Technobabble

Powered Flight – 104th Anniversary

A hundred and four years ago today, Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first flights from Kill Devil Hill, close to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their history-making effort sparked the greatest period of technology in the United States and abroad.

I took my first flying lesson on December 16th, 1961, just a day short of their 58th anniversary. By then, the sound barrier had been broken, satellites were in orbit, the Russian, Yuri Gagarin had already orbited the Earth, and John Glenn would be in orbit within a couple of months. It was a great time to get into a career in aviation or aerospace.

First Flight

What makes Wilbur and Orville Wright’s achievement so significant is not only that it was the first time in history that a manned, powered aircraft completed a fully-controlled, sustained flight, but it proved to naysayers around the world that heavier-than-air flight was practical. After the Wrights proved their critics wrong, the field of aeronautical engineering was born. Governments, universities, and inventors soon began dedicating vast resources to understanding the science of flight and methods of building improved flying machines. In essence, every event and discovery in aviation either led up to or followed from the flight of the Wright Flyer, and it changed the way we live forever.

Image and text courtesy of AeroSpaceWeb.org.

Bad Behavior

If you tried to comment here and got a weird message about “Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity,” please disregard the message.

We were using a plug-in called “Bad Behavior” which was supposed to protect us from spam bots and the like. Well, apparently the plug-in was compromised and started living up to it’s name by sending that message whenever any management functions were invoked, including comments and even posting blogs or managing the links list.

Quite frustrating until I found out what was causing it. The plug-in has been removed and all should be OK now. We also upgraded to the latest WordPress version.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Update: John A. reported more about the problem on Steve McIntyre’s Climate Report Blog:

All users should update to Bad Behavior 2.0.11 immediately to prevent being blocked from your own site.

Within the past two days users have found themselves blocked from their own sites while using recent versions of Bad Behavior. A third party blacklist which Bad Behavior queries recently began sending false positives for any IP address queried, causing everyone using Bad Behavior to be blocked. This issue is fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.11.

06 Dec 2007 by CapnBob Blogosphere Cyberspace Technobabble

The Great Crash of November ’07

The Great Crash of November ’07 is where we had two computers die within a few days of each other. First, the laptop stopped working and a couple of nights later, the power supply in my old desktop computer went out. This made me wonder what could be next. My question was answered the night before last when the big 36″ TV croaked with a loud snap and burnt smell right after. I’m not asking about anything else for fear of another self-fulfilling prophecy.

The hard drive in the old laptop started making noises that sounded just like somebody was doing something bad to a cat. It completely died shortly thereafter. I’m going to try and see if there is a way to recover the data from it, but if not, then it’s not going to be a big deal. Last year, I started backing up all our photos and other files to one of those monster external hard drives. We might lose some data, but at least it’s minimized.

The old Dell desktop didn’t lose any data – it just stopped working. I removed the hard disk from it and installed it into another desktop that we use upstairs. The upstairs computer is now downstairs to fill the gap caused by the failure. All of my old files are there although there are some problems activating some of the software I use. Also not a biggie since I can reinstall the software.

Moving the computer downstairs was the only the start of our recovery. The next step is shown in the image (click for a large view). The new Dell 1721 Notebook arrived yesterday as an early Christmas Present.

Now to figure out which flat-screen HDTV is going to replace the old smelly CRT-type TV.

29 Nov 2007 by CapnBob Blogosphere Cyberspace Technobabble

A Computerized Anti-Snore Pillow

To paraphrase Br’er Rabbit:

“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but ingenuity surely must be the daddy.”

From Reuters via eWEEK News:

Computerized Pillow Said to Stop Snoring

The computer reduces or enlarges air compartments within the pillow to facilitate nasal airflow to minimize snoring.

A German scientist has come up with a solution for snoringâ€”a computerized pillow that shifts the head’s sleeping position until the noise stops.

Daryoush Bazargani, professor of computer science at the University of Rostock and the pillow’s inventor, was displaying a prototype of his pillow at a health conference in Germany on Wednesday.

“The pillow is attached to a computer, which is the size of a book, rests on a bedside table, and analyzes snoring noises,” Bazargani says. “The computer then reduces or enlarges air compartments within the pillow to facilitate nasal airflow to minimize snoring as the user shifts during sleep.”

The ergonomic pillow can also be used for neck massages.

Bazargani says several U.S. firms were interested in manufacturing the pillow.

“I invented it because I snore,” he says. “I tried all sorts of products, but nothing worked. I hope people who use it will sleep more peacefully.”

Note: the photo is of a competing product currently being marketed as a snore-no-more pillow.

04 Oct 2007 by CapnBob Science Technobabble

Another New Shooter – A Digital Camera

In a few days, I am getting an updated Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera. My current camera, a Canon Digital Rebel 300D, is still a great camera and takes beautiful pictures. I’m not exactly going to retire it, but likely it will be in my camera bag as a standby camera (like with a telephoto or wide-angle lens). All my old lenses will work with the new camera. The old camera can be at the ready should I need it during the next air show or vacation or whatever.

I’m so excited. I’ll be here on Monday.

Here is an excerpt from a review at Digital Photography Review:

Almost exactly three years since Canon changed the digital SLR market forever (with the $1,000 EOS 300D) they announced the third generation of their affordable entry level series, the EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi). This new camera follows the design of the EOS 350D, being very compact and relatively lightweight but not compromising on manual controls or in-use performance. The headline changes are another two megapixel step up (to ten megapixels), the nine-point AF sensor from the EOS 30D, a new dust removal system which includes anti-static surface coatings, low-pass filter vibration and software based dust pattern removal. Less important but just as noticeable are the removal of the status LCD, replaced instead by a camera settings screen on the now larger 2.5″ LCD monitor and the eye proximity sensor just below the viewfinder to turn this off when composing your shot.

28 Sep 2007 by Damsel Photography Technobabble

Upgrading from Blogspot

domains Imagine having your own domain name for your weblog — you know, like yourname.com or yourorganization.org or yourpetproject.us — think of how much cooler that would be than yourblog.blogspot.com. But wait — there’s more — you also get custom eMail addresses such as nickname@yourblog.com or family@yourblog.com or friend@yourblog.com and so on. Setting up and managing your own weblog domain may be less expensive and easier than you think.