A.E.Brain

Are here.

G'day to readers from Switzerland, Finland, and the Czech Republic, in addition to those I've greeted before.

A few articles at random from this blog:
Why you can't Tickle Yourself
The Space Program That Never Was, an illustrated guide.
Breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics
Synoptic Guide to every Dr Who episode

Come for the virus removal - stay for the content.

The Ill-Conceived P.D.Q. Bach Anthology: The Hearer's Digest Condensed Version
Contains parts of 1712 Overture, Love Me, Classical Rap, Minuet Militaire, and excerpts from Oedipus Tex, The Musical Sacrifice, The Short-Tempered Clavier, Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds & Percussion, Four Folk Song Upsettings.

And

The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach: The Hearer's Digest Condensed Version
This Hearer's Digest Condensed Version is made of excerpts from the following: Schleptet in E flat Major:Introduction ; Tema con variazione from Concerto for Horn and Hardart:Introduction ; first Aria from Iphigenia in Brooklyn : New Horizons in Music Appreciation IV. : Andante Allegro from 'Unbegun' Symphony : What's My Melodic Line?: 'Open sesame seeds' from 'The Seasonings':Introduction ; 'Now is the season' from 'The Stoned Guest' : 'My bonnie lass she smelleth' from The Triumphs of Thusnelda.

Available here.

If you've never heard of PDQ Bach...

In 1954 Professor Peter Schickele, rummaging around a Bavarian castle in search of rare musical gems, happened instead upon a piece of manuscript being employed as a strainer in the caretaker's percolator. This turned out to be the 'Sanka' Cantata by one P.D.Q. Bach. A cursory examination of the music immediately revealed the reason for the atrocious taste of the coffee; and when the work was finally performed at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, the Professor realized too late that he had released a monster on the musical world. Unable to restrain himself, and with the misguided support of the U. of S.N.D. at H. and otherwise reputable recording and publishing companies, Prof. Schickele has since discovered more than four score of P.D.Q. Bach scores, each one more jaw-dropping than the last, each one another brick in the wall which will someday seal the doom of Musical Culture.

The conspiracy of silence that has surrounded P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742)? for two centuries began with his own parents. He was the last and the least of the great Johann Sebastian Bach's twenty-odd children, and he was certainly the oddest. His father ignored him completely, setting an example for the rest of the family (and indeed for posterity), with the result that P.D.Q. was virtually unknown during his own lifetime; in fact, the more he wrote, the more unknown he became. He finally attained total obscurity at the time of his death, and his musical output would probably have followed him into oblivion had it not been for the zealous efforts of Prof. Schickele. These efforts have even extended themselves to mastering some of the rather unusual instruments for which P.D.Q. liked to compose, such as the left-handed sewer flute, the windbreaker, and the bicycle.

He does for Classical Music what Weird Al Yankovic does for its contemporary.

Since the media is concentrating on 6 month old photos from Abu Ghraib jail, showing psychological torture, it's only right to show some photos taken at the same or similar places, slightly earlier. Photos courtesy of the resistance group, Free Iraq.

Warning, these photos are gruesome.

Here is one victim.
And another, slightly more recogniseable.
And another.
An another....

Here is one survivor.
And another.

Questions have been asked as to how did the guards get a (dog)leash or a hood?
Well, here is some of the equipment that was used until relatively recently.

In case it's not blindingly obvious, these are the results of Saddam's regime. These images are all over a year old, because that's when this horror was stopped. Not by 'investigative journalists'. By the US military. But you won't read about that in the papers.

If anyone thinks the shameful acts of some US MPs are just a case of 'same business under new management', then may I suggest they get a prosthetic sense of proportion, as they obviously don't have one.

Those barbarities were also put an end to, by the same people. Not by 'investigative journalists'. By the US military. But you won't read about that in the papers, either.

Brain prefers earning money: study.
Well, yes. <hint>The Tip jar's on the left.</hint>

(Link courtesy of The Evil Pundit of Doom)

Are here.

And a big Aussie G'day to people who found this place via some search engine or other. The link above gives you complete instructions on how to deal with sachost.exe.

I've given up on trying to give a greeting in everyone's native language. I've had visitors looking for sachost.exe removal instructions from Hong Kong, the USA, Denmark, Germany, the UK, Eire, Canada, France, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Chile, Spain, Brazil, Italy, (quick check of referrers today), Sweden, New Zealand and Portugal. Oh yes, and Australia.

Some previous posts for your edification and amusement :
Design Your Own Superhero
Who Really sold arms to Saddam
The Secret Message in Coca-Cola Written Backwards

More random interesting posts here. Or just browse through the archives.

Come for the Virus Removal - Stay for the Content. (Oh yes, and although the Tip Jar is on the right, you may wish to give to another more worthy cause if you want to say thank-you. Even $1 would help.).

Spaceship One has just reached the 60,000 metre mark. 212,000 ft, for those in the USA, about 6 times the altitude that Intercontinental jets fly at.

On August 22, 1963, the X-15, also a manned aerospace craft, was launched from a B-52 bomber, reached 354,000 ft. That's over 40 years ago. So what's the big deal?

The answer is that it's a relatively small firm that's doing it; They didn't just build the aerospacecraft, they built the launch platform as well; And they intend to fly just as high as the X-15, and do so twice within three weeks, using the same vehicle. Oh yes, it also carries passengers.

I've done a little research on the history of air-launched rocket programs, spurred on by a regular reader, Mr G. (whose wife is Nana to Gnat Lileks). I even wrote a long article, but Blogger ate it a few months ago, and so I'll just summarise it here. I've restricted it to spacecraft carrying useful payloads that actually flew. Comprehensive list of winged amd air-launched vehicles is to be found at that unexcelled all-round set of resources for all things spacey, the Encyclopedia Astronautica.



From a History of the B-58 Hustler comes data about the WS-199B Bold Orion and WS-199C High Virgo (quote refers to the latter):

Proposals were considered for using the B-58 as a strategic missile launcher, and Lockheed built a 9.15 meter (30 foot) long solid fuel "air launched ballistic missile (ALBM)" derived from the company's X-17 test booster. The ALBM was test-launched four times in 1958 and 1959, with two successful launches.

In the fourth and last launch, on 22 September 1959, the ALBM was launched into space to take a picture of an American Explorer satellite under "Project Snap Shot". This was a proof-of-concept test with applications for satellite inspection and anti-satellite interception, but that particular launch failed. The B-58 ALBM program was then abandoned, though the B-52-based "Skybolt" ALBM program persisted for a few more years.

From the Encyclopedia Astronautica :

After studies in 1958 had shown that it was feasible to air-launch ballistic missiles from high-flying strategic bombers, the USAF issued a requirement in 1959 for a long-range ALBM (Air-Launched Ballistic Missile). In May 1959, Douglas was awarded a development contract for the WS (Weapons System) 138A missile, designated GAM-87 Skybolt. Douglas subsequently awarded development subcontracts to Nortronics (guidance system), Aerojet General (propulsion), and General Electric (reentry vehicle). The GAM-87 was intended for use by the B-52H Statofortress and the British Vulcan B.2. Full-scale development was approved in February 1960, and in January 1961, the first drop tests of unpowered Skybolts occurred. Powered and guided flight tests of XGAM-87A prototypes began in April 1962, but the first five tests were all failures. The first fully successful Skybolt flight occurred on 19 December 1962, but on that same day the whole program was cancelled and the production of the operational GAM-87A stopped. Although Skybolt certainly had its technical difficulties and was well behind schedule, the cancellation was also very much influenced by economical and political factors.

The XGAM-87A was ballistic missile powered by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket motor and guided by a stellar-inertial navigation system. Each B-52H was to carry four GAM-87As, two each side-by-side on two underwing pylons. While on the pylon, the Skybolt was fitted with a tail cone to reduce aerodynamic drag. For launch, the missile was dropped from the pylon, the tail cone was ejected, and the first motor stage ignited. After first stage burnout, the Skybolt coasted for a while before the second stage ignited. First stage control was by movable tail fins, while the second stage was equipped with a gimballed nozzle.

Then of course, there's the only crewed aerospacecraft, the X-15.

This joint program by NASA, the Air Force, the Navy, and North American operated the most remarkable of all the rocket research aircraft. Composed of an internal structure of titanium and a skin surface of a chrome-nickel alloy known as Inconel X, the X-15 had its first, unpowered glide flight on June 8, 1959, while the first powered flight took place on September 17, 1959. Because of the large fuel consumption of its rocket engine, the X-15 was air launched from a B-52 aircraft at about 45,000 ft and speeds upward of 500 mph. The airplane first set speed records in the Mach 4-6 range with Mach 4.43 on March 7, 1961; Mach 5.27 on June 23, 1961; Mach 6.04 on November 9, 1961; and Mach 6.7 on October 3, 1967. It also set an altitude record of 354,200 feet (67 miles) on August 22, 1963, and provided an enormous wealth of data on hypersonic air flow, aerodynamic heating, control and stability at hypersonic speeds, reaction controls for flight above the atmosphere, piloting techniques for reentry, human factors, and flight instrumentation. The highly successful program contributed to the development of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo piloted spaceflight programs as well as the Space Shuttle program. The program's final flight was performed on October 24, 1968.

One current very successful set of boosters is the Pegasus and Pegasus XL (quote refers to the latter):

Uprated version of Pegasus air-launched winged light satellite launcher. 4 stage vehicle consisting of 1 x L-1011 + 1 x Pegasus XL stage 1 + 1 x Orion 50XL + 1 x Orion 38. Launches: 22. Failures: 3. Success Rate: 86.36% pct. First Launch Date: 27 June 1994. Last Launch Date: 25 January 2003

My own favourite, which alas never got beyond the 'Design Study' (or more accurately 'Wishful Thinking') stage, was a German project of 1985, the Saenger, seen below. It may have been completely impractical, but from an aesthetic viewpoint, nothing beats it.


Photo credits to Astronautix.com, Space Daily, Sierra Foothills, and Gunter's Space Page.

Seen via a snippet on Prof Hall's site, comes an interesting Letter to the Editor of Natural History :

The figure-eight orbit that Nell Tyson mentions, as well as other newly discovered solutions to the old three-body problem, are so elegant that a name has been coined for them: choreographies. The figure eight is only the simplest example; other orbits are wildly more complex, with shapes that look more like fluttering butterflies. And those three-body orbits have been quickly generalized to even more fascinating dances for four or more bodies. Animated examples can be viewed on the Web at http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/cover/orbits1.html.

As a theoretical astrophysicist working in stellar dynamics, I am sobered by the fact that great mathematicians and physicists worked on the three-body problem over the past three centuries without having any idea that orbits of this kind were awaiting discovery. And who knows what else there is to be found. It is not only with telescopes that new astronomical objects can be discovered. With even a small personal computer, a lucky guess, and enough persistence, anybody is now in a position to find new solutions to age-old problems of a kind that were completely beyond what Newton and the Le's and La's of celestial mechanics (Leverrier, Legendre, Lagrange, and Laplace, to name a few) could handle.

The actual applet for a 3-body choreography is here.

The Complex dance of orbits below mirrors another of Prof Hall's posts. His site is well worth reading for anyone into Spacecraft, Motorcycles, or Politics. Note that the mission it depicts was launched in 1978. We could do far better, with less fuel expended, today.

Mr Green says it best :

Abu Ghraib represents a betrayal of our principles, while this murder represents an expression of theirs.

Why is it always that when mass Evil breaks out, one of the first signs is cries of 'Kill the Joos'?. Enough Already, we get the message. Al Qaeda Delenda Est

The new ElectricClerk! It Types! It Files! It performs Mathematical Calculations! It's like writing with a beam of light!

One of the more popular ideas for a modus vivendi for Israel is for them to just build a bloody great defensive wall, and let the Arabs on the other side stew in their own juices. The great objection to this is that when a similar idea has been tried, e.g. near Lebanon, all that happened was that the Israelis within about 10 km of the border suffered periodic random artillery bombardment, from everything from portable rockets to large artillery pieces. The only way to stop this was to actually hold the ground they'd be firing from as they do the West Bank. Immediate air-attack on the launchers/guns stops repeats, but still doesn't protect civilians against the first shells. It's also useless against small rockets fired randomly using a timer. And as Israel is so very small, a 10 km buffer zone inside the border would be untenable.
So why are the Israelis building exactly such a wall now? From CBS comes a possible answer :

A joint U.S.-Israeli laser designed to protect northern Israel from missile attacks downed its largest rocket to date during a test over the southern New Mexico desert.

The ground-based Tactical High Energy Laser, or THEL, locked onto and destroyed the 11-foot-long, 6-inch-diameter rocket in flight over White Sands Missile Range on Tuesday, Pam Rogers, a U.S. Army spokeswoman in Huntsville, Alabama, said Friday.

The stationary test version of THEL has shot down smaller Katyusha rockets and artillery shells in the past, she said.

The system, which eventually would be mobile, uses an advanced radar to spot and track incoming rockets and then fires a deuterium fluoride chemical laser to destroy them.

Israel's director of weapons systems and infrastructure development, Shmuel Keren, said the system is able to intercept a variety of aerial targets such as long-range rockets and cruise missiles, to which there is currently no solution.

THEL, being developed by Northrop-Grumman Corp., has passed tests at White Sands since 2000, said Bob Bishop, the company's media relations manager in Redondo Beach, California.

The company could deliver a mobile prototype by 2007 or 2008 if it gets a contract this summer, he said, adding that the project appears in the U.S. defense budget for fiscal 2004 with a $56 million allocation.

Are here.

Text of a recent e-mail, in its entirety:

THANK YOU!!!THANK YOU!!!THANK YOU!!!THANK YOU!!!

John

If that had been the only e-mail I'd received for helping out, it would have all been more than worthwhile. But it's not, and my thanks to everyone (including John) who have let me know that they found the instructions useful.

After you've gotten rid of the beast, why not have a browse through the archives? Here's a few posts, taken pretty much at random.
Brain Short-Circuiter
The Many Uses of Vegemite
54 Good Reasons for going into Iraq
Design Your Own Hell
Fun With Colloids
Kerry on Defence
Mr Picasso Head
The London Necropolis Company

This blog is a Smorgasbord of stuff, some deep and meaningful, some opinionated politics, and some just plain fun. Come for the virus-removal, stay for the posts.

If you like it, or if you find the virus removal instructions useful, may I please request that you go read this article on The Command Post, and act as you see fit.