November 04, 2003
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12:06 PM | category: Links
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Over at You Can Call Me Al, Alan posts a beautiful description of the US Flag folding tradition.
Meanwhile, Nic did exactly what I did this weekend, namely getting the yard ready for winter. She ate some spam too. Mmmmmm, spamÂ… For those of you who refuse to try it, well, that just means more for us barbarians.
Tink is enjoying the Indian Summer, and hoping for a moderate winter. I donÂ’t know about that, every farmerÂ’s almanac IÂ’ve seen is calling for a harsh winter. WeÂ’re kinda due for one too, because the last few have been relatively light.
Kevin of Wizbang fame has an interesting debate going on about certain required childrenÂ’s vaccinations and their potential dangers. His article focuses on the MMR vaccine, but I know that the DPT series also has occasional disastrous side-effects. You can read more here. The site is a little heavy on the scare-tactics, but the information is there.
Denita posts an original cartoon that captures the perfect afterlife – for homicide bombers. Brava!
I’ve told you about Wince and Nod before. If you need further convincing that it should be a regular visit, then you should check out his take on the media in Iraq, censorship via internet blocking in the name of ‘security’, and the Bill of No Rights.
Another debate, this time at Velociworld, about shooting your lawyer. Pro or con, you should go chip in with your two cents.
Jay points out an article about amateur groups building and launching ‘near spacecraft’. Fascinating stuff.
Personal ads from prisoners. TigerÂ’s analysis is a perfect example of why you need counsel if youÂ’re considering a little caged heat.
Speaking of crime and punishment, you should head over and check out the story of the executed murderer. How mundane, you say? They hanged an elephant (hung? nah, hanged sounds right.). Thanks to Say Uncle for the pointer!
From Silent Running:
Of course, the fact that Saddam was going out of his way to make everyone think he had WMDs is of no consequence to the 'where are the WMDs?' crowd.
Perhaps they actually never did exist, excepting in what Saddam wished for people to believe.
Case in point: be careful what you wish for. Someone might actually believe you are as scary as you want people to think.
Another classic fisking by Jon of Q and O, one of many. My favorite line:
It's magic! The President would tell the UN to "handle it" and it would be "handled". Magical Self-Determination Fairies would wave their Peace Wands and everything would be ok, again!
Finally, we'll finish up with some beauty.
Terry is a master with the camera, and his photographs continually amaze. His sunsets are particularly awe-inspiring.
I enjoy the photos posted by Starhawk as well. HeÂ’s done beautiful series on the World Trade Center site and his garden.
Posted by: Ted at
10:51 AM | category: Links
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A couple of things jumped out at me.
BlogSpot and LiveJournal are the two market leaders, each with 31% of these hosted blogs. While BlogSpot is growing more quickly, its retention rate is lower, and the two sites should continue to race neck-and-neck in the near term in terms of active users.
Making BlogSpot the AOL of blogging. That's not really a surprise, because I've noticed a bias against BlogSpotters in the blogosphere.
Also, this survey only included Blog-City, BlogSpot, Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger and Xanga. Their rationale seems reasonable.
The report concludes that the blogosphere is like an iceberg, where a very few (the big boys) are read by thousands every day, yet the vast majority of blogs remain unseen by most, 'under the surface' if you will. They then discuss nanoaudiences (not to be confused with the off-Broadway production of Nano-Nanette) and the methodology used.
According to the report, this is the first in a series of surveys to be done. Future results will be interesting.
Posted by: Ted at
08:19 AM | category: Links
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Posted by: Ted at
05:08 AM | category: Square Pegs
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November 03, 2003
More amazing photos here and here.
According to online sources, "there are probably 30 more Titans at Davis-Monthan AFB, but maybe only one fully reconditioned and ready for flight. At the time of the Titan II deactivation, there were 52 missiles + spares in serviceable condition - I think something less than 15 were selected for use as satellite boosters - they got guidance upgrades, safety upgrades, and assorted what-not."
The current undisputed workhorse of the US lifter fleet are the Boeing Deltas. Some beautiful pictures of the Delta II, Delta III, and Delta IV can be found at the Boeing Gallery website. Be sure to look around a bit, because there are multiple pages of photos.
Posted by: Ted at
09:56 PM | category: Space Program
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For some strange reason, our 'flight' of recruits was almost evenly divided between New Yorkers and Californians. There may have been a few other states in there, but not many. The Californians (including yours truly) took one bay of the barracks, and the Noo Yawkahs took the other.
We had arrived on a friday, and official training didn't start until monday, which meant that our TI (training instructor, as opposed to drill instructor) had the whole weekend to fuck with us to his hearts content. And he did.
He began by running our asses ragged all day long. Mostly by announcing fire drills one after another which caused us to hustle down three flights of steps and across the street into a field where we tried to get into some sort of formation, and then we'd take verbal abuse until the TI and his assistants got thirsty from yelling. Then we'd return to our barracks ("Double-time Hollywood! Hup hup!") and do it all over again in 10 minutes. We were hot, sticky, tired and generally pissed off. A little scared too because this neckless dude with the big voice and little smokey-the-bear hat suddenly had supreme power over our lives.
Finally we were told to grab showers before evening chow. As seventy teenagers gratefully (and wearily) stripped down, we heard the TI's voice ring out, making our blood run cold.
"Holy Shit!!! Will you take a look at this?"
Most of us knew better than to look at him, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves. We'd learned that much already.
"All of you, strip to your skivvies! Then get to attention at your bunks."
Oh crap, this couldn't be good. He walked over to the other bay to give them the same directions, the east coast boys were being watched over by the assistant TI. We could here whoops and hollers from the two sergeants. We finished undressing and stood there at something resembling attention, wondering what the hell was going to happen next.
I feared another fire drill.
Then the bay was filled with the rest of the flight as the guys from the other bay hurried in, being verbally herded by the TI's. They fell in between us, filling the ranks.
The kid directly across from me was buck naked. The TI called for everyone without underwear to take a step forward (I have no idea how many there were), and he read them the riot act for free-balling it. Many dire warnings about what constituted proper and complete military uniforms were issued, along with a promise of random, frequent checks to ensure compliance.
Next the TI walked down the line and pointed at various people as they walked by. "You... you... no... you... no..." We held our breath and prayed that we weren't singled out. Those selected were told to take a step forward.
Suddenly there were more smokey-the-bear hats in the room. I'm guessing that the assistant TI called the other sergeants up for the fun and games. Six or eight of them I think.
It was a fashion show. Many of the California boys were wearing, uh... unusual underwear. Various bikini styles. We were all reminded that Uncle Sam issued us six pairs of white boxers or briefs, and that's all we'd better be wearing during Basic Training.
As the troops marched up and down the aisle of the barracks, the TI's made comments. Nobody else laughed or even smirked, that was a sure way to catch personalized hell.
Afterwards, assignments were handed out for Flight Leader, Squad Leaders, Guide-on, road guards and so on. These were temporary, and could (and would) be pulled immediately upon screwup. The TI's voted and gave the jobs out based on the best underwear.
I became (temporarily) a squad leader.
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03:01 PM | category: Boring Stories
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Oops, I guess I should warn y'all that it's a .pdf file, if that matters. It shouldn't, because it's that good.
Posted by: Ted at
12:35 PM | category: Links
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I've also been enjoying the Chrysler "Harley" whatever-his-name-is commercials. Very nice.
Posted by: Ted at
11:23 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Patrick Ramsey isn't going to last the season at this rate. The kid is tough, he's got talent, but he's going to get hurt badly one of these games. Right now, Ramsey has the chance to be the new Manning. Archie, not Peyton. A fine quarterback on a hopelessly cruddy team.
Spurrier has to go. So does about half of the roster, because even less talented players would be better than the overpaid quitters that are collecting paychecks now, as long as they tried hard. Every play. Lose every damn game - fine - but go down swinging.
I don't even like the Redskins, but they're local so you pick up the information by osmosis.
Rick freakin' Mirer. Oh God, help the Raider Nation.
Posted by: Ted at
11:10 AM | category: Square Pegs
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November 02, 2003
Mercury: No computers on board, ground systems used IBM 709 & 7090 computers developed for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. An additional system was added to solve communication problems with geographically distant ground stations, a 7281 I Data Communications Channel.
Ranger, Surveyor and Early Mariner Unmanned Probes used sequencers.
Apollo Age
Gemini:
The Gemini Digital Computer. IBM received the contract for the GDC on April 19, 1962. It weighed approximately 59 pounds, performed more than 7,000 calculations per second, and required 1.35 cubic feet of space. It used a magnetic core memory, which was originally deisgned for the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE). The GDC failed at re-entry during the flight of James McDivitt and Ed White. They had to manually de-orbit and landed 80 miles off course.
Apollo: The Apollo guidance and navigation computer was designed by MIT.
Skylab: NASA went with IBM again and the system was designed around an off-the-shelf version of the IBM 4Pi processor, a direct predecessor to the System /360. This is the first time I saw when a system that implemented microcode was flown in space.
Voyager, Galileo: Used a distributed computing system designed by JPL.
Space Transportation System (Shuttle):
Initial design for the main computer was a repackaged version of the F-15 fighter jet's IBM's AP-1, called the IBM AP-101, based on the IBM 4Pi processor. The IBM AP-101 was a collective effort between IBM and Rockwell International. The size of the AP-101's memory was settled on as 32K, but later in the software engineering process the memory requirements grew to over 700K.
The first use of Open Source in space was when Debian GNU/Linux flew on the shuttle in 1997 controlling a hydroponics experiment. This was most likely on an IBM laptop, but I didn't find any concrete references to this.
I don't know who the contractor was for the main computer aboard the ISS, but the individual astronauts use IBM laptops, running MS software, for everyday ops.
So just as home computers can be traced back to military computers, so can spacecraft computers, perhaps more directly.
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07:58 PM | category: Space Program
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Posted by: Ted at
09:30 AM | category: History
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Posted by: Ted at
09:14 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Posted by: Ted at
08:20 AM | category: Rocketry
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November 01, 2003
Helen discussed personal grooming a bit ago and it reminded me of a picture I wanted to post. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. Fortunately, Eros Blog posted the exact picture! I must be living right. Helen, if voting is still open, then this gets my vote.
I've finished off most of a bottle of Spatlese wine today (pronounced spate-lace). It's a German wine, and with this bottle my annual consumption of wine has doubled.
Does anyone have a good onion soup recipe? I have an ok one, but it's nothing special. My recipe has wine in it, which is what got me to thinking about it.
I've been on a horror flick buying binge this month. Yesterday I picked up Stephen King's Silver Bullet, which is ok. It's one of the few horror movies my wife will watch, and it stars Megan Follows, and I've stalked lusted after enjoyed her work for years.
I also picked up Rosemary's Baby. Classic. The last addition to the library was a collection called "AMC Cult Classics". Four movies - The Atomic Brain (the link has the movie under an alternate title), The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Night Tide (with Dennis Hopper), and Carnival of Souls. I have Carnival in another collection, it's kinda weird to double up on an obscure flick like that.
If you like love those cheesy classics, you'll enjoy The Astounding B Monster website.
My friend Dan lent me 28 Days Later. It's almost midnight and everyone else is in bed. Time to go watch zombies.
Posted by: Ted at
11:04 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Here's the recipe.
Update: Yum! Thanks Jennifer!!!! One tip: I think I used too much apple in the caramel sauce. Go with her suggested one spoonful of apple and let the caramel flavor rule. Also, take the time to use her presentation tips as it makes for a pretty dish.
Something else I want to try, just to see the difference, is a recipe for 'old fashioned' cheesecake that came with the pie crust. It's identical except it calls for 1 tsp of lemon juice and only 1 pkg of cream cheese.
Another variation that occured to me was to use pineapple chunks instead of the apple. For the topping mix some toasted coconut with crushed pineapple and sprinkle with crushed macadamia nuts.
Posted by: Ted at
12:33 PM | category: Recipes
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As promised, there are a couple more pictures of my uncle's baseball card collection in the extended entry. Braves and Cubs fans will be particularly pleased I think. more...
Posted by: Ted at
06:52 AM | category: History
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