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Stu Savory's Blog
http://www.savory.de/blog.htm
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Monday, 31st October, 2005
Hollow-een: am I an empty-eyed pumpkin?
NO! My humour is that of a pun gent / fun guy ;-) Saturday, 29th October, 2005
A day without oilThink green!Oil is getting more expensive and scarce. So I took part in an experiment to raise our awareness of how dependent our life styles are on oil. The task "Spend a weekday as normal but consuming as little oil (and energy) as possible. Record the changes in your lifestyle." I awoke at 5:55 to the hideous clang of the mechanical alarm clock, which had been ticking loudly all night, disturbing my sleep. I'd pretended that there was no electricity to run the clock/radio/alarm. Sun just coming up, so no need to switch on any lights. Down to the cellar and switch off the oil-heating which would otherwise fire up at 6 am. No warm bath this morning, just a cold shower. Effing and blinding cold shower. Dress normally but add a sweater. Take the dog for a walk, to let her do her business. Make the walk longer but faster than usual to get warmed up. 1 km instead of 300 meters. Happy dog :-) No coffee, because I'm pretending the electricity is out. I cheated here, because I left the deep-freeze and refrigerator running and the telephone plugged in. Walk, not drive, the 1.5 km to the village baker and back to get bread rolls for breakfast as usual, and a newspaper. Happy dog, liking the second walk. Breakfast as usual, except cold tapwater not coffee. Then walk - not drive- the 3kms round trip to the nearest shop (in the next village) to buy vittles for lunch and evening meal, fresh milk etc. Full shopping basket is surprisingly heavy :-( This shopping trip takes an hour not 10 minutes. Dog surprised at yet another loooong walk, sleeps immediately upon return :-) Lunch (and dinner) are a cold meal, I'm pretending there's no electricity. Do the dishes by hand in cold water. Thrice :-( Do a lot of reading in the afternoon, because neither TV, nor HiFi nor PC work without electricity. After sunset, use a candle. Bicycle 2kms to the pub and back. And so to bed... I'm just glad that I didn't need to visit the doctor (7 kms away, all uphill), nor visit the vet (11kms away), nor go into town (20 kms away, i.e. an hour on a bicycle, one way). The nearest town is Paderborn. Actually it is a city, by virtue(sic) of having an RC cathedral. The pope comes every thousand years. I meant 'visits' , I wasn't talking about the pope's sexual prowess. Although his boss is even less sexy, we're still waiting for His second coming ;-) I'm also grateful for it being a mild autumn, it was 21°C, even at the end of october. A winter test would not be as much fun :-( My usual average daily use of the car is 76 kms (why?), which at 8 litres/100km represents 6 litres of Super Plus, makes 8.50 Euros. My average autumn use of the house heating would be about 10 liters of oil daily, makes also 8 Euros. Electricity in Germany is the most expensive in Europe, at 13,34 cents/KWh before taxes. In neighbouring Denmark, for comparison it costs only 9.27 cents/KWh (why?). I didn't keep track of the electricity consumption (I forgot). I walked about 6 kms more than usual, taking about 1½ hours to do so. Add 3kms bicycling (20 mins). So it was probably a fitter day for me too, both the dog and I slept well afterwards. Tired feet though ;-) So it was do-able, but an experiment which made me aware of our oil and power dependency. Try it yourselves, and blog your results :-) Thursday, 27th October, 2005
Your answers rocketed in...... so thankyou, all who put me straight :-)Apparently my mental model of the partially empty fuel tank in monday's blog-entry is wrong. Carl wrote : "re your problem set today on rocket fuel.......think vapour pressure. the fluid is volatile, so you won't have blobs of fuel surrounded by vacuum, but a gradient of vapour pressure. Another point with your theory, if you pump the stuff out, what fills the void? and at what point does the pump cease to be efficient?" Susan said "You're blowing my mind, Stu! Two college degrees does not
a rocket scientist make." Jane suggested pressurising the tank with H2O2, to which I replied : "Pressurising the tank with H2O2 or whatever doesn't work either, Jane, because in free fall the gas has no plane surface to 'push' on, see figure 3 of my blog, because the plane surface (see fig 2) is only formed by a gravitational/accelerational field :-(" Wrong answer, sorry! Dirk tells me there is a membrane in the tank providing the plane surface to 'push' on. He points me to this Apollo/Saturn page. He quotes : "To achieve positive expulsion of propellants, both the oxidizer and the fuel are in bladder containers inside storage tanks. Gas is induced between the tank wall and the bladder to provide a "squeezing" pressure that forces propellant to the engines. The pressurant which forces the oxidizer and fuel to the engine is helium. The pressurization system includes a storage tank, component packages and pressure regulation group." You can always trust a cryptographer to devote himself to a problem and not let go until he's solved it. Tanks Dirk :-) Dirk also pointed me to this loooong explanatory site. I also know a couple of the cosmonauts who rode in the MIR, so I'm expecting to get a book "Space Engineering 101" or some such title, in the post from Kasachstan any day soon. Mind you, it'll be in Russian, so that'll be an even slower read for me, Ctyapt Cabopu :-) Wendy wrote : "...one of the things I like about your blog is that you never really know what you're going to get (although I admit I do like cryptograms). So sorry, not much help there..." No matter, Wendy; as you see, my blogreaders were able to clarify my question within just a couple of days. The blogosphere is a hive-mind, methinks :-) Monday, 24th October, 2005
This IS rocket science, therefore ...... I need your help to understand something :-) How do you restart a liquid-fuelled rocket engine which is in free fall? Obviously this is possible and is done regularly, after all, there are cosmonauts in the ISS right now. I just want to understand how orbiting engines are restarted. Let me explain the problem as I see it, kicking off with 3 diagrams. 
The basic schematic is of the (monopropellant) liquid fuelled rocket is shown on the left. The pumps at the bottom of the tank suck out the liquid fuel from the tank and pressurise it before feeding into the (high-pressure) combustion chamber. Understood. When the rocket is in a gravitational field or is accelerating, the centre diagram applies to a partially full tank. The acceleration holds the remaining fuel (red) at the bottom of the tank, where the pump's inlet is. So the pump can suck the fuel out of the partially empty tank. Understood. When the rocket is in free fall (e.g. in orbit) the schematic on the right surely applies? There is no acceleration or gravitational pull to pull the fuel to the 'bottom' of the tank. Indeed the tank has no 'bottom' and 'top' although it may have a 'fore' and an 'aft'. So, I think the fuel will float around in the tank as bubbles, blobs held together by surface tension, as I have suggested in the schematic on the right, maybe surrounded by fuel vapour. So the pump has nothing to suck on, unless by chance a fuel blob rests on its inlet. And if the pump cannot transfer fuel to the combustion chamber, then the engine cannot restart surely??? So how does the engine restart when in free fall? Your suggestions via email are welcome, especially those from real rocket-scientists and -engineers. I mailed a couple of known astro-geeks already. Gary Williams sent me this (400kB) PDF on rocket theory, which is quite good, but it doesn't answer THIS question. Gary suggested venting through the pumps, but I don't think that's how it's done. Susan Cook didn't answer(yet). So I mailed the ESA (European Space Agency), after all, they live off my tax money, but they haven't answered either :-( So now I'm asking all you blogreaders :- How do you restart a liquid-fuelled rocket engine which is in free fall? Friday, 21st October, 2005
The links you sent...
The nice thing about blogging is getting feedback mail. Of
my current 700+ daily readers
*,
some 100+ each month send me mail (ir)regularly. Often you send me links which I might like to read or about which you want me to write.
Today I'm blogging the best links which 23 sent this week, as they may be of interest to others.
BTW, 23 is the number of the Illuminati ;-) The photo on the left was sent from the UK by Cherie (NOT Blair!), it shows a special bloggers' keyboard :-) Politics : Remarking snidely that my pictorial
swipe at Angela Merkel is political black humour, Gretchen1(sic!) asks
Do women perceive color differently
from men? FYI, political parties in Germany are often referred to by their
chosen colours (Red = Socialists, Green = Ecologists, Black = Christian Union,
Brown = Fascists etc).
Catherine points me to
Michael Moore, but I guess y'all knew that link already too.
Same is probably true of the pointer to
JoHo whom many know already.
I forget who pointed me to
the Ruckus Society, but thanks.
Luke and I are
discussing levels of detail. Go Luke! Spooky Stuff: A fellow crypto-geek, Anon, points me to the Mich.U. site reprinting the WW2 US Army Field manual of Cryptography (FM 34-40-2 Basic Cryptanalysis). Also of interest to geeks is the annotated history of charactercodes. For the spook-trackers, here is the official site of the UK's MI6 : It describes the work of SIS, its parliamentary, ministererial, judicial and financial oversight. It provides information on operational, adminstrative, technical and scientific careers in SIS, and the recruitment process. There is a section on the history of SIS and biographical information on some of its previous chiefs. Military Notes : An army wife whose husband is in Iraq has this tip (sic!) for other army wives (NOT work safe!). And here's the battery maintenance schedule. More seriously, Luke has a Flash video showing just how many nukes the US military have stockpiled :-( Music : Musician Joe pointed me to a couple of contractual obligation albums (alba? albi? what's the plural of album?). Here's Van Morrison's. And here's Monty Python's. Haggiswurst pointed me to the Rammstein video player (high bandwidth recommended). Education : here's where to go for some fun with numbers. And Wendy, writing from China, tells me that 666 is no longer the number of the Beast, but that some consider it to be 616, by using a Greek explanation raher than a Latin one. Ivan points me to a Kuroshin piece about Relativity, Uncertainty, Incompleteness and Undecidability. And I think it was James who told me about Pupils Wot Shouda Done Betta In Exams ;-) Motorcycling : Here's a link to the blog of an around-the-World-Rider on his Journey of Adventure & Discovery. You may also like Allan Karl's world-riding blog Digital Tavern. Sundry other links : Fellow pilot Peter points me well ahead of the date to the
Farnborough International
Airshow 2006 Public Day Information. Jean, an UK girl, knows I am a Bulldog fan
and asks if
this story
is relevant? No, Jean :-( Helen Brown (San Rafael) is into bulldogs too :-) Bad news last : the H5N1 flu blog is here. Jimmy relates that our beloved home country - Scotland - is now the "most violent place in the developed world" (except Irak of course, where trained foreign killers roam the streets). Finally, Diane Fry is quitting her blog because she needs to focus on her mentally-challenged youngest son. All the best, Diane! I enjoyed reading you :-) Wednesday, 19th October, 2005
National German Rail museum burns down :-(
The turntable storage hall at the German (DB) railway museum in Nurnburg has burnt down. All 24 unique engines were destroyed. The photo shows the Adler replica, built in 1935 to celebrate the centenary of the original Adler of 1835, the first train to run (between Nürnberg and Fürth) in Germany. The Adler was the German equivalent of Stevenson's Rocket in the United Kingdom. Also destroyed were "23-105" (ex 1959), the last steam engine ordered for the national network, "45-010" (ex 1941), the strongest goods engine, 6 historic Diesels, 3 early electrics, a V 200, and an early Berlin subway train (ex 1913). I don't know about the fate of the all glass observation train. The loss represents about 20% of the stock of the national rail museum, in financial terms probably 40 million Euros, value for us steam fans, inestimable :-( The name Adler means 'Eagle'. Let us hope that it turns out to be a Phoenix instead, rising from the ashes, as did the UK's National Motorcycle Museum after their disastrous fire a couple of years ago. Motorcycle friend Alex Prigge (currently touring Australia!) and I visited the UK's National Motorcycle Museum before its fire, and Matthias Sander did so both before the fire and after the successful restoration. Here is his photo report on the UK National Motorcycle Museum. Tuesday, 18th October, 2005
Pressed Rat and Warthog reopen their shop! +
Autumn(Fall) is coming and the leaves are taking on beautiful colours. Also, the primary school children are back to school and have to show their vacation 'project'. A couple of the local 9-year old girls decided to make a scrapbook of lots of different leaves as they turn into their autumn colours. I remember doing this as a child too, it was the teacher's sneaky way of getting me to teach myself some botany ;-) So we pressed the leaves and labelled them carefully. These two leaves I scanned as well. They are from the vines growing up the walls of my house. Beautiful! The words 'pressed leaves' triggered an associative memory of 'Pressed rat and warthog'. Not, as you might expect(orate), a canned product made by Fra Bent-Arse by appointment to the court of Lord Vetinari, with the rejects being sold off by CMOT Dibbler, it is in fact the title of a surreal song by the Cream. Lyrics here. The Cream were a wildly successful 60's group, Jack Bruce (bass), Ginger Baker(drums) and God i.e. Eric Clapton (on guitar). Just the other day, JR over at Noded blogged that the very first vinyl he bought was a Cream album. His blog may have triggered the memory. Back in 1968 when Cream gave their Goodbye concert, I was one of the ' headbangers in the third row'. I have all the Cream records, both on vinyl and CDs; eat your heart out, JR ;-) Earlier this year, however, Pressed Rat and Warthog reopened their shop, i.e. Cream got together again for a reunion concert. The DVDs are great, JR, and I can recommend them to anyone. There is a review of the Cream Reunion DVD set online, go read it & buy the DVD set! Another series of reunion concerts is booked at Madison Square Garden in New York City in October 2005. Sold Out to lucky New Yorkers! Boy, do I envy y'all!! Sunday, 16th October, 2005
Titty Fritty : twenty years after...
Returning from his travels, Haggiswurst has been watching reruns of the 1980's German TV program Titty Fritty, porn for the couch-potato krisp krunchers. (T)it was a top-of-the-topless (i.e. brainless) excuse for Josef.Q.Durchschnitt and Hugo Egon Balder to get their rocks off. In stark contrast, we now are about to have the 21st century follow-up on TV 7 days a week, reflecting the currently austere state of the German economy, Mizz A.Merkel, the new german Chancellor in-spe as shown above in all her attractiveness. Surely there ought to be a new Rammstein Video in the making, with a political message somewhere between "Amerika" and "Highway to Hell" ? Thursday, 13th October, 2005
Pop-Up Toadstools...
There's not mush room on our smallish front lawn. Or so we thought on monday afternoon. Then my better ¾ and I - 'er indoors - Mrs.S - went to the pub. Always a good idea, but especially after the Octoberfest. You see, the brewers are dead scared of embarassing themselves by running out of beer there. So they brew a bit more, just in case (just in barrels, actually). A bit more? Like two million liters more? Eight mio, whereas only 6 mio were imbibed at the Octoberfest. So the left-overs get barrelled up and sent to pubs around the country. The pubs then do a bavarian week, with typical bavarian food, and the Octoberfest beer left overs. Great :-) So after a sumptious meal - definitely not for non-carnivores - and plenty of the 'Märzen' ale, we staggered home at closing time. Only to see that the front lawn had transformed itself - in the short space of five or six hours - into a frenzy of fungi - a topside of toadstools - a medley of mushrooms! Well I do know that the fungus itself resides underground and just drags up its reproductive organs (towed-tools?) for show on these dark and dank autumn nights - just like any pop-star really - but I was nevertheless surprised at how many came, and so quickly (the fungi, not the pop-stars). So, the next morning I took this photo for you, since they were not edible, otherwise it would have been : into the frying pan, bacon and egg added, and off to cure my hangover! Hangover? Yup! From the Märzen, not the Pilz ;-) Saturday, 8th October, 2005
One Flu : via the cuckoo's nest?
On thursday I called three doctors' surgeries to try to get my regular winter Flu immunisation shot. No deal :-( I was told that the manufacturer was having difficulty producing it, and was asked to call back in a fortnight. More likely the available shots are going to essential medical personnel, policemen, and other people needed to keep the country's infrastructure running. I bet the politicians have got theirs too ;-) Were I paranoid, I'd think the gummint wanted to reduce the load on the state's pension fund by letting us old fogies die off first, by refusing us the shots! Can't be true tho' (or else it's bad planning) because the priests, funeral parlour personnel and morgue people haven't got their shots either. Mind you, the existing vaccine doesn't stop you from getting the H5N1 flu, it just reduces the likelihood of you passing it on, AFAIK. The H5N1 strain of avian flu has a mortality rate of 50%, so if we get a pandemic, there'll be a lot of dead. Governmental pandemic planning appears to be weak here in Germany too. What can YOU do to avoid getting the H5N1 flu? CATCH 22 : Scarcely have I finished writing about illness and death (or, as pTerry would say, DEATH) and go to upload this posting, than I discover that the blog-hosting server (http://home.egge.net) went down Friday 19:10 CEST. Pinging it over a period of 2 hours got no response :-( My provider www.eggenet.de only has maintenance personnel there 8/5 (rather than 24/7) so it may be monday morning before I can post this. Who cares? Not Eggenet! Thursday, 6th October, 2005
Shaken, not stirred...
The HNF (www.hnf.de) have only announced it in German, so I'm taking the liberty of announcing the exhibition for them in English, if they're too lazy to translate :-( The HNF is in Paderborn, Germany. Nearest airport is Paderborn-Lippstadt, from whence a bus will get you into town (20 miles away) cheaper than a taxi. The exhibition should be of interest to Bruce, Dave, David, Derek, Dirk, Ivan, John, Karl, Markus, Mohammed, Shirley and Valerie as well as any other spooks reading this. The exhibition is mainly about cold-war spies' equipment, or what James Bond would have called "Q's stuff". The exhibition runs from October first until 27th of November, and no, I haven't seen it yet, but I'll be going next week, mail me if you'd like to join me. It includes stuff from the CIA, the KGB and the Stasi put together by Dr. Heinrich Peyers from Peine. Millimeter sized bugs, hidden in an olive (for the shaken-not-stirred martini?), Minox cameras, cases for agents with false bottoms (the cases, not the agents!), pistol hidden in an electric hand-drill etc. etc. Various small devices from Q's workshop, James Bond's BMW, all the Bond film posters, and an original dress belonging to Mata Hari are on display. The reverse side of the coin, interrogation, torture and firing-squads are covered as well :-( There's a lavishly illustrated PDF flyer (in German) on their website. The evening lectures sound good too. The managing director of the HNF is my friend Norbert Ryska, who co-authored the first book in German about the DES (Data Encryption standard) about 30 years ago; they have a really good collection of crypto stuff too, spanning the centuries. Somehow, this all reminds me of the terrible crossword clue "Sheik N knots turd!" ;-) |
Blogs that I read Apathetic Nation Betsy Devine Blogging in Paris Bulldog Blog Dirk Rijmenants Doug Alder Easy Bake Coven Elaine Kalilily Frank Paynter Haggiswurst Jeneane Sessum Jonny B's secret diary Just My Opinion Knowprose Make: Blog Making Light Mandarin Design Mercurial Mike Golby Noded Old fash. patriot Shelley Powers Special Constable TFS Reluctant The (UK) Policeman Neat Listening 
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