Friday, May 08, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
April Fools!
We use MS Sharepoint at work. Most people have it set as their hompage. anywho, the photo for April Fools day was a bunch of people in businees attire with gleeful expressions.
I was thinking that the photo should be of a person hiding in the supply closet, covered in pudding and crying.
But maybe I'm just weird.
I was thinking that the photo should be of a person hiding in the supply closet, covered in pudding and crying.
But maybe I'm just weird.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Ahh, the country life! Pt. 2
A few nights ago I was driving home. At one point of my drive, I come to a "T" and take a right. Straight ahead is a pasture. I pulled up to the stop sign, and looked both ways, when suddenly something BIG moved right in front of me. It was a giant cow (steer, whatever) that was exactly the same color as the grass, scratching itself on the barbed wire fence.
Last night on the way to archery, in the same vicinity, I came over the top of a hill to find an entire line of cattle, 30 or 40 at least, poking their heads through the fence to eat the grass on the side of the road. I'm guessing it was nice and crunchy from the road salt, and therefore delectable.
On the way back home that same night, there were at least 10 cattle in the road. They had squeezed between the strands in the fence and were licking the road. Definitely the salt.
Did you know that cow shit was really slippery, and that a front wheel drive car would do a pretty good job of coating the lower body panels with shit when the wheels spin? Consider yourself informed.
On a less gross note, I saw my first deer on my property last night. It was grazing in the clearing where my leech field was dug. This morning I was woken up by a woodpecker working on a hollow tree. It was loud! I went outside to investigate, and I could hear turkeys gobbling nearby. Pretty neat.
Last night on the way to archery, in the same vicinity, I came over the top of a hill to find an entire line of cattle, 30 or 40 at least, poking their heads through the fence to eat the grass on the side of the road. I'm guessing it was nice and crunchy from the road salt, and therefore delectable.
On the way back home that same night, there were at least 10 cattle in the road. They had squeezed between the strands in the fence and were licking the road. Definitely the salt.
Did you know that cow shit was really slippery, and that a front wheel drive car would do a pretty good job of coating the lower body panels with shit when the wheels spin? Consider yourself informed.
On a less gross note, I saw my first deer on my property last night. It was grazing in the clearing where my leech field was dug. This morning I was woken up by a woodpecker working on a hollow tree. It was loud! I went outside to investigate, and I could hear turkeys gobbling nearby. Pretty neat.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Ah, the country life!
I live on a private road. My particular spur is a .25 mile gravel road, which is a dead end. Then there is a 3/4 mile long road that is a single lane, and was paved (poorly) a few years ago.
My house is very near the crest of a ridge. The gravel road is pretty level. then it transitions to pavement, and plunges down into a pretty deep valley, and climbs up to the crest of the next ridge over.
It snowed last night. Knowing it had snowed, I got up early to brush of the car. I very slowly drove down the road, because it was pretty slick. I first knew I was in real trouble when I started down the first hill with my foot on the brake, and the ABS pulsed all the way down. I really knew I was in trouble when I saw my neighbors' cars parked in a turn off at the bottom, to include a big 4x4 pickup, and a Subaru Forester.
Steeling my nerves I got up as much speed as I could, and almost made it to first flat spot on the uphill portion, before my car started sliding backwards down the hill.
Looking at the weather, my car may be there until spring.
My house is very near the crest of a ridge. The gravel road is pretty level. then it transitions to pavement, and plunges down into a pretty deep valley, and climbs up to the crest of the next ridge over.
It snowed last night. Knowing it had snowed, I got up early to brush of the car. I very slowly drove down the road, because it was pretty slick. I first knew I was in real trouble when I started down the first hill with my foot on the brake, and the ABS pulsed all the way down. I really knew I was in trouble when I saw my neighbors' cars parked in a turn off at the bottom, to include a big 4x4 pickup, and a Subaru Forester.
Steeling my nerves I got up as much speed as I could, and almost made it to first flat spot on the uphill portion, before my car started sliding backwards down the hill.
Looking at the weather, my car may be there until spring.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
What Happened?
Last week I went to Florida for a business trip. On the first day, I arrived mid-morning, and had some time to kill, so I decided to go to the Kennedy Space Center.
There was something about the place that really bothered me, and it really solidified thoughts I've been having about the recent nature of America and Americans.
Darn near the entire facility was focussed on NASA's past greatness -- On how amazingly succesfull the space program was through the Apollo missions. Quite a bit of time was spent on astronauts that willingly, enthusiastically sat on top of tons of high explosives, just to see how high they could go. Sometimes, they'd sit on top of a rocket that had never been launched before.
During WWII, the United States military went from an under-manned, under-equipped, 2nd rate (at best) organization to one of the 2 most powerful armies in the world, in under three years. During that time, Aircraft carriers and freighters were being built in weeks or months. Entire industries were turned over to war production, in a matter of months, often times to make products which had little or nothing in common with a companies normal product line. For instance, Singer Sewing Machine was churning out pistols, and the GM Guide Lamp division (they made head lights) churned out M1 Carbines by the millions.
In 9 years, the United States went from having never launched anything into space, to putting a man on the moon, and in the meantime, building the most complex machine that has ever been built.
Back to 2008.
The United States has been engaged in 2 fairly minor wars for 7 and 5 years respectively and is constantly scraping for ammunition. If the DOD decided to increase production of small arms ammunition, it would take years to get another production line going.
If, say Iran got a little frisky, and sank an Aircraft Carrier, it would be a decade before it was replaced.
In 2005, President Bush announced a return to the moon, with a target date of 2020. In other words, its going to take 15 years to do something that only took 9 years the first time. To do something that has already been done!
American Engineering and Manufacturing has lost something, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. Is it the lean methodology? Have computers, rapid prototyping, with all their speed and convenience created a make it and break it, trial and error mentality, that in the end slows everything down?
Today, in 2008, a detailed drawing of a complex item can be completed in a few days, and hardware can be delivered within a few weeks. With computer simulation tools, we have a level of confidence in the designs that we've never had before. Still, everything takes longer now.
I look at engineering from the 50's, with all its streamlined, atomic age, supersonic, chrome finned glory, and the 60's with its list of accomplishments. Entirely new aircraft developed and fielded in just 2 or 3 years. How long have the Osprey, Raptor, and Lightening II been in development? Decades! The contract for the F35 was first signed in 1996. The first aircraft will be fielded in 2011! 14 years, assuming all goes well, and it hasn't so far!
Something has been lost, and we all need to figure out what it is.
There was something about the place that really bothered me, and it really solidified thoughts I've been having about the recent nature of America and Americans.
Darn near the entire facility was focussed on NASA's past greatness -- On how amazingly succesfull the space program was through the Apollo missions. Quite a bit of time was spent on astronauts that willingly, enthusiastically sat on top of tons of high explosives, just to see how high they could go. Sometimes, they'd sit on top of a rocket that had never been launched before.
During WWII, the United States military went from an under-manned, under-equipped, 2nd rate (at best) organization to one of the 2 most powerful armies in the world, in under three years. During that time, Aircraft carriers and freighters were being built in weeks or months. Entire industries were turned over to war production, in a matter of months, often times to make products which had little or nothing in common with a companies normal product line. For instance, Singer Sewing Machine was churning out pistols, and the GM Guide Lamp division (they made head lights) churned out M1 Carbines by the millions.
In 9 years, the United States went from having never launched anything into space, to putting a man on the moon, and in the meantime, building the most complex machine that has ever been built.
Back to 2008.
The United States has been engaged in 2 fairly minor wars for 7 and 5 years respectively and is constantly scraping for ammunition. If the DOD decided to increase production of small arms ammunition, it would take years to get another production line going.
If, say Iran got a little frisky, and sank an Aircraft Carrier, it would be a decade before it was replaced.
In 2005, President Bush announced a return to the moon, with a target date of 2020. In other words, its going to take 15 years to do something that only took 9 years the first time. To do something that has already been done!
American Engineering and Manufacturing has lost something, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. Is it the lean methodology? Have computers, rapid prototyping, with all their speed and convenience created a make it and break it, trial and error mentality, that in the end slows everything down?
Today, in 2008, a detailed drawing of a complex item can be completed in a few days, and hardware can be delivered within a few weeks. With computer simulation tools, we have a level of confidence in the designs that we've never had before. Still, everything takes longer now.
I look at engineering from the 50's, with all its streamlined, atomic age, supersonic, chrome finned glory, and the 60's with its list of accomplishments. Entirely new aircraft developed and fielded in just 2 or 3 years. How long have the Osprey, Raptor, and Lightening II been in development? Decades! The contract for the F35 was first signed in 1996. The first aircraft will be fielded in 2011! 14 years, assuming all goes well, and it hasn't so far!
Something has been lost, and we all need to figure out what it is.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Food for Thought
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"
- The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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