My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on November 14, 2009

It was another “kardiac Ohio” performance.

CINCINNATI (AP)—Far from perfect, No. 5 Cincinnati was good enough to stay unbeaten.

Tony Pike threw two touchdown passes in a cameo appearance Friday night, and the Bearcats overcame a self-destructive first half to beat West Virginia 24-21 for the best start in school history.

Cincinnati (10-0, 6-0 Big East) struggled offensively because of uncharacteristic mistakes—a fumble, a dropped touchdown pass, a missed field goal, and an interception—all in the first half.

LINK

Category: Sports | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on November 14, 2009

The high performance wind powered Hydroptere (blogged about back in 2007) has shattered sailing records the world over by averaging 51 knots over 500m (.5 kilometers)  in 28 knots of breeze. It’s hard to imagine traveling that fast on the open water, let alone one a boat without an engine.

Category: Sailing, Video | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on November 13, 2009

I enjoyed lunch with a good friend of mine that just returned from the laborious task of going through his mother’s estate. He kept a few antique furniture items and uncomfortably stuffed them in his apartment while trying to figure out just what to do with the balance.  While we were standing by our cars, he asked what I thought of these: a stack of American Civil War era newspapers piled in a box. Wow … very historic as I took a couple quick photos with my Palm Pre.

As he leafed through the copies (feeling guilty to be touching them), the magnitude of the events being reported sunk in. Imagine, a war between the states, the thousands of dead and an assassination of debatably our countries greatest President? Wow.

Category: Cellphone, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: antique, civil, collectible, newspaper, philadelphia inquirer, war

Posted By RichC on November 12, 2009

Seeing a Honda key used in a Wall Street Journal ad promoting classified auto listings made me chuckle — I’ve never noticed a Honda being advertised with the columns of Bentley, Ferrari, Maybach, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Maserati nameplates. Perhaps the recession is impacting auto selection of WSJ subscribers?
   🙂

Category: Automotive, Humor, News | No Comments »
Tags: auto, wsj

Posted By RichC on November 12, 2009

Netbooks are growing up and the slightly larger models now sport a bit more memory, larger displays and the excellent Windows 7 OS. As a family, we’ll be gifting a new HP 311 netbook to my mother-in-law this year for Christmas. We’re hoping to re-introduce her to using a computer — primarily for email and web – and make the connecting to an ISP easier in all locations with the Verizon 3G wireless service. Her use is ideal for a netbook since very little processing is going to be done on the lower priced and light weight Intel Atom chipped computer.

I was elected by my family to pick out and set up the computer this year and have been waiting for one with Windows 7 Home Premium with 2 gigabytes of memory. Enter the Hewlett-Packard 311 series computer with decent sized keyboard and 11.6 inch display. Although the screen is still small by most computer standards, the 3.22 lbs and long battery life is fantastic.

I’ve been setting it up the past few days and have found it something to envy; I want one! Last night I found that it out performed my higher end notebook in both streaming video over wifi (twit.tv) and a couple of Skype calls. Obviously this HP Mini 311 is optimized to handle video with its NVIDIA ION graphics card even operating at full screen, although occasionally a few dropped frames but audio was solid. Speaking of audio, the Altec Lansing built in speakers were better than my $1300 notebook!

An option that I haven’t put to the test just yet is the  built in HP Mobile Broadband chip. The Gobi chip permits a user to add Verizon Wireless, AT&T, or Sprint, service to their netbook without the USB dongle that is sold by wireless carriers. This is a nice, although expensive, option for those who travel and want 3G speeds for mobile Internet.

All in all at first glance and an after a few hours of testing, this new breed of slightly larger netbooks should be near perfect for many travelers tired of short battery cycles and the bulky sizes of traditional notebook computers. I’ll be weighing my next notebook purchase carefully.

Category: Cellphone, Computer, Technology | 8 Comments »
Tags: 3G, Computer, gobi, hp 311, netbook

Posted By RichC on November 11, 2009

After the massacre at the Fort Hood Army post just a few days ago, there is understandably more attention on our Veterans today. The sacrifices our men and women in uniform make serving our country is deserving of respect and remembrance today and everyday. I thank all who serve and have served our nation.

President Obama marked today by laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery and pledging support telling  those who served, including the spouses, children and parents, that “America will not let you down.” In the town of Emporia Kansas where Veterans Day began, Lt Gov. Troy Findley stated “we meet here today, at the 11th hour, of the 11th day in the 11th month to honor our Veterans. The origins of this day trace back to the official end of the First World War, Armistice Day; but it was in 1953 that the townspeople of Emporia suggested that it be a day to honor all of our heroes, both past and present.”

Category: History, News | 2 Comments »
Tags: Holiday, military, veterans

Posted By RichC on November 11, 2009

In a recent forwarded email there were a few excellent “under construction” photos of the bridge being build to bypass the Hoover Dam on U.S. Rt 93. The $160 million dollar project is 900 feet above the Colorado River and will more efficiently links the states of Nevada and Arizona. The two massive concrete arches jut out from the rock faces on each side of the river and are being built from 53 individual 24 foot sections that are cast on-site in order to support the highway. (click photos for larger images)

They are are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons. The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed.

Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road. The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan. Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.

The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco.The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead, is 110 miles long and took six years to fill. The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.

An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level.

Category: History, Photos, Travel | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on November 10, 2009

An EAA284 friend of mine sent me a YouTube link of a “near death CFIT” (Controlled Flight Into Terrain) and watching it reminds many of how we’ve become too dependent on low cost electronics. Many recreational pilots have become too GPS focused and a video clip of a close call reminds us not to use it as a primary piloting tool. (Thanks  for the link Steve and check out his aviation blog) The wing damage at the end of the video clip  below shows just how close a call this was.

Category: Aviation, Video | 4 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on November 10, 2009

Changes in the “big three” … world automakers that is:

1. Volkswagen
2. Toyota
3. Ford

VW overtake Toyota as the world’s largest automaker

Well ahead of VW initial projection of becoming the world’s largest automaker by 2018, it has now officially surpassed Toyota Motor Corp. worldwide in unit production this year.

Over the weekend, German reports put VW Group at 4.4 million units for the first nine months of 2009, where Toyota has manufactured only 4.0 million units. This change is believed to be largely due to the success of government scrappage schemes that boded well with VW models.

VW Group’s sales for 2009 are up by 34 percent in the first nine months, totaling 622,853 units. VW’s Skoda brand in particular enjoyed the greatest growth in Germany with Fabia sales up by 92.4 percent, as well as Octavia sales up by 20.4 percent.

Although the scrappage schemes are believed to have played a role in VW’s early success, VW continues to do well along with the rest of the automotive industry in the German market in particular. The German market saw a 26.1 percent growth in registrations in October, despite the end of scrappage schemes in September.

Another major shift in world production was noted with Ford surpassing GM as the world’s third largest automaker. Ford reported 3.7 million units produced in the first nine months of 2009, with GM trailing only slightly with 3.6 million units produced

LINK

Category: Automotive, Volkswagen | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on November 9, 2009

Enjoyed the nice afternoon weather and headed to the airport for our monthly EAA meeting. Today we reviewed the successful first flight (very impressive) and later accident of Mark Dusenberry’s 1905 Wright Flyer replica — NTSB preliminary report. Bob Luken reviewed his video of the flight and the accident (only the FAA has a copy besides Bob) and discussed the inherit pitch instability well know in this airplane. According to research, the Wright Brothers made changes to their original 1905 design by  pushing the canard “horizontal rudder” farther forward and adding 70 pounds of lead in order to improve CG for their July 1905 flights. This didn’t solve the sensitivity to pitch, but did improve the pitch problem somewhat.

After watching the video of the accident several time in slow motion, it was easy to see that each pitch correction by Mark lead to exaggerated climb and dive movements and eventually an uncontrollable 45 degree angle to the ground. Although Mark built his replica to match the “improved CG 1905 design,” it is possible there still wasn’t enough weight forward — speculation on our part. Another thought was that he was also correcting with ‘wing warp’ bank left just before experiencing pitch oscillations, and that could have added to a loss of control? In any case, thanks for sharing the video with our EAA284 Chapter.

Category: Aviation | 5 Comments »
Tags: aviation, dayton, dusenberry, eaa, eaa284, mark, ohio, wright flyer