Back in the stone ages, movies opened with the credits. You got a chance to know who was playing what part before the movie started. Now a days, the credits are held to the end, and the cast's credits just give actor's names, no hint as to what role they played. Pain in the tail.
Part of the pleasure of watching movies is knowing what actor is playing what part. In the old days they spelled it out. Today, if you don't recognize the actor's face on screen, throwing the name up at the end of the movie doesn't help much. And with modern makeup it gets harder and harder to recognize the face. Take an actor like Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee). He looks totally different in each movie he acts in. I shouldn't have to look the flick up in IMDB to figure out who the cast was.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Why 787 Slips were Inevitable, (Aviation Week)
A "Viewpoint" article on what amounts to the op-ed page of Aviation Week, by a couple of professors of supply chain management from Rutgers business school. As management gurus, they concentrate on the management of the 787 project. The unusual feature of the Boeing project was the subcontracting out of vast pieces of the airframe. Wings, tails, the fuselage itself, were designed and built by subcontractors. The Aviation Week writers, as management guru's see the project's three year lateness as a management problem. If all you have is a hammer, every thing looks like a nail.
They point out that it only takes one late subcontractor to hold up the entire project, whereas the subcontractors who work hard and deliver on time don't get rewarded for their efforts. They say that the project slipped because a few unmotivated subcontractors were late, or delivered substandard work that had to be done over.
I used to earn my living in the engineering business. Once we got a job, we always went full out to do it right and do it on time. Our motivation? Simple, we all knew that if we didn't make the customer happy, we'd never get another job from him. So I don't really believe in the management gurus ingenious theories of motivation.
They point out that it only takes one late subcontractor to hold up the entire project, whereas the subcontractors who work hard and deliver on time don't get rewarded for their efforts. They say that the project slipped because a few unmotivated subcontractors were late, or delivered substandard work that had to be done over.
I used to earn my living in the engineering business. Once we got a job, we always went full out to do it right and do it on time. Our motivation? Simple, we all knew that if we didn't make the customer happy, we'd never get another job from him. So I don't really believe in the management gurus ingenious theories of motivation.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
I borrowed this chart from the Oil Drum blog. Despite a century of oil production, the US is still in the big leagues, number three producer after Saudi Arabia and Russia. That's nearly enough to supply our own needs. If we got back into deep water drilling, did some more fracking, and drilled in ANWR, we could be number 1, and self sufficient. Why is the Obama administration dead set against it?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Can the Feds cut the deficit?
The Republican house has made a start. They whittled $100 billion (or $61 billion prorated) off "non defense discretionary spending". Which ain't much compared to $1.4 trillion of new red ink this year. But it's a start. If the Feds don't have the gumption to pass these token cuts, we are doomed. They will never have the stones to attack the big entitlement programs.
Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security eat up the bulk of the federal budget. Cutting those is going to hurt, 'cause a lotta people take advantage of them, and they will all complain mightily when their benefits are reduced. Some the the sting could be eased by measures that reduce the overall cost of health care. Allowing interstate sale of health insurance, allowing import of drugs from abroad, banning consumer advertisements of prescription drugs, and clamping down on medical malpractice suits would help a great deal.
Then we could eliminate the federal farm subsidies, the federal ethanol subsidy, federal education spending, and federal highway spending.
It's gonna hurt, but there is no alternative. We won't be able to sell US bonds at any price if the federal debt goes much higher.
Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security eat up the bulk of the federal budget. Cutting those is going to hurt, 'cause a lotta people take advantage of them, and they will all complain mightily when their benefits are reduced. Some the the sting could be eased by measures that reduce the overall cost of health care. Allowing interstate sale of health insurance, allowing import of drugs from abroad, banning consumer advertisements of prescription drugs, and clamping down on medical malpractice suits would help a great deal.
Then we could eliminate the federal farm subsidies, the federal ethanol subsidy, federal education spending, and federal highway spending.
It's gonna hurt, but there is no alternative. We won't be able to sell US bonds at any price if the federal debt goes much higher.
Is Spring a Myth?
Terrible blizzard yesterday. Wind howled around the house all day, snow every where. Got cold last night and its still below freezing up here. Today the town road grader made four passes up and down my street trying to push back the snow banks. Fortunately my mailbox survived this operation. I got drifts 8 feet high in places. More snow is forecast. And this is March?
Monday, February 28, 2011
GIMP, the poor man's photoshop
It's a great program, it's free, runs under Windows, and it's fans claim it can do everything Adobe Photoshop can do.
Trouble is, no manual. No overview. The program has a zillion options, and it's very difficult to figure out what they do. The on-line help is full of "alpha channels" and "layers" and other strange words all of which lack a definition in ordinary English.
With all the fancy options, GIMP cannot, or I cannot figure out how to make GIMP, do a cut and paste. My needs were very simple, I wanted to print out a stone wall texture that I could use to cover up the wood basement of a HO railroad building to make the wood look like a cut stone basement. I had a snippet of stone wall and all I wanted to do was copy and paste the snippet to fill up a 8.5 * 11 piece of paper.
I finally had to use plain old Microsoft "Paint" to do the copy and paste. Fancy GIMP just would not do it.
Trouble is, no manual. No overview. The program has a zillion options, and it's very difficult to figure out what they do. The on-line help is full of "alpha channels" and "layers" and other strange words all of which lack a definition in ordinary English.
With all the fancy options, GIMP cannot, or I cannot figure out how to make GIMP, do a cut and paste. My needs were very simple, I wanted to print out a stone wall texture that I could use to cover up the wood basement of a HO railroad building to make the wood look like a cut stone basement. I had a snippet of stone wall and all I wanted to do was copy and paste the snippet to fill up a 8.5 * 11 piece of paper.
I finally had to use plain old Microsoft "Paint" to do the copy and paste. Fancy GIMP just would not do it.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sea Turtle mythology (navigation)
An article in "Wired" claims that sea turtles navigate by sensing the earth's magnetic field (quite possible) and can sense longitude magnetically (not likely at all). The author is clearly unfamiliar with magnetic compasses, magnetic variation, and magnetic dip, all subjects well known to seamen for hundreds of years. Nor has he read the classic investigation of homeing pigeon navigation done many years ago.
Finding longitude at sea has been intensively studied for centuries. The only way to do it magnetically is to measure magnetic variation. The magnetic poles are not exactly at the geographic poles which means magnetic north varies from true north. Variation ranges from zero to maybe 20 degrees, depending upon where you are. Variation is measured by comparing magnetic north (compass reading) with true north. For human navigators true north is found by observing Polaris, the north star, or by use of a gyro compass (invented around the time of WWI). It is doubtful that sea turtles can use either method.
The earth's magnetic field lines run horizontally at the equator and run nearly vertically right at the magnetic poles. The angle of the magnetic field with respect to the ground is known as magnetic dip, and can be measured with a simple apparatus, essentially a magnetic compass mounted on its side. Human navigators do not use magnetic dip to find latitude because measuring the height of the sun at noon gives a much more accurate latitude indication than magnetic dip does. But the magnetic dip method could be used by sea turtles.
I doubt that sea turtles are better animal navigators than homing pigeons are. Homing pigeons are so good at finding their way back to their homes that they were used to transmit messages up until the invention of portable two way radios in WWII. Pigeons navigate partly by observing the sun and partly by sensing the earth's magnetic field. On overcast days pigeons depend upon magnetic navigation. Attaching small permanent magnets to the pigeon's feet will disable their magnetic sensing. Pigeons released with magnets on overcast days always get lost.
I suspect the real truth of the sea turtle story is that the turtles can sense the earth's magnetic field and can navigate about as well as homing pigeons, using the same techniques. I do not think the turtles, or the homing pigeons can sense longitude.
Finding longitude at sea has been intensively studied for centuries. The only way to do it magnetically is to measure magnetic variation. The magnetic poles are not exactly at the geographic poles which means magnetic north varies from true north. Variation ranges from zero to maybe 20 degrees, depending upon where you are. Variation is measured by comparing magnetic north (compass reading) with true north. For human navigators true north is found by observing Polaris, the north star, or by use of a gyro compass (invented around the time of WWI). It is doubtful that sea turtles can use either method.
The earth's magnetic field lines run horizontally at the equator and run nearly vertically right at the magnetic poles. The angle of the magnetic field with respect to the ground is known as magnetic dip, and can be measured with a simple apparatus, essentially a magnetic compass mounted on its side. Human navigators do not use magnetic dip to find latitude because measuring the height of the sun at noon gives a much more accurate latitude indication than magnetic dip does. But the magnetic dip method could be used by sea turtles.
I doubt that sea turtles are better animal navigators than homing pigeons are. Homing pigeons are so good at finding their way back to their homes that they were used to transmit messages up until the invention of portable two way radios in WWII. Pigeons navigate partly by observing the sun and partly by sensing the earth's magnetic field. On overcast days pigeons depend upon magnetic navigation. Attaching small permanent magnets to the pigeon's feet will disable their magnetic sensing. Pigeons released with magnets on overcast days always get lost.
I suspect the real truth of the sea turtle story is that the turtles can sense the earth's magnetic field and can navigate about as well as homing pigeons, using the same techniques. I do not think the turtles, or the homing pigeons can sense longitude.
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