The gentleman is correct in sitting | 30 July 02010, 21:21 |
| Working at NASA was a childhood dream of mine. At some level it was probably the common desire of a child growing up in the 1980s to be an astronaut, but for me I'd say it went further than that - I wanted to be a part of humanity's future; I wanted to be an explorer, an enabler, a part of the team that brought humanity up from the trenches and into a new era of enlightenment, exploration, and existence. I saw NASA as the embodiment of this notion - they achieved the impossible as a matter of routine and their mission was to explore the universe, starting at the edge of our planet and working outwards.
That was 20 years ago. This is now. I did, through the convoluted maze of life, end up working at NASA. (more ...)   | |
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Rules for Radicals | 30 May 02010, 0:42 |
| Note: as noted in a previous post, this is a lightly edited copy of an e-mail that I sent to co-workers recently. The lab I work in is meant to explore advanced human interface methods for future crewed spacecraft. As it is, a great deal of my time is spent trying desperately to wring funding and other resources (such as lab space) out of our organization so that we can actually perform some of this R&D work. This message reflects my take on the process and why it's important to continue trying.
We are extremists; what we pursue is radical. (more ...) | |
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Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket? | 29 May 02010, 23:50 |
| There was some post on the internet recently about Rules for Radicals - I don't remember where exactly it was and don't really care; it was some trite drivel about Thinking Outside The Box or some such nonsense. But after skimming over the article, I realized that several of the notions actually apply to what I do at work.
For those who don't know: I work with a very small group of people at Johnson Space Center researching advanced human interfaces for future crewed spacecraft. Technically we're a Constellation lab, which means that if the proposed FY2011 budget is approved, my work becomes de-funded and I'm out job hunting. At least that's the first thing that people think when I tell them I work in a Constellation lab. (more ...) | |
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Oh yeah | 26 May 02010, 22:15 |
| I'm in Seattle, WA for the SID 2010 conference this week. I've been pushing a human interface architecture at work (now it's "our" architecture) and a lot of features of it seem to work well using transparent and/or flexible displays.
OLED displays can be flexible, transparent, or both - seemingly perfect. Electrophoretic ink technology can be flexible; I haven't seen any transparent e-ink displays but don't see why that's not possible (in fact I expect that it is). There are quantum dot displays which are cool, but I don't think they're going to be transparent or flexible. Anyway. So there's this display technology that's perpetually 5 years out and sure enough, at SID 2010, OLED is only really present on the 6th floor (where they're talking about what will overtake LCDs in 5 years). (more ...) | |
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Goodbye LA; it's been fun | 8 May 02010, 9:37 |
| Leaving for home in a few hours. Overall this was a really fun trip. Got to see some really cool things, both for work and on my own. Learned a lot about my co-workers (perhaps more than I wanted to know, but that's OK). Gorgeous weather the whole time. Pretty good hotel (I give it a solid B). There's plenty more to do around here, of course. Will have to come back at some point. | |
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LA | 6 May 02010, 23:25 |
| I've been in the Los Angeles area for about a week now. Over the last few days, I've done several things that I found exciting:
1) Driven the Miracle Mile 2) Driven down Santa Monica Blvd and Hollywood Blvd 3) Driven up and down at least a portion of the California Pacific Highway 4) Driven the Mulholland Freeway 5) Eaten at In-n-Out Burger a few times 6) Talked to the crew at Oblong Industries I've taken lots (and lots) of photos. At some point, I'll post them here (along with all of the other ones that used to be here). (more ...) | |
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New toy, day 2 | 4 May 02010, 19:06 |
| Still like the netbook. Still a little annoyed at the lack of bluetooth, but I'll get over it. It has this face recognition thing for logging in, which seems silly but it works, most of the time. Not especially quick. The only real problem I have so far is that the screen and the surround for the screen are very glossy, so if it's at all light outside the reflection makes it very hard to see the screen - you have to turn the brightness all the way up, and even then it's a bit tough. With CRT monitors, AGAR (anti-glare anti-reflection) was always a big deal, and that was something that LCDs were good at without much effort, so I'm not sure why they would have (apparently intentionally) taken something that is otherwise great for use outdoors and made it almost impossible to use in the sunshine. (more ...) | |
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New toy | 3 May 02010, 17:43 |
| I am now plus one Lenovo S10-3 netbook. Seems fun. The Fry's in Burbank had a much better selection of them than the one in Houston. Also, I couldn't get anyone at the Fry's in Houston to talk to me (at least nobody in the computer department). The touchpad is ... OK. Still getting used to it. The IdeaPad I played with in the store was apparently an S10-2, which had actual physical mouse buttons just below the touchpad; the one I took home has a single-piece thing which looks nice but is a bit awkward if you want to click and drag.
The thing that really surprised me about the netbooks is the lack of Bluetooth support. (more ...) | |
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... and then Nokia redeems itself, a little | 1 May 02010, 15:37 |
| The e-mail thing works now! I don't know why it wasn't working before, and I didn't really do anything to fix it, but it started working. Whatever.
In other Nokia news: the N8 looks AWESOME. *drool* | |
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Refund! | 10 April 02010, 9:10 |
| Got my tax refund, and promptly spent it. My $400 "make working pay" (or whatever it was called) bonus went entirely to car parts, and then some. I also blew a bunch of money at Target, TJ Maxx, and Home Depot. That's right: I used my tax refund to help the economy. You're welcome! | |
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... and then Nokia fails | 4 April 02010, 11:58 |
| Nokia has a push e-mail service that you can hook your personal e-mail account in to; it is a backend for a Blackberry-like service which I find VERY convenient. Their e-mail application on the phone leaves a little to be desired, but overall it's stable and it works. The only trouble I've had, since the beginning, is that I can receive e-mail just fine, but sending never worked through their service. I had always worked around this by either not replying until I got home, or sending MMS messages to e-mail if something was time critical, or using a second e-mail client that worked for sending (but didn't support HTML). (more ...) | |
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Nokia wins | 29 March 02010, 21:30 |
| Got my phone back today! I'm in the process of putting everything back on it, but I'm very happy. In addition to not charging to replace the keypad lock key, they also replaced the camera lens, which was a bit scratched. They also tossed a $10 gift card in the box, which is pretty freaking neat. They refreshed the standard software load on the phone, which includes a lot of stuff I don't want (Bloomberg: never use it; Elle: who cares? CNN Video: never use it; ESPNsoccernet: never use it; Facebook: not on Facebook; Friendster: whatever; MySpace: not on MySpace; etc etc etc), but that's not too surprising. (more ...) | |
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Hovercraft | 28 March 02010, 10:55 |
| Worked on the hovercraft some more yesterday. Got the engine mount figured out ... it's not perfect, but it looks like it'll work pretty well. We also did a little work on the engine cover. It was a moderately productive afternoon, considering we only had a few hours to spend on it. I think in a couple of weeks, we may have this thing hovering again!
Before next weekend I'm going to do some cleanup tasks on it; sanding drips in the paint and rasping off a particularly ugly jigsaw cut we made last night so that the engine cover would fit right. (more ...) | |
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Cell phone: fixed? | 25 March 02010, 16:34 |
| On the plus side: my cell phone is on its way back from the Nokia repair center. Supposedly. I've got a UPS tracking number, but it's not in the system yet. Surprisingly, the phone was fixed free, under warranty, even though the warranty specifically excludes physical damage. Perhaps they backed down a bit on that for this particular problem, since apparently it happens to a lot of people. The sliding unlock switch is definitely a questionable design.
Really anxious to get the phone back. It's amazing how quickly you get used to certain features. Browsing the web, alarms, watching movies, connecting the phone to the computer, opening files, GPS, nice camera, etc. whine | |
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2012 | 25 March 02010, 16:30 |
| Saw 2012 the other day. What a ridiculous movie. It was fun to watch the disasters unfolding, but every time someone opened their mouth, they said something stupid. Also, as a general rule, everyone's actions were always stupid (except for the "bad guy" who turned out to have practical ideas that nobody listened to). It also appeared that the fate of humanity was that most of the smart people died, while the rich, well-connected, and/or tricky survive. Could Idiocracy be the sequel to this movie?
2.5 hours I wish I could get back. | |
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Hovercraft update | 21 March 02010, 10:53 |
| Jess, Claire, and I worked on the hovercraft yesterday. On Friday I added some metal to the motor mount to keep it from sagging in the front, then yesterday we installed the motor to the mount, put the mount on the body, and installed the propeller. It turns out that the sagging motor mount may have been intentional (which would explain all of the hammer marks on it) because with it straightened out, there is some interference between the propeller and the velocity stack. So I'm going to have to pull it off and move the motor mount back about 1/8" to account for that.
We also tackled the "hood" (trunk? (more ...) | |
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Cell phone: broken | 21 March 02010, 10:49 |
| I'm in the process of backing up all of the stuff from my cell phone, so I can erase its contents and send it back to Nokia for repair. The little sliding "lock the keypad and touchscreen" switch broke off. Grumble. I've been getting around it for a couple of weeks; I can unlock the screen by opening and closing the keypad, and then lock it from a menu that comes up when I hit the power button. It's pretty inconvenient, and given the failure mode of my last Nokia (the little ribbon cable that connects the screen to the body of the phone broke) I feel like I should be careful of how much I open and close the screen. (more ...) | |
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brrr | 21 March 02010, 10:47 |
| First day of spring! It was 37°F outside when I woke up this morning. Hrmph. | |
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As for work | 9 March 02010, 17:23 |
| Work at NASA continues, despite all the hoopla and hand wringing. This week we have crew members coming over to the low-fidelity Orion mockup to test out some Rotational Hand Controller (RHC) prototypes. One of the prototypes is a super-expensive mockup made at Langley that's electrically functional and has the correct translation, which is kind of cool, except that the body is a very old design and not really representative of what we're planning on doing. The next one is a stereolithed model that's volumetrically equivalent to the current baseline proposal, but I've made models of all the buttons and put them on Velcro so that we can move them around and try different places (in particular there's a lot of question about where the launch abort button is going to go). (more ...) | |
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Alice in Wonderland | 9 March 02010, 17:16 |
| Saw Alice in Wonderland last night. 3D, even. It was a gorgeous movie; the scenes of Wonderland were visually stunning (the Red Queen's castle was particularly great). Good enough to forgive some of the CG bloopers (there were a few). They also made a really good treatment of the story (The what? Who sees a movie and cares about the story?). Totally recommended.
I saw it in 3D; in general I think the 3D thing is a bit overhyped and I really don't care much about it, and in the past those things have given me a headache. In this case it worked though; at some points it seemed like they made things swoop out at the audience just because they could, but in general it was pretty smooth. Before the movie they had a preview for the NASA Hubble servicing mission movie. (more ...) | |
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The sky is right there where we left it | 3 February 02010, 16:26 |
... and I'm actually kind of excited about the new direction that we're getting. There are two parts that bother me:
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Keeping perspective | 2 February 02010, 20:45 |
| There's a lot of emotion (and some hard feelings) about the president's FY2011 budget proposal for NASA. A lot of smart, dedicated people have worked for a long time to bring the Constellation program as far as it has come, and many of those people are understandably upset that the president has called for the program to be canceled outright.
The bad feelings aren't about people losing their jobs. I'm sure that's a concern for many, but there's something else, something much deeper. Engineering isn't just the practice of cobbling something together from a collection of pieces and ideas - it's a creative endeavor, an art, and just like other artists and artisans, engineers put a lot of time, effort, and energy into their creations. (more ...) | |
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Right | 29 January 02010, 12:06 |
| Well I moved a year ago and kinda fell down on the job in terms of keeping this stuff up. Yes, it's been over a year since I posted last. Why even bother? I dunno. Might as well! Anyway, it was an ... interesting ... year, and I just never managed to get to this stuff. But I'm kinda back and the site is kinda back and maybe I'll start posting here again. I transferred some of my old posts from the old server to the new service but not all of them. Still no photos, but that will be fixed eventually. (more ...) | |
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Ike (again) | 31 October 02008, 8:11 |
| I said I would post about this, but then I didn't. Work is really hectic. So the short version: Ike was annoying; I woke up and the TV said we were evacuating, so we packed the animals and a pile of junk food and not quite enough clothing into the car and headed northward. Evacuating was fun (less fun for Clio) and I got to see new places and meet new people, then we came back (after Clio pooped on someone's rug and bit someone else we figured it was time) and didn't have electricity or running water at my apartment for another week. (more ...) | |
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Ike | 25 September 02008, 12:12 |
| If you tried to send me e-mail in the last couple of weeks, it bounced because I was without power. Now I have power and e-mail (and air conditioning, and potable water, and refrigeration, and such). I'll talk about this later; I have to go to work soon. | |
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Well crap. | 6 April 02008, 19:56 |
| I just realized it's been several months since I took that vacation, and I still haven't finished posting about it. On top of that, I can't seem to find the text I wrote.
I don't feel too bad about it because I don't recall writing very much. Basically, I had an uneventful trip to Prague, and when I landed around 3pm it was already dark outside, and very cold (though I was prepared for that). I wandered around Prague for several hours, bought some really good food at some sidewalk stands, and had some good beer (pilsner, of course) but didn't try this one. (more ...) | |
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Why yes, I am lazy! | 5 February 02008, 18:23 |
| Still haven't posted those last few vacation entries. I'll get around to it some day. It's on the list ... | |
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Almost done | 12 January 02008, 18:40 |
| I've only got a couple of vacation posts left, but every time I sit down to do this I quickly get bored. Also, I've been putting in a lot of extra time at work, so when I get home I'm not really in the mood to sit in front of the computer. Maybe I'll finish tomorrow. I really had fun in Prague, but I didn't write much about it so the editing should be quick. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 2.99 | 12 January 02008, 18:34 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Well, I'm back on a plane. My luggage arrived late last night, and I picked it up this morning when I got to the airport. The airport here really isn't equipped for that sort of thing; I had to go backwards through customs via the employee entrance to get to the baggage claim area, then deal with more rude people to get my luggage, then go back through customs, outside, upstairs, and back inside to check in. The check-in desk for my flight was actually in another building, which I had to ask someone at an information desk to find out, so back outside, walk past two buildings, into the right one. (more ...) | |
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OK, really | 12 January 02008, 18:30 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Does everyone in Rome pay $15 for a pair of underwear? I don't want Dolce & Gabbana underwear. Seriously. This country is so stupid. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 2.75: This title is getting a bit cumbersome | 12 January 02008, 18:29 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
More of the same. Still no luggage, and I leave in the morning. I'm going to have to buy clothes tonight. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 2.6: Still no luggage | 12 January 02008, 18:28 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Rome is about like yesterday. Still no word on my luggage. Tomorrow is my last day here. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 2.5: When in Rome, be a Pest | 12 January 02008, 18:16 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Rome is not as fun as Milan was. People here are definitely more rude, and the staff at stores and restaurants all seem annoyed to have customers. In other places I've been, I would say that it's because I look like a tourist, but I think I blend in pretty well here, and everybody starts talking to me in Italian. I can get through basic transactions in Italian, and people do seem to speak good enough English that I can get things done, so I don't know what the deal is. (more ...) | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 2: Rome! | 12 January 02008, 18:15 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Rome! Finally! After deplaning, we all trudged off to baggage claim, where about 10 bags came off the carousel for the entire 767 full of people. So I moved off to the huge line of people at the missing baggage desk. Like any airport line, about 95% of the people were civil about the whole thing, and a few people got really worked up and belligerent. The people at the desk handled it pretty well, considering. I was told that my baggage was still in Moscow, which was only a little surprising. (more ...) | |
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Wait for it | 30 December 02007, 8:06 |
| I have a couple more posts, for Rome and Prague, but posts written on the Tablet PC require a certain amount of editing to account for poor handwriting and bouncy planes. The Tablet does remarkably well at recognizing my handwriting, but there are a lot of spacing issues and things like "I" being replaced with "¥". I spent a bunch of time yesterday putting up photos and the first few posts, so I'm going to step away from the computer for a while and do other stuff, like clean up the apartment. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 1.6: Maybe I am the only one ... | 29 December 02007, 22:20 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now. I'm taking a few minutes to write about the comical experience I had making a transfer in the Shanghai airport. If you want to go to China, you have to get a visa in advance. Everyone tells you this, but I didn't really pay much attention because I was only going to be in Shanghai for about 3 hours while I was transferring from one flight to the next. When I checked in at Incheon, the person looked at my ticket, then at my passport, and said "hey, you don't have a visa for China." I told her that I knew, and was just transferring, and asked if she would make sure that my luggage got checked through to Rome. (more ...) | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 1.5: Incheon | 29 December 02007, 22:14 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now. I wasn't supposed to spend any time in Korea, but my flight out has been canceled. It's cold and nasty here, and Incheon is a fairly small town, but I had the opportunity to walk around and stretch, which was nice, and also had some excellent seafood fried rice. The fried rice in this part of the world is different than what you get in the US, and it's much better. The rice made being stuck here an extra day worthwhile. | |
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Chasing the Sun, Part 1: Sydney | 29 December 02007, 21:43 |
| Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now. I have to admit - I miss the travel. Airports, airplanes, delays, lost luggage, tourists, rental cars and taxis; all worth it if you get to see somewhere new and different. So this winter, instead of being fiscally responsible, I've abandoned work for a few weeks and am taking a trip westward 'round the world. I gather that normal people don't do this-my evidence being that my goals for this trip so baffled two travel agents that I ended up buying the plane tickets myself (the SkyMiles travel agency quoted me over $10,000 for the trip - are you kidding?). My original goals were:
My first stop was Sydney, which I just left. (more ...) | |
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Things I miss about Atlanta | 15 September 02007, 15:00 |
| So I've lived in Houston for a couple of months now, and am finally starting to find my way around. While I still don't think of Houston as home, I definitely feel somewhat settled in (when Clio and my furniture get here, the illusion will be mostly complete). But there are a few things that Atlanta really did better than Houston:
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The experts on the ground | 8 September 02007, 21:06 |
| If anybody watches NASA TV (anybody?), particularly ISS Mission Coverage (*crickets*), there was a bit about scheduled TVIS maintenance. TVIS is something I work on at NASA/ESCG, and Friday I sat on console at the MER to help out with the maintenance tasks. So when the commentator talks about "the experts on the ground," that's me! Who knew? | |
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Incidentally | 30 June 02007, 13:09 |
| Those of you who know me know that I've been on a quest of sorts, for at least a few years. The quest is for knowledge, but a specific bit of knowledge. I'll recap:
We've all heard the phrase "it's not rocket science." Somebody says that when they're describing an intellectual task that is far from challenging. For example, one might say "He can't even make microwave popcorn? It's not rocket science or anything." That's fine for most people, who (presumably) view rocket science as something far beyond their mental capacity. (There's a variation on this, "it's not brain surgery." I'm going to ignore that for now but perhaps I'll come back to it later.) But what about a rocket scientist? (more ...) | |
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Good grief | 22 May 02007, 11:20 |
So I wake up this morning and smell smoke ... again. It was bad enough in downtown Atlanta that it slowed down traffic. The weather forecast for today says "Patchy Smoke." What is this, California? | |
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Chemists don't paint their own houses | 10 May 02007, 10:06 |
| My proof of this: latex-based paint. It looks great on paper: cleanup is easy, the paint is easy to apply, the dried product is water-resistant, and it doesn't smell bad like oil-based paints. What's not to like? I'll tell you what. My house hasn't been painted in 5 years, and doors still stick to their door frames. I nearly need a crowbar to open the closet doors (I just leave one of them open all the time), because the paint on the door sticks to the paint on the frame. Also, latex paint won't stick to any other kind of paint, except on really porous surfaces like drywall. (more ...) | |
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Advice for young engineers | 22 April 02007, 21:18 |
| If you are an electrical engineer who went to college because you enjoy electrical engineering, there are many boring, soul-sucking career paths that you may find trying to pull you in. There are many reasons for someone to be a technician, to spend their days dealing with the mind-numbing tedium of Windows network troubleshooting, PLC ladder logic, and packaging machinery. To be sure, those jobs are important and someone has to do them. Some may even find them interesting.
That someone doesn't have to be you. There's also no reason to feel that you are doomed for life if you find yourself in a blind alley of a job. (more ...) | |
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Published! | 18 March 02007, 19:21 |
| Almost! Some of you may know that while I was recovering from back surgery, I wrote a paper for IEEE Potentials Magazine that was accepted for publication. Well, now they're telling me that it's going to be published in the May/June issue. Sweet! Many of you who have heard me when I spot an empty saddle on a high horse will see the essay as familiar ground, but you've never heard me on a peer reviewed high horse, so there. | |
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Rampant Incompetence | 17 December 02006, 19:23 |
| Most of the problems we face every day can be traced back to a single cause: rampant incompetence. People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities: driving skills, problem-solving skills, logical prowess, engineering expertise, and so on. Incompetence does more than cause the unskilled to reach erroneous conclusions or make unfortunate choices: it robs them of the ability to recognize their mistakes. The upshot of this is that the incompetent, in addition to frequently being wrong, also tend to be unshakably confident [1].
Engineers are by no means an exception, but as designers of everyday products, we have the ability to cause a great deal of misery as our incomprehensible designs are thrust upon the public. One way to avoid this general misery is to ensure that new engineers are well-rounded and at least familiar with all of the fields that may seem tangential at best to their chosen area of study. (more ...) | |
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Incidentally | 17 December 02006, 2:01 |
| I've recently been recovering from back surgery, which was done to correct this. The surgeon (Dr. Christopher Edwards) did an absolutely remarkable job and I already feel worlds better. For someone with this sort of injury, I would absolutely recommend him and the Atlanta Medical Center (where I had the surgery).
As a side note, if you have Blue Cross/Blue Shield, if you have any sort of affliction at all you're better off buying a gun and shooting yourself in the head - without giving too much away, I'll say that I paid more than double what BCBS paid for the procedure, physical therapy, and doctor visits leading up to the surgery. (more ...) | |
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My last word on the matter | 13 November 02006, 23:43 |
| Over the last few years, we've seen a growing trend - an ugly one - the increased use of Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) on airplanes. It's not just passengers bringing more gadgets on to planes with them, either: in 2003, Lufthansa and British Airways demonstrated a cabin 802.11b wireless system for passenger use; Qualcomm and American Airlines demonstrated an on-board mobile phone pico-cell in July 2003; recently, Boeing Connexion has been installing 802.11b wireless systems on Lufthansa airplanes. Even the FAA has been thinking about rescinding the rules requiring passengers to turn off electronic devices during takeoff and landing.
Why is this a disturbing trend? (more ...) | |
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On the mend | 7 July 02006, 18:24 |
| Haven't posted in a while. This isn't necessarily something new, except that normally I have some sort of excuse; I'm busy, I'm out of town, I'm lying unconscious under some knife-wielding wacko, or what have you. But for the last two weeks I've been on the mend after said incident with the knife-wielding wacko, and have been confined to the house (being unable to sit or drive), so really I could have wasted all kinds of bandwidth with mindless drivel. Instead I was lazy.
People I know have probably frequently heard me mention that what I'd really like to do is go somewhere where nobody can reach me, like deep in the woods or up a mountain or something, and do absolutely nothing for a week or two. (more ...) | |
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My encounter with the UAE fuzz | 17 February 02006, 13:22 |
| So I'm in the U.A.E. these days, and I've been meaning to make some posts on random things that have happened so far but haven't gotten around to it. But I did want to put this one up because it was kind of funny.
At road construction projects that are on highways outside of major cities, the construction crews will routinely put up sizable speed bumps to keep people at a more reasonable speed (~10 km/hr) through the construction zone. These are well marked, but still it's not the sort of thing you expect to encounter when driving 140 km/hr down the highway. (more ...) | |
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*sigh* | 21 January 02006, 20:52 |
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Cell phones on planes | 14 December 02005, 21:10 |
| It seems that people are skeptical about the dangers of operating Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) on airplanes. I've heard the same tired argument ("but I leave my phone on all the time, nothing bad happens") several times already. Well, sometimes bad things do happen. Usually not "planes dropping out of the sky" bad, but bad nonetheless. Airplane systems (including Air Phones and the like) are subject to rigorous electromagnetic emission standards to establish and provide control of the electromagnetic characteristics and compatibility of these systems. PEDs, however, are not subject to these restrictions, and electromagnetic interference from PEDs carried on by passengers have been reported as being responsible for many anomalous events during flight. (more ...) | |
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No talking on the plane | 30 November 02005, 21:02 |
| I stay in hotels a lot these days, and most hotels that I stay at plop a free copy of USA Today at my door every morning. So I read a lot of USA Today as well.
In today's USA Today there was an article by Kevin Maney in which he discussed the pummeling of people who carry on loud phone or VOIP conversations on airplanes. This is something I approve of, but he also made some flippant remarks about how cell phones really aren't the safety hazards that the FAA makes them out to be. I disagree on that, and wrote him an e-mail saying so. (more ...) | |
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Meet Clio! | 13 April 02005, 21:45 |
I got a puppy! Her official name is Marchwind Sonrisa de Alegría (Marchwind smile of joy), begotten of Ch. Belcanto Eight is Enough and Ch. Marchwind Nicole, but that's a bit cumbersome so I'm going with Clio (who was, for the lazy but curious, the muse of history). She's just about 10 months old, and (coincidentally?) I've been talking like a 10 month old recently. I'll try to snap out of it... | |
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Misappropriated holidays | 17 March 02005, 19:24 |
| Every year on St. Patrick's day I have to wonder how a Catholic holiday can come to America and end up as an excuse for binge drinking. And more importantly, why this particular one, for several reasons.
First, a bit on St. Patrick: Irish? Nope. He was actually born in Scotland, and lived most of his life in Britain or France. But that's a minor point, especially given the fact that the Irish tend to hold him in high regard. Fine. That one I can overlook, but there are better reasons to choose a different saint if you're looking to cut loose and have a bit of fun:
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Trench: 1, C-130: 0 | 22 January 02005, 15:54 |
| Normally, when construction work is being done on an airport runway, there are several safety precautions that are taken. In addition to safe work practices, a large "X" is placed at the end of the runway under construction (sometimes the "X" is lighted), and the airport issues a NOTAM (Notice To Airmen) to inform any pilots that might be landing at that airport that the runway is not in service.
Normally. In mid December, a C-23 Sherpa flew into a US operated airfield in Iraq during the day and the pilot saw, much to his surprise, that there was active airport construction and a trench was being dug across his runway (no NOTAM had been issued, and there was no runway marker). (more ...) | |
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Food for thought | 22 November 02004, 23:46 |
| This would normally be another rant, but it's late and I'm tired so it's going to be short.
Anyway. I was just reading about the Soviet Space Battlestation Skif, which was the Soviet Union's response to Reagan's Star Wars program. What's interesting about it isn't the concept of space-based warfare so much as the method that was to be used to put it in to orbit: the Energia booster rocket, the same vehicle used on the Buran space shuttle. Why is it interesting? Because that's what the Space Transport System is supposed to be (as I understand it) - a booster platform to loft things in to space. (more ...) | |
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Skydive! | 20 November 02004, 20:01 |
| Well, I went skydiving today with two co-workers. Skydiving is one of those things that I always sort of assumed I would never do (I mean why would somebody jump out of a perfectly good airplane?).
It was actually pretty fun. There's a lot of waiting involved, and you have to sign several pages of "if you fall and break your leg, don't come running to us with legal documents." After that, you wait around a while. There was a short instructional video, narrated by some guy with a comically long beard, that was about 50% "why you shouldn't sue us" and about 50% "hey, come jump out of this airplane using our patented and totally safe harness; don't worry about any of that other stuff I just said." We did tandem jumps, which was nice for the first time because instead of having parachutes strapped to our backs, we had trained professionals strapped to our backs (the trained professionals had parachutes on their backs). (more ...) | |
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So what the heck is it, already? | 22 June 02004 16:13 |
| Since I'm posting stuff, I'm going to ask this again, because I still haven't gotten an answer.
It's a question I have. Actually, it's turned into sort of a quest. Here it goes: I'm sure you've heard the phrase "it's not rocket science." Or maybe you heard the variation "It's not brain surgery." It's what you say when you're referring to something that isn't insurmountably difficult (and presumably rocket science and/or brain surgery are insurmountably difficult). Fine. But what does a rocket scientist say when he's referring to something that isn't insurmountably difficult? Presumably he/she won't say "it's not rocket science," since (for all we know) the thing in question may in fact be rocket science. (more ...) | |
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Appropriation vs Authorization | 22 June 02004 16:02 |
| This was in the FAA VOICE newsletter a while back; I just stumbled across it looking for something else but I thought it was pretty neat. The question is, what's the deal with "authorization" and "appropriation" in congress? You hear a lot (at least around budget time) about appropriation bills and whatnot, but I (and apparently others) never really understood what that meant.
Well, Deandra Brooks (from the FAA's Office of Government and Industry Affairs) offered the best explanation that I've ever seen: "In congress, you have the Budget Committee, authorizing committees, and an appropriations committee. While much of their work is intertwined, they all do something a little different. (more ...) | |
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Whoa ... | 15 May 02004 16:09 |
I found this flier in the hallway of the apartment the other day:
"Dang, there's just not enough time in the day to bath myself. I wish there was some stranger who could do it for me." naaah ... | |
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Remember the Hindenburg! | 6 May 02004 18:25 |
| The German dirigible Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, NJ on May 6, 1937; 36 of the 97 passengers and crew died. But the memory of the Hindenburg lives on, not only as a trite metaphor, but also as a short example in college freshman physics textbooks. | |
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Chernobyl | 4 April 02004 18:26 |
| Haven't heard much about it yet, but this day marks 18 years since the explosion and fire in Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. | |
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More on TMI | 28 March 02004 10:04 |
| The New York Times has an interesting article from March 29 on the incident. Among other interesting points in the article are the fact that nobody seemed to have a clear handle, even the day after the event, of what exactly went wrong. The vice president of Metropolitan Edison suggested that the accident may have begun with the failure of a valve in a pump in the cooling system, but the manufacturer of the pump (Bingham-Willamette) pointed out that such a valve failure could not have been the cause, because "we have no valve in our pump." (Herbein, the vice president of Metropolitan Edison, was probably referring to the maintenance valves in front of the emergency feedwater pumps that had been accidentally left closed after earlier maintenance). (more ...) | |
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Three Mile Island | 27 March 02004 23:26 |
| March 28 marks the 25th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island! In honor of the occasion, I'd like to go on for a bit about it.
If we learn anything from history, we learn the most from historic failures. History provides us with many spectacular failures, and it is imperative that we learn from them. The nuclear power industry provides us with some very spectacular failures indeed, and I'd like to ramble for a bit on a very important one: the accident at Three Mile Island. The near-catastrophe at Three Mile Island (hereafter TMI) started in Unit 2 of the plant on March 28, 1979 and the resulting drama gripped the nation for weeks afterward; as pregnant women and others were fleeing the area, the President of the United States toured the plant as two feeble pumps, designed for other duties, worked to keep the core of the plant from melting (one of them eventually failed). Unit 2 at TMI had a lot of problems at the end of 1978 when it was set to be started. (more ...) | |
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UltraSPARC sucks | 13 February 02004 17:58 |
| I have officially decided that Sun's computing platform, and in particular the UltraSPARC processor, suck. Also, there is no good OS to run on it. Solaris is one of the worst operating systems I've ever tried to use, and Linux has horrible SPARC support. But back to the UltraSPARC, Sun's flagship pile of ass. Here's a chip that has changed minimally, architecturewise, since its introduction. To push the chip's clock speed past 1GHz (when Intel and AMD were tossing out 2GHz+ chips as fast as people would buy them), TI had to use a six-layer copper interconnect process -- the Pentium 4 and Athlon chips only use 4 layers. (more ...) | |
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Necessity is the mother of nothing | 10 February 02004 00:48 |
| You've probably heard the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" a few times. The phrase implies that necessity springs out of the blue, and that civilization ceases to function until whatever sudden pressing need has been satisfied. At best, the phrase is a tautology. At worst, it is an indication that the speaker of the phrase is the sort of simple-minded fool that spouts trite expressions without giving thought to reality.
If you were to step back and take stock of your surroundings right now, you would be hard pressed to find anything that you need that isn't somehow provided for. (more ...) | |
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Goofy weather names | 25 January 02004 23:56 |
We're under a "Freezing Drizzle Advisory."
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They just don't make them like they used to | 28 October 02003 19:55 |
| In the past couple of years, national security has been on everyone's mind; laws have been passed, rules have been enacted, and generally life has been made more miserable so that we as a country can feel more secure. Some of the initiatives that we have seen are very visible; airport security, security at federal buildings, and legislation such as the Patriot Act have been widely discussed, and their relative merits are subject to some debate. There has also been much behind-the-scenes work, such as the Container Security Initiative (CSI), which is designed to protect the transportation of the ubiquitous and increasingly important 40-foot containers that bring us much of what we buy. (more ...) | |
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No shit, there I was ... | 21 June 02003, 00:31 |
| So a friend of mine was on TV today -- specifically, he was a guest on the show Tech Support on People TV, which is broadcast live to whoever is watching in metro Atlanta. Since it's not everyday that most people get on TV, and there was supposedly room in the studio for 3 friends to watch, I went with two other people to watch David be on TV. Which was going to be fun.
So we get to People TV, and all I can think of is UHF, but whatever -- it was really neat to be hanging around the studio, and we were going to be sitting in the control room watching the show. At least that was the plan until about 40 seconds (literally) before the show started, when the producer of the show asks us "are you three on camera?" We thought that he was asking us if we were going to be on the show, so we said "no" -- to which he said "Well, you are now," and started herding us through the door into the studio. (more ...) | |