAE means Computer Aided
Engineering, most often used for structural analysis studies, aerodynamic
studies, and the like. Sorry I didn't define these but I thought most
people knew those. Autocad is just a very popular computer tool for a PC
of workstation. In its case, in the beginning CAD meant "Computer Aided
Drafting" as early versions of Autocad were 2-D drafting apps only, but
are now full 3-D. At Chrysler, we had not one, but two in-house CAD
systems but beginning in 1990, we began a very expensive and very painful
change over to Dassault Systemes CATIA. CATIA is an acronym for their
CAD/CAE program that means Computer Aided Three-D Interactive
Application. Dassault Systemes was spun off as an independed company to
sell CATIA commercially when it was found to be a potential money maker
beyond the Dassault aircraft design that originally drove its
development.

General Motors and Ford also developed in-house CAD systems but in the
late 1980s/early 1990s they, too, began a quest to buy rather than build
for primarily two reasons: we are car companies, not software development
firms and this costs both money and people, and it was VERY desirable for
our suppliers to buy a commercial CAD/CAE system so we could transfer our
design and engineering data to them in native format without the really
nasty problems associcated with the neutral format known as IGES (Initial
Graphics Exchange Specification). The operative word is "initial" and it
literally throws away much of the useful data and leaves just the so-
called "wire-frame" stuff. I believe it has now progressed to being a
full-featured 3-D transfer spec including mathematical "surfaces" and
what are known as "solid models" along with all text specifications,
dimensions, tolerances, etc. - a lot like a vastly bigger EXIF for a JPEG
picture file.

I bet I've gone off in the tall weeds again on you by blowing too many
words and still too much jargon, so I'll quit while I'm behind before I
get behinder. grin Seriously, if you want to know more of any of this,
please ask questions here or move to E-mail, I'll be glad to help you.
I've continued the discussion here primarily for the benefit of all the
lurkers who might be tangentially interested.


That said, the car biz is VERY complex, and my knowledge is much
more complete - such that it is at all - on the sheet metal body,
soft and hard trim, and other aspects of the body of the car than
it is for the electrical systems, and my knowledges drops off very
fast for engine and transmission design, and for suspensions and
brakes.

Well that makes you standing on your feeth again IMO, I thought you
did know everything of cars.
I worked a lot on all the secondhand cars I bought, I came very far
with the mecanical stuff, but todays cars you cannot do anything as
an amateur. Far to much electronic in cars and thats not my
specialty.

I think you're saying my limitations and modesty make me more of a real
human than some lofty pie-in-the-sky guru or expert, so I will take your
very kind words as a complement. Now, I HAVE done my share of auto repair
when I wore the clothes of a young man who also had very little money to
spare during High School and college and when I was first married and
trying to pay for a new house. That was invaluable experience and my
father was my teacher. There wasn't anything that one does with their
hands that he couldn't do. Carpentry, plumbing, electrician work, car
bodies, engines, transmissions, assembly work of all kinds in car plants,
he could run any machine in a machine or tool shop and could do tool and
die design but never was able to earn a journeyman's card which would
have made him what our unions call a "skilled tradesman" because these
programs required a long apprenticeship and he couldn't afford the cut in
wages.

What is much more common today are structural adhesives which allow
very fast assembly with no fasteners at all but with all of the
strength of a traditional fastener such as a screw or pop rivet.
Another fastener in common use today is the so-called single use
plastic push fastener. One type of these are called "Christmas tree
fasteners" because the little pieces of plastic has small ribs that
make them look like a Xmas tree. They are inserted from the back
side of a trim panel of some sort and pushed into a pre-stamped
hole in the inside sheet metal. They only go in once and are
destroyed by the removal process if a repair is need, so new
fasteners must be used.

I know them.

Thought you would if I could describe them in words but I have no
pictures.

The American use of visible chrome-plated sheet metal screws with a
Phillips head went on for decades until the Japanes automakers such
as Honda and Toyota taught us quite painfully in the 1980s that
interior and exterior trim could be attached more firmly yet with a
much better look, fit, and finish with NO visible fasenters, hence
the rapid rise of adhesives and the one-time fasteners. Today, a
visible screw or rivet is almost impossible to find and
manufacturers pride themselves oon the good looks of even things
like the engine compartment where everything is hidden vs. the
olden days where there were tubes, pipes, hoses, clamps, wiring
harnesses, all sorts of ugly stuff snaking it's way around to
support the powertrain.

Right and working on a car need special tools so fixing a car by
myself is almost over and out.

After about the mid-1990s when electronic controls first came into
widespread use, yes, special tools are required as are very expensive
computer diagnostic tools and very expensive computer chip update tools,
plus one must pay to subscribe to quarterly updates of what used to be
called "service manuals". Even if one could diagnose their newer car's
problems, they couldn't possibly afford the wide spectrum of tools and
parts, so most people need to take their car to some shop these day. And,
if a major computer in your newer cars falls over, e.g., the engine or
transmission controller or the theft protection encryption module, there
is no longer a "limp home" mode. The car is just dead, dead, DEAD and you
have to call a tow truck.

You mean "hypothetical" here, I assume? Yes, it is possible, but
one would have to get the water to flow over the rudder in a
different way than is traditional for a rudder steering system. One
way might be the growing use of water jets in patrol boats,
pleasure craft, even larger warships that squirt a high-pressure
high volume stream of water out to both propel and steer the craft.
Obviously here, the force of the water squirting to starboard would
move the stern to port and the bow to starboard.

Yes I mean hypotatical and dont know if its used in ships.

Can't really say. One of my favorite movies is "The Hunt For Red
October" because I love the acting, but it is an example of a fictious
silent drive system using water jets which were in actual use as early as
the Viet Nam war PBR (Patrol Boat River) boats for the Mekong Delta
rivers. In the movie they called it a "caterpiller drive" which was
claimed to be something called hydromagneto propulsion. So, I am certain
that system far in advance of simple rudder and prop are in wide-spread
use in everything from small pleasure boats to very large warships, super
tankers, and cargo ships.

Now, if you really mean that a rudder or water jet
steering/propulsion system can actually move physically to
starboard and the BOW moves to port, please describe it to me, as
I'm not familiar with that I don't think. Your analogy of a
reversible drill motor is a good one and it's application to a boat
or ship is that which one major theory of the Titanic sinking is
based on. Namely, that it MIGHT have been more effective in
preventing a collision with the iceberg of minimizing the damage if
it did hit, if the office on the bridge hadn't ordered full astern
AND a hard a port turn but instructing the helmsman to spin the
wheel counter clockwise to move the rudder to port which was
intended under British convention to mean move the stern to
starboard. The reason this theory may have minimized the damage and
possibly prevented or delayed the sinking time is that the headlong
dash due to inertia of a huge ship traveling at over 20 knots might
well have struck only a glancing blow if the bow had turned INTO it
rather than trying desperately to turn away from it by both moving
the rudder and reversing propulsion.

You're examening the consequences, I like that.

To the extent that I can. I quickly run up against my limits of nautical
knowledge and my relatively meager knowledge of the entire Titanic thing.

Again, I must bow to you and others here who have superior
knowledge of the sea and nautical design by far than me. I am
speaking ONLY of my body of anecdotal, i.e., practical and
observable, evidence and some engineering knowledge. Please
elaborate and/or correct anything I have said that you believe to
be both right and wrong.

My knowledge of ships is not much more than yours, I mostly dont go
into technicak stuff, I like to see a nice ship and can enjoy it.

I still have this strong suspicion that you know a lot more than you let
on, your long personal experience and very high interest are quite
conducive to learning, whether it is at the technical level or simply the
empirical or practical level. I will readily admit that I simply am NOT
anything of a nautical expert. Not power or sail pleasure craft, not
commercial power or sailing vessels, and certainly not military ships,
although I do know a little about each and I have toured as many
destroyers, battleships, submarines, and aircraft carriers as I possibly
could when my family and I took vacations where they have floating
museums. If this interests you, I can talk about it in a new thread or
via E-mail. Let me know, we BOTH may learn a few new tricks!

I appreciate that I didn't insult you directly as I feared but I
feel I AM guilty of "insulting" you by acting in what appeared to
be a superior manner in attempting to put too much science and math
out too fast. My apologies for THAT, Bouler.

I'm learning fast Jerry.

You are a very quick learner, Bouler. I don't know you well enough to
understand how you do it, but your thirst for knowledge that drives your
tenacity is likely the "culprit" because you're not at all afraid to use
Wikopedia, Google, or printed reference materials. You'd probably believe
that I have a couple dozen car picture books and maybe a dozen moderately
expensive car reference books to fill in the many holes in my knowledge
when I need to, and within your budget, I'd think you own some boat and
ship books.

Of course, if I am still unclear but you are still interested in
what I may be able to teach you, please help ME by asking for
clarification where needed. And, to help me avoid another of my own
nautical "disasters", please guide me when you can as to what you
already know and where your strengths and weaknesses may be on the
more technical subjects.

I hope we call ALL agree on a couple of things he one is that
nobody knows the complete story of the Titanic sinking and the
other is that nobody knows it all when it comes to ship and boat
design or seamanship. Thank you for a most stimulating discussion.

You're a very clever man, you're apoligizing before I can even say
somethinggrin

It's not that I'm being clever or trying to anticipate you, I'm trying to
answer a concern you had that I was blowing too much smoke and techical
jargon and usage at you, so I made a conscious effort today to tone that
down and expand on things you were commenting on.

But you have nothing to apologize for Jerry you're smart enough to
build in a lot of caution.
If we are goïng on this way we're writing a book together;-)

Thank you, Bouler, I appreciate that a lot. Hey, you may have a damn good
idea - collaborating on a research book about something!

--
HP, aka Jerry

"If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck"