Revisiting the USS Missouri

Wow, I havn't posted much about my 1/350 USS Missouri build lately so I figured that I would shed some light on how she is going. There is a post here that lists most of the modificatons I have done up to this point, aesthetically and mechanically/electrically. I am making a video as I type of the tests I have been conducting on the Missouri. Never before in my modeling career has been "getting the ship to look dang fine" been so important to me. As I look at the superior quality of some of the best models on the face of the earth (which are considered pieces of art) I feel that I need to upgrade my skills and keep building great looking ships. Go read that thread if you want to see the progress on the Missouri!

Do You Want Some Insight Into Penn State Berks? Part 1 of 2

Overall Penn State Berks is a great campus, and if you are looking to apply to Penn State and attend the Berks Campus I hope my post can be of some help. Here are a few key points to comment on:




Alertness











The Pennsylvania State University has an incredible system in place for warning systems. If classes will be cancelled for the day due to weather, within 5-10 minutes 3,000 students will hear about it mainly through the Berks Weather Hotline or the recently popular PSUTXT service. If there is a crisis, lockdown, or severe weather, or some other odd occurence that requires public attention, Penn State has the systems in place to warn students immediatly.







Ammenities


















Hey I have to say, the ammenities (appearance of the campus itself and luxuries) are great. There are quite a few lounges around the campus, and the Student Government Association (SGA) is attempting to convert the Lion's Den into another recreational area. They have also done an excellent job with the game room/center (below Tulleys), we have two pool tables, a foosball table, a pingpong table and many arcade games (yes, the ones in the booths you put coins in). The game room is complete- Penn State bar stools, tables and even custom Penn State chandoliers above the pool table. The lounges are comfortable, the library offers rooms for private study, and the Woods Dormitory complex offers study rooms throughout the complex. I also dig laundry rooms on every floor but the 4th.






Classroom Size/Experience

















Ehhh now we get a bit hairy. There are a few beefs I have with this system, however don't misconstrue what I am about to say- the education is top notch around here for the most part. Here are a few of my beefs. Many classrooms, especially in Luerssen (Luerssen was the first building erected) have very small desks in them. THESE DESKS ARE MADE FOR TINY PEOPLE AND I DO NOT FIT IN THEM. Penn State tried to accomodate other students by putting in other types of desks, however I always have to leave those seats to other larger students. They need to change the desks because not only are they extremely uncomfortable, you WILL drop whatever is on it- from books to pens to calculators to food and drink (it happens all the time). There are also some "not so great" professors and instructors out there, but by the time I got into the College of Engineering I figured out who the bad professors were. For the most part classroom sizes have been kept small, but some classes ("those classes EVERYONE takes, such as Calculus" are huge). Expect a dropout rate of around 75%-80% in Math 140 (Calculus I).













Club/Sports Activities

You will find a club here for your interests at Penn State Berks. We have everything from an Anime club to a Baja (racer) Club to the Punkin Chunkin Club, Bowling Club and Auto Clubs to name a few. In fact students are encouraged to begin new clubs. I have very little time for them so I am only active in one club (in my case, the Punkin Chunkin Club). There are many sports to chose from. The Beaver Community Center also has a gym which is OK, however the Chancellor has commented on improving the gym's quality. If you need something to kill time with on campus, there are many clubs around doing many things. At the last check, I think there were 30 or 40 active clubs with an 80 total.

Environment Friendly

Penn State is extremely close to becoming a 100% green campus. The Chancellor has made it clear that she wants the campus to go green to help the environment. Penn State is a huge recycling supporter and makes every effort to put out recycling cans everywhere. Believe me when you get around campus you WILL see them everywhere. Please use them! Berks also offers a newspaper readership program (it is free with your Student ID Card). Although some recycle the newspaper when finished, I tend to put my copy back in neatly when I am done with it, just incase the paper was hot for the day. Typically by dinner time a good 60%-80% of the papers are usually gone, so I'd say the program works. By 2910-2011, solar panels will be installed on some of the buildings, in particular I know Luerssen is switching to solar power.

Hazards

There are some hazards on campus, however Penn State does combat them. Be very careful during the winter- you can fall and trip down that hill or flight of stairs. I have slipped on campus before (next to Tulleys) and I have also slipped in the parking lot (residence parking) due to ice. Be VERY careful! They will lay down salt for students, but again be careful of where you tread and how you do it. Sometimes it is better to walk in the snow. Generally wet floors are mopped up or are dry enough to walk on.




I will type more later when I have the time!

Protector USV

This is something I have been looking at for a while now and I think it will make navies across the world rethink fleet movement and protection.

The Protector is a Unmanned-Surface-Vehicle (USV) that is controlled by pilots that can be thousands of miles away. The protector is a small patrol boat armed with armaments that can be mounted on top of the boat. Typically they will carry a Typhoon Machine Gun developed by Rafael Corp. BAE Systems is also in on the project.

It has been said that the Protector can prevent another USS Cole disaster and I wholeheartedly agree. Because attacks such as these occured is the reason for the Protector's existence. I see applications with the USN's new X-craft. Also with future ships, Protectors can be loaded off the ships and can patrol alongside the fleet, protecting not only destroyers but aircraft carriers as well. Low maintenance and high recovery will prove to be an important asset to the USN if it chooses to invest and acquire protectors. Drop 6 out of the back bay of the X-craft and you have fleet protectors.

I think the next integration of thos technology should be a connection to a network that the fleet is also connected to. With the advancement of AI systems and autonomous vehicles I don't see why the protectors can't be fully autonomous in the next 15 to 20 years. Metal Guardians, who think for themselves will protect the fleet and accomplish the task fearlessly. The United States Navy could use such technology, especially with terrorists and extremeists weapon of choice running about: ramming speedboats packed with explosives into warships.

Israel is currently using this technology to protect naval interests off of its coastline. So far the protector has defended oil rigs as well as oil lines. UMV (unmanned vehicle) technology is the way to the future, and if the predator were to be manufactured cost effectivly I am sure the USN would love to tap into this technology.

Re-Thinking the PC

This is a semi-rant about my computer experiences with Windows Products.

I am starting to rethink purchasing a PC in the future. I have had nothing but headaches and problems with Gateway's NX860XL Laptop that I am almost at my limit with both Microsoft and Gateway. Why can't anyone make something that works? I am very thankful to have the computer running again, but now everything else is "breaking down" as well. My SD-Card reader broke with recent windows updates, it is now disabled for whatever reason. Windows Vista is also having problems "remembering" my desktop background! This is a load and I have had nothing but pains and headaches with Microsoft products. I am seriously debating on switching over to a MAC machine but keeping windows, more than likely reverting back to Windows XP which worked a good amount of the time.

My advice is to not purchase Vista. It looks neat but it is so much worse than Windows XP. In fact I want to switch back to Windows XP but I don't even have a fraction of the money to pay someone to do it. The MacBook Pro sounds appealing, maybe after college I will make the switch to see how it really is. Dad always says "Windows has always worked for me". He hasn't tried Vista yet.

Old Betsy's Been Taken Out

About an hour ago the USS Lake Erie launched the SM-3 Missile at the dying US Spy Sattelite in space. The United States Navy and the Pentagon have both reported a successful hit of the sattelite, and believe that the fuel tank ignited and exploded. Debris is entering immediatly at the time of this post and will burn up upon entry. Great Job Navy!

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/20/AR2008022002323.html?hpid=topnews

Wheels on the Bus Will Be Flying Round and Round Hundreds of Miles across the Stratosphere

This has been relativly "big" news across the American media lately. An old US spy sattelite was launched in 2006 and shortly died after. The sattelite contains hydrazine fuel, a very toxic material that could cause some harm if it were to crash land back onto the Earth. The Pentagon has been called in to shoot down the sattelite with an experimental missile program designed to shoot down short to medium ranged ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) from future rogue states that may acquire nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

The SM-3 missile will be launched either this evening or within three days (I believe) to down the rocket. The Pentagon has called on an Aegis class destroyer to fire the missile and down the old sattelite as it begins to re-enter orbit. The Pentagon has a backup plan (2 more missiles) but the United States stated that it will repay damages for harm caused if the sattelite lands in another country. This has never been done in real life before, however simulations and other tests proved the system to be successful. The SM-3 missile was developed as an answer to a missile defense shield against North Korea.

There is debate over whether the United States is doing this to show off it's new systems and/or to send a message to rogue states as well as other countries. In my opinion I think the timing of this sattelite falling out of it's orbit is purely coincidental. It may send a message to other countries, however the United States has a responsibility to shoot down this sattelite before it causes any harm to anyone or anything. When hit, if hit, the sattelite will explode into pieces, hopefully the hydrazine fuel tank along with it. It is expected that the remainder of the debris will burn up upon re-entry.

Information Source

Northrop Grumman Remix Video

I thought a remix of Northrop Grumman's Gerald R Ford class video would go great with some Agile Warrior F-111X soundtracks. Enjoy!

Instruction Scans- Model Ships

I am in the campus library at the moment and I decided that the next time I came here I would start scanning in instructions for some of the model kits I have been working on. You can find the instructions to the Missouri located here, and some of the Kalmbach Shipbuilding book scans in here. It's really handy to have a copy of these instructions so I can call things out when working with someone. Please note that there may be some writing on the scans- ignore this as it only has meaning to myself. Enjoy!

Edit- Instead I decided to open a new subfolder in my picture galleries, which will contain future model scans. It can be found here. -Rob

AutoCad 2007

Yeesh, five days of no posts and I figure since I am in the library on campus right now taking a break that I should post about some of the stuff I've been doing for the past couple of days.

AutoCad 2007 is a program made by Autodesk mainly for designers, engineers and architects. The program lets you create simple shapes then radically modify them to produce a 2d sketch. In my case we are producing orthographic drawings. The picture may be hard to see, so I recommend enlarging it if possible.

I completed this drawing a week and a half ago or so. This drawing is of a sheet metal part that was bent to create a hinge of some sort. The lesson was to introduce the offset command as well as an introduction to fillet use to create bends in parts. Here is the drawing I am working on now, and believe me she is a mother (again enlarge the image to see the drawing, the lines are very thin).

This drawing should eventually represent some odd block that you will never see in real life, then sectional views divided into three parts which will show cross sections at certain points in the object. I'm still working on it and I would say I am close to 65% done.

AutoCad is also great for vector additi0n as well as layout designs. For example, the game room I want to have in the future can be designed as a floor layout through Autocadd, and to scale as well. Hopefully when I get some spare time (hah, spare time) I'll draw up a layout of the game room I want in the future.

The Sounds of the Sea: Upgrading BB-63

I've seen that 300 plus people want to see the Missouri started so that is what I will do this weekend. I have been looking into installing a larger speaker into the ship so we can have sounds. I have the battle call for the Iowa Class as well as some turret firing sounds, 5" shell fire sounds and Motor sounds among other things. I hope to elaborate soon and post some pictures of the final product. Heres a use for that old Ipod...

I've worked on it a bit this weekend and I am aboloutely horrified by the brushed on deck tan job. I just can't get the paint to settle properly out of the bottle and there is no "even" coat of paint. Subsquent paint jobs are beginning to fill in the gaps of the deck scribing. I don't like the idea of this, but I have no choice but to mask as much as possible and spray a deck tan. I will have to come back later and paint the deck details their respective colors. Meanwhile I have started test fitting the superstructure in an attempt to make progress on the model where the decks are freezing my progress. After the decks are complete it will be time to seal the hull halves together to prevent leaking.

Northrop Grumman Newport News- More on the Gerald R Ford Class

The Gerald R Ford class is something I have been looking into for a while now. Northrop Grumman Newport News will begin construction of the new super-carrier within the next 5 years. Designed to replace the aging nuclear aircraft carriers like the USS Enterprise, the Gerald R Ford class is being designed with the ability to facilitate technology extending through to 2050 if necessary.


Armament
Known armaments include your staples for aircraft carriers: the Gerald R Ford Class is slated to have 3-4 CIWS Phalanx mounts as well as missle defenses. Because technology during the lifespan of the carriers has 50 years to run it's course, new technologies in the future will be mountable into positions on the carrier. Currently the carrier is being designed to facilitate new technologies. Adding technologies such as the experimental railgun probably would not be out of the question for future plans.

Launch and Recovery
The Gerald R Ford class (herein abbreviated GRF) will feature new arresting gear technology for more reliable and efficient recovery of aircraft. In the past there were problems with arresting gear technology being unreliable sometimes, such as on the Nimitz Class aircraft carriers. The GRF class will also feature brand new technology to launch planes into the sky: electromagnetic catapults. These new catapults should allow for easier control on the amount of force needed to launch an aircraft: and more importantly calculate how much force is needed (by computer) to launch a payload off the decks. What's great is there is a large probability that everything will be controlled by computers in the aircraft carrier. With unrelated releases such as the Future Warrior concept, it is not out of the question that aircraft will be able to connect (via sattelite?) to the carrier, especially UAVs.

All of these new technologies will cost less to maintain the ship. For the future, the GRF class IS the platform to introduce UAVs into service as well as a platform for the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) to launch operations from. The age of the computer is here and real: with aircraft linked to the carrier the carrier will be able to launch more sortees with room to integrate UAVS into the future.

I'll be heading to Penn State University Park's career fair on February 19th to talk with the Northrop Grumman representative there about a possible internship this summer, hopefully in Newport News, VA. My ultimate goal is a career with the company, and hopefully I can work with them in the future.

Epiphany of Dapper

I do have a softspot for cats. We got Dapper about a year and a half ago and I love this cat because he has a bubbly personality. I miss him everyday while I am up here at College and I hear he sleeps in my bed by the pillows every night- I will have someone take photos for evidence on that. Now for the antics of Dapper.

Ok Geneon- I've Waited 2 Months

Ok Geneon- I have waited about two months since Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni: DVD 4 was to be released. What happened? It was supposed to be released on or around Dec. 14th of last year and it never showed up in stores! What's worse is I can't find any information on the internet regarding anyone "pulling" the series from shelves. I would love to know what happened to the english translation of the series because I would really like to finish the collection. Maybe the anime did not get a very good reception over here in the USA: and it is a darn shame because worldwide it is very popular. Try a search for yourselves readers and see if you can find anything. I am very disappointed.

L Is Inspector Gadget

note- they removed the video! I think I saved this on my computer- I will re-upload it to Youtube. ~posted by Rob on 4/09/08 at 10:52am



I thought this would be an amusing post. One of my favorite anime titles of the past year is one called "Death Note", where a guy named Yagami Light one day picks up a notebook that allows him to write the names of anyone he wishes in the book and how they will die. When done correctly, they will die that way, according to the Shinigami (death god). Known as "Kira", he wants to set out and create a new world order free from criminals and offenders. L, the world's most famous detective has solved many of the most controversial cases of the time, and agrees to investigate the Kira case.

Without giving away too much, L is one of my favorite characters. He is odd, but intelligent and very logical about things. He has much more of a sweet tooth than I do though. Since L is the world's top detective I figured this parody clip would be funny for those who have already or are currently following the series.

Penn State University Network Poor- My Experience

This is a bit of a rant, but is also an informative post on the current condition of the Penn State Network and what I believe to be it's invulnerabilities and annoyances. I have an eye for quality and an expectation for excellent performance- and the network here on campus isn't delivering.



Penn State University, like many other large universities that are hiking tuition rates are quickly becoming very wealthy. My understanding, and my expectations of attending a premium quality campus is that I will have the latest and advanced technology at my disposal to complete course work and other projects. I also have an understanding that if the campus is a multi-billion dollar campus, then they can furnish their students with the latest in technology upgrades and support. The support (IT) here at the Berks Campus is alright, but the current network is not.



Because of the increase in work load of my second semester, I find myself inside the library about 5-6 days per week on an average of 2-3 hours per day. Adding the math, I spend about 12 to 15 hours a week inside the library. Counting that I sleep about 8 hours a day, I am spending a lot of my free time in this library, nearly 50% of my free time. Currently University computers have been having a lot of problems, especially with me. I am not sure if others are affected but I have heard complaints.



Getting onto the problem, the network is slow, and very slow indeed. As a Penn State student I am required to log into the network just like any other university or school. When I enter my information correctly, the computer can take in upwards of 10 to 15 minutes to properly and fully load. The success rate of this is about 30%. Most of the time the computers just freeze on me. Other times they work brilliantly. After the ten to fifteen minute load, the computer needs an "extra" five to ten minutes to load all of the programs and what not. For a university network this is absoloutly ridiculous for the amount of money I pay the university each year- $20,000USD to be exact. If it were a privilidge to attend this university I would understand- but I am paying money out of my own pocket. If the SGA (Student Government Association) president is reading this- start pressuring the university to pay to upgrade it's computer systems.



The cheapest road is often the best road to increase wealth- and Penn State Berks spares no exception. They made a package deal with Dell to supply the university with all Dell computers. While I can't access this type of information, it seems the computers run off of 256MB of ram, something else that is very ridiculous. I have never been a fan of dell computers because of their integrational properties- If I want to upgrade the RAM in my computer than I HAVE to go through Dell to do it- and at a very hefty price. I'm not saying that the University should go with brand name computers- I am saying that they need to not buy crap for cheaper and expect to get away with it. I would consider something as fast as my home PC "acceptable" but it would not be what I would expect from the most expensive public college in the United States.



Logging into this network I also noticed that it has many vulnerabilities. The computer I just logged into has been reloaded, gives me error messages that files are corrupt it appears that the browser was hijacked. I accepted to Penn State with the understanding that this was an elitest college- and maybe it is, but we have a bunch of morons that are not only downloading illegal files but are also downloading harmful files that like to spread around networks. I do not like plugging my $1800 investment into this network but I don't have much of a choice- so I take extra precautions to beef up security. The network isn't constantly down, but you can expect it to be slower 4-5 days out of the week and completely crash at least once or twice a month, always during peak hours (Around 3pm-10pm EST).



Even though I accidentally exceeded bandwidth once, and I am paying for it with a consequence of 56 kbps for a day or so, I am very happy that Reslife enacted the policy of slowing down heavy downloaders- but it is ridiculous that we are limited to 2 GB per day up and down. What I am getting at is, money should be spent on the network in order to improve stability and most of all performance. I don't care if the bandwidth is low since I don't download much anyway- but if you are restricting students because bandwidth is so low then find another provider and increase the performance, NOT PUNISH YOUR STUDENTS FOR IT. I do however like the no bullcrap policy.



Pain in the neck- yes. Potentially dangerous- yes. I have detected multiple servers people are running and really nobody does anything about it, the servers are even named the last name of the people creating them! If the university spent more time upgrading their technology and improving the stability and performance of their network THEN they have the right to brag about being a top-notch university. I can go on and on, but until then and until we receive quality facilities for the College of Engineering then Penn State has no right to call itself a premium university- it's just another statistic out there with the rest of them.