Went to see it at the Jax Jr in Littleton. Good crowd, it's been playing at the Jax for a week or more, but there were a lot of people who either had not seen it, or were seeing it a second time. It was reasonably OK, better that the prequels in the '90's, not really as good as the original three. I have been seeing Star Wars movies for a long time. I saw the first one, the night it opened in Boston back in the '70's, so I'm gonna see this one.
It had a LOT of light sabering, spaceship to spaceship duels, strange CGI creatures, explosions, pretty much constant action. If the movie had a plot, I never understood it. Maybe that is how they cover up the plot holes.
They had Carrie Fisher, who looked older than the hills, and Mark Hamill, who didn't look much younger. Daisy Ridley was back as Rey. She did good, she looked slim, and tough. She had a glare that could stop a clock at fifty meters. Her costume included clam digger pants that did nothing for her looks. The fixed that in the last reel. She didn't get any memorable lines, but she done good. They had three First Order bad guys, a really evil looking emperor, a nasty general, and Kylo Ren, a Darth Vader wannabee, who has a thing for Rey and kept turning up when Rey wasn't expecting him. These guys all dressed in black and did a lot of evil.
The Rebel Alliance has lost a lot of strength in this one. There was a time when the Alliance could muster a fleet of a hundred or more ships for a mission against the Death Star. In this flick the Alliance has been reduced to a single star cruiser, completely surrounded by dozens of First Order star destroyers.
Rey has found Luke Skywalker, who is all sorts of old, and snarly too. At first Luke refuses to help at all. Then somehow, I never did understand just how, Rey converts him to the Alliance cause. Luke gives Rey lessons in the Force which make her scary powerful. In the last reel we see Rey doing stuff even more amazing than the time Yoda hoisted Luke's X-wing fighter out of the swamp purely with the Force.
They introduced some new stuff, including scenes from a hoity toity Las Vegas type casino. They had a lot of fun inventing costumes, makeup and hairstyles for the casino patrons. A much higher class place than that dive on Tatinooe that won't serve their kind in here.
The movie had three story lines running side by side, Rey and Luke Skywalker, Rose (a new character) and Finn, Leia and Poe Dameron (another new character). The movie jumped back and forth between the story lines with abandon, which is maybe why I never understood that plot. They had another one of those camera men who turns the lights out on the set and films in the dark. PITA. And it is LONG, better than 2 1/2 hours.
For dyed in the wool Star Wars fans, like me, it's a must see, For ordinary people, not so much.
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Do we need a US Space Corps?
We have an op-ed in the Wall St Journal pushing for one. Me, an old USAF veteran, I'd think my old service would be over joyed, highly motivated, and more than capable to take on any space defense or offense programs. I doubt that we need a another government organization to preform the mission, whatever that mission might turn out to be.
Right now we have a flock of recon satellites, the GPS nav satellites, weather satellites, and a bunch of comm satellites up there. If an enemy shot them down we would miss them, a lot. And shooting down a satellite than travels in a highly predictable orbit, in plain sight of ground radar, is fairly easy, compared to shooting down an ICBM, which we claim we can do now.
Trouble is, there isn't much a satellite can do to defend itself. And there isn't much that a "anti-anti-satellite" weapon could do either. Best I can think of is to use ICBM's to vaporize the launching sites of enemy anti-satellite missiles, which is really really an act of war. Some kind of hi tech shoot out above the atmosphere might get passed off as a trivial border incident, but nuclear weapons detonating on your soil cannot be.
So despite the need for defending our satellite fleet, I don't see what anyone, a hypothetical Space Corps, or the good old USAF can do about it, given today's, or even tomorrow's, technology.
Right now we have a flock of recon satellites, the GPS nav satellites, weather satellites, and a bunch of comm satellites up there. If an enemy shot them down we would miss them, a lot. And shooting down a satellite than travels in a highly predictable orbit, in plain sight of ground radar, is fairly easy, compared to shooting down an ICBM, which we claim we can do now.
Trouble is, there isn't much a satellite can do to defend itself. And there isn't much that a "anti-anti-satellite" weapon could do either. Best I can think of is to use ICBM's to vaporize the launching sites of enemy anti-satellite missiles, which is really really an act of war. Some kind of hi tech shoot out above the atmosphere might get passed off as a trivial border incident, but nuclear weapons detonating on your soil cannot be.
So despite the need for defending our satellite fleet, I don't see what anyone, a hypothetical Space Corps, or the good old USAF can do about it, given today's, or even tomorrow's, technology.
The US must be doing something right
Chinese "birth tourists" are going to Saipan to give birth on US soil to give their children US citizen ship. Saipan is popular because we allow visa free entry for Chinese and Russian citizens, since 2009. This can cost a Chinese family as much as $50,000 for hospital and doctors fees, air fare, and bribes.
I'm impressed that Chinese families value US citizenship for their children that much. We must be doing something right here in the USA.
I'm impressed that Chinese families value US citizenship for their children that much. We must be doing something right here in the USA.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Merry Christmas to all
It's gonna be a white Christmas up here. We have snow on the ground, just got 8 more inches yesterday, and another 8 inches is forecast for Christmas day.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Bitcoin bubble bursting
According to Business Insider, bitcoin has dropped to $11,000 today, down from $19,000 a few days ago. This ought to be fun to watch.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Education for STEM subjects
Wall St Journal ran a op-ed about this yesterday. The authors criticized American schools up one side and down the other. But, their complaints didn't resonate with me. The trashed both science and mathematics education for being "fifty years out of date". They trashed computer science for just teaching software and not teaching anything about the electronics that make the CPUs tick. And they plumped for teaching "discrete mathematics" starting in sixth grade.
The "fifty year old" slam doesn't mean much to me. Isaac Newton laid out the foundations of physics 400 years ago. They taught it to me in high school and I found it very useful through out a long career in electrical engineering. I know the modern physics, quantum mechanics and Einstein, but most practical problems in the real world can be solved with plain old fashioned Newtonian physics. Every kid ought to learn them.
Knowing how computers work inside at the transistor level is useful, especially if you are going to design computers, but software is a large field, employs a lot more people that hardware design, and I know a lot of very decent programmers who have zero knowledge beyond software.
They also push for teaching "discrete mathematics" ,a new term to me. Boolean algebra is what we use for digital design, but unless the student knows ordinary algebra, Boolean algebra won't mean much to them.
My prescription for better education is simple. Merely require all high school students to take one year of physics, a year of chemistry, and a year of biology. Even if the student has no desire to take a STEM major in college, they need some basic science to understand our increasingly scientific world.
Plus, it should be the duty of all teachers to make sure high school freshmen under stand that they have to take the right mathematics in high school if they want to get into STEM majors in college. All the STEM majors require integral calculus, and many require differential calculus and transform methods. If the student isn't ready to take integral calculus freshman year in college, he is out. All the STEM courses have calculus as a prerequisite. You have to get your calculus in freshman year so you can take the STEM courses sophomore year. Which means the student needs to have algebra, geometry,and trigonometry under his/her belt during high school. The integral calculus course won't mean anything if you don't have the prerequisites.
The "fifty year old" slam doesn't mean much to me. Isaac Newton laid out the foundations of physics 400 years ago. They taught it to me in high school and I found it very useful through out a long career in electrical engineering. I know the modern physics, quantum mechanics and Einstein, but most practical problems in the real world can be solved with plain old fashioned Newtonian physics. Every kid ought to learn them.
Knowing how computers work inside at the transistor level is useful, especially if you are going to design computers, but software is a large field, employs a lot more people that hardware design, and I know a lot of very decent programmers who have zero knowledge beyond software.
They also push for teaching "discrete mathematics" ,a new term to me. Boolean algebra is what we use for digital design, but unless the student knows ordinary algebra, Boolean algebra won't mean much to them.
My prescription for better education is simple. Merely require all high school students to take one year of physics, a year of chemistry, and a year of biology. Even if the student has no desire to take a STEM major in college, they need some basic science to understand our increasingly scientific world.
Plus, it should be the duty of all teachers to make sure high school freshmen under stand that they have to take the right mathematics in high school if they want to get into STEM majors in college. All the STEM majors require integral calculus, and many require differential calculus and transform methods. If the student isn't ready to take integral calculus freshman year in college, he is out. All the STEM courses have calculus as a prerequisite. You have to get your calculus in freshman year so you can take the STEM courses sophomore year. Which means the student needs to have algebra, geometry,and trigonometry under his/her belt during high school. The integral calculus course won't mean anything if you don't have the prerequisites.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Yesterday a 79 mph curve, today it's 30 mph
Yesterday the newsies were saying the Amtrak train was going 81 mph into a 79 mph curve. This morning NHPR is reporting the curve was posted for 30 mph. Either the curve did a lotta shrinking over night (unlikely) or yesterday's newsies got it wrong. If the Amtrak train was doing 80 mph thru a 30 mph curve, that pretty much explains how the train came off the track.
Some questions the newsies are too ignorant to ask.
The "new" line the train was operating on. How new? Most railroad right of ways had track laid on them back in the 1800's. Was this a brand new right of way, bulldozed out last year? Or was it an old line brought back into service? How many years ago was the track laid? What kind of ties were used? Prestressed concrete ( which lasts forever) or traditional cresoted wood (which rots out over the years)? Amtrak will run passenger trains over really crummy track. At White River Junction VT, the wooden ties are so soft and rotten that you can pluck the spikes out with your fingers, but Amtrak runs over it. What shape was the track in, really?
If the curve was really a 30 mph curve, how was the train crew supposed to know? Especially as this was the inaugural (very first) run. Were there trackside signs like on the highway. If so were the signs actually in place? If the crew was supposed to look in their time table, or look at some electronic device in the cab, how were they expected to know when they approached this tricky curve? It was dark, and this crew had never been over the line before.
It's been reported that $181 million was spent bringing this line into service. For $181 million I would expect them to straighten out sharp and dangerous curves. Just what was all that money spent on? Who was the contractor, and what kind of experience did they have in building railroad lines?
Some questions the newsies are too ignorant to ask.
The "new" line the train was operating on. How new? Most railroad right of ways had track laid on them back in the 1800's. Was this a brand new right of way, bulldozed out last year? Or was it an old line brought back into service? How many years ago was the track laid? What kind of ties were used? Prestressed concrete ( which lasts forever) or traditional cresoted wood (which rots out over the years)? Amtrak will run passenger trains over really crummy track. At White River Junction VT, the wooden ties are so soft and rotten that you can pluck the spikes out with your fingers, but Amtrak runs over it. What shape was the track in, really?
If the curve was really a 30 mph curve, how was the train crew supposed to know? Especially as this was the inaugural (very first) run. Were there trackside signs like on the highway. If so were the signs actually in place? If the crew was supposed to look in their time table, or look at some electronic device in the cab, how were they expected to know when they approached this tricky curve? It was dark, and this crew had never been over the line before.
It's been reported that $181 million was spent bringing this line into service. For $181 million I would expect them to straighten out sharp and dangerous curves. Just what was all that money spent on? Who was the contractor, and what kind of experience did they have in building railroad lines?
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