This seems… dumb

 AARRRGH, blather, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government  No Responses »
May 282012
 

Canada’s national archives being dismantled and scattered

One the one hand, I can kinda approve… decentralizing important functions is a generally good idea, if you can do it. And since archives can be digitized, decentralization becomes easy. But then there’s this:

A generous estimate is only 4% of the LAC collection has been digitized to date — a poor record that will be made worse by the cuts announced on April 30, 2012, which reduced digitization staff by 50%.”

Errr… bad idea. Once the archive is fully scanned – at high resolution with minimal compression – then scattering it about can make sense. The last thing Canada needs is suicide bomb attacks by jihadi polar bears taking out their cultural memory.

And even after the collection is wholly scanned and decentralized, the archive will still need a knowledgeable and skilled staff. People with valid research to do will need assistance, and even Google is not an adequate replacement for a human who knows what’s what and where. Additionally, a good staff will be needed to acquire and deal with new items.

 Posted by at 7:29 am

Kickstarter: Computer/2001:SSV

 blather, drawings, new products, science fiction  10 Responses »
May 272012
 

I’ve been looking into Kickstarter as a way to generate some business. It seems geared quite closely to artist types and people looking to set up businesses that require lots of funds. Sadly, the rules explicitly ban campaigns for things like “help me get a new computer.” And since a new computer is what I need, that’s kind of a shame. Additionally: every idea has to be reviewed and approved by humans, and I’d bet good money that most of the ideas I’d try through Kickstarter would get shot down. Oh well.

But the general concept is interesting. Someone says “I need X number of dollars for Project Y by date Z,” and offers a series of goodies of increasing value for specific levels of buy-in ($10, $25, $50, $1000, whatever). People who are interested pledge whatever amount they want. They sign up with Kickstarter and have to assign a credit card. If by date Z X dollars have not been pledged, then the project has failed, and those who pledged aren’t charged; on the other hand, if the project is successful and at least X dollars have been pledged, those who pledged have their credit cards charged and the artist gets his funds.

Seems like a plan. One I’ll copy for my own “I need a computer” project.

So, here’s the deal.  I have, as I’ve shown before, a pretty good 3D CAD model of the 2001 Space Station V. But I need a new computer to carry it any further. I need $600 for this new computer. So here’s what I’ll produce for various pledge levels:

$10: A hearty “thanks” and a PDF file with a few good illustrations of the Space Station V model

$25: As above, plus a collection of 11X17 prints of the SSV, showing it as a “real” design (akin to the numerous “blueprints” of Star Trek ships that people have done over the years).

$50: Everything above, with a MagCloud printed booklet describing the Space Station V. Not the kit or the CAD model, but a fictional, technical account of how the NCA & contractors would go about using the Orion II cargo shuttle and other much heavier lifters to orbit and build the thing, as well as a general overview of the design.

$100: Everything above, with the addition of large-format prints of the Space Station V CAD diagrams, at least 16X20 (probably 24X36).

$150: Everything above, with high-rez, non-encrypted extractable PDFs of the CAD diagrams

The timelimit: hmmm, let’s call it a week or so.

UPDATE: The project was successful in obtaining a sufficiency of pledges; it is now closed to new pledges.

The time to deliver your goodies: rather longer. Several months, I’d guesstimate.

If you’d like to pledge, send me an email: scottlowther@up-ship.com/blog

Don’t send money (unless you have a driving urge to pay off that $600 Right Now) until I’ve actually succeeded in getting a sufficiency of pledges to make it worthwhile.

If this works – and it’s a big if – another idea I’ve pondered is “photographic expedition.” I need to get down to Albuquerque to the nuclear weapons museum in order to take a few thousand photos, but I can’t financially justify it. However, a similar sort of “kickstart” might make it worthwhile. We’ll see…

 Posted by at 10:38 pm

The Wasatch Steps

 aircraft, awesomeness, blather, photography, Utah  2 Responses »
May 272012
 

Flying back from D.C. at the end of March, I took a number of photos using the cheapo point-and-click. Several of them show the Wasatch mountains just south of Salt Lake City. You can see some curious terraces in the mountains near the top above the snow line. I don’t know what they are, but they look artificial… part of an avalanche abatement effort, perhaps?

On the other hand… that’d be a hell of a place to be messing around with heavy earth-moving equipment.

 Posted by at 10:07 pm

Cockpit arrangements for nuclear powered aircraft

 aircraft, drawings, nukes, projects  No Responses »
May 272012
 

Several conceptual layouts for cockpits for a supersonic nuclear powered seaplane from Convair, drawing in 1956. To protect the crew from radiation, the cockpit was surrounded by a massive lead-lined shield, and only a relatively small leaded-glass transparency was provided for the pilot to see through. To minimize what was necessarily an enormous mass, the shield and transparency were flat and un-aerodynamic; the aircraft needed aerodynamic fairings around them. Easy enough except that the pilot needed to be able to see through those as well. So very large secondary windscreens were needed. Several possible layouts were examined and are shown below.

 Posted by at 5:37 pm

Oh goodie.

 AARRRGH, blather  7 Responses »
May 272012
 

Remember how around a month ago I was asking for opinions on computers, since mine is old and slow?  Today I went to turn the thing on for the first time after having been gone for three weeks… and nothing happened. No explosion, no “fzzzzt,” no sparks and smell of ozone… it just sat there like a dead piece of crap, with one glowing green LED that showed that it was still getting power. So either the on/off switch is busted (huh), or something is screwy with the power supply. Hopefully the hard drive ain’t fried; if I can get that copied over, then nothing much has been lost, since I needed to buy a new computer anyway. I was just kinda hoping to be able to hold off on that additional fun expense for a few more months. Grrrr.

 Posted by at 10:30 am

The Old West in Photos

 awesomeness, photography  9 Responses »
May 262012
 

I’ve seen some of these. They are much the same today… just in color.

How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time

The West of the US is a place well worth visiting. Well… unless you happen to think that New York City is the best place in the world to visit. Then you’ll likely be terrified by the lack of expensive coffee joints, dearth of hipsters, plethora of armed citizens and this little thing we call a “sky.”

 Posted by at 8:56 am

Legalization of pot

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics  6 Responses »
May 262012
 

The popularity of the idea of marijuana legalization is growing… it now may have the majority of US citizens in favor of it:

56% Favor Legalizing, Regulating Marijuana

I have no use for the stuff myself (nor any use for booze or tobacco… but put a well-made cookie in front of me and WATCH OUT), but I’m all in favor of legalizing it. I’ve seen people get stond and I’ve seen people get drunk (hey, I went to college), and on the whole the stoners were safer and less annoying than the drunks. Those who smoke pot usually seem to fall into three categories:

1) Stoners. They get lethargic.

2) Regular schmoes. They get mellow.

3) People who smoke and get paranoid. Not a lot of repeat offenders in that case, I’d imagine.

But with booze, you get:

1) Happy drunks

2) Chatty drunks

3) Sad drunks

4) Mean drunks

And the last two categories, especially #4, are a greater societal problem than the stoners are by a wide margin.

But even if you still think that pot is an Evil Drug, even if you – erroneously – see it as a Gateway Drug (see NOTE), there are some damned fine reasons to still support legalization.

1) You promptly defund criminal organizations (not only local drug dealers, but also international criminal organizations like the Zeta and MS13… with the side benefit that with one of their main sources of income gone, they will be less capable of operations to smuggle cocaine, heroin, illegal aliens or other equally dangerous substances).

2) You increase tax revenues, and provide increased job opportunities here in the US for growers and others in the industry

3) You reduce the tax burden, since there are far fewer criminals to catch, try and jail

4) You can monitor and control the quality of the pot, thus reducing the risk of pot laced with other drugs, or with various toxins

5) You decriminalize the smokers. The value of this should not be underestimated: if you take an otherwise good person who likes to smoke dope and make it clear to him that he’s a criminal… he will very likely be somewhat less interested in being a Good Citizen.

And… you can help defund and defang the United States Federal Government. Why is this import? Here’s why:

Piratical feds, town police trying to take couple’s hotel

Short form: a family owned hotel (built by the current owners father in 1955) is likely to be stolen by the cops and auctioned off. Why? Because there have been thirty arrests at that hotel since 1994 on drug dealing charges… and the DEA has determined that this means that the hotel has been used to facilitate these crimes. Note that the owners are not under arrest or even under suspicion for any crime. Note that thirty arrests out of 125,000 room rentals over that time equate to an impressively small fraction. Note that the local police department is expected to receive 80% of the proceeds from the auction. Note that if the hotel is auctioned off to another hotel owner or a chain, and they continue to operate it as a hotel… then it will stand every chance of being stolen by the feds *again* at some point.

Note also that I have no idea if those thirty drug dealing arrests were all for pot, or none for pot. For all I know they were all for crystal meth. But even so, the ridiculous and fundamentally anti-American “War On Drugs” is being used by the government to ruin lives and increase its power to ruin even *more* lives.

NOTE: Whatever value pot has as a “gateway drug” it has because the only way to get it is, for most people, to go to the criminal element… just the type of people who will also try to get you hooked on other, nastier drugs.

 Posted by at 8:27 am

Dyna Soar wind tunnel model diagram

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, spacecraft  2 Responses »
May 262012
 

A 1962 Boeing diagram of the Model 844-2050 Dyna Soar configuration (almost the final configuration) as a 0.0666 scale wind tunnel model. Nothing too spectacular, but it does illustrate one detail rarely seen: the heat shield actuator mast.

The forward-facing windows were covered with an ejectable heat shield on the Dyna Soar until well after re-entry in order to protect them from excessive heating. The actuator mast would be a piston that would raise the front of the heat shield after the spaceplane had re-entered and slowed to subsonic; the “wind” would then get under the shield and lift it away from the spaceplane. I’ve seen very little on this mast… I don’t know if it would then retract, or if it would simply stay  in place through landing. None of the artwork I’ve seen has ever depicted it in any fashion… the heat shield is always there until it’s simply gone. Associated photos of the wind tunnel model do not show the mast.

 Posted by at 7:18 am
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