Lofoten Norway

Lofoten Norway

Lofoten is an archipelago.

Lofoten Norway

Lofoten has appeared here before.

Manhattan Dome

Buckminster Fuller's dome over Manhattan

From Wikipedia:

The Dome over Manhattan was a 1959 proposal for a 3-kilometer-diameter geodesic domed city covering Midtown Manhattan by the architects Buckminster Fuller and Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, Inc.

Fuller expanded on his earlier work designing geodesic domes and advocating for decreased use of resources, and made a variety of claims to support the "Dome Over Manhattan," such as that it would reduce energy usage in NYC to 20% of what it was in 1960.

The concept inspired the science fiction writer Ben Bova's story "Manhattan Dome" in the September 1968 issue of Amazing Stories, subsequently expanded into the 1976 novella City of Darkness. A Fuller dome over Manhattan also appeared in John Brunner's 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar.

Via Construction Physics

Spaceflight Disasters

Space Mirror Memorial

The Silicone Graybeard has a post up about death week:

America's Worst Week in Spaceflight - An Annual Remembrance

Horses

Lawn mower with big horsepower

Horses are great. Big, dangerous, and they take a lot of your time. But they are very cool.

Jigsaw Planet lets you choose the number of pieces you want to tackle from just a few up to 300. 300 piece puzzles take a while. Around 150 pieces is my preference these days. They take a little work but can knocked out pretty quickly, I'm guesstimating about 20 minutes.

Fun with doctors and plumbing

Yesterday morning I went to see Dr. Schmidt, the urologist. Mom went with me. He listens to my tale of woe and prescribes Oxybutinin. I'm already taking Tamsulosin to cope with an enlarged prostate gland. When the prostate gets enlarged it becomes more difficult for it to relax enough to let urine flow, so the bladder, a muscular organ, has to work harder to push the urine out. The Tamsulosin lets the prostate relax so the bladder doesn't have to work so hard. Near as I can tell, after a long period of having to deal with the recalcitrant prostate, the bladder gets to be in a state of constant tension. So now I've got Oxybutinin which is supposed to relax the bladder. I took this once before, about a year ago, for a month, and it helped, but now the same problems have returned, so it looks like I will be adding one more drug to the handful of pills I take every day.

Get done with all that and doc asks me if I want a prostate exam, cancer screening you know, and mom says yes. I'm pretty sure I had one of these a year ago, but with the two of them ganging up on me I submit. It's annoying and unpleasant, but it only takes a few seconds and I should be good for a couple of years. I suspect the doc offered to do it because he knows that medicare will pay him $25 for the exam and it will only take a minute. $25 for a minute works out to $1500 an hour, which is pretty good pay in anybody's book.

After 30 years the stopper in the sink in the upstairs hall bathroom bit the big one. Found one on Amazon for $5 and had it delivered. In the drawing above, note how the Pivot rod goes through a little ring at the bottom of the stopper. The ring had broken loose from the stopper but was still on the Pivot rod. The Pivot rod goes through a hole in the side of the drain pipe and is held in place with a nut. Unscrewing the nut allows the Pivot rod to be removed, but when you do that the ring is going to fall off into the P-trap. If might get flushed down the pipe and out the sewer, but it might just hang around there collecting other bits of trash and eventually block the trap. 

P-trap

Best to get it out. Normally, the P-trap can be easily removed, but because our custom cabinets have drawers underneath, there is a shelf directly under the P-trap, so in order to remove it I had to unscrew the down pipe that contained the Pivot rod access hole, which slid into the P-trap and allowed me to pull the whole thing out. Of course water pours out when you open the P-trap, but my brain was operating so I had an old towel on hand to mop up the spill. The back of the shelf had water stains that appeared to come from the shut off valves, but the valves were dry, so I just put everything back together. 

I'm working blind getting the Pivot rod into the hole in the new stopper, but must have I got it right  one because it's working.

This morning we drove out to North Plains to let the shutter man into our old neighbor's new house. They decamped for Palm Desert, and the shutters hadn't yet made it to shutter man, so we got to be the good neighbors. The shutter man got the worst of it. We had a ten minute drive from our house, but he had an hour and a half drive from Oregon City. Morning rush hour through some of the most congested highways. Normally that drive would take half that time.

We stopped at McDonalds and got a couple of breakfast burritos and coffees and it cost like $10. You order from a big flat-panel touch screen. Tap, tap, tap, tappity tap, tap, tap. Every item takes at least 3 taps, and final check out takes several more. It seemed a bit ridiculous, but we got through it. The only people we saw was one person behind the counter, one person mopping the floor and the person who delivered our order to our table. I don't know if I like this, but the food was fine and the price was excellent.

Now we head over to Providence Hospital on the east side where the striking nurses are out in full force. The parking garage was fuller than usual today. We parked on level F and took the elevator down. Sign by the elevator says level D for the skybridge, level C for walkway to main entrance. Get down to level C and find we have to take the stairs down one more level to get to the street level.

Mom gets checked in and the fire alarm goes off. Very loud and very obnoxious and everyone has to leave the building. Me, fearing the worst, suggests we start walking. I mean, who knows how long we are going to be stuck outside, and it's freezing. Maybe we can find a coffee shop. We walk two blocks and indeed we find a Starbucks where we order a couple cups of coffee and a couple of the smallest scones in the world for $15. Meanwhile, mom gets a message from her doctor in the same building, so she calls her back and finds that the fire drill is over and we can go back inside. Seems that was the third fire drill this morning, and it's only ten o'clock. If we hadn't gone to Starbucks we would still be standing outside, freezing, because god hates us.

The dexascan reports that mom's bone density has gone up, which is good. It looks like that her expensive personal training regimen is paying off.

I stop in the bathroom on our way out. I'm sitting on the toilet thinking I ought to send a note Providence to compliment the janitor for keeping the restroom so clean. Then I lean over, the toliet flushes and squirts me in the butt. Dang it! Apparently I leaned over far enough to trigger the automatic flush trigger. Bah. 

Wash my hands (at the sink) and reach for a towel. There is an automatic, wave-at-me towel dispenser. It  rolls out six inches of paper towel. Wave again and I now I have two pieces of paper towel, each six inches long, barely enough to qualify as one sheet. Try the other dispenser. It rolls out a nice long sheet, at least fifteen inches. So not all automatic gadgets are junk.

Back home we head to Walgreens to pick up my drugs. It looks like there are half a dozen spaces in the parking lot, but they're all allocated for special people. There is the requisite handicapped double spot, a spot to pick up online orders and two spots to charge your electric car. Is there an ordinary empty parking spot? Oh yes, there is! One. Bueno.

We go inside, I go to the pharmacy to pick up my drugs. They have some, but not the whole order. Serrrano tells me that the rest will be here this afternoon. I know his name is Serrano because he has it written in big letters on his forearm and when I asked him about it he told me.

I'm done and go look for mom. She's waiting in line to buy toothpaste. The only reason we're buying toothpaste here is because because Medicare or our health insurance gives us $25 a month to spend on stuff, presumably health related. Shoot, if you're gonna give me money, I'll take it. You'd have to be in pretty bad shape to need money for toothpaste, but I imagine there are scads of people who have been driven into the ground by effing Biden and his commie cohorts. The line is long, and I'm gonna have to come back anyway, so we head home, eat tuna salad for lunch and write this story.

Public Disorder - Netflix Series

Public Disorder | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Close up of a squad of riot police in Turin, Italy, watching them at work busting heads and at home dealing with the vicissitudes* modern life. We watched the first three episodes (roughly 45 minutes each) last night and they were pretty good.

Don't know if this squad ever does any regular police work, all we see is them going to war against violent protesters. First there's the protest against a new high-speed train, and then there's the football (soccer) hooligans. Doesn't seem to be a shortage of mayhem that needs to be contained, so there is plenty of work for these guys.

Besides riot control, the squad has plenty of internal problems, the first of which is the bureaucracy. During the first riot, their squad leader and a protester are severally injured. The squad leader is rendered paraplegic by an explosive thrown by a protester, and a protester falls into a coma after being beaten. The media blow up the story about the injured protester, and the bureaucrats predictably try to find someone to blame, but so far the cops are sticking to their story. Are the bureaucrats looking for the one who threw the bomb? No, they aren't, because that would make them enemies of the mob, and the mob is what put them in power.

Meanwhile, because of some undisclosed history, the replacement leader is treated with suspicion by the squad. Their first outing under the new leader is against the football hooligans and that is pretty much a disaster, although it's a little hard to tell who's to blame. The bureaucrats and the hooligans, from my point of view.

Then there are the squad's families and their problems. One woman is still fighting her ex-husband. He was a violent, abusive drunk, and ten years later she still hates him. He might have reformed, but he has not been forgiven. The replacement leader's daughter gets raped and boy-oh-boy, what a nightmare for that family.

Their third outing is the apparent simple job of escorting an immigrant and her two kids back to her state supplied apartment. Only problem is there is a crowd of 200 people between her and her front door. They manage to get her through the crowd and into her apartment, but the crowd is still there. She is reasonably afraid that once the police leave, they mob will attack and kill her. The bureaucrats maintain that the police have done their job and can now go home. The new squad leader refuses. Eventually, someone finds her a different place to live and the police escort her out. I think the new leader makes some points with the squad for this. We shall see.

I don't understand the attraction of mobs. I've been a few places where there were large numbers of people and the only time it was pleasant was when I was in a theater and everyone was sitting quietly. But then, there are a lot of things I don't understand. Like tattoos.

* vicissitudes of modern life. Heard that phrase somewhere and it stuck with me. Seemed like a good place to use it.

Russian OKNO Space Observation Complex

ОЭК ОКНО Нурек (Таджикистан) OKNO ( window) COMPLEX
asotano

The audio track is in Russian. You can get English subtitles by clicking on CC and then on the adjacent star / gear / settings icon, go Subtitles and then select English from the long list of languages. The subtitles are pert near incoherent, but if you mute the audio, you can get an idea of what this place is all about.

The lead picture on a Construction Physics post got me started.

OKNO

Pretty desolate looking place, except there's a lake. Probably ice cold.

I went looking for more information about this place. Wikipedia has a page. It's pretty sparse, but it had a link to a LiveJournal entry, however entry is denied, so I looked it up on the Wayback machine and found it. It's all in Russian. I got Google to translate it for me and here is the result:

---

"WINDOW" into outer space

14 Oct, 2011 at 5:35 PM

militarypenguin

So, I gathered my strength, put aside all urgent and not so urgent matters and chose a few photos to tell you about the unique object "Window", which I visited at the end of September.

"Okno" is an optical-electronic space control complex. It is located 9 km from the city of Nurek (Tajikistan) at an altitude of 2216 meters above sea level. The construction site was chosen in the 70s of the last century due to the properties of the atmosphere (transparency and stability) and the number of clear night hours (more than 1500 hours per year) - in the former USSR, areas with similar parameters exist only in the Caucasus, but the Nurek complex is located much further south and allows it to capture a larger number of objects.

The complex belongs to the Russian Space Forces, and has been operating in normal mode since 1999.

"Okno" allows for the detection, recognition and calculation of orbits of space objects in automatic mode at altitudes from 2000 to 40000 km and a size of more than one meter. The principle of operation is simple - space objects are detected by the sunlight they reflect. Space observation is carried out exclusively at night: both already known and newly discovered objects are recorded. In total, the complex's catalog contains 9,000 known space objects.

The road to the complex has not been repaired for many years, but according to the commander of the military unit, money for its major repairs has already been included in all budgets for next year. At the exit from the regular road towards the complex, there is a warning in Russian and Tajik.

The entire complex did not fit in my frame, but you can see the main parts in parts. The nearest building is the Command and Computing Center.

Space communication systems.

As in any military unit, a lot of attention is paid to the design and visual propaganda. :-) This hangs above the entrance to the Command and Computing Center.

The domes are precisely those very optical-electronic space probing complexes in a closed form. They do not work during the day, and therefore are closed.

View from the helipad to the Nurek hydroelectric power station reservoir.

And this is a view of the dacha of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon - there will be a separate post about the dacha, as it turned out, I was the first blogger there on the territory. Well, and there was one microblogger before me - Dmitry Medvedev.

All incoming information is displayed on these screens during the operation of the complex. During the day, of course, the screens are turned off.

The banner of the military unit, presented on July 11, 2009 by the commander of the Russian Space Forces, is also kept here.

Due to the sedentary nature of the work at the command post, officers have the opportunity to ride a stationary bike and use a jump rope. :-) Without leaving their workplace.

Due to the fact that duty at the facility is daily, the military eats here.

There are also other buildings on the territory in addition to the Command and Computing Center, they also have propaganda. :-)

Some objects have their own names. This one is named after the city of Noginsk in the Moscow region (pre-revolutionary name - Bogorodsk) due to the fact that the military unit has excellent relations with the city and the children of the military attend a school that is officially a branch of one of the Noginsk schools in Nurek.

Actually, we went into "Bogorodskaya" to see what was going on. We even opened the dome for a while so that we could take pictures from different sides.

The dome opens using a very simple system, understandable to any normal person with a higher technical education. ;-)

Actually, the telescope rotates in several planes.

And this is a neighboring object that is undergoing maintenance.

I went there to take a picture of "Bogorodskaya" from the side.

Here you can see a stand with information about the performance characteristics of the optical-electronic station - I wrote about them a little higher).

View from the helipad to part of the complex.

The complex is surrounded by an electrified fence.

And this is how the Okno complex looks from the dacha of the President of Tajikistan.

If you look closely, you can see abandoned barracks in this photo, where conscripts serving at the facility lived until the mid-90s. After the civil war in Tajikistan, when the presence at the facility was minimized, and the transition to contract replenishment, they were no longer needed and are abandoned. Contract soldiers with their families live in service apartments on the territory of the unit in Nurek. Singles - in rooms for two. We did not go to these barracks, because there are a lot of poisonous snakes there.

I didn't take many photos on the territory of the unit in Nurek, because the unit is not much different from most of the military units I've been to over the past year. True, there is a difference. The unit's club was built by the military using extra-budgetary money. And this is the church, for which the military chipped in themselves. There is no priest in the unit (although a full-time position has already been allocated), the service is conducted by a priest from a Russian military base.

There is a place for sports (just under the windows of the hotel room where I spent the night). In the morning I was woken up by noise and looking out the window I saw a large number of officers doing pull-ups, abdominal exercises, etc. To the right are basketball and volleyball courts.

In general, thanks to this complex, Russian military and civilian leaders know almost everything about space objects flying above the Earth, and any new object is detected and identified in the shortest possible time. And it is not the telescopes that play a significant role in this, but the people serving in the unit.

I would like to express special gratitude for their participation to the unit commander, Colonel Dmitry Bataragin, and the deputy unit commander for educational work, Colonel Vladimir Samoilov, for their time spent with me. I know for sure that they and many servicemen of military unit 52168 will read this post. THANK YOU! ;-)))