Face Lift

Sorry Bill, I think that's Marilyn Manson you're next to?

Oh go then, if we must, but go and get a bowl of popcorn and settle down!

The Pictorial Key Pad in summary, to save a walk to the Digital Commons:

What I was intrigued by ~ and turns out Y Combinator were too until they found out who was behind it ~ was the notion that the one thing we're exceptional at from the course of our evolution was recognising faces. So idea was, slip a few you recognise into an array of those you don't, and you've something easier to remember than the components of a PIN code... but which cannot really be relayed in ways that would assist a hacker.

For instance, who'd I most associate with up there? Yes! Paris Hilton, because she shares a surname, and because I'd like to see her with no clothes on! You however have only a 1-in-50 chance of guessing the same way (Ed. unless you're male, so maybe granny would be a better random pick after all...).

The problem that rapidly became apparent was that you'd need a database of looks like faces generated most easily by AI to avoid copyright and GDPR (GPDR?) issues, and that was looking (a) tricky and (b) expensive.

All that changed when I realised ~ too late as it happened ~ that now it'd be easier simply to buy the software generating the faces, with things moving fast and getting so cheap. Another issue though was the fact the passcode you see on a phone from the get-go is proprietary and difficult to break into in more ways than one. Thefts of mobiles though remains massive; this an intriguing step in a more secure direction.

Thus what would happen would be that you'd swipe the phone and in just an inst it would produce an array of AI-generated mugshots, among which would be people only you would be expected to know. In the pitch to YC I used their own faces in a sad effort to appeal to their vanity... which clearly worked*.

For the fact is any number of ideas briefly flourish and die before their time, and when I did the due diligence the idea of recognising shapes say or icons or emojis that you'd pre-selected for example dated as far back as 2003. Not faces as I recall though, perhaps because it was prior to the explosion of images we're used to now.

But nothing as Victor Hugo observed can stop an idea whose idea has come, except perhaps VCs in San Fransisco whom you've just pissed off in a blog-post?

(Incidentally every pic up there is in fact a famous mug-shot due arrest or detention except for Ronald McDonald, who I'm currently being sued over... spot him kids?).

* Ed. He's a rare form of Tourettes affecting only typing, but I won't be contacting Paris for him.

The overlay... took me ages.

California Dronin'

Latest worldwide download-ership is in for my "academic" papers that I upload to the digital commons ~ after that argument with the Patent Office ~ are in, and this time I thought I'd take you for a tour of who likes what where, beginning in the US. Let me then take you by the digital hand, and we shall fly across America like that brat and the snowman seem to do every year on TV at Christmas!

I'll work from west to east with Mr. Mercator's permission and accordingly kick off in Redmond WA, where the maritime drone has 'dropped', principally because it is free but also because they've got water nearby... we wish them bon voyage!

Meantimes in San Jose CA (simply 'the valley' to Elon and I)  they've gone for a SLB or self-launching boat, which I'm pleased about because with their smarts and my angle-grinder I feel we can make it happen. Meanwhile down in LA it's the Pictorial Key Pad that's going down a storm and on the next post I'll say why, and how it can be improved. I do that for the good of humanity, and so people in Ormskirk nudge each other in Wetherspoons once they realise they're in the presence of greatness.

Over in Vineyard UT I'd hoped they'd downloaded my patented "Method and Means for Moving Nineteen Teenage Brides" and I won't be welcome there again, though frankly wasn't the first time, but in fact it was the Pictorial Key Pad again, so they may want to read the next post if that laptop hasn't been thrown against the wall.

Moving swiftly on we're at Warren Air Force base, YES SECRETARY HEGSETH SIR, HILTON SIR, G2626058 who've gone for my Drone Adapted to Human Carriage. I cannot even remember what that involves, but clearly it's impressed somebody. Or maybe it's just been taking home for the kids' Year Six show-and-tell?

Down in Dallas TX they've gone for the very same thing, and I like to think that's a 'droid that works for Elon who's perusing that with the AI brain bolted into his skull.

At Cedar Hill TN though it's back to the Maritime Drone and zooming in here to the most granular of detail from my perch in Lancashire ~ Mwah ha, mwah ha, mwah ha ha ha ha ha ~ I can see that they're planning to use it on the Piney River, where the women are fast and the current's beautiful?

But we can't stay long, can we snowman because we're flying through the digital air to a high school in Duluth, Georgia we're the teacher has just printed off thirty-six more Maritime Drones and the kids are saying, "Can we go now, loser?".Exciting!

Bye kids, bye, for we're off now to Pittsburgh (guessing PN?) which is consolidating the trend with these maritime drones. I've actually been to Pittsburgh on a Sunday afternoon, though mostly to escape Cleveland.

Over to Riga now, and though I've not been there I have been on an airline training course in the original in Latvia, where I was kicked out for pointing out that most of us had been silently watching YouTube videos during the type conversion (which in fairness I'd done time and again in accordance with EASA's senseless dictates). In Riga NY they to ~ oh, come on ~ went for the Maritime Drone.

Thank goodness in Ashborn VA they've gone for a Virtual Quadcopter instead. This is simply a way to reduce the size of a quad with two props on each arm by having them overlap whilst mounted above and below; remembering they've to run in the same direction so that their don't, in short.

At Perth Ambay (g?) in New Jersey, no prize for guessing it's the maritime drone in view of all the water thereabouts, and finally as we direct our weary wings toward New York City itself, and the heart of its financial district, it's the Drone for Human Carriage once more. Perhaps the guy just wants to escape the grind, like a slower version of Batman?

There are downloads across all the continents that we could analyse this month, but what the snowman said to the idea is something you don't want children hearing.

Ed. The author's re-view of the Pictorial Key-Pad may be a few posts from now... we live crazy lives like that, and might even leave the breakfast bar one day.

Deliver...ong

Arrived home yesterday to find an unwanted Deliveroo on my door-step, in the form of a family breakfast from some eight hours previous. What would you do? Like any man I put it in the oven and afterward ate it all, washed down with beer and tequila purchased with the savings. Horrendous shits this morning ~ which can only improve my Parkrun times ~ although it was good while it lasted.

Jet Eh?

Airlines ~ and not least their pilots ~ are in my experience always bleating about something and principally how little money they're given. The cabin crew joke was the difference between pilots and jet engines being that the latter stopped whining at the end of the day.

The current groan relates to whether they should be allowed to use imported fuel from the US in Europe, the European Commission saying 'yes' and EASA, which like all aviation authorities is principally an arse-covering exercise, saying 'no'.

The debate is over the freezing point and this is the point at which you don't trust everything that AI comes up with, it effectively crawling the 'net for whatever's out there and regurgitating the most plausible; including everything that armchair pilots have to say about it.

BA have only really had two crashes anyone can ever recall, one to a Trident in the 1970s following on from a spat between an ex-military captain and entitled drongos of the sort worked for the airline as First Officers and probably still do.

The other was a 777 that crash-landed just clear of a threshold I knew and loved at Heathrow, and whose captain's career was cancelled for many years by the drongos that equally work as airline owners and managers.

And the problem relates to what happens to kerosene after many hours in the cruise and during which it forms what you and I would consider more slush-puppy than jet fuel. Water sinks in fuel, as the latter has a density of around 0.80 SG, and in light aircraft at the start of every day you go around with what looks like a urine sampler to drain the tanks and see how much has accumulated.

I don't recall having to do this on either Airbus or Boeing airliners, which must have a cleverer system altogether: but clearly not quite clever enough. The temperature that sticks in my own mind is around -65C as I used to dwell on how cold it would feel if the aircraft broke up, as very occasionally they have done in thunderstorms. 

In fact one of the guys who started "Aunty Betty's" frozen produce was a co-pilot of mine at the time, and we enjoyed conversations in the cruise less about what we'd do by way of an approach into Leeds-Bradford and moreso how Yorkshire puddings were frozen. He told me the tricky part was the flash-freezing, when they went from not long having been baked to something more like a frozen mitten. We decided the best way of doing so might be to throw them out the side-window in the cruise.

For what happened in the case of the 777 flight  is that ice crystals accumulated in the fuel during the flight and warmed as things do during the descent so as to block the fuel filters and thereby starve the engines, both of which practically quit during the approach. I recall, and could be wrong, the captain retracted the flaps to reduce drag and stretch the glide; but was criticised by the male Karens that emerged from within head office as invariably they do when the shit's flying faster than a 777.

In fact we'd do that in the simulator in similar sized aircraft following such incidents and I recall, if anything, that it did actually work.

The great thing about AI though is that it teaches you things you'd never learned in half a lifetime as a pilot, like how the tanks are insulated like your hot-water tank at home by spray-on foam, and how you're going so fast and the wings are so hot you needn't bother your pretty little head. This is possibly because for all I know, this is likely to be (and probably undoubtedly is) kerosone-lubricated AI slop.

The only airliner I recall that this became any sort of factor with was Concorde, that flew at a coincidental 65,000 feet where illogically perhaps, the air atmosphere does actually start to get a little warmer. But at twice the speed of sound things really do heat up, not the least of which is the alloy the airliner is made with, which starts to bend. Beyond these speeds it is strictly steel ~ as per the  Soviet Foxbat as I recall ~ or else the more expensive Titanium the US was able to afford in its Blackbird.

What does keep aviation fuel snugly warm-ish is the fact it is used as a coolant in and around the engine's auxiliary gear-box, where things work both ways: you keep me cool, and I'll keep you warm to our mutual benefit.

Back then to a debate over whether Jet A might be used instead of Jet A1, one from the US and the other the Gulf? Well in the manuals and although I never had to use it, my longest flights being the six hours betwixt Shanghai and Phuket, a suggestion is that crews keep an eye on the outside temperature and consider descent to cruise at a lower and warmer level if they see fit. Problem is in a world stretched already, that might involve a higher fuel-flow, and the rate at which Euros are being burned.

Ed. Don't let this put you off that trip to the Costa Brava. Do think of the crushed-ice margaritas at the other end.

Freighted History

Always been considerable cross-over between shipping and air lines, Maersk having ventured into passenger airlines prior to focusing on airfreight to add to its shipping operation. It has been superseded as the largest container ship operator by MSC, whose ships can carry upto 24,000 (20') containers and which also acquired an airline to move goods that bit quicker. Other airlines to have sprung from freight forwarding include Cathay Pacific, originally of Shanghai.

At the same time, as recently as the 1960s it was fairly common for passengers to travel by ship, especially on longer routes across the Atlantic or to Australia in view of the comparative cost of flying and its fuel-stops enroute. The perceived threat to shipping companies led some of them to set up airlines of their own, most notably Court Line and Dan-Air in the UK.

Toward the end of the latter's life they were known for running on a shoe-string and would thus arrive at Gatwick with the bare minimum of fuel required for holding and diversion. They became known for diverting to Bournemouth in the circs to disrupt people's Instrument Rating test with fuel emergencies.

I myself had just completed the precision approaches and holding exercises, having only the non-precision (NDB, as they didn't have a VOR) to pursue when one  such flight pitched up and we were vectored elsewhere. Should it ever to happen to me nowadays ~ and face it, it won't ~ I'd say the examiner just had a heart-attack and that my emergency trumps theirs.

The crane at the railhead here is called a 'heavy lifter' and manufactured invariably in Finland of all places. You don't want to be run over by one either.

Covering All Bases

Turns out Kim Kardashian's Met Gala suit was made here by Whitaker Malem, who have also done something similar for Batman in years past. Here it is after having been spray-painted down in Kent at, er, a body-shop?

I've already drafted a set of metallic Y-fronts to use at my TED talk in Cockermouth.

Fifty Shades of Grey Hair

What leaps out at you from this extract from venture capital UP Partners, apart from the fact robots are clamouring for minimum wage?

It's that the average age of aerospace engineers in the US is 50 years old.

In Vietnam, the average age of combat troops was Nnnnn... nineteen.

The average age on a US carrier is not much older (at around Ttttt... twenty-three).

I recall those putting men on the moon averaged twenty-five not counting members of R.E.M.

Fact is that's more like the status quo is in China now, now aviation is down-scaling.

For the other fact is... you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

Ed. And he's been trying to balance a biscuit on his nose all afternoon.