Common Questions for Industrial Furniture

1. Why is mechanical engineering preferred to aerospace if the course load is 95% the same?

As numerous others have stated, 95% similarity is quite extreme.

By the end of sophomore year, the ME majors and AE majors in my department begin to take completely different coursework. The MEu2019s had the liberty of choosing courses that fit their technical interests and professional goals, whereas the AEu2019s all followed a layed-out map of courses to take. In my department, ME undergrads will never touch topics such as flight dynamics, aerodynamics, spacecraft dynamics, and propulsion - that is, unless they take these as electives.

Even if they chose only the Aero-related courses to take as electives, they still do not see all that the AEu2019s do in their cirriculum.But to give a shot at your question, ME is a far more flexible degree than AE. There is no doubt about that.

Job availability is in the favor of a person with a BSME over one with a BSAE, almost always. Additionally, as stated, MEu2019s can choose courses and focus on a particular area. Areas include, but are not limited to, dynamics and controls, structures, biomedical, manufacturing, fluid dynamics, or thermodynamics.

Ultimately, if a person is passionate about aeronautics and dreams of making a long-lived contribution to the field, they will not go wrong either way. I think the quickest way of determining if ME or AE is right for a prospective undergrad is for them to ask if they can see themselves working somewhere that does not involve aircraft or spacecraft.Besides, thereu2019s always graduate school for those that may lean towards one way or another as they progress in undergraduate studies.

Interestingly, if an ME undergraduate decided they wanted to, for example, dive into Civil Engineering and study bridges after taking a junior level structures or advanced solid mechanics course, they can actually go on to graduate school to do just that

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2. How can machine learning revolutionize the furniture industry?

Frankly in the current condition of the industry, I donu2019t see much use for it in production applications.

Thatu2019s because materials testing has become a thing of the past, so you donu2019t 100% know what the raw materials youu2019re using have in the way of properties. Thatu2019s because youu2019re relying on salespeople who tend to u201cfluffu201d the qualities of the products theyu2019re selling you and thatu2019s what leads to failure of finished products made from them. If you took the time to know for sure what you were starting with, you could tell the machine to build a book case that would rate at 250 lbs of holding power and take up a certain amount of space.

The machine wouldnu2019t have to learn anything, though. In that case it would spit out a plain algorithm and a finished design. With the right links, it might even spit out a finished product.

In the sales end, the machines are, well, machines. They donu2019t pick up on customer excitement or micro expressions the way an experienced person will. They canu2019t and they wonu2019t be able to for a long time, if ever.

While theyu2019re still looking to recognize a cat, the salesperson has sold a sofa.As for design, you could tell a machine what people in general find pleasing and let it go to work, but a person would deal with issues faster and better when it did something negative. Machine learning has its place, but that isnu2019t it

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3.

Will China tariffs increase what I pay at Walmart?

Itu2019s hard to tell what impacts tariffs will have (mostly proposed, constantly renegotiated, and often on very basic inputs that are a small portion of a complete productu2019s cost on a retaileru2019s shelves.) Wal-mart has been extremely reliant on Chinese-manufactured goods since the 1990u2019s when Wal-mart Board Member Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill (a big beneficiary of both Arkansas-based Wal-mart and Chinese government campaign support, a Little Rock restauranteur/Chinese intelligence agent went to prison for campaign finance violations in his million plus dollars.

) That favoring Chinese production cost at least 3. 5 million US manufacturing jobs by recent estimates, closed many factories and devastated entire U.S.

industries (furniture mfg., apparel mfg., shoe mfg.

, toys mfg., bicycles mfg., steel, cement, shipbuilding, and major products like IBMu2019s personal computers/now Chinese Lenovo and much of Dell and Appleu2019s production, etc.

) and created a huge trade imbalance thatu2019s funded Chinese growth worldwide. Chinau2019s trade with the US is so one-sided that they really have little opportunity for retaliatory trade barriers (not to mention keep getting caught stealing about $5 billion dollars in US product designs every year with a massive industrial and cyberspying effort.So yes Wal-mart prices on Chinese-sourced goods may go up slightly, which doesnu2019t offset the quite often poor quality that means theyu2019ll wear out or fail much sooner making them a bad bargain/higher cost of ownership/higher opportunity cost than the low prices appear.

Good quality pays, poor quality is very expensive. Charles Fishmanu2019s book u201cThe Wal-mart Effectu201d is a particularly deep and balanced look at the economic impacts of Wal-mart while the book u201cPoorly Made in Chinau201d explains a lot of their systemic quality problems

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4. How would life be different for humans if we all had long non-prehensile tails?

Weu2019d have tailsu2026 it would mean that the evolutionary pressures we were under would have been different. Weu2019d have been on one of the simian tracks that kept their tails u2026 so weu2019d be monkeys. Monkeyu2019s lives are very different from ours.

That is not the question though. The question is asking for speculation that some evolutionary process occurred that ended up with recognizable humans but with tails.Sou2026 tailored pants would have a different challenge.

The rest depends on how similar the evolution was u2026 if it was almost exactly the same then thereu2019d be no difference. Think how different the marsupial wolf was to the placental wolfu2026 that would be the answer to the, similar, u201cHow different would a wolf be if it had a pouch like a kangaroo?u201d Like: not a lotu2026 almost none, apart from being a marsupial.

It is hard to tell, also, because there is not enough detail.Thing is, what sort of tail?Tails can be big or small, bushy, furry, naked, they can be prehensile or decorative, mobile or limp.

So much choice. Even just simian tails vary a lot. There are humans with tails today though u2026 these are small hairless tails, they may even be able to wag them.

Their lives are no different from the people they live around. We-ell, they have this tail to show off u2026 thatu2019s a difference to their sex lives, and how pants fit, how chairs are made. Some will make money as circus side-shows.

Thatu2019s a difference.If we had long tails, then dress fashion would be differentu2026 as lower-body cloths would have to be tailored to accommodate the tail.If prehensile, then weu2019d basically have an extra hand u2026 if it could support our weight then thatu2019s a climbing appendage, and we may still brachiate (swing through trees).

Stairs may be replaced with u201cmonkey-barsu201d, depending on how good we were at it.If I was making one up though, Iu2019d go with a lightly furred long tail used like a catu2019s, for social signalling.Weu2019d talk with our tails like people talk with their hands today.

There would be tail-care products and automatic doors wonu2019t be as quick to close