Posted on July 25, 2010 by Mark Urbin
The Third Reich had plans for a Rocket Plane that would be able to drop nuclear bombs on American soil.
Multiple V-2 rockets would have launched the “Silver Bird” on a two mile long track, getting high up in the atmosphere before it’s internal rocket engines would have pushed it to Mach 30. It was to skip off the upper atmosphere, using an early lifting body design, dropping down to drop a payload of four nuclear bombs, and then continuing to land in the Japanese held Pacific Ocean.
That was the theory anyway. Pesky things, like opening up a second front with the Russians, kept this design from getting off the drawing board.
Filed under: Miltech, Space | Tagged: military tech, Miltech, Space | Leave a Comment »
Posted on June 30, 2010 by Mark Urbin
I had to pick up another mobile phone number, so I went looking for a basic phone to get to put it on. I called my cell provider, AT&T, and was pointed to the LG CF360. The physical design is good. It feels solid, the sliding is smooth and locks/unlocks easily. It’s got Bluetooth support and has a micro-SD slot.
The UI is an utter piece of crap, and that is an insult to crap, which can be put to good use as fertilizer.
It’s a fornicating phone, being able to access my call log would actually be useful, so what ever brain dead software “coder” working in what ever sweatshop he/she/it deserves to stay in decided to leave that functionality out.
If I ever get my Razr back from one of my kids, I’m moving the SIM card over to the Razr.
Filed under: cell phone tech | Tagged: cell phone, AT&T | 4 Comments »
Posted on May 30, 2010 by Mark Urbin
I have been looking at iPad apps for usability issues for the past few weeks. Here is a quick list of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good: IMDB, Scifi Wire, Adobe Touch
The bad: The buggy WordPress app
The Ugly: AP News
About the iPad itself, very slick, very cool/fun to use. On the down side, no SD slot, no USB, and Apple’s “walled garden.”
Filed under: Apple, iPad, tablet | Tagged: Apple, Gadget, iPad | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 5, 2010 by Mark Urbin
The Martin “Jetpack” actually uses two ducted fans powered by a gasoline engine.
On the plus side, a 30 minute flight time with a max speed of 97 kph (60 mph). That gives it a one way range of about 30 miles (48 kilometers). That is a lot better than the 30 second average flight time of an actual jet pack.
Filed under: Gadget | Tagged: aircraft, jetpack, flight | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 29, 2010 by Mark Urbin
HP has been on a buying spree. They bought 3Com, and now they have just purchased a form 3Com company, Palm Corp. for $1.2 billion.
The article I linked talks about what HP could do with Palm’s webOS for mobile devices, including using it in netbooks and tablet devices.
What it doesn’t talk about is Palm’s patent portfolio, which could be worth the price of the sale alone.
Filed under: Palm, cell phone tech | Tagged: Palm, Smart Phone, HP, Operating System | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 26, 2010 by Mark Urbin
This one comes from Crystal and is IMNSHO bloody well spot on!
I was just thinking: If you’re viewing the internet with Internet Explorer, you’re doing it wrong.
Yup, I’ve been using Opera, Firefox & Chrome for years. I tried using the IE the other day, and the thing just felt broken. Just bad UI experience.
Filed under: Internet | Tagged: browser, chrome, Firefox, IE, Microsoft | Leave a Comment »
Posted on April 22, 2010 by Mark Urbin
Posted on April 8, 2010 by Mark Urbin
I do like the look of this HP tablet. For the rumored $600 price tag, it supports an impressive feature list.
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor
- an 8.9-inch, multi-touch display
- 32 or 64 GB of Flash storage
- 1 GB of DDR RAM
- Windows Home 7 Premium
- a VGA Webcam
- an Intel UMA graphics chip that supports 1080p, high-definition video playback
Oh, and it supports Flash, has at least one USB port and a SD slot.
Filed under: Apple, Gadget, iPad, tablet, tech rumors | Tagged: cell phone, HP, rumor, iPad, tablet | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 30, 2010 by Mark Urbin
I’ve got Windows 7 Professional 64 bit on my desktop and copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit on my laptop. I’m pretty happy so far, the plug and play works quite well, with a couple of noticable exceptions.
First off is my Wireless Laser Desktop 3000 keyboard, which I’m not using to type this because the damn thing is missing keystrokes, which it never did when I was running XP. Top that off with none of the fancy extra keys work running under Windows 7. Yes, I did to Microsoft and downloaded the latest drivers, which are listed as Windows 7 compatible. Annoyance factor is high here, even more so because it is bloody Microsoft hardware.
The second is my Microtek scanner. It’s a few years old and is still in great shape. Microtek support claims it will work if you jump though the right hoops in the right order during install. I haven’ t tried their latest series of hoops yet.
Third is my Bose Companion 5 speakers. I love these things. Great sound, but every time Windows 7 finds something it doesn’t like and asks me if it’s OK to run, not only does the screen dim, but it kills the sound! I have to power cycle the Bose system to get my sound back. My work around has to been to hook my iPhone up to the speakers and play the music loaded on that. A bit of bummer since it is a subset of the music loaded on my desktop.
I’ve got a few old games that won’t run under Window 7 (64 bit) either, but I don’t play them that often anyway. I’ve got an old desktop that was running a RC version of Win7 that I should scrub and load XP on to deal with stray stuff like that.
Filed under: Microsoft, Operating Systems, Windows7 | Tagged: glitches, Microsoft, Operating System, Windows7 | Leave a Comment »
Posted on March 18, 2010 by Mark Urbin
When the US Army adopted the ACU (Army Combat Uniform) with a new digital camouflage pattern, the color black was not to be found in the pattern. The argument was the the color black is not found in nature. I’ve talked with members of the military who were on exercises with people wearing both the ACU and the older BDU uniforms (the BDUs had the woodland pattern) and was told that it was much easier to spot the people in the ACU at night.
It has been announced that the US Army is now producing a variant of the ACU with the MultiCam camouflage pattern. If you look closely at the MultiCam pattern, you will see that it includes the color black.
For now, the MultiCam pattern is only being issued in Afghanistan, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the more effective pattern make its way through the Army supply chain.
There are other changes being made to the ACU, based on feedback from soldiers in the field. One that caught my attention was replacing the Velcro ™ seals on the sleeve cargo pockets with buttons. Makes sense. Buttons are quiet.
Filed under: Miltech | Tagged: ACU, camouflage, Military, military tech, MultiCam | 1 Comment »
