Archive for the ‘Geek’ Category

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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 355

Sunday, March 21st, 2021

Science Sunday!

I’ve been fascinated by rocks and rock hunting and geology since I was a young child.

I’m just not very good at it. So instead, I enjoy reading the works of others, like John McPhee.

Mr. McPhee talks with Eldridge Moores, a University of California geologist (and collaborator with Mr. McPhee on Assembling California) and reads from Annals of the Former World (affiliate link).

Bonus #1: “A Brief History of Colorado Through Time”. I used to collect those “Roadside Geology of…” books. I should at least go out and replace my copy of Roadside Geology of Texas (affiliate link). Perhaps I will be able to use it soon.

Bonus #2: “Flood Basalts of the Pacific Northwest”. Or, giant lava flows!

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 21, 2021.

Sunday, March 21st, 2021

George Bass. I think he may have been an obscure figure to most folks: Dr. Bass (a professor at Texas A&M) was one of the pioneers of underwater archeology.

After being honorably discharged in the late 1950s, he pursued a Ph.D. in classical archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, an American photojournalist named Peter Throckmorton was researching Turkish sponge divers and learned that they knew of ancient artifacts on the ocean floor. Mr. Throckmorton wrote to the renowned archaeologist Rodney Young seeking sponsorship for a proper excavation. Professor Young turned to one of his graduate students who specialized in the Bronze Age and had enthusiastically read accounts of deep sea dives — George Bass.
Mr. Bass was less than fully prepared. He had time for only six weeks of a 10-week diving course at a Philadelphia Y.M.C.A. And before joining the expedition and diving 100 feet into the Mediterranean, he had tried on a tank just once and gone no deeper than 10 feet — in a pool. Yet that first trip became the foundation for the rest of his career.
“You have to be young and ignorant and naïve to get anywhere,” he reflected in a 2010 interview with the Penn Museum.

…

Early on, archaeologists who sought to take advantage of the aqualung remained aboveground, relying on reports from hired divers, who lacked archaeological expertise. Professor Bass took a more hands-on approach. He became the first archaeologist to do his own diving while supervising other divers. And he organized on-site training in underwater excavation methods for fellow archaeologists and students.
With help from scientists he recruited for his teams, he engineered new methods for removing artifacts from the seabed and for spending long periods underwater. One crucial early insight was that objects that look like rocks may actually be the corroded remnants of metal goods. Professor Bass X-rayed what he found interesting. If a rocklike object contained an inner cavity where a metal artifact used to be, he would pour epoxy inside and cast a replacement.
His excavations produced illuminating material about ancient shipbuilding. His first expedition, off Cape Gelidonya in Turkey, solved a puzzle about why Homer refers to brushwood on Odysseus’s ship. The remains of a sunken ship there revealed that brushwood had been used as a cushion for heavy cargo to protect the hull.
Deborah Carlson, the president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, which Professor Bass helped create and then ran for much of his life, ultimately in Texas, said he deserved to be considered the founder of the field.
“Under his direction, ancient shipwrecks were excavated underwater for the first time,” she said in a phone interview. “He did it by taking his archaeological training and putting on scuba gear and taking the excavation to a new dimension.”

Roger Baldwin. He and three of his Army buddies – Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel and James McDermott, collectively known as the “Four Horsemen of Aberdeen” – were early pioneers of basic blackjack strategy.

It led Edward O. Thorp, a mathematics professor and blackjack expert, to validate their calculations on an IBM 704 computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to write the best-selling 1962 book, “Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One,” which helped bring the Army group to public renown.
Mr. Thorp recalled the influence of the men’s strategy in his 2017 memoir, “A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market.” “The Baldwin group,” he wrote, showed that the advice of the reigning experts was poor, unnecessarily giving the casinos an extra two percent advantage.”
Arnold Snyder, a renowned author of blackjack books, said by phone: “No one actually knew what the right strategy was because it hadn’t been calculated. They figured out what to do if your hand totals 15 and the dealer has an 8 up: do you hit or do you stand?”

Dick Hoyt, marathon runner. He ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 1992 and finished in 2:40:47.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it should be “they”, not “he”. Dick Hoyt was was pushing his disabled son, Rick Hoyt, in a wheelchair the whole way.

Rick Hoyt was born in 1962, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, unable to control his limbs or speak. “We had long since learned how to interpret our son’s smiles and nods,” Dick Hoyt wrote in his 2010 book, “Devoted: The Story of a Father’s Love for His Son.” “But as good as everyone in the family was about figuring out what Rick needed, we were still only making educated guesses.”
But in 1972, engineers at Tufts University built a computer that allowed Rick to communicate by choosing letters with a tap of his head. His first words were “Go Bruins,” revealing a passionate love for sports.
In 1977, Rick asked to be involved in a five-mile benefit run. Though his father was not a competitive runner, he pushed Rick in his wheelchair the entire distance, finishing next to last.
“When my dad and I are out there on a run, a special bond forms between us,” Rick Hoyt told The New York Times in 2009 with the help of his computer voice program. “And it feels like there is nothing Dad and I cannot do.”

You might remember this from one of Rick Reilly’s SI essays.

Posted in Geek, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 348

Sunday, March 14th, 2021

Science Sunday! And Happy Pi Day!

I was hoping to find some good Pi related videos on YouTube. Instead, I turned up a lot of crap about something called “Pi Coin”, which sounds to me like a scam cryptocurrency. (Is “scam cryptocurrency” redundant? In any case, I’m putting my money into DogeCoin.)

I thought about posting some pie related videos, but I can’t quite stretch my definition of science that far.

So maybe a grab bag of science randomness?

“I Make Guncotton (Nitrocellulose) With Hardware Store Ingredients, Again.” Never know when this might come in handy.

Bonus #1: “The Rocket: Solid and Liquid Propellant Motors”. Vintage 1947, and a nice explanation of how solid and liquid propellant rockets work.

Bonus #2: This is a little on the darker side, but I feel like there’s at least one person (besides me) who might find it interesting: “A History of Nerve Agents” with Dan Kaszeta, the author of Toxic: A History of Nerve Agents, from Nazi Germany to Putin’s Russia (affiliate link, but since this is from Oxford University Press, it’s a bit on the pricy side).

Posted in Explosives, Geek, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 341

Sunday, March 7th, 2021

Science Sunday!

I’m going back to the space science well again, after only two weeks, because I feel like both of these videos are worth using.

“Uptime 15,364 days – The Computers of Voyager”. This is a talk by Aaron Cummings from the Strange Loop Conference, and deals specifically with the computer hardware: less so, as the presenter puts it, with the actual science of V’ger.

These systems have proved to be both adaptable, durable, and resilient in support of a scientific undertaking now in it’s fifth decade.

Bonus: This might cross more into leadership and management than space science, but I thought I’d use it here anyway: Andrew Chaikin on “Management Lessons of the Moon Program”.

I’ve read A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts (affiliate link) and enthusiastically endorse it. If you only have time to read one history of the space program, Chaikin’s book is a good choice.

Posted in Books, Geek, History, Leadership | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 334

Sunday, February 28th, 2021

Science Sunday!

I’ve stated before that computer science is science. So: from Dartmouth College, a semi-short documentary about the “Birth of BASIC”, featuring Tom Kurtz.

Bonus #1: Here’s a mildly interesting sidelight on science history. In 1945, Kodak had a problem: batches of X-ray film were ruined. Specifically, the film was peppered with dark spots. Turns out the problem was…the bomb.

“How Kodak Exposed The Atomic Bomb”.

Bonus #2: Hey, they even call this a “Leadership Through Science” film! “The Inside Story Of Modern Gasoline: Science Fashioned Molecules For Top Performance”, from 1946 and the Standard Oil Company of Indiana.

You may know this particular Standard Oil better as Amoco, which is what the company was renamed to in 1985 (though they were using the Amoco name before that). They merged with BP in 1998.

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 332

Friday, February 26th, 2021

I thought it might be fun to dip back into the AT&T Tech Channel and their archives, and pick out some stuff related to telephones and telephony.

All of these videos have modern introductions, but I’ve set the embedded versions to skip over that intro. If you want to rewind, you’re certainly welcome to: I don’t control your browser. (Never mind that bitcoin miner I opened in a separate window.)

“Good-Bye, Central” is from 1978, and documents the last places that actually used central switchboards, instead of the dial system. This is just a little over 10 minutes, and even less if you skip over the intro.

“The Hello Machine” is also short, and is historically interesting: it was directed by Carroll Ballard in 1974. Mr. Ballard went on to direct “The Black Stallion”, “Never Cry Wolf”, and “Fly Away Home”, as well as doing second unit direction on “Star Wars”.

…a short, wordless film-poem, in which he chronicles the building of an entire ESS Mainframe. It’s a poetic musing on the connections between handwork and the act of communicating. In the film, he chronicles the act of making and building the mainframe with human hands so carefully that it becomes a handcraft, like weaving or sewing. As he elevates the frameworker to the status of craftperson, the mainframe itself becomes an artistic masterpiece, then brought to life by electricity. Ballard’s stance is that it takes humans to connect humans, not machines.

I know it might be a snoozer for some. (I think when you say “wordless film-poem”, you’ve lost Lawrence. Unless it has music by Philip Glass. Though now I’m wondering: could you do a “wordless film-poem” with tanks?) But: only 13 minutes, and less if you skip the intro.

One more: “To Communicate is the Beginning”, from 1976. This is a bit longer (32 minutes).

The words of luminaries such as Orson Welles and inventor Walter Brattain mingle with those of everyday folks like the operators of a Mom-and-Pop telephone company in Maine, as they attempt to illuminate why and how we are driven to communicate in this artfully-presented film.

There are other interesting folks in this besides Brattain and Welles (though you know I had to use this because Welles): I won’t spoil all of them for you, but I will say I was surprised that Vladimir Zworykin shows up. (He actually died in 1982, at the age of 94.)

Another spoiler (possibly): the Bryant Pond Telephone Company lasted until 1981. The company was sold to Oxford Networks, and Bryant Pond’s cranked system was converted to direct dial and incorporated into the regular network in 1983.

Posted in Geek, History, Movies | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 327

Sunday, February 21st, 2021

Science Sunday!

It seems to me that a lot of folks I know are interested in the computers of the space program. Especially the Apollo Guidance Computer.

Well, here you go: from the National Museum of Computing, “Light Years Ahead: The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer”. Bonus points: the presenter, Robert Wills, is (or at least was as of October 2019) a Cisco employee.

Bonus video: “Common Misconceptions in Aerodynamics”, a presentation to University of Michigan engineering students by Doug McLean, a retired Boeing Technical Fellow.

An appropriate subtitle for this talk would be An Argumentative Aerodynamicist Gets Old and Cranky and Takes Issue with Just About Everyone.

Posted in Geek, History, Planes | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 320

Sunday, February 14th, 2021

Science Sunday!

I’ve been thinking about volcanoes. Why? No reason, really.

This seems right up RoadRich’s alley, and possibly Lawrence’s as well. I’m trying to find this on blu-ray, but the only versions I’ve found so far are not US region discs.

(What I really want to do is a double-bill of this and “Krakatoa, East of Java”. The latter actually does seem to be available on a US region disc at a reasonable price.)

Anyway…

I like this video because it clearly solves two problems at once: heating up the ravioli and opening the can. And because the ravioli is in the can, you avoid the gas problems you get when you try to toast marshmallows over hot lava. Now if you could just figure out a way to contain the hot ravioli once the can explodes.

Anyway, that was just the appetizer. From Gresham College and visiting professor Sir Stephen Sparks CBE, “Enormous Volcanic Eruptions”.

Bonus #1: “Volcano!”, a NatGeo documentary.

Bonus #2: “Life on the Rim: Working as a Volcanologist”, also from NatGeo, but short.

Bonus #3: Professor Tamsin Mather on “Volcanoes: from fuming vents to extinction events”.

Posted in Geek, History, Movies | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 315

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

Since I ran really long yesterday, I thought I’d go mostly shorter today. I also thought I’d post some things totally unrelated to military aviation: while I have a bunch of new related stuff in the queue, I’m going to try to avoid going back to that well more than once a week.

(And, of course, Thursday and Sunday are already booked up with unrelated topics.)

From 1953, according to the YouTube notes: “The 225,000 Mile Proving Ground”, a short documentary about railroad research and development. Featuring Hugh Beaumont being a little hard on the Beaver.

Bonus #1: Did you know there was an Early Television Museum? There is. According to their website, it’s even open right now. Hillard is closer to Columbus than my usual stomping grounds of Cleveland, but not out of the realm of possibility for a day trip.

In the meantime, here’s a tour of the Early Television Museum. And I guess this does sort of tie back to yesterday’s Walleye video.

Bonus #2: I said “mostly shorter” because I did want to make one exception, on the grounds of timeliness: from the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, October 31, 2013: “An Evening With Hal Holbrook”. About 77 minutes long.

“In a rare treat, the audience enjoyed several extended recitations of Twain throughout the evening.” If that helps you make up your mind…

Posted in Geek, History, Trains, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 313

Sunday, February 7th, 2021

Science Sunday!

It seems like it has been a while since I’ve done any space science, and I don’t think I’ve ever done any planetary astronomy, so let’s fix that today.

“Mercury: The Exploration of a Planet”, about Mariner 10.

Bonus #1: “Mars: Five Views on What Is Known”.

Bonus #2: “And Then There Was Voyager”.

Bonus #3: This breaks from the theme, but I wanted to put it here because: a short film about NASA’s Icing Research Tunnel at the Glenn Research Center.

As I have noted several times in the past, my father used to work at Glenn, back when it was still the Lewis Research Center. So I kind of have a sentimental attachment to the facility…

Posted in Geek, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 309

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021

How bad can an anvil be?

How can you even have a bad anvil? An anvil is just a big chunk of metal, right? It’s like saying “this is a bad chunk of metal”! How can a chunk of metal be bad?

Answer: “Harbor Freight 55lb Anvil: How Much Does it Suck?”

I guess it might be good for at least one thing: anvil shooting.

I like watching anvil shooting. On YouTube. My concern with watching it in person is that what goes up, must come down, and I really don’t want an anvil coming down on my head. I am not Wile E. Coyote.

Bonus #2, because I don’t have any other place to put this: a 1958 Navy propaganda film, “”Stay in School and Graduate”, featuring vintage footage of the USS Los Angeles.

Bonus #3, just for the heck of it. This goes out to RoadRich and Lawrence: “Why Aerial Refuelling Is Most Challenging Manoeuvre For A Pilot” with Richard Hammond.

Posted in Geek, History, Planes | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 308

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021

There’s a channel called “Tech Ingredients” that features a variety of interesting stuff.

This is slightly on the long side, but I watched it last night and found it oddly compelling: “Distilling ALCOHOL With Our New Reflux Still!”

I also generally don’t like videos that focus on a specific product, but in this case, the video is less about the specific reflux still and more about the general workings of one, including things like the design of the bubble plates and the dephlegmator.

Bonus video #1: Previously from “Tech Ingredients”, “Banana Brandy – Making Ugandan Waragi (Moonshine)”.

Bonus video #2: This also appeals to my geek instincts, but doesn’t involve booze: “Jet Engine Thrust Test – Fuel Experiment (Jet-A vs Diesel vs BioDiesel vs HydroDiesel)”. The guy built his own dynamometer, and then tested these fuels to see which one produces the most thrust.

I’m also a sucker for small jet engines.

Posted in Geek, History, Mixology | Comments Closed

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