Heroes of Science

I recently read about an soon-to-be-released movie titled The Fall. I was immediately interested for a number of reasons. The trailer makes it clear that visually it is quite stunning. Some descriptions of it call it a combination of Pan's Labyrinth, Big Fish, and the comic version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (far far superior to the movie). And the lead is also the star of a tv show I enjoy a great deal, Pushing Daisies.

The movie appears to follow a band of five heroes (at least in a story-within-a-story structure). Which brings me to what may be my favorite part: one of the heroes is Charles Darwin. I just think that is a fantastic idea; I just haven't come up with the proper cliched action-hero catchphrases for the good doctor. "You've been naturally selected... for an ass-kicking!"

It also doesn't hurt that the score to the trailer is one of my favorite pieces of music, the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Supposedly Schubert and Wagner thought it was the greatest piece ever written.

Surreal

It's like Zippy the Pinhead, surreal and inscrutable: Garfield minus Garfield.

That Money Is Rightfully Mine

This is an incredible article, about the salvage team that righted a car carrier off of Alaska last year. It's especially interesting because all of the naval architecture problems discussed are types I've solved on the job. Not all together, in a unique situation like with the Cougar Ace incident, but I know I could do everything they did, engineering-wise. However, the article makes it clear just how dangerous the work is: one of the team (the nav arch, actually) died during the effort. An excellent piece, about one of the more adventurous forms of engineering.

Helicopter. Autogyro. Cyclogyro

I've always thought autogyros were fairly clever contraptions, and I find their "Frankenstein's Airplane" look amusing. Well, they may have been topped. Engineers in Singapore have built a functioning cyclogyro.

The concept is similar to cycloidal propellers sometimes used on ships. A set of blades is arranged to revolve around an axis that parallels their length. The pitches of the blades are varied as they revolve, adjusting the net thrust. So the same blades can provide lift and thrust. With two sets, one on each side of the craft, the thrust differentials can be used to spin the around the vertical or longitudinal axis.

Cycloidal propellers on ships have always interested me - they are often used for vessels that need extreme manueverablity. I remember learning about them while reading about the exploration of the Titanic wreck. The ship that supported the first exploration dives was equipped with them, allowing for precise station-keeping while controlling the ROV at the end of a 5 mile long cable. I never considered the possibility the same concept would be viable for aircraft.

Busboys, Poets, Mexican Gangsters, Assassins

I spent a really enjoyable afternoon in Shirlington yesterday. For those who don't know it, Shirlington is an odd little oasis of restaurants, theaters, and businesses in Arlington. It's not really connected to the nearby neighborhoods. It just sits by the side of the I-395, near the Condo Canyon. Recently, it has been changing a great deal. Previously, it was a collection of businesses in high-rises (WETA headquarters is there) with a single street of restaurants and some shops, terminating in the movie theater. Now there Signature Theater has built a new home there, sharing space with a branch of the city library. New shops like CakeLove, more cafes, high-rise condos, a big grocery store - all have opened up recently. So it is quite lively, a sort of suburban downtown, not as far as DC, not as congested as Old Town.

I went to lunch at the cafe/bookstore Busboys and Poets, which was fun. It was extremely crowded - so much so they had to use the little "Your table is ready" buzzers like Ruby Tuesdays. They fixed me up with a delicious barbecue chicken panini. I was tempted by the peanut butter and banana panini - the Elvis Special. Maybe next time.

Because of the crowd, I just barely made it through lunch in time to get over to the movie theater for the showing of No Country for Old Men. I'm a big fan of all of the movies the Coen Brothers have made. I find they fall into two types: comedic capers (Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Ladykillers, O Brother Where Art Thou?) and tragic thrillers (Fargo, Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple). No Country is clearly one of the latter. Of course, it retains a great deal of their signature humor, mostly of the gallows variety.

After watching the movie, I am forced to agree with what many reviewers have said. The Coens are less interested in the mechanics of the plot - who gets what, wins, loses, etc. - than in the question "why do they do these things?" It doesn't hurt that the many switches and turns of the story have the players reversing roles constantly. To steal a line, it is less a game of cat and mouse than a game of cat and also cat. It's a very tense film, but not in an artificial way - scenes play out slowly, ratcheting up, without feeling drawn out or stretched. If you like any of the other movies by the Coens, I recommend you beat feet down to the movies and see it on the big screen while you still can.

Lost Moon

I watched the initial minutes of the lunar eclipse tonight, using binoculars and my old refracting telescope. I took some pictures, but they did not turn out well:




A proper photograph looks like this:


(via heycalifornia.blogspot.com)

It was cold and clear out, which made for good seeing. Unfortunately, it was very cold, with pretty decent breezes. I managed to stay out until most of the disk was in the umbra (total shadow), but came back in to warm up. I will go out for one last look before turning in, though.

I hope it was cold and clear wherever you were, and you got a chance to see this fairly rare and beautiful phenomenon.

EDIT: The next total lunar eclipse visible here will be on December 21st 2010, but the real show to look for is August 21st, 2017.

Snownarok

After a long winter of varying temperatures and little snow, today we are finally getting a nice coating. I should say "nice for DC." I've become so used to snowless winters that this seems remarkable. And at this "late" date, too. I was working outside in a t-shirt last Saturday. This weather will of course lead to widespread panic.

I had an odd thought at work today. My job is very episodic, in the sense that it is clearly broken up into arcs, not unlike the plot arcs of many tv shows. I'm sure in some degree this is true of many jobs - you work on one project, finish it, and move on to the next. However, I've noticed that my projects seem to vary quite a bit. There is the common thread of ships and engineering, of course. But a month ago my job was to be a researcher and writer. Today, I was a statistician with side helpings of physicist and computer programmer. And in a few weeks, depending on if we get particular contracts, I could be a middle-manager, an accountant, an electromagnetics analyst, or a draftsman.

I'm curious if this is the case for most people. It wasn't true at my one other "real" job working in the bookstore. It was all pretty book-related: finding books, selling books, buying used books - not a lot of variety. And even what little there was, it would all come in a farrago over the course of a day. Not like this job, where I'll often do one sort of job for a week or even months, then suddenly switch to another. It demands a certain flexibility

In other news, I wonder what the hell is going on here:

(via MAKE)