Author Archives: Sci Fi Engineer

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About Sci Fi Engineer

Husband Father Writer Engineer

Amazon and the law of the jungle

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Mark Cooker the founder of Smashwords is also an epubs apostle, he’s out there selling the eBook revolution to the readers, writers and everyone in between.  He’s got a post up on Amazon’s new Kindle Direct Platform (KDP) is a Kindle only eBook platform that promises the author some part of a 500K / month pot depending on your percentage of downloads from KDP inventory, I suppose on top of the direct sales.  Now as he says himself he has a bit of a vested interested in dissing this because KDP because it cuts Smashwords out of part of the market but his point is that in essence its subtly anti author. Once on KDP you cannot sell through any other venue so you have to depend on Amazon being the principal sales channel for eBooks.  And this 1 limits your market, and 2 in the long term if Amazon ‘wins’ puts the author at the mercy of Amazon. 

Mark also points out that Amazon is pushing changes to the law about who can set the price on a book.  It appears as if Amazon has always wanted this power, rather than the publisher.  Now that may seem reasonable with Smashwords the author is the publisher, why shouldn’t the author of an eBook set the price?  If it’s too high then perhaps that’s the authors problem, not the distributor. The distributor still gets their cut for the books that are sold.

DoD Buzz | The Iran problem

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DoD Buzz | The Iran problem.

The problem with Iran is that there is nothing we can do about it as the article below points out.  Short of all out war we are not going to make the situation any better proliferation wise and almost any other option at least leaves open the opportunity for long termsolutions.

The article points to a think tank paper arguing (rightly I think) that Deterrence like that used vs. the USSR is the most realistic option but it requires constant vigilance and a very credible threat on our side.  Maintaining such a credible threat is not cheap, has to be part of the grand strategy and force structure of the US.  The issue is, is the current administration up to the job of planning that grand strategy? Is the US up to sustaining another deterrent axis and the costs associated,  the article highlights the (largely artificial) stresses even the limited missile shield for Europe is causing with Russia.

One interesting thing about this is that all the Wests attempts to halt proliferation have in the end come to nought, the worst of the worst are going to get the nuc’s, unless we provide an almost blanket assurance that we will avenge any first use then at least one more tier of nuc powers will emerge.

It’s also of some ironic interest that it was the US’s perfection of smart weapons and limited war tactics that could be seen as driving this nuc arms race.  We should remember that at one time or another we saw nucs as the cheap counter weapon to the Russian horde .  These smallish countries now see nuc’s as the cheap counter to folks with deep pockets and smarter magazines.

Air Force Mini Shuttle the future Swiss army knife of space

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In a testing procedure, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle taxis on the flightline in June 2009 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif

The Air Forces X37B autonomous mini shuttle has proven a great success. The first prototype orbiting for 9 months and then returning safely. The second unit is currently at 10+ months. Also the craft have shown that they are very maneuverable in orbit and very hard to keep track of from the ground even by pretty sophisticated observers. Now The AF is talking about an X37C that could carry six passengers. But it would still be autonomous, i.e. the passengers are passengers not pilots. To me that is probably a rather weak cover/secondary use. Most of the craft would spend most of their lives with no passengers, doing an array of important tasks. I think the AF like s the idea of a more ‘drone’ like operating profile, multi use(refuel, recovery, small launch, medium duration observation, etc) able to upgrade, lower orbit so less massive ‘optics’ for any class of objective. This would be the true space fighter, not a combat vehicle, but a platform that can do almost anything almost anywhere (in orbit) on very short notice without giving away the mission just by its shape/launch orbit.

Of course they need to lose the expensive aeroshell, it was necessary I assume to keep from having to do something even more expensive with the Boosters control laws, but it sure looks expensive, and for the six person version would get pretty bulky. Of course a 6 person crew though the same as the shuttle does not mean a shuttle scale vehicle, Shuttle was a mixed cargo freight hauler most of its size was for cargo I don’t the X37C will be much more than 2x maybe 3x the size of the diminutive 29ft X37B.

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The US Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle during encapsulation within the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 5-meter fairing Feb. 8, 2011, at Astrotech in Titusville, Fla. The fairing protects and carries the OTV into space.

A bit overweight Goldilocks

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This article discussing another good candidate for a relatively Earth like world orbiting a not to distant star.

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This week astronomers have announced the existence of a planet discovered to be in human livable range of star not unlike our sun, with a size 2.4 times that of our Earth and a temperature of approximately 22 degrees celsius. This is the most recent in a line of possibilities for habitable planets in the realm of possibility as outlined by an international team of scientists in a paper by the name of “A Two-Tiered Approach to Assessing the Habitability of Exoplanets” as found at Mary Ann Libert Inc, publishing — these scientists are not the same group that’ve discovered this newest planet, but they’re sure to add the new finding to their list sooner than later. What we’ve got here is Kepler 22-b, a body that is what the Kepler space telescope team says is the closest we’ve ever gotten to discovering a planet that’s like our own – an “Earth 2.0,” if you will.

G the gravity constant, being a constant would indicate that your average 150lb person (on Earth) is going to tip the scales at 300lbs. This seems in the realm of supportable but it’ll be a chiropractor’s paradise. Also would have to wonder about atmospheric density and depth, seems like there would be all sorts of interesting knock on effects.

The wheel first and still evolving

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The Bridgestone man at work looks cool and has some advantages, like no punctures.

The spokes are made of reusable thermoplastic resin. In design, interest is drawn toward the thermoplastic fins, staggered so that connections to the hub and the rim do not torque and there is no structural breakdown. The tires’ resin spokes radiate from rim to tread. They curve to the left and right to support vehicle loads.

But one wonders about delamination at speed, effects of dirt and grime etc. But eventually this looks likely to come, their looking at light weight low speed applications first. If we ever see them on r ace cars we’ll know the technology is almost ready for prime time. Michelin and Yokohama have been working on ‘airless’ tires for years as well.

Also in the world of the wheel, another Michelin tech lead:

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Each Michelin in-wheel motor weighs 42 kilogram (95 pound) and includes a 30 Kilowatt water-cooled drive motor of a similar size to a conventional starter motor. The motor has a spur gear that drives a rind gear on the hub. A second electric motor operates the active suspension via a gear rack and pinion that effectively replaces the normal hydraulic shock absorber (no news on if they are used as regenerative shocks). There is also a coil spring to hold the static load of the car and a small outer rotor disc brake. The wheel motor is attached to the vehicle chassis by a single lower control arm suspension arrangement.

The advantage here is that every wheel station on the car is identical, just programmed to be right front vs. left rear, no heavy suspension elements in the body so a simpler/rugged/lighter cargo tub for the fragile humans. This was the concept that GM touted when they were head over ass in love with fuel cells and the ‘skateboard’ that eventually faded away to make way for the Volt.

Space and entropy

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Hubble Photo

A Hubble picture I think its looking into the hot hydrogen spectrum

Just some writing therapy other than Elgin, struggling a bit with Elgin in New York. I think having that deadline in front of me was effective even after I’d gotten over the base line. But that’s the way it is.

Spent too much time today reading articles and blogs on the current state of the world. Things are starting to look up in the US and yet most of the pundits are saying it’s going to be a flash in the pan, especially if the Euro resumes its crash into the toilet. And Oh, even if the Europeans pull it out, the Chinese are probably going to implode. And if the Chinese don’t implode then we need start worrying about their hegemonic intentions in the far east.

And then you have the Arab spring, all of which are now turning out to be pro Islamists of one stripe or another….well duh! Of course they are, the secular piece of the population almost has to be small be definition and they were rebelling against various levels of despotism that was supported at least partly by secular and pro-Israel US/Europe. The reaction is going to blow back. One just has to hope that the more liberal (reasonable set of rights and open economy) arms of the Islamists remain in control because the majority realize that the hardliner conservatives will keep them in at least a deep a hole as they have been for the last fifty years.

As to space and entropy…

space

1. the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.
2. the portion or extent of this in a given instance; extent or room in three dimensions: the space occupied by a body.
3. extent or area in two dimensions; a particular extent of surface: to fill out blank spaces in a document.
4. Fine Arts
a. the designed and structured surface of a picture: In Mondrian’s later work he organized space in highly complex rhythms.
b. the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.
5. outer space

en·tro·py

1.Thermodynamics .
a. (on a macroscopic scale) a function of thermodynamic variables, as temperature, pressure, or composition, that is a measure of the energy that is not available for work during a thermodynamic process. A closed system evolves toward a state of maximum entropy.
b. (in statistical mechanics) a measure of the randomness of the microscopic constituents of a thermodynamic system.
2. (in data transmission and information theory) a measure of the loss of information in a transmitted signal or message.
3. (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death).
4. a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.

Space

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In, Through, and Beyond Saturn’s Rings

Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: A fourth moon is visible on the above image if you look hard enough. First — and farthest in the background — is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and one of the larger moons in the Solar System. The dark feature across the top of this perpetually cloudy world is the north polar hood. The next most obvious moon is bright Dione, visible in the foreground, complete with craters and long ice cliffs. Jutting in from the left are several of Saturn’s expansive rings, including Saturn’s A ring featuring the dark Encke Gap. On the far right, just outside the rings, is Pandora, a moon only 80-kilometers across that helps shepherd Saturn’s F ring. The fourth moon? If you look closely in the Encke Gap you’ll find a speck that is actually Pan. Although one of Saturn’s smallest moons at 35-kilometers across, Pan is massive enough to help keep the Encke gap relatively free of ring particles.

As you’ll note in the side bar one of my favorite sites is APOD Astronomical Picture Of the Day, the above picture from Saturn is from the APOD. the single largest segment of memory on my iPad is devoted to these pictures. I understand that a human’s limited senses would not see these views but they still haunt me with their beauty and inaccesibility. Here is wonder and beauty we cannot destroy.

Have to admit I’m a mite disappointed in humanity right now…hence the mooning over moons. We have a huge amount of capability and mountains of resources at our finger tips but we seem to have lost the magic sauce of leadership. I don’t know if we (humans) are going through a phase change right now or just hitting a rough patch or perhaps we have reached Lemming Stage (too many people period and some deep programming sets us at a metaphorical run towards the nearest metaphorical cliff.) I hope it’s no LS just a rough spot in the singularity….whatever that turns out to be.