Friday, October 31, 2014

Flood, Fortune, and Fillet of a Fenny Snake

There comes a time in the affairs of the Lemming when, taken at the flood, leads on to slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

One the other hand, fortune cookies seldom mention furniture polish, although both begin with the letter "f."

No, wait, that's not it. Let's try this again.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

And Macbeth didn't think their advice might not be entirely reliable?!

That's all the Lemming has time for this week. People from Porlock are at the door.

More, from places where the mome raths outgrabe:

Friday, October 24, 2014

3D Sensor: Counting Doughnuts, Reading Tires, and a Rambling Lemming

"DS1000 3D Sensor for the Food and Beverage Industries"

CognexTV, YouTube (June 7, 2013) video, 1:45

"DS1000 3D Sensor for the Food and Beverage Industries"

"3D laser profiling food and beverage manufacturing applications include: identifying improperly filled packages by verifying object heights, detecting defects like skewed caps, and measuring volume and dimensions to verify portion size, to name a few."

The Lemming spent most of yesterday listening to folks talk about assorted gizmos, gadgets, and thingamajigs: and industrial robots. Rethink Robotic's Baxter was there, too, but that's not what's on the Lemming's mind today. Not so much, anyway.

For the Lemming, spending a day looking at actuators, valves, and industrial control components; and listening to folks talking about ROI, HMI, and OCR, is a nice break in routine. Your experience might vary.

Cognex has two more videos, showing why that yellow and black box is a good thing to have in the automotive and electronics industry, too. One of its not-so-obvious tricks is reading embossed lettering or numbers: like DOT codes on car tires, using Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

That 'food and beverage industry' video gives a quick run-through of how the DS1000 3D Sensor can 'see' if there's the right number of doughnuts in a try, and measure the volume of portions. There's more, but the Lemming figures you've probably got time to look at a one-and-three-quarters-minute video: no voice, but they've got some pretty good music.

The Lemming likes it, anyway.

Remembering the Will-be that Was


HAL "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this...."
("2001: A Space Odyssey," via imdb.com)

Back in the Lemming's 'good old days,' computers and robots were common: in science fiction stories. Somehow the evil scientists never learned that robot minions generally turned on their masters, and that's another topic.

Now that the Lemming is living in 'the future,' flying cars have been invented several times, and still haven't caught on.

Robots are showing up in more places every year, but so far they've shown a remarkable lack of ambition: compared to their fictional counterparts, that is. Which, in the Lemming's opinion, is just as well.

Vaguely-related posts:

Friday, October 17, 2014

Fusion Power, Mirrors, and a Rambling Lemming


(From Eric Schulzinger, Lockheed Martin; via Aviation Week & Space Technology; used w/o permission.)
("The CFR test team, led by Thomas McGuire (left), is focusing on plasma containment following successful magnetized ion confinement experiments."
(Aviation Week & Space Technology))

"Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details"
Guy Norris, Aviation Week & Space Technology (October 15, 2014)

"Lockheed Martin aims to develop compact reactor prototype in five years, production unit in 10

"Hidden away in the secret depths of the Skunk Works, a Lockheed Martin research team has been working quietly on a nuclear energy concept they believe has the potential to meet, if not eventually decrease, the world’s insatiable demand for power.

"Dubbed the compact fusion reactor (CFR), the device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being 'compact,' Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations. It may even revive the concept of large, nuclear-powered aircraft that virtually never require refueling—ideas of which were largely abandoned more than 50 years ago because of the dangers and complexities involved with nuclear fission reactors.

"Yet the idea of nuclear fusion, in which atoms combine into more stable forms and release excess energy in the process, is not new. Ever since the 1920s, when it was postulated that fusion powers the stars, scientists have struggled to develop a truly practical means of harnessing this form of energy. Other research institutions, laboratories and companies around the world are also pursuing ideas for fusion power, but none have gone beyond the experimental stage. With just such a 'Holy Grail' breakthrough seemingly within its grasp, and to help achieve a potentially paradigm-shifting development in global energy, Lockheed has made public its project with the aim of attracting partners, resources and additional researchers...."

The Lemming started reading about fusion reactors about fifty years ago. At the time, humans said they'd have working fusion power stations in about fifty years. Looks like they'll be about ten years late: not bad, under the circumstances.

Warning! Rambling Lemming Reminiscing


About 94 years back, humans started working out what makes stars like their sun so hot: hydrogen nuclei fusing into helium, releasing energy.

A little later, they discovered that atoms release energy when their nuclei break apart, too: only not as much energy, and it generally won't happen unless you've got a very big nucleus.

Oddly enough, humans developed fission reactors long before coaxing hydrogen nuclei into fusing. Their early reactors were notoriously temperamental.

The trick wasn't to keep the fission reaction going: it was to stop it before it destroyed the reactor. That, and a global war that happened around the same time, may explain why the first 'practical' nuclear device was a bomb. Not, in the Lemming's opinion, a fact that's likely to help humans feel good about nuclear power: and that's not quite another topic.

Roughly 50 years back, humans invented the tokamak, a gadget that generates a doughnut-shaped magnetic field. Deuterium and tritium plasma, held in that field, would fuse into helium: releasing energy.

That's the idea, anyway. One of the problems with a tokamak is that fusion works best under extreme pressure — like in a star's core — and a tokamak starts leaking plasma at fairly low pressure. Still, tokamak reactors looked like the best bet for practical fusion reactors.

Another — it's not so much a problem as an issue — is that the physics involved in a tokamak mean that the things have to be big.

A 35-nation team is building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). When they're done, they'll have the world's biggest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor. It'll be at the Cadarache research center in southern France.

They're planning to start experiments with it in 2020. Actually, it's next to the Cadarache research center. ITER will be big: 19.4 meters, 64 feet, across by 11.3 meters, 37 feet, high. That photo is of a much smaller tokamak, MIT's Alcator C-Mod.

They Do It With Mirrors: Magnetic Mirrors


Humans have been using magnetic mirrors for some time: mostly for research. In the 1960s, someone got the idea of using magnetic mirrors to hold plasma in a fusion reactor. That's what the Skunk Works team is doing.

Instead of trying to hold plasma in a doughnut-shaped volume, they're using magnetic mirrors to make a vaguely hourglass-shaped volume of plasma. One of the advantages of this shape is that as the plasma tries to expand: the 'bottle' gets stronger.

Lockheed's Skunk Works: Five Prototypes, Then the Production Model



(From Lockheed Martin, via Aviation Week & Space Technology, used w/o permission.)
("Neutrons released from plasma (colored purple) will transfer heat through reactor walls to power turbines."
(Aviation Week & Space Technology ))

"...The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built. However, McGuire expects swift progress. The Skunk Works mind-set and 'the pace that people work at here is ridiculously fast,' he says. 'We would like to get to a prototype in five generations. If we can meet our plan of doing a design-build-test generation every year, that will put us at about five years, and we've already shown we can do that in the lab.' The prototype would demonstrate ignition conditions and the ability to run for upward of 10 sec. in a steady state after the injectors, which will be used to ignite the plasma, are turned off. 'So it wouldn’t be at full power, like a working concept reactor, but basically just showing that all the physics works,' McGuire says.

"An initial production version could follow five years after that. 'That will be a much bigger effort,' he says, suggesting that transition to full-scale manufacturing will necessarily involve materials and heat-transfer specialists as well as gas-turbine makers..."
(Guy Norris, Aviation Week & Space Technology)

The Skunk Works has been around since the 1940s. Someone at Lockheed wondered if maybe engineers might get projects done faster, if they didn't spend most of their time filling out forms: requesting forms they needed for their semi-weekly reports.

Basically, the Sunk Works is run by engineers who get exact specs on what they're expected to produce: and are the sort of folks who keep working at a project. (August 31, 2009)

With any other outfit, the Lemming might think they were overly optimistic. When the Skunk Works says they'll have a production model in a decade: the Lemming's inclined to think they're serious.

The Lemming won't be surprised if tightly-wound humans get conniptions in late 2025 or so, when the first commercial fusion reactors hit the market, and that is another topic.

One Million Years of Singed Fingers


Humans started using fire about 1,000,000 years back. Since then, they're learned to cook without killing themselves, incinerated their cities at irregular intervals, and developed less flammable buildings. (April 9, 2012; A Catholic Citizen in America (April 27, 2014))

The lesson here, in the Lemming's opinion, isn't that fire is bad: it's that fire, string, or any technology can be dangerous.

Humans are clever critters, though. They've managed to use fire, lightning rods, and fission reactors, with only the occasional disaster. The Lemming figures that they'll learn to deal with fusion reactors, too.

On the other hand, some humans can be — surprisingly daft.

Back in 1946, some of them learned why "tickling the dragon's tail" is a bad idea: survivors did learn quite a bit about what extreme radiation levels do to humans, though.

As the Lemming said, any technology can be dangerous. There will be so much energy flowing through a working fusion power plant that 'leaks' could be hazardous.

Sure, eventually humans would run out of seawater: but that'd take a long time. Decades. Centuries. Maybe more. Earth is a very wet place.

Long before there's a 'seawater shortage,' it's the Lemming's guess that humans will have replaced fusion reactors with something else. They're clever that way: and a good thing, too, or they'd have long since run out of flint.

Maybe they'll have worked the bugs out of antimatter reactors, learned how to extract useful levels of energy from phenomena like the Casimir effect, take the "un" out of entropic uncertainty, or discovered some other useful quirk in this universe.

A tip of the Lemming's hat to Jeff Stevens, on Google Plus, for the heads-up on Lockheed's reactor.

More-or-less-related posts:

Friday, October 10, 2014

Shadow of Mordor and a Rambling Lemming


(From Monolith Productions, Behaviour Interactive, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment; via Steam; used w/o permission.)
Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™
Steam (steampowered.com)

"Fight through Mordor and uncover the truth of the spirit that compels you, discover the origins of the Rings of Power, build your legend and ultimately confront the evil of Sauron in this new chronicle of Middle-earth."
User reviews: Very Positive (6,301 reviews)
Release Date: Sep 30, 2014

Apparently Shadow of Mordor was released on September 30 of this year, except for folks in Australia, where they had to wait until Wednesday this week.

Actually, it's the game Shadow of Mordor that was released. As far as the Lemming knows, not shadows from Mordor have actually been released: nor are likely to be, since Mordor doesn't exist outside J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. At least, that's what the Lemming's read.

Shadow of Mordor: Premium and Otherwise


Folks can probably buy Shadow of Mordor elsewhere, but the Lemming only checked prices at Steam. There, it's $49.99 for the game. Spend $74.99 for the "Premium Edition" and you'll get items: Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Season Pass.

Here's why Steam says you should get the "Premium Edition:"

"Upgrade to the Premium Edition to receive a digital download copy of Shadow of Mordor and Season Pass. The Season Pass gives you access to future content including campaign missions, additional challenge modes, quests, skins, and runes."

The Season Pass by itself goes for $24.99 — which is $24.99 more than the Lemming has to spend on entertainment just now. Travel — being a flannel-wearing lemmings has its advantages, and that's another topic.

Acclaimed by (some) Critics


Apparently Shadow of Mordor is a AAA game: big studio; big budget; big expectations. Wikipedia has a pretty good page about the game, including this excerpt:

"...The story involves the Rings of Power, but the story is separate from The Lord of the Rings canon. The Monolith team is working with Middle-earth Enterprises, Peter Jackson, and the artists at the Weta Workshop to make sure that the settings, characters, and story align within canon. Tolkien stated that, aside from Beren, dead men did not return to life in Middle-earth. The beginning of the game is set during abandonment of the watch on the Black Gate, despite that watch ending some 1,300 years prior to the game's start date.

"Plot

"Talion, a ranger captain, is part of a Gondor garrison stationed at the Black Gate. The garrison is attacked by Sauron's Uruk forces led by 3 Black Númenórean captains; the Hammer of Sauron, the Tower of Sauron, and their leader the Black Hand of Sauron (Nolan North). Talion, his wife Ioreth, and his son Dirhael are captured and ritually sacrificed by the Black Hand in an attempt to summon the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor. However, Celebrimbor (who suffers from amnesia due to his status as a wraith) instead ends up merging with Talion, saving him from death. The two of them set out to uncover Celebrimbor's identity as well as to avenge the death of Talion's family...."

Not surprisingly, Shadow of Mordor has been "acclaimed by critics," and other critics haven't been quite so enthusiastic. If the Lemming looked around, there's probably someone who utterly despises the game because it doesn't mention Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Not once.

Speaking of Space Pirate Captain Harlock, apathy is still rampant: but nobody cares.

That was a great deal funnier a few decades back. It wasn't particularly funny then, but moreso than it is now. Probably. Your experience may vary. For external use only. Not approved for off-road travel. Caution: may contain peanuts. Seriously, does anyone really think daft warning labels are a good idea? And that's yet another topic.

More than you may want to know about this game:
Vaguely-related posts:

Friday, October 3, 2014

World Architecture Festival Entries: Big, Small, Shiny, and Otherwise


(From Wingårdh Arkitektkontor AB, via CNN, used w/o permission.)
("Until Aula Medica was built, there was no large auditorium at the Karolinska Institutet (a medical university in Solna, Sweden). The building houses a 1,000-seat auditorium and other facilities.
"Category: Higher education and research
"Architects: Wingårdh Arkitektkontor AB (Sweden)")

"In Pictures: Spectacular buildings from Singapore's World Architecture Festival"
Maggie Hiufu Wong, CNN (September 28, 2014)

"Zaha Hadid's spaceship-like Dongdaemun Design Plaza, an avant-garde new home for Singapore's oldest Buddhist Temple, and a private bunker sprawling on top of a lake are some of the shortlisted entries competing for architectural honors at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore this week.

"Now it its seventh year, the event is the world's biggest celebration of building design.

"Hundreds of firms from more than 50 countries will be presenting and competing across 27 categories (Hotel and Leisure, Education and Display, others) in the three-day event...."

Some of the entries, like that Swedish auditorium, are shiny. Others, not so much.


(From Aedas, via CNN, used w/o permission.)
("The Administration Information Building is part of a joint international university founded by Xi'an Jiaotong University and Liverpool University. It's in Suzhou Industrial Park in China.
"Category: Higher education and research
"Architects: Aedas (Hong Kong, China)")

They're not all huge, or trying to look huge, either.


(From a21studio, via CNN, used w/o permission.)
("Vietnamese coffee shop Salvaged Ring is built from a collection of scrap wood stockpiled over the years by the owner, who is also a carpenter.
"Category: Small projects
"Architects: a21studio (Vietnam)")

Xi'an Jiaotong University and Liverpool University's Administration Information Building looks cool, and it's a good-sized structure: but it's not as big as those horizontal elements at the corners imply.

It's easy for an observer to see those alternating light and dark lines as rows of windows: which would make the building something like a hundred stories tall. Look at the windows at the center of each side, and the scale changes a bit.

It's a nifty optical illusion, in the Lemming's opinion: sort of like the strong vertical elements in Victorian mansions that made them look taller.

The entry shown in Maggie Hiufu Wong's article that particularly caught the Lemmings eye was the Salvaged Ring coffee shop. It's good to see someone making good use of "scrap" lumber. Long before "sustainable" design — real or imagined concern over resource management — became fashionable, folks were re-using wood, brick, or just about anything else that was lying around. And that's another topic.

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