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From Digital Armageddon.

What it hackers (or all flavors of ideology) banded together to make the big push to break the DES coding algorithm?

Just a thought…

Photo credit: Popular Science
The scientists are coming up with new and better (and safer for the people involved) methods for mine clearance. In this case, it adds one more use of the FA-18 airframe to find itself almost completely “unkillable” from a programmatic standpoint, while making mines laid at the beach, and in the surf zone in an effort to stop our Marines, much more killable.

Beach Cleanup
A naval strategy to detonate 70 million mines calls for high-tech showers of darts

By Bjorn Carey | April 2007

Since 2001, more than 13,000 American soldiers have been killed or maimed by landmines or improvised explosive devices. Civilians included, landmines kill or injure an estimated 20,000 people around the world every year. To blaze safer trails, the U.S. Office of Naval Research is developing a system that uses thousands of chemical- and explosive-packed darts to snuff out landmines. “It’s one of the most successful systems we’ve tested so far,” says project leader Brian Almquist.
[…]

HOW IT WORKS

1. A plane drops a bomb packed with darts. Once it reaches 1,000 feet above its target, the bomb ejects a seven-foot-long tubular canister.
2. A corkscrew pattern carved into the bomb’s interior spins the canister as it slides out, like a bullet leaving a gun. The rotation and small explosives jettison the canister’s panels and expose 6,500 darts stacked several rows deep. The mass of darts is also spinning, which uniformly disperses them.
3. Each seven-inch dart slams into the ground at 1,200 feet per second. Its blunt nose helps it carve a channel in water or sand, a process called cavitation. This reduces friction on the body of the dart and allows it to pass through two feet of sand and more than seven feet of water.
4. Darts inject the mines with one of three substances: a chemical that safely burns the TNT, a reactive powder that breaks apart the mine by increasing internal pressure, or a small explosive that detonates the mine on impact.

After the indignant post by Neptunus Lex about “pimping his ride” to make “Electric” FA-18s, I wonder how he’ll react to his community becoming MCM types….

Let me get this straight….over 7 minutes of freefall, supersonic speeds (with no source other than gravity for power), a face full of plasma for a light show part of the way down, and then landing at the DZ….So where do I sign up? I’m really not interested in what’s in it for me, but I’m all about being a “Test Diver” so future astronauts can leave their fragile flying/gliding machines (you know, “who would ever jump out of a perfectly good space shuttle?”) with he confidence that I, and other brave souls like me, had risked it all to plummet from space to make sure the suits and parachutes were safe and reliable in the event of an emergency.The article isn’t online. You actually will have to pull yourself away from the keyboard, hike to the local magazine rack, or library, and put your hands on the dead tree version to see what it’s about. There are three men who are working together on this idea. One is a retired Navy Flight surgeon (and I believe the spouse of one of the astronauts lost on Colombia, another guy and John Carmack (yes, the guy of “Doom” fame) from Amradillo Aerospace.
Armadillo Aerospace plans to use the DC-X vehicle to do the transport of the diver to space. Who says computer games are bad for us? Look what it funded?So…now they have to get the guy from Finland with the Jet Cat booties and really come up with something swift!

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Also, from the Popular Science website:

Toughen up those neck muscles! 6 pounds balanced on your noggin will get you some cool virtual reality (like real reality isn’t scary enough sometimes!)!

Is this the future of the home theater?

No, it’s not a prop. This six-pound helmet monitor is a real prototype, built to demonstrate next-generation television-watching technology. Modeled here by one of its developers (the regular TV is shown only for comparison), the device was built by Toshiba and unveiled in September at an academic conference in Osaka, Japan. Equipped with a built-in projector and a dome screen, the monitor plugs directly into a DVD player or computer and provides an immersive experience that surrounds the wearer with the action of the program—think of it as a portable IMAX theater. Although the invention was popular among testers, who reported that it rests easily on the shoulders and is comfortable enough for a two-hour movie, Toshiba has no solid plans for commercialization.

I’ve been pondering this issue for a few weeks now and will get busy on posting my thoughts on the topic, figuring there are many issues associated with our current mania with all things green. I’m not against it, and because I was thinking of a title for such postings, my thoughts moved to another plane, that of the world-wide issues, but unlike those being discussed. Maybe I just haven’t tripped across those editorials yet, but…going “green” has far ranging implications for the entity at the top of the food chain, some good, some potentially very, very bad.

I suspect Al Gore and company hasn’t thought them through yet, or he may not have ever made his movie.

So, that being stated as the opening salvo, here’s a short run down of some of my installed filters: BS – Biology, emphasis in marine and botany regions of the science. Degrees in International Relations and Strategic Studies. Lived on two islands in the Pacific and spent a lot of time swimming the reefs. Post military career, spent 4 years in electronic recycling sales, in a small operation, where I was involved not just in making the sales of what came out of the “waste stream,” but helping sort through large and small loads of “hazardous waste,” to see what was there, and also worked contact proposals, so I had to describe the processes involved in proper disposal techniques and get a reasonable understanding of current HAZMAT practices as it related to electronic waste.

My original title was going to be something like “Go Green – For National Security.” The premise was you can hate the junk science, or embrace it, but it still had value at that level. Certainly from a national level, going green in regards to reducing our oil consumption provides a variety of benefits in the short run. If we could create the technology, affordable and effective, to replace basic petroleum based fuels with any combination of alternative energies, we would have a tremendous impact on the World’s complaint about how we use 25% of the energy for less than 5% of the World’s population. The tyrannical and theocratic nations of South America and the Middle East would have to back off on how we were “stealing their oil” (as a side note, we’re stealing at a competitive price!) and come up with a new “slogan” to make the World hate us. We’d have much more control of some of the more contentious issues worldwide along those lines. Overall, a real plus.

I have often pondered pulling up John F. Kennedy’s speech about going to the moon and re-writing it on the topic of energy independence. If we actually had plenty of “home grown” engineers, the sleeves could be rolled up and I bet some amazing results could be achieved. Not having a lot of real scientists and engineers coming out of the colleges and universities to support this is an entirely separate, yet tightly linked subject for discussion at another time.

If we did “go to the moon” in developing methods and techniques such as you might imagine, we certainly would export it, creating entirely new companies and corporations around the globe, all the the benefit of mankind.

But…..I’ll get to my thoughts in a few paragraphs.

From my view point in the recycling company (still going strong, BTW), the two owners were not tree hugging liberals. In fact, despite their penchant to vote for the Democrats, at the “local” level, they were very much capitalists to the core. They did enjoy their success, and not a word was ever spoken about how they were doing any of this to “save the planet.” They were two smart business guys. Rough cut, from a contract proposal response: In three years, they went from $3M to $12M in gross revenues, with about an average of 25 people a new forklift and some building additions, totaling maybe $100K during that period. Most of what was taken in was paid for in the collection fees, and I was the one getting unbelievable money for what some would consider obsolete equipment in unknown operating condition, that was still needed by companies “stuck” with a requirement to maintain what they had in place and could not afford to wholesale replace. In many cases, on the equipment I sold, we came close to, and exceeded in some cases, a 100% profit margin. And, readers, that was but one of seven such companies within about 50 miles around us.

Taking a jump to the tree-hugger side of that same story, I was amazed at just how many different components were recycled, saving further mining of metals and also reducing the energy needed to make new product, as some of the “front end” of some manufacturing processes were shortened by feeding recycled material into the production lines. I also was amazed at how much truly functional equipment was just disposed of due to age. About the only thing that we paid to get rid of was the plastics, which we had made a decision to not separate the types (like defined by the number you see on the bottom/side of plastic items), so we had to pay to have that hauled off.

Summary: You can make a handsome living in electronics recycling, if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty and learning some EPA (Federal and local) regulations and complying with them and it does, in fact, benefit the environment.

Back to the issue of petroleum based fuel replacement and how we must consider carefully how we do this:

• Bio-Fuels. A few weeks back, on some talk show, a caller said “You think they hate us now? Wait until we take their food to drive our cars!” Precisely! I have read in several places, since the push to burn ethanol has become a life of its own, that They already have! Its hitting our bank accounts already. Add to that that estimates I have seen say our total corn output, if only used to make ethanol, would only replace between 12 and 15% of our oil consumption in vehicles. In other words, we can’t reach “escape” velocity” from the dead dinosaur addiction. So, you say we can use sugar cane, and beets, and soy beans. Yes, we can. And those are all used to produce food, too. You’d have to have someone regulating the balance between food and fuel production, similar to the market for fuel oil and gasoline that changes gas prices each fall. The bottom line: Is it food, or is it a way to get to the mall?
• Wind/Solar/Hydrogen: I have hopes smart minds could make it happen, so we could thumb our noses at the people who pull the fuel from the ground, but here’s the rub, economically and, therefore strategically: The nations that sell us the oil, for the most part, have never developed any other industry that would allow them to “live in the manner to which they are accustomed.” See where this is going? They hate us now for buying their product, screaming in the streets and at international conferences about how wasteful and greedy we are (as they count our money. Now, when we get serious about listening to their criticisms and do something about it, the cash flow will no longer head to them and they will holler loud and long, about how America is screwing them. That metaphor is already being used to recruit terrorists around the world and on our own streets. Can’t win for losing, you see, and those people, with the oil reserves, have not had the foresight to “diversify” their revenue producing capability. As our nation leads the way in innovation, and freedom, no one else seems to get that those are the very mechanisms that have allowed this upstart of a nation surpass all other economies in human history.

So here if the conundrum, economically, geo-politically and strategically: We go “green” to save the planet (the < 5% of us on the face of the planet), with other sneering at us, saying it’s all our fault that they now have no money, so all the more reason to attack us, sooner, while there still is an oil producing infrastructure to make things go, rather than later when there’s no oil to make things go and they can’t afford the new technologies to get around.

Our economy is tightly intertwined with the rest of the world. for all we bring to the table for humanity to use, we are accused of using more than our fair share now. We will be accused of not using any in the possible future. It appears that keeping our wallets open to economic blackmail may keep us more stable than if we invent better ways to get around and thereby clean up the air globally.

I think it’s a dangerous minefield we have wandered into, yet I don’t know if others have yet looked at this endgame.

So, what do you think?

In the latest “Popular Mechanics”, the “Milan” computer from Microsoft, using “multi-touch” input.

More ‘gouge’ from da Man here.

Pretty snazzy…and a great coffee table replacement!

Update 6/23/2007: Kevin points out that someone has other views about Bill Gate’s great ideas…

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Yes, that’s right. The philosophy of the late ’60s and ’70s finally sunk in at the Pentagon…or maybe just with the Air Force.

Check out this article on the “Gay Bomb.”

The US military investigated building a “gay bomb”, which would make enemy soldiers “sexually irresistible” to each other, government papers say.

Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.

The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.

The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they were never pursued.
[…]

Ok, we, the US Military is constantly being beat up for using kinetic weaponry. There has been, for almost a decade that I know of, a push for “Green” weapons, too (I guess that means you have to file environmental impact statements from the cockpit, combat information center, or the tank commander’s hatch prior to firing…).

Along comes a non-lethal method, that falls in line with many posters and bumper stickers I have seen since the early ’70s, and you’d think the Left would be happy, wouldn’t you?

From CBS 5 6/8/2007:

[..]
Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a “gay bomb” both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

“Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction,” said Geoff Kors of Equality California. “So, it’s just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there’s so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed.”

Somehow I don’t think the gay community leaders understood the scope of the weapon. The plan would have called for an powerful aphrodisiac effect to provide the “distraction.” I doubt seriously the plan was to just make people gay and let it go at that.

On the other hand, I am a little surprised that the gay community doesn’t stand up and call for this to be fully developed, and then demand it be used not aboard in conflict, but generally for the entire US. It certainly would slove a few problems for them if everyone turned gay…

Other “non-lethal” plans included causing wasps and rats to attack the enemy troops, a method to cause extreme halitosis, so those blending with the local population would still stand out, and also one your dog would really hate, the “Who? Me?” flatulence producer.

As it turns out, some people were on this years ago. This post from 12/29/2004:

Military Lab Proposed Gay-Aphrodisiac Chemical Weapon

Thanks to a FOIA request from the Sunshine Project, a fascinating document has now come to light. In June 1994, the US Air Force Wright Laboratory wrote a proposal titled “Harassing, Annoying, and ‘Bad Guy’ Identifying Chemicals.” While listing the categories of chemical weapons they planned to develop, the military scientists wrote:

Chemicals that effect [sic] human behavior so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely effected [sic]. One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.

The Air Force Lab was quite serious about the proposal, listing a timetable and estimate of expenses for the overall project.

Total cost through fiscal year 2000: $7.5 million

Having enemy soldiers throw down their guns and start humping each other: Priceless

Scientists. You gotta love them.

Media;

You gotta love how they can recycle news of old when it suits some agenda to raise the ire of someone.

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George Carlin telling about his “moderness”And…Chap and company tell us about more robust technology (blatantly lifted from a comment section on Cdr Salamander):Regarding “wheelbooks:”

I’ve been a staff weenie too long, but I remember the half hearted attempts (at spectacular cost!) the sub force made at updating tech. Problem was, paper’s a pretty good tech.

——
You don’t have to reboot a wheelbook.

If a wheelbook falls in the water, you can retrieve the data.

Wheelbooks are EMP hardened.

If a wheelbook gets a virus, you just wipe it off and smack the guy who coughed on it.

Wheelbooks are backwards compatible. Upgrades are simpler than drag and drop.

In the event of a loss of power, your wheelbook is still perfectly useable.

Wheelbooks don’t accidentally send pr0n to five hundred of your closest friends.

If it’s ten seconds to live fire and the wheelbook is jostled and lands on the deck…you just pick it up and keep going.

Wheelbooks do not require Wheelbook IT admins, nor endless rules about what background can be put on the wheelbook.

If you have a dirty picture in your wheelbook you’re not very likely to get thrown off the boat and sent to jail.

Personal choice in wheelbooks is not prohibited.

Someone else’s personal choice in wheelbook will not cause your wheelbook to lose all the writing on the pages.

I could go on, but you get the point…
Chap | Homepage | 06.04.07 – 1:55 am |

Further augmented by other reasoned individuals, these add ons:

Wheelbooks aren’t forbidden in SCFs

Wheelbooks won’t shut down on you in the middle of a meeting when the battery rolls over and dies
– SJS
Steeljaw Scribe | Homepage | 06.04.07 – 4:18 am | #

Gravatar you don’t have to worry about a cracked screen or broken/lost stylus.
YN1(SS) | 06.04.07 – 7:08 am | #

Screencast-O-Matic is a free online tool to make screencasts. Select your screen size, audio or not and let it rip.

Possibilities here to help walk others through using software, or just to have fun without the trouble of making a movie of your screen captures.

Do you need to fact check, or are you just curious as to what happened today in aviation history?

Lilienthal’s “Jumping Off” place from the front – Credits – Gary Bradshaw; To Fly Is Everything

May 26th in aviation history:

* In 1923… Lieutenant H. G. Crocker lands at Gordon, Ontario, to complete a non-stop transcontinental south/north flight from Houston, Texas, of 11 hours, 55 minutes. (AYY)
* In 1942… The Northrop XP-61 Black Widow night fighter prototype flies for the first time. (AYY) [Such a a cool aircraft!]
* In 1970… The prototype Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner reaches a speed of 1,335mph, becoming the first commercial transport in the world to exceed Mach 2. (AYY)
* In 1972… Cessna Aircraft Corporation announces completion of the company’s 100,000th aircraft, becoming the first company in the world to achieve such a production figure. (OTM) [I’ve been a traveler in 172s, 180s, 182s, 205s, 206s, 210s, 214s….and on only a few occasions did I land with the plane]

U.S. Centennial of Flight has a searchable timeline part of the site to give you a hand.There is a section for educators that links to events month by month, that may be a good place to generate some ideas for blogging history.

CPT Chuck Z is trying to raise the funds to go to the biggest conference there is: Blog Expo.

He, accompanied by Matt and Jimbo from Black Five, will be able to stand up for us MilBloggers, but more importantly, Chuck, as the ValOUR-IT “patient 0,” will get the opportunity to tell his story to a bigger audience and thereby get more funds moving in that direction.Got a few non-tax deductible bucks to chip in? Do it here.

It sure couldn’t hurt, dropping three manly men in the middle of the Kos Kids to get more “support the troops” fever going on….