Editorial
February 1, 2002
It will be difficult for us to accept awards that require us to sponsor third parties web
addresses. Recently I found out that one of these links (awarded for “Internet’s
leading web-portal for educational/scholarly resources”) pointed to a porno
site. It is hard to believe that American Universities allow their names to be used
for such purposes. It’s a shame.
Lots of inquiries concerning a book version of the web site and the CD-ROM version
with the aerospace database. I do not have time to write a book (possibly in the
future). A CD-ROM version is charged 25 British pounds (or equivalent in Euro), to
cover our costs of recording, shipping and handling.
I have received some inquiries, apparently suggested by my short notes on
the history of aeronautics. Like many other fields of human endeavour, credits
are not always clear. Here are a few questions : Who is the inventor of the
airplane ? – Who is the inventor of the helicopter ? – Who is the inventor
of this and that ? — Well, the answer is not always clear. This web site is
not a forum of historical credits, but I would like to invite readers who have
truths to tell to do so with the help of documents.
I was asked why I do not charge users to use this web site. The first answer is that
on the internet people expect information to be free. No students or
professionals would be paying a cent unless they are locked in. Second, by
keeping the access free, I got the traffic to increase to over 1,700 users (unique IP
numbers) every week (about 6,000 users/month). Third, I try to make business by
providing consulting and engineering services in all the technical fields related to
this web site, with the laboratory support of my institution, if needed. From a
research point of view, the questions I receive are incredibly creative.
I received a number of emails with questions concerning Bernoulli’s equation, pipe
flows, airfoils and other basic fluid dynamic problems. These items are not found in
this web site, because I focused on advanced topics. If there is something
basic you need, please check one of the general books reported in the Reference Desk.
Many search engines have indexed single pages. Readers retrieving each of those pages
could not navigate the site. I have re-designed the pages so as to have a pointer
to the home page, while maintaining the frames versions. Frames or no-frames remains
an issue. There are still problems when moving Forward with the browser.
A number of technical books on subjects covered on this web site is now available
from the author to educational institutions. These books are free and will be shipped
at the author’s expense to foster technical education in developing countries. The
books can be shipped in batches of four to five, to Countries outside Europe, North
America, Japan and Australia.
Please write to the author, with full name and address, expressing your particular
needs. Institutions only. No private individuals, please.
This editorial partially overrides editorial of December 1, 1999
The site has taken off. I found it amusing to see which search terms are used. Here is
a partial list extracted from the log files relative to the last two months (the analysis
program was analog4.0).
It is difficult to keep a keyword index of over 500 terms. However, the search engine
and robots traffic (on average 15 spiders/week) indicate that searching through keywords
is the main form of retrieving information.
I have received emails from people asking to ship them books (to Egypt), papers (to Cuba),
computer programs (many places). I have made it clear that this is not possible without
incurring in a copyright infringment. I do understand that for some people and in certain
parts of the world it is difficult to have access to hard copies of important publications,
but I can do no more.
Other people skillfully avoid identifying themselves, so there is no way for me to
find out whether a certain student at the University of California (which campus ?)
really has to write a science project on aerodynamics. What bothers me most is that
their email address is [email protected] or [email protected].
December 1, 2001
April 27, 2001
December 10, 2000
August 10, 2000
May 28, 2000
I thank Claire Dormann at the Center for Tele Information at DTU for her technical advise.
March 5, 2000
February 15, 2000
reqs: search term
----: -----------
219: aerodynamics
87: drag
85: wing
57: car
53: ground
40: and
39: aerodynamic
35: in
34: coefficient
30: effect
29: metasearch
27: lift
26: airfoil
25: wings
25: high
24: effects
24: speed
24: flow
24: of
24: vortex
23: fluid
22: racing
22: grumman
21: aviation
21: airfoils
1295: [not listed: 511 search terms]
December 1, 1999
|
Antonio Filippone UMIST Dept. Mechanical Engineering Thermo and Fluids Division P.O. Box 88 Manchester M60 1QD United Kingdom
Phone (+44) 161- 200 3702 (direct) |
