It's ugly but effective

The DIRECT launcher system is touted as being able to lift things which we need Shuttles to lug up to space now, in chunks up to just shy of 100 metric tonnes.

Because the one lifter would replace two, it immediately saves 16 billion USD in development costs (35 billion eventually, they say). Due to using Shuttle parts, much more development & learning is also bypassed.

The little, baby one lofts 70 tonnes (or an Orion CEV module plus 48 tonnes) so could lug large Hubble parts up to service said ’scope, and could also lug up chunks of ISS to Fred, in lieu of pieces scratched by the approaching Shuttle end-of-life (Centrifuge Accommodations Module, Habitation Module, Propulsion Module, Science Power Platform, etc).

I think its most appealing aspect is that — to put it politely — it’s not beautiful. It looks like a Shuttle tank & boosters with a few trinkets strapped onto the top. In other words, it looks built to task, rather than built to impress.

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new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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