I need a new phone

The time has come for me to get a new cell phone. I have mixed feelings about this because I really like my current phone. Contrary to what many who know me might think, my phone is not a smart phone. It is just a regular, boring, phone with a sliding qwerty keyboard for texting. It does have a music player built into it and a IR camera which is fun to take very low level light pictures with, but other than that, it just makes calls and texts. Even though many people around me were getting smart phones with data plans, I resisted. I had an iPod touch to meet my "smart" device needs. What was the point of getting a smart phone when it would do the same thing as my iPod? That, and I enjoyed the fact that I could listen to music, play games, and a host of other things until the battery went dead on my iPod and still make phone calls on my phone. Well, while both of my devices are still functioning they appear to be on the decline and since they are declining at similar rates and I imagine they will both go "kuput!" at about the same time. Is it time to combine?

I have very mixed feelings. On one hand, I like my set up. It means I rarely have to worry about a dead battery on my phone regardless of how much I listen to my audio books. My phone is also very, very portable. I can fit it into the watch pocket of some of my trousers. It also has a physical qwerty keyboard which is very easy to use. My iPod, regardless of it's issues, is very familiar also rather portable, being smaller than many smart phones. On the other hand, it means I end up carrying two devices. Also the screen size of both devices is rather small when compared to current mobile devices. And while I hate to say it I must face the fact that when my wife upgraded her phone to a Galaxy S3 I had screen envy. Probably the most compelling reasons that I am planning on shifting to a smart phone are: 1) the "dumb" phones on the market all appear to be of very poor quality as the phone companies are trying to get people to guy the phones that require a bigger service plan, and 2) my trip to Boston showed me that having a phone that can access just about everything is indeed very handy and useful.

Since sitting down with Angel to talk about the situation (she's been advocating, but not pressuring, that I get a smart phone for a year or more) and deciding to get a smart phone I've put a lot of thought into what kind of phone I want. Leeroy, her brother, and I was talking a couple of weeks ago about phones and he mentioned the new term "Phablet." While I have contemplated getting a miniature tablet for internet usable around the house or work, ebooks, and entertainment, I don't want my phone to be that cumbersome. I want something that I can fit in my front or shirt pocket or in the leg pocket of a pair of carpenter jeans without difficulty. There comes a point where these phablets are no longer conveniently portable.

For me, i think the limit is a 5 inch screen. I understand that 5 inches is considered the low end of the phablet size, but I've had the opportunity to look at a couple of phones of that size and try them out. I have a couple of advantages that others might not when it comes to manipulating and carrying that size. My hands are, on average, much bigger than most other peoples. I have large palms and long fingers which make it easy for me to work a big screen. In portability I also have trousers with large pockets. All but my dressiest pair have a large carpenter like pocket on the leg, and one pair has cargo pockets large enough to hold a paperback book. I really like these leg pockets as they don't make it uncomfortable to sit down with the phone in my pockets.

While I'm not 100% sure, I'm pretty decided on a phone. But I'm keeping an open mind for when I actually go to the store to get everything set up. I am now excited for the outcome - a reaction I always look for.

Social Media - an unstoppable force

I was never the biggest Facebook user. Particularly after I found Twitter. Both of those waned when I became an active viewer on YouTube. And then I started a blog - and then I started another. I am no expert when it comes to social media and I am not sure it possible to be. Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan discussed how anything that is socially oriented is subject to low probability, high impact events. I think that few could have even comprehended the impact of social media on our world, or the ebbs and flows of the different platforms. In short, social media has Veni, Vidi, Vici-ed itself into our world.

This Doonesbury comic is on of my favorites. I cut it out of the newspaper and put it on the door to my office. This was before I had a Twitter account (and might have even been before my Facebook page) so I could laugh at it without feeling like it related too much. In some ways, I feel that my life may reflect the character above - I try to keep to the deadlines that I've set for my blogs (Thursdays and Mondays) and get a little apprehensive when those deadlines start to approach and I don't have something ready for them. I've also learned that if I don't check Facebook I miss activities or events that are planned and discussed there. I'm got very mixed feelings about that.

First, I think it's interesting what social media has done for professional interactions and marketing. This is technically two things, so I'll muse on the interactions first in this paragraph. Just today, I listened to a podcast of Writing Excuses which talked about how to recover from professional mistakes, whether your own for someone else's. Howard Taylor mentioned the "eternal" nature of the internet. If you post something on the internet once there is no way to completely remove it. Like the proverbial stone after it's thrown, what you put online is out there and it will connect with something, sometime, and there is little you can do about it. I had an instance during college when someone posted something about me online. I was not a member of the social media community where this was posted and so didn't know anything about it until my roommate started asking me questions. When I asked why he explained about this post he read that sounded like me. He read me the post and sure enough, it was about me. After I got over my initial annoyance and anger (although my friend was more angry then me) I confronted the individual to simply say that he got his facts wrong. I almost burst out laughing when I called his attention to the post and he replied, "You read that? You weren't supposed to read that." I thought, "You put it on a public website with enough information that my roommate could identify all of the parties involved. Why would you think I wouldn't or couldn't read it." Social media hasn't changed. It is amazing what people can learn about you if you're not careful. There are plenty of things that will try to help you avoid social media faux pas so I won't dwell on it.

Social media marketing is the reason I got a twitter account. Robson Wells, author of Variant, Feedback, and the upcoming Blackout was offering a twitter exclusive. He was offering an advanced reader copy of his book as the prize in a drawing. You entered the drawing by tweeting about the book release. I didn't win, but he launched a second twitter drawing very shortly after. Every month until the release of his book Variant he would be conducting a drawing for a $25 gift card to Amazon. The eve of the release he would do a drawing for a new Kindle with five of his favorite young adult books already on it. You entered the drawing by pre-ordering a copy of the book. I decided that for $12 plus shipping and handling it was worth it. It turned out that I won the first drawing for the gift card so I came out about $10 ahead. Robson Wells is not the only one that has used social media to his advantage. I wouldn't have had a twitter account in time to find about about the contest - which required me to buy his book - if he hadn't given me incentive. Mix that with the ability for social media to "spread the word" about new (or established) business and you can effectively bypass all of the major gateways that have been previously the only entrances into successful enterprise. I mentioned the power of YouTube and new musicians in my last post on music.

Social Media is breaking down old walls, but it's also putting up new ones. In many ways it's dividing those that use it from those that don't. I mentioned how I have to check Facebook occasionally or I miss out on some of what's going on, even in my family. Also, things that happen online are not limited to just online. Just Google "What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook." You notice that it's only used to discuss the problems with social media. Not as a cliche or joke, but in all seriousness because there is no possible way for something to "stay on Facebook." There is no stopping it. So, check your privacy settings, guard your information, refer to your family sparingly and don't post while intoxicated and you might, just might avoid having your social media usage leap too far off the screen. As one warning voice mentioned, "If you're not paying for it you're not the customer. You're the product."

It's a small word

"It's a small world" - Idiom - Said to show your surprise that people or events in different places are connected, Cambridge Dictionaries Online.

I've had my fair share of "small world" experiences. They tend to happen as we meet new people or try new things. It can be a fun experience when you meet someone who knows your best friend, or has been to the same place as you, or turns out to be a relative (or the ex of a relative). That last one happens more times than not when you belong to my family. I remember one of my teachers in high school telling me that not only were my first and last name the same as her fathers, but we even had the same middle initial. That same year I learned that my dance instructor was my aunt's cousin, and that my dad had dated my band teacher's older sister.

Many may say that with the world of technology that we live in such experiences may be more likely to happen. If you think about it when the most the average person could travel in a day was twenty miles and communication was limited to how loud you could yell, it was very likely that you knew everybody that everybody else you knew was  acquainted with. When your area of impact is relatively small it is unlikely that your ripples will be felt by others. Many may cite the butterfly effect and say that we are all connect regardless of distance and time. While I do agree in the idea of a connected existence I also believe that, like the ripples on a pond, the further away from us our influence travels the smaller it gets. Unless, of course, you are a quantum weather butterfly. But even then your thunderstorms are only about 6 inches across.

Returning from our flight of fancy into the butterfly effect, I do find that our modern forms of travel do decrease the size of our world. For instances, my parents live below the radar domes pictured here. They are large enough that you can see them from over 20 miles away. Every time I see them I think about the original settlers in the area who walked or rode horses or carts to travel. A trip from my current home to there is a little under an hour. Trip on horseback could be anywhere from 10 hours to an hour and a half. As it is, I have no difficulty driving down to see them for an afternoon and then getting back in time to put the kids to bed. Now a days if I can see it I can reach it fairly easily. That has not always been the case.

When you take into consideration that we have ways of traveling all over the earth in less than a day it has a way of "shrinking" your world. Take the longest flight in the world (supposedly currently running) Newark to Singapore. A 9,545 mile flight done in a little less than 19 hours. Seeing how the Earth is 24,901 miles around that flight is 37% the total way around. If I figured this right, that means you could circumnavigate the globe in an Airbus A340-500 in little over 51.3 hours. Just over two days. Ferdinand Magellen's crew did it in 3 years in the early fifteen hundreds. Even the Great White Fleet of Theodore Roosevelt which set sail in December of 1907 didn't return until February of 1909 - a 14 month trip. Even with air travel, the first flight around the world took 175 days. I've discovered that in March of 2010 the world record for a flight around the world was 57 hours and 54 minutes, so my estimate of 51 hours was a little off of reality. The story of Jules Verne Around the World in 80 Days (which was published in 1873) has been dreamed, enacted, and surpassed. It may be realistic to suppose that you could reach anywhere on the globe in a matter of days, and that's not considering parachuting.

Combine this with instantaneous communication (or "screaming fast" like my internet provider advertises) and you you can not only be anywhere in days, reach almost anyone within minutes. Apparently there are enough mobile phones in the world to cover 87% of the population. Or to put it another way - more people have cell phones than toilets. Now it appears that only 34.3% of the population of the world has internet access, but that's is still around 2.4353 billion people. Just think, the ripples you could be casting don't have to travel geographically anymore. Just from your fingers to your keyboard and from the screen to someone's eye. Current events are real time. Wars are fought with words as much as weapons, and the fighters can be everyday people with a smart phone or laptop. The world is indeed smaller.

The really cool thing is that despite the world shrinking in terms of travel and communication there scientists discover about 18,000 new species every year. And that's just the zoologists and botanists. Think about the discoveries in physics, chemistry, engineering, electronics, geology and all those other greek words. The world may be shrinking, but there is still plenty of it to explore.

The great Iron Horse

Not long ago my wife went and saw The Lone Ranger in the theater with my sister, M, and her husband, Moose. The discussion since has been varied, and I will say that I enjoyed it. No, this will not be a review. I will mention a few things about it here, but I don't consider it spoiling it because anybody who has seen the trailer should know these things. First, it features trains. Second, there is a train wreck. It is on trains that my musing takes me.

One of the scenes in the film is outlining the significance of the railroad and steam power. If you think about it, before steam power, the most efficient way to move goods and people was via water. Over land you had to use people (which required large amounts of people and food) or animals (which required people to watch the animals, and consequently food). There is also a very strict weight to speed ratio for animals and people. Increase the weight and you decrease the speed. Increase the speed and you have to decrease the weight. So if you had goods you could either move them quickly in small amounts or more slowly in large amounts. In the book Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman describes the difficulty in dealing with packing food for a trip:

The object of the expedition was to place two men on the summit of Rum Doodle. This necessitated the establishment of a camp at 39,000 feet stocked with a fortnight's supplies for two, so that in the event of adverse weather conditions the party could wait in comfort for an improvement. The equipment for this camp had to be carried from the railhead at Chaikhosi, a distance of five hundred miles. Five porters would be needed for this. Two porters would be needed to carry the food for these five, and another would carry the food for these two. His food would be carried by a boy. The boy would carry his own food. The first supporting party would be established at 38,000 feet, also with a fortnight's supplies, which necessitated another eight porters and a boy. In all, to transport tents and equipment, food, radio, scientific and photographic gear, personal effects, and so on, three thousand porters and three hundred and seventy-five boys would be required..."

While this statement is made in humor, it does demonstrate some real things to consider when it comes to traveling.

Ships require men as well, but the size of the load that a group of nautically trained men can take with them is vastly bigger then a Sherpa's. Even the Volga boatmen and their equivalents in other cultures could move more than if they didn't have the boat or raft to store the stuff in. This is one reason why civilization tends to stick to rivers and coasts. Not just for the fresh water, but also the transportation. Also, look at the difference between cultures that existed with water transportation verses overland. Arabia, the American Midwest, and Siberia were not known for their large, inland cities. So, what do you do when there are no rivers, seas, or lakes, or oceans?

The steam powered locomotive was an answer to that question. Like boats the ratio between the amount of goods and the number of people required was high. Also, they could travel at speeds that exceeded people's or animal capabilities (early engines were between 13 and 29 MPH without a load). It took a number of years to go from the early commuter train "The Best Friend of Charleston" to the transcontinental railroad project, but rail had an effect on the country unlike any other. Instead of towns forming next to large rivers where the paddle boats could bring supplies, they began to pop up everywhere. Many of these towns began as support for the railroad. Often these towns were full of "weekend entertainment" and were called "Hell on Wheels." To this day many "railroad" towns are considered to have unsavory reputations and being known for being rough around the edges. This also meant that if the railroad changed, the town often dried up. I've camped at Terrence, UT which was a town that was bypassed with the Southern Pacific Railroad cut across the Great Salt Lake. I was there 15 years ago all we found was broken china, building supplies and some holes in the ground that were old foundations, root cellars, etc. It is amazing how quickly things can change.

Interestingly enough trains are still one of the most efficient ways to move goods. I as fascinated to learn that diesel locomotives use diesel engines to power electric generators for toque motors and as such are really hybrid vehicles. In Russia I saw a lot of electric trains used for both commuter and freight. I believe this picture is from Russia showing power poles put in between the rails. I say it's Russia because of the prefabricated concrete ties and the general situation. .You kind of have to be there to get it. You can see the lack of use on the rails, so don't get bent out of shape about the people doing it being idiots.

In addition to how trains are powered, you have the different kinds of trains. I've personally ridden on cross country passenger, commuter, light rail, and even a cog train. Cog trains are fun because they have a third rail (not the electric kind) that has places for a cog wheel to fit. They use cog trains to climb steep inclines and mountains. I took the cog up Pike's Peak with a school trip and I remember them saying that the train could literally stop in a very few seconds. This is simply because if they lock that cog wheel there is no slippage on the rail. You can see the third, crenelated rail in this picture of the Pike's Peak cog train.

Trains have always been fascinating to me and I wish I could spend more time on discussing them and researching them more indepth, but this blog has go on long enough. I would like to end with what is considered on of the greatest silent movies which also is considered a fabulous train movie - The General, featuring Buster Keaton. One of the things that makes this movie so incredible is that, like The Lone Ranger, there is a train crash. However, unlike its modern want-a-bees, Buster Keaton actually crashed an honest-to-goodness, fully-working, legitimate steam locomotive into a river. It was obviously done in one take and is impressive by any standard.

Talking in the depths of the ocean

I recently listened to Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy on Audible.com. I tried reading it when I was younger (like in high school) and just couldn't make it through the first chapter. It is a large book, about 650 pages, but that isn't what did it. It was just how technical it was. Clancy is well known for this and I found a similar difficulty in reading The Hunt for Red October, although I made it about half way through that one. I am only really able to enjoy the books if I listen to them. I don't want to get into why it's easier to listen then read these books but it's true. As a student of Russian and military history it is a great story about how a situation that causes the Cold War to become a very, very hot one. Despite the land war being fought in West Germany, the USSR needs to close the Atlantic so that the NATO troops can't be supported by American equipment. The troops can get across by air but the material to fight the war (ordnance, munitions, tanks, etc.) have to be shipped. So, just as the German's tried unsuccessfully to do in WWII, the USSR is attempting to block US ship access to Europe. Only this time, the Americans are at a disadvantage...

As a large part of the book that hinges on the navy, particularly submarine and anti-submarine warfare, I thought that I would dive (yes, pun intended) into a topic that I was thinking about a little while ago - submarines. You may remember my mention of Dr. Tim Wolters, my former professor who taught aviation and aeronautics. Last I E-mailed him, he included one of his publications, "Early Experiments in Submarine Wireless" (The Submarine Review, July 2011, 119-129). That got me thinking about the dynamics of submarines. Particularly how they interact with the world around them.

My first interactions with submarines was actually the Red Storm Rising video game. that my father owed and played. Years later I would play, Jane's Fleet Command and it drove me crazy that when I would give orders to my subs, they would run deep and I couldn't change their orders for a period of time. This is simply because salt water blocks, scrambles, or otherwise causes problems for most communication systems. Dr. Wolters' article was on experiments using wireless telegraph to try to communicate, but in the end the antenna would need to be out of the water (Wolters, 2011, p. 123). Wolters points out that during the Cold War, the US developed a towed buoy that contained communications antenna, but that the idea was originally tried in 1915 (ibid). According to The Naval Institute guide to World Naval Weapon Systems by Norman Friedman (5th edition, 2006, Naval Institute Press), towed buoys and antenna are still used, some with great success, but they are still limited by depth and speed (p. 53). This means that a submarine has to want to talk to you for you to talk to it.

The Navy is continuing to search for ways to better communicate with submarines. The better they can communicate the better they can be used. For instance, in Red Storm Rising the USS Chicago a US nuclear attach submarine, is approaching a Russian surface ship task force. They are in an ideal position to eliminate the Russian flagship and deal a sever blow when the fleet wigs out. In the confusion, Chicago is able to launch three missiles, but is unable to even record the results before they are driven off by anti-submarine tactics. They figure that another sub had slunk in for a shot and had spoiled theirs. Had the subs been able to communicate they could have coordinated their attacks and dealt a heavy blow to the surface fleet. As it was, Chicago was unable to exploit their position or even ascertain the damage done. Communication is very important for successful operations. I won't tell you what happens when the captain of the Chicago does when he meets the man who spoiled his shot.





The latest innovation that is underway is the submarine laser communication (SLC) project. Back in January of 2010 the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) put out a challenge to develop a "blue-spectrum submarine laser communications system able to link submerged submarines with nearby aircraft." In October of that same year, the contract was awarded to QinetiQ set to be tested in "naval exercise in mid 2012." DARPA has very little to say about project from what I found. But I can't blame them for being quiet about this kind of project. I was unable to find much information on how the device worked during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) last year, but it appears that it was tested during the exercise. The fact that nothing else has come out can mean a number of things. Many would assume that it means the device was a success and therefore now top secret. Or, just as likely, that they are still reviewing the results. Either way, it may take awhile more before we hear anything. Granted, if you serve on a sub, you may hear about it a lot sooner and hopefully, you won't have to come to periscope depth to do so.




One last submarine story. I got this one from The Reader's Digest, the "Humor in Uniform" section. The writer had two friends in the navy, one served on a destroyer, the other on a submarine. The surface man commonly referred to the submariner as a "Bubble-head," a commonly used term for crewmen of a sub. When the writer asked his submariner friend if he minded, the friend replied that he did not. The writer asked what submariners called surface men. The answer came: "Targets."

Terminating Acceleration

For my birthday, my wife got me a great gift - memories. She wanted to give me the chance to do something I had never done before. That something turned out to be indoor skydiving. Sadly I do not have pictures from the event, but I've been thinking about it and how it works.

I remember in high school physics doing all of our assignments in a friction-less environment. This was always a little frustrating to me because physics is applied mathematics that demonstrate how the world works and the world does not exist in a friction-less state. I understand the reason for this - high school students are probably not prepared for the calculations necessary to compute those numbers and high school teachers may what to stay as far away from fluid dynamics as possible.

Anyway, I bring that up because as I was doing research on this, I realized how important it is. First - let me lay out a misconception that I've been operating under, that terminal velocity (TV) is a constant, given value. I figured that the whole idea of terminal velocity - the point when a falling object no longer accelerates and thus maintains a constant velocity - was that it was an absolute. I didn't know why people stopped accelerating I just figured it was one of those points attached to the law of gravity. That doesn't make any sense, but there it is.

As it turns out TV is a function of several factors, many you could probably suspect: the objects mass, acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s/s), density of the fluid (in this case air), the drag coefficient based on the fluid in question, and the projected area of the object. That last factor is the most variable when it comes to skydiving. This is because terminal velocity is the point where the resistance of the air is pushing against you (i.e. up) at the same rate that gravity is accelerating you (i.e. down). So the very force that causes reentering space craft, meteorites, and steaks to heat up is also the one that limits how fast you can fall.

According the the terminal velocity Wikipedia article, the common TV for skydivers is about 122 mph or 54
meters per second. This is with the belly down, arms and legs out, commonly seen pose. Head down, skydivers may go as fast as 200 mph or "almost the terminal velocity of the Peregrine Falcon diving down on its prey." The world record is 843.6 mph held by Felix Baumgartner when he bailed out of a helium balloon on the edge of space last year. Up that high he was able to increase his speed because the air density was much less then closer to the surface. All in all, quite impressive.

I looked up all this because the certificate they gave us after our "jump" said that we had reached terminal velocity. I thought about how that works if we weren't really falling. But again, TV can be manipulated if you can control the different factors. In a vertical wind tunnel you can control the amount of air resistance. Simply pump enough upward force to counter gravity and your downward velocity is neutralized. When you enter the camber, they have you put your hands on your chest and fall into the wind. Even if you fell for a full two seconds, you would only be going about 19.6 meters/second (~1.1 kilometers/hour) so from what I can see, you would indeed reach terminal velocity it would just be a very slow one. Because of the controlled environment they can really whip the air resistance up to where your body does not need to be in the standard pose to remain afloat.

So, once again I feel vindicated in my believe that the more you know about something the more you can exploit it. By learning more about the relationship between gravity and air resistance (which resulted in a discussion of terminal velocity) we can see how they can be controlled. I've always said that until the force that holds things down was understood we could never fly. Now, I can actually say that I have flown. And it was pretty cool.

Real vs. digital

One of the most commonly watched movies in my family as I grew up was The Great Muppet Caper. My family enjoyed other Muppet productions, although I didn't see an actual episode of the original Muppet show until I was married. My family now owns the first season on DVD and my children enjoy watching them. I find it entertaining trying to figure out how they manipulate the different muppets, particularly the big ones. Like any performance media their are mistakes made and you occasionally see someones head or hand. In the original pilot episode An End to Sex and Violence they zoom out during the credits so you can see what a filming actually looks like.

The Jim Hanson Company has been used by film, TV, and independent producers for the last 55 years. They work in both physical and digital effects, but I would say that they may be well known for their physical creations. Many people may ask how they are able to stay in business with the advent of CGI and the advanced images that can be produced now. Why create something physically when you can do it digitally without physical limitations?

I remember when the George Lucas digitally remastered the original Star Wars trilogy and they included a scene with Jabba the Hutt. However, many fans were up in arms about how Jabba was done digitally as opposed to with a physical creation. The original Jabba was done by the Jim Hanson Company and, as I understand, took about at least three people to work. The picture to the right shows the digital Jabba on the left and the "real" one on the right. On a side note, "jabba" is an English pronunciation of the Russian word (written in transcription as) "zhabba" which means toad. Another fun note. Chewbacca sounds like two Russian words, "chelavec" and "sabaca" which translate as "man" and "dog" respectively. I heard Lucas wanted to use foreign sounding words.

While I can't say that I was "up in arms" I was rather disappointed about the digital Jabba. Mostly because of the continuity. Jabba looked different. I can understand the reason for digitizing him - the biggest is that the scene with Jabba had been shot as part of the original filming, but they had a human actor playing Jabba (as Lucas wasn't sure what Jabba should look like. Even if they had used a physical Jabba they would have had to put the image in digitally anyway. It certainly made sense to just do it digitally.

The biggest reason I was disappointed about them doing Jabba digitally was because no matter how well the CGI is done, you can often see that it isn't real. Or instance, in the latest version of Alice in Wonderland a lot of it was shot with CGI. If you watch the Knave of Hearts when he walks, you can see a bounce in his step that isn't really natural. Like he's wearing drywall stilts, which is exactly what he is doing. I really enjoy that film and love the imagery they use, yet every time I see the Knave it pulls me out and wrinkles the illusion for me.

I could go through all kinds of examples of good and bad, but I there isn't enough time or space for that discussion. Physical models are not perfect either. But the thing is that such a creation is actually real and in the world, no matter how odd it is. In the behind the scenes of the movie Zathura the director explains that they used physical creations (people in suits) in place of digital images as they wanted to give the children actors something to react to. It is not everyone that can make a CG image look real. Again, in the behind the scenes for Who Framed Roger Rabbit they explain that Bob Hoskins (the actor for Eddie Valiant) was hired because he acted like there was a real cartoon rabbit in his world as opposed to nothing that was filled in later.

In the end, I can't complain too much as both mediums have their faults. Sometimes they are well done and many times they are not. Granted, if they are bad enough the film because a cult classic. Like the original Doctor Who - which I do love dearly. I guess that means that I just have to take them as they come.

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.)