Ramblings of a Prophet

So you have all seen zombie movies, from the slow, swaying zombies to the scary zombies, but what would YOU do if there really was a zombie apocalypse?  I have thought about that a lot, it is a favorite past time of me and my friends, which only proves how nerdy we are, but we have thought, and come up with a good plan, and one that we think is the most viable.  Now, our “form” of zombies is the zombies from 28 days/weeks later, where they are infected with a modified form of rabies, and they aren’t the “living dead”, we also based this on a single release and the infection spreads from person to person through blood exchange.

It wold start off, reports coming in about the zombie infection spreading from several major cities, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Paris and Moscow.  The first thing we would do is get a hold of as many semis as we could, and retrofit them.  We would put steel plate on the walls,  put camera systems in, gun ports, as well as sleeping and food storage and preparation area, and general supply storage.  We would outfit the cab with steel plates on the body and steel bars over the windows, an extra large fuel tank, and a way to get to the trailer.  We would also gather as many supplies as we could, from tents, to cloths, food, water, ammunition, weapons, a large supply of tools, lots of raw materials and finally, as many people as we had room for.   We would retrofit as many semis as we could in different configurations, some for storage, some for sleeping, some for fighting, and so on.  We would also try and gather up a flat bed or two, and several large trucks, for general storage.

As far as what each person wears and carries, we would equip each person with a combat knife, a crow bar, and some sort of sword, preferably a katana, or similar.  As well as melee weapons, each person would ideally be equipped with one, or two pistols with large capacity magazines, and all sporting hollow point rounds.  Along with pistols, each person would ideally have a shotgun, preferably semi auto, and also a medium to long range rifle, such as a m1 carbine, or m14.  And for body armor, they would either wear heavy, tear proof clothing, or ideally, chain mail made for divers that are swimming in shark areas, it is lighter than normal chain mail, it is more flexible, and it just as strong, along with gloves steel toe boots. Each person would ideally have a riot style face shield, but they would be wearing at least safety glasses and a face mask.

While we were preparing and gathering supplies we would watch the reports to see how fast the infection was spreading, where pockets of resistance were, and we would be planning our route.  Under the assumption that some of San Fransisco has been hit by the infection, but there are still many people alive, the general established plan we have come up with is to drive down to San Fransisco, and set up a temporary base there.  From that base we would work on gathering supplies and gathering ships, preferably large military ships, such as aircraft carriers, but cargo ships or tankers would be acceptable too.  We would stay and gather people until we had no more room, or it was too dangerous to stay, then we would set sail for Hawaii.  But in the case that San Fransisco was overrun, then we would drive straight to the coast and find as many large ships as we could, and try and see if we could sail to San Fransisco and acquire some large ships.  Now if San Fransisco was completely overrun, then another option would be sail up to Oregon or Washington, then go to Hawaii

Now you may ask, why Hawaii, simple, it has a large population, and is incredibly isolated.  The fact that it is 3000 miles from anything gives it an excellent chance that the infection hasn’t spread there.  Another major factor is that it has a massive military presence there, Peril Harbor, which is the home of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, meaning that it could be an excellent base of operations should most of the world be over run by the infection.  Peril Harbor navel base currently has around 20 nuclear submarines stationed there, and around 15 large assault ships are stationed there, as well as many transport and refueling vessels.  These would be useful if we want to go and help rebuild places that have been infected.

After we arrived in Hawaii, my plan would be to set up some shelters, just in case the infection hit Hawaii.  We would also work on setting up a replenishing food supply, and then move on tho helping others.  We would then start island hopping, clearing and setting up bases, on all the island chains, until we reached Japan, then we would work on clearing or securing Japan, depending on its status. From there we could work on clearing east Asia and up into Russia.

Also we would start island hopping up to Alaska, and set up our base of operations there,  because Alaska is so remote the chances of the infection reaching them are minimal, and we could work on clearing out Canada and then down the west coast then in to the Rocky Mountains.

Many of you have old computers laying around your house, i know i do, so I decided to write a blog on how to disassemble them, for whatever reason you might have for wanting to.  I will try and explain every step to the best of my abilities, but there are so many types of computers and cases that I cannot explain every one, but if you need help, feel free to post a comment with your email and i will do the best i can to answer your question.

For this blog, I am going to disassemble an old Athlon 64 machine i had laying around, chances are that your old machines will be significantly older, but will probably have the same general concept.

Step 1.

Assemble the tools you will need, a Philips screw driver, and a pair of needle nose pliers, and perhaps a pair of wire cutters, but basic hand tools.  You will also need a large flat area, i prefer working on the floor, but you can work on a bench or table.

An important step is to ground yourself, to the chassis of the computer, with a grounding strap. Another thing you should make sure if is that you don’t set any of the electronic components on a surface that might create static, like carpet, other cloth, and if you can avoid it, metal.  Good surfaces would be Plastic, paper, anti static bags,  tile, linoleum, wood, and counter tops.

Step 2.

Remove the side panel, it is almost always the right side if you are looking at the computer, but i have run across several Dell computers that opened on the other side.  Thy are almost always secured with 2 screws, almost always Philips, and sometimes they are thumb screws.  Occasionally you will find one that uses snaps, or a propriarity method, like often Dell uses snaps and buttons.  You then slide the side panel towards the back of the case, and then off.

Step 3.

Disconnect the power to the side panel fan if your computer has one, and set the side panel to the side, no pun intended.

Then you disconnect the power from everything. such as fans, and drives.  The 4 pin molex connectors are sometimes hard to pull apart, so try not to pull on it so hard you smack your knuckles, and do not pull on the wires on any connector, it can potentially damage the connector.

Then disconnect the power for the motherboard (big thing in middle), note that these connectors have a clip so you will have to press the clip thing to get it to come off (although I would imagine you could do it if you pulled hard enough, but i don’t recommend that.

Alright, check back next week for more steps.

Ever since man has had cars, he has dreamed of having flying cars, because, well, we want more.  There have been several semi-successful flying car designs over the years, they were all flops though, due to cost, or reliability, but recently a company by the name of Terrafugia has succeeded where all the others have failed.  The aircraft has taken its maiden flight, all 37 seconds and 3000 feet of it, but it was still a flight.  Before I talk more about this airplane, I’m going to give you some history.

The first experimental with “roadable aircraft”, or flying car if you will, started just after the Wright brothers had invented the airplane,  and the first patent was to F. Longobardi in 1918.  Before the first patten was issued, Glenn Curtiss, the Wright brothers rival, had a design for a flying car.  His design used the wings from his Model L Triplane, with a wingspan of 4 feet, and it used a twin boom rear section with the engine in between them.  He was the first to have a flying car, but his design never flew, and was just abounded.

The first successful flying car was the Arrowbile, made by Waldo Waterman, in 1937.  It had an airspeed of 110 MPH, and a ground speed of 55 MPH, which was respectable back then, but only 6 were ever built, and one is in storage in the Smithsonian, and one more is alleged to still exist.

No flying cars have ever made it to production, but one, the Aerocar, almost made it to production, but when not enough orders came in, the plan was scraped.  the Aerocar was a single seat, high wing pusher, the wings folded and came off, and you would unbolt the propeller and they would go on a trailer behind it.  It was the most practical of all the designs, but being only one seat, and requiring a pilots license killed the potential market for it.

There is, however one more that would be revolutionary, but it has been in the research stage since 2003, and has not made any real progress since then.  It is revolutionary because of its VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) configuration, with 4 computer controlled ducts with 2 fans in each, allowing a stable ride.

Now back to the Terrafugia Transition.  It resembles many low wing aircraft, to an extent, it uses two vertical stabilisers and a pusher configuration, as well as a horizontal stabiliser in  the front.  It has Bi-fold wings that stay attached.  Now you may be thinking, cool, flying car, what does it take to get one, well, it requires a sport pilots licence, which requires approximately 20 hours of flight time, and its going to run you about $200,000, so there not for anyone.  It flies approximately 100 knots, 430 pound load capacity, burns 5 gallons per hour (30 miles per gallon approximately in car configuration) and it has a 20 gallon fuel tank.  It also comes with a modern glass cockpit, meaning that it has a large LCD display with all the information on it, not many little gauges, these on their own can run you $30,000 easy, so if you look at similar airplanes with similar performance and instruments, it actually isn’t too terribly much more.

If you think about how many accidents there are on a 2D road, due to people being distracted, being agressive drivers, being drunk, and so forth, imagin it in 3D.  Its true that there are less plane crashes per day than cars, but also the number op people flying is significanly less, but if everyone who had a car got a flying car the steaks would go up dramatically.  Think about this, if you get in a fender bender on a road, you can pull over and call someone, but in an airplane you cant just pull over.  Im not trying to say every person would be a bad piolet, but you get those people in a rush, and they would ruin it for everyone.

In 2009 there are some large changes that are going to happen in the united states, with Bush leaving and Obama being elected.  Now as far as my political affiliation I am a conservative, but not because I’m anti-liberal, I just happen to believe the same as them.  As you might imagine it is hard, living in California, a very liberal state, but i really don’t care, but i do find the “A New Dawn” plates quite offensive.  Anyway, to the changes, I think that Obama will try and tackle the economy first, probably with more “bail outs”  which don’t seem to be too effective thus far, but they could be worse.  Then i do believe he will try to socialize health care,  so we all have to pay for the illegal immigrants.  Not to mention all the jobs that would be lost at the insurance companies.  The next thing to go is the right to bear arms, which is protect by our very Constitution, am i the only one seeing a problem with this?

I did a search on Google and in under 5 minuets i found out that only 12% of violent crimes were with guns, and of the gun related offenses, 80% were illegal guns, so tightening the noose on guns would not elp very much.  The reason i believe that restricting more guns wouldn’t help is that if you are going to shoot someone, would you use a gun registered and licensed to you, or an illegal gun that has no affiliation to you?  Also if you are convicted of assault, adding on a weapons charge wouldn’t change the sentence but a little bit.

Addressing the socialized medicine, and general socialist leanings, how can anybody possibly think this is a good idea, it didn’t work in Russia, and in countless other countries, how can anybody think it will work here, it is arrogant everything America stands for.  And i do remember several politician talking about how the government is corrupt, and these people want the government to control every part of our life.  I really fail to see how this makes sense…

As a minor most of these laws wont affect me, but i think the gun law could be very bad, for people who need a gun for legitimate protection, if they live in a bad neighborhood.  And i am a gun enthusiast, so that could be a major irritation.

In this modern world many people believe that our government is corrupt, unfair, or sluggish.  I concur, with the addition of, it tries, but there is so much “fat”, or unnecessary crap.  The subject of many jokes center around our governments inability to respond to anything in a timely manner.  This is true, but there has to many laws that have been voted in, that were good in theory, but in reality hurt the US more than helped.  For example, a law was proposed in California would have this special chemical added to gas that would supposedly help reduce the hydrocarbons released into the air.  sounds good right, but as it turned out, after it became a law, it was discovered that the additives didn’t have any affect.  So I’m not sure if this law is still in effect, i believe it is, but its laws like this that muck up the system.  Another law that recently passed in the Congress was regarding a simple matter, it ended up being 700 pages, and someone had tacked on a small law that significantly benefited a certain group.  Also the paperwork for bankruptcy is sent, in full, to every person who owes that company money, even if its only one thing.  The bankruptcy paperwork can be over 1000 pages for just a small business, imagine that getting sent to 500 people, one reem of paper, to 500 people.

I don’t know how you feel about this, but this is outrageous to me, so what should we do about this you say?  My idea, the Bureau of Logic, a government agency dedicated to injecting common sense and logic into the government.  They would not be allowed to receive “gifts” or “bonuses” from any group for any reason, a fixed salary.  They would be spread around in every city, and have different specialties, some would be engineers, some would be financial experts, and so on.  The point of having different specialties would be so that a desk jockey or pencil pusher wouldn’t be telling a high-rise engineer how to lay out the floors or a car designer how to place the fire extinguisher.  Another requirement is that they have some practical, real world experience, like a 30 year veteran car mechanic Will have a practice, down to earth way of fixing something, whereas a mechanic will have the superior method, but it will cost many more man hours and much more expensive.  I’m sure every one of you know how that is, someone who has no practical knowledge of how something is done telling you how to build something without breaking the bank.

There are too many building codes to even comprehend, but there is one, regarding emergency doors that could use some common sense.  The code requires there be a door every X feet, which is a good idea, but one building in my area, due to its size, ended up with 2 exit doors at one corner of the building, 2 feet apart, no divided, exactly same outside, but the building code required it.  In this case a BOL inspector would say “OK, so there is one there, we don’t need another”, and possibly save the construction some money.

Another just random rant/idea is I believe that all laws proposed should have a maximum page limit, perhaps 2-4 pages, I mean hell, the Constitution was less than 10 pages, and it set up an entire government, laws now days are just ridiculous.

I would like to know what you think about this, so please, if you agree, disagree, think im full of it, or whatever, throw up a comment.

In 2007 Microsoft released Windows Vista, and as people installed it on computers designed to run XP, they were starting to find out that it takes up an incredible amount of system resources, compared to XP.  The main thing people complained about was the demand from the system memory, which could be as much as 1GB just for the OS, which is massive amount, and when it was released most computers were being released with usually 1-2 GBs of ram.  2 more less significant requirements was the graphics card and processor, if you have the ultimat version, all the fancy shiny things Vista does, the blurred screen, the shrinking boxes, and so on, those all take more graphics power than you might think.  Some people reluctant to buy new hardware would use old, out of date video cards, but now that is basically a moot point because almost every modern card and computer can handle the requirement.  As far as processors go, when vista was released, the mainstream use of duel-core processors wasn’t very common, and Vista, to run smoothly, should have a duel-core, or a higher end single-core processor.

Now, at first glance, Vista looks like a black version of XP, and it is, on the face.  Microsoft has struck a good design of the GUI (graphic user interface), or the clicky stuff you see and use. If you dive into the settings of the control panel it will, on the surface, appear to be the same, but once you get to slightly more advanced settings, much of the things have been rearranged, which is irritating to the people  who have used XP extensively.  Vista was designed to be more accessible to the normal user who isn’t supper tech savvy, but also be not too dumped down for the advanced users.  As far as security for Vista, they completely redesigned the security system and protocol, one immediate and semi effective solution is that box that that pops up whenever you try to do anything, which is, to be truthful, annoying, but it is a good idea, perhaps it could have been worked on a little more.

As far as the performance of Vista goes, the fist, and most effective thing I would recommend is to buy more ram if you have less than 2 GBs, as that is the mostly the problem.  There are many different types of RAM, the newest standard is 240 pin DDR2 667 MHz, but what i would recommended is the 800 MHz RAM, you wont notice too much of a difference, but it will improve multi-tasking significantly.  If you are doing high quality photo editing, or video editing, or even 3D modeling, i would recommend 4 or more Gigs of ram, but if you just brows the Internet then 2 should be fine.  As far as processors go, if you are just browning the Internet then a mid-range duel-core should be atiquit, but of you are using it for, again, photo editing, video rendering, or gaming, then a higher end duel-core, or a lower end quad-core.

For those of you who don’t want to shell out some cash for upgrades, there is still hope.  When you get a non-optimized version of Vista it comes with a bunch of random junk you may not need.  First, go through your list of installed programs, if you haven’t used it in more then 3-4 months, you should uninstall it, especially programs that have background “assistants” or other active features.  Also, if you go to control panel, programs and features, and click on turn windows features on and off.  It will take a minuet to load, but it has things like tablet computer drivers, PC to PC sync, and fax components, you can turn these off if you don’t use these features.

For those users who are like me, and have 40+ Internet tabs open, and are surprised that their computer is slow, try closing your browser once a day, and that should improve overall computer performance.

One more thing that plagues many computers is small viruses, so make sure to keep your anti-virus programs up to date.

So first off, I DID NOT write this, i do not know who did…

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

Fu-zu Jen, SEAS/WH, 2003

again, i didn’t write this, and this wont count twards my english class

In this blog I will talk about my opinion and views about viruses, and a brief overview of what to do about them.

There are several types of malware you can get, primarily from the Internet.  The most common type of malware is called a cookie.  A cookie is pretty much harmless, and usually they aren’t even bad.  A website will put a small file on your computer that contains information that the site reads, if you have it set to save your password.  The bad cookies are put onto your computer discreetly, and usually they track your browsing, to give you adds you might be interested in.

The next type of malware is called spyware, this stuff is more dangerous, but usually not fatel for your computer.  Spyware usually contains pop ups and sometimes keyloggers.  Keyloggers are a small program that logs al the keystrokes, which could be a problem if you use your credit card, but keyloggers are usually for advertisements.  Another more rare type of spyware will actually install programs on your computer withought your permission.

Trojan Horses are another common type of malware, it disguises itself as an advertisement and also usually creates minor changes on your computer, or creates pop ups, however they can sometimes be more dangerous.  Some Trojans will try and record your passwords, and sometimes your credit card number.  They can be devastating to you, but usually not your computer.

Spyware is yet another type of malware, but it is usually harmless, it just tracks your browsing, but they can be irritating.

Now to more serous things, worms and viruses, which are almost identicle, but for now, I’m going to treat them as the same.  A Virus/Worm is designed to basically infect and usually obliterate a computer.  Although the majority of viruses just open a door to all types of malware, some viruses will take all system resourses or deleat files.  Viruses often are contained in downloads, often illegal ones, but can come form anywhere.

Some of you may be thinking, oh man, is there anything we can do about this, in fact, there is.  There are many many anti-virus and anti-spyware programs out there, some are good, and some suck, and some are fake.  Im going to talk about my 2 favorite, Spybot, and Avast Anti-virus (take note, those are both free, but aren’t necessarily the best, but my favorites).  First I will talk about Spybot, it is a free to download program that will scan your computer for spyware, cookies, Trojans, and several other types.  Spybot also has a resident protection, which runs in the background, and will alert you whenever a program tries to modify the registry, which is a handy feature for more advanced users.  The two most important things to remember when using spybot is that you HAVE to keep it updated, otherwise it wont be looking for current malware, and the other is that it isnt a anti-virus program, so you shouldn’t rely solely on that for your computer.  One more very important thing, you are looking for Spybot, NOT spyware bot, spyware bot is a fake program that actually infects your computer!!!  I have found spybot to work quite well in most cases, but in a few instances it has been unable to remove a certain program, but overall Spybot is a really good program to have, and hey, its free.

next i’m going to talk about Avast, Avast is an anit-virus program, they have many versions, but i use the home edition, a free edition, and free is always good.  Avast has a feature called a virus chest, which is a secure file that can contain viruses.  the reason for the virus chest is that some viruses will self duplicate when deleted, so when they are moved the piece of code that executes when it is deleted, doesn’t execute.  Avast has 2 components, resident protection, and a scan.  The scan can be set to 3 different settings, a quick scan, a normal scan and a thorough scan, if you have more than 200-250 Gbs of data then doing a thorough scan will take quite some time.  It is important that you don’t just turn it on and leave it, because when it finds something it will pop up a window asking you what to do, if you pick move to chest it will pop up another window asking you some more stuff.  Here you have the option to move/rename all, if you click that you can now walk away from your computer.  I have some say that Avast works wonderfully for them, but a few people say avast didn’t not find files, but it is up to you to decide.

one last thing is having a firewall, even just the windows firewall works, it will thwart most attempts to direct connect to your computer, but that is a very rare occurrence, due to the number of computers in the world.

Always remember, KEEP ANY PROTECTION PROGRAM YOU HAVE UP TO DATE!!!

www.spybot.com/  -  spybot

www.avast.com    -  Avast

http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html   -  the spybot parent site

One last note, this blog is not intended to be an instruction manual, or promotional, but it is just one mans opinion, trying to help reduce the number of computer related headachs.

Ever since man has dreamed about going to the stars there has one been one huge issue, how do we get there in under one lifetime?  For a really long time we have used the same or similar technology, we have used airfoils in several forms.  Way back when the Wright brothers were first working their kites they experimented with many designs: Flat wings, curved wings, and angular wings.  After all their tests they concluded that a curved wing was significantly more efficient because as far as turbulence is concerned the smoother the object is the less turbulence you get.  For example, trying to move a brick through the water would be really difficult because the water has to make a 90 degree turn, but if you had a teardrop shaped object and tried to move that through water it would be significantly easier because it has no sharp edges.  The wright brothers settled on a design that was similar to half a tear drop, because the air on the top of the wing has a farther distance to go it has a lower pressure so it gets pulled up, or lift.

Essentially every aircraft from the very fist one has used basically the same design for wings.

This design of this wing is essentially the standard design.

Aircraft that are made to go much faster are designed with what is called a swept wing, or a delta wing.

Swept Wing                                                Delta Wing

The advantage of the swept wing planes is that at high speeds the wing provides less drag and better control, and the swept wing is crucial when flying at above the speed of sound, because the aerodynamics changes dramatically.  When a wing is traveling supersonic it creates a wave of air that rolls along the wing, and the longer it is in contact with a wing the more lifts it provides, on a straight wing it would be in contact for only a short time.  A disadvantage of the swept wing is that at slower speeds it the lift and control it provides are greatly diminished.

The delta wing is the best of both worlds, it combines the necessary angle of attack required at high speeds and it provides the stability and lift required for slower flight.

Even though there is not very many designs of wings, each and every one is designed for a different purpose, for example, you wouldn’t put wings designed for a 200 knot plane on a plane that flies 400 knots.  Each wing is specifically designed with different characteristics, some planes have leading edge slats that extend during flight to change the aerodynamics, and handling characteristics.

Leading edge slats extend to provide more or less lift at a certain speed.

For the first 40 years of flight airplanes were powered by internal combustion engines and propellers, which are good up to a point.  A propeller is essentially a wing but it’s designed to be spun at a cretin RPM for maximum efficiency.  normal propellers are good up to about 200 knots, but above 200 knots they need to be specially designed.  In general propellers can reach an effective speed of 400 knots, but some airplanes designed for racing and ultra high performance  can go up to 500 knots, but for a propeller to push an airplane that fast it needs a special engine and incredibly precise manufacturing.  The main downside to a propeller airplane is its altitude it can fly at, anything above 20,000 feet is hard to fly at in an airplane without a specialized engine, because without a supercharger the engine cant get enough air and it would sputter and die out.  during the last year of WW2 the Germans were working on a new technology, a jet engine, which was the epitome of flying technology for 50 years.  In its most simple form a jet engine is a ducted fan, with more oomph.  Early jet engines were inefficient and weren’t much better than propellers, but as the thing that jet engines had that propellers didn’t was a much higher service ceiling, about 50,000 feet.  As jet engines progressed, and got faster they got more efficient and more reliable.  A jet engine sucks in air, compresses it to really high pressure, injects fuel, and lights the fuel, producing thrust.  the major downside to jet engines is that they are horribly inefficient, only about 15-20%, but as jet engines get more advanced and use better metals they can burn the fuel a little hotter squeezing a little bit more power out of fuel.  Recently a modification has been made to increase the power output of jet engines, called a turbo fan.  A turbo fan is a jet engine with an extra housing around it and another, larger fan in front of it that provides extra thrust.  turbo fans are used on larger planes, for example, passenger liners, cargo planes, and large, subsonic, bombers.  The downside to jet engines are that they are incredibly advanced pieces of technology, and need to be built and put together perfectly, and have what is called a service life, or, the number of times they can be started up, because of the incredible heat and force exerted on the blades, after a while they will weaken and crack.

This is a Turbo Fan, the first green fan blade is driven by the turbine and blows extra air, for extra thrust.

As long as man has been dreaming of fly they have been dreaming about going to the stars, and until recently (compared to the age of man) we haven’t been able to leave the ground, and return safely, but in the 18th century we developed rockets, which are very simple, and contain no moving parts, but require large amounts of fuel.  A rocket has basically 2 parts, the ignition chamber and the nozzle.  Rockets are have 2 fuels, an oxidizer and a propellant.  The oxidizer can be anything from liquid oxygen to tires, it works to speed up the burning of the propellant.  A propellant could be anything from propane, to natural gas to hydrogen, it is what is burned to provide the high pressure in a rocket to propel it forward.

Just recently scientists have developed a new type of engine, a plasma engine.  A plasma engine works just like a rocket, but it provides more power, much more.  A rocket engine has exhaust gasses in the temperature range of thousands, which provides a good amount of thrust, but plasma is in the millions of degrees, which is a tad hotter.  plasma engines would create more thrust with less fuel, crucial for longer, quicker flights.  A plasma engine uses a noble gas, such as argon, and turns it into plasma, the fourth state of matter, with ultra high power radio waves.  One immediate problem is that plasma, being millions of degrees, would melt through anything, even tungsten (melts at about 4500 F), so the only reasonable way to contain it is with ultra powerful magnets.  Even the most powerful electromagnets would be insufficient, so scientists have to use superconducting magnets, which could handle the power required to keep the plasma away, and guide the plasma away form the ship.

Surprisingly, plasma engines weren’t an intended product of research.  The research started way back in the 1950’s, with research in to how to contain nuclear fusion to create energy, but one of the scientists realized that they could use the principals they worked out to contain and direct plasma out a rocket engine, at many thousand PSI.  Until recently the equipment and materials didn’t exist to create a fully functioning prototype, but a team at Ad Astra’s Houston laboratory successfully tested the first stage of their VASIMR VX-200, short for Variable Specific Impulse Magneto plasma Rocket.  The first stage is 30 kW, but it doesn’t actually provide the thrust, it is designed to actually produce the plasma.  The second stage, rated at 170 kW is the stage that focuses and ejects the plasma out the back.  The second stage work with a technology called ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH), to be honest, i have no idea how that works, so that is up to you to find out.

I think this new breakthrough is incredible, it is theorised to be able to cut the trip to mars from 6-9 months all the way down to 3 months.  I think this really broadens our horizon, so to speak, because we could get man and machine farther, faster then we ever could before.

Today I was reading tech news and i came across an interesting article, Scotch tape peeled off in a vacuum will emit large amounts of X-rays.  Some scientist in UCLA came across that discovery but i know not how they did, but actually they weren’t the first, more than 50 years ago a group of Russian scientists found evidence of X-rays being emitted when sticky tape was peeled off a glass surface.  The X-rays are emitted approximately 2 thousandths of an inch from where the tape was being peeled off, and it came in rapid pulses of about a billionth of a second long.  The actual X-rays were produced by electrons flowing from the roll and  flying to the sticky side of the tape, and when they hit the tape, they slowed down and emitted the X-rays in massive portions (you do not have to worry about getting any exposure in the air, but try and avoid peeling tape in a vacuum chamber whilst unprotected).  The scientists believe that small, cheep X-ray devices could potentially be made for paramedics, or  for areas where electricity and money is scarce.  Those scientists have put in for a patient on devises like that.

I think that if this technology could be implemented cheaply it could potentially help MANNY fields, for example, combat medics, paramedics, medical aid  technicians, peace core volunteers, and small hospitals in 3rd world countries.  The lack of a need of lots of electricity and complex machines and clean rooms would make taking X-rays cheep, quick, and portable, opening many medical possibilities  that weren’t open before.

Well that’s it for my ramblings this week