All in a Day's Work

Kimberly Chapple
Editor

This may be my last column for a little while. In a few short weeks I expect to deliver my third child into the world. While blessed with the ability to live life in the moment and truly appreciate the gift that it is, as a protective mother my mind sometimes wanders to the "what ifs" regarding the future.

My what ifs, though, are probably not those of a typical mother. As editor of a changing technology magazine, I'm aware of many issues and challenges facing humanity that most people outside the industry don't even know (or don't want to know) exist. Take a recent "bad mail day" for example -- not to be confused with a "bad hair day," which might have bothered me in the past, but just doesn't seem so important anymore.

Part of my job as editor is to review scores of press releases each week. On this particular day, I was mildly surprised to see the first cloning catalogue cross my desk, one where you could choose your DNA strand and have it delivered within days. While I understand cloning is a controversial issue, I wasn't aware you could mail-order genes and chromosomes in such a nonchalant way. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since I had already seen a segment on a company called "Genetic Savings & Clone" on CNN a few weeks back. The multiplicity project at Texas A&M bills itself as being able to reproduce a "once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece of Mother Nature," should you care to have your pet cloned. I set the cloning catalogue aside and went on to the next envelope.

It contained a press release from the president of an OEM coatings manufacturer that does work for the U.S. military. Mid-way through the text, the president boasts that weapons coated with his product have "produced no complaints from either the users or their targets." I stopped reading. While the design and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction are considered necessary in our society (and certainly cover-worthy topics for our design engineering readership), I made a mental note to never publicize the product of someone who blatantly pokes fun at war victims.

I reached into my mailbag and pulled out the latest issue of WIRED magazine. On the cover was a man who implanted a chip in his body in the attempt to be the first real "bionic man." He wants the computer to greet him with a verbal "hello" when he enters the room and the coffee machine to automatically start up when it senses the chip's presence each morning. The symbiosis of man and machine written about for years in science fiction is becoming reality. My mind wanders to conversations I've had with OEM industry experts determined to change engineering education in order to teach students coping skills, flexibility and teamwork to better prepare them for work in our rapidly changing world.

One bad mail day: Cloning. War. Symbiosis of man and machine. Teaching students to cope with it all. Am I doing the right thing by bringing another child into this scene? Or should I just not worry about it and let someone else open the mail... You tell me.



kchapple@designfax.net