Engineering News | Terry Mackenzie-Hoy | Electrically Speaking

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Terry Mackenzie-hoy

Mackenzie-Hoy is a consulting acoustics and electrical engineer – machoy@iafrica.com

Mali gold

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 10th February 2017 There has to be somebody out there who watches Gold Rush on TV. A short summary is as follows: three different crews are mining for alluvial gold in Alaska. In the programme, every tenth sentence contains the G word: "Hey, look! It's gold!" and "I'm sure we'll find gold!" You get the idea? Last... →

Our wonderful world

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 3rd February 2017 Wonderful World Civil engineers very often ask me about electrical engineering. However, since civil engineers are pretty good listeners, absorb the following and you will know more about electrical engineering. →

Our brave new world

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 27th January 2017 It is I think the stuff that dreams are made of: a system is invented whereby organisations, governments and individuals can seamlessly communicate with one another without tediously writing and delivering letters and notices. It is with us now: email, SMS, Whatsapp, cellphones. Instant... →

We should spend time with our loved ones

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 20th January 2017 A week ago, my darling, my best friend, was driving back from her mother’s house. She must have felt a slight pain in her chest and so pulled over into the parking area near Kloof Neck, which has a beautiful view of Camps Bay. There she died. When they found her, she had a smile on her face. She... →

Wishing for drug busters of yesteryear

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 16th December 2016 I grew up in the 1970s. The hippy movement started in the late 1960s, so I was well poised to be a hippy. I wasn’t one. The hippy movement was based on “drugs and sex and rock ‘n’ roll”, but most of this passed South Africa by. It was the time of the National Party government. The National Party... →

Shaving the point finer and finer

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 9th December 2016 Cellphone users will have noticed that the interval between when you finish entering the number (oops – I nearly wrote 'dialling the number') and when the other phone rings is getting slightly longer. You enter the number, there is a three-second pause, you hear a sort of tone and then another... →

Musk and Gates geniuses? I think not

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 2nd December 2016 The other day JP and I were chewing the fat. I mentioned to JP that Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket had gone up on the launch pad with a fearful scene of destruction. I also said that Musk was saying that it was not an explosion as much as it was a “fast fire”. I said I was not too sure about this; I... →

Donald Trump’s win good for fossil fuels

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 25th November 2016 There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a climate change sceptic who does not believe that wind turbines are any good, thinks coal is great and wants to develop oil reserves. Unlike the Democrats, he does not think that the US can run on 'clean energy' by midcentury and it is his intention to... →

African science

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 18th November 2016 In Zambia, once a year, in early evening, you will be able to look at the moon and it forms a crescent, with the planet Venus in the crescent – very similar to the Islamic moon and star symbol. I do not know if this is unique to Zambia or if it occurs every year or only some years, but I know it... →

Arguments for nuclear energy

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 11th November 2016 When I worked for State-owned power utility Eskom, I gave up trying to explain to people how power systems work. Right now I am hard practising my ignoring skills in the debate over whether or not we need nuclear power or whether or not wind power is good. But before I do this, before I drop the... →

Biometric identification is fine, but just don’t share private information

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 4th November 2016 A growing technology is that of biometric interfaces. 'Biometrics' is just a smart way of saying "recognising the identity of a person by their fingerprints, voice or the pattern of the iris of one of their eyes”. It seems that using biometrics to identify a person is convenient for all parties:... →

Two tales from construction sites

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 28th October 2016 In contrast to the gloom and doom of the economy and the political goings-on,I thought I would cheer you up with tales from two of the various sites I have worked on. Most construction sites start work at 07:00 and finish at 17:00. On Fridays, it is common to stop work at 15:00. Very often, once... →

R300bn-a-year climate change war chest could electrify all of Africa

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 21st October 2016 The joke goes like this: a Frenchman and a German meet in a bar just after the end of the Second World War. Initially a bit wary, they start talking after a while. They have both just been discharged from their respective armies. They discuss what they are going to do when they get home. “Oh,”... →

Interesting facts about electric fish

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 14th October 2016 I recently visited the Zambezi river, in Zambia. During my time there, dedicated to fly-fishing and drinking milk and flavoured fruit juice, I speculated on the nature of electric fish (no, there are none in the Zambezi). So, when I returned, I looked up all I could find on electric fish. I found... →

Another open letter to Mmusi Maimane

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 7th October 2016 Recently, I read an article about the nuclear power deal. In the article, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane states: "Jacob Zuma’s nuclear deal will be disastrous for South Africa. It will literally bankrupt us, diverting billions of rands from poverty reduction projects, while... →

Running out of memory

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 30th September 2016 Consider how much memory there would be in the form of computer storage if all storage was done on silicon chips and all the silicon in the world was used up. Of course, this could not happen because it would require the processing of massive amounts of sand to get the silicon and there would... →

Breathtaking views on electricity and renewables

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 23rd September 2016 Of late, I have been reading in Engineering News and other publications of opinion on electricity and renewable energy by various people that are just breathtaking. It is interesting that these opinions are somewhat fanciful, to say the least. Let us first get down to the detail in a particular... →

The Great Wall of Trump

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 16th September 2016 In this and future columns (well, in at least one), I will be discussing some of the electrical engineering issues coming out of the US election campaign and the promises made by the candidates. There is a song which goes: “If you’re white, you’re all right; if you’re brown, stick around; if... →

Crowdfunding for fun engineering projects

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 9th September 2016 I am really not sure what crowdfunding is. Wikipedia puts it this way: “Crowdfunding (a form of crowdsourcing) is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via Internet-mediated . . .” I am not sure why a... →

Open letter to DA leader

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 2nd September 2016 Dear Mmusi Maimane When Creamer Media publishing editor Martin Creamer and I agreed that I would write this column, he said the column must not be smutty and it is not recommended that I write about politics. →

Nimble operator with a gas turbine

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 26th August 2016 In May of this year the state of South Australia closed down its last coal-fired power stations. This could happen because the state has an extensive installation of gas turbine, wind turbine and solar energy power. A report from InDaily reads like a murder mystery: “On Christmas Day, according... →

It’s all very taxing for small engineering firms

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 19th August 2016 My friend hates paying income tax. He is also one of those people who did not do well at school. Nonetheless, he has a very acute mind. When he went into business, he got into trouble with the tax people all the time. Finally, he went to see them and, in particular, he went to see a Mr van Zyl... →

Reflections on technological change

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 12th August 2016 I believe that all technologies go through a cycle. Henry Ford once said: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. But even as we read quotes from famous motor vehicle manufacturers, it is obvious that the motor vehicle, as in 'car', is on its way to... →

Trouble in paradise

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 5th August 2016 From the ESI Journal's July 22 edition: “South African State-owned power utility Eskom has said that it will not sign any power purchase agreements with private power producers once round 4.5 of government’s renewable power programme draws to a close.” Eskom CEO Brian Molefe is reported as... →

The aliens are coming

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 29th July 2016 The other day, more than usual calls on my cellphone were being dropped. The Internet was erratic and that DStv was often on the blink. An increase in electromagnetic jamming always precedes an attack. The question is: From whom? I considered the options and worked out that it had to be aliens.... →

Old school musings

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 22nd July 2016 I was born back in the day, so I’m ‘old school’. For the greater part of my school life we drove to school on roads which were not tarred. Growing up and going to school, I saw the first 6.6 kV powerline being built along a newly constructed road that became the ‘Nicol highway’. I saw, too, the... →

CSIR’s frightening attitude towards renewable energy

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 15th July 2016 Wikipedia says of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR): "[It] is South Africa's central and premier scientific research and development organisation. It was established by an Act of Parliament in 1945 and is situated on its own campus in the city of Pretoria.” About two years... →

Electrical engineering during WW2 – Part 4

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 8th July 2016 This is the last article in this column about electrical engineering during World War II. In point of fact, this article does not discuss electrical engineering, but flying bombs. For those of you who think that World War II was some time back in the period of fearful blank which existed before... →

Electrical engineering during WWII – Part 3

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 1st July 2016 German and British scientists knew that radar was going to be an important component in the Second World War. However, at the beginning of the war, while both sides had developed radar systems, neither was sure that the other side had done the same. The prime mover on British radar technology was... →

Electrical engineering during World War II

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 17th June 2016 In this article and a few more to come in this column, I am going to write about electrical engineering in World War II. Okay? Good. We have all seen the film, haven’t we? The luxury liner is cruising through the calm waters of the North Atlantic. The loving couple are holding hands and gazing... →

How about analysing dog barks to better communicate with them?

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 10th June 2016 Words that we use in speech are made up of a collection of individual sounds. In theory, if one had a group of people, each of whom had a tuning fork which, when struck, would make a pure note, it would be possible for the group to recreate the sound of any word in any language. Similarly, but... →

UPS shenanigans

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 3rd June 2016 Not long ago, I found myself in the interesting position whereby my client wanted a standby generator and an uninterrupted power system (UPS) and he wanted me to buy it and have it installed for him. I asked him if he meant that he wanted me to get a contractor to do this and he said no, I want... →

New scam has replaced old tender shenanigans

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 27th May 2016 You heard the term 'tenderpreneur'. This is a person who submits a price to do some work against a government or quasi-government tender. The price the person submits is generally higher than anybody else's, but, until recently, the tenderpreneur always got the job, since he or she had a... →

The Internet is doing our children an injustice

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 20th May 2016 Many years ago, a teacher called David H was trying to describe to a science class the concept of the inverse square law. He said: “Imagine you had a butter gun and that, once the butter has been fired, it spreads out evenly. Then, if it was 3 mm thick at 1 m away from the gun, how thick do you... →

Computer technology doing youngsters a major disservice

13th May 2016 The other day I phoned my friend. “How are you doing?“ I asked. “Fine,” she said, but sounded a bit strained. I asked her if she was okay. She said fine, fine. She said she was a bit distracted since she was playing the game Black Ops 2 with her 11-year-old son. He was winning. He had shot her 18... →

The massive benefits of the electronic age

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 29th April 2016 I have an acquaintance in Cape Town who runs a business. The other day at a meeting he said something particularly rude and noticing the silence around him he said: “I am in business to make money, not friends.” We very often are told by way of advertising that certain organisations want to... →

The downside of renewable energy

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 22nd April 2016 I have just read an article by one Leo Smith. I do not know him. His article is called the 'Limitations of renewable energy' – and it is hard hitting. Smith says of renewable energy: “It is against this backdrop of extreme emotional attachment to 'renewable energy' and extreme ignorance of the... →

Corruption goes back a very long way

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy 15th April 2016 I have just finished reading a book by Admiral Lord Cochrane. I am quite sure that you have never heard of him, which is hardly surprising, since he died in 1860. The book he wrote is about his experiences in the Royal Navy. There are a number of interesting things about the book; firstly, it is... →

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