Preston L. Bannister { random memes }

Airplanes have always always been an interest, since I was a kid (though theoretic, not actual).

Simple basic facts about aeroplanes: long thin wings tend to more efficient (aerodynamically, not structurally) than wider/thicker/shorter wings. For much the same reason – propellers are more efficient than jets. Ducted fans are less efficient than propellers, but more efficient than pure-jet engines. Turbofan engines are basically ducted fan turboprops. Gains in jet efficiency over than past few decades are in part due to higher bypass turbofans (basically moving from pure jets closer to propellers).

Even propellers are not ideal. Swirling a couple curved sticks of metal through the airstream at high speeds is going to chew up energy without adding to propulsion. Many-bladed turbofans chewing through the airstream have got to be worse. Lots of energy wasted – could there be a more efficient way? Nothing especially obvious … or something better would be in practice.

Ideally we would like a way to throw back the bulk of an airstream without lots of extraneous physical churning. The only certain way we know is to use propellers – like oars in water. Could there be another way?

There is a well-known phenomena in Physics known as “electric wind”, that moves air without physical contact, but is by no measure efficient. Is there any way this could be used?

Is there any way to efficiently push an airstream without physical contact?

The “electric wind” is a stream of charged particles. A magnetic field deflects an charged particle moving through. The deflection exerts a force on the magnet (assuming the force is not sufficient to capture the charge). Movement against that force consumes energy. That energy presumably could accelerate the charged particles.

The mean free path of a charged particle at normal atmospheric pressures is short. Any accelerated ion would give up about half it’s energy at each collision. Short mean free paths mean many collisions. The net result would be (presumably) to accelerate a bulk of the airstream. Maybe.

Magnetic fields deflect charged particles. Strong magnets rotating on opposite directions could deflect and accelerate, then re-deflect and further accelerate charged particles – maybe. Would the result be significant? Would the result be efficient? I have no idea.

This might be an approach only possible if the “controller” is sufficiently smart, and with quite intense magnets (superconducting?). Matching the acceleration and deflection of charged particles through alternating magnetic fields through changing atmospheric conditions may not be possible with simpler control.

Is a “magnetic propeller” is practical possibility?

Just arrived in email.

Billed To:
preston@bannister.us
Preston Bannister
14 Vallecito
Foothill Ranch, CA 92610

Order Number: MGLN2G836G
Receipt Date: 11/19/09
Order Total: $4.99
Billed To: MasterCard …. 1234

Item Number
1

Description
변환기, v1.0, Seller: Wang Xi|299225365 (4+)

Unit Price
$4.99

Write a Review
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Subtotal: $4.99
Tax: $0.00
Order Total: $4.99

Please retain for your records.
Please See Below For Terms And Conditions Pertaining To This Order.

Apple Inc.
You can find the iTunes Store Terms of Sale and Sales Policies by launching your iTunes application and clicking on Terms of Sale or Sales Policies

Answers to frequently asked questions regarding the iTunes Store can be found at http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/

I do not have iTunes installed. Both my desktop and laptop are running Ubuntu Linux. Also I cannot read Chinese Korean, so I do not know what was ordered. The “Report a Problem” link asks me to install iTunes.

I am guessing the iTunes store has a (big!) problem.

Update:
No charges have appeared on my credit card (so far).

I eventually found a “support” link for the iTunes site where you fill out a form to send email. Had to lie a bit as you cannot complete the form without indicating the OS on which you are running iTunes. Linux is not offered as a choice. The first email from Apple was not useful (“run iTunes to check on your account”, grrr). I replied with a copy of the receipt, and they did … something.

If no credit card charge appears, my guess is the Apple caught the problem part-way through.

Got an email from another iTunes customer who also got a receipt with the exact same mysterious item. Interesting.

Update (2):
The charge just appeared on my credit card, so it is not clear the exchange with iTunes Support addressed the problem.

Update (3):
Shortly after my last email (where I again described the problem, and added the other guy’s receipt), Apple Support sent an unexpected email refunding the charge to the other guy! Right. Half-successful?

Upgraded my desktop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. That was a mistake. I could really use an “undo” button right about now (as ZFS users have for large scale file system changes).

The problem is buttons. A change in GTK+ 2.18 broke Eclipse, and anything based on Eclipse.

There are a number of bug reports tracking this problem. On the Eclipse site look at:
Bug 291257 – [Widgets] Buttons functionality problem with GTK+ 2.18

There is a work-around offered on the above ticket (setting the GTK_NATIVE_WINDOWS environment variable). It seems to work for some. For others – myself included – it causes another severe problem (for which there are other bug reports).

#
# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00007f30eb1e7f7a, pid=4766, tid=139848919398672
#
# JRE version: 6.0_16-b01
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (14.2-b01 mixed mode linux-amd64 )
# Problematic frame:
# C  [libpango-1.0.so.0+0x24f7a]  pango_layout_new+0x2a
#

Strictly speaking, this is a bug in GTK. A new version of GTK shipped that was meant to be compatible, but instead broke existing applications (at the very least those based on Eclipse). The application use of GTK might (or might not) be considered in some way improper, but practical considerations should be dominant.

Fixing this in GTK will in one step remove the problem in all currently impacted applications. Fixing this in Eclipse will only help new and newly updated Eclipse installations. Existing Eclipse-based applications will continue to be impacted until (and if) updated by their respective developers.

Other related/duplicate bug reports:
Buttons in Eclipse not working correctly with GTK+ 2.18.1-1
Eclipse loses button events with swt-gtk in karmic
GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1 still required for some dialogs
Breaks Default button in some eclipse dialogs (and rcp apps)

Ran across a copy/article on extracting oxygen from moon rocks. The interesting bit:

New Device Extracts Oxygen from Moon Rocks | Universe Today
Fray anticipates that three reactors, each a meter high, would be enough to generate a ton of oxygen per year on the Moon. Three tons of rock are needed to produce a ton of oxygen, and in tests the team saw almost 100% recovery of oxygen, he says.

The comments got the math badly wrong. Poking around the web I got some rough numbers:

• ~0.25 liters / minute – oxygen consumed for human at rest.
• ~5 liters / minute – oxygen consumed for athlete / heavy exercise.
• ~1.43 grams / liter – oxygen gas at Earth sea level pressure.

Barring any dumb math errors on my part, that translates to….

• ~636,000 liters / year – the ton of oxygen produced by the above-mentioned generator.
• ~131,500 liters / year – oxygen consumed by a person at rest.
• ~4.8 person-at-rest-years of oxygen generated every year.

Assuming that a “real” space habitat would also have the means to recycle oxygen from exhaled CO², that is a lot of oxygen!

What is the real need for that much oxygen? Outside use as rocket fuel (or other manufacturing process), the main need would be to supply air for expanded living space. Assuming ~3 meter ceilings, we need ~3000 liters air for each square meter of living space. So one generator would allow expanding the living space by ~2000 square meters / year.

Not bad. And that is just one reactor (and essentially a prototype, at that).

Only one part of the equation (for habitat supply needs), of course. For practical purpose, would be nice to also have some nitrogen in the air. Not sure where that would come from. Do any moon rocks contain nitrogen? Water is also needed. Barring any fortunate discovery of water on the moon, we could synthesize water given a source of hydrogen. Do any moon rocks contain hydrogen?

Several months back, I wrote up a speculation about the granularity of what we call “reality”. Since then I have tended notice more those instances of a perceptual gap – where my mental record departs from the smoothly deductive model of reality.

(An odd trap, when deductions – of a sort – lead to speculation that perceived reality may not follow a deductive model.)

What do I mean by a “deductive model of reality”?

If I cannot find object, search repeatedly in all the locations I expect, and eventually find the object in plain sight in a place I looked many times before – I assume by deduction that the object was in fact there all along, and I somehow missed it. By somewhat-conscious choice the episode is recorded in my memory as “the object was always there, and I somehow failed to see it”. By choice I reject from recall an instance of “the object appeared where I had looked before” – as impossible.

Along the same lines – if you and I have different memories of an event, I assume that one (or both) of us were mis-remembering, and there was – by deduction – a single true objective reality of the event.

A good practice in science is to occasionally question (and re-verify) your assumptions. What could I expect if my speculation about a “granularity” of reality might be somewhat true? With that question in mind I now more often tend to mark the mismatch between memory and “objective reality”.

An aside – At one point I wondered if the deductive the model of reality was a learned behavior – and that question suddenly invoked a faint memory of adopting a choice of interpretation, as a child. Is the memory real? I do not know.

Again, without any sort of test, there is no reason to treat this speculation as anything more. To be clear, I most firmly believe in the deterministic model, and not the speculation. But I also now have this persistent ghost of a question….

In Orange County (California) the process of collecting the vote is managed by the Orange County Registrar of Voters. Only after this latest election (last Tuesday) did I find that the OCROV has a channel on YouTube

While the above video is only slightly interesting, of note is the guy in the suit – Neal Kelley – as after he was appointed Registrar, his department did a noticeably better job. The organization of supplies and instructions from the OCROV to the polling sites have improved every year. I give the guy a lot of credit for a job well done.

Reading about the British class system, was surprised at one aspect. Pretty much anyone who reaches a notable level of achievement can get knighted. The class system in Britain – across generations – is not static.

We have an unresolved problem. At the start of life and career, we want rough equality of opportunity. But ability is not equal. What each citizen could achieve, and will achieve … differs. If great achievement brings great wealth … I think that is right. For each guy who added much to society’s real wealth, given wealth, the odds are good that guy will do interesting things with that wealth.

On the other hand, some acquire great wealth without doing anything particularly constructive. Great wealth acquired but not productively invested leads to leads to huge instabilities in the economy – as in our present trouble. There is some sense in having a recognized “class” system – but only if the averaged result rewards real productivity (in any various sense).

For a long-term stable and productive society, we do not want vast unearned wealth passing between generations. There is only a slight chance the next generations will be as productive the first wealth-acquiring individual. This suggests that – as a society, and in the case of great wealth – we must limit the amount of owned wealth that can be passed between generations.

(Yes, a “death tax” – so colorfully named – makes sense for massive wealth.)

On the flip side, I do not especially trust government – or any large organization – to control or direct the economy. Central planning does not often work. The intelligence of a committee tends to sum up to an average of the individual participants
… or worse.

So how do you reward those of a different “class” (in terms of real achievement), tax those of great wealth (and no achievement), while using the least amount of “government”?

Perhaps the British approach to creating new “peerage” is a clue.

In the usual case, and as our society and economy is currently organized, we want great tax on great wealth. As currently organized, only a very small proportion is able to acquire great wealth. Of that portion that gathers great wealth, only a small portion can put that wealth to good use.

We need another filter – something that separates passive-rich from the worthy-rich.

Could we use something like the British peerage system? Those publicly recognized as exceptional should get a lower (or no) tax rate. Recognition could come from the government, or from a small number of entitled organizations. The number of entitlements should be limited, and some measure put on the organization (including and especially government agencies) allowed to grant entitlements.

An interesting exercise would be to express this notion in terms of a series of empirical measures. A healthy sum would include both individual or group judgment in granting economic privilege.

What is a Scientist?

I have a clear notion. There are two parts. The first part is a pattern of thought. The second is depth of training in a particular area of expertise. My college degree is in Physics, but only a four-year degree. In Physics a four-year degree is only a fraction of the way to competence, so I am not a Physicist.

There is a pattern of thought essential to a good scientist (or a really good engineer). Of this I am quite certain. You need to be a good observer. You need to be a good skeptic. You need to be thoroughly analytical. This part is easy for me. My father was a good engineer. I read quite a lot, and before college had learned to be a good, skeptical, and analytical observer. The aim in college is to teach you this new mode of thought, and beyond this to transfer some of the wisdom acquired through experience by your instructors.

Of course, following the usual human tendency, I assumed my peers were at least as good at this mode of thought as was I.

In college, I did not need to learn a new mode of thought. The time in college I very much valued, as it seems that the hints from experience offered by my instructors fully sunk home. Those same lessons became so deeply embedded in my way of thought that I could not imagine a true “scientist” applying anything less.

What later I found is that “scientists” very often miss the obvious – or what I thought should be obvious. The lessons from my college professors (in Physics – admittedly the “hardest” science), suggest an analytical path that many scientists do not fully follow. This I have the hardest time understanding. Could it be that not having to acquire a new mode of thought meant I absorbed more from my instructors?

I do not know. By my standards, I am not a scientist. But … I very often come up with (what seems to me) obvious questions, on reading about the works of some scientists. Even more surprising – it seems very often to turn out that my (distinctly amateur) questions lead to interesting answers. How can that be so often true?

I am not a scientist, but perhaps I am a bit more than an intelligent layman. Maybe that long-ago acquired mode of thought made more of a difference than I expect.