My first experience in Russian banya was December 1989 in Nadym Western Siberia in the final days of the old Soviet Union.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadym
American and Russian oil men and geologists. Much vodka. Very similar to this story, except this banya did have a shower. The Americans ran naked into the subzero night to cool off in the snow then went back to the banya. The water in my beard froze solid. I experienced many more Russian banya in the following years. One of my fondest memories of Russia.
Category Archives: History
Landing on the Moon 101
Whoa … this is a seriously cool blog
Haiku #9
Thirty-fourth and Vine
Revolution in progress
Falcon Octaweb
We live in the future. Come join us.
I am unapologetically pro-science and pro-technology. I am also a futurist as my blog postings show.
However science, technology, and futurism should not and must not equate to the destruction of culture and tradition of any peoples. The current wave of protests against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea, while news to me, is an ongoing clash between the culture and traditions of native peoples and the interests of outsiders.
I have no opinions on the current protests, but this post is a good starting place to learn more.
Additional sources of information
http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/04/peter-apo-mauna-kea-under-siege
Adapted from NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
We Live in the Future. Come Join Us.
“Hawaiians need to stop living in the past.” We’ve all heard this before, and we’re probably going to hear it a lot in the coming days. Brave people are getting arrested up on our sacred mountain right now in frigid temperatures (there was even a blizzard there a couple of weeks back), continuing a years-long fight and engaging in a blockade to prevent the further cultural and environmental desecration of the very piko, the umbilicus, the center of our islands by the Thirty Meter Telescope. I attended an overnight vigil a few nights ago on our island to show support for these koa on theirs, and we got an update via phone from Kahoʻokahi Kanuha and Lanakila Mangauil, two of the humble young leaders of the blockade. I…
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The Floyd Section
How Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey – Part 2: The Floyd Section
Tyler Knudsen 2015
The Dawn of Man
How Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey – Part 1: The Dawn of Man
Tyler Knudsen 2015
Most Important Sci-Fi Movie of All-Time
6 Reasons Why 2001: A Space Odyssey is the Most Important Sci-Fi Movie of All-Time
Published on Nov 28, 2014.
In the week of its UK re-release, 2001: A Space Odyssey stars Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood explain the sci-fi classic’s enduring appeal.
Happy Aniversary
To me …
Martian Marathon
Mars rover Opportunity completes first extraterrestrial marathon (26 miles and 385 yards or 42.195 km).
You go little rover!
ABORT ABORT ABORT
Mercury
Apollo
Orion
Crew Dragon
What is it with Oxygen tanks?
Hawthorne, we’ve had a problem …
Houston, we’ve had a problem ~ Jack Swigert, Apollo 13
~ James Lovell
So I repeat my question … What is it with Oxygen tanks?
Kung Fury (Own it)
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/kung-fury/id997778113
Interestingly, the iTunes version does NOT include the subtitles for the “mustache” dialog. Pity.
KUNG FURY
Hackerman
Commentary
True Survivor
The Trailer
Landing Zone 1
The post was originally titled Landing Complex 1, however SpaceX now refers to it as Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1).
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Canaveral_Air_Force_Station_Launch_Complex_13
5 Day Forecast
The Race – Backstory
This is the story behind The Race …
Christmas 2003, “Number One Son” gave me the very first Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1, that he had picked up while studying abroad in Japan. It had not yet been released in the states.
Image courtesy of Steves Digicams
The specs were impressive for the day: 5 mega-pixel, 3.6″w x 2.4″h x 0.8″d (91mm x 60mm x 21mm), 6.3 oz. / 180g. Click on the camera image for a review and detailed specs. My cell phone in 2004 was the standard flip phone. I don’t even recall if it had camera. If it did, it was worthless.
This was the first camera I could carry in my pocket. I could take it everywhere. With the USB cable I could relatively easily transfer pictures from it to my computer. I had QuickTime Pro on my computer and realized that if the pictures were numbered sequentially QuickTime could turn them into a movie. I began to experiment with stop action animation and time lapse photography. The Race is one of my best.
I had to build a holder for the camera in order to mount it to a tripod. The actors were my sons’ Warhammer figures, Russian toy cars I had collected in the 90s while working there, other toy vehicles, a cat toy, and a robotic spider.
The entire video at 6fps (frames per second) is only 30 seconds long. I filmed the actual race first on the 19th of June and then decided to film the starting line sequence the next day to extend the length. I initially used the Beatles Birthday as the soundtrack. The final 30 second cut lived on my work computer for over a decade, copied over with all of my files each time I got a newer PC.
Last week I decided to try to get it onto my iPhone. I guess I could have done a USB iTunes to iPhone transfer, but that would have meant upgrading the decades old iTunes that I never use at work. So I emailed it to myself via Gmail.
It opened fine on my iPhone, but the sound would not play. I opened it in iMovie and then managed to add Birthday to the soundtrack. Here I digress. For reasons unknown iMovie would only recognize recently purchased songs on my iPhone. Here I digress again, I just discovered that you don’t get the iCloud download icon in Music if WiFi is turned off. I can’t find the setting in 8.1.2 to make it visible. Back up one digression, so I repurchased Birthday and used it.
However, when I attempted to save it back to my camera roll I got an error. After many hours of frustration I decided to look for video format converters on the Apple App Store. I ended up buying two:
The Video Converter – Convert videos to and from file formats! by SmoothMobile, LLC https://appsto.re/us/rD2p1.i
MConverter Medias Converter by bill santiago https://appsto.re/us/59UVL.i
I am not endorsing either of these … and there are many others to choose from.
The original version of The Race was in MOV format and needed to be converted to MP4 format. Once done, I could export it to the camera roll. Then I decided that Born To Be Wild would be a better fit. So I redid the 30s clip again.
Now to upload to Vimeo.
All for 30 seconds of audio. How do others get away with uploading entire songs, albums, music videos, movies?
Alas it is what it is. So I searched iTunes for Royalty Free Music, found
Instrumentals for TV Productions, Podcasts, Movies, and Jingles by Royalty Free Music https://itun.es/us/MZVNv
and chose the first recording for the soundtrack. It was 99 cents.
I liked the song enough that I created the looped versions in order to be able to play the entire song
I don’t know anything about DRM (Digital Rights Management), but I have to assume that that 30s clip of Born To Be Wild had a DRM tag that immediately told Vimeo “NO NO NO”. I suppose it could have checked a Shazam-like audio database, but how does that explain all the other entries the are longer and more blatant. I assume there is a way to strip off the DRM tag. I need to investigate this.
There has got to be an affordable way for individuals to license mainstream audio at an affordable price for use in homemade videos posted to the web. See my rant https://contrafactual.com/2014/12/14/21st-century-i-p-2/
Anyway back to the making of The Race. It was old-school “arrange the figures, take a photo, move the figures, take a photo, repeat” … 181 times. I couldn’t walk the next day – my thighs were in agony.
Speaking of old-school, if you haven’t seen it check out the 1979 Wizard of Speed and Time by Mike Jittlov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLhLn9hVkE
I’ll (click)
be (click)
seeing (click)
you (click)
21st Century I.P.
RANT
Hey Googstapos … To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, “You’ve got at lot of damn gall to come after folks who include copyrighted music in their YouTube videos when you collect and store FOREVER every damn bit of personal information you can about us to be used against us to try to sell us crap we don’t need!”
OK … That about sums up the rest of this post. This is an incoherent rant. Deal with it.
Weggieboy’s comments on my JOSIV5 post hit a nerve.
Now I am not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV, so I have no legal insight here. But consider the following: let’s say
-
I invite you to my house to listen to my LP record of C. W. McCall’s Convoy
I invite you to my house to listen to my 8-track of C. W. McCall’s Convoy
I invite you to my…
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SOG
SOG Specialty Knives and Tools
I am not a collector of knives and tools, per se, but I do appreciate well made technology. SOG is one of these companies … with a history. I discovered SOG while investigating various multi-tools. They have an excellent selection of very well built and functional multi-tools. (http://www.sogknives.com/tactical/multi-tools.html)
After much back and forth I finally decided to order the black Powerduo Multitool shown below.
http://www.sogknives.com/tactical/multi-tools/powerduo-black-oxide.html
Below are some fascinating videos on the history of SOG.
Take point
Interview w/ Spencer Frazier
Remember, try to restrain yourself. You probably don’t need to buy them all.
Orion
Overview
Launch
Splashdown
Merry Critmas
As in Critical mass
Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor. The construction of CP-1 was part of the Manhattan Project, and was carried out by the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. It was built under the west viewing stands of the original Stagg Field. The first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1 on 2 December 1942, under the supervision of Enrico Fermi. Fermi described the apparatus as “a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers.” It was made of a large amount of graphite and uranium, with “control rods” of cadmium, indium, and silver, and unlike most subsequent reactors, it had no radiation shield or cooling system.
Reference: Wikipedia
December 2nd also just happens to be my birthday.
Cubicle
According to Wikipedia, [the] office cubicle was created by designer Robert Propst for Herman Miller, and released in 1967 under the name “Action Office II”.
However, the first famous use of the concept of the cubicle did not occur until 1984. That would be George Orwell’s 1984 (written in 1948).
It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records Department, where Winston worked, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes Hate.
The cubicle is mentioned thirteen times in Orwell’s 1984 and at times is a major plot device. Then as now the cubicle was/is a cramped, privacy-free, dehumanizing, uniform workspace where your every move is open to observation and your every word can be heard by all.
• • •
So the next time you report to your cubicle for work, just remember, Big Brother is watching.
1984
I am currently re-reading George Orwell’s 1984, published interestingly enough in 1948. There is talk of yet another remake of the novel into a movie (see IMDB), the first being in 1956, the later in … conveniently enough … 1984.
A world constantly at war, justifying constant surveillance, sound familiar?
In truth, it appears to be modeled more after the worst (truth and fiction) of the old Soviet Union, yet it could easily be remade to reflect more modern times (even down to the flat panel vid screens hanging on the walls and cubicles for the workers, except that the cubicles of Orwell’s 1984 appear to be bigger than the ones I am used to seeing).
If you had to read it in grade school and have long forgotten it … or have never read it … go get a copy and read it. Amazon, iBooks, used book stores – all good places to buy it on the cheap.
1984 may not have been like “1984”, but 2014 has just enough similarities to make one ever so slightly uncomfortable if one thinks about it too much.
Also just over 30 years ago …
Astronaut
Guillaume Juin
http://vimeo.com/guillaumejuin
If you enjoyed that, be sure to check out these other ISS time lapse videos on Vimeo.
100th Merlin 1D Engine
In stark* contrast to both Orbital Sciences and United Launch Alliance, both of which use Russian-made main engines, 100% of SpaceX vehicles, are designed, manufactured, assembled, and tested in the U.S. at SpaceX-owned or leased facilities. SpaceX recently announced completion of it 100th Merlin 1D engine in two years.
Russian rocket engines suspected in launch blast
http://m.phys.org/news/2014-10-russian-rocket-blast.html
The AJ26 engines—modified and tested in the U.S.—originally were designed for the massive Soviet rockets meant to take cosmonauts to the moon during the late 1960s.
The massive explosion of the Russian Moon rocket dashed the Russian bid for the Moon. Faulty AJ26 engines … the same used on the Antares booster … most likely caused the Russian Moon rocket explosion. [my comment]
In 2012, SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO, Elon Musk, called the Antares rocket “a punchline to a joke” because of the Russian engines. SpaceX, by contrast, makes its own rocket parts.
“I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere,” Musk said in an interview with Wired magazine.
2001 Theatrical Re-Release
2001: A Space Odyssey … Returns
UK Re-release to theaters in November
New Trailer
Original Trailer
Only the big screen can do justice to this film. I hope it comes to the States.
Source: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/10/21/2001-a-space-odyssey-trailer/
See also last year’s post: 2001
Apollo Retroreflectors
Yet more proof that man really did walk on the moon.
Left on the moon by Apollo missions 11, 14, and 15 the three retroreflectors continue to provide an ultra-precise means of determining Earth-Moon distance.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment
Retroreflectors provide surveyors a precise way of measuring point-to-point distance by timing the two-way time of a laser pulse. The optical design is such that reflected light is returned in the exact direction from which it was sent with very little scatter.
These methods are faster, safer, and infinitely more accurate than measuring distance by stretching a long steel tape (called a chain for historical reasons) as I did in college surveying camp over 30 years ago. Laser range finders and retroreflectors are the mainstay of modern surveying. This technology did not become commercially available until the 1980s, yet NASA used it in 70s to accurately measure Earth-Moon distance.
With the right equipment anyone can measure the precise distance to the Moon and simultaneously confirm that MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969 A.D.
Lockheed Compact Fusion Reactor
Can this be real?
The Skunk Works mind-set and “the pace that people work at here is ridiculously fast,” he says. “We would like to get to a prototype in five generations. If we can meet our plan of doing a design-build-test generation every year, that will put us at about five years, and we’ve already shown we can do that in the lab.”
The early reactors will be designed to generate around 100 MW and fit into transportable units measuring 23 X 43 ft. “That’s the size we are thinking of now. You could put it on a semi-trailer, similar to a small gas turbine, put it on a pad, hook it up and can be running in a few weeks,”
Thomas McGuire, AviationWeek interview (see link below)
Wow …
Links
http://m.aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/lockheed-martins-new-fusion-reactor-design-can-change-h-1646578094
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-bash-lockheed-on-nuclear-fusion-2014-10
The True “Hero” of Breaking Bad
A year later … spoiler alert
Breaking Badfinger – one year later
Today is the one year anniversary of the Breaking Bad finale and my post Breaking Badfinger.
25 Years Later
April 11, 2011
Background Radiation
Screen captures from the documentary Pandora’s Promise
The sievert (Wikipedia)
1 Sv = 1 joule/kilogram – a biological effect. The sievert represents the equivalent biological effect of the deposit of a joule of radiation energy in a kilogram of human tissue.
Background radiation is measured in microsieverts per hour (one millionth of a sievert).
Pandora’s Promise
Former anti-nuclear environmentalists reevaluate their position on nuclear power in light of the Fukushima disaster.
They present the past, present, and future of nuclear power including Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Their conclusions will surprise you.
Take that Moon landing deniers!
Apollo 11 500 fps
Bragging Rights
My how time flies. One year ago today I entered the modern age. It’s been a good year. Still using my iPhone 5s to maintain this blog, organize my life, get my news and information, taking lots of pictures, watching videos, listening to music.
Siri is by turns amazingly helpful, surprising, and frustratingly stupid. Somewhere along the line I got a tiny crescent moon shaped crack in the upper left corner outside of the screen. My son dropped his and the damage is worse but the phone is still usable. Mrs uses her iPhone continuously to play her music collection. Her gold 5s is pristine.
What you see above is (was) my old phone. Your basic 5+? year old bog standard Samsung flip-phone as issued by Verizon. I have been a Verizon customer since it was GTE back in the ’90s. In fact my first product was a pager, not a phone (but I digress).
Anyway, remember back a few posts ago when I said that YOKS (Ye Olde Kid Sister) got me the first generation iPad for father’s day out of pity because the all time geek did not have an iPhone?
Yesterday #2 son and I got up at 7 AM and drove over to the new Verizon store on the edge of town. I had stopped by the previous evening to confirm that they would have the iPhone 5s in stock. We got into the short line (# 0010) and waited the half hour until they opened at 8 AM. We each…
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Viking Women Warriors
Yet another example of strong powerful women
Superchargers come to Europe
Via Twitter
I was fortunate to travel to Norway (Stavanger) on business several times in the early 2000s. It is an extremely beautiful country. I wish I could afford to live there. I was also fortunate to know a native Norwegian whom I had previously worked with in the States. He was kind enough to take me on a day trip to the Norwegian country side. I was amazed that most of the back roads are effectively one lane wide, as can be seen in the video.
See also SUPERCHARGER
Perfection
Nineteen Seventy-One, the year I graduated from high school. Badfinger is riding high in the charts. Heir apparent to the Beatles, backed by George Harrison, published by the Beatles’ Apple Corps (no relation to Apple Computer, but that is another story), with a number of hits already playing. No Matter What, Come and Get It, and Day After Day had been or were playing regularly on AM radio. Come and Get It debuted in the 1970 Peter Seller / Ringo Starr movie The Magic Christian.
Geek Obscura: Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlein is one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors.
When I was in high school you couldn’t get past the nerd clubhouse front door unless you were familiar with Robert A. Heinlein. You didn’t necessarily had to have read his books, but you needed to be familiar with the guy. About a month ago at work some guys were discussing the various merits and demerits of the Paul Verhoeven movie version of Starship Troopers, and I added my two cents that no matter what you felt about the movie that the book was great. One of the guys seated there, who was a pretty big sci-fi fan, replied that he didn’t even know it was a book.
So how did one of the most thought provoking controversial and exciting books in the science fiction universe get downgraded to a shower scene? Well let’s start with the man himself Robert A. Heinlein.
Heinlein’s early life could be summed up in…
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A Brief History of Mars
Copyright © 2014 by Christian Bergman, All rights reserved.
All people, places, and events are fictional … except when they aren’t.
• • •
In the distant past, a forgotten shepherd stares up at the sky, studying the bright red dot that drifts night to night among the background of stars.
Bras in Space
The creation of the Apollo AL7 Pressure Garment is one of the great American stories of the past forty-plus years. […] NASA turned the creation of the spacesuit into a competition (largely dominated by military contractors)—and it was assumed a military contractor would win the day.
Instead, pitted against the military-industrial complex, Playtex created the 21-layer spacesuit, each layer distinct yet interrelated in function to the rest of the whole—a masterly combination of elegance, complexity, and form. […] Traditional engineering firms could not figure out how to meet all the mission requirements and create a functioning suit that would keep the Apollo astronauts alive. The seamstresses at Playtex, with their years of experience fashioning girdles and bras, could, and did.
It was the same materials. It was bras in space. It was literally the same materials that were used in the bra-making process. The straps from bras were reused to hold the thing into shape and the Nylon fabric that a bra-cup is made of was used to give strength to the Latex so that it didn’t expand under air pressure. Then the Latex itself was the same, as they say it started out as exactly the same Latex as went into the girdles […]
We Choose To Go To The Moon
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, speaking to incoming freshman students at Rice University, Houston, Texas
For a real good time …
… call 303-499-7111
(Inspired by Jim Stafford)
Buzz Aldrin
“I was the second man to set foot on the Moon, Neil before me.”
Via The Register
Today is the 45th anniversary of those historic second foot steps.
Space Rocket History
Interested in the history of space travel?
Tired of the same old tunes, news, or talk radio during your drive time commute?
Want to expand your knowledge of the most exciting (and fearful) decades in the history of humanity?
Then the Space Rocket History podcasts are for you.
I discovered them on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app. I listen to Mike’s 20 minute podcasts to and from work. I thought that I knew all there was to know about the early history of space flight – boy was I ever wrong. Mike has done his research. Of course Mike has the advantage of having access to post-Soviet information that I never had as a kid growing up.
As you can see the iTunes reviews are 5 stars! I am one of those 5-star reviewers.
Related posts
Contrafactual 