Pic of the Day

Moscow from a unique angle

The cluster of skyscrapers is three miles west of St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square and the Kremlin.

Schitt's Creek

Schitt's Creek Season 1 Trailer
We watched the first couple of episodes this evening. They are only 20 minutes long. Very funny, with a full complement of wacko personalities.

Netflix

CT Scanner

CT at max speed
I had a CT scan done once. From the shape of the machine and from the noise it makes, I deduced that the innards must be rotating around the hole in the center. It's nice to have some confirmation. The medical profession is a lot like NASA. All their technical explanations are designed for little children. It means getting any real information requires digging.

House

Fixer-Upper

Younger son has been looking to buy a house in Portland. We went and looked at one yesterday, and today the very same house pops up on Oregon Live (the online version of our local paper).

Monday

Rebecca Gibney as Lola Buckley (left) and Geraldine Hakewill as Chelsea Babbage

We sat down to watch season 2 of Wanted Monday night and ended up watching all 6 episodes and not going to bed till after midnight. Haven't watched any TV since.

Season 2 is a continuation of the story that started in season 1, except the McGuffin has inexplicably changed from a duffel bag full of cash to a safe deposit box key. There were some bone headed maneuvers early on that had me yelling at the screen, which annoyed my wife. So after two episodes I started drinking beer and after that the screw-ups didn't bother me as much.

Much of the story depends on blind, dumb luck and coincidences. Frigging unlikely, but it could have happened, and truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, so I'll give them a pass.

The two women are an unlikely pair. The older one has spent a lifetime keeping her head down and staying out of sight. The younger one lived a very sheltered existence, but when they get dumped in the shit they become each other's best friend. Very Thelma and Louise, except they don't kill themselves. They don't even die, and I appreciate that.

Big Fancy Rocket

Making Life Multiplanetary

I do wish Elon had given the BFR a different name. I use the F-word frequently, but I try to refrain from using it in public, and my wife gives me grief if I use it, or any other blue words in her presence. Expletives have their place, but if every other word out your mouth is a curse, you're not doing it right.

BFR v Airbus 380 size comparison

The BFR is a big, new rocket project at SpaceX. It's going to be about the same size as an Airbus 380. It sounds like they intend to make it reusable, like their Falcon rockets, that is the boosters will return to their launch pad and safely land under their own power. This is quite a trick involving navigation, control and fuel management.


Falcon Heavy & Starman
The landing occurs near the end at 1:33.

There a couple of concepts at play here. One is that if it takes 90% of your initial mass to propel your rocket to top speed, it will take 90% of the remaining mass to decelerate it to zero. But since you only have 10% of your mass left after reaching your target speed, you only need 9% of your original mass to decelerate.

Since we are talking about boosters, we are disregarding the payload and a bunch of other stuff. The point is that after the booster has done its work by getting the payload on its way, it has used most of its fuel, and after dropping the payload, it is much like an empty beer can, it has relatively little mass and so is going to need very little fuel to return to the launch pad.

However, it is going to need some fuel, because it has a bunch of contortions to go through. First, when it drops off the payload it is going at near orbital speeds, on the order of miles per second, so it has to slow down. It has to slow down to zero before it can begin flying back to base. As its speed drops, gravity takes a bigger role. When its speed is zero it is like a big rock (or a big empty beer can) falling out of the sky. Now it needs to accelerate back towards the launch pad, which might be 100 miles away, but don't go too fast, because halfway back it will need to turn around and start decelerating for the landing. Speed up, turn around, slow down, speed up, turn around, slow down, and do this all while maintaining a heading that will keep you off of the ground and slow enough that you don't burn up in the atmosphere.

The Curse of Stuff

Self-storage lockers are the fastest growing business in the USA, at least according to the Internet. I can believe it. While we were raising our kids we were in heavy accumulation mode. You need stuff, so you buy it. But when you're done with it, if it hasn't been destroyed, you save it. I mean you paid good money for it, and maybe we'll need it again someday. Save it! It's valuable!

We are pretty settled in our ways now and most of that stuff is not going to be needed, we should get rid of it. But what if we do end up needing it? Buy a new one. The aggravation you save by not having to inventory a zillion things you probably will never need outweighs the tiny spark of joy you get when you realize that you need that widget you saved from 1909.

Goodwill is the obvious choice for some things, but not all. Things like tools. They are of interest to only a small proportion of the population, partly because firstly, only about 10% of the people have any aptitude for fixing things, and secondly because most modern devices cannot be fixed and should just be thrown away when they break.

I've been thinking I should put some ads on Craigslist to see if I can get rid of some of this stuff, but it's a hassle. It takes, time, you have to fill out forms, you have to be at least semi-organized, and you have to stick with it. It's a whole lot like work. My wife and I finally got together and started on this project. We've been at it for a couple of weeks and we've had some success. We've sold a couple of items and given away a couple of things and the relief we got from having them gone is palpable.

The hard part is setting prices. If you paid $500 for something that is still functional and useful (i.e. not obsolete), you don't want to let it go for $20. You're disrespecting the item, whatever it is. But you are unlikely to get $250 for it either, unless it's a musical instrument. There are two factors at play here. One is how much you want to get rid of it, and two is how long you are willing to wait. There are people out there who are religiously scanning the ads for bargains on stuff they can turn around and resell for a profit. But if you have some oddball stuff, it may be a few weeks before someone who can use it will bother to check the ads and give you a call.

I had a box of baseballs I was giving away. Took two weeks before anyone called. A $200 gas barbecue grill got no calls when it was priced at $100. At $50 it was gone in a week.