Undead Techno Memes Strike Northrop Grumman: Lighter Than Air Freight Shipping

Northrop Grumman is looking at the potential of “really large” unmanned airships for commercial freight transport, Tom Vice, president of the company’s Aerospace Systems segment, said in Washington Aug. 20.

Comparing the effect of such a system on air freight to the advent of the 747 freighter in its day, Vice said that while there is “a lot of work to do” on the concept, the company has looked at promising technologies, and said that the company would continue the work — if it does so — in partnership with a large air freight hauler such as FedEx or UPS.

Another company official said that Northrop Grumman would disclose more details of the concept in the coming weeks.

There are some ideas, memes, which seem to act like a bad cold.  They keep coming back again.  Airships seem on the surface like a great idea.  However, it has been tried.  over and over and over and over and over again. Its always failed.

Since its SFnal: "All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again seems damned appropriate.

If we start seeing Boeing, Lockheed and other aerospace veeps start shuffling and moaning "aiiiiirshiiiips" we'll know we're in trouble.

What DnD Character Am I?

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (6th Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-14

Dexterity-14

Constitution-16

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-16

Charisma-14


Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment when it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Top Ten Things that Environmentalists Need to Learn

I really encourage you all to spread this one around. I came across it via Charlie Stross' blog. I have a low-to-moderate readership. I strongly recommend that those that read here that have a higher readership post a link as well.

MEME

Julia tagged me with a meme. Since she did it while I was down for the count I am only now getting around to it.

1. An interesting animal I had


That would be the male-female pair of collared lizards my dad got me when I was about six. I found them fascinating, but they didn't last super long. I could sit and watch for hours even though they didn't necessarily even move. They died pretty fast due to an error on our part: we left a heat lamp inside for them on and they crawled too close and burned.

2. An interesting animal I ate

This probably ostrich. Then again I've had frog legs multiple times too. I've also eaten buffalo. IIRC, we ate some South African sausage made from gnu.

3. An interesting animal in a museum

There's a very fascinating bits of Seismosaurus (I think, it might have been another sauropod) that were on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science when I was a teenager. THAT has to be most interesting animal I've seen in a museum.

4. An interesting thing I did with or to an animal

Played fetch with a cat I used to have. I discovered my cat whose name was Skunk loved to play fetch by accident. It was my senior year of high school. He was a runt and adorable with a black "cap" and a black back with a white stripe down his back. I was working on Mrs Strong's huge number of integrals for our calculus class (70?) which required multipage proofs. I got frustrated with some and threw the crumpled piece of paper over my shoulder. Skunk immediately attacked the first few. When I got on a roll again about how to do the integrals and stopped chucking them over my shoulder, he leapt up on the bed and then to my desk carrying the mildly shredded and wadded up piece of paper with him. He dropped it on my work and purred. I semi-annoyed chucked it again and off he went to return once more with the even more mangled piece of paper. We played like that for a while that night and I even called my dad in to see. He was as amazed as I was.

5. An interesting animal in its natural habitat

Raptors. I now, I know...soooo generic. However, living in Los Alamos, we used to see several kinds when I was younger just flying around: golden eagles, peregrine falcons, and assorted hawks. They were endlessly fascinating to me and birds I generally find dull.


I am going to see if I can tag James since his stories are going to be hair raising and then some...and Randy. Vicki too.

Yet Another Memetic Virus

I blame Brian and Zach for this one...

Three things in my fridge that define life right now:

1. My wife and daughter's lunch. Every night or morning, if I am unlucky and too preoccupied the night before, I make lunch for my daughter, wife, and myself. My wife is banging her head against the wall of ESLdom and weird profs at her college and my daughter - being 2 and a 1/2 - is still to young to really help out, so I am left doing the food prep. That extends to breakfast and dinner, btw.

2. JUICE! We consume juice like we use it instead of air. We often go to Trader Joe's and pick up a good 7 gallons at a time and this covers us for about two weeks...if we're lucky. Keep in mind, based on what our Doctor told us, we are watering down the juice for Avrora: it's only 25% juice and the rest is old fashioned water. She still sucks down 1/3 a gallon of juice per day. Which means she is drinking 1 1/3 gallons of juice/water mix and a cup of milk each day.

3. Cilantro: It's a good symptom of my life. WHAT?! Let me explain, but just hold still this won't hurt. It's something that I have been long curious about - not the herb itself - but experimental cooking. Some of my NMican friends are probably still wincing in remembered pain when I tried stir frying back about 7 years ago: you just have to mumble "ginger" to them to retrigger their Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome that was only recently cured after what was probably a long road through expensive therapy. OTOH, occasionally I hit some real home runs. Chicken a la Will, as Jason calls it was one. My spaghetti was another. My salsas are yet another. However, like any good Mad Scientist there are lots of casualties dumped out the laboratory and let loose on the unsuspecting mankind.

Three recent acquisitions:

1. Books. They are political (immigration mostly), deep time, and history related.

2. A Microscope. For my wife on her birthday. Being an up and coming bio type, it seemed like a good idea. Besides, she wanted it.

3. tickets to hawaii. We'll be there over Turkey Day.

Three classics I reach for every day:

1. Books. I read every down moment I have which isn't much. This includes walking to and from the parking garage, the few moments after putting my daughter in bed, or when I am cooking and the pot needs stirring, but I can't get away. I even read when I am at the gym: either in a treadmill or exercise bike or between sets on weights.

2. The Tivo remote. I do stomach crunches every day. I actually do between five hundred and two thousand depending on the amount of time I have. I'm a classic Gen Xer so I need constant mental stimulation. Doing exercise is, frankly, BORING with a blink tag. Stomach crunches are accompanied by a movie, show, or some such. It's close to the only TV I get these days.

3. My family. Hugs and kisses and tickles and general affection keeps my mood up even when I am frustrated and lances any festering anger or unhappiness if I am frustrated with something...which happens alot.

My kids right now, in three words or less:

Brilliant, Beautiful Weed.

My sweetie right now, in three words or less:

Beautiful, Aggressive, Crafty.

What's on my to-do list:

Too much. White & academic papers to read and comment on. A uber long blog post to finish for the Boneyard. A design document to finish. A project at work to reinvigorate.

What I'm listening to right now:

nada. I need to remember to bring an ipod to work. My puter has issues for playing music at the moment.

What I'm worried about right now:

Family. Not my immediate family, but my wife's and my own extended one.

Which news stories I'm following right now:

Immigration related. Global Warming Related. International Relations Related (esp wrt to Ukraine and Russia since it effects family). Presidential Election Related.

What I'm reading right now:

The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science.

What I'm looking forward to right now:

A Date with My Wife. I have a coworker that is offering to babysit Avrora since I stayed late when I was not supposed to to help her with a problem at work that I had some idea on how to fix: being one of the GPFS people here and she was getting whacked by confused fs mgr by didn't realize it. So, Lyuda and I are planning to go out to dinner and either catch something of the fine arts - opera, ballet, or symphony - or go to a movie depending on the time we have.

A thought I keep returning to right now:

I need more hours in a day.

One small thing that's making me happy right now:

Seeing my daughter run up to me, demand to sit on my lap, wrap her arms around me and tell me: "Papa, I love you."

Why Do I blog?

A nefarious lobefin over at Fish Feet by the name of Sarda Sahney memed me with the question of "Why Do I Blog?"

It's a three fold reason fro myself. It allows me to use this place as a way of communicating information to friends without having to write mass spammings that may or may not cause havoc for people's inboxes (esp wrt to pictures of my daughter & family news). Second, it's a place I can put up ideas that are interesting or show items I've found that I think are interesting for others to read (and if my cluster map isn't lying, there's a fair number of people that are interested). Finally, it's bully pulpit. I can spout whatever I feel like without infringing on newsgroup charters.


If you've read this, you've been meme infected. Please express that infection and pass it on with a link back here.