Gray Watson's Blog -- July 2009

Blogging is a useful way for me to record my thoughts and digital travels every so often. Hope you enjoy my digital stream of consciousness.

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July 31, 2009

Here'is a cool picture and cool article about White Knight Two the Scaled Composite's new mothership for the Virgin Galaxy space flight vehicles. It was designed to care SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of about 50000ft where it drops and then rockets up to 100km. The plane is also designed to do 4+G test flights to train astronaut tourists for Virgin Galaxy flights.
The interior is all business, and not in the business class kind of way. The cockpit is spartan, with little in the way of comfort or superfluous design. The the business of flight test and there isn’t much for pilot comfort or fancy design. The flight to Oshkosh took 5 hours and 20 minutes cruising at 350 knots (about 400 mph) true airspeed. Interestingly, when WhiteKnightTwo is flying light as it was for the trip to AirVenture, it can maintain its cruising speed with the engines at idle.

WhiteKnightTwo will carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of about 50,000 feet. At that point, it will release SpaceShipTwo, which will then blast off into space. The two craft have identical fuseage, which means allows WhiteKnightTwo to be used as a trainer for future astronauts. The airplane is designed to carry 27,000 pounds at the center of its wing, which makes it strong enough to endure the rigors of simulating zero gravity and the intense g forces experienced during re-entry, Rutan said.
Here's a nice and stress reducing article about tides along the East Cost of the US this year were higher than normal -- in some places as much as 2 feet above projections. But don't worry, climate change is a myth. I wonder if this is at all related to the spate of very bad weather we've had up in New England this season.
NOAA is rushing to study the data in an effort to understand what happened. Szabados’ office is already putting the finishing touches on a report that will be released next month on the wind and current patterns that appear to be correlated with the tidal surge.

Szabados said that two main factors appear to have contributed to the extra high tides. First, there were steady winds out of the northeast throughout this anomaly. Second, the ocean current running from Florida up along the coast weakened. While the associations between these phenomena and the tides are provocactive, it’s too early to tell how fully they explain this unexpected tidal event.
Check out this way cool huge vacuum chamber that NASA uses to test spacecraft. This from the Space Power Facility in Sandusky Ohio (near Cedar Point). One of the many reasons why going to space is expensive!!
The Aluminum Test Chamber is a vacuum-tight aluminum plate vessel that is 100 ft. in diameter and 122 ft. high. Designed for an external pressure of 2.5 psig and internal pressure of 5.0 psig, the chamber is constructed of Type 5083 aluminum which is a clad on the interior surface with a 1/8-in. thick type 3003 aluminum for corrosion resistance. This material was selected because of its low neutron absorption cross-section. The floor plate and vertical shell are 1-in. (total) thick, while the dome shell is 1 3/8 in. Welded circumferentially to the exterior surface is aluminum structural T-section members that are 3-ft. deep and 2 ft. wide. The doors of the test chamber are 50 X 50 ft. in size and have double door seals to prevent leakage. The chamber floor was designed for a load of 300 tons.

July 28, 2009

So if you haven't heard about the "birthers" movement, there is a fringe portion of the Republican party which argues that Obama is not an American citizen so therefore he is a criminal and can't be president. Here' s a funny video of Replication representatives literally running from a Huffington Post reporter instead of answering questions about whether they think Obama should be President or not.
The term "birthers" seems to have come from the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, who were called "truthers". Here's the Birthers page on Wikipedia. Pretty scary stuff. What is amusing is that it is a poison pill for the Right. They can't disagree with their vocal base but they can't agree because it will marginalize them.

July 26, 2009

Here's a good article about how paying doctors salaries instead of fees helps keep health care costs down. Right now in most facilities there are incentives to increase tests even if they are unnecessary. I doubt that this is going to cause better care as the article seems to be saying but in terms of cost savings, it is a home run. Why more institutions aren't doing this is amounts to fraud IMO.
Doctors in the United States are usually paid fees for each service they provide. The more procedures and tests they order, the more money they pocket. There is widespread agreement among health policy analysts that many of these procedures are unnecessary, raising costs in ways that often do nothing to improve patient health.

By contrast, Bassett — like the Cleveland Clinic and a small number of other health systems in this country — pays salaries to all of its doctors. No matter how many tests or procedures are performed, they take home the same amount of money. Medical costs at Bassett are lower than those at 90 percent of the hospitals in New York, while the quality of care ranks among the top 10 percent in the nation, surveys show.
Here's a funny story about how bears in High Peaks region of the northeastern Adirondacks have been able to figure out how to open bear-proof cans including the BearVault 500 which is supposed to keep bears from eating camping food. Led by "Yellow Yellow", one of the tagged bears in the area, the bears seem to be sharing knowledge about how to get into the cans.
So last year Mr. Hogan [from BearVault] introduced the 450, a two-pound cylinder costing about $60, and a larger version, the 500, each with a second tab. On them, a camper must press in one tab, turn the lid partway, then press the second tab to remove the lid. “We thought, ‘O.K., well, one bump didn’t work so maybe two bumps will thwart her,’ ” he said. But Yellow-Yellow figured that lid out, too.

Last month, her achievements were noted in an article in Adirondack Explorer. And she now appears to have apprentices; campers have reported seeing other bears getting into their BearVaults.

July 24, 2009

Although maybe not a lovely name (pun intended), the Kiss Wind Turbine looks like a nice rig. I saw one on a boat in Marion harbor the other day and it was very quiet and the owner was very happy with it. They are made for Caribbean winds so don't start unless they are blowing more than 7 knots but otherwise pretty nice.
The wind generator has been built to:
- operate very quietly,
- be virtually corrosion proof,
- be simple to service with parts available worldwide,
- be rugged enough to operate in a gale,
- yet, can be shut down with the flick of a switch.

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