Anybody have a recommendation for a good 24" flat panel monitor? I was looking at the Samsung at Costco, but I hear ViewSonic is also good.

Posted by: annika at 08:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Here's a poem, which purports to explain Schrödinger's conjecture. It's by Cecil Adams, a long time idol of mine, in response to a poem by one of his interlocutors. This post itself was inspired by Stewy.

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough @#&!
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."

Posted by: annika at 09:22 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 This poem reminds me of an androgynous Nazi cat-boy whose head tended to explode. The Japanese interpretation of Erwin Schrodinger's work is the most creative by far, to say the least.

Posted by: 08nagaer at April 18, 2008 02:14 PM (e55SP)

2 "What happened to the cat? It looks half dead." -Mrs. Schrödinger

Posted by: ElMondoHummus at April 18, 2008 05:43 PM (ouM6B)

3 bizarre video 08. good1 Mondo.

Posted by: annika at April 19, 2008 06:43 AM (V638R)

4 I pledge allegiance to the Annika (if that is her real name)... What a thrill. This is actually better than the time Spacemonkey threatened me with an RFC compliant rubber chicken.

Posted by: Stew at April 19, 2008 09:06 AM (swd4s)

5 LMAO, that was excellent.

Posted by: Casca at April 21, 2008 02:17 PM (gOOVv)

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I don't know. It looks like a controlled demolition to me.

I'm just saying there are unanswered questions is all.

Posted by: annika at 10:17 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 You're just soooo beggin for the truthers to show up, aren't ya? Article to laugh about: http://911conspiracysmasher.blogspot.com/2007/04/stupid-paranoid-hilarious-take-your.html Quote that 9/11 Conspiracy Smasher gathered from the conspiracy fantasist's post: "What is very weird is just a month back or so, I posted on a similar fire where the overpass DIDN'T collapse, and I made special note of that fact. NOW, we have an example where there is a collapse! Isn't that special? It's almost as if someone was reading this site and was determined to prove me wrong." That quote from the same genius who - get this - built a chicken-wire frame of a single WTC tower, put a bowl of kerosene at the bottom, lit it, and said in so many words 'No melting, no collapse, WTC collapse was fake'. Brings to mind something a customer at an old job told me: She was a guard at the county jail. She told me that the lengths the inmates went to in order to circumvent or "creatively interpret" the rules so clearly demonstrated their considerable intelligence and will that she was just flabbergasted that those folks were in jail. Her point being that, if they'd just applied that considerable intelligence and willpower to constructive pursuits, they'd be successful, but they keep wasting it on responding to the provocation they perceive in societal and prison rules. They're intelligent, but they misguide themselves. That brings me to these conspiracy fantasists. They have the ability to see the truth - those sites I linked in the previous posts for 9/11 Myths and Debunking 9/11 aren't that hard to understand - but they go out of their way to construct their own world because they see themselves as responding to the provocation from events which they refuse to admit are illusionary (the "provocations", I mean, not the events themselves). They pride themselves on intelligence, but they don't stop to analyze their sloppy thinking, like the folks who seize on any story mentioning how the Bush Administration was warned ahead of time, but then, one thread later, resurrect the old canard about how the terrorists identities were stolen or faked. It's just painful to watch folks who could be smart intentionally lower their intelligence by subscribing to such drivel without critically thinking about it. It's as if they didn't pay attention in their science classes and note the other "observed" phenomena in history that didn't pan out, like the ether, or phlogiston. Juxtaposition is not thinking, it's merely a tool, one of many building blocks on which you organize data to analyze. Yet, for these folks, juxtaposition is evidence enough to leap to conclusions. It hurts the brain to see logic abused so. Anyway, end of rant. Are you just beggin' for some fantasists to come and "just ask questions" again? You thrill cheaply, babe.

Posted by: ElMondoHummus at April 30, 2007 11:27 AM (xHyDY)

2 Yes it does raise questions. Why didn't they burn more of Oaktown?

Posted by: Casca at May 01, 2007 06:56 AM (Y7t14)

3 Yo, El, the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure.

Posted by: Casca at May 01, 2007 06:58 AM (Y7t14)

4 I dunno, it does seem like a lot of damage and gas truck do not explode, gasoline is not an explosive. Yes, the vapor if contained in a closed chamber with oxygen added, would explode but this is not what happens when a truck crashes. Gas leaks all over the place and burns. On the off ramp from 695 West to 83 north (baltimore) a similar event took place. Gas truck took the exit ramp too fast and crashed to the right wall while under 695 crossing overhead. Lots of fire, scorched concrete, melted steel but nothing collapsed, not even close. Overpass was a total loss and had to be replaced but I just cannot fathom how burning gas took out that many structures some of which were 30 feet above. Lets not forget that within 10-15 minutes there was water being sprayed. It looks to me like an explosion.

Posted by: Strawman at May 01, 2007 03:53 PM (et8nf)

5 here's some good video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tjs5ILNkJc draw your own conclusions. it was probably just shoddy bay area workmanship, most likely due to labor unions. nyahahaha!

Posted by: annika at May 01, 2007 05:45 PM (WfR6S)

6 Well, quit sittin' on them damn nails, Cas. Jeez... do I gotta do all the thinkin' fer ya??

Posted by: ElMondoHummus at May 02, 2007 06:25 AM (xHyDY)

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That means you, Will.

Due to the intense boredom initiated by "a very special American Idol," I began channel flipping and became transfixed by the excellent PBS documentary called ENRON: The Smartest Guys In The Room.

[Aside: Let me note for the record that chief Enron assholes Lay, Skilling and Fastow were all baby boomers.]

Anyways they mentioned that Enron was a major promoter of the early "weather futures" market. When I heard that, I thought, weather futures? wtf? now I've seen everything.

But it's a real thing, and apparently weather futures have exploded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In fact, volume on the CME jumped 64% in the last year alone. It's now a 45 billion dollar market.

But what is it? How do you trade weather? According to CME's website:

CME created a weather derivative market which enables those businesses that could be adversely affected by unanticipated temperature swing or unusually high snowfall, to transfer this risk. It is estimated that nearly 30 percent of the U.S. economy is directly affected by the weather. As a result, the earnings of businesses can be adversely impacted by summers that are hotter than normal or winters that are much colder than anticipated. Just as professionals regularly use futures and options to hedge their risk in interest rates, equities and foreign exchange, now there are tools available for the management of risk from extreme movements of temperature. This sector of hedging and risk management products represents today's fastest growing derivative market.

I guess the deal is that you can buy insurance to protect against catastrophic things that have a low probablility of occurring. But you can't easily insure against high probablility, low risk events like variations in the weather. Playing this market is a way for businesses to offset weather related losses. For example:

A ski resort depends on cold weather to stay in
business. To protect against the possibility of a warm winter, the resort can sell (go short) CME HDD contracts at a level they decide upon with assistance from a
weather-analysis company. A warm winter will result in a low HDD index, and the resort will hope to buy back its contracts at a lower price and use the profit to offset losses in the business.

Posted by: annika at 06:06 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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A couple of geniuses from my alma mater came up with this idea.

Perhaps it needs a little fine tuning, but it's a great idea, no?

h/t TechEBlog

Posted by: annika at 12:36 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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I have discovered amazing evidence that Global Warming is real, that it is caused by human activity, and that we are quickly approaching the end of the world.

I looked at my TTLB stats tonight, and the graph for average daily visits to my blog looked frighteningly familiar. By consulting my scientific sources (i.e. I googled it) I was able to find a graph showing the recent increase in average global temperatures.

Sure enough, when I superimposed the two graphs, an inconvenient truth emerged!

The debate is over, the science is in: My blog is at fault for global warming.

Well, as soon as I realized this, my first thought was, "how embarrassing." My second thought was, "If I am to blame, what can I do to save the planet?"

So now you know why, in sixty days time, I will retire this blog. Sorry about that.

Posted by: annika at 08:30 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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Have you seen those commercials for Apple lately? This spoof is pretty dang funny.

Posted by: annika at 08:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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This is some pretty wild shit.

An astronaut drove 900 miles and donned a disguise to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot, police said. She was arrested Monday and charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts.

U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak, 43, who flew last July on a shuttle mission to the international space station, was also charged with attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery. She was denied bail.

. . .

Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport to confront Colleen Shipman.

Nowak believed Shipman was romantically involved with Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, a pilot during space shuttle Discovery's trip to the space station last December, police said.

Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," according to an arrest affidavit. Police officers recovered a love letter to Oefelein in her car.

. . .

When she found out that Shipman was flying to Orlando from Houston, Nowak decided to confront her, according to the arrest affidavit. Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers so she wouldn't have to stop to urinate, authorities said.

Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry.

Dressed in a wig and a trench coat, Nowak boarded an airport bus that Shipman took to her car in an airport parking lot. Shipman told police she noticed someone following her, hurried inside the car and locked the doors, according to the arrest affidavit.

Nowak rapped on the window, tried to open the car door and asked for a ride. Shipman refused but rolled down the car window a few inches when Nowak started crying. Nowak then sprayed a chemical into Shipman's car, the affidavit said.

Shipman drove to the parking lot booth, and the police were called.

During a check of the parking lot, an officer followed Nowak and watched her throw away a bag containing the wig and BB gun. They also found a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, $600 and garbage bags inside a bag Nowak was carrying when she was arrested, authorities said.

Inside Nowak's vehicle, which was parked at a nearby motel, authorities uncovered a pepper spray package, an unused BB-gun cartridge, latex gloves and e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein. They also found a letter "that indicated how much Mrs. Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein," an opened package for a buck knife, Shipman's home address and hand written directions to the address, the arrest affidavit said.

Police said Nowak told them that she only wanted to scare Shipman into talking to her about her relationship with Oefelein and didn't want to harm her physically.

"If you were just going to talk to someone, I don't know that you would need a wig, a trench coat, an air cartridge BB gun and pepper spray," said Sgt. Barbara Jones, a spokeswoman for the Orlando Police Department. "It's just really a very sad case. ... Now she ends up finding herself on the other side of the law with some very serious charges."

If convicted of attempted kidnapping, Nowak could face a maximum of life in prison.

Posted by: annika at 10:11 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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1 I tried to track back this one, but kept getting "Error 500, Bugger." Clearly that "alien life form" has more power than I realized.

Posted by: NOTR at February 05, 2007 10:29 PM (GCLgj)

2 The government, and military is riddled with these crazy bitches. Bizarre behavior, but sounds like she walks with a simple assault plea, don'tcha think?

Posted by: Casca at February 05, 2007 10:54 PM (2gORp)

3 How would you like to be in a tight situation with this one at the controls?

Posted by: Leonard at February 06, 2007 08:58 AM (0Co69)

4 I saw this articlel today and heard about it to. I guess some people do a lot with diapers! I am not sure whether this report incident goes in my blog but might qualify because she might have ruined the rest of her astronaut flight career.

Posted by: dreric1kansas at February 06, 2007 09:21 AM (QEc94)

5 Damn, there goes her star.

Posted by: shelly at February 06, 2007 09:35 AM (SLFj+)

6 Wow...what a slammin' hottie! I'd like a photo of the other chick to see what this astronaut had to choose from. Then perhaps the two could "space joust" for his affections. The first one to knock the other into outer space wins his love. That would be cool...

Posted by: Billy at February 06, 2007 09:59 AM (SLFj+)

7 A girl like this, when she's not putting your cat in the microwave, is a total blast: passionate, excited, totally into you, generally makes life exciting, and totally experimental in bed. Unfortunately, even very bright and passionate people, can have a totally obsessive side that comes out when, as here, they get dumped, cheated on, or see things coming to a close. I confess, I have a slight preference for these slightly nutty drama queens; they make life interesting, and if you're lucking you get in the news and your "social value" will rise tremendously when her emails about missing your "talented fingers" or whatnot gets known to the public.

Posted by: Roach at February 06, 2007 10:01 AM (1BjlW)

8 Thanks for sharing Roach. Billy, you need to get out more. She's a skankly affirmative action manling. From the mugshot, it appears that she didn't use the diaper to go number 2. This story is getting even better. Turns out she is married to someone else. This is the byproduct of sexual repression in the military. It turned the Navy into a bunch of hypocrits.

Posted by: Casca at February 06, 2007 10:19 AM (Y7t14)

9 The spaceworms made her do it.

Posted by: The Law Fairy at February 06, 2007 01:14 PM (XUsiG)

10 Many jokes with "open the pod bay doors, Hal" as the punch line are floating through my mind.

Posted by: annika at February 06, 2007 01:29 PM (zAOEU)

11 you should hear the Talk radio stations here in Houston. Its all they can talk about. So many people calling in to say "I know her, she seemed normal to me" Well, duh! thats what you always hear about serial killers too.

Posted by: kyle8 at February 07, 2007 05:02 AM (lw6jc)

12 Dammit, it just came to me... Astronut. Soon it will be ubiquitous.

Posted by: Casca at February 07, 2007 07:36 AM (Y7t14)

13 sorry Casca. i heard Medved use it yesterday.

Posted by: annika at February 07, 2007 08:24 AM (0VTwC)

14 Believe me, I thought of it as soon as I heard the story. Medved is reading my mind again.

Posted by: Casca at February 07, 2007 10:37 AM (Y7t14)

15 Casca, Uh...that was sarcasm on my part. Sorry for the subtlety of wit...

Posted by: Billy at February 07, 2007 09:16 PM (SLFj+)

16 I work for one of the prime contractors and can tell you these are some of the nuttiest bastards I have ever met! Nothing that Nowak did..nothing in the slightest surprised me..but then, NASA is trying to hold onto it's GLORY DAYS....they are all pissed because I had the balls to tell them robotic missions were much less expensive.....wonder if I'll get mine!.....Frankie

Posted by: Frankie at February 08, 2007 03:13 AM (vPggd)

17 crazzzzzzzy moon bat bitch

Posted by: sau at February 08, 2007 04:04 PM (3WYb1)

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The real Bronco Bomber, for you aviation enthusiasts. Apparently, not a reliable piece of equipment.

Or, if you prefer, here's the most famous Bronco, bombing.

Posted by: annika at 01:35 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Two years ago someone shot film of a giant squid swimming in the deep. Now someone's caught one. It's believed to be the first time anyone has ever done such a thing, ever.

Giant squid, formally called Architeuthis, are the world's largest invertebrates. Because they live in the depths of the ocean, they have long been wrapped in mystery and embellished in the folklore of sea monsters, appearing in ancient Greek myths or attacking the submarine in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

The captured squid was caught using a smaller type of squid as bait, and was pulled into a research vessel "after putting up quite a fight," Kubodera said.

"It took two people to pull it in, and they lost it once, which might have caused the injuries that killed it," he said.

The squid, a female, was not fully grown and was relatively small by giant squid standards. The longest one on record is 60 feet, he said.

Posted by: annika at 01:02 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As I'm sure you know, the scientists are predicting that global warming will destroy the world in a couple of years. Because even a change in global temperature as small as two degrees could be catastrophic, you know. But now, the scientists are also predicting that a small scale nuclear exchange involving countries like North Korea or Iran could help to reduce global temperatures by about two degrees. Just what the doctor ordered!

The new studies looked at the consequences if two nations dropped 50 Hiroshima-size bombs on each other's big cities. By analyzing population data and distance from blast, scientists predicted a regional nuclear war would kill 3 million people in Israel and up to 17 million in China. The U.S. would see 4 million blast deaths.

But the researchers say black soot from the fires would linger in the atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays and causing average global surface temperatures to drop about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the first three years. Although the planet would see a gradual warming within a decade, it would still be colder than it was before the war, the scientists said.

P.S. The AP article I linked is notable for another very surprising reason. It is the first time I have ever seen an article by a major anti-American media source that admits "Iran is also pursuing the development of nuclear weapons," without including the standard preface: "the White House claims that..." Someone must have been asleep at the editor's desk for that to slip by.

h/t Possumblog

Posted by: annika at 10:14 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Thank goodness we have scientists to study this kind of stuff.

Actually, the story I'm referring to, by John Stossel and Gail Deutsch of ABC News, is mildly interesting. For instance:

'So when they look at babies in the first 72 hours of life, they find that males and females are not identical in the way they behave,' [a researcher] said. 'Males startle more than females. If you give a little puff of air on their abdomen, they startle much bigger and much more likely to startle than females, and females rhythmically mouth. They suck on their tongues. They move their lips and so forth more than males do.'

Another tidbit:

'The male brain Â… actually has a harder time processing the female voice versus the male voice, which is a possible explanation to why we don't listen when our wives call us,' Dr. Billy Goldberg said on '20/20.'

. . .

They said it was true that men listened less because of biology.

'Male babies make less eye contact, for instance, with their mothers than female babies,' Leyner said. 'So what we're talking about are different ways of relating to people that start at the earliest possible age.'

So can men say, 'Honey, it's not my fault. It's my brain'?

'I like to use that excuse,' Goldberg said.

Posted by: annika at 09:25 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Here's a preview of the upcoming Playstation 2 release, SOCOM - Combined Asault. It looks pretty cool, except for the annoying music track.

I'm so glad I don't have a video game console. Of course, if my boyfriend happens to read this, I do accept early Christmas gifts.

Posted by: annika at 09:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There's currently a big brouhaha about whether to demote Pluto from its planetary status, or whether to keep it as planet under a definition that would also include hundreds of other objects in the solar system.

I don't understand what the problem is. When I learned the alphabet back in kindergarten, I learned that there were five vowels. They were a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Now if you count the vowels in that list you get six, not five. But that doesn't change the fact that there are five vowels, and y is one of them, sometimes.

So why can't we just say there are eight planets, and Pluto is one of them. We can then define "planet" with a definition that excludes Pluto, while giving Pluto some kind of honorary planet status.

We do things like this all the time. There are crayolas called "white" and "black" despite the fact that those are not real colors. And Canada is a member of the United Nations, despite the fact that it's not a real country. Also, Paris Hilton recorded a CD despite the fact that she's not a real singer.

So let's just call Pluto a planet and move on to more urgent global problems.

You're welcome. That's what I'm here for, to solve the big issues.

Posted by: annika at 12:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Today I'll discuss some basic facts about your common rat, rattus norvegicus. Odds are every rat you've seen, from white lab rats to the brown rat on the streets of DC (or wherever you live), is rattus norvegicus.

1. Average life-span is about 33 months. There is one unsubstantiated (and, quite frankly, unbelievable) report of a rat living 7 years. Personally, my gf and I have had one rat live to about 44 months, but in that calculation we're taking the word of a member of the psych. department of UNC-Wilmington that he was about 30 months old when we adopted him.

2. Average weight in the wild is between 400 and 500 grams. In our house, our well-fed rats frequently top 650 grams, and I had one monster fat rat who was over 1200 grams. Yeah, that's an obese rat.

3. Teeth: Rats have sixteen teeth in total--twelve molars and four incisors. The incisors grow 24/7 and are self-sharpening. The incisors are sharp enough, and rat jaws strong enough, to bite through human fingernails. Rats have no canine teeth to hold their prey; instead, their lower teeth can separate into a V-shape to better hold their prey, or do more damage should the finger prey escape.

4. Rats have five toes on their back feet and four fingers on their front feet. In addition, a small fleshy nub on the hand serves a purpose similar to a thumb, allowing rats to grip food, cage bars, and fingers.

5. Rats are semi-color-blind and cannot see reds; however, they can see into the ultraviolet. Rats also have poor visual acuity--about 20 times worse than a human. Pink-eyed whites--PEWs to rat people, lab rats to the rest of the world--have even worse visual acuity.

6. The sense of smell is more important to a rat than sight. It's been calculated that about 1% of rat DNA is related to the sense of smell.

7. Rats can hear rather high frequencies. Rat laughter is inaudible to humans.

8. Rats are omnivores. Cheese, blueberries, Pop Tarts, dog food, bugs...man, rats'll eat anything, especially if another rat is eating it, which frequently leads to squabbles. Avocado is crack for rats.

9. However, when faced with something new that may or may not be edible, rats will eat only a small bite. If they feel sick afterward, they won't eat it again.

10. Rats are as intelligent as dogs and are very trainable. Rats are excellent mousers, and I believe they've been used to pull cabling (or fish tape for cabling purposes) thru conduit in the construction of aircraft. (I admit I might be wrong on that part--perhaps it was ferrets. But even if it was ferrets, they should have used rats.)

11. Rats are sexually mature at five weeks. Gestation is about three weeks--so, yeah, theoretically, a rat born today could be a grandparent in about two months. Litters average between eight and fifteen pups.

12. Male rats have large testicles. Massive. If a human had testicles in proportion to rat testicles, you'd have cannonballs hanging between your legs. Seriously, these things are fuckin' huge. Bandit likes showing off his balls:

OTOH, rat copulation lasts about two seconds.

(NOTE: I know this stuff by heart, but for most of the numeric details I am indebted to the most excellent Anne's Rat Page at ratbehavior.org.)

Posted by: Victor at 04:38 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Romeocat recently visited the National Air & Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center recently. You can see pictures of her trip here. This annex, near Dulles Airport, houses the first Space Shuttle, the Enola Gay, the Concorde, and many other awesome sights, including an SR-71, the most kick-ass airplane ever built.

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As far as I know, the Russians are famous for two aerial manuevers: "ramming" and the "cobra." Ramming is pretty self explanatory. It's what Russian pilots did in WWII when they didn't have any ammo. The cobra is a modern tactic, and if you've ever wondered what it looks like in practice, there's a textbook example by an Su-35 pilot in this Sukhoi highlight video (at 4:15).

There's also a cool shot of an Su-27's 30mm cannon firing (at 3:24).

And that Su-47 is a freaky lookin thing. It looks straight out of a Japanese monster movie.

Although the cobra manuever looks like something you'd use in a dogfight, it's real purpose is to confuse AWACS radars. The idea was for a group of four planes to fly towards the AWACS plane, with two in the front and two hidden closely behind the leaders. Then when the American radars got a lock, the two Russian planes in the lead would pull up into a cobra. In theory, this would confuse the radar long enough for the two lead planes to hit the deck, and when the radar regained its lock, the radar operators would think that the two trailing planes were the ones that they had been looking at originally. Then the two planes that had escaped the radar could attack from below.

If you ask me, it doesn't sound plausible, but that's what I read.

Update: More ultramaneuverability here, from what I think is an Su-37.

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I know you all really liked my Dukes of Hazzard banner for the car. Well, if you're a fan of the R/T, you should go here. Michele (yes, that Michele) has a post about it with some nice pictures.

By the way, I actually saw a sweet General Lee replica driving around town the other day. I wish I was quick enough with the camera phone.

Also (and this news doesn't have anything to do with Chargers, but it is related to the 70's car theme), one of the great car chase scenes ever filmed is now on DVD. The obscure 1973 film The Seven-Ups, starring Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco, features a really long chase that takes place in and outside New York City. My brother, who's an expert on these things, says this chase scene is better than Bullitt's, and I can't disagree.

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Yesterday we lost one of the great legends of aviation, and an American hero. Scott Crossfield was the first man to travel twice the speed of sound. He died when his single engine Cesna 210A crashed in Gordon County, Georgia.

On November 20, 1953, Scott Crossfield's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket dropped from the belly of a B-29 and accelerated to 1,291 miles per hour at about 72,000 feet over California's Mojave desert. He had just lapped the sound barrier, twice.

If you would like to see actual footage of the Skyrocket launching from a B-29, go here.*

If aviation fanatacism were a religion, the entrance gallery of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum would be its Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Mecca all rolled into one. As any visitor to this temple knows, all you have to do is look up and you will see alongside the Wright Flyer** a constellation of the greatest planes in the history of the world. One of these planes is the North American X-15.

Scott Crossfield was the first man to pilot the X-15, in its dual rocket configuration, on June 8, 1959. He was one of 12 test pilots, a group which also included Neil Armstrong. The plane flew 199 times, launching from under the wing of a B-52. Thirteen of those flights exceeded 50 miles in altitude, bestowing the title of "astronaut" on the pilots. Two flights exceeded 65 miles.

One X-15 pilot, Michael Adams, was killed when the plane began to spin and hit 15 g's before it broke up over the desert.

Here's a picture after a hard landing with Scott Crossfield at the controls. This was the X-15's third flight, and one of the rocket engines had exploded after launch. Amazingly, Crossfield walked away from this landing unhurt. Stud.

Scott Crossfield survived 30 flights in the X-15, including another mid-flight engine explosion. His last flight was in 1960, and all of the speed and altitude records were set later, by other men. But it was Scott Crossfield who made the courageous first test flights of this amazing and historic aircraft.

The X-15 could go 4,520 mph, almost seven times the speed of sound. It set altitude records that were not broken by any plane except the Space Shuttle until the recent flight of SpaceShipOne. The fifth American to enter space did so in an X-15!

Its highest flight made it to over 67 miles (354,199 feet). The X-15's rate of climb was 60,000 feet per minute. Contrast that with the 767 I flew in recently, which gets to its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet at about 2,400 feet per minute.

But those are just numbers. Wanna see how bad-ass this thing was? And how insane pilots like Scott Crossfield were to fly them? Check out this unbelievable video from inside the X-15, looking backwards as it launches. I had to run it a few times, and each time I was moved to shout something like "holy shit..." in disbelief. Keep an eye on the upper left, and you can see the contrails of the B-52 launch plane disappear in about five seconds as the X-15 rockets into space.

Just amazing.

Albert Scott Crossfield: pilot, American hero; born October 2, 1921 in Berkeley California; slipped the surly bonds of earth April 19, 2006.
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* By the way, the Dryden Test Center site is amazing. There's so much good stuff here. Check out this fly-over shot of my alltime favorite jet. It's absolutely awe-inspiring!

** Not a reproduction, mind you. I'm talking about the real actual very first airplane ever.

Posted by: annika at 06:33 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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For F-16 fans, a cool video of low level flying through the fjords of Norway. Takes a while to load.

Hat tip to Shelly.

Posted by: annika at 07:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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