Me like….

Can you guess? Well, I’ll tell you, since you don’t know how tall she is: 205 INCHES! of viewing experience. From Luxio in Italy.

Have a spare $610K (and the cost of shipping and installation, too)? I hope so, because until enough of the well off buy these, you can bet the prices aren’t going to get any cheaper.

If you’re on a budget, you can get these fine TV screens in 90″, 120″, 150″ and 180″ sizes, too.

And in case you’re one of those engineer types, you’ll need to support the 1041 lbs of weight to go along with the 1500 nit contract and 10,000:1 brightness.

For you XBox gamers, I’d wait: The resolution is only 1344×768. Stuff there will look kinda chunky at that setting…

qaBut a different kind. Today is a day to pay tribute to the Son of God, part of the trinity who hung the stars in the heavens.Technology you ask? Yep, It’s about the Creator of the Universe and all that is in it. Just contemplate the picture of the Tadpole galaxy above for a moment. Consider going to either this or this link to see more pictures from NASA of the universe, or, if that’s too expansive for the moment, our solar system.How did it all get here, from the Black Holes, to the comets, to the atomic interactions of the star’s inner cores, to the wonder of the “universal acid” that fuels life here on Earth and is sought out elsewhere in the Universe by out scientists, as a signal that life maybe accompanied by the presence of water…

What about photosynthesis? Hydrogen bonding? Brownian motion? asexual replication? Gravity? Lift? Hemoglobin? Gold? The things on the Periodic Chart? The brain, in each and every form?

Consider this: Cosmologists/physicists tell us the Universe formed from an incredibly dense ball of matter. Consider this, too: Black holes, as defined in our understood science are balls of matter, held together so tightly, that even photons cannot escape their grasp. We speculate on their existence be derived observations, where light isn’t coming from. Now, I have heard said “the Bible is not a book of science, but when it speaks to it, it is correct.” Take that how you may, but I’ll reference Genesis 1:3:

And God said “Let there be light” and there was light.

Could that have been the unleashing of the very elemental waves/particles we study as light, from the single core of the only black hole in existence? The “Big Bang” as it were? I attribute it to that, aided by the millenia of understanding mankind has determined, to God Himself. My question to those who aren’t sure: How the heck did that large pile of matter end up being assembled in the center of the universe? Makes you wonder, huh? Now, one I don’t think I have encountered: Who placed the large expanse of nothingness around the place we try to reckon as the center of the Universe? Someone had to clear the lot before a house gets built, right?

Psalm 19:

¹The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
²Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
³There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
⁴Their voice goes out into all the earth; their words to the end of the world.

My question now for you: Doesn’t a look skyward, in day or night, give you a reason to wonder? I would hope so. And when you wonder, who do you say did it all?

Take a few minutes to read Job 38 to 41 for a compendium of some of the things God has done to create the Universe and life. It can give one a greater appreciation of the effort it took to do that. Amazingly, it took a man complaining to God about what he wasn’t doing for us to get the Lord’s “resume” for the record, in much greater detail that presented in Genesis.

Having spent a lot of years observing my physical surrounding and the body of (ever changing) science, I have come to a point, about a decade ago, where I let God get the glory for the creation of it all. We, in my humble opinion, are allowed to discover how it works, like kids peering through the dusty garage windows of that seemingly nutty neighbor down the block who has a workshop full of inventions. Sometimes, while looking in, we even figure out a piece of how something works, but we never will know it all, yet we will be happy to use the outcome to our benefit.

He not only took care of the macro level, He spent time designing everything else. King David remarked thusly in Psalm 139:

¹³For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Remember the high school biology classes about DNA, RNA, transfer RNA, and the 4 proteins that make up DNA? One could certainly describe that process as “knitting.”

Scientists, on a daily basis, ask us to take their understanding on faith and act on it. Even much of what they know is derived from what they can observe, to help the determine what must have been, so that the circumstances they are studying make sense to them first. Faith, is therefore not an unknown thing, and responsible people use it regularly to operate in life.

This day, picked for some reason as a day in the year to celebrate the giving of a gift to us may not be the actual day of the year that Jesus the Christ was born, but a large portion of humanity has picked December 25th as the day, and the business acumen of some of the rest of the world’s inhabitants have made it a great commercial endeavor. It’s not like parents of adopted children haven’t had to sometimes do the same type of thing, let alone the numerous pet owners happy to also make up a birth date. So why argue over the date, when it’s about the issue.

All in all, it is a day to consider that the Creator of the entire Universe, and all that is in it, cared enough to send His Son so we could look forward to a day when all our pain was gone, all our sadness behind us and a life everlasting stands before us, but also so we might understand ourselves and our fellow travelers on this planet, so that we might enjoy life more abundantly here and now. All you have to do is accept that gift. Even more amazing is that He doesn’t force you at all in the decision. He who created gravity to allow us to sit and type our thoughts to one another on the internet, with out the desk, chair and keyboard floating away. If He could do that, why does He let us decide if we will accept His love? Once I got passed my individual arrogance regarding MY view of MY presence and purpose here and now, I understand how awesome that situation is.

You know, even the Koran said God filled the virgin Mary with God’s spirit in the 66th Sura, regarding the birth of Jesus as something special. It even labels Jesus as the Christ in 2:136, “Christ” being Greek for “Messiah.”

So, in closing, Merry Christmas to all.

Interesting stuff – Precision Formation Flying. Might cause future Lex’s to complain loudly that only a human can do it, rejecting the idea that “it’s so simple, even robotic systems can do it!”

Formation flying by unmanned platforms. In space…going really, really fast (well, that’s with true speed…here it’s the relative speed that makes a difference, and that can be very small, except at the “join up”) Lots of applications, like many small sensor platforms being electronically integrated into a larger system, but only if they are positioned specifically to add to the synergism.

Check out the JPL data on the topic, and, if you’re a military pilot….be afraid, be very afraid…of the word “autonomy.”

Taking a break from what is normally called “technology” to post a little thankfulness for a “technology” the military uses quite effectively as the real, tangible force multiplier: The Recruiter.

It was easy enough, when taking management time on someone to check the enlistment contract of the sailor in question and make disparaging remarks about the lineage of the poor soul who was detailed to recruit and found themselves a little short of quota near the end of the month, and working under the emotional stress of the “system,” as defined by the analysts defined it….

In retrospect, I have, through introspection and reading the many weblogs over the last few years, have come to appreciate the role these people play in the maintenance of a solid, strong and continually improving best military in the world, and, in history.

While out making rounds today, I pulled into a local Marine Recruiter’s office. I did have an ulterior motive, but it was driven by the need to just step in and shake a few hands and say thanks for the hard work that makes the rest of it all possible. It also told me the quantity of pizza I will have delivered one day soon for lunch.

A Staff Sargent and two brand, spanking new Privates were present. The young man and young woman privates looked all the part of the very young who are carrying the load of the nation. No ribbons but the NDSM graced their khaki shirts, but they got the same hand shake and thanks, for they are the ones, with a global war staring them in the face.

So: My suggestion – stop by those strip mall storefronts and take a moment to tell them you appreciate their work, walking the halls of the high schools and making community meetings, much of it at the expense of their personal time at home, when the entire military is making deployments to the combat zone when they are not on “cake” jobs like “shore duty” stateside.

This work is vital, but not nearly as well recognized as an integral part of the system. I think this is especially important in areas far from military bases, as many of these little outposts of the Armed Services are like little islands unto themselves.

They are our edge to make the non-living technology work to defeat our enemies and help those others around the world less fortunate.

Before we go to unmanned combat aircraft, the F-35 is coming online. I’d speculate it may well be the last manned fighter we put into service. But, that’s not the point. It brings some incredible technology to the table, and will serve the USAF, USMC and Navy in three different modifications.

Specifically, the really interesting technology that “caught my eye” was this:

Designed for a “HUD-less” cockpit, the heads up display travels with the pilot’s head, yielding pictures like this to the occupant: Heck, not only will you be able to see vital info, regardless of where you position your head…you’ll be able to “talk” to the plane….Next: The development of the “sensitivity module” to detect when you are verbally abusing your ride….and the CDR thought alcohol abuse was a too intrusive issue…Moving pictures, that talk to you, about the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter:

embedded by Embedded Video

Some guys with lots of time on their hands, or a pressing need to complete their academic research papers have devised a way to make a projected image show correctly on a screen/surface at varied angles. Specifically, these smart people are: Johnny C. Lee, Paul H. Dietz, Dan Maynes-Aminzade, Ramesh Raskar, and Scott E. Hudson.

So, PowerPoint Rangers, no need to fret when the heads of the audience will absorb the light energy you desired to show on the screen! Just hang the projector so it has a boresight view of the screen.

embedded by Embedded Video

Find this intriguing? Here’s the technical paper in a .pdf

We’re running out of petroleum?

I don’t think so. It’s just we’ve managed to get the easy to find and extract from the earth reserves. I’m no geologist, but I dod some unintentional reading once in a while on this topic. I know we’re actually progressed past the “easy” to get oil, and have developed techniques to go back to “old” fields and use methods, like hot water/steam to tease the entrained oil out of the surrounding soil so we can have that, too.

Just the other day, Brazil found a huge reserve of oil. From Forbes:

11.09.07, 2:27 PM ET SAO PAULO, Brazil –

A monster offshore oil discovery and promising fields near the find could help Brazil join the ranks of the world’s major exporters, but full-scale extraction is unlikely until 2013 and will be very expensive.

The “ultra-deep” Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude, and initial production should exceed 100,000 barrels daily, though experts believe the amount will then go much higher.
[…]

So, what’s the deal? Isn’t this post about technology?

Yep. Hang in here. Notice the words “ultra-deep?”

[..]
Though tapping the Tupi field will be expensive, Petrobras is flush with cash for strategic investments because of growing production and high international oil prices.

The Tupi field lies under 2,140 meters (7,060 feet) of water, more than 3,000 meters (almost 10,000 feet) of sand and rocks, and then another 2,000-meter (6,600-foot) thick layer of salt.
[…]

Kinda sounding like Bruce Willis andf his crew trying to get to the 800 feet on the asteroid, doesn’t it, but without the zero gravity?

Obviously, it can be retrieved. It’s because we have discovered similar deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, but they are….a little bit deeper….to the tune of 30,000 ft down. From Wired:

[…]
Siegele has reason to be giddy. He works for Chevron, and his team is sitting on several new record-breaking discoveries in the Gulf, a region that many geologists believe may have more untapped oil reserves than any other part of the world. On this trip, the 48-year-old vice president for deepwater exploration has come to a rig called the Cajun Express to oversee final preparations before drilling begins on the company’s 30-square-mile Tahiti field.
[…]
A drill is plunging down through 4,000 feet of ocean and more than 22,000 feet of shale and sediment — a syringe prodding Earth’s innermost veins. That 5-mile shaft will soon give Chevron the deepest active offshore well in the Gulf. Some land drills have gone deeper, but extracting oil from below miles of freezing salt water and unyielding sediment creates a set of technical problems that far exceed those faced on terra firma.
[…]

And, the challenges are many and varied. Farther in the article, they discuss the drilling “platform” is actually a ship, based on the technology of the Glomar Explorer. It is a ship, not a fixed rig; it is not anchored, it hovers, using 4 large thrusters and a GPS feed to keep the ship above the pipe to the ocean floor, built of 90 ft sections. Top that off with the oil, being as deep as it in the earth’s mantle, is hot and therefore very thin in terms of fluidity. When it gets to the piping exposed to the ocean on it’s trip to the surface, it’s all of a sudden surrounded by not much over 32 degree water, causing a dramatic change in viscosity. Again from the Wired article:

[…]
Dropping a drill down through more than 1 mile of water and 4 miles of earth isn’t easy either. The drill string is composed of hundreds of 90-foot sections known as joints that are dropped into the water by an automated mechanical arm and successively screwed into each other. It took more than three days to assemble all the joints in the drill string that pierced the Jack field.

Once the rotating drill bit begins its journey down through miles of sediment and pierces the seafloor, it encounters another set of problems caused by the changing terrain. The test well for the Jack field drilled through nearly a dozen geological layers — ranging from hard bedrock to sandy sediment to empty voids. These rapid shifts from one level of pressure to another can disturb the rotations of the drill, causing it to get stuck or veer off course. Pressure is good — it’s what naturally forces the liquid crude up the length of the well and into the barges and pipelines that send it back to shore. (The layer of shale over the oil-bearing sands acts like a brick on top of a water balloon — the fluid wants to surge upward.) But, at the very bottom, farther below sea level than Mount Everest is above it, there’s enough pressure to implode a human head — or, more pertinently, to crack iron casings.

Moreover, the closer you get to Earth’s core, the higher the temperature of the rocks. At 20,000 feet below seabed, the oil is hot enough to boil an egg. At 30,000 feet, it can reach more than 400 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cook off into natural gas and carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, the water at the bottom of the deep sea is at near-freezing temperatures — between 32 and 34 degrees — creating a dangerous interaction: When the boiling-hot oil hits the freezing-cold water, it could solidify and block the flow, rupturing the pipes. The machinery on the seafloor, therefore, has to be well insulated. Engineers on the Cajun Express have been relying on a fairly primitive method — pumping the casing and substations with antifreeze — but much more sophisticated systems are in the works.
[…]

So…there is oil to be taken from the Earth, above and beyond what we thought, because now we can go deeper to get it. With the cost of a barrels of oil hovering about the high $90s, to $100, it makes this a good investment of money to figure out the technology to get this oil to market. I also hopes it puts some pressure on the market,as the supply expands.

Interesting stuff.

“Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the
world.”
-Thomas Carlyle

Technology, in and of itself, like money, is morally neutral. It’s all in how we use it. For instance, ValOUR-IT, using the computer technology brought to us by the space race, has been lightened and miniaturized to the point that our wounded troops can use it to communicate. The fund drive is still on…donate (button at the top of the page to help you out).

Anyhow, a few years back, I posted about data ports being put into vehicles. Those ports have become much more used than just for the shop to run diagnostics on your car….sit back, do a little reading and see what I mean.

Anyhow, technology, like legislation, also has it’s “unintended consequences” in our daily lives.

Update: Just found this info on EZ-Pass and privacy.

BTW, Fred Fry International is a great site for current maritime (meaning other than naval) news!

Just when you thought it was safe to figure out that LCD OLED Q-Dot LCD whatever display technology was settled for the next decade, now comes some smart guys at MIT who have taken some “bio-inspiration” and come up with a “Brilliant Display” using a technology named “IMOD” for short or “interferometric modulator” and Qualcomm is coming out with it on a cell phone.

See it in the sunlight, too…and uses a lot less energy to make a really nice display.

From Scientific American Nov 2007 issue:

A new technology that mimics the way nature gives bright color to butterfly wings can make cell phone displays clearly legible, even in the sun’s glare
By M. Mitchell Waldrop
[…]
the devices do use an array of artificial microstructures to produce the same kind of iridescent colors as are seen on the wings of tropical butterflies. And Qualcomm is betting that its approach will give IMODs several advantages over today’s dominant liquid-crystal-display (LCD) technology.
[…]

Something about a small gap between the display layer and a reflective surface behind manages to provide a truly remarkable display.

So…move over OLEDs and Quantum Dot stuff….

Someone had to test it….

embedded by Embedded Video

It’s not in English, but…when they hold up the < href=”http://www.icaruscanopies.aero/main.htm”>Icarus VX-39 canopy, it’s the one Luigi is jumping…

That number, 39, you ask? Stands for 39 square feet of surface area….if you must know.

Once I “trusted” my life to a “square” in the late 70’s, my first one was a 230 sq ft “Strato-Cloud.” Went to a 200 Sq Ft Pegasus, then a 150 sq ft Performance Designs Sabre 150 and (so far) ended with a Sabre 120. When I made that transition, I was doing about 160+ jumps/year and I was loading the wing up nicely, thank you. Exit weight was…how shall I say this…more than the “tail tag” said, but I flew it well and have no injuries, or even close calls, because of problems handling the canopy to discuss as a result.

Parachute technology in the civilian sector has come a long way since guys with hot knifes and a few C-9 (28 ft diameter) surplus military parachutes (still with lines, they didn’t chop them off back then) could slice out a few panels to see how they flew. My first “owned” parachute was in fact, a C-9, formerly white, but dyed maroon by the prior owner.

When “squares” appeared in the mid-70s, they had 5 “cells” (chambers). Most jumpers today have 9 cell canopies, but the “extreme” jumpers, who love the “swoop,” some of them use 21 cell versions, to get a thinner wing, and more “stiffness,” to generate better lift and speed. Some canopies have air locks, which, once the air is rammed in during the opening sequence to shape the cell, is trapped within, also providing a stiffer wing to the air, with improved performance.

“We” have come a long, baby!

Oh, and when you’re bored with your canopy’s performance, then you can strap on a “wingsuit” and have a “come to Jesus” experience…

embedded by Embedded Video

Helicopter not included…