Odd Lots
- Here’s an easy read about Boom Supersonic’s project to create a supersonic airliner capable of cruising at Mach 1.7 without a significant sonic boom reaching the surface beneath the aircraft. Their target is to deliver aircraft by 2029, though skeptics think that’s overly ambitious because Boom is designing a supersonic-capable engine from scratch. The engine will also be marketed as part of a power-generation system for AI data centers.
- There’s a new ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) standard, ATSC 3.0, which will improve TV image quality, it also includes technology to allow DRM on broadcast TV, encrypting “over the air” signals and turning broadcast TV into yet another form of pay TV. You’d have to buy a new “NextGen” TV to watch ATSC 3.0 content. TV isn’t my thing, but I predict a great deal of bitching and moaning against this possibility. Stay tuned, heh.
- According to recent research, working crossword puzzles for two minutes a day can slow brain aging dramatically. Actually, anything that requires cognitive activity can slow brain aging. One reason I tinker with programming (for me, in Free Pascal/Lazarus) is to keep my mind working. I do a couple of word puzzles on my tablet here and there. Maybe I should do more. What I don’t do is sit in front of the TV all day. Or on most days, even for two minutes.
- The US House has passed a bill making Daylight Savings Time permanent. Umm…didn’t we try this already? We did. Nobody liked it, and it didn’t last long. My response is that we should make standard time permanent, which wouldn’t push dawn to an hour later and force people to start the day in darkness. Yeah, back in Chicago in late December it used to get dark by 5 PM. The kids were home from school by then, and cars for commuters have headlights. Arizona is on standard time all year, and it works fine for me.
- Private collectors are outbidding museums for fossils—right up to Gus, one of the largest and most complete T-Rex fossils ever found. Sotheby’s is selling dino bones to the very rich, some of them earning in excess of $30M. It may gall some people, but even I know that leaving fossils in the ground — especially if they’re exposed to the elements—can cause serious deterioration. One wonders what a billionaire would do with a T-Rex skeleton. In the rec room? Office? Maybe we’ll find out.
- Astronomers have found a species of sugar scattered out in the gas and dust in our galaxy. Sweet!
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: aerospace · brain health · science
In 1983 I briefly worked at Supersonic Express. It was an American company looking to become a supersonic airline with flights between New York City and Los Angeles. It had already arranged a lease of an Air France Concorde SST. I had meetings with the FAA in Los Angeles to try to determine flight paths. I got to meet Scott Crossfield (2nd person to fly faster than the speed of sound) and even got a phone call early one morning from Chuck Yeager (1st person to break Mach 1). Unfortunately, by early 1984 it was obvious that nothing was going to be accomplished and I left the company. It was a fun job while it lasted!
My wife really enjoys doing crosswords. She does them in pen! I’m terrible at them. I enjoy playing FreeCell (called Seahaven Towers on the Mac) because it reminds me of programming at low levels with the four open slots analogous to the registers of a CPU and the eight columns analogous to stacks for operations in RAM. I like this better than regular Solitaire because almost all (I think it’s 98%) of the puzzles are solvable even though it doesn’t seem that way when you first look at them.
Jeff, OM, I love your commentary. I sure think you’re on the mark about doing something cognitive and avoiding broadcast TV (or cable for that matter). I’m in my 70s and still working for several reasons, one of which is that I need problems to solve or I get bored (quickly). I finished another book in The Witcher cycle last night, which surprised me. I immediately bought the next and queued it up on the Kindle to start this weekend. Keep on truckin’, OM and 73!