Raedthinn. ’nuff said.
Apr 162017
Apr 152017
And the new dark age begins:
Purdue announces new head for School of Engineering Education
And who is this? Let’s check out her bio (from her previous stint at Smith College):
My scholarship currently focuses on applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women’s studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices. In 2005 I received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support this work, which includes developing, implementing, and assessing curricular and pedagogical innovations based on liberative pedagogies and student input at Smith, and understanding how students at Smith conceptualize their identities as engineers. I seek as an engineering educator to be part of a paradigm shift that these pedagogies demand, repositioning concerns about diversity in science and engineering from superficial measures of equity as headcounts, to addressing justice and the genuine engagement of all students as core educational challenges.
…
I seek to revise engineering curricula to be relevant to a fuller range of student experiences and career destinations, integrating concerns related to public policy, professional ethics and social responsibility; de-centering Western civilization; and uncovering contributions of women and other underrepresented groups.
In EGR 330 (Engineering and Global Development), we critically evaluate past and current trends in appropriate and sustainable technology. We examine how technology influences and is influenced by globalization, capitalism and colonialism, and the role technology plays in movements that counter these forces. Gender is a key thread running through the course in examining issues of water supply and quality, food production and energy.
In EGR 205 (Science, Technology and Ethics), we consider questions such as who decides how science and engineering are done, who can participate in the scientific enterprise and what problems are legitimately addressed within these disciplines and professions. We take up racist and colonialist projects in science, as well as the role of technology, culture and economic systems in the drive toward bigger, faster, cheaper and more automated production of goods. A course theme around technology and control provides for exploration of military, information, reproductive and environmental applications. Using readings from philosophy, science and technology studies, and feminist and postcolonial science studies, we explore these topics and encounter new models of science and engineering that are responsive to ethical concerns.
Oy.
A few things:
- “Democratic classrooms that encourage all voices:” this is utterly inappropriate in engineering. Is it because democracy is wrong? No… it’s because some *people* are wrong. In engineering there are *clear* wrong answers. There’s no “you tried” award if there’s a “your bridge collapsed under normal loading.” With a “democratic classroom” that “encourages all voices,” the students trying to get an actual education will have to share time with the fricken’ idiot who thinks that getting a shaman to bless the bridge, or building not out of steel but some sacred rubber tree, or waving magic crystals over forming stress cracks are all cromulent ideas.
- “uncovering contributions of women and other underrepresented groups,” is, I suppose, fine if your interest in engineering is the *history* of engineering… but it’s utterly meaningless if your interest in engineering is, y’know, engineering. It’s been a bit of a while since I got my degree, but as memory serves, we spent approximatley zero time on describing the peronal travails of the various people who discovered or invented the little bits of science, technology and math that we used. In aeronautics we learned about Bernoulli’s Theorem… because it’s important and relevant. What did we learn about Bernoulli the man? Doodly squat. Because WHO CARES. Whether he was a asexual autistic Italian banker, or lesbian Swiss cheesemaker makes absolutely no difference to the theorem itself. E=mc^2, after all, whether Einstein was German or Austrian or Swiss or Japanese, white or black, Jewish or Hindu.
- “Womens Studies/Ethnic studies/Colonialism:” you see any of that and you know you’re in for an idiot harangue from someone who cares far more about who did something than what that something actually was.
The reasoning behind this hire seems straightforward enough to suss out. STEM fields are overwhelmingly dominated by white and Asian males; females and males Of Some Other Color are under represented. And this has become a political cause among the shouting set in recent years, because STEM graduates *tend* to make pretty good incomes (present company sadly excluded) because STEM fields are, compared to libarts, actually useful to society. So, fine, bring in more women and People Of Some Non-White Color in the the STEM classrooms. The more the merrier! But where this is a screwup is that the process isn’t to convince women to do the hard work and take the math and engineering courses… they’re trying to water down STEM to where it’s palatable to the type of person who thinks that womens or ethnic studies courses are actually a good idea.
Apr 152017
From April, 2017, two US Aerospace Projects issues:
US Transport Projects #07
US Transport Projects #07 is available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #07 includes:
- Lockheed L-279-9: an early SST
- Convair HST – Phase II Variable Sweep Configuration: A mid-1960’s hypersonic transport
- Lockheed CL-1373: a short-haul turboprop liner
- Boeing Model 702-134(4): a large nuclear-powered logistics hauler
- McDonnell-Douglas Swept Wing Spanloader: a heavy cargo carrier
- Lockheed Hybrid Wing Body: a current design for an efficient military transport
- NASA Cut-Down 747 SCA: a 1973 idea for a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft
- Rockwell Boost Glide Transport: An early 1970’s rocket transport
USTP #07 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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Also available, the first in a new series:
US Recon and Research Projects #01
US Recon & Research Projects #01 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #01 includes:
- General Dynamics “FISH”: 1958 concept for Mach 4 parasite
- NACA-Langley X-Tail X-15: early hypersonic rocket plane concept
- “Jake’s Jeep”: WWII-era motorjet design
- Lockheed “Archangel”: The first step on the road to the SR-71
- Boeing Model 853-21 “Quiet Bird”: A 1961 stealth platform
- Northrop Tacit Blue: Operational version of the early stealth experiment
- Convair Pilotless Airplane I-40 Inhabited: WWII-era design of a manned test for a flying bomb
- Lockheed CL-278-1-1: a proto-U-2
USRP #01 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $4:
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Apr 142017
Teaser trailer for the next Star Wars flick :
A whole lot of training montage… but also space shoot ’em ups galore.
Apr 132017
The reward for info leading to the arrest of whoever tortured and killed Sage the cat rose to over $61K, but so far… no arrest. But then there’s this in the news today:
Reward: $3,000 offered for another abused cat within a block of Sage the cat was found
Fortunately this cat has survived. The nightly news said that this orange tabby is very friendly, but the Humane Society doesn’t know who the owner is, so it may be put up for adoption. It’s unknown if the same person is responsible, but due to proximity of both time and space, I’d bet the chances are good. It would be even worse if there were *two* people doing that this close to each other. Hopefully he/she/they can be found and brought to justice.
Apr 132017
So, things seem to be getting interesting over North Korea way. NBC news is reporting rumors that the US may launch a military strike on the Norks if they pop off another one of their lameass fun-sized nukes; this, of course, would be an act of war, so Seoul would likely get a mighty artillery barrage and the war would be back on.
But here’s another ponderable: let’s assume that the Norks develop a functioning deliverable nuke *and* a functional ICBM. Now, if Lil’ Kim was a rational actor, he might issue a press release stating “Huzzah! We got us some ICBMs! Respect ma authoritah!” and maybe launch a sizable Sputnik into orbit just to prove what the Nork ICBMs are capable of. There is little else that they could do with a very small nuclear missile force… at least, not rationally.
So, let’s assume that Kim *isn’t* a rational actor. Let’s assume, instead, that he’s a nut, a nut in charge of a nation that is run more like a cult. So, let’s assume North Korea has *one* ICBM and *one* nuke… and his decision is to launch it straight into downtown Los Angeles. There are three immediate possibilities:
1: The ICBM fails and drops the nuke into the drink.
2: The ICBM works, but the nuke doesn’t, and the dud smacks into California leaving a small crater and a radioactive waste site.
3: KERBLAMMO. No more Hollywood.
Now it’s time for the US to respond. Let’s assume that the US has competent, rational political and military leadership when this happens. So what would be the right responses? Seems to me:
1: The US launches a full-scale but *conventional* military campaign to wipe out the North Korean leadership and military capability. Cruise missiles, carpet bombings and eventually ground invasion.
2: *Maybe* a nuclear response…
3: If the US loses a city to a nuclear attack from another nation, IMO it would be both insane and monumentally stupid for the US to *not* respond in kind. Realistically, it displays weakness and invites further attack from other sources. So, if the Norks nuke the US, the US would have to nuke the Norks. But just how much?
I believe most Americans would feel justified in unleashing a nuclear rain of ruin on any nation that destroys an American city. If the 21st century to date has taught us anything, it’s that a lot of people get all snippy about enemies in their “holy cities,” most of which seem to be dry, dusty hellholes with nothing to recommend them. Now, the US has little in the way of “holy cities,” but I’m pretty sure that even Hollywood would gain “sacred ground” status if it gets nuked. So…. North Korea nukes Los Angeles, we walk nukes all up and down Lil’ Kims ass. Lots of people would be damned happy about that.
Of course, a *lot* of people wouldn’t be happy with that. The fallout would undoubtedly unnerve the Chinese, south Koreans and Japanese. But beyond that, there just might be some *ethical* issues with evaporating North Korea. It is, after all, a nation full not of monsters but slaves, slaves to an idiot ideology (NOTE: We trashed the Nazis and Imperial Japanese and repaved their local cultures to suit out purposes… even unto making changes to their religions. Doing the same in North Korea would probably be non-controversial. But oddly, doing the same in some *other* combat zones I can think of… jeez, even mention that, and the SJW’s get all screamy.) and a maniac military/political hierarchy. Some people might say torching them all might not be entirely moral. That said, North Korea has a sizable military; if the military could be nuked out of existence with minimal civilian damage, I think most would see that as fair. But that would also be virtually impossible.
So: North Korea goes and does something… a little odd. How to respond?
Apr 132017
Explosives are, in a way, like rocket engines: they reached a certain plateau in performance decades ago and haven’t really gotten much better. This is not due to relevant people and organizations not caring to develop new ones; the problem is that there are just so many ways you can stick unstable molecules together in a cost effective manner. Some years ago while working ordnance systems (shaped charges for stage separation, rocket motor initiators, etc.) news came down that a new explosive (Octanitrocubane) was being studied. A *more* powerful explosive. Yay! Then the details came out: it was a *few* percent more powerful than HMX (the current gold standard in high explosive, and it has been since the ’40’s) and was expected to cost more than gold even after the manufacturing processes were worked out. Bah.
But there’s hope of new explodey-sauce:
Ground state structure of high-energy-density polymeric carbon monoxide
Links only to an abstract. But there’s a description HERE. Short form: at least theoretically, if you compress carbon monoxide, and compress it a lot, it seems it’ll form a polymer. It’ll turn into a solid. A solid that should remain a solid when the pressure lets off. But also… a solid with a whole lot of pent-up anger issues:
the team’s search found that the most stable cabon monoxide structure at ambient pressure and temperature would be a polymer, a repeating molecule with a backbone of carbon and oxygen rings called Pna21. But this stuff couldn’t form spontaneously—it needs to be made at high pressures, maybe around ten thousand times higher than sea level pressure. And unlike other carbon monoxide polymers discovered previously, Pna21 would be absolutely explosive, five to ten times more so than the same amount of TNT, thanks to the huge amount of energy it stores.
Five to ten times as explosive as TNT would be damned handy in an explosive. TNT is the standard; HMX has a “relative effectiveness factor” of 1.7. Octanitrocubane is the best at 2.38. But if polymerized carbon monoxide has an R.E. factor of five… that’s about three times better than HMX. Since HMX is what’s used to squeeze plutonium pits to make go “bang,” doing three times better would lead to the potential for smaller, lighter nukes.
Of course, this all depends on whether carbon monoxide really does form a metastable solid explosive at high pressure, and is stable enough to be safe. An explosive that goes off if it rises above, say, fifteen degrees kelvin is less than entirely practical.
Apr 132017
Hamilton couple refuse to tell foster kids Easter Bunny is real, CAS shuts down home: court docs
A foster family up Canada way is devoutly Christian, so they don’t buy into all that “Easter Bunny” and “Santa Claus” hooha. And a Canuck court has decided that while apparently it’s ok to be devoutly religious and be a foster family, refusing to tell toddlers about the gospel of Ostara’s fertility rabbit actually being *real* just ain’t gonna fly.
Let that sink in for a bit.
A government agency has decided that refusing to tell children that fables are fact is legally actionable. One wonders where that might lead.
…the organization expects foster parents to respect common customs and the traditions of the biological family.
“From an organizational perspective, we need to be cognizant and respectful, both of the beliefs of the foster parents and also the needs and customs of children in our care,” he said. “We consider children coming into our care to be on a temporary basis … and there should be a … very smooth transition back to their home from a foster placement.”
This would seem to imply that a foster family will be expected to play along with and affirm every single set of beliefs that the bio-family had. This would seem to imply that having multiple children from multiple backgrounds simultaneously would be problematic at best. Imagine a foster family that has an Asatru girl and a Muslim boy at the same time… the girl might demand to *not* be dominated, and by the gods she will *not* be denied bacon for breakfast and a ham sammich for lunch, and she’ll point the soles of her feet anywhere she damn well pleases… and the family will have to affirm that at the same time they need to affirm pretty much the opposite for the boy.
Apr 122017
So very, very close on the next two US Aerospace Projects issues. I’m only lacking cover “art”and have to deal with a bit of “dead air” in the middle of US Transport Projects #7. Usually I can shuffle things around well enough to not have this sort of thing, but this time it just hasn’t worked out. I suppose it doesn’t really matter all that much, but it does look kinda lazy like that.
It’s been about a year since I released the last USxP issue. That last issue was the first time where I used vector diagrams embedded within the issue, rather than raster images; getting the diagrams from AutoCAD into Word was a bit of a chore back then. And in the intervening months… I forgot how I did it. So I had to figure it out again, and the process is different. I have to walk the AutoCAD diagram through Rhino 3D and save as a WMF and blah, blah, blah; end result is it works just fine. I’ve done some further refinement… the main outlines are set at 0.25 mm width and the ends of the lines have been reset to rounded and mitered, so sharp corners now look more like sharp corners.
Hoping to have these two out in a day or two. The other three will be rather longer.
Apr 122017
‘Charging Bull’ sculptor says ‘Fearless Girl’ distorts his art. He’s fighting back.
Short form: in 1987 an artist created the now-famous “Charging Bull” bronze statue as a statement on the resilience of Americans following a Wall Street crash. Then last month, another statue, “Fearless Girl,” was plopped down in front of it. The second statue fundamentally changed the apparent message of the first, and the first artist is understandably annoyed.
But beyond the art-squabble, I remain befuddled by “Fearless Girl.” A lot of people seem to love it… a little girl happily staring down a charging gigantic bull. A statement on Grrrrl Power, or something. Something something bravery. Empowerment blah blah. But what is it *really?* It’s one scene of a snuff film. Don’t care how “fearless” she is, about half a second later in that movie a multi-ton bull straight out of Greek myth is going to gore her and stomp her shattered remains into the dirt. The girls parents are clearly guilty of an insane level of child endangerment for letting her get into that situation, and for not teaching her any damn sense. The “Fearless Girl” statue has a plaque that yammers something about “Women in leadership.” But the only “woman” on display is a small child who seemingly doesn’t understand the situation and is about to die. Are we, instead, supposed to assume that the woman is actually the child’s mother, who put the girl into the arena with the bull? Is the leadership being discussed the leadership it takes to sacrifice your child to the Old Gods? Or the leadership it takes to not be there when your child needs you? The leadership needed to badly raise a child so that she thinks it’s a hoot to go taunt the dynamite bull, without so much as a 12 gauge… or even a light saber?
Now, I happen to approve of the idea of celebrating defiance in the face of immanent death. But “defiance” looks kinda ridiculous when clearly the situation is the result of “massive levels of stupid.”