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Author Archives: David
Impossibility engineering – decision-making as a discipline?
Is decision making a process or a result? Individual or collective? How do we make decisions effectively in a chaotic world of macro-phenomena and unpredictability? Art, science or learned skill? “Decision making” – a seemingly innocuous moniker that spans a plethora of evils and paths to salvation or disaster, whether national or organisational. It goes on all the time, everywhere, at every level of...
Read morePlastic – acceptable via understanding, art or toxic capture?
Plastic has rapidly become the elephant in the responsibility room. How can we “relate” to this omnipresent material? Unfamiliarity breeds ignorance Plastic has become an omnipresent, integral part of just about every function, item and service in our society. But it’s also a manky material about which most of us know surprisingly little. I’d challenge most ordinary mortals to explain how plastic is made or...
Read moreCondition-responsive textiles – clothing gets configurable
Threads and fibres no longer have to be static – they can be made to change technical capabilities All over the world, thread, yarns and fibres of countless kinds and with myriads of different specs get woven into garments and textiles. These, in turn, are the basis for huge industrial manufacturing and logistics operations, spewing out more-or-less planet-destructive products in a cycle of...
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