Thinking ahead

My sister gave me a solitaire chess set for Christmas.

Each puzzle is played on a 4x4 square and all pieces move as they normally would in a chess game. The rules that are different are that you have to capture a piece with every move and you win by only having one piece on the board. It doesn't matter what piece, so long as there is only one. I did this puzzle just last week. See if you can do it. It is one of the "expert" level puzzles. If you want a hint or two, the rook moves first and the king is the last piece on the board. (b2xb1, a3xc1, b1xa1, a1xc1, c1xc3, b3xc3, c3xd4)(highlight the white line to see the solution).


I've always enjoyed strategy and tactics, even though I'm not as good at them as I would like to think I am. Games like chess, ticket to ride, and other board games steel panthers (and other turn based stratagy games), real time stratagies, and war games. They require me to think ahead and try to plan out what I want to happen. Invariably my plan will be foiled - (see "no plan survives contact with the enemy") - and I will need to pick up the pieces or come up with a new plan. While it is often frustrating to lose, games give provide a great opportunity to fail without serious repercussions. I can try my chess puzzles as often as I like and it doesn't matter how long it takes. (It occurred to me that it would have been good to record how long it takes me, just as a measure of my progress.)


What I find interesting about this solitaire chess set is that there is often such a limited number of moves. Often times some pieces have no purpose but to be captured. Of instance, the rook at d4 and the bishop at b1 cannot capture any piece, and so are just there to be bait. Their presence is necessary for the puzzle but their potential movement can be disregarded. Yet, despite such a limited scope, many of the puzzles take longer than I would think.

To the troll on War Thunder...

Ninth grade. You must be in ninth grade at a junior high. You aren't? You fooled me. You're acting like you're at the top of the pile, but you don't realize that it's a pile of crap. I bet your report card says, "doesn't play well with other." You are screaming profanity laced insults at your team members because we are losing. You threaten fellow team members because you do not approve of their location on the battlefield. We all know your threats are empty. You obviously care more about winning than other people and you are not going to go out of your way from trying to take the capture point "punish" those that are not doing what you want. That and friendly fire subtracts penalizes you. You really need to worry about people like me. People who, if tired of your tirades and annoying behavior, will put an 85mm shell through your tank without warning because we would rather fight a losing battle without the commentary than try to win with a self-important prick.

Sincerely yours,

SU-85

War Games

I enjoy many different hobbies including video games consisting of strategy and first-person shooter games as well as recently getting into airsoft. I own an airsoft rifle and pistol as well as pieces of "tactical gear" that consist camouflage, and things to hold extra magazine, tools, bbs, etc. Because airsoft equipment is based on "real steel" military hardware outfitted airsofters can look a bit like a state militia. The guns are often replicas of M4s, M16, AK-47s, and other armaments still used by defense forces the world over. (photo credit: Danger Close Airsoft - a good group to run with.)

I know that with gun violence and violent crimes in general more prevalent in the news there has been a lot of discussion about connections between my above stated hobbies and those crimes. I'm not going to get into that debate. I will link to this video discussing the video games. I will also say that airsoft is not to be treated like a toy and those that choose to participate should not be idiots about their equipment. Going around in a public place with a replica M16 will cause problems for you and others. Airsoft can cause injury, even sever injury, treat the equipment accordingly. I play with goggles and a steel face mask.

What I wanted to get into revolves around a conversation I had with a coworker a couple of days before attending an airsoft game. She asked what airsoft was. I explained it involved running around in the brush, shooting and being shoot at with 6mm bbs. She asked why I would ever want to do such a thing. Fair question.

For me these hobbies have nothing to do the violent nature of their real world situations. I looked into joining the military back in high school and decided that the glory of the battlefield was not for me. I would like to think that I could protect my family at any cost, but I have no desire to willingly ending anybody's earthly existence. I would be perfectly content if we beat our swords into plows and our spears into pruning hooks and didn't learn war anymore. For me it's all a mind game, one that I'm not nearly as good at as I would like to think. How do you achieve an objective, figure out this puzzle, overcome this obstacle? It's about becoming good at out-thinking someone else. It's about teamwork and collaborative effort. Airsoft has the added benefit of being outdoors and interactive - it keeps you moving and even added to my incentive to exercise. My airsoft experience has been pretty positive, even though I have only hit one person while playing. However, the incentive to play has increased with additional members of my family getting involved.

Upon hearing my reasons my coworker simply replied, "We go jogging."

You can do that too.

helicopters are pretty cool

I've enjoyed playing the game Battlefield 2 when I can fit it in my schedule. One element of the game is that you can jump in a helicopter and take off to provide close air support or to move other players to strategic locations. The first time I ever tried to use a helicopter It took off, went belly up, and then smashed down hard core. It kind of looked like this. Same thing happened the next three times until I had a chance to pull up some web tutorials. It should tell you something that if you put "Battlefield 2, helicopter tutorial" in the YouTube search you'll get quite the list of videos.

I've always thought of helicopters as cool. As a kid I would check out aviation books from the library and read them. One of my favorite memories is watching four fully loaded AH-64 Apache attack helicopters fly over my house. Mountain Home Air National Guard was transferring them elsewhere and hour house was on the flight path. It was impressive. My interest in helicopters was peaked again after I received another game, Comanche CD, back in 1994. The controls were simple, the graphics even more so, but the missions were challenging and you could take advantage of some of the things that make helicopters different.

As a college student I had the awesome opportunity to take a history of aviation and aeronautics class from Dr. Timothy Wolters. If you check out his Vita from the time you will see that I had him right after held the Ramsey Chair of Naval Aviation History at THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, National Air & Space Museum! This guy knows his stuff, particularly when it comes to technology. The class was 1/3 history majors, 1/3 Air force ROTC, and 1/3 mechanical/aerospace engineers. And Dr. Wolters knew it all. He's currently at Iowa State University, so if you are from there take a class from him (just make sure it's not one you need calculus for - no joke). In the class we learned both the mechanics of flight and the history of it. I had to become an expert on twenty-five different aircraft for the final. How cool is that?

Although we didn't spend much time helicopters, I did learn something interesting. Because of the dynamics of how a helicopter works, there are significant limitations on their design that prevented them from replacing fixed wing aircraft as the leading flying machine. However, because of their unique abilities (tight control, hover, vertical and near vertical takeoff and landing, etc.) they do fit two very popular markets: Private, urban transportation, and military. They are used in other areas as well, but those are the two biggest functions. Since almost any high rise building with a flat roof can act as a landing pad and they are able to maneuver in tight spaces (that fit their dimensions) they are very useful for working in the city. The military takes advantage of their lift capacity, relatively stable platform, and, again, their maneuverability. When it comes to close air support for troops on the ground, I can only think of two fixed wing aircraft that are usually mentioned: the A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog", and the AC-130. (Fun fact: If you were to mount the A-10's Avenger cannon onto a car in neutral and start firing, you would go really fast). However, the Mil Mi-24 Hind D could both transport and support troops on the ground. While not a cure all, helicopters have proved themselves in the military many times.

So, what got me musing about helicopters? First, I ran across an old video from Destin who had a YouTube Channel Smarter Every Day. He did a whole series of videos on helicopter physics that was really neat. Including a video on inverted flight. (See, helicopters can fly upside down. And yes, their are some that can't). Destin includes a video on one of the limitations of helicopters, as well one on how helicopters can land safely without power.

When it comes to amazing uses for helicopters thought, I think it's hard to beat the story about the deer on the ice. The animal was unable to stand and liable to freeze to death when a helicopter pilot used his down draft the sweep it and its young to shore. You can hear an interview with the pilot on episode 98 of How to Do Everything.

I will end by sharing advice I received from a helicopter pilot on how to signal a helicopter and help it land at night. Once while backpacking with my father, uncle, and cousin we had a situation where a copper was called in to extract a kayaker who was badly dehydrated. When the med-evac arrived, it was dark and in the bad lands of Utah outside of Coyote Gulch, which rise and fall with sand, petrified dunes, and rock. We heard it before we saw it and turned on flashlights to show our position. It had a big spot light on but as it came in it missed the small plateau we were on instead almost landing on the slope which would have been bad. When it did land it came in hard and apparently it damaged the engine. As a result they kept the rotors turning quickly because they didn't know if they could get them back up. The pilot told us the reason for the difficulty in landing was that with only one light, he couldn't depth. Everything looked kind of flat like the picture of the area I have. You can see that their are lines of elevation but you can't tell how tall / low they are. So, if you have to bring in a helicopter at night: First use a light as a signal for your location by shining it in the air. Then as soon as the helicopter has your position shine the lights on the ground. This give the pilot a second frame of reference so they can see depth.

Just for fun, here is a list of slang terms for helicopters that I found at helicopterlinks.com (glossary section):
Air-crane, angel (military: a soldier waiting to be rescued by an angel), air horse, air pony, airship, astronaut (CB Radio slang for police helicopter [Citizens Band Radio]), bear-in-the-air (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), bird, blender, Budgie (From a children's book and animated TV series in the United Kingdom), chopper, copter, eagle, eggbeater, eye in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), fly in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), flying smokey (police helicopter, certain police departments wear Smokey the Bear hats), ghetto bird (police helicopter flying over ghettos or poor neighborhoods), heli, helo, hilo, hummingbird, log bird (military: logistical resupply helicopter), rotorcopter, rotorcraft, rotory-wing, machine, sky bear (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), slick (Vietnam war: troop carrying helicopter), sky-hook, sky-crane, spy in the sky (CB Radio slang for police helicopter), whirlybird, x-ray unit. (Some of these slang terms are rather uncommon.)

Critical thinking is better than caffeine

As I work full time and am taking Master's classes the only time I have to do homework is in the evenings. My family is all in bed and asleep by 10:00. My wife can even tell what time it is based on how tired he is. It is seriously creepy. Some nights I exercise my 15-5 rule. I developed this as an undergrad. Read for 15 minutes and when my eyes start to droop, sleep for 5 minutes. Repeat. Other nights I am able to plug through articles, chapters, posts, papers, assignments, or projects for two to three hours straight and not feel at all tired and without needing any breaks. There have been nights I've been up to 1:00 am working on homework and then went to bed and read twitter messages for half an hour because I still didn't feel tired.

That got me musing about what causes sleeplessness. Pulling up insomnia in Web MD gets you good information about acute and chronic insomnia, what causes it and how to treat it. I couldn't find anything to what my situation was, but perhaps I didn't know exactly what was going on in my brain.

I'm not a new comer to insomnia or other sleep oddities. Lemons and decongestants too close to bed will keep me up with no relief. I've also had my share of normal sleepless nights due to my sleeping situation (on someone's couch, floor, camping, etc.) I had a very healthy case of jet lag after spending two years in Russia and then returning home to Utah. The really fun sleep problem I have is caused by high stress or high emotion. I hallucination whatever activity the emotion or stress revolved around.

 My first occurrence with it was in junior high when I spent too much time playing Warcraft, the original. I went to bed to awake a few hours later. My eyes were open, I could see everything in my room, but there floating in my field of view was a game of Warcraft that i could not avoid. Closing my eyes didn't help, my mind was so focused on the game that even though I wanted to quiet I could not. I knew I was awake, but I could not fall asleep while that game was on - and it wouldn't shut off.

The week of the high school musical was horrible as well. I was the props master, making sure all of the actors had what they needed and helping to push sets on stage. Every night of a performance I would awake and a vision of backstage would superimpose itself on my bedroom. I would think, "I've got to get the set on stage" and then climb out of bed and try to push my bed "on stage." Luckily I was just pushing it against the wall so it didn't actually move, but I would continue to push even after I collapsed from exhaustion. The only thing that would snap me out it was looking at my digital alarm clock. For some reason, seeing the time would pull me back into reality and I would crawl into bed and fall asleep. Only to have it happen again an hour later.

In addition to these very intense sleep disturbances, I occasionally will reach a semi-awake state where I will feel that I am in the middle of a conversation. This causes me to talk in my sleep, and while I can't remember what I say every time, I am often aware of what I am saying. That does not mean that what I say makes any sense what-so-ever, but I know that I'm saying it. I've even barked in my sleep, and no, I have no idea why.

I couldn't find anything online that sounded like this and I think I've only met one or two other people who experience the same kind of thing. I have noticed that if my brain is kicked into critical thinking gear sleep is banished and I am able to perform very well mentally. While this is handy for homework, I suspect it is the reason for not being able to fall asleep many nights.

One last anecdote. There is a wonderful strategy game called Steel Panthers that I've played on and off for several years now. It kicks my brain in to ultra high gear and keeps it there. I've always been fascinated with tactics and strategy and this feeds that interest like no tomorrow. One night I had played in on my lap top in bed (something I don't do anymore) and then managed to fall asleep. My daughter, who was an infant at the time woke up a couple of hours later and my wife elbowed me to tell me it was my turn to check on her. I got up and wandered into her room, knowing that my wife would want to know why she started crying. When I got there, the answer was clear. She had kicked her blankets off and was exposed to the elements. I could see this. I could see what was right in front of my face. But what my sleep deprived, game addled brain made my eyes see was the hexagon board from Steel Panthers, a stand of trees and three squads of infantry to the north west of my daughter's position. I could see how they had fired on her, and as her moral fell she retreated out of her cover. It all made sense now! I tucked her in and went back to bed.

As I crawled into my own covers my wife asked, "What was wrong?" I knew that what I had seen was ridiculous. I knew that what I had seen was false. But unable to stop myself I said, "Infantry scared her out of her cover." My wife sat bolt upright, turned to me and said, "They WHAT?!" Again, knowing that I spoke complete and utter nonsense, I grunted and replied, "Infantry. Scared her our of her cover." My wife looked at me, blinked a few times, and slowly lay back down.

The next morning, my wife asked, "Do you know what you told me last night?"

Yes, Angel. I knew it when I said it. It seemed like the thing to say at the time.