Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Theatrical Run Review

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Well, it’s Christmas, and we are Jewish, so that means Chinese food and a movie.

We got the (Kosher) Chinese food yesterday, in addition to the stir fry that I made (with hearts of palm instead of bamboo shoots), and we went to see a movie in the theater.

We was the latest Jack Black vehicle, Gulliver’s Travels.

Jack Black … Lemuel Gulliver
Jason Segel … Horatio
Emily Blunt … Princess Mary
Amanda Peet … Darcy Silverman
Billy Connolly … King Theodore
Chris O’Dowd … General Edward
T.J. Miller … Dan
James Corden … Jinks
Catherine Tate … Queen Isabelle

It’s pretty much a piece of fluff, with Jack Black playing Jack Black, but Jack Black is amusing.

The plot bears a reasonable relationship first two parts of the book, though it lacks the social and political satire that John Swift put in, but considering that the original was written in 1726, this is unsurprising.

While a Jack Black vehicle, the best performance is actually by Chris O’Dowd, who is the heavy in the film.

Additionally, Amanda Peet gives a good performance, and is just plain hawt in this, though without showing any skin.

A special shout out to the send up of giant robots.

It’s interesting to see the effect of CGI here, because one of the old school, and rather convincing, techniques used in such films, forced perspective, would have helped to make it more realistic.

It was a fun movie, but I would have preferred to see it on pay per view for about ⅕ the price.

Click on the pictures for full size.

This Has Fiasco Written All Over It

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Well, it’s not quite this bad


We have the Army Tilt-Rotor


and the USAF STOVL Hoover

So, the USAF wants a STOL cargo aircraft with greater capabilities than the C-130, while the Army wants a VTOL cargo aircraft with roughly the carrying capacity of the C-130.

Well, it appears that they are looking at a common airframe intended to do both.

So a jack of no trades and a master of none, because when you combine these disparate needs, and requirements, you end up with something that just does not work.

See the cancelled Naval F-111B, for instance.

I’m with Bill Sweetman on this, “The people promoting these abominations are secretly working for Airbus Military.”

Navy Demonstrates a 33 MJ Railgun

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Some notes on the video below

The US Navy Surface Warfare division has set a new record for “muzzle” energy from an electromagnetic railgun. (see also here).

You really cannot determine the mass or size of the projectile accurately from the video, but given an energy of 33MJ, and its size appearing near to that of a 5″ naval round, one could assume a mass of the round of somewhere between 10 and 32 kg. (The latter is the weight of the current 5″ round)

This would give a velocity of somewhere around 1500 to 2500 m/s (5000 – 9000 km/h, 3000-5500 mph, or Mach 4-9.5).

By way of comparison, the 16 inch guns on the Iowa class have a muzzle energy of about 410 MJ, 1225 kg at 820 m/s, but velocity here can translate into a lot more range, something well in excess of 200 km, and this technology is in its early stages, so achieving an order of magnitude improvement in energy is certainly possible.

A note, based on comments with people who have used capacitors to use an arc to generate hypersonic shock waves for high speed simulations.

First, the power cables are almost certainly coaxial to minimize impedance, and the sheath on the outside is doubtless very heavy, because the high current generates forces that would otherwise blow the conducting jacket off. (in the wind tunnel case, the capacitor room looked “like a porcupine turned inside out”, I wish that I had been there for that.)

Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) Tested

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The US Navy has conducted its first successful test of the EMALS electric catapult at its Lakehurst, NJ air field.

The navy is doubtless heaving a sigh of relief, as the Ford class carriers were designed to mount these catapults, and retrofitting steam catapults would be very involved.

The British are probably even more relieved, as their carrier(s) have gas turbine propulsion, and so have no steam available, so without this, they would just be big floating anvils.

It’s a similar technology the Navy’s recently tested railgun, but the energy storage is mechanical (flywheels) on the catapult, and solid state (capacitors) on the railgun.

Given the state of the art in capacitors, it probably makes sense, since the rail gun is much higher power (a few orders of magnitude), and lower energy (by around a factor of 5) than the catapult.

I Really Hate Fanboi!

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And BooMan is definitely a fanboi, or he does not understand that SDNWOTN* when he says, “At this point in his presidency I think it is fair to say that Obama is already in the conversation as best president since Abraham Lincoln.“

Considering his prior record, I do not think that it is sarcasm.

<facepalm>

*Sarcasm Does Not Work On The Net.

Here’s a Shocker…

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It turns out that all those studies showing Americans to be the most church going and religious people in the industrialized world, don’t show this.

They just show that Americans are the most likely to lie to pollsters about their religiosity:

Two in five Americans say they regularly attend religious services. Upward of 90 percent of all Americans believe in God, pollsters report, and more than 70 percent have absolutely no doubt that God exists. The patron saint of Christmas, Americans insist, is the emaciated hero on the Cross, not the obese fellow in the overstuffed costume.

There is only one conclusion to draw from these numbers: Americans are significantly more religious than the citizens of other industrialized nations.

Except they are not.

Beyond the polls, social scientists have conducted more rigorous analyses of religious behavior. Rather than ask people how often they attend church, the better studies measure what people actually do. The results are surprising. Americans are hardly more religious than people living in other industrialized countries. Yet they consistently—and more or less uniquely—want others to believe they are more religious than they really are.

If this is true, then the only surprise is that I am apparently more religiously observant than the average America, which buggers the mind.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?!?

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Yes, someone at the CIA has a sense of humor.

They have assigned a group to look at the fallout from Wikileaks cable releases, and they are calling it the Wikileaks Task Force, generally abbreviated as WTF:

The CIA has launched a taskforce to assess the impact of 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Its name? WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF for short.

The group will scour the released documents to survey damage caused by the disclosures. One of the most embarrassing revelations was that the US state department had drawn up a list of information it would like on key UN figures – it later emerged the CIA had asked for the information.

“Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it’s mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: WTF.”

Heh.

Waiting to Pee In a Cup

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Well, I have managed to find a contract closer to home, so starting in January I will be working about 18 miles from home in Westminster, MD, where I will be working on autonomous robotic vehicles.

What it means at this moment is that over lunch, I am sitting in a waiting room in Reston, VA waiting to be called back for a drug screen.

Yes, fill this cup, we need to evaluate the worthiness of your bodily fluids. Now THERE is an experce that positively reeks of our society’s tremendous respect for human dignity.

In any case, it means that I can be home with my family every night, so it is worth it.

It likely means less bloggy goodness from me, but my reader(s) will learn to deal.

Posted via mobile.

A Sign of Sanity from Senate Democrats

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All of the returning Democratic Senators, and all of the retiring ones except for Christopher Dodd, have signed a letter asking for filibuster reform:

All Democratic senators returning next year have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging him to consider action to change long-sacrosanct filibuster rules.

The letter, delivered this week, expresses general frustration with what Democrats consider unprecedented obstruction and asks Reid to take steps to end those abuses. While it does not urge a specific solution, Democrats said it demonstrates increased backing in the majority for a proposal, championed by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and others, weaken the minority’s ability to tie the Senate calendar into parliamentary knots.

This change can only come about if a fairly obscure change is made to the Senate rules first: The Senate currently describes itself as a continuing body, meaning that any changes in the rules at the start of a new Congress require a ⅔ majority.

If the President of the Senate, Vice President Biden, were to rule that the Senate Wasn’t a continuing body, then that could be approved by a simple majority vote, as could the filibuster rule changes.

I would not something else interesting about the various proposals, it looks like Reid will accept a proposal to have committee chairs elected by secret ballot, as opposed to the current regime, where there is only a vote if another Senator publicly objects.

Hopefully, the old guard in the Senate won’t block these changes.

Economics Update

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The final numbers for US GDP in the 3rd quarter came in, and they were slightly lower than estimates, with a 2.6%, as opposed to the 2.7% forecast, growth rate, while core inflation was at a 50 year low.

So I don’t think that either inflation or a robust recovery are around the corner, particularly with oil rising above $90/bbl, a 2 year high, which has in turn driven gasoline prices near to $3.00/gallon.

Unfortunately, the dollar has continued to fatten up versus the Euro, because people see more pain and woe from Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.

Brought to You by Leonard Pinth-Garnell

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Adventures in bad corporate damage control.

Specifically, because Wikileaks has said that they have a document dump from a Bank of Bank of America, Bank of America has started to buy up hundreds of nasty domain names in the hope of preventing the airing of criticism:

Bank of America has snapped up hundreds of abusive domain names for its senior executives and board members in what is being perceived as a defensive strategy against the future publication of damaging insider info from whistleblowing Website WikiLeaks.

According to Domain Name Wire, the US bank has been aggressively registering domain names including its board of Directors’ and senior executives’ names followed by “sucks” and “blows”.

For example, the company registered a number of domains for CEO Brian Moynihan: BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com.

You know, I REALLY don’t think that this is going to help when people realize that you were smoking cigars lit from the original notes of mortgages that you have foreclosed on, and that you used homeless orphans as ash trays.

More seriously, if Wikileaks has your documents, then people will go there, or to one of its legion of mirrors, to get that information.

Good News on the Legislative Front Today

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The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was signed into law, the Senate passed the START arms control treaty, and a new food safety bill that gives the FDA the power to order recalls passed the house and is heading to the President’s desk.

I still don’t see any gazillion dimensional chess here, but it’s a good day.

BTW, since the bill gives the military fairly broad discretion in how the ban is phased in, I would take even money that separations from the military will be continuing into 2012, because Obama won’t push the military on this.