The MacArthur Genius Awards are awarded every year to people pursuing visionary ideas in the sciences and arts. They are given $500,000, no-strings-attached. See 2010 winners.

Have you ever wondered how people manage to think up ideas that transform our world? Maybe some of you have wondered this or have in fact been the originators of some great ideas.

Get a thorough explanation of symbology as it relates to Piping and Instrumentation-controls symbology, tag identification, I/O devices, valve symbol, primary flow element, horizontal line types, dashes, and more.

As I mentioned in Part 2, the meanings of the various symbols used on P&IDs (aka, symbology) are defined on separate drawings called “Lead Sheets” (or Legend Sheets). These are your “secret decoder rings” to P&ID symbology interpretation. Every company that builds process plants should have a set of lead sheets customized to their particular ways and means.

The rewards of a successful delegation effort are three-fold: 1) More and/or more advanced tasks are accomplished by the employee; 2) Employee satisfaction increases as they become a more valuable team member and; 3) The team becomes more talented and capable to fulfill the changing needs of the business.

Just when events in the Gulf seemed dire, almost Biblical, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, (an apt Old Testament pun) reported that oil from the BP spill was rapidly breaking down. Many scientists were skeptical-- it smelled like spin. The post-Exxon Valdez consensus was directly challenged.