Oxygen, by itself, won't hurt you. If the O2 tank leaks, you end up breathing a slightly more oxygen-rich atmosphere. The EZ-Rocket carries the O2 tank in place of the passenger seat, primarily because it won't kill the pilot if it vents.
The fuel (alcohol in earlier prototypes, kerosene for this one) is carried in a separate tank slung below the fuselage. It's outside the aircraft frame.
If you've taken fire safety training, you know that there are three components that are required for a fire - fuel, oxidizer, and heat. Remove any one, and you don't have a fire. When you're fueling you car, the gasonline doesn't spontaneously ignite with the oxygen in the air, right? Add heat and you've got a fire, though.
So, if you keep the fuel, oxidizer and heat in controlled environments, you'll survive the flight just fine. If the O2 tank ruptures, you should probably worry more about schrapnel or the overpressure.
I got my wife to sit down and watch the Animatrix trailer. The conversation that followed went something like this -
Me: So? Whadya think? Her: The animation was okay, but I liked the live actors better. Me: That was all animation. Her: No, I liked the animation, but the parts with the real actors were better. Me: There were no actors. Her: Sure there were. They used scenes from the Matrix movies toward the end. Me: No, that was animation. Her: I'm talking about the real people at the end. Me: The swordfight with the chick in red? Her: Yes. Me: That was a computer animation. Her: No it wasn't, Me: Yes, it was. They got the lighting, physics, and kinematics right. Her: Those were real people. Me: No, those were computer generated people. Her: (confused look) Me: Swordfight... He cuts her skirt off, then peeks out from under the blindfold? Her: Yes... Me: Computer generated. Her: No way.
I've watched the trailer about ten times now, and I don't think I've been able to absorb it all.
I like having the back-story to explain some of the questions that The Matrix left dangling. To the Brothers W - "Nicely done, and thank you."
Waiting for the gub'ment to take action is like expecting the local politicians to care about your best interest. (aside - the local turkeys just raised the taxes again because their "revenue" is down.)
We need to deal with this ourselves. Anyone who is connected with email software (especially the relays) needs to make sure the software is shipped with everything turned off. This will prevent the doofi out there from accidentally breeding open mail relays. While it won't fix the immediate problem, it'll stop propagating it in the future.
To really stop the spammers, we need to upgrade the email system to support something more robust than SMTP. It was great 30 years ago, but the world has changed. We need to take the painful step of upgrading the email system.
Yes, there is a cost associated with it. Yes, it will be painful for a period. Yes, it is necessary.
This is a direct result of the auto industry's product marketing. "Turn the key and go!" Now everybody expects consumer products to be so simple. Hell, operating your VCR requires more planning and preparation than going to the grocery store.
I do product design for a living, and I absolutely hate to hear the customer say something inane like "I don't want to learn how to use this, I just want to push a button and get the result I want." Like we equipped this box with the ESP option...
Folks have become accustomed to instant gratification, and that's a bad thing. My father has the "mass market" mentality regarding both his car and his computer. Since I race cars in what little free time I have, I get support calls for both computer problems and automotive ones. Like I'm supposed to diagnose that oil leak over the phone (solution - don't drive over curbs and you won't crack the oil pan.)
If you want to see something disturbing, take a load of garbage to the dump (waste transfer station, etc.) Watch the people around you toss perfectly servicable stuff into the bin. The big corporations really appreciate this behavior too. Can't fix it yourself? Hey, we're having a sale! Chuck your old one and buy a new one. We'll even finance it for you.
Has anyone else noticed that the BSA corporate logo resembles the act of penetration? Kinda sets your expectations...
Build one - chicks dig it
on
Potato Bazookas
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I built one years ago, and I must say that they're a blast. Make the barrel from 1-1/4" Schedule 40, as it's easier to find potatoes that'll fit snug. If you build a breech-loader with a threaded cleanout plug, make sure to keep the threads clean. Burnt hairspray and potato juice gets amazingly sticky.
I took the Mark-1 Potato Gun up to a local SCCA event for the weekend. Saturday evening we found an open spot and used a large billboard for target practice. The men all pounced on the opportunity to fire the thing, but the ladies were a bit hesitant. Given a little coaxing, they came around nicely (guys - this is your chance to put your arm around her and "help". Don't pass on the opportunity.) In the end, the ladies were more enthusiastic than the guys. That was okay by me.
Incidentally, go read the ingredients on a can of hairspray. SD Alcohol 40, Propane, Isobutane, and other combustibles usually top the list. Makes nice propellant. At sunset, you'll get a really nice light-blue alcohol muzzle flash coming out the end.
If there's going to be a permanent presence on the South Pole, this kind of infrastructure is necessary. I worked on a satellite communications system that talked with the NOAA polar-orbit spacecraft. At the poles, you'll see the spacecraft every 90 minutes. Near the equator, you'll only see them 3 times a day for about 10-20 minutes (usable time) per. The polar research stations use the NOAA satellites as a primary communications store-and-forward service, as they can't see the geostationary satellites. Makes communicating with the research stations difficult.
Don't go expecting an asphalt two-lane road. Calling it a "highway" is misleading. A "conditioned ice-road" is more appropriate.
RFID technology has been around for years. Have you purchased a CD or DVD in the last few years? Remember the check-out guy "beeping" it before you left? That's an RFID tag at work. In this instance, it's just a proximity tag that will alert the store if you (ahem) neglect to purchase the product. (The official term for this is "inventory shrinkage.")
Checkpoint Systems makes RF Electronic Article Surveilance (RF-EAS) tags (the US site is not responding, but the Japanese one is, showing the bulk tags.) And here's a company that sells machines to auto-insert the RF-EAS tag into DVD carriers.
An amazing amount of effort has gone into reducing the cost of the RFID anti-theft tags. They're typically screen printed, and usually are destroyed when you purchase the product. It's not cost effective to make it re-programmable, as the retailers are playing a statistical game - they're weighing the probability of someone stealing a returned (or defective) unit against the reprogrammable cost that burdens EVERY unit going out the door.
One step up from this application is the ubiquitous personnel badge that most of us drones are required to wear at the orifice. Here's one from TI (PDF datasheet.) This costs a little more, and is definitley capable of identifying who you are.
Nothing is "impossible;" perhaps "inconvenient" would be a better choice of words. The Product Marketing folks love to say stuff like "that's impossible, unless you buy MY product!"
I lived in NY for four years in a house originally built in 1892 - lotsa plaster over brick. We found knob-and-tube wiring buried under renovations done in the 1950's. Still, we managed to add LAN wiring to the house by installing drop ceilings, or by using the space behind crown molding as a low-voltage conduit. Vertical drops were accomplished with battens and wainscoting. Made the room look nicer too.
Wall panel systems are available commercially. Many include integrated wire ducts for just such an application. Wiremold has been making stuff like this for years (though some of the utilitarian stuff is butt-ugly.)
If you have a zillion bucks to spend on production and post, you can increase the "quality" dramatically. If you have no budget, or are self-financing like these guys, you make do with what you can.
That being said, I think they did a great job. I've gone the extent of getting a formal degree in Video Production, and I can testify that my first productions were horrible. This episode looks professional for a "first effort." Way to go guys!
No, I'm not kidding. We're introduced to the character "Ivan Jerconov" at the beginning of Chapter 9. At this point, I was completely convinced that this book was going to be a collection of puerile innuendos and gross-me-out descriptions of people puking up their intestinal contents. The target audience should be adjusted to "12-18 pre-pubescent males."
I appreciate the author's attempt to embrace technology. Publishing the first chunk of the book on the web is a good thing. Too bad the book is a turd.
I don't consider my neighborhood to be dangerous, but that didn't stop the loser from breaking in and attempting to swipe my stuff. The experience taught me a life lesson - I'm the only one who will defend me (and my wife and my child) from the bad guys. The cops showed up 20 minutes too late, and filled-out paperwork.
Had I been home at the time, I don't think I would've quesitoned the intruder as to his motives. "Excuse me, do you plan on just taking stuff, or shall I prepare for an injury?"
In such an instance, I expect to create a large hole in the intruder's chest cavity. Several, if necessary. In the heat of the moment, there won't be time to consider that this individual's motives. This is one situation where you, as a responsible individual, need to pre-decide your course of action. Expect there to be consequences: both emotional and societal. You can spend many sleepless nights evaluating the merits of either course of action - I have.
This is part of responsible gun ownership. For that matter, it's responsible whether you own a gun or a sharp stick.
Your assertion that "nothing compresses down to one bit" is inaccurate. A variable-length coding scheme will compress down to one bit, and is simple to demonstrate. For the following compression scheme, I'm going to define a simple set of code words (I don't feel like typing a lengthy dissertation here, and the point should be sufficiently obvious):
1=123456
01=116
001=97985
0001=abcde
So, for an input of "11697985", the compressed output is "01001". For an input of "123456", the compressed output is "1" - a single bit.
While this system does not result in a finite number of code words, and does not necessarily result in a smaller "encoded" output, it is still mathematically valid. In signal processing, it is common to change a calculation from the time-domain to the frequency-domain. The main purpose behind this translation is to allow a finite calculation on what would otherwise require an infinite amount of computation. Just because the calculation may involve "infinite series" in one domain doesn't require that it be declared "impossible." A simple, finite frequency in the frequency-domain has an infinite expansion in the time domain. A finite event in the time domain has an infinite expansion in the frequency domain. Find a domain where an event compresses, for lack of a better term, down to a finite element. We just haven't found the correct domain to translate Pi down to yet (outside of the base-Pi domain, which is just a different flavor of "not useful.")
Now if you want to revise your position from "theoretically impossible" to "not terribly useful," that's a whole different discussion.
I'd thought about just using the term "drive bay," but I didn't want to incite a flame war with people thinking that it'd fit in the 3.5" floppy space. Calling it a CD-ROM bay seemed much less subject to interpretation.
Now if the next generation device displaces a 3.5" floppy, I'll be really impressed.
The manufacturer's link - here - was provided in an earlier response to this post. It describes a PC-104+ expansion port, and an optional daughterboard to add 3 more LAN ports. What does that mean? I dunno, it doesn't provide more detail than that... So maybe you can dump the CD-ROM drive and shove in 3 additional LAN connections.
Thanks for the pointer to the barebones unit. I've been looking for a unit like this - consequently why I posted this article. The barebones unit may work better for my application, as I don't really need the CD-ROM drive.
Hey looky! Slashdot is a technical resource, not just a place to bitch and flame and complain about spamming the spammers.
My apologies. I've dealt with enough business outside of the US that I've gotten in the habit of not using "$", because I got tired of explaining that I meant US "$" and not Canadian, Australian, etc, etc.
The power input is a barrel jack, and you'd need an adapter if you wanted to put it inside a regular PC chassis. It's clearly not really intended for this application. They also spec the power requirement at 12V*5A=60W. That's not a ton of power, but you'd only be able to put two in a typical PC without overcurrenting the 12V rail. On the other hand, it'll run off the accessory plug in your car without blowing the fuse (or needing a pesky inverter.)
Please take that "reasonably priced" comment in-context. You're paying a premium for something that's small. Yes, you can assemble a Flex-ATX system for about half the price, but it's also going to be six times the size. You wouldn't consider a $1500 laptop to be unreasonable, would you? You're paying for portability there, and willing to fork over the extra bucks because it has value to you.
Actually, I stumbled across this product while looking for a 1U rack-mountable chassis. I checked the date on the PDF file, and searched/. looking for previous posts. Finding none, I wrote the story. My company has an application for something like this, and we're probably going to purchase a few. I hadn't heard of this product until today. We'd seen the Briq a while ago, liked it, but couldn't use the PPC architecture.
Slashdot Mirror
Oxygen, by itself, won't hurt you. If the O2 tank leaks, you end up breathing a slightly more oxygen-rich atmosphere. The EZ-Rocket carries the O2 tank in place of the passenger seat, primarily because it won't kill the pilot if it vents.
The fuel (alcohol in earlier prototypes, kerosene for this one) is carried in a separate tank slung below the fuselage. It's outside the aircraft frame.
If you've taken fire safety training, you know that there are three components that are required for a fire - fuel, oxidizer, and heat. Remove any one, and you don't have a fire. When you're fueling you car, the gasonline doesn't spontaneously ignite with the oxygen in the air, right? Add heat and you've got a fire, though.
So, if you keep the fuel, oxidizer and heat in controlled environments, you'll survive the flight just fine. If the O2 tank ruptures, you should probably worry more about schrapnel or the overpressure.
I got my wife to sit down and watch the Animatrix trailer. The conversation that followed went something like this -
... He cuts her skirt off, then peeks out from under the blindfold? ...
Me: So? Whadya think?
Her: The animation was okay, but I liked the live actors better.
Me: That was all animation.
Her: No, I liked the animation, but the parts with the real actors were better.
Me: There were no actors.
Her: Sure there were. They used scenes from the Matrix movies toward the end.
Me: No, that was animation.
Her: I'm talking about the real people at the end.
Me: The swordfight with the chick in red?
Her: Yes.
Me: That was a computer animation.
Her: No it wasn't,
Me: Yes, it was. They got the lighting, physics, and kinematics right.
Her: Those were real people.
Me: No, those were computer generated people.
Her: (confused look)
Me: Swordfight
Her: Yes
Me: Computer generated.
Her: No way.
I've watched the trailer about ten times now, and I don't think I've been able to absorb it all.
I like having the back-story to explain some of the questions that The Matrix left dangling. To the Brothers W - "Nicely done, and thank you."
Waiting for the gub'ment to take action is like expecting the local politicians to care about your best interest. (aside - the local turkeys just raised the taxes again because their "revenue" is down.)
We need to deal with this ourselves. Anyone who is connected with email software (especially the relays) needs to make sure the software is shipped with everything turned off. This will prevent the doofi out there from accidentally breeding open mail relays. While it won't fix the immediate problem, it'll stop propagating it in the future.
To really stop the spammers, we need to upgrade the email system to support something more robust than SMTP. It was great 30 years ago, but the world has changed. We need to take the painful step of upgrading the email system.
Yes, there is a cost associated with it. Yes, it will be painful for a period. Yes, it is necessary.
This is a direct result of the auto industry's product marketing. "Turn the key and go!" Now everybody expects consumer products to be so simple. Hell, operating your VCR requires more planning and preparation than going to the grocery store.
I do product design for a living, and I absolutely hate to hear the customer say something inane like "I don't want to learn how to use this, I just want to push a button and get the result I want." Like we equipped this box with the ESP option
Folks have become accustomed to instant gratification, and that's a bad thing. My father has the "mass market" mentality regarding both his car and his computer. Since I race cars in what little free time I have, I get support calls for both computer problems and automotive ones. Like I'm supposed to diagnose that oil leak over the phone (solution - don't drive over curbs and you won't crack the oil pan.)
If you want to see something disturbing, take a load of garbage to the dump (waste transfer station, etc.) Watch the people around you toss perfectly servicable stuff into the bin. The big corporations really appreciate this behavior too. Can't fix it yourself? Hey, we're having a sale! Chuck your old one and buy a new one. We'll even finance it for you.
(/rant)
Has anyone else noticed that the BSA corporate logo resembles the act of penetration? Kinda sets your expectations ...
I built one years ago, and I must say that they're a blast. Make the barrel from 1-1/4" Schedule 40, as it's easier to find potatoes that'll fit snug. If you build a breech-loader with a threaded cleanout plug, make sure to keep the threads clean. Burnt hairspray and potato juice gets amazingly sticky.
...
I took the Mark-1 Potato Gun up to a local SCCA event for the weekend. Saturday evening we found an open spot and used a large billboard for target practice. The men all pounced on the opportunity to fire the thing, but the ladies were a bit hesitant. Given a little coaxing, they came around nicely (guys - this is your chance to put your arm around her and "help". Don't pass on the opportunity.) In the end, the ladies were more enthusiastic than the guys. That was okay by me.
Incidentally, go read the ingredients on a can of hairspray. SD Alcohol 40, Propane, Isobutane, and other combustibles usually top the list. Makes nice propellant. At sunset, you'll get a really nice light-blue alcohol muzzle flash coming out the end.
Ensuring peace through superior firepower
If there's going to be a permanent presence on the South Pole, this kind of infrastructure is necessary. I worked on a satellite communications system that talked with the NOAA polar-orbit spacecraft. At the poles, you'll see the spacecraft every 90 minutes. Near the equator, you'll only see them 3 times a day for about 10-20 minutes (usable time) per. The polar research stations use the NOAA satellites as a primary communications store-and-forward service, as they can't see the geostationary satellites. Makes communicating with the research stations difficult.
Don't go expecting an asphalt two-lane road. Calling it a "highway" is misleading. A "conditioned ice-road" is more appropriate.
RFID technology has been around for years. Have you purchased a CD or DVD in the last few years? Remember the check-out guy "beeping" it before you left? That's an RFID tag at work. In this instance, it's just a proximity tag that will alert the store if you (ahem) neglect to purchase the product. (The official term for this is "inventory shrinkage.")
Checkpoint Systems makes RF Electronic Article Surveilance (RF-EAS) tags (the US site is not responding, but the Japanese one is, showing the bulk tags.) And here's a company that sells machines to auto-insert the RF-EAS tag into DVD carriers.
An amazing amount of effort has gone into reducing the cost of the RFID anti-theft tags. They're typically screen printed, and usually are destroyed when you purchase the product. It's not cost effective to make it re-programmable, as the retailers are playing a statistical game - they're weighing the probability of someone stealing a returned (or defective) unit against the reprogrammable cost that burdens EVERY unit going out the door.
One step up from this application is the ubiquitous personnel badge that most of us drones are required to wear at the orifice. Here's one from TI (PDF datasheet.) This costs a little more, and is definitley capable of identifying who you are.
Nothing is "impossible;" perhaps "inconvenient" would be a better choice of words. The Product Marketing folks love to say stuff like "that's impossible, unless you buy MY product!"
I lived in NY for four years in a house originally built in 1892 - lotsa plaster over brick. We found knob-and-tube wiring buried under renovations done in the 1950's. Still, we managed to add LAN wiring to the house by installing drop ceilings, or by using the space behind crown molding as a low-voltage conduit. Vertical drops were accomplished with battens and wainscoting. Made the room look nicer too.
Wall panel systems are available commercially. Many include integrated wire ducts for just such an application. Wiremold has been making stuff like this for years (though some of the utilitarian stuff is butt-ugly.)
If you have a zillion bucks to spend on production and post, you can increase the "quality" dramatically. If you have no budget, or are self-financing like these guys, you make do with what you can.
That being said, I think they did a great job. I've gone the extent of getting a formal degree in Video Production, and I can testify that my first productions were horrible. This episode looks professional for a "first effort." Way to go guys!
No, I'm not kidding. We're introduced to the character "Ivan Jerconov" at the beginning of Chapter 9. At this point, I was completely convinced that this book was going to be a collection of puerile innuendos and gross-me-out descriptions of people puking up their intestinal contents. The target audience should be adjusted to "12-18 pre-pubescent males."
I appreciate the author's attempt to embrace technology. Publishing the first chunk of the book on the web is a good thing. Too bad the book is a turd.
I don't consider my neighborhood to be dangerous, but that didn't stop the loser from breaking in and attempting to swipe my stuff. The experience taught me a life lesson - I'm the only one who will defend me (and my wife and my child) from the bad guys. The cops showed up 20 minutes too late, and filled-out paperwork.
Had I been home at the time, I don't think I would've quesitoned the intruder as to his motives. "Excuse me, do you plan on just taking stuff, or shall I prepare for an injury?"
In such an instance, I expect to create a large hole in the intruder's chest cavity. Several, if necessary. In the heat of the moment, there won't be time to consider that this individual's motives. This is one situation where you, as a responsible individual, need to pre-decide your course of action. Expect there to be consequences: both emotional and societal. You can spend many sleepless nights evaluating the merits of either course of action - I have.
This is part of responsible gun ownership. For that matter, it's responsible whether you own a gun or a sharp stick.
Your assertion that "nothing compresses down to one bit" is inaccurate. A variable-length coding scheme will compress down to one bit, and is simple to demonstrate. For the following compression scheme, I'm going to define a simple set of code words (I don't feel like typing a lengthy dissertation here, and the point should be sufficiently obvious):
1=123456
01=116
001=97985
0001=abcde
So, for an input of "11697985", the compressed output is "01001". For an input of "123456", the compressed output is "1" - a single bit.
While this system does not result in a finite number of code words, and does not necessarily result in a smaller "encoded" output, it is still mathematically valid. In signal processing, it is common to change a calculation from the time-domain to the frequency-domain. The main purpose behind this translation is to allow a finite calculation on what would otherwise require an infinite amount of computation. Just because the calculation may involve "infinite series" in one domain doesn't require that it be declared "impossible." A simple, finite frequency in the frequency-domain has an infinite expansion in the time domain. A finite event in the time domain has an infinite expansion in the frequency domain. Find a domain where an event compresses, for lack of a better term, down to a finite element. We just haven't found the correct domain to translate Pi down to yet (outside of the base-Pi domain, which is just a different flavor of "not useful.")
Now if you want to revise your position from "theoretically impossible" to "not terribly useful," that's a whole different discussion.
I'd thought about just using the term "drive bay," but I didn't want to incite a flame war with people thinking that it'd fit in the 3.5" floppy space. Calling it a CD-ROM bay seemed much less subject to interpretation. Now if the next generation device displaces a 3.5" floppy, I'll be really impressed.
The manufacturer's link - here - was provided in an earlier response to this post. It describes a PC-104+ expansion port, and an optional daughterboard to add 3 more LAN ports. What does that mean? I dunno, it doesn't provide more detail than that ... So maybe you can dump the CD-ROM drive and shove in 3 additional LAN connections.
Have you ever actually measured the outside of your CD-ROM drive? (Hint: it's not 5.25". Derivation is left as an exercize to the student.)
Thanks for the pointer to the barebones unit. I've been looking for a unit like this - consequently why I posted this article. The barebones unit may work better for my application, as I don't really need the CD-ROM drive. Hey looky! Slashdot is a technical resource, not just a place to bitch and flame and complain about spamming the spammers.
My apologies. I've dealt with enough business outside of the US that I've gotten in the habit of not using "$", because I got tired of explaining that I meant US "$" and not Canadian, Australian, etc, etc.
The power input is a barrel jack, and you'd need an adapter if you wanted to put it inside a regular PC chassis. It's clearly not really intended for this application. They also spec the power requirement at 12V*5A=60W. That's not a ton of power, but you'd only be able to put two in a typical PC without overcurrenting the 12V rail. On the other hand, it'll run off the accessory plug in your car without blowing the fuse (or needing a pesky inverter.)
Please take that "reasonably priced" comment in-context. You're paying a premium for something that's small. Yes, you can assemble a Flex-ATX system for about half the price, but it's also going to be six times the size. You wouldn't consider a $1500 laptop to be unreasonable, would you? You're paying for portability there, and willing to fork over the extra bucks because it has value to you.
Actually, I stumbled across this product while looking for a 1U rack-mountable chassis. I checked the date on the PDF file, and searched /. looking for previous posts. Finding none, I wrote the story. My company has an application for something like this, and we're probably going to purchase a few. I hadn't heard of this product until today. We'd seen the Briq a while ago, liked it, but couldn't use the PPC architecture.