So … did that headline get your attention?

Well, it isn’t what you think.

Dell put out a press release today. You can see it here: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1720097 

They referenced (see footnote 3) my page here:
http://www.JamesSHuggins.com/h/tek1/how_big.htm

Some days even blind squirrels find an acorn!

Walter Brennan made that line famous. So, this morning I’ll borrow it before I say HEY … LOOK HERE!

http://www.yale.edu/its/stc/feedback.html
and
http://www.yale.edu/its/stc/supportform.html

Down at the bottom of the page … Under the form.

I know. It’s a little thing. But it makes me feel good to know that I helped.

PS: Unless there are some hiccups, I plan on “releasing” Version 2.1.0 of Huggins’ Email Form Script next weekend. The latest user documentation is available here http://JSH.us/hefs.

NB: Your brower may require two clicks to activate this video. To see the video on the native site, go to http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1127690431

If you are an aviation fan, you know about Oshkosh.

Hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and more known as EAA AirVenture (or even more properly as “The EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In”), “Oshkosh” is the annual gathering in Oshkosh, Wisconsin held at the Wittman Regional Airport.

The show, usually at the end of July, is seven days long. During that event, the control tower at that small airport is the busiest control tower in the world.

This year, 2007, the Air Force decided to fly in the U-2. It was the U-2’s first appearance in 10 years.

The pilot for that fly in was my brother, Lt. Col. Jon “Huggy” Huggins.

Last night, ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson did a report on the U-2. This is the plane my brother, Lt. Col. Jon “Huggy” Huggins, flies.

The three-minute video is hosted on the ABC site. I’d include it here for you, but ABC doesn’t like that. So all I can do is link to it. You have to pretend to watch a 30-second commercial before the video starts.

For the video, news reporter Jonathan Karl is allowed to fly in one of the four 2-seat U-2 trainers.

(In the information below, I’ll note the “time stamps” of the video.)

The first section (0:10) shows the U-2 taking off. If you look closely you’ll see little “training wheels” under each wing. These keep the wings level because the U-2 only has the one main landing gear right in the center. Watch and you will see these fall off (about 0:16) as the plane begins to get lift and take off.

Also, as the plane takes off (about 0:18) you get a good side view to see the modifications made for the 2-seat trainer. That second “bubble” behind the main cockpit allows the training instructor to sit, while the student sits in the main cockpit up front. For these “courtesy rides”, they put the visitor in the back.

In addition, in this same sequence, you get a nice look at the landing gear … one set of two wheels smack dab in the middle of the plane, not under the wings like most planes. When the plane lands, the pilot has to keep “flying it” on the ground, using the wings to keep it level and to keep it from tipping over and having one wing drag. But, the wings have titanium skids on the end for those times the pilot doesn’t quite do that. The little tiny wheel in the tail, keeps the tail from dragging.

The video shows them putting one of the space suits on Jonathan Karl. For the pilots, these suits are custom fitted, down to measuring the lengths of each finger joint in each hand so that the gloves fit exactly. The helmets are also custom fitted by, in effect, making a mold of your head. (For Jonathan, they put him in one that fit “close”.)

The suit also has “air conditioning”. Without it, you overheat in seconds. The “air conditioning” is adjustable, even allowing you to adjust the air blowing over your face and over the palms of your hands.

In the video when Jonathan is in the plane and climbing (about 1:30) you can see the “new” cockpit of the U-2. You see that the old mechanical altimeter has been replaced by an electronic “glass” altimeter. The “glass cockpit” is relatively new in the U-2. On my personal/hobby site I have photos of the 2001 early version of the cockpit, and the first delivered version, from April 2002.

Note also the pictures of the Earth you begin to see at about 1:45.  How high is the plane? High enough to clearly see the Earth’s curvature!

At about 1:57 Jonathan talks about the ability to fly outside of a country’s boundaries, but still look inside the country. One way to think of this is to think about your neighbor’s back yard. If you want to look into his back yard, you don’t actually have to go into his back yard. Instead, you can stay in your back yard and get high enough to look over his fence.

If you are interested, I have lots more information on the U-2 on my personal/hobby website in the U-2 section.

Also, check out this other post about my brother getting his promotion to Lt. Colonel … four years late.

Tanner Christensen has posted on his Internet Hunger site, the results of an interview he had with me.

 Did I really say that stuff?

I just received a phone call from my brother, Major Jon Huggins. He is in the US Air Force and flies the U-2 high altitude spy plane. (He’s the inspiration for the U-2 spy plane section on my hobby website at http://JSH.us/u-2 )

He entered the Air Force after college and had been in the Air Force until March 2000 when he left to become a United Airlines pilot. After 9-11, in November 2001, he rejoined the Air Force and went back to flying the U-2.

About a year after he’d rejoined (November 2002) there was a promotion board. Perhaps because of the break in service (being out of the Air Force for a while) or some lack of continuity in annual reviews, or whatever, he was passed over for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.

Feeling that he might not have received a fair shake, he filed for a supplemental board and cited the irregularities he felt he’d encountered.

The personnel center concurred (and even found a couple more things). It was sent it on to the Pentagon. They concurred and this past May the supplemental board again reviewed the promotion.

Bottom line, he has now been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

But get this. They decided he should have been promoted way back then and the promotion is retroactive to 01.Apr.2003. And, he even gets the retroactive back pay!

That’s my brother and I’m proud of him.

[If you'd like to email him a congrats, just send it to ...
JamesBrother -splat- U2Pilot.com ...
just change the "-splat-" to "@" and remove the spaces.]

Though I never really got paid for anything mathematical, mathematics is my formal college degree.

I have a BA in Mathematics. No, not a BS. I have a BA. But that’s another story.

Even though I’ve never “done” math for money, I still enjoy the mathematical gift.

Here is the best gift shop I’ve found for mathematicians.

Do you know a mathematician? Maybe s/he would like an “American Pi” coffee mug. You can see it on this page.

I headed out of Dallas early this morning for one of my regular drives down to Houston. My mother lives in Houston and I get down there a couple times a month.

Normally, I take my cat, Spot, but this time she is not with me. That is because on the last trip, she stayed in Houston to keep mother company for a while. Mother and I share joint custody.

I enjoy these drives. I get a chance to listen to NPR for a couple hours till it fades out.

(Dallas’ public radio, which operates independently, airs NPR and PRI around the clock. Houston’s public radio, which is affiliated with the University of Houston, only airs NPR for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the evening and broadcasts classical music the rest of the time.)

Today, the Texas Highway Patrol was out in force checking on the traffic. I had a chance to check out a couple sports cars twice! … Once as they sped past me, and a second time a couple miles down the road as I cruised by them while they conversed with the polite officer.

Except for the occasional maniac (and the Houston traffic), the drive provides a quiet time to think while looking out at some green space. It is a pleasant contrast to the hubub of everyday.

Today, as I sat in the queue at a red light, I observed a behavior I have observed so many times before … ooching.

Cars pull up into the queue and stop behind the car in front. Then, after a while, a driver will decide that maybe he stopped too far back. He ooches forward.

This ooching does two things. First, it creates a bigger gap behind that car. And second, by its motion, it calls attention to that gap.

The car behind them then ooches forward to make up the increased gap and perhaps a bit more.

This ripple continues down the queue.

In the meantime, a car in front of the original oocher has also ooched, creating a second ooch ripple which moves down the queue.

Also, drivers who ooched will decide they didn’t ooch enough. This will create a second ooch and another ooch ripple.

Yet none of this ooching has any impact on the light changing, nor any measurable impact on actually getting through the light or to the destination. As the light turns green and the queue begins to move, all of the ooched-up space must be slowly expanded back to driving distance.

Me? I don’t ooch. Don’t get me wrong, if someone makes a right turn and opens up a whole car length I’ll move forward. But ooching out of impatience or to close an ooch-gap seems like a waste of effort and meaningless wear and tear on my brakes.

But don’t try to convince the guy behind me who now perceives an oochable gap in front of me and is just about to wet his pants because I won’t ooch so he can ooch.

I have a brand new blog.

A colleague told me to get one. So I did.

Now each morning I must think of something to say.