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Engines for:
Engines of Our Ingenuity
A Proposal to Compaq Computer Corporation

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Professor Lienhard highlights the discovery of the famous and the infamous:

1. inventions (from fire to Post-it notes);
2. inventors (from Abelard to Zosimos);
3. ideas (from pure mathematics to serendipity);
4. laws of nature (from the big bang to Darwin).

Professor Lienhard's presentations center on the creativity and inspirations of the individuals who have created the machines that shape our world today. Each episode is crafted with rich technical explanation of both complex and simple technologies. The more subtle contribution of each piece are the inspirations a listener can savor -- the joy of ideas and their importance to our common understanding.

Engines of Our Ingenuity TODAY

• live National Public Radio (NPR) broadcasts on 30 stations worldwide
• a gopher site for the text versions of the episodes located on the University of Houston server
• audio cassette tapes (available from Gulf Publishing)

The current scenario for the development of an episode of Engines is:

1. John has an idea (this seeems to be the most difficult step)
2. John scurries about the UH Library to find the appropriate material
3. John reads.
4. John reads some more.
5. John then thinks a while and walks back to his office.
6. John composes the episode at his desk.
7. John then rushes over to KUHF Radio and performs the episode at the station.
   (KUHF Radio records the masters on digital audio tape)
8. John then transports one diskette copy of the episodes to the UH Library for addition to the search mechanisms.
9. John then transports one diskette copy of the episodes to the UH gopher site.

One may note the reliance on "sneaker-net" to complete a single episode. This proposal examines the requirements for enhancing both the acquisition and distribution of John's Engines. Though Professor Lienhard is an ardent musty book lover, this proposal suggests ways that Compaq Computer Corporation might assist in digitally enhancing John's productivity and at the same time perhaps save his soles.

Engines of Our Ingenuity TOMORROW

Changes in the technologies of the Internet provide several new opportunities to enhance Engines. First, the graphical capability of the current World-Wide-Web provides the possibility to visually support the technical material in the Engines episodes. Photographs of people and technologies could help to illustrate the text pages. Diagrams and animations not normally part of text applications are possible with the graphics capability of the Web. Both images and animations could be used in virtually every episode (see for example episode 754: If harmony / is what / you crave / then get / a tuba / Burma Shave).

Engines pages can provide many educational benefits:

• Links from the episodes can be made to other related Internet resources
  (e.g., links to NASA, museum, professional societies, etc.)
• Users can link Engines episodes to construct thematic groupings
  (e.g., an engineering class might be interested in all eleven (11) episodes relating to thermodynamics)
• Full text search for student research (see Architext's search engine)
• Students can experience the richness of Engines as text, sound and images
• Engines will become the exemplar for educational content on Internet
  (i.e., stylish, easy to navigate and chock full of REAL content)

Secondly, improvements in audio on the Internet make it possible to HEAR audio in a real-time fashion. RealAudio, Inc. has made available a audio-compression/helper-application which allows a Web server to send a compressed audio file to a user which semi-faithfully reproduces sounds on real-time transmission basis (i.e., the compressed audio file is transmitted across the Internet and immediately begins playing as soon as the user receives the first audio byte). This RealAudio, Inc. technology is currently being used by ABC News, NPR, and a host of music, nostalgia, and news outlets. Engines of Our Ingenuity is a perfect candidate for this new audio addition to the Internet.

HARDWARE for ENGINES

• a WEB server able to support both audio and image versions of the 1000-plus episodes to large volume of Internet users

• an image acquisition workstation (a PC and high quality color scanner) for the UH Library.

  This station would be used to add photographic images and graphics to the WEB episodes. This effort will require not only digitizing the images, but also securing copyright releases. Additionally, all WEB page management can be performed at this workstation by the UH library staff. The current html versions of Engines consumes only about 11 megabytes of disk storage (in 3,500 files).

• an audio acquisition workstation (a PC with audio capture) for KUHF Radio

  In order to provide Internet audio for Engines, the 1000+plus episodes must be converted from audio tape to a digital audio format. The conversion of the current episodes (60 hours of audio!) of will require about 485 hours of conversion time ( = 1040 episodes x 3.5 minutes each x 8 minutes conversion time per minute of audio / 60 minutes per hour). The resulting digital audio masters will consume about 19.2 gigabytes of disk storage (1040 episodes x 3.5 minutes x 60 minutes per second x 88,000 bytes per second). From these digital masters, the compressed Internet audio will consume only about 2 gigabytes (currently RealAudio compression is about 10-to-1)

• a mobile idea acquisition station (a portable PC)

  In order to rid John Lienhard of the mass of yellow-sticky notes and sundry scrapes of paper, a mobile digital information storage machine is necessary (though many think these accoutrements are part of his charm). With John's many visitations and speech making, such a device perhaps could save an idea from being lost.

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  SOFTWARE for ENGINES

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  To support the Engines WEB site, three pieces of software will be required:
  1. RealAudio WEB Server Software

     For digital transmission of the audio portion of the episodes

  2. Photoshop

     For the UH Library image workstation to enhance, resize, and recolor images

  3. 3D-Studio

     A 3D animation program for John to create visual demonstrations of the concepts of the Engines episodes.

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  PEOPLE for ENGINES

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  To assist John Lienhard in the visual development of the WEB pages, this proposal is seeking support for a half time resource for the UH Library. The task of this research specialist is to:
  1. maintain the text and html versions of the episodes
  2. enhance episodes with graphics and photographs
  3. secure copyright releases for the images
  4. extend the bibliographic references in each episode

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  THE WORKING PROTOTYPE
  Engines of Our Ingenuity

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  A new Engines of Our Ingenuity homepage is shown below. Web pages have been created for the first 1040 episodes. All of the buttons on the navigation panel are operational with the exception of:
  • the audio versions
    (only the single episode shown is operational)

  • and the "Ingenious Search Engine"

    (This component is under developed and should provide full keyword and concept searches).

  Check out any episodes by using the two indices:

  • episodes number (caution: the episode list alone is 96 kilobytes!)

  • keyword (over 6,000 keywords!)

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  SUPPORTING ENGINES
  Benefits and Costs

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  The Web homepage shown above provides a demonstration of what Engines of Our Ingenuity can become. Its current popularity is world-wide and can perhaps draw an even larger Internet audience. Links to and from Compaq Computer Corporation are provided in return for the continuing support of the WEB site. Such linkages can provide Compaq with:
  • an educational component for Compaq's WEB presence
  • a reason for users of the Compaq's homepage to return daily for

    a dose of ingenuity

  • increased visibility for both Compaq and Engines WEB sites
  • a underwriting relationship with what may become one of the most classy WEB sites around
  • the opportunity for Compaq to be associated with an inspirational (as well as education) project which complements Compaq's corporate image
  • the opportunity to hang with John Lienhard (together or separately)
  To realize the full potential of the Engines website, the following support is sought:
  • One-time Hardware Requirements:
    • Compaq ProLiant 2000 Server (with model 5/100 upgrade)
    • Two (2) Compaq Deskpro 5120 workstations (UH Library and KUHF)
    • One (1) Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CXL model 810 for John Lienhard
    • Options:
      • Three (3) 2/8 GB DAT drives for backup on the server and two workstations
      • Three (3) 4.3 GB SCSI-2 drives for the workstations and server
      • Server memory upgrade to 256mgb
    • flatbed color scanner $900
  • One-time Software Requirements:
    • Adobe Photoshop image software (2 copies) $900
    • Autodesk's 3D-Studio (1 copy) $1,500
    • RealAudio Server License for 100 concurrent audio streams $7,500
      (See RealAudio server pricing less 25% educational discount)
  • Annual Costs:
    • one-half time U of H Research Librarian
      • (a) Direct Labor [one-half FTE] $13,000
      • (b) Fringe Benefits [25.1% of (a)] $3,263
      • (c) Indirect Overhead [48.5% of (a)+(b)] $7,887
    • RealAudio Server Support $2,620/yr
      (See RealAudio server pricing less 25% educational discount)

FUTURE ENGINES FUN

• Animations

  This example of a steam engine could be used to demonstrate concepts inside the Engines pages. The first frame is shown below:

  

  CLICK HERE to transmit the animation file. The animation was created with Autodesk's 3D-Studio and then converted to Windows *.avi format. It is 2.7 megabytes -- but worth the trip! Because it is *.avi, it is choppy (skips frames -- created at 30 frames/sec, played back at 15 frames/sec). You can stretch the window after you get it and make it as big as you want! Save it one your machine afterwords so you don't have to transfer it again.

• Server-push animation

  

  The server-push animation at the top of this proposal page is an example of our current ability to transmit frame animations (go to the top of this page, click "RELOAD" and watch the four rotations). Future Engines versions can employ many such visual enhancements to both navigation and page content.