Brainsturm

As you can see here, I had an interesting comment from a reader who has the audacity to fact-check me. This individual discussed the merits of the well-hung HS-129B3 versus its crude but rugged Russian counterpart, the Il-2 Shturmovik. The points were well taken by I Tell You What, and the slight misspelling of "Sturmovik" got me into one of my favorite words, and the accusation of Germanophilia has caused me to create a new one. Hence, this entry falls under "What's the Good Word?". But first, some background (CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN MORE "GERMANOPHILIA". Proceed at your own risk)

If you have seen "Saving Private Ryan", you may recall some really nasty looking tanks that ultimately fell before the valiant defense of our Airborne soldiers. Except, they weren't tanks, they were assault guns, with turrets of very limited travel but a low profile and very powerful cannon. They were used to destroy "real" tanks and reduce (great euphemism) defensive positions. Here is a picture of one:

If you were valiantly defending an anonymous bridge or other strongpoint in Western Europe in and around 1944, and you saw one of those puppies roll ominously towards you, then methodically and agonizingly slowly train Mr. Thundermaker on your position, you'd need a word to explain this sight before you bought the farm. Let's give a round of applause for that word: STURMGESCHUTZ. It means "assault gun", but in that Germanic way it sounds like "storms and shoots", which is so appealing in English. I cannot and will not be convinced that if Volkswagen rolled out a Sturmgeschutz Turbo Diesel sedan that it would not be the demise of the American market for all other automakers. Anyway, on top of the general menace provided by this vehicle, our beloved Deustche engineers had to go whole hog on a few models, just because. I present to you the Sturmpanzer IV (with a ridiculous 150mm cannon on the front)

And the grandaddy of them all, the Sturmoser. That 380mm (that's 38 cm, or 15 inches!) mortar you see below fails to qualify for ridiculous. It looks like Bowser's tanks from Super Mario Bros. 3.
Therefore, in honor of my obsession, and the commentator to my blog, I am forging a new word to describe myself and any others as messed up as me: STURMOPHILLIAC.
If you're tallying at home, between references to past blogs, World War II, armored vehicles, general vocabulary, and video games, this blog entry has pegged out the Dork Meter.

Fantasy Turned Nightmare

I played football in high school. I was decent, somewhere in the iron triangle formed by "has-been", "also-ran", and "never was". I at least had the chance to decide for myself whether to go play for a small college, or ride the pine at a slightly larger school. Doing neither was a good call. I've also studied the game a bit, and understand some of the fundamentals that go into coaching. In fact, I'd like the opportunity to do that some day. None of that prevents Wifey from destroying me at fantasy football.

What is her secret? Primarily, her strategery consists of:

1. Drafting Tom Brady
2. Drafting Randy Moss

How can I compete against that? I'll tell you: I didn't, suffering a 137-56 shellacking in last week's tilt. No knowledge of the 2-Man Under defense vs. Cover 2 defense, or the minutiae of the 4-wide singleback set vs. the 2-tight, 2-wide singleback set can keep me afloat. If Roy Williams decides to only catch a single pass for 15 yards while his teammate, Calvin Johnson, picks up over 80 yards receiving with a touchdown, then that's that. If you can't beat'em, join'em. I'm not converting to a Patriots fan, but I'll cheer for her fantasy juggernaut when I'm not directly facing her. And I stole Wes Welker for my own roster. Go Peugeots.

A Great List of Things I'm Thankful For or Your Money Back

Things I'm thankful for:

• Wifey of 3.5 years(!) She's carrying our second child and has had to deal with quite a bit just to get this far. Almost there. She's taught me everything I know about raising...


• Sweetness. Now 2.5 years old and way too far ahead of the curve.


• We have recently found a great church, and the Grace that inspires it


• Pumpkin pie. We go to a nearby farm each year, pick some apples, get some squash, and select the year's pumpkins for carving, seeds, and pie. It's borderline yuppie agro-tourism, but we enjoy it.
• A great Thanksgiving feast at the in-laws, who are located closely enough that we and especially our daughter get to enjoy time with them regularly


• Our ranch-style home in suburbia


• My health, along with my whole family's (immediate and extended)


• A job that typically requires about 45 hours a week that meets all our needs while allowing Wifey to remain home with Sweetness


• A job that I get to hone the Inner Dork on


• My educational opportunities. Scholarship for undergraduate studies, employer assistance for postgraduate


• All the books we could ever read, at an affordable price


• The freedom provided by America, and the sacrifices of its citizens (foreshadowing of an upcoming hyper-belated Veterans' Day post)

Job Satisfaction

I am a regular reader of Time magazine. It's not the greatest, but I think my subscription was 1 year for something ridiculous like $15. I'm not joking. That's barely postage. At that price, I could use the pages to soak up spills around the house and it would be the equivalent of having paid shipping only for a year's supply of paper towels. This week's issue had a fluff cover story (not surprising) discussing the habits of Americans as determined by some gigantic survey. One survey, which can be found in greater detail at this link, discusses job satisfaction by occupation. Of all engineering occupations, mechanical engineers had the smallest percentage of respondents claiming to be "very happy". I enjoy my job, and my peculiar personality seems cast only in the form of a mechanical engineer. Therefore, I find this surprising. I have pondered this for at least 3 minutes, and weigh the following possibilities:

1. It is possible that a significant percentage of mechanical engineers felt that "very happy" was too watered down, and held out for "ecstatic", "giddy", or "Would show up for work even if they didn't pay me".
2. Those drawn to mechanical engineering have too much awesome inside to fully express themselves and reach their full potential working a single position at a single company
3. Many are born with The Knack, but becoming handy with the steel still takes patience and discipline, which are NOT always included with The Knack installation kit
4. Let's face it, cars, airplanes, the space shuttle, submarines, space stations, zippers, can openers, the GAU-8 Avenger, automated manufacturing, etc... have already been invented
5. Mechanical engineering is a mighty big tent, and it's easy for one to end up in the wrong corner. I am a died in the wool machine design and kinematics guy, with a little solid mechanics added for texture. I can tolerate manufacturing, while fluids, thermodynamics, and heat transfer are beneath me. To each his own (let's be honest, to each "their" own would be a lie, not many gals enter the mechanical engineering tent).
6. Engineers of all disciplines are basically deceived as to their value/worth while in college, and thus have an inflated view of how much money they should make. I made minimum wage until 1999, so I'm still enjoying the pay.
7. Civil engineers get to play with dirt & bulldozers, industrial engineers will admit if cornered that they don't really have a job, and electrical engineers are in another plane entirely (let's call it 'i' just to tickle their fancy). Therefore, I can see why they'd enjoy their jobs. They're just not my cup of tea.

Unfortunately, the Time magazine has separate data on job satisfaction and on drinking habits, but no correlation between the two. Now that would be interesting. Oh, and a final cautionary note: beneath the graphic is the following information. If they cannot spell "survey", I'm not impressed with their research:

SOURCES: Job happiness data is from the General Social Servey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago

BDEE (Continued)

After the ashes cleared, the ruler of the earth at the end of all things had been determined. Voter participation was surprising, but not so surprising as the intense commitment some held to their chosen champions. "I can NOT believe X beat Y", as some disgruntled engineer stormed out of our cube, their day ruined. "If (fill in expletive) Y doesn't beat X, I'm not voting any more", and so on. Those who were into comic books were the most passionate, I suppose that one draws a little closer to the Incredible Hulk when you know all of his quirks, likes, dislikes, allergies, zodiac sign... they and the raging Patriot fans who could not overwhelm the aliens (to New England, not earth) who said that Drew Carey is more of a man than Tom 'Deadbeat Dad' Brady.

The Elite 8 boiled down to Indiana Jones v. Terminator; John McClane v. Luke Skywalker; Jason Bourne v. Yoda, and Blade vs. Predator. The two ensuing sets of battles left a surprising but gritty John McClane as underdog taking on Yoda, the galaxy's Jedi Master.

My buddy (he's single [and looking!])worked up an image of McClane dodging lightning shot from Yoda's hands, set to a devastated wasteland that could be Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I'm not savvy enough with the blog to post the Powerpoint slide. At any rate, then the epic battle was finished, and McClane had sent the World's last bullet, automobile, chain hoist, wrench, flashlight, and curse Yoda's way, the little green one had conquered. He is the people's champion, and rightfully so.

Battle For Domination At The End Of The Earth

Have you ever had one of those discussions centering around a hypothetical fight that will likely never happen, and the result of which is dictated by an impossible number of variables? According to the I Tell You What Official Bureau of Statistics, Engineers spend at least 60% (margin of error 53%) of their time discussing hypotheticals, so this is right up our alley.

"Who would win in a fight, a crocodile or a polar bear"

"Who would win in a fight, Donkey Kong or King Kong"

"Who would win in a fight, Rosie O'Donnell or Aunt Jamima"

Of course, this is great fodder for discussion, because you can never settle the weapons, location, climate, etc... For instance, If the battle is in a jungle river, you might go with the croc, but the polar bear dominates once you leave the tropics.

To truncate an already long story, we (unnamed people at work who definitely were NOT neglecting important tasks and definitely do NOT include yours truly) set up a bracket, in the style of the NCAA basketball tourney, of 64 of the baddest contestants imaginable to settle the issue once and for all. Well, mostly the contestants are the baddest, but what was really important was the entertainment value and discussion associated with our selections. Votes were solicited, tallied, and contestants progressed to the next round or were bounced. This tourney was declared to be THE BATTLE FOR DOMINATION AT THE END OF THE EARTH. We broke the tournament into four groups:

Keith Richards v. Ozzie Osbourne; Mr. T v. T-Rex; Blade v. Buffy the Vampire Slayer; "Dirty" Harry Callahan v. Walker Texas Ranger; Bill Brasky v. King Leonidas; Boba Fett v. The Predator; Captain Kirk v. Captain Picard; Steven Hawking v. Bill Gates


Mike Tyson v. Mike Ditka; King Kong v. Donkey Kong; Jack Bauer v. Jason Bourne; Jackie Chan
v. John Wayne; Neo v. Yoda; Keyser Söze v. Scarface; Freddie Krueger v. Michael Myers; Larry King v. Bob Barker


Indiana Jones v. Lara Croft; Duffman v. The Marlboro Man; Barry Bonds v. The Incredible Hulk; Dick Cheney v. The Penguin; Drew Carey v. Howie Mandel; Peyton Manning v. Tom Brady; Jordan v. Bird; RoboCop v. The Terminator


Shaft v. John McClane; Maverick v. Ice Man; Old Godzilla v. New Godzilla; Captain Ahab v. Lieutenant Dan; Moby Dick v. Jaws; Mr. Miyagi v. Bruce Lee; Luke Skywalker v. Highlander;
Hank Hill v. Peter Griffin

Revelation of the Big Winner of the BDEE next post...

Games We Play

Here is a picture of Sweetness teaching me how to play checkers. She has quite a Game Face. She's not here to make any friends, folks, this is strictly business. I was scolded each time I messed up.

I am a decent chess player, maybe we'll have to work on that in a few years. Today we played 'cards', which consists of splitting the deck, then putting down one card at a time and saying what number and suite it was. We may be only a few games away from 4-hour sessions of Risk. Hopefully, she won't catch on to the futility of trying to engulf Asia and go for the huge reinforcements it would provide. That should keep her from beating me for a decade or so.

WARNING: May Contain Lethal Concentrations of Granola

This is quack greenery run amok: Wifey is downing copious amounts of Organic Raspberry Leaf Tea, as it helps prepare for child delivery. Nothing wrong with that. However, while brewing a batch I read the box, which claims to offset "our electricity use with 100% wind power". That's cute, really. It is actually an unfortunate bit of marketing that plays on the public's desire to exhibit good stewardship of the environment with some impossible to verify (at least for the average citizen) claims. Do they actually do this? Perhaps. More to the point, they make it seem as if giant trucks with combustion engines aren't distributing their shipments, and that grocery stores aren't cranking the air conditioning down to 70 degrees on sunny days while their product sits on shelves. Oh, and that consumers don't toss the box of tea they just bought into a plastic bag, and in turn throw the plastic bag into a vehicle that gets 14 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Even if this tea farm is making totally legitimate claims, which I doubt, it is truly a drop in the bucket. Until this organic, hippie-farmed tea is delivered via GPS-guided donkey in a cart right to my suburban door, I am not impressed.

The key is to take note that every action we take in today's society uses resources that must be marshaled against our insatiable thirst for consumption. Even turning on the computer to write this blog takes energy, and from firewood to pitch to hydro/wind power to whale blubber to coal to refined petroleum to atomic power to solar energy, mankind's history has revolved around the quest for more energy.

Reconnaissance

Saturday morning I accompanied Wifey and Sweetness to the local hospital, where we plan on having Dunsmore #4 delivered any day now. It was a good introduction to the hospital for our daughter. You never know how a child will react to their first time through a new experience. Grandpa B. had the connections to get us in and provide the tour, which was great because Sweetness loved having him lead her around the maternity ward. Meanwhile, Wifey scrounged for any loose vials of pitocin that she could pocket. Fortunately, we did not find any. It was a good morning, and afterwards was the race we've already reviewed.

Refining The Steel

Sweetness was sick yesterday, so we missed church. This was unfortunate, since we've found ourselves a place where the teaching is fantastic. Nonetheless, you don't bring a sick toddler into a nursery, and you don't bring a sick toddler in to listen to the sermon with you; so where does that leave you? At home. To make up for our slackitude, here are some thoughts:

Ps 66:10- "For Thou hast tried us, O God, Thou hast refined us as silver is refined"
Is 48:10- "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction"

Meaning what, exactly? Most of us hold true, as I once did, that the trials we face make us stronger, tougher, more ready to face the next set of hard times. Any good engineering (good=mechanical) geek will tell you that this is what happens to steel. The more brutal the manufacturing process, the more heat followed by sudden, stressful quenching, the more pounding, bending, rolling, peening, the stronger the material becomes. Alas, it is stressed, brittle, more prone to sudden failure. Weary, one could say, the same way that hard times feel a soul feeling weary, not stronger. It's not the answer.
The answer is not to resist, but to be malleable. Few things are more malleable than pure silver. It melts easily, works with little resistance, and as a final product is brilliant and rust proof. OK, you have to clean tarnish, but you get the idea. Life can put bigger challenges in front of us than can be overcome by gumption, strength, wits, or moxie, leaving us broken. God wants us to be pure, malleable, and let him do his work in our lives. He provides the strength of the structure, we just clad his church, hopefully with something remarkable. If we are not pure, as the second verse indicates, the fires of life get hotter and hotter, until we either become malleable to his will or broken by the trial. Don't fight trials on your own strength, rely on His.

Victory, Thy Name is Jingleheimer Schmidt

I ran the second race of the 2007 Stew Circuit today. That is, second and final. My pace was a healthy 7:14 through 4.75 miles on a very blustery day. The run was nice, scenery magnificent along the river, just like last Sunday. It was a smaller crowd, though, so there was not the same satisfaction of passing as many people. It seems as though the nasty wind kept the more casual types home, because I only had 52 people beat me to the finish line. I give a lot of credit to Kevin G. for getting right back on the Pain Train for a second race in 7 days to compete with me. The best part by far was being able to kick it along the home stretch and cruise by Wifey and Sweetness. The chief organizer of the race plays narrator at the finish line, and remarked at my enthusiasm. Of course, I had my fan club welcoming me!

One thing you learn about parenting: children's tunes are surely more addictive to your brain than any narcotic. During the run, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt was rolling along like a freight train. Of course, our daughter is so enamored with the tune (I suspect Grandma is an accomplice), that when I ask her what we should name her soon-to-be-unveiled sister, the answer is "Jingleheimer Schmidt". I'm sure she wouldn't be teased in school at all.

Supersize Me

So, we Americans are really not the most innovative when it comes to defense technology. The atom bomb was developed with a lot of foreign talent. Submarines, jet power, guided missiles... all examples of technology that Americans learned by watching others. What we DID do is master the existing art. One of our greatest triumphs has been in logistics, which is an organizational, not technological, achievement. My personal favorite, though, is the A-10 Warthog. If we take the Henschel HS-129 as an example of a dominant technology, think about what Americans added 20 years later.

Unparalleled ability to withstand damage (above) and make it home. Why risk having your only engine shot out? Install two. Design it for ridiculous maneuverability at the low speeds for which it is designed to operate. A prominent cockpit provides outstanding visibility for the pilot. Wrap said pilot in a titanium box (the HS-129 made steps in this direction by putting glass that was over 4" thick in front of the pilot). It carries LOTS of ordnance, but just to make it highly unlikely that targets will go unventilated, it carries the greatest airborne cannon ever, the GAU-8, 30mm.

Trailer Not Included

The automatic canon loader has gears. As a mechanical engineer, it's enough to make me giddy.
Nothing about this machine was novel, outside of the extraordinary caliber of the cannon. Even the GAU-8 is a glorified gatling gun, Civil War technology driven by hydraulics. The pilots weren't even equipped with infared target detection (FLIR, fairly common even in the first Gulf War) until quite recently. The US Air Force has tried a number of times to retire the aircraft, but it's just too useful.

That leaves us with an aircraft developed with a well defined mission and only existing technology. It was very successful, and continues to be 30 years later, as the A-10's in service are being refitted and upgraded. This in an era when the super-expensive F-35 has a questionable mission, and therefore reason for existence.

In addition to all the butt-kicking this sweet machine does for Uncle Sam and Freedom around the world, it also helps us get rid of the by-products of that pesky nuclear arms race we had with the Soviets. Warthog, we salute you.

If It's Good on the Ground, We Must Make It Fly!

I have always love reading about military history, and the lethal one-upsmanship that drives the development of new technologies, or novel applications of existing technology. One of the most sharp examples of that is the development of the tank, a lumbering beast without much maneuverability or firepower but just enough of both to breach the static defenses of the Western Front during the Great War (see below). It stands to reason that the British, masters of the domain of the sea, essentially took a battleship and made it a land vehicle.

As a result, the fundamental land weapon of the time, the rifled firearm, was given the right size and muzzle velocity to treat the tank like a tin can on a shooting range.

So tanks developed thicker frontal armor, eventually some of the anti-tank guns were put on motorized chassis... it was a creeping, crawling development. Then, somebody had a great idea. "What if we take that glorified pellet gun and make it FLY?" Holy crap, all we can say for certain is that the man was German, which is unsurprising. We can speculate that he was an engineer. The purest form of this idea can be seen below in the form of the Henschel HS-129B3:A quote from Wikipedia "But for some reason the Luftwaffe decided to skip over this gun for the Hs 129, and install a gigantic 75 mm gun from the Panzer IV. A huge hydraulic system was used to damp the recoil of the gun, and an auto-loader system with twelve rounds was fitted in the large empty space behind the cockpit. The resulting system was able to knock out any tank in the world, but the weight slowed the already poor performance of the plane to barely flyable in this new Hs 129B-3 version."

"That's right, Mr. Henschel, my team doubled the next-size caliber gun, it could sink Gibraltar, and it barely flies, but the specs say it just has to get off the ground, so we're all set. AND it is in a dead tie for the P-38 Lightning as the coolest aircraft on the planet." The man who sold that one is a role model for all engineers.

I need to slow down for a bit, and continue this soon by showing what happens when the Americans get ahold of a really good idea and Supersize it...

Running Against the Wind

Isaiah 40:30 Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, 31 Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

I ran, and fortunately managed to not succumb to the temptation to walk. I DID grow weary, and I must have left my eagle wings in the car before the race. 5.5 miles, 41 minutes, 14 seconds, for a 7 minute, 30 second pace. I'll take it. I'd better be willing to take it, my calves feel like badgers are chewing on them. My calves NEVER hurt after running. I managed to completely avoid puking or fainting, and better still I pulled that little shutout while my child was watching, which would have made it worse. I placed 173 overall of 668, and 43 of 143 in my age range. Not bad for an offensive lineman. It was nice to see my wife & daughter clapping at the finish line, and to hear that they had a nice time during the race with some of the other ladies they knew. We may try the family race time again next weekend at another local event. Hopefully by then I will have recovered a bit.

I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.

Knowledge of The Ancients

I've been checking a calculation of late. It's a bear, 150 pages and every detail has to be correct. Anyway, the engineer and I were spinning in circles on a force that went through three separate coordinate transformations (same force, different perspective), but had to end up perfectly vertical. We just couldn't figure out why we were about 20 degrees off on the vector direction. Equation upon equation, Microsoft Excel, MathCad... it wasn't working but we didn't know why. To muddy the waters, I had made a recommendation a month ago to try a different approach, which changed the answers by only a few pounds. Then, I remembered something that Professor Shapton taught. I drew the vectors... and proved that we were off and by how much. Then, I drew them with the equations I had recommended... and the lines stopped perfectly on the vertical line I was shooting for. Problem solved with a pencil, protractor, and a ruler. We're not always so much smarter than our predecessors as we would like to imagine.

I often visit www.defensetech.org for general input on military-industrial-(don't forget the congressional) complex. There were three disparate headlines that carried an almost invisible thread between them:

• Ford Engine Powers New Boeing UAV- Boeing has developed a long-endurance (hopefully one week) high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle that utilizes an engine that is fundamentally the same as a Ford Fusion
• BRIG GEN Paul Tibbets, RIP-The pilot of the aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan died
• Navy Sinks Another LCS- A General Dynamics (sigh) cost overrun has followed a Lockheed-Martin cost overrun, both of which led to the Navy cancelling orders for warships

What is the thread, exactly? If the military seeks to efficiently develop and procure weapons systems, the commercial sector has to do it. When I say "commercial", I mean less Northrup Grumman and more Caterpillar. The cancelling of yet another LCS just shows that the Navy is horrific at program management. The people who work for the government, generally civilians, overseeing military procurement are not, as a group, lazy. However, there is typically NO incentive for them to make decisions based on cost effectiveness. This leads to kid-in-a-candy-store behavior. "I want a bag full of extra speed. And a box of extra payload capacity. And some more quick reaction. And a bag of the stuff never rusting..." All the while, the contractor is gleefully overheating the cash register ringing it all up, envisioning a 3-for-1 stock split. VERY rarely does the piper come calling on the contractor in the form of a cancelled contract. And, if it does, they may sue the government to recoup cost. This morally slimy hand-shake leads to requirements growth that is unprecedented in the civilian world. The Boeing/Ford cooperative effort is a refreshing use of existing civilian technology to cut development costs. My own efforts to do this at work have been thwarted because too many gov't types have an incentive to not learn anything new or shave any performance margin off one requirement to gain elsewhere.

The third article, though, is the counterpoint. Col. Tibbets dropped a weapon that was developed through a crash program that spent a larger amount of money for each year of progress greater than the GDP of many nations. There was no significant need for fusion power at the scale of weaponization outside of war between nation-states, so it is unlikely atomic weapons would have been made available by commercial research. Here is a specific example of the government overseeing an almost miraculously development of a product orders of magnitude more capable than existing designs.

What to conclude? If the technology is not esoteric or far reaching, the government should just write a contract and walk away. Obviously, some development is needed. In that case, be flexible about some requirements and adjust the money flow accordingly. Obviously, some truly far-reaching technologies must be overseen and pushed by the government to come to fruition. See also: Putting men on the moon (Apollo Program)

But don't forget: The Wright Brothers were independently financed through their bicycle shop. That's right, the first men on the planet to achieve powered flight. Meditate on it.

The Cutest Thing Iv'e Ever Heard

This summer, after a church-league softball game, I picked Emily up to carry her back to the car. She asked to wear my softball glove, which she often does. She looked up to the evening sky, raised her arm, and began flipping her wrist back and forth, waving the glove. She stopped for a moment, turned to me, and said "we catch the clouds, daddy?". Maybe some day, Emily.