I was looking for a picture the other day and I stumbled across this piece of obsessive craftsmanship. It is a model of a real engine that was originally developed in the early 1950's for marine use. The pieces for the model were machined using CNC equipment.
I copied the photos from the last two web pages and put them in a slide show because I like slide shows. I don't like having to fool around with a bunch of pointing and clicking just to see the next picture.
You might want to enable captions and then step through the photos manually so you can read them, instead of just letting it play automatically. I would have changed the default settings if there were some way to do that.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Airplane Stories
Alaska: The FAA wants to increase the number of pilots who have licenses to 50%.
Ed story #1. Ed has several small, light aircraft that he flys off of his personal landing strip. One day, perhaps when he was coming in for a landing, he clipped a telephone pole with his wing. The impact caused the plane to spin around the pole until it came to rest on the ground. Ed wasn't hurt, and the plane was not too badly damaged, and it wasn't his "good" airplane anyway.
But somebody saw the wreck and called it in and pretty soon the site was swarming with authorities. The FAA wanted to put a black mark on Ed's record, but there was no record. Ed had never gotten a pilot's license. So the FAA sicked the local Sheriff on him, and the Sheriff came out and talked to Ed a couple of times, but eventually he too went away. And Ed went back to flying.
Ed story #2. Ed lives out in the country and his little airstrip ends at the road. One day the local power company came out and installed a power line along the road providing power to all the people living in the valley. The power line is along the road, the airstrip ends at the road, the powerline is across the end of the runway. Not good for Ed.
So he complains to the power company. They tell him his airstrip isn't registered, it isn't marked down on their map, and they aren't going to do anything about it. Ed goes home and shoots the power line. The line breaks, and all the lights downstream from Ed's place go out.
The power company comes out, fixes the line and yells at Ed. Ed doesn't say anything. An hour after the trucks leave, he shoots the line down again. The next day we have a repeat scenario: the power company sends a crew out to fix the line and a representative to yell at Ed, and once again, an hour after the trucks leave, Ed shoots the line down.
A couple of days later the power company shows up with backhoes and trenchers and buries the powerline where it crosses the end of the runway.
Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.
Mark to Market
My wife and I sat down with Bob, our stock broker / financial advisor, yesterday and talked about the end of the world as we know it. One bit of insight that Bob shared with us is that banks are required to carry the value of the collateral for the loans they make at market value. Or at least they were. The rules might be changing a little bit.
When banks make loans, they require some collateral as insurance against the possibility that you will fail to pay back the loan. Cars and houses are typical. The bank holds the title to the car or house until you have paid off the loan. Only then does the property really become yours. If you fail to pay back the loan, the bank can repossess the property and then sell it to recoup their money.
The way banks work is a little bit like a Ponzi scheme, mixed with some religion. Theoretically, banks take deposits of money, and then lend that money out to people who can make use of it. But what actually happens it that they hold the deposits and use that as a basis for borrowing money from some higher authority (The Federal Reserve maybe? The Vatican? It doesn't really matter, some mysterious organization that has the POWER!). The banks then lend out the money they have borrowed.
So why this rigamarole? One word: multiplier. The Higher Authority will lend your local bank up to six times as much money as the bank has on deposit. The bank takes in a million dollars in deposits and pays 2 or 3% interest. They then borrow 6 million from central and pay some interest (prime, maybe?) and then lend out the six million at a slightly higher rate. Say they mark up their loans 3%. The first million they lend out pays the interest on the million dollars they took in deposits, and the interest on the other five million is theirs. 3% on five million dollars is $150,000, enough to hire a couple of tellers and pay the rent on the office. Not very much, but then this is a small example.
The Higher Authority also comes around and checks the books at the banks they lend money to, and one of their bookkeeping requirements is that there is enough collateral on the books to cover all the money they have lent out. And here is the rub. The value of the collateral is not the value it had when they made the loan, it is it's current market value. (Mark the value down in your books as the current market value, or "Mark To Market"). So when the housing market collapses and all those houses they have made loans on lose much of their value as collateral, Higher becomes unhappy and restricts the amount of money the local bank can borrow, which restricts the amount of money the bank can lend, which means credit gets tighter all the way around.
No wonder banks are reluctant to unload houses at their market value. As long as they don't sell the house, they might be able to pretend that the market value is still what it originally sold for, and so preserve their borrowing power with Higher (shorthand I picked up from Abby). I'm thinking they should be renting those houses, but that might entail the same kind of problem.
When banks make loans, they require some collateral as insurance against the possibility that you will fail to pay back the loan. Cars and houses are typical. The bank holds the title to the car or house until you have paid off the loan. Only then does the property really become yours. If you fail to pay back the loan, the bank can repossess the property and then sell it to recoup their money.
The way banks work is a little bit like a Ponzi scheme, mixed with some religion. Theoretically, banks take deposits of money, and then lend that money out to people who can make use of it. But what actually happens it that they hold the deposits and use that as a basis for borrowing money from some higher authority (The Federal Reserve maybe? The Vatican? It doesn't really matter, some mysterious organization that has the POWER!). The banks then lend out the money they have borrowed.
So why this rigamarole? One word: multiplier. The Higher Authority will lend your local bank up to six times as much money as the bank has on deposit. The bank takes in a million dollars in deposits and pays 2 or 3% interest. They then borrow 6 million from central and pay some interest (prime, maybe?) and then lend out the six million at a slightly higher rate. Say they mark up their loans 3%. The first million they lend out pays the interest on the million dollars they took in deposits, and the interest on the other five million is theirs. 3% on five million dollars is $150,000, enough to hire a couple of tellers and pay the rent on the office. Not very much, but then this is a small example.
The Higher Authority also comes around and checks the books at the banks they lend money to, and one of their bookkeeping requirements is that there is enough collateral on the books to cover all the money they have lent out. And here is the rub. The value of the collateral is not the value it had when they made the loan, it is it's current market value. (Mark the value down in your books as the current market value, or "Mark To Market"). So when the housing market collapses and all those houses they have made loans on lose much of their value as collateral, Higher becomes unhappy and restricts the amount of money the local bank can borrow, which restricts the amount of money the bank can lend, which means credit gets tighter all the way around.
No wonder banks are reluctant to unload houses at their market value. As long as they don't sell the house, they might be able to pretend that the market value is still what it originally sold for, and so preserve their borrowing power with Higher (shorthand I picked up from Abby). I'm thinking they should be renting those houses, but that might entail the same kind of problem.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Squeaky Wheel
Eric's next suspect, if the belt didn't fix the squeak, was the tensioner.
So I suspect what happened was that the tensioner (or some other pulley that rides against the flat side of the belt) is getting a little hard to turn in it's old age, and the glazed surface of the belt is not providing enough traction to turn the uncooperative pulley. When the pulley finally did break loose ... hmm, my train of logic breaks down here.
Anyway, the squeak is gone, at least temporarily.
Update January 2017 replace missing image.
Economic notes from the Hinterland
Iowa Man writes:
Theoretically speaking, wind turbines seem like a pretty good idea. Free power, or at least power without any fuel. But each of these turbines cost around $2.5 million installed. How long is it going to take to pay that back? Evidently some people think the payback time is reasonable.
And then there's the feeling I get when I see these things. Mostly they are installed in open fields, and it just strikes me that there is something wrong with sticking these enormous spindly structures in the middle of the fields. Maybe it's just my attraction to "wide open spaces", and there is no real good basis for my feelings.
And then there are the birds. I came across one story that claimed most bird strikes happened with older, smaller and faster spinning turbines, and since the newer turbines spin slower, it shouldn't be a problem. Well, the rotational speed of these turbines is much lower, taking maybe six seconds to complete a revolution, but the diameter is much larger and so the linear velocity at the outer ends of the blades is much higher. For a turbine with 130 foot long blades, turning at ten RPM (six seconds per revolution), the linear velocity at the tip of the blade is over 90 MPH.
Talking to a Bob, a older guy that mows lawns in his spare time. A big time Cubs fan in a town where your either a Cubby or Cardinals fan.Some links:
Bob works at Pinnacle Foods, which everyone calls Armour, recalling its' earlier owner.
He receives 2,000 pound, pallets of frozen deboned beef and pork. Placed into a large pot heated with spices and other ingredients, voila Chili, Beef stew or something else.
Bob says he has never seen it so busy. They are running 12 hour shifts 7 days a week. The weak economy is good for them, people are buying up cheap food.
Pinnacle is owned by the Blackstone Group which is traded as BX on the NYSE.
The stock is languishing but paying 16%
- Wikipedia article on Pinnacle Foods
- Pinnacle Foods Corporate website
- Hoover's fact sheet on Pinnacle Foods
- Wikipedia article on The_Blackstone_Group
- Hoover's fact sheet on The Blackstone Group
Also Siemens started shipping its wind turbine blades (130') by rail from Fort Madison: Pretty amazing site, will try to get some pics.The photo that accompanied the story about the wind turbine blades is pretty pitiful, so I went and collected some more off the net.
Theoretically speaking, wind turbines seem like a pretty good idea. Free power, or at least power without any fuel. But each of these turbines cost around $2.5 million installed. How long is it going to take to pay that back? Evidently some people think the payback time is reasonable.
And then there's the feeling I get when I see these things. Mostly they are installed in open fields, and it just strikes me that there is something wrong with sticking these enormous spindly structures in the middle of the fields. Maybe it's just my attraction to "wide open spaces", and there is no real good basis for my feelings.
And then there are the birds. I came across one story that claimed most bird strikes happened with older, smaller and faster spinning turbines, and since the newer turbines spin slower, it shouldn't be a problem. Well, the rotational speed of these turbines is much lower, taking maybe six seconds to complete a revolution, but the diameter is much larger and so the linear velocity at the outer ends of the blades is much higher. For a turbine with 130 foot long blades, turning at ten RPM (six seconds per revolution), the linear velocity at the tip of the blade is over 90 MPH.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
American Kleptocracy
While I voted for Obama, it wasn't because I thought he was so wonderful. Matter of fact I pretty much ignored the campaign, didn't watch any TV news and certainly didn't listen to any of the speeches.
I was voting against Bush. The scale of the looting being committed by him and his cronies was just getting out of control. Times up piggies, you've had your chance to stuff yourself, now it's time to let somebody else have a turn at the public trough. I mean, that's only fair, right? This is America after all and if nothing else we believe in being fair.
I was voting against Bush. The scale of the looting being committed by him and his cronies was just getting out of control. Times up piggies, you've had your chance to stuff yourself, now it's time to let somebody else have a turn at the public trough. I mean, that's only fair, right? This is America after all and if nothing else we believe in being fair.
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