1981 Quasar Color TV

A blast from the past... click on the pic for more detail:

Check out the video explaining how we had to change the channel back in the dark ages....

New blog spin-off, also Douglas Adams and HGTTG

I've decided to split my brain into two pieces. Not quite like Zaphod Beeblebrox, who decided to have two brains and then cauterize a section of one so that it wasn't accessible for a particular reason (no spoilers here). But I digress. Ok, here's the point. I want to make a clear delineation between my work related to flying and flight instruction, and the "rest of the story" (homage to Paul Harvey), which is what this blog is. Mostly Useless Information will remain a place where I post anything that I come across that I don't think is worthy of jamming into the news feed of my Facebook friends. My new blog, Flight Instruction Secrets, is where I'm going to make an honest effort to try to give back some of the great tips, tricks, and insights that have been handed down to me by MY flight instructors, in an effort to pay it forward. So, if you missed it the first time- for those of you that are interested in flying, check out my new flying related blog at:

http://flightsecrets.blogspot.com/

Mahalo. 

Oh, one more thing. If you like humorous sci-fi, you must read this book. If you've ever been puzzled by someone answering a question that you've asked with the answer "forty-two, of course", well, this is the origin of that particular meme.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Please take note that, in this series, Douglas Adams (RIP) wrote five books:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Live, The Universe, and Everything

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Mostly Harmless

All of these books (part of a tongue-in-cheek "five part trilogy") are contained in the amazon link above.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish nothing but the best for you and yours, friends and family. Spend some time together and forget your troubles for a while.

If you are bored enough to come here to the blog today, I can offer you some fun videos to waste a tiny part of your day laughing:

51 Jokes (in Four Minutes)

50 Jokes (Yes...actually 50 jokes)

50 MORE JOKES in FOUR MINUTES

videos courtesy of the Vlogbrothers on Youtube. Funny guys.

Vectrex

Ok. What the hell is a Vectrex?

When I was seven or so years old, this now-primitive (but at the time, quite amazing) self-contained video game system always drew me in, like Odysseus to the sirens. They had one set up at the toy store at Frederick Town(e?) Mall, whose original name I can no longer remember- and I doubt it's even there anymore. This simple little machine was a vector graphics system, only drawing lines instead of colors or full sprites- think back to the original Asteroids or Battlezone games from Atari- they too were vector gfx machines. Anyway- just for fun, I thought I'd poke eBay to see what was out there. The prices for working units with controllers, game cartridges, and screen overlays (if you click the link, you will see what I mean) are relatively astronomical- although I'm pretty sure the sticker price on these units was $200 when they came out, so for the early 80s they were super pricey then too.

If you're actually interested in seeing what I'm talking about, here are two links:

Vectrex available on eBay

Wikipedia entry on Vectrex

By today's standards however, these game machines are probably as exciting as playing with a cribbage board, while not knowing how to play cribbage. 

One more thing. While I was window shopping, I found this- a damn good looking Zaxxon stand-up coin-op machine. Zaxxon was an infuriatingly tough game but the graphics were good for the time, and you really felt like you were in the little spaceship, down in the trenches, shooting fuel tanks and incoming missiles with your single diminutive little laser.

Zaxxon on eBay
(I always thought that Zaxxon and Donkey Kong Jr. were the two main, and perhaps the only two good, reasons that anyone should buy a Coleco Vision. Popeye was just plain dumb.)

How does a bowling alley work?

The title of this post must sound exceedingly strange, mundane, or outright stupid. I mean, really- how does a bowling alley work? That's easy! You roll a ball, knock some pins down, write down a number (or these days, let the computer do it for you), and then take a sip of beer and wait 10 minutes for your next turn. Fair enough. However- ever since I can remember rolling duckpin balls at Village Lanes and Arcade Lanes here in Frederick, MD (both now since have closed), I was always EXTREMELY curious as to what was happening behind that cosmetic facade just above the pin area, to know what was going on behind the scenes to keep the game going. Namely:

1. sweeping away "deadwood" (knocked-over pins which must be removed before subsequent rolls), while keeping the remaining pins in place;
2. sweeping away ALL of the remaining pins at the end of the frame, once your alloted amount of ball rolls (which for duckpin bowling, by the way, is three- not two- like ten-pin bowling) and resetting a new "rack" of pins in place;
3. collecting the knocked down pins to be used for the next "rack";
4. returning the balls that I have rolled back to me for reuse.

Frankly, there's a lot of precise action going on in the "back of house" in order to keep the game going. Keep in mind that if someone rolls a strike, it might only be 15 seconds or so between the end of the prior frame, and the time that the person that rolled a strike hits the reset button to request another full rack of pins to be reset in place. So, the machinery in the back of house must not only be fast, but it also has to be precise (not putting pins in the wrong spots, or making sure not to omit pins in the 10-pin layout), accurate (not putting pins in wrong places that would make a frame easier or more difficult for a bowler to score with, since league play is highly competitive), as well as safely and reliably putting pins- intact- in place, and not damaging the bowler's bowling balls in the process of gently returning them to the bowler, at the "front of house".

That being said- if you have a curious mind like I do, seeing how all this happens might be interesting to you. The first time my friends at Walkersville Lanes took me to the back of house to see how things work was really quite a thrill for me. A few days ago they let me hang out and shoot some video of how the 50+ (60+?) year old machinery works that clears pins, sets pins, and sends bowling balls back to the bowlers works. I hope you find this stuff interesting- please note that I tried to get in as close as I could to shoot these videos without losing any fingers- this machinery is VERY dangerous with all of the motors, chains, and gears involved....

Thanks to Reds and Leroy (in no particular order- you guys are both great teachers and have infinite patience with me) for your help with this.

Check out the six videos on the right:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ferdmack?feature=mhum#p/u/1/2pzRGbKpjBg

Bill Hammack - The Engineer Guy

Dr. Hammack is a friend that I met during my 2nd year of undergrad at Carnegie Mellon. Although I was never lucky enough to take one of his chemistry classes (my chemistry career in college consisted of only two courses, I believe), Bill and I met while taking a scuba class on campus, and shortly thereafter we went on a brief trip to florida with the scuba class to do some fresh water diving. I recently came across a treasure trove of articles, interviews, and videos that he has put together online, and it's filled with stuff that's impressive, funny, and educational.

So, here ya go:

www.engineerguy.com

some of his videos

Info about Dr. Hammack

Inception - Redux

Ok. I watched Inception again, just to try to catch things that I missed the first time around, and to use the complete knowledge of the first full showing to help fill in the cracks the second time around.

All I can tell you is that 1. you need to see this movie, and 2. this mindbender of a movie may have a profound effect on you. Consider this simply a recommendation at least, and at most, a sincere urging to watch this movie...

If you want to laugh, the Ace-man is your ticket

I've been a big fan of Adam Carolla for at least 10 years. I used to record his two hour Loveline radio shows and either turn them into mp3s for my Ipod to listen to driving to work (actually back then it was a Creative brand dinky little 64MB player, pre-Ipod), or burn them to CDs to give to friends to listen to. These days, he has his own little broadcasting empire, but the point of all this is that you can get his daily show for FREE to listen to. Here's his main homepage:

The Adam Carolla Show

and here is the free new app called Stitcher, that lets you stream shows live to your smartphone- by far the easiest way to get the show without having to subscribe to the podcast and sync your phone:

Stitcher.com

finally- Adam also has a new book out, check it out on amazon:

In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks

Mahalo.

I'm looking for followers

Hi There!

If you're just randomly surfing by my blog, why not become a follower? I'd be glad to do the same for you. Let's build a little empire, shall we?

Inception

I was honestly surprised how thought provoking Inception was. Like Shutter Island, another of DiCaprio's big projects, this was another mental (literally) thriller- but this time the story was MUCH deeper (no pun intended, to those of you that have seen it) and really makes you consider your place in the world, as well as evoking real emotion in the viewer (at least in my case). I don't really want to say much more about it, for fear of giving away any of the important points (thanks Tom, for blowing the key piece of The Sixth Sense for me, back in the day), but suffice it to say that if you thought that Shutter Island was any good, this movie will probably seem like a substantially better flick. It's also visually impressive, they definitely pulled out the stops on not just CGI (which was definitely not overused) but also choices of locations. I give it an A-, mostly docked from a higher grade as a result of a few short but annoying (and preachy, between characters) script segments.

testing from email, also Fallout: New Vegas review

Blogger has a feature where you can post directly from email. So I'm giving it a test run.

Purple monkey dishwasher

And just for fun, here's a freebie- a review of one of the hottest new games- Fallout New Vegas, as reported by the most amusing reviewer I have ever come across:


Zero Punctuation: Fallout: New Vegas

Awesome electronic games from my childhood

Many of my friends and family members had the coolest games. Back before we had "real" video games (besides the Atari 2600/VCS), handheld games were the spark of imagination and gave you a way to play a good game without heading to the arcade- and god bless 1. arcades that provided an incentive to spend $5 at once in a change machine (24 quarters/tokens for $5 instead of 20), and 2. loving mothers who didn't put up much of a fight to give their sons $5 on occasion. Anyway, as Adam Carolla would say, "but there I go again, digressing". Check out this guy's store on ebay, selling many, many (Police Academy reference) of the games that I either wasted lots of time paying, or just as bad, wasted lots of time lusting after in my early years:

70's 80's 90's HANDHELD ELECTRONIC GAMES

cameras in the cockpit

J. Mac McClellan is one of my favorite aviation authors, writing both informational and sometimes humorous articles from the perspective of a professional airline pilot. Here's his latest post, by way of fltplan.com, regarding the idea of augmenting cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) with not just audio and system data, but video as well...

Video Cameras In The Cockpit

new runway crossing clearances / terminology

This is a big change in the way controllers will instruct aircraft to taxi. While it still remains to be seen how this change will play out from the perspective of efficiency as well as "getting used to the new regime", I feel that the "old" way of clearing aircraft to taxi was both non-specific as well as dangerous...

------------------------------

New Runway Crossing Procedure
Notice Number: NOTC2372

Runway Crossing Procedure Change

Beginning June 30, 2010 , controllers will be required to issue explicit instructions to cross or hold short of each runway that intersects a taxi route.

"Taxi to" will no longer be used when issuing taxi instructions to an assigned take-off runway.

Instructions to cross a runway will be issued one at a time. Instructions to cross multiple runways will not be issued. An aircraft or vehicle must have crossed the previous runway before another runway crossing is issued.

This applies to any runway, including inactive or closed runways.

Changes will also be made to the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) and AIP to reflect the new procedures.

Never cross a hold line without explicit ATC instructions.
If in doubt ASK!

Reminder: You may not enter a runway unless you have been:

• instructed to cross that specific runway;
• cleared to take off from that runway; or
• instructed to position and hold on that specific runway.

See https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2010/Jun/Runway_Crossing_Procedural_Change_FAAST_Blast.pdf for the Runway Safety notice. Click this next link for a video of the change. http://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/news/current_events/taxi_to/media/TaxiTo_V3_3wPreloader.swf (You may have to copy and paste the links into your browser.)

For additional information, go to http://www.faa.gov/go/runwaysafety

another sr-71 crash story

this one is quite a good read, written by the pilot himself:

click here: SR-71 Blackbird breakup at Mach 3.18!