The Midnight Gallery

An article from the University of florida about an engineer who has developed an RC-model based drone with wings that change their actual shape in flight (as opposed to extending flaps, etc) from a F4U coarsair-like inverse gull to the opposite.

The intended usage is for highly maneuverable drones that can be operated even in a city.

An MPEG of the wing in action is available here.

It would take some work to scale this up to human-carrying aircraft. One of the reason plane wings are relatively stiff is that to build the wing strong enough to carry what we would call a decent load would make the wing unreasonably heavy if it had to have all the parts and supports required to make it bend like a bird’s wing. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see how far this can be pushed, and more maneuverable, cheap drones are also a good thing, with any number of applications, many of them civilian.

If you have a bureaucracy that is responsible for determining who makes how much for what job, what happens when you need to create a job position that hasn’t existed before because you’ve created a new product, a new way to make things, or your business model requires your employees to combine aspects of existing jobs in new ways? I can imagine few better ways to stifle innovation and job creation than to make it nearly impossible to create new types of work.

While I was gone, it seems that Cringely has written an article echoing some of my earlier concerns here in response to a recent court decision. Again being discussed is competition in the ISP marketplace, how the court decisions affect it, and what has that meant for those of us stuck in out of the way places like Charleston (which incidentally, applies to both Cringely and I).

…(as if that affects my posting, or lack therof), and headed to the mountains in Tennessee. It was some well-needed downtime from all of the programming and other projects I had been working on.

Here’s some sample pics:

In the Greenbrier section of the park is an easy access road leading to a few apparently real good trails that we did not have the time to try. This road follows along the Little Pigeon River at first before splitting off. This island is in the middle of where two different streams feed together.

This photo was taken from the the observation tower atop of Clingman’s Dome in the Smoky Mountains National Park. At 6643 feet, it is the highest point in the Appalachian Trail, and affords you a view of Newfound Gap and many of the surrounding hills. On a clear day you can see for many more miles than we could in this photo. As it is, it’s odd to be inside the cloud raining on you.

On the NC side of the park on the way back down and home from Clingman’s dome, we took this photo, after the weather had already cleared up.

The entire park is incredibly lush. It may not be, technically, a “temperate rainforest” like the coastal areas of the Northwest US, but it is constantly humid and rains nearly daily.

Every once in a while, even as a computer geek, the vagaries of the hardware world combine in such a way so that the varied, random, brownian motion takes a malevolent and perverse turn, leaving us mere mortals humbled.

Let me introduce the main player in this scenario: A P-III based Windows 98 machine that we call “Simone.” It was bought in Germany and has since had W98SE installed on it (english version) and a standard english keyboard attached. Not the fastest machine on the block, but more than fast enough for the kids to web-surf via the proxy server.

The goal was to get this machine back on the network. It had previously used a Linksys 802.11b wireless card, which could not be upgraded to use WPA encryption. I wasn’t willing to move my network back to WEP, an older encryption format, because of security concerns, as well as the fact that my wireless repeaters were much more stable using WPA (haven’t locked up yet) than using WEP (once a day).

Innocently, I walk into Staples, and pick up the available Linksys 802.11g card. The only version in stock. I get it home, install it, and look for the WPA setup features, puzzled by a strange inability to find them. Hey, it’s a brand new card, still in the plastic. WPA has been around a while, and has been a standard feature of Linksys wireless access points for something like a year now. No dice.

I cross-check the manual. No mention of WPA. No mention of it on the box either but it didn’t mention any specifics re: encryption on the box. I go online, and discover that not only is the card I bought, brand new, one version out of date, but that there is no driver upgrade to handle WPA. either.

So I take it back, and get a Netgear WG311t. This one does specifically state that it handles WPA. So I take it home, install the software, and then install the card. I fire the computer back up. I run the configuration utility. I specify the network name and the WPA-key. It starts to connect. It connects!

My eye wanders over the indications as it finishes pulling down an address from the network and I click on the Firefox icon. Just before the web browser takes over the screen I note with some unease that the “signal” level is actually displayed as the “singal” level. Sure enough, before you can say, “Not the best QA work on the drivers,” only half of the home web page loads, the rest of the images time out. The wireless icon is flashing a disconnected red.

Oops.

Some research later I discover that the drivers for the card, and it’s controlling software, are considered at best utter dreck. Multitudes of people have had problems with the card, and the best workaround has been to use the built-in Windows XP wireless zeroconfig utility, the generic chipset drivers (software) for the radio circuitry built into the card, and bypass the Netgear software entirely.

Not having XP, that is obviously not going to be a solution. Back to the store I go.

One last PCI card presents itself, made by Belkin. They make pretty good adapters for serial ports and such, but don’t have quite so good a record with more complicated stuff like PCI cards, though I must say I have used their internal PCI firewire adapter cards on many occasions and found them to be reliable, stable, and easy to use and setup. I carefully check the box, yet again scrutinizing it for security protocols, and as always checking the minimum requirements, which turn out to be the “Windows 98 SE, 32-bit PCI slot” requirements that are standard for Wi-Fi cards. So I buy it and take it home.

Lather, rinse, repeat. This time (what, you thought it would work?) the computer cannot even see the card. Double check the specs. Yep, they’re correct, yep, my computer meets them. After some research I discover there is a known issue, though not listed on the manufacturer’s site, manual, or minimum requirements, that the card will simply not be recognized on older motherboards that are not at least up to version 2 of the PCI spec. This includes your typical Pentium-III mothrboards, like mine.

So back to the store I’ll be going…….

Perhaps one of my favorite Kipling Poems…

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Over at Eaglespeak, an excerpt from a poem was posted. While I hadn’t personally run across it before, it’s a piece that spoke to me, and indeed, qualifies as “Words of Wisdom”:

A father sees a son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.’
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum and monotony
and guide him amid sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
‘Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.’
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
And left them dead years before burial:
The quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
Has twisted good enough men
Sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.

Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use amongst other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.

Well, the new bridge over the Cooper between Mount Pleasant and downtown Charleston is finally opening up today. Hopefully this does a little bit to relieve congestion getting in and out of the downtown. I’m not sure how much of a help it will be while still primarily dumping three lanes into a two-lane rt. 17, but there will also be offramps for Coleman blvd, and other major routes. That and having three lanes means a stalled car or accident won’t bring everything to quite such a screeching halt (followed by more accidents).

The fireworks show two nights ago was impressive, even for a pretty jaded fireworks observer like me. The view was wonderful from our vantage near the Mt. Pleasant side of the old bridges, and the radio was turned up so we got to hear Neil Diamond’s Coming to America segue into the 1812 Overture and Stars and Stripes Forever. The waterfall shower of sparks over the side and launches off of the bridge platform proper were a beautiful touch. Stations as far away as Deland (near Daytona) FL carried at least some coverage of the fireworks show.

It’s an impressive and beautiful bridge, especially all lit up. You can see if from miles away (such as on the Isle of Palms Connector). I’ve been up and down the east coast and not seen anything quite like it.

Just wish they’d put it up earlier. We’ve been needing it for a while.

This is a week late but it’s a long post. I was sick all of today and am taking the time it gives me to write this up.

As the week came to a close, we finally traded in my aging, steadfast, Intrepid and instead picked up a 2002 VW Jetta GLX. I’ve got to say that I have gotten to really like the car more and more since then. It was low mileage, and as a certified used car had even more room on its warranty, giving it more warranty coverage left than many new cars, including one Pontiac Sunfire I had owned. Like the Sunfire, it’s fairly small, so it’s far more convenient for zipping in and out of downtown parking spaces.

What I appreciate most is the fanatical level of attention to detail that the engineers at VW have displayed, such that I’m far happier with this car than my wife’s Mercedes. This is to date the only car I’d seen where setting the cruise control engages it with imperceptible smoothness. The controls are all well placed, with the same precision that the car displays in its steering and handling.

I like it.

So we broke the car in by taking it down to the Daytona area to help my mom get settled in at her new apartment. This of course was done on the weekend of the Pepsi 400, so, a few accidents (including one where a SUV had done at least 1 and 1/4 rolls), and a few too many hours later, we spent a grueling weekend unpacking boxes, throwing out dross, and getting stuff hung/organized/you name it. We headed back starting at 10PM on Sunday, picking up slurpees at the last 7-11 we came across on the way out of central Florida, before entering the barren wasteland without these oases of light and icy goodness.

Getting back at 4AM we passed right out and woke up in time to go to a friends for a celebratory 4th lunch, and picked up some ice cream and fireworks on the way home. That night we made a few shells and roman candles go “boom.”

Then we went to bed.

Like many in the military who appreciate poetry, one of my all-time favorite poets is Rudyard Kipling.

The ‘eathen

By Rudyard Kipling

Born 1865

The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness bows down to wood an’ stone;
‘E don’t obey no orders unless they is ‘is own;
‘E keeps ‘is side-arms awful: ‘e leaves ’em all about,
An’ then comes up the regiment an’ pokes the ‘eathen out.

All along o’ dirtiness, all along o’ mess,
All along o’ doin’ things rather-more-or-less,
All along of abby-nay, kul, an’ hazar-ho, *
Mind you keep your rifle an’ yourself jus’ so!

* abby-nay: Not now. kul: To-morrow. hazar-ho: Wait a bit.

The young recruit is ‘aughty — ‘e draf’s from Gawd knows where;
They bid ‘im show ‘is stockin’s an’ lay ‘is mattress square;
‘E calls it bloomin’ nonsense — ‘e doesn’t know no more —
An’ then up comes ‘is Company an’ kicks ‘im round the floor!

The young recruit is ‘ammered — ‘e takes it very ‘ard;
‘E ‘angs ‘is ‘ead an’ mutters — ‘e sulks about the yard;
‘E talks o’ “cruel tyrants” ‘e’ll swing for by-an’-by,
An’ the others ‘ears an’ mocks ‘im, an’ the boy goes orf to cry.
The young recruit is silly — ‘e thinks o’ suicide;
‘E’s lost ‘is gutter-devil; ‘e ‘asn’t got ‘is pride;
But day by day they kicks ‘im, which ‘elps ‘im on a bit,
Till ‘e finds ‘isself one mornin’ with a full an’ proper kit.

Gettin’ clear o’ dirtiness, gettin’ done with mess,
Gettin’ shut o’ doin’ things rather-more-or-less;
Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho,
Learns to keep ‘is rifle an’ ‘isself jus’ so!

The young recruit is ‘appy — ‘e throws a chest to suit;
You see ‘im grow mustaches; you ‘ear ‘im slap ‘is boot;
‘E learns to drop the “bloodies” from every word ‘e slings,
An’ ‘e shows an ‘ealthy brisket when ‘e strips for bars an’ rings.

The cruel-tyrant-sergeants they watch ‘im ‘arf a year;
They watch ‘im with ‘is comrades, they watch ‘im with ‘is beer;
They watch ‘im with the women at the regimental dance,
And the cruel-tyrant-sergeants send ‘is name along for “Lance”.

An’ now ‘e’s ‘arf o’ nothin’, an’ all a private yet,
‘Is room they up an’ rags ‘im to see what they will get;
They rags ‘im low an’ cunnin’, each dirty trick they can,
But ‘e learns to sweat ‘is temper an’ ‘e learns to sweat ‘is man.

An’, last, a Colour-Sergeant, as such to be obeyed,
‘E schools ‘is men at cricket, ‘e tells ’em on parade;
They sees ’em quick an’ ‘andy, uncommon set an’ smart,
An’ so ‘e talks to orficers which ‘ave the Core at ‘eart.

‘E learns to do ‘is watchin’ without it showin’ plain;
‘E learns to save a dummy, an’ shove ‘im straight again;
‘E learns to check a ranker that’s buyin’ leave to shirk;
An’ ‘e learns to make men like ‘im so they’ll learn to like their work.

An’ when it comes to marchin’ he’ll see their socks are right,
An’ when it comes to action ‘e shows ’em ‘ow to sight;
‘E knows their ways of thinkin’ and just what’s in their mind;
‘E knows when they are takin’ on an’ when they’ve fell be’ind.

‘E knows each talkin’ corpril that leads a squad astray;
‘E feels ‘is innards ‘eavin’, ‘is bowels givin’ way;
‘E sees the blue-white faces all tryin’ ‘ard to grin,
An’ ‘e stands an’ waits an’ suffers till it’s time to cap ’em in.

An’ now the hugly bullets come peckin’ through the dust,
An’ no one wants to face ’em, but every beggar must;
So, like a man in irons which isn’t glad to go,
They moves ’em off by companies uncommon stiff an’ slow.

Of all ‘is five years’ schoolin’ they don’t remember much
Excep’ the not retreatin’, the step an’ keepin’ touch.
It looks like teachin’ wasted when they duck an’ spread an’ ‘op,
But if ‘e ‘adn’t learned ’em they’d be all about the shop!

An’ now it’s “‘Oo goes backward?” an’ now it’s “‘Oo comes on?”
And now it’s “Get the doolies,” an’ now the captain’s gone;
An’ now it’s bloody murder, but all the while they ‘ear
‘Is voice, the same as barrick drill, a-shepherdin’ the rear.

‘E’s just as sick as they are, ‘is ‘eart is like to split,
But ‘e works ’em, works ’em, works ’em till he feels ’em take the bit;
The rest is ‘oldin’ steady till the watchful bugles play,
An’ ‘e lifts ’em, lifts ’em, lifts ’em through the charge that wins the day!

The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness bows down to wood an’ stone;
‘E don’t obey no orders unless they is ‘is own;
The ‘eathen in ‘is blindness must end where ‘e began,
But the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned man!

Keep away from dirtiness — keep away from mess.
Don’t get into doin’ things rather-more-or-less!
Let’s ha’ done with abby-nay, kul, an’ hazar-ho;
Mind you keep your rifle an’ yourself jus’ so!