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Halloween and Pirate Shortwave, they just seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Listening to Wolverine radio on 6955 USB at the moment. It's pretty steady, if not all that strong. Also could receive X-FM 6975 AM, but it was so badly fading that listening wasn't pleasant. Propagation is pretty poor tonight, no other shortwave pirates receivable at the moment.
As usual, there's an article over at The SWLing Post.
I'd mentioned reading this book a few weeks ago, and even mentioned finishing it weekend before last, but have been too occupied with cleaning up after some small matter to write about it. So here goes.
Published in 1960, AAD is the autobiography of WWII pilot and 50's test pilot Scott Crossfield, up through the first dawning rays of the Space Age. As such, the most surprising parts of the book are about America's other space program, which culminated in the X-15 rocket plane. The book ends with him wondering which direction the U.S. space efforts would take, towards the Mercury program and capsules, or remaining with the X-series wings-and-wheels approach. Here in 2018 of course we know how things rolled out, but getting the insider's view circa 1960 is fascinating.
There are innumerable other small insights into how the X-series both succeeded and failed over the course of the 1950s. The Air Force's X-1 of course was a raging success, along with the Navy's D-558 program. But somehow the R&D momentum stalled out with the X-2 and X-3, leaving the U.S. aerospace industry starved for hard data in the Mach 2+ arena. Crossfield was there in the thick of these goings-on, and when he got wind of the early design stages of what would become the X-15, he carefully positioned himself to be the main pilot-engineer on the team, in order to guide this ultimate airplane's development around those pitfalls. All along the way, where Chuck Yeager's autobiography gives the seat-of-the-pants stick-and-rudder USAF man's viewpoint, we get the NACA engineer-who-flies viewpoint in Crossfield's book. It's a great way of seeing the situation from two completely different sides. It also spells out for the reader that these planes were emphatically not about daredevil pilots setting records, even though that gets all the press and is mostly what the public sees, but were about them being flying testbeds to sort out how to build the next generations of high-performance production aircraft.
Back to the autobiographical aspects. While the X-15 story takes up the last 40% of the book, there are the requisite air-struck teenager learns to fly stories, WWII pilot stories, post-war lull stories, etc. All of these tales are good. For example, in his first solo flight, Crossfield shows exactly why he would later become a great test pilot by debugging a mysterious banging noise on the plane. In a more grim note, we get a glimpse of the mindset that would ultimately lead to his 2006 death in – what else – an airplane crash.
By all means, read Yeager's autobiography. By all means, read (or just watch) The Right Stuff. But after all that, take a look at the other side of the coin and read Crossfield's Always Another Dawn. It gives an entirely different view of the same era, and will give a reader fresh insights into this wildly creative time.
Another good opportunity for coffeeneuring while in the FL Panhandle for fun with chainsaws and other implements of recovery.
1. where: Apalachicola Chocolate Company, Apalachicola FL
2. date: 10/27/2018
3. what: another damn latte. What's becoming of me? My sister is a bad influence. Will have to drink at least a gallon of straight black to make up for these whipped travesties.
4. ride details: Another break from hurricane clean-up. Again, rode the '89 GT Karakoram, which I leave in Apalach at my sister's. At least, until my place is finished. Click pics to right to embiggen. If you squint, you can just make out a shadow from the knot from a rough-healed collarbone.
4. mileage: 2.1 miles round-trip. Just slightly closer to my sister's house. Any closer and we'd have had to detour to a park on the way. It's a very small town.
Another beautiful late October day, another coffee break from storm clean-up, and another easy ride with my sister. Saw three cousins having lunch on the way back, so we stopped and talked with them for a half-hour or so. Then it was back to the saw.
It's a funny thing, but this year the Coffeeneuring Challenge is going much more smoothly than last. Even with Hurricane Michael complicating things, the schedule has worked out. Also having an additional coffee house here in Bay St. Louis makes clicking off one more stop all that much easier. No more local coffee houses, so the next – and final! – coffeeneuring stop will have to be a little more creative. Stay tuned.
Over to Apalachicola for a weekend of chainsaw action, but we managed to take time out for some coffeeneuring. On to the particulars:
1. where: Cafe Con Leche, Apalachicola FL
2. date: 10/26/2018
3. what: plain ol' latte, buncha foam on top
4. ride details: Beautiful fall day in the FL Panhandle. Rode the '89 GT Karakoram; that bike's no stranger to hurricane season. As always, click to embiggen the picture.
5. mileage: 2.2 miles round-trip.
As with last year's trip to CcL, rode with my sister this time. You can see her 100% stylin' Schwinn in the background. Apalachicola's looking a little rough after Hurricane Michael, but nothing like our neighbors to the west, Port St. Joe and Mexico beach. Still lots of clean-up going on, and I was glad to have a break with some real coffee to speed along the chainsawing.
ps: If you click on the picture, you can see where the coffee shop's railing along with its supporting bricks have peeled away from the porch. Just on the other side of the railing is Water Street, which was flooded about 4' deep during the recent hurricane. Coffee shop and its neighbors stayed dry, while a friend's shrimp house across the street didn't. Neither did the row of shops on the next block north. Also, on the left in the distant background, you can see the Hwy 98 Apalachicola River bridge.
The prettiest fall day we've had so far. Here are the particulars:
1. where: Cat Island Coffeehouse, Pass Christian MS
2. date: 10/21/2018
3. what: double macchiato (real kind), with a chocolate-and-orange torte on the side
4. ride details: perfect high-60's fall weather for the ride; took backroads and the Bay bridge there & back; CX bike
5. miles: 16.6 round-trip
It's one of those stunning fall days here on the MS Gulf coast, one of those days that makes up even for hurricane season. Here, have some pictures:
Clockwise, from top left: Henderson Point seen from Bay Bridge; Pass Christian Harbor, from coffeehouse porch; yes, and way too much carbs; and finally, CX bike waiting patiently by coffeehouse railing. Click on any to embiggen, because these thumbnail pics don't do justice to the beautiful day we're having here.
And with that, we're off to a good start on this year's Coffeeneuring Challenge. This also covers all of the actual coffee shops within about a 20 mile radius of BSL, so for the next few we're going to have to get creative. Stay tuned.
I haven't been able yet to make time to go see the new movie First Man, a biopic about Neil Armstrong, but I had been looking forward to it since hearing of it last summer. Now some reviews are in, and in a nutshell they're saying that it's beautifully made, but that Armstrong is portrayed as an emotionally damaged robot.
Now mind you, these reviews aren't coming from the usual film school dropouts who write for the local city paper. Sure, those people can critique something like La La Land just fine. However, for a movie about the Apollo program and the engineer pilots behind it, more expertise is called for. So go have a look at what Amy Teitel over at Vintage Space has to say about the movie. I trust her a good deal more than the average film reviewer.
And no, it doesn't seem like editing history to drop the flag-planting scene was that big a deal, even to people nominally on the right. Don't take my word on it, listen to what Bill Whittle has to say. His complaints aren't about the flag, which he mentions only in passing. His complaints are all about the portrayal of Armstrong. Conversely, his praise is all about the re-creation of early space hardware, specifically the X-15 and Gemini scenes.
So bleh. I'd really like to go see this movie, if only for the cool hardware on the big screen. But I don't think it's worth my time to bother. Maybe I'll go see it, if I get a free evening. At least I've been warned ahead of time and can perhaps shrug off the bad writing long enough to enjoy the flight scenes.
It's a documentary built around meticulous restoration of WW1 footage. On the off chance you haven't yet seen the trailer, here it is. Go watch now.
After watching that, here's a BBC video interview with director Peter Jackson. He discusses the hows and whys of the process. Also very much worth the few minutes' watch.
Can't wait until this gets here to the States.
ps: Official site: https://www.theyshallnotgrowold.film Not much there for us in the U.S. at the moment, but perhaps we'll be seeing some "playing your side of the pond" announcements there soon.
Just a stop for coffee right at lunchtime – shoulda saved this one for a breakfast, but I'll be back.
1. where: The Buttercup on Second Street, Bay St. Louis Ms
2. date: 10/20/18
3. what: plain ol' black coffee, probably Community brand. Free refills! Chocolate chip cookie too.
4. ride details: a warm, sticky mid-October day; CX bike; more below
5. 5.5 miles round-trip. It's next door to PJ's, but I took the beach route home.
Cold front's on the way through, so things were kind of muggy and in the mid-80's. The Buttercup's nice, but it's more of a breakfast and lunch place, less of a coffee shop. Like I said, should've saved this one for a breakfast time run.
Had to stop for a train coming through downtown on the way back.
Finally, it's the third coffeeneuring stop within a single block of downtown Bay St. Louis. The milages are all about the same, but because I took the beach route home that added another mile. They're approximate mileages though, because I'm having to pull them from google maps. What, no cyclometer? Well, this one:
It's that kind of a bike.
...then this youtube series is for you:
The Hobbit: A Long-Expected Autopsy
Battle of Five Studios
The Desolation of Warners
Each is just over a half-hour long, so set aside a little time to plow through.
Seldom has anything so well-begun gone so horribly wrong as those movies.
Following up on last week's death knell for pilot wave theories, Quanta magazine takes on the many worlds interpretation. The quantum Russian roulette thought experiment is a particularly compelling argument against MWI.
Crazy question: Wouldn't these diverging universes have some residual interaction with each other? Gravitational, at the very least? And if so, then why don't we see any signs of these interactions? (Apart from than some possible hand-wavy allusions to dark matter and/or dark energy, I mean. Show me some math about that and then we'll talk. No, I didn't think so.) It's this apparent lack of residual interactions that has always put me off of MWI and related ideas.
OK, on to more positive things, about which we can actually make non-nonsensical statements. Maybe do some coffeeneuring this weekend.
Yeah, more later.
Right on schedule, the madness continues. Today's particulars:
1. where: PJ's Coffee, Bay St. Louis MS (it's new, not a lot at the link but it is there)
2. date: 10/14/18
3. what: 16 oz medium dark roast "Grind 35" or some such. Had a chocolate cake ball with it.
4. ride details: warm October day in the mid-80's. Took the neighborhood backroads there, took the railroad gravel shortcut back.
5. 4.5 miles round-trip.
CX bike can be seen leaning against stairway railing.
Other stuff... finished reading Always Another Dawn with my coffee. Expect a post on that book soon.
Also... I know at least some the scoop on this PJ's. I don't want any crap from friends about this trip. Just taking a look-see while getting another easy coffeeneuring stop in. The coffee and cake were fine though, the staff was friendly and efficient, the place looked really nice – new, clean, & well laid-out, and I even saw a few people I know while there.
Over at the Sea Coast Echo site: here. Worth a couple minutes' look.
As with last year, this madness had to start with the Mockingbird. Here are the particulars:
1. where: Mockingbird Cafe, Bay St. Louis MS
2. date: 10/13/18
3. what: triple macchiato (the real kind)
4. ride details: a nice September-ish day in mid-October; CX bike
5. 4.4 miles round-trip
(if you're wondering what all this is about, here's the intro page)
CX bike can be seen behind stairway railing, at the right. Click to embiggen.
Other thoughts... Took along the kindle and read another chapter in Always Another Dawn. 75% through, will post a few wrap-up comments here at the blog when done.
Banksy artwork shreds itself after #1m sale at Sotheby's
Personally and for once, I'm at a loss to comment.
Update: I have it on Good Authority that yes, this is legitimately art.
Update #2: You can see the actual shredding happening here. Banksy shouldn't have cheaped out on the batteries, it looks like they gave out half-way through.
Update #3: Speculation on the internet has it that this incident, its results, and notoriety have instantly increased the value of the work by 2-5x. We shall see.
By coincidence, last night I picked up a kindle copy of NACA/NASA test pilot Scott Crossfield's 1960 autobiography Always Another Dawn, and then this article about Crossfield popped up today on the This Day in Aviation site. Interesting stuff so far, but I'm barely a chapter in.
BTW, Amazon seems to be putting a fair number of older books on kindle for cheap. This one for example was just $0.99. Oddly enough, it was nearly $4 for direct-to-kindle. Pricing algorithms, go figure.
Halloween and Pirate Shortwave, they just seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Listening to Wolverine radio on 6955 USB at the moment. It's pretty steady, if not all that strong. Also could receive X-FM 6975 AM, but it was so badly fading that listening wasn't pleasant. Propagation is pretty poor tonight, no other shortwave pirates receivable at the moment.
Published in 1960, AAD is the autobiography of WWII pilot and 50's test pilot Scott Crossfield, up through the first dawning rays of the Space Age. As such, the most surprising parts of the book are about America's other space program, which culminated in the X-15 rocket plane. The book ends with him wondering which direction the U.S. space efforts would take, towards the Mercury program and capsules, or remaining with the X-series wings-and-wheels approach. Here in 2018 of course we know how things rolled out, but getting the insider's view circa 1960 is fascinating.
Another good opportunity for coffeeneuring while in the FL Panhandle for fun with chainsaws and other implements of recovery.
4. ride details: Another break from hurricane clean-up. Again, rode the '89 GT Karakoram, which I leave in Apalach at my sister's. At least, until my place is finished. Click pics to right to embiggen. If you squint, you can just make out a shadow from the knot from a rough-healed collarbone.
Over to Apalachicola for a weekend of chainsaw action, but we managed to take time out for some coffeeneuring. On to the particulars:
Just a stop for coffee right at lunchtime – shoulda saved this one for a breakfast, but I'll be back.
Cold front's on the way through, so things were kind of muggy and in the mid-80's. The Buttercup's nice, but it's more of a breakfast and lunch place, less of a coffee shop. Like I said, should've saved this one for a breakfast time run.
1. where: PJ's Coffee, Bay St. Louis MS (it's new, not a lot at the link but it is there)
As with last year, this madness had to start with the Mockingbird. Here are the particulars:
By coincidence, last night I picked up a kindle copy of NACA/NASA test pilot Scott Crossfield's 1960 autobiography Always Another Dawn, and then this article about Crossfield popped up today on the This Day in Aviation site. Interesting stuff so far, but I'm barely a chapter in.
