The Engineer's Tears

When I was a youngster I wanted to make model airplanes that actually flew. I learned from JP, big brother of a schoolfriend, how to design and build a basic airframe that would get off the ground and fly level.
It's not that hard, folks.
If you are flying faster, the rules are slightly different e.g. wing profiles for supersonic aircraft are different and the need for a smooth aerodynamic form is much more pronounced.

Anyone who takes an interest in flying things can pick up a lot of it from looking at the plentiful working examples - so why are fictional aircraft always done by people who ignore all the rules?

Here's a few examples from the DAZ site that make me throw up my hands in horror:

This baby even has a tank turret on top: weird, but take a look at the front profile of it. This thing (if it flies at all) is gonna be very slow. I'm also puzzled by the extra engines above the body that don't seem to be working. Oh wait - if they were turned on they would burn off the tailplane ! 

This one doesn't seem to have enough wing area to get off  the deck. 'nuff said.

This attempts to be the airborn equivalent of the jetski.  Ignoring the wing area issue for a moment, there is just one slight problem with that: the flyer is exposed to turbulent winds.  Provided you were flying at biplane-type speeds that could be okay - but then you would need much, much bigger wings.  Now ask yourself how the pilot is going to control this thing while standing up, buffeted by 100 mph-plus winds and no rudder pedals.
 I hope he has very strong arms !

 Ah,  I say- this one actually looks like it has enough wing area to get off  the ground, although the jet exhausts look a bit small for the size of craft.  Oh - hang on, where are all the control surfaces? where is the elevators - or any pitch control for that matter?
 . . . . . and then I saw another view . . . . .

What should be the main engine air intakes are partly closed off flat !  Add to that the louvres in the wing (so much for enough lifting surface to fly, sigh!) and once again this is just crazy.

Finally . . . . . . .
This is actually the best of the lot IMHO because it does not fall down on any of the foolishness shown above.
Aerodynamic? check.
Possibly enough thrust to get off the ground? check.
Possibly enough control to navigate? check.  (note those exhaust ducts on the tail?)

There's' just a couple of itty bitty problems.
 First, look at the front: the view from the pilot's seat is obscured forward so you won't see what's directly ahead.
Okay, maybe it has a camera and screen so the pilot sits behind armourplate. 

The other one is pretty obscure, so I don't really expect the creator of this flyer to know about it :- the man trouble with VTOL craft using jets is exhaust gas ingestion or EGI for short: when that happens, thrust drops off and the flyer comes down. Everything works fine once you are up in the air, it's those few feet above the runway that are the problem.  The Harrier jump jet uses some clever design to get away from it as much as possible but this design will get EGI in about one second -  that's why we don't have lots of VTOL flyers around using this method.

So in summary I will have to make my own SF flyers and spaceships  if I want them to pass muster.
More work, but at least I can be sure they will look like they might actually fly.
I might even be able to sell them on a website somewhere for pocket money. 

If you are interested, the place to go for some great design ideas for flying machines and spacecraft  (nearly real and real ones, that is !) is Scott Lowther's excellent Aerospace Projects Review Blog.

What happenned to the phone

Remember I said my iPhone was misbehaving? I took it to the local "genius" bar where I was told that the dock connector had "liquid damage" and would need to be replaced.
Cost from Apple? 180 bucks.
Well, I ain't made o' money so I decided to try something cheaper: the local  mofo repair guy. He charged 80 bucks and did it in half an hour.

The connector definitely failed: the reason the earphones kept cutting out was that the phone thought there was a dock connection going on.  okay. . . . . but $180 to replace the part?  Even repair guy appears to be getting money for jam - really, how much does the replacement part cost? and labour? I am very certain it did not take half an hour.

So, for anyone else out there, get the best protection for your mofo you can get. I have an Otter  Defender case which is pretty good ( it's about as drop- proof a case as you can get) , but my work is very messy at times and I got slack, leaving it in my uniform  where it got coated in gunk - so I cleaned it: apparently even a wipe with a wet cloth was too much for it.  . . so now I have a plastic bag with one of those airtight seals on it and the phone screen can still be used inside that (although I'm not sure what the sound is like!)

Lytro hits the stores

I have mentioned the Lytro camera once before: it really is not the same as any other "camera" in  that you can adjust the focus and other things after the picture has been taken.

It's now on sale in the US so I hope it turns up here soon too - although probably it will be at a higher price (typically, not for any good reason though).
There is something of great potential here - can't quite say what it will be used for, but I know it will turn up. 

Spacetrawler

Okay. I don't normally read comics . . . but this one is really, really good. The art is good - but the story is awesome - wish I could write as well as this man, and he draws it too, a page (or two!) each week.
Adventure, wit and great humor all in one comic!
Christopher Baldwin I salute you.


Here's the link to a sample. Below the toon you will find the "start" and "next" buttons.

Wherever it is, I'm not going there

The pic comes direct from Macworld's website.  'nuff said.

I have had my own trials with the iPhone recently: the main thing I use it or is playing music while I travel  - but it started cutting out on me for no apparent reason. After some fiddling I guessed that the earphone leads were dodgy (it gets plugged and unplugged at least twice every day) - so I shelled out $35 for a new pair. . . . . Except that it made no difference. The problem only happens sometimes and it comes and goes but it remains a mystery. Each time I must pull the plug, stop the music, plug back in so that it registers and then press play again. I note that this only seems to have started happening after an update to iOS. Also after the update sometimes my phone just won't connect to the internet: the one other use I have for it is as link from my laptop to the net while travelling on trains. This has never been terribly good, to be honest: in the morning it connects fine but every afternoon it's a gamble wether it will even connect.  I blame it on all those people tapping away on Twitter and facebook, both of which now come with iOS6 along with something called "passbook" which currently offers only crap from a radio station. 
Did I say I hate FB?
When I was trying to get my phone to work properly I wiped it and reinstalled everything I actually needed . . . and FB is not one of the "apps" I need.  I'm waiting for it to die but someone must be paying big to prop it up: it is "free" but the server end of things must be costing plenty, so where is the money coming from?
The only person I have contacted so far on FB appears to be dodgy. I loaned him some money as he was an old aquaintance  - but he has since disappeared and for someone who claims to be a Linux geek he really isn't on the net at all. I suspect that he lied to me about everything just to scrounge a few quid.  tragic really, I have moved on, climbed out of the hole of poverty but it seems that most of the people I knew back in the poor, crazy times have not.
'nuff said.

It's too hard, don't bother

Read here a great little piece on space travel. The analogy is a good one.
Thanks, Discovery News.

I don't know if the 100 year project is workable but any project that gets humans looking outside their backyard has got to be an improvement on things.

About Capitalism

This is in reference to "The Implosion of Capitalism".

I agree partly with the author: the rape of the Earth by selfish lunatics is too much and we are all  paying for it.
(Aside: Down here we are arguing over a "supertrawler" that has come down to stripmine our fish stocks. I can't see what the issue is: why should we let them? Where are our navy subs and torpedoes when we really need them? ;)

My problem with it is the glorification of "spirituality" animism and mysticism.

Yes, we do need to fix some very, very bad things in our society, but to go back to the attitudes of the tribal mind is not the answer: are we to discard the power of rational thinking and scientific analysis and replace it with old wive's tales and healing by witchdoctor? No,  and No again.  What I see as failing us all is the failure of modern man to distinguish between the primaeval urges of greed, fear, desire and envy  - and rational thought and action.

The emotional forces are still  distorting rational thought in almost all of humanity and it won't be fixed unless we overcome those stupid medieval mentalities and scrambled thoughts  - especially in those who are in positions of power.

Rational people would not make war or strip mine their own lands and oceans. A rational society would not put its failed members in little concrete boxes: it would work out how to restore or heal these members to good status. A rational society does not need repressive laws or a "Strong Leader": everyone knows what is right because they learn morality and ethics in school without any religious coloration to it.

We probably won't ever be able to remove those things from ourselves, but we can learn to overcome them: I see it every day. Walk into a shop and see a shop assistant being friendly and helpful to a person they might  not like the look of (or even despise if they knew more about them): it can be done, and is done every day by people, so why can't we train each other more in this task of being more rational regardless of emotional shite?
Maybe it is because there is a huge machinery of marketing and advertising that depends on it to sell us more crap that we really don't need.
Add to that the mound of mystic mumbo jumbo called religion and "spirituality" (whatever that means) and we are not getting better any time soon.  Sure, life is full of mysteries and things we really don't understand  - but doing stupid things you don't understand does not solve the unknowing  - nonsense is still nonsense.

It seems to me that maybe if there were enough truly rational people in a nation they might be able to move things more toward that direction, but therein is the problem: where does this growth of rationalism come from?  Furthermore, little rational thought is going to occur in people who are tired, overworked, under threat of eviction, sick or hungry: in short, the resources need to be there first, and we are globally moving toward a situation where almost everyone will be hungry and poor. I hope it doesn't get that bad, but you get my point.

Mad capitalism, the practice of usury or getting more money for nothing more than the loaning out of money, is not wise.  There is no free lunch - if you are eating a "free" lunch, someone else is actually paying for it. The big scam of this age is to spread the "lunch bill" among everyone else who isn't getting any even though they have no choice in the matter. . . . . but because pretty much no-one is looking at it and there is no specific person getting stiffed, they keep getting away with it. What is really amazing is that when Bear Stearns etc. went down and Uncle Sam had to bail them all out, there it was, clear as day: All the US tax payers were footing the bill for a handful of robbers . . . and they did NOTHING to fix it.