General Wesc's New Writeups

Star Trek (review)

2009-05-17T01:26:21Z

Star Trek the eleventh Star Trek film was, as promised by director J. J. Abrams (Alias, Lost), a reinvention of Star Trek. Being a prequel, it risked messing up continuity (something Trekkies are obsessed with, and something for which I can never forgive Brannon Braga and Rick Berman). This film took that risk head on by intentionally throwing away most of canon and creating a parallel timeline. It differs from Voyager, though, in that they didn't press the reset button at the end of the film. The universe has changed dramatically, and everything you know is wrong. I'm okay with that. Sometimes things end, and it's sad. At least they didn't end like the last half of the Star Wars series. (That was just a relief, really.) This is a rebirth.

XI begins with Kirk's birth (And his father's death saving him. (And POOF goes the known timeline. George is dead?)) We see…

Smart grid (thing)

2008-12-23T23:21:45Z

Here's how I'd explain a Smart Grid to someone like me: you know how the Internet is ad hoc and messy? Well, Many of the same problems apply to the power grid. The Smart Grid is the fix.

Most people, however, are not me, so maybe the analogy isn't that too helpful.

The power grid is ad hoc and messy. To get an understanding of the magnitude of this, consider the fact that we use an AC grid, having made the decision to go with AC rather than DC back in the late 1800s, and yet we didn't get around to turning off the last of Thomas Edison's DC grid until November of 2007²--something like a 125 years after it became obsolete.

Our grid was designed according to plans by Nikola Tesla in the late 1800s, before computers, before computer networks, and before we had the option to put a solar array on our roofs. As a result, the grid doesn't use very intelligent routers as we now have with computers, doesn't communicate to end-users…

smog (thing)

2008-12-20T23:44:31Z

Smog is what happens when the words 'smoke' and 'fog' flow together into one killer low-lying cloud. London is famous for its fog, and was one of the first to become famous for its sooty coal smoke. Unsurprisingly, the word was most likely coined to describe conditions in London in 1905¹, and one of the first big smog-related disasters also occurred in London some 48 years later. (Not the first, though. Read about the Donora Smog of 1948, for an earlier example.)

Smog, these days (at least in developed nations) is less due to burning coal as it is to industrial exhaust and burning gasoline, usually in personal automobiles. Cities have lots of people who drive lots of cars (often not even moving--just sitting in traffic burning up gasoline, unless they have one of those new-fangled contraptions that doesn't) that spew out noxious, smog-causing fumes. (Industrial exhaust also brings us new fun, as weird chemical emissions can…

Clean Air Act (thing)

2008-12-06T03:52:22Z

Clean Air Act

As noted above, the US lead the charge for clean air by passing the Clean Air Act in 1970, but what did other nations do to play catch-up? Well, the UK passed their own Clean Air Act some fourteen years ~~later~~ earlier. (Dratted British always showing us up.)

The Clean Air Act of 1956

(An Act to make provision for abating the pollution of the air.)

Prompted by the Great Smog of 1952 in London, this bill focused largely on causes of smog.

The bill put restrictions on the productions of 'dark smoke' (because everyone knows that if you can't see the pollution then it can't hurt you), required new furnaces be able to run 'smokelessly' (I can't see any smoke so it must be non-polluting!) and have an approved grit and dust removal systems, allows for the creation of smoke control areas, provides grants to help switch from coal stoves to cleaner heating systems, and mandates tall chimneys/smoke stacks on certain…

V8 (thing)

2008-11-28T15:25:31Z

V8, the Javascript engine of the new Google Chrome web browser, is Big News. Sort of.

The web is written, for the most part, in three computer languages: HTML and CSS for the structure and presentation, and JavaScript (or ECMAScript) for all that fancy stuff. (Plus some Flash for things like YouTube videos.) GMail, Google Documents, Google Maps, E2's WYSIWYG writeup editor, and countless minor effects on many websites are written in JavaScript. (Try disabling JavaScript sometime--or, better yet, install the Firefox extension NoScript--and you'll see just how prevalent JS really is. Half the websites will have broken features or will become completely unusable.)

But JavaScript is an interpreted language, and consequently is about 1-10% as fast as a compiled language. If you're just making a single pop-up alert, that's no big deal, but when you get into JavaScript application like GMail, it starts to be…

waterbar (thing)

2008-08-11T00:49:05Z

A waterbar (also called an 'interceptor dyke' according to Wikipedia, though that's referring to use on roads) is a trail feature used for erosion control.

The difference between a hiking trail and a creek bed may be apparent to most of us, but water doesn't quite see it. An ideal trail will be outsloped so water flows right off the side, and crowned so, well, ditto. Too often, though, trails are built going up an incline, and old trails tend to become anti-crowned (concave)--basically, becoming a riverbed.

The solution is to put a diagonal channel across the trail, diverting water off the side. This can be done using a log, rocks, or just dirt, though the latter tends to wash away.

Construction

A waterbar should be at roughly a 45 degree angle across the trail with the high end away from where the outslope would naturally be.

There's also a preference for putting them at the bottom of switchbacks, as the water already…