Many amazing things were accomplished in the days before computers became ubiquitous and the world wide web became a distraction as well as a tool.

Nazi Germany built the first jet fighter in the world, and was in the process of building a plane that bears a remarkable resemblance to the modern B2 bomber (although I think the stealth aspects of the “Hilter’s Stealth-Fighter” were an accidental byproduct and not the result of considered design). There was no computer modeling available to examine the airflow around the plane, which had no vertical control or stabilization surfaces, yet the plane flew.

The computer in the Apollo 11 capsule Columbia used to navigate to the moon for the first lunar landing, which occurred 50 years ago this July 16, wasn’t as powerful as the engine control unit in your car that moderates the electronic fuel injection and variable valve timing. Yet they made it to the moon, while we use sophisticated GPS systems to travel much shorter distances.

What prompted my thoughts on these amazing accomplishments is the discovery of a web site called The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies, which has photos of many of the drawing instruments undoubtedly used to make the precision plans needed to build the plane or the space capsule. The comments below many of the images are very entertaining, and emphasize how much things have changed.

A lifetime ago, in high school, I took a mechanical drawing course, and again when I was in college. I still have my old drawing instruments.

Now, those skills I developed and techniques I learned are almost useless. Wow, things have changed…

I need to dig up my old slide rules and take some pictures of them, maybe along with some of my film SLR cameras.

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Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice.

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From a discussion at work today:

“Dude, this is a zombie project, it won’t die and it eats our brains.”

“I know… I’ve gotten out the garlic and stakes to kill it and I’m getting nowhere.”

“Well that’s why, you don’t use garlic and stakes on zombies, that’s for vampires.  You use flamethrowers and chainsaws for zombies. You’ve got to use the right tools for the job…”

We’re too geeky to live sometimes…

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It’s almost 15 minutes long, but it’s very funny. John Hodgman, the “PC” in the “Hi, I’m a Mac… And I’m a PC” commercials speaks at the Radio and Television Correspondent’s Dinner:

President Obama flashes the Vulcan salute twice, so he really is our first nerd President.

Cool…

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Thanks to TrekMovie.com for the link to the video.

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Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice.

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With the transition to broadcast digital TV and the ending of brodcast analog signals, there has been much discussion and heartburn. Given that the vast majority of people who live in urban and suburban areas get their TV signals via cable, those most affected live in rural areas and don’t get good reception in the first place.

Since the video card in my computer has a digital TV input, I decided to buy an inexpensive antenna to check it out. For around $16 I was able to get a Philips set-top antenna that has a built in signal amplifier. Going to the Windows Media Center setup screen, I had 19 digital broadcast stations listed for my area. Apparently Microsoft chose to cast a wide geographical net for their channel list because after analyzing the signals, there were only four stations that could be received with a signal strenth of more than one bar out of five. After completing the setup, I went to the programming guide where the Windows Media Center had helpfully eliminated the stations I checked off that were not strong enough. I tuned to the local NPR station, and during a thunderstorm Austin experienced last night, I discovered the good, the bad, and the ugly of broadcast digital TV.

The good:

The picture is amazing. On my computer monitor (the equivalent of an HDTV), the signal is obviously high definition, and clear enough to satisfy any reasonable expectation of HD quality, especially from a brodcasting source. It looked at least as good and on occasion better than DVDs I play using the same computer and monitor.

The bad:

Thuderstorms and rain play havoc with reception, and that havoc isn’t simple static with a picture still visible as in broadcast analog TV. Instead, you either get a stuttering picture, still incredibly clear HD still images that change as more data is received and a new picture is displayed anywhere from more than one second per frame to the rate that gives the appearance of smooth motion, or a notice that there is no signal at all. For those in rural areas, even with a high quality outdoor antenna and all the amplification they can give it, I suspect there is a threshold in signal to noise ratio that weather will afffect profoundly.

The ugly:

It’s still broadcast TV. That means there are still the commercials (few of which have been converted to HD, and therefore look even more like crap when compared to the program they are interrupting), and there is still the lack of quality content that has plagued the medium for decades.

With how wired the world is becoming, negleting local WiFi and other short-ranged networks, I wonder how much longer any broadcast mass media will survive.

Regardless, if you have a TV or computer that can receive digital TV signals, and you live in or very near an urban area, I can tell you paying $16 for a set-top antenna is money well spent to be able to see what good broadcast content there is in HD. Well, it’s worth it if your significant other isn’t too aggrivated by having a rabbit-ear antenna sitting on top of your TV or computer, that is…

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Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice .

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…how can we justify laughing at all?

This is funny and wistfully sad simultaneously, but you have to admit, Adam West has handled his situation with respect to fame/infamy, camp, pop culture, and fads as well as anyone could, with self-deprecating humor and class.

Batman’s garage sale…

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I have now seen the new Star Trek movie twice. I’ve been a fan of the series since pretty much the first broadcast, assuming the stories of my Mom are correct about how I was mesmerized during the original broadcasts. The earliest memory of mine I can trace is that of Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon while the afteroon sun shone in through the windows of our den, making reflections on the television while I listened to the static clouded audio distorted the first words of a human stepping on another world.

Well, as a fan of the “original series” (referred to as “TOS”), one of the slowly dwinding numbers of those who actually saw the first broadcasts along with the live pictures of men walking on the moon, I can say that the new movie balances the spirit of the original versus the weight of the “canon” that has been built up over the ensuing decades by those managing the “franchise” that arose from the unexpected appeal of the original series while adding on the requirements that anything must have to appeal to the current cultural norms.

To put it in blunt terms, as a stand alone movie, it works very well. As a “reboot” of the franchise, it also works reasonably well, if one ignores several issues that could have been easily addressed.

In other words, I am happy that the new people in charge of the franchise have chosen a reboot, but even though I know that I am not an expert in creating entertaining movies I could have written something just as entertaining that would not have the huge plot holes that the rebooted timeline is burdened with.

Sigh…

My fault for pursing the sure money instead of the creative dream, where I could have been in Hollywood affecting the direction of my childhood dreams…

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When watching the movie Apollo 13,for any man who didn’t know how it turned out all the suspense in the movie ended when they dumped out the box that had all the stuff the astronauts had to make an emergency air scrubber. One of the prominent items was duct tape, and as any real man knows, you can use duct tape for almost anything. Now it’s been made even better:

Nuclear Grade Duct Tape

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I have this under a “Geek Cool” category, but for me it’s a bit geek uncool. They have released a photo of the design for the Enterprise from the upcoming Star Trek movie.

I’ve been a fan of Star Trek since the days of the original series. I’ve been told stories by my older relatives of how I was mesmerized by the show when it was first on TV when I was 4, 5, and 6 years-old although I was completely uninterested in other stuff on the tube at the time.

Among the first fiction I read oriented towards adults were novelizations of the episodes. One of the first books I ever bought on my own was through the school, where we could order in a class, was a book that promoted upcoming TV shows. Back then, in the 70s, they didn’t try to protect the supposedly tender sensibilities of elementary school kids so much as they do now from commercial promotion. I bought the book because of the photo of the Enterprise on the cover, which intrigued me.

I remember hiding paperback copies of the novelizations of the episodes behind my notebook during classes in elementary school when we were supposed to be studying, reading about the adventures of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. My imagination and curiosity were stimulated in a way that I haven’t experienced in years, energized in a way I miss terribly as an adult.

I have fond memories of the ship design, and the modifications made for Star Trek: The Motion Picture just made it more real in my mind.

Unfortunately, even though I’m not a “canon” freak, I’m a bit disappointed in the redesign they’ve come up with for the next movie, which sounds like a “reboot” of the series in all but name.

Here’s the design I find most appealing:

Redesign of the Enterprise for the movies in the 80s

And here’s what we’ll be seeing in the Spring of 2009:

NCC-1701 redesigned for the reboot movie

These small images don’t really convey the changes in proportion that to me make the new design look very unbalanced and, to put it simply, just off kilter.

You can see bigger images of the new design at Entertainment Weekly. Many images of the original movie design can be found at Ex Astris Scientia along with an extended commentary by the very thoughtful site creator on the design for the reboot movie.

While I will be happy if they make a movie with a good script that doesn’t end up looking cheesy, because in the end the hardware isn’t important as long as it doesn’t distract from the story, the unappealing aesthetics of the redesign takes away from part of what first captured my imagination 40 years ago.

So I’m a bit bummed.

Here are some solar panels that are designed to be easy to install using materials that are familiar to non-specialists:

   Lumeta’s “peel & stick” solar panels can blanket a roof in under 35 minutes

This post comes courtesy of the iPhone I was just given for my birthday. This is just too cool!

…here is how Santa Claus does his thing every Christmas Eve:

   Science of Santa Claus: Jolly Old Elf Really Can Deliver Presents in One Night, Says NC State Engineer

…from MSNBC.com:

Good news! Black hole won’t destroy Earth

Boy, I am relieved. I was seriously worried there for a while.

[/sarcasm]

The Hubble space telescope has captured an amazing image of the moon Ariel crossing Uranus.

A good description of the event is found here:

A SPOT ON URANUS

The official Hubble site has additional images. A good illustration of the relative scale can be found through this link.

…returned in a big way.

This week my company, Freescale Semiconductor, announced the availability of MRAM parts. This is a new, non-volatile memory (as in it keeps the stuff stored even when the power is off) that has the potential to make many devices start up faster and in some cases store data more quickly.

What I found interesting though, was my own personal history with the development of the technology. Around nine years ago, I was on an ad-hoc committee which was charged with studying the MRAM technology and deciding if it was worth pursuing.

Needless to say, we decided the cost of development was worth the potential payoff.

It is nice to see something that I played a small (but non-trivial) role in come to fruition.

Not a license plate, nor some fictional spaceship, but a bipolar emission nebula.

There is beauty everywhere if you look.

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I just had another patent issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

How do I know?

Was I alerted by the USPTO?

Did I receive a message from my company which has the rights to the patent?

Neither, I received a solicitation in the mail to order a plaque with the text of the first lines of the abstract and the first drawing for Patent 7,015,517 issued on 21 March 2006 for the invention of a “Semiconductor Device Incorporating a Defect Controlled Strained Channel Structure and Method of Making the Same”.

I’m sure I shouldn’t complain, but somehow finding out through a company trying to make money from me by selling me a plaque kind of takes away from the whole thing…

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Almost two decades ago in a test on electrodynamics, I was asked to re-derive the fundamental equations of electromagnetism (the Maxwell Equations) with the assumption that magnetic monopoles existed.

What the heck am I talking about here? Well, most people are familiar with the two types of charge that exist in the universe, positive and negative charge, and that there are fundamental units of this charge, protons for positive charge and electrons for negative charge (and yes, I am skipping those interesting but baffling to the majority quarks because they do not pertain to this discussion, if you want to discuss them, email me or go to the Physics department at your local university). Similar fundamental units of magnetisms do not exist; there are no “north monopoles” or “south monopoles” to complement the protons and electrons.

In my exam, based upon a few fundamental assumptions, that monopoles of both varieties existed and that there was a continuity of magnetic charge just as exists for electric charge, I was to derive the form the Maxwell Equations would take and explain the physical consequences of the new equations. At the time, I speculated that if there were such a thing as negative mass, something similar to the Maxwell Equations could be derived for gravity, and that there should therefore exist an equivalent of “gravomagnetics” with similar behaviors due to moving mass as there are because of the magnetic fields generated from moving charges. Needless tosay, I did not include these idle thoughts in my answer to the question, and admittedly it was not the best use of my effort during the exam, but the question was actually pretty straightforward so I did have the spare time.

While a “negative mass” has not been discovered, a recent measurement seems to point towards a possible derivation of a quantum theory of gravity, which has eluded Physicists for decades:

Scientists funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and colleagues have measured the effect in a laboratory.

I need to read the original paper, but based upon what is written in the article linked, this is pretty damn exciting to a real Physics geek like me. Although this result is not exactly what my speculations led to, it is gratifying to know that back when I was in graduate school even my idle speculations while working out an exam problem had merit and were not completely off base.

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Here is an interesting discussion from Encyclopedia Astronautica on the Crew Exploration Vehicle that NASA is planning to use for the stepping stone missions to Mars that were mandated by President George W. Bush. I’m not sure I fully comprehend the reasoning behind Bush’s advocacy of this effort, but I will say that I am a big supporter of manned exploration of space, even if it is not as “economical” as the robotic missions.

We need to have human explorers, we need to have a dream of expansion beyond this planet, otherwise I fear hope will die and we will eventually be reduced to squabbling factions fighting over ever diminishing resources.

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Technology developed by NASA is being used to help in crime scene analysis and documentation.

It is almost impossible to imagine all the spin-offs from technology development for space travel and exploration. One could argue the first portable computer was the navigation system used by the Apollo spacecraft to go to the moon.

Sometimes the benefits are difficult to link directly to what we spend, so we need to consider carefully what we cut and what we keep in our national budget.

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