Archive: September 7, 2009

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memorable day

Monday,  09/07/09  05:33 PM

A memorable day this Memorial Day, in which I celebrated our freedom and liberty by choosing to crew for Meg in a Regatta on Westlake, and we won all three races by miles.  Megan is getting very fast. I do want to say - as always - that I am so thankful for all the men and women in our armed forces who have given their lives so that we can enjoy ours.  My daughter Nicole is no longer in the Navy (honorably discharged after seven years' service!) but thinking about her still brings it home, how proud I am and happy that we have people who are willing to defend us and protect our way of life.  (I am not going to add, let's hope President Obama doesn't screw it all up, although I'm strongly tempted.) Meanwhile I have a busy week ahead and am [somewhat] trying to get ready for it - ha! - by relaxing and hanging out.  I think I spent more time doing less this three-day weekend than any time since I can remember, and I'm happier for it. So, onward, the Ole filter makes a pass... MSNBC celebrates the month in space.  Awesome pictures, every one.  You will not be surprised that I chose the one at left as my favorite, a temperature map of Saturn flanked by Titan (the dot in the lower middle).  Check 'em out!  I'm liking IPO Dashboards, a new blog about, well IPO Dashboards, analyzing the companies who could and have gone public.  An interesting and timely subject :)  It is clear that when a company can go public depends more on the market than on the companies maturity.  [ thanks Gary ]  I'm a day behind watching Vuelta stages, but let me congratulate Damiano Cunigo for attacking on the final climb and winning stage 8 up to Alto de Aitana.  The first real climbing stage left Cadel Evans in the Mallot Oro, with Alejandro Valverde 2 seconds back.  The other GC contenders include Robert Gesink (go Rabobank!), Ivan Basso, and Tom Danielson, doing really well for Garmin.  From TTAC, the quote of the day: "If all the cars in the U.S. were placed end-to-end, it would probably be Labor Day."  Fortunately we were able to stay off the road parking lot.  Here we have a ginormous pink handknit pink bunny, lying in the Alps.  What can I say about this?  So have you noticed that a lot of tech workers start their sentences with so?  ZooBorn of the weekend: a snow leopard cub.

 

required texts (New Yorker, 09/07/09)

Monday,  09/07/09  06:25 PM

"required texts" OMG NFW 2KWL KTHX Interestingly, the New Yorker seems to have stopped honoring 9/11 in their cover stories. One is tempted to hope time heals all wounds, and also there's been a change in the liberal storyline.

 

l'Hydroptère flys!

Monday,  09/07/09  09:40 PM

Saturday I noted that foiling trimaran l'Hydroptère set new world records for 500m and 1,000m, exceeding 50 knots.  Wow.  Here's a video of the record run, well worth watching for sheer coolness.  I cannot stop watching it. Some notes to add on this amazing vessel: It is a real boat, on real water.  It can go any point of sail, and seems to be able to handle fairly rough open water in the ocean.  Sometimes one-shot speedboats built for setting record only go on one tack and only in flat water. The rig is pretty "normal".  Sure they're flat carbon fiber sails, but the setup is a basic sloop, nothing weird going on at all.  Sometimes people think to go 50+ knots you need hard wings or something. The design of the hydrofoils is really clever, because they counteract heel as well as lifting the boat out of the water and reducing drag.  As the boat heels, the lee foil become more horizontal, generating more lift, and the weather foil becomes more vertical, generating less.  The resulting forces balance the heel.  As a result you see the boat powering along staying flat, despite gusts of wind in the 20-30 knot range, and an apparent wind of over 60 knots. The design of the rudder is really cool, it has to act as a lifting foil as well as steering device.  You can see it clearly in this picture of the triamaran, after it turtled going 60+ knots! Perhaps we could say that for this design, the sky's the limit :)

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