Can we ever fly faster than sound?

Personally, I’m skeptical that humans will ever fly faster than the speed of sound. But I have my doubts that humans can fly at all. I mean, really, our arms make terrible wings, and trying to flap that fast is sure to sprain a shoulder or two.

Lucky for me, someone wrote an article in the October 1944 issue of Popular Science taking a stance I can get on board with. Quite simply, the author says man cannot fly faster than the speed of sound. Reports to the contrary are, rather unsurprisingly, wrong. The entire Mach speed nomenclature exists merely to simplify detailing speeds which we *CAN* reach in these flying human death chambers.

Trust me – this is an article worth reading in full – either my cut and paste whack-job with commentary or the original article linked above.

Can We Ever Fly Faster Than Sound?

A seemingly impassable barrier blocks the way to higher plane speeds. Can we hurdle it? Our aviation editor gives his views.

By C. B. COLBY

Drawings by STEWART ROUSE

DESPITE glowing newspaper reports, man cannot now fly at the speed of sound. In fact it is doubtful, according to the best authorities, that man has ever closely approached sonic speed (764 m.p.h, at sea level and 664 m.p.h, at 40,000 feet), let alone attain or exceed it. Speeds of over 500 m.p.h, in level flight are a serious challenge to design and power-plant engineers. Even in a terminal-velocity dive (straight down with all stops open), it is doubtful that any pilot has attained the speed of sound.

Continue reading “Can we ever fly faster than sound?”

On the ATI/AMD deal

OK, I know I’ve just said I don’t care enough about the deal to comment on AMD buying ATI (which, through the magic of future posting, was actually written 24 hours ago), and then I go and find two really good write-ups on the deal. First, hit DubiousQuality and check out Bill’s view. He makes some good comments on the deal – certainly enough for me to start caring about the deal. When we’re done there, we’ll look at Joystiq’s addition to the discussion, BTW.

Continue reading “On the ATI/AMD deal”

Assassin’s Creed 360 previewed

(via Joystiq)

Very recently I noted that Assassin’s Creed, once believed to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive, will be asscreed360.jpgcoming to at least the XBox360 as well. ComputerAndVideogames.com has the preview of the XBox360 version.

However, as Joystiq notes:

No release date, general or specific, was announced, nor was there talk of how the game controls (an indication the CVG team likely did not see a playable version). This is another PS3 title that was once thought exclusive but now confirmed multiplatform. It could still be a timed exclusive for Sony, but to what extent is the company’s PR line (i.e. not concerned with exclusives) reflective of internal opinion?

I’m really looking forward to this game. That is, assuming I can ever afford an XBox360. My gaming budget is a bit less than it used to be. Funny what a wife and 2 children does to your financial priorities…

[tags]Assassin’s Creed, XBox360, Joystiq[/tags]

New gaming comic I’m watching

While checking hooked-20060718-clip.jpgout a recent Joystiq’s weekly comic wrap-up, I saw a link I hadn’t seen (or at least hadn’t paid attention to) before – Hooked on Polygon. Based on the first comic I saw, concerning Peter Jackson and the Halo movie, I’m going to keep visiting. The why and wherefor of this comic:

Okay so today’s comic is inspired by last week’s Denzel Washington scare. Apparently someone somewhere saw Mr. Washington and Peter Jackson having a meeting. From that single sighting, it was obvious that Denzel MUST be cast as Master Chief in the HALO movie. I mean, what else could they be talking about, right?

After reading that, I starting thinking about other scenarios little Petey Jackson could be seen in, and possibly transformed into a HALO movie rumor nugget.

Then I picked the best ideas in my noggin and drew them. It’s funny, because the panels that you see above look EXACTLY like the scenes in my head as they played out, except cartoon-ized. It doesn’t always work that way.

And I think that’s a pretty accurate portrayal of much of the blogosphere.

[tags]Hooked on Polygon, Web comics, Peter Jackson, Halo movie[/tags]

ATI announces Radeon X1950 video card

(via TechEBlog)

I’m skipping all the talk about AMD buying ATI — I just don’t care enough to write about it. I’ve never used an ATI card for my rig, so I’m not really interested in who owns ATI. All I care about ATI for is the competition that pushes nVidia to continually push out better and better video cards.

So the latest announced card from ATI, the Radeon X1950, is of interest to me personally only because it means nVidia has to put out something better that much sooner and drop the price of all the currently available cards so I can upgrade soon. I know that ATI makes some great cards now. But I’m an nVidia fanboi, and as long as the company produces great cards, I doubt I’ll stray to another vendor.

That said, here’s the details from DailyTech.

This week ATI sent an advisory out to its OEM partners announcing the details of the new Radeon X1950 and X1900 graphic cards. Both ati-x1950.jpgof these new cards are based on the same R580 core, but with some fundamental differences.

R580, the 48 pixel-shader processor version of the R520 (Radeon X1800), was announced this past January. R580 features a robust memory controller capable of utilizing several different types of memory, including GDDR4 which was not even available when the Radeon X1900 was first announced. Since then Hynix and Samsung have both jumped on the GDDR4 train with revenue shipments beginning several weeks ago. Continue reading “ATI announces Radeon X1950 video card”

Engadget talks Zune

With all the rumors and “facts” flying around the intarweb recently concerning Microsoft’s new portable media player, it can be hard to know what is real and not for this device. One of my favorite gadget sites, Engadget, has some details on what’s true and what’s not for Microsoft’s recently announced Zune.

Well, it’s not much, but we’ve got a quote and an official confirmation of the Zune project at Microsoft. The Zune brand is being billed as a “music and entertainment” project aimed at “connecting with others to discover new player_zune.jpgmusic and entertainment and will deliver a family of hardware and software products.” Here’s what they sent over, by way of Microsoft’s GM of marketing, Chris Stephenson:

“Today we confirmed a new music and entertainment project called Zune. Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year. We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together.”

So, what do we (thanks to Engadget) know? Well, here are just a few of the details Engadget has let us in on.

Ok, so we got off the horn with Microsoft just a few minutes ago and realized that making heads or tails of all this Zune stuff is probably driving some of you crazy . (We know others are probably just getting driven crazy by all the posts we’ve been writing about it. Sorry, it’s our job!) So here’s what we know for sure, think we know according to inside sources (i.e. yet unconfirmed information), and what we don’t yet know at all about the Zune. Continue reading “Engadget talks Zune”

Worth1000 – Urban legends photochopping

As you can probably guess from my frequent posts about contests there, I think Worth1000 is an awesome site. Their latest contest that I thought was worth pointing out is an Urban Legends recreation contest.

w1000-bonsai-kittens.jpg

Is Walt Disney really cryogenically frozen in ice? It’s a fact. Do alligators really live in the New York sewers? Yup. Did a couple on lovers lane really find a hook embedded in their car after hearing a radio advisory of an escaped “hook” murderer? Sure. And we’ve got the pictures to prove it.

The rules of this game are thus:
Show that an urban legend exists by creating an image that is “proof,”. You can find some great urban legends at Snopes.com. If you choose to do a macabre urban legend then try to keep the gore level to a minimum. As always, quality is a must. You’ll have 48 hours for this contest, so make your submission count.

Like so many Worth1000 contests, there are a lot of bad entries.  But all of them are better than I can do, and the good ones, to me, are always worth the time they take to track down and view.
[tags]Worth1000, Urban Legends, Photochop[/tags]

TechEBlog’s top 5 strangest laser projects

While catching up on my TechEBlog reading, I saw their list of the top 5 strangest laser projects. Given my love to lasers, I thought this was the kind of useless knowledge I needed to pass on. YouTube videos for each project are included on the TechEBlog page.

#2 – For those laser_saber.jpgwith either a red and/or green laser pointer from Wicked Lasers, check out this “Laser Saber” accessory. It features a 38.75-inch long radiant strong polycarbonate blade and a solid 9.5-inch hilt.

No word on any project involving frikkin’ sharks, frikkin’ laser beams, and attaching things to their frikkin’ heads.

[tags]Laser projects, frikkin’ laserbeams[/tags]