A while back I went digging through the NASA tech report archive for anthropometric information. Sadly, this was not because I’ve finally got funding to build my rocketship to get the hell off this rock; instead, I needed to draft up a good CAD-based “standard human” as a scale reference for some diagrams. I found a few things useful for that purpose, and I suppose they might be of interest to some of y’all:
Note that NASA knows where your junk is.
There are many good reasons for understanding the English language. not only is it a vital key to rising higher than food-picker and toilet-scrubber in the US, it’s also pretty much the ligua franca for science and technology around the world. There are, IIRC, substantially more English speakers in *India* than in the US… and put Indian and Chinese English speakers together and I bet you’d have the majority of the planetary population that can converse in that language. It is pretty much the Common Speech of Mankind.
In Brazil, they speak Portuguese. Brazil is doing pretty well economically, and may become quite well off. Even so, many there know that learning English is vital for many endeavors. And so, there’s a company that specializes in teaching languages such as English. They have produced a commercial that points out just how incredibly important a proficiency in English can be.
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MagCloud is running a site-wide sale… 25% off the production cost of all regular priced products, including Aerospace Projects Review issues & specials, Justo Mirandas “Reichdreams” series, Historical Documents and even “Photographing Stuff.”
My main MagCloud page: http://scottlowther.magcloud.com/
The Aerospace Projects Review MagCloud page: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/157097
The Historical Documents MagCloud page: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/198489
The Reichdreams MagCloud page: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/164597
The “Photographing Stuff” MagCloud page: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine/144138
And while I’m at it.. would there be interest in MagCloud printed versions of the Saturn I and Saturn V Payload Planners Guides?
Some courts allow video cameras. Some allow only audio recording. Some allow only official transcripts (we’ve all seen press reports using lame readings of transcripts, illustrated with slapdash paintings of courtroom scenes). This sort of thing drives the press *bonkers.* Not being able to report on anything even remotely newsworthy just makes some reporters lose their minds. However, sometimes, rather than flailing wildly, sometimes the press uses what passes for their brains and comes up with pure awesomeness. Such is the case of former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, on trial in Akron, Ohio, on corruption charges.
All the local press has to work with is transcripts. But rather than watercolor paintings… “Channel 19 Action News” is re-enacting courtroom scenes with puppets.
Awesome. AWESOME.
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When I was a kid, I found few things more tiresome than creaky old people blathering on about how much better the music, toys and culture of the 1940’s and 1950’s were. That level of tiresomeness quickly paled by the time I got to high school, when aged hippies kept droning on about the wonders of the 1960’s (“Freedom Rock,” anyone?).
Now, it seems, my generation has reached the same point of “let’s bore the youngsters with nonsensical rubbish about how much more awesome the toys of *our* childhood were.” And what I find personally disturbing is… I look at a lot of these things and… I agree. Gah.
I’m old, it seems.
Reportedly, Facebook is supposed to be a good way to advertise, and I’ve been told numerous times to sign up for it. So…. gah.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aerospace-Projects-Review/159434240833823
Right now there is approximately nothing there. Anybody have any suggestions?
Listening to NPR today, I heard a piece that staggered me… not so much the piece itself, but that it was on NPR. The short form: China has had 9% growth this last year. And they’ve had about that level of growth for about the last thirty years. What happened to turn a Communist disaster into a booming economic powerhouse? As it turns out, a few rural farmers figured out how to *actually* work the land in 1978. Prior to that point, the farmers had accepted and lived under the Communist system. And as a result, their farms were not productive. Farmers were reduced to begging for food. And why was this? Because everything was communally owned, and communally distributed. Which means… you eat the same whether you bust your ass, or sit around like a lazy slob. Collectivism had turned all the farmers into lazy starving losers. And the farmers came to understand this. So what did they do? They signed a secret pact that they’d divide the communal farms up into private parcels, and the farmers would keep what they grew. The result? After the first year, they’d grown more food than they grown in the previous five years *combined.* Rather than starving, they were competing to see who could grow the most.
The Chinese Communist party discovered what was going on. And remarkably… they came to understand that private ownership and capitalism were the ways to prosperity, not Communism. And so they adopted the system started by these few rural farmers, and China has been roaring ahead ever since.
Read/hear the story here:
The Secret Document That Transformed China
Of course, the Chinese Communist party was still a *Communist* party. So even though they were smarter than much of the American left in understanding that prosperity comes from private enterprise, not government control, they couldn’t bring themselves all the way out of the squint of collectivism, and so they kept screwing over some of the very farmers who pulled Chinas fat out of the socialist fire.
Interestingly, the Chinese farmers were following in the footsteps of early European colonists in the Americas. One of the most important American holidays comes directly from the Pilgrims dragging themselves out of the squalor that is collectivism, as described here:
Aerospace Projects Review has been re-working and re-releasing the original run of issues in order… until now. Just finished and uploaded is an issue that might not be expected… issue V0N0. Prior to publishing the first issue of Aerospace Projects Review, I put together issue V0N0, a short prototype issue that I released for free to see if people liked it and if it would be worth continuing with. There was much that could have been improved about that issue… and it has been improved. Issue eV0N0 is now greatly expanded to 56 pages… small by modern APR standards, but a massive increase compared to the original. The original articles have been greatly expanded, and all-new articles have been added.
Preview the issue here:
The table of contents for eV0N0:
The Drawbridge and the Pancake: One of the more unusual Space Shuttle configurations
Northrop N-31 Flying Wing Bomber: A series of turboprop-powered bomber designs
Martin XB-68: A supersonic tactical bomber concept
Aerospace History Nugget: Mach 6.0 SST: Three fuselages for the price of one
Kaiser Tailless Airplane: A flying wing cargo carrier
Boeing VTOL Intercity Transport: A jetliner that can land on your office building
Boeing Transport-To-Space: The spaceplane that needs to be assembled in space
Aerospace History Nugget: Curtis High-Speed Fighter Concepts: Hypothetical fighters designed for maximum speed
Aerospace History Nugget: Convair VTOL Tailsitter: An early VTOL jet fighter capable of supersonic speeds
It is available in three formats. Firstly, it can be downloaded directly from me for the low, low price of $6.50. Second, it can be purchased as a professionally printed volume through Magcloud; third, it can be procured in both formats. To get the download, simply pay for it here through Paypal.
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To get the printed version (or print + PDF version), visit my MagCloud page:
I have some remarkably good diagrams of early-program NERVA nuclear rocket designs (first half of the 1960’s), but the later, more refined designs remain a bit unavailable. (I know an archive that has several linear feet of NERVA stuff… anyone want to fund an expedition for me?) Here is an Aerojet diagram for a 75,000 lb-thrust NERVA from 1968. Compare to THIS design from 1962…
Minor update: I made an offhand mention above of getting funding for a research expedition. I’ve gotten a few responses to this, both in comments and email. So… who might be seriously interested? If I could get at least ten people to commit to pitch in $100, I’d get the process underway. The archive has several linear feet of NERVA stuff, several linear feet of Solar Power Satellite stuff, and a whole bunch of boxes of Space Shuttle development stuff (ILRV, Phase A, etc.). Ideally, I’d spend about a weeks there, scanning and photocopying. Investors would get DVDs containing scans of everything I get… excepting, of course, that non-US investors wouldn’t get any ITAR-marked stuff.
Dems propose ‘Reasonable Profits Board’ to regulate oil company profits
Oh, goodie. The short form: a “windfall profit tax” would tax at a rate of 100% any profit that was considered to be “unreasonable.” “Reasonable” and “unreasonable” are left undefined, thus leaving it up to politicians and bureaucrats to decide when someone is making too much profit.
Regardless of what you think about oil companies, this sort of thing is so wrong headed as to be indistinguishable from “stupid and/or evil.” For starters, if selling a bunch of oil will merit a 100% tax, then the oil company will have no incentive to sell that oil. Since the demand for oil will not be decreased at the same time that the government is driving down supply… the price of oil (and its derivatives, such as gasoline and plastics) will necessarily skyrocket. There will be an intricate dance of oil companies driving down supply while making more per gallon, and still trying to avoid the 100% tax. “Death spiral” is the term that comes to mind. If this is the unintended consequence of this sort of law, that means that those behind it are “stupid.”
But since it seems pretty likely that those who have crafted this bill can figure out that this will be the result, they are more likely to be “evil.” Obama has said that he wants the price of energy to skyrocket; this would certainly aid that goal, while at the same time demonizing oil companies. Why would anyone do this? The claims has often been made that jacking up the cost of fossil fuels will lead people to buy into “alternate fuels.” But… while electric cars are almost as old as the internal combustion engine, IC cars have gotten far better, while electric cars remain either terribly expensive, ridiculously impractical… or both. A century of development doesn’t really seem to have helped here. Why would jacking up the price of oil help all of a sudden? The only things that this will help are cronyism and anti-energy, anti-growth ideologies.
And there’s another concern: once it has been established that the government can take 100% of the “unreasonable” profits of one industry… they can do it to any and all industries. While I’d find it schadenfreudalicious if Congress decided that actors, athletes, singers and such were good for up to $400,000 per year, and any income above that would be taxed at 100%, it’s clear that such a power would be a power no government should have.