Category Archives: Engineering

Career Retrospective – 1990

Operation DESERT SHIELD commenced after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.S. suffered a relatively brief economic recession. I earned my Private Pilot certificate. My grades were substantially better throughout 1990; however I was still only managing average grades in … Continue reading

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Career Retrospective – 1989

As 1989 began, George H.W. Bush took the presidency as the Reagans rode off into the sunset. Prior to the inauguration, U.S. Navy F-14s shot down Libyan fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. On the ninth of November, Germans began … Continue reading

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A New Kind of Sunroof?

This gives a whole new meaning to the term “Sunroof!”

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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

This post has been gathering dust as a draft for seven months now.  It looks like now is a good time to dust it off and finish it, it may go some small way to explain some of the back-story … Continue reading

Posted in Arts, Internet, Literature, Programming & Technical Computing | 4 Comments

Computer Karma Restored

As you may recall from a previous entry, I’ve been promising myself I’d get my old Pentium 4 up and running again with a Linux operating system. I had loaded Kubuntu 8.10 (I think) onto a new hard drive that … Continue reading

Posted in Hobbies, Internet, Programming & Technical Computing | 4 Comments

Clarke’s Third Law Applied

     It appears that the highly-desired Cloak of Invisibility that my Dungeons and Dragons characters were searching for over 25 years ago was finally found in a lab at UC-Berkeley.      No wonder Ug the Barbarian-Ranger never found it, it … Continue reading

Posted in Engineering | 1 Comment

Wild Ride

     Here’s a computer-generated video of the F-15 that broke up in mid-flight back in November via Air Force AimPoints and CNN. 

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Keep Working On It

     Some guy built a 21′ replica of an X-Wing.  Good on him!      Too bad this looks like it’s just an oversized Estes model rocket.      When someone builds an actual X-Wing, let me know.  I know of a … Continue reading

Posted in Aerodynamics & Propulsion, Engineering, General Aviation | 1 Comment

Test Anxiety

    I just took my second exam in my controls class.  Somehow, I’ve managed two straight times to convince myself I understood the material well enough to do great on an exam.  That, and he allowed us to have a … Continue reading

Posted in Engineering, Stability & Control | Comments Off on Test Anxiety

MatLab

    MatLab is an extremely versatile program, it’s actually almost like another computer programming language.  It is far, far easier to perform arithmatic operations with it than FORTRAN.  It’s especially good at matrix operations.  Just type in the matrix, and … Continue reading

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