:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Friday, November 07, 2003 ::

A light-hearted look at the origins of engineering specs
Original source unknown.

Origins of engineering specs and government decisions. Ever wonder where engineering specifications come from?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches, an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the English built the first US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used.

Why did they use that particular gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used the same wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts in the granite sets.

So, who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they all had the same wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Specifications and Bureaucracies live forever.

The Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war-horses.

Now let's cut to the present...

The Space Shuttle, sitting on its launch pad, has two booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. A company builds SRBs at its factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs wanted to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory has to run through a tunnel in the mountains.

The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel, which is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So.... a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined two thousand years ago by a horse's ass.

Which is pretty much how most government decisions are made.

:: Dan 7.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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Great Christmas present idea if you’re struggling to find something that will keep the olds quiet; get a jigsaw printed of the OS map of anywhere you like, just provide a postcode.

:: Dan 7.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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"Breakthrough for the legion of pub sportsmen who have been flipping with equipment unchanged in decades" – Beer mat flipping 'perfected'.

Voyager 'at edge of solar system'

Guy Fawkes plot 'was devastating' – see just how devastating.

:: Dan 6.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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Fancy a nice cup of tea and a sit down?

:: Dan 6.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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Matrix Revolutions Review

Review contains spoilers in black text, copy and paste to read in full.

A film about The Matrix, set almost entirely NOT in The Matrix, but still containing just as much dodgy physics, only without the plausible explanation of it being in a computer simulation. Indecently, I got very bored of the shock wave in the rain special effect used many, many times in the final battle.

Not even the Fetish Club scene saves this film, although it does distract the attention for a welcome couple of minutes.

There is barely a line of dialogue in this film that isn’t ambiguous. No character has the faculty to say what they mean, give advice and even take a shit without pondering over the meaning of existence in way that does not make the audience think “oh yes, that’s an interesting point” but “stop talking bollocks and get the fuck on with it!”

The ending where the Gamesmaster agrees to let Neo fight Smith for him in return for peace is laughable. The machines are really going to stop trying to kill the humans because they helped rid them of Smith who they weren’t even convinced was a threat minutes before? The humans are fine about the rest of their race still being used as food for the machines? The Oracle thinks that the peace will last “as long as it lasts.” Well that’s informative. You actually mean until you decide to make another film, right?

The question I found myself asking myself halfway through this film was “Do I really care what happens to these characters?” And the answer I came to, when I had plenty of time to consider this during Trinity’s endless, but hilarious, Sean Bean rivalling, death scene, was “No”. No, I really don’t give a fuck about this anymore.

The love story is the most unconvincing I’ve seen in years. The supposed bonds between all the human characters are all two-dimensional. In fact, most of the characters are just clichés and stereotypes that I’m totally sick off.

Example: Tank Girl type character with a Bazooka and woman only there to help save her man fumble around and manage to take out two huge drilling machines that no one else seems to be trying to attack. Why are there not more people trying to do the same thing?

The second the young guy who isn’t old enough to be aloud to fight appears eagerly pushing a trolley load of ammo and tripping and sending it flying you know what’s going to happen. You know some senior officer character is going to tell him he can’t get involved cus he’s too young, he’s going to protest and somehow convince the officer (but not the audience) that he should be given a shot at it, he’ll get to do some menial job, he’ll see lots of death and destruction, when everyone else is dead he’ll pick up a weapon and make some strategically critical move that turns the whole battle around, etc etc. It doesn’t disappoint. This is exactly what happens and it is exactly the kind patronising Americano trite that has made almost every Hollywood “blockbuster” this year the steaming pile of shit that it is.

The Hollywood studios have convinced themselves that poor box office this year was down to text messaging allowing bad reviews to spread too quickly. They can no longer “buy” a guaranteed audience. The root cause of poor box office however is not text messaging, it’s the fact that they are making truly appalling and offensively ill thought out movies, seemingly endless lines of sequels and even remakes of thing that should never need to be remade, moving all of the action to the US and replacing all of the characters with Americans along the way. What was wrong with the original Italian Job? Why did The League of Extraordinary Plagiarism (on top of sporting the most offensively bad movie physics since The Core) replace the female founder of the League and give her a honorary gent bit part then add a skill-less American dip-shit to the League who you just no is going to end up being the person who finally takes out the villain in the end? Just guaranteeing American audiences are happy are we? What is the American preoccupation with their own imagined superiority?

Hollywood, please, make some PROPER FUCKING FILMS!

:: Dan 6.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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Nice electronic music internet radio site you might want to try out: http://everyone.doesntexist.com

:: Dan 5.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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The following post is copied verbatim (and I cant be bothered to correct the typos) from the latest Tigerbeat6 newsletter, but I thought it may be of interest:

"LETS KEEP THINGS FROM GETTING ANY WORSE!

And on another note, let us get uncharacteristically political
And include a very effective email about george bush recently
Forwarded around, not that we think there is many consvervative
Republican bush supporters reading our mailout that we feel
Are going to be turned liberal by reading this , just that yhis is information every one should know about a president we will soon have the chance of putting in a vote to get him out of office, dont forget to vote
In the next presidential election!!!

GUESS WHO I AM?
*I attacked and took over 2 countries.

*I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US
Treasury.

*I shattered the record for the biggest annual
deficit in history (not easy!).

*I set an economic record for the most personal
bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

*I set all-time record for the biggest drop in
the history of the stock market.

*I am the first president in decades to execute a
federal prisoner.

*In my first year in office I set the all-time
record for most days on vacation by any president
in US history (tough to beat my dad's, but I
did).

*After taking the entire month of August off for
vacation, I presided over the worst security
failure in US history.

*I set the record for most campaign fund raising
trips by any president in US history.

*In my first two years in office over 2 million
Americans lost their jobs.

*I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work
Americans than any other president in US history.

*I set the all-time record for most real estate
foreclosures in a 12-month period.

*I appointed more convicted criminals to
administration positions than any president in US
history.

*I set the record for the fewest press
conferences of any president, since the advent of
TV.

*I signed more laws and executive orders amending
the Constitution than any other US president in
history.

*I presided over the biggest energy crises in US
history and refused to intervene when corruption
was revealed.

*I cut health care benefits for war veterans.

*I set the all-time record for most people
worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets
to protest me (15 million people), shattering the
record for protest against any person in the
history of mankind.

*I dissolved more international treaties than any
president in US history.

*I've made my presidency the most secretive and
unaccountable of any in US history.

*Members of my cabinet are the richest of any
administration in US history. (The poorest
multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron
oil tanker named after her.)

*I am the first president in US history to have
all 50 states of the Union simultaneously
struggle against bankruptcy.

*I presided over the biggest corporate stock
market fraud in any market in any country in the
history of the world.

*I am the first president in US history to order
a US attack AND military occupation of a
sovereign nation, and I did so against the will
of the United Nations and the vast majority of
the international community.

*I have created the largest government department
bureaucracy in the history of the United States,
called the "Bureau of Homeland Security"(only one
letter away from BS).

*I set the all-time record for biggest annual
budget spending increases, more than any other
president in US history (Ronnie was tough to
beat, but I did it!!).

*I am the first president in US history to compel
the United Nations remove the US from the Human
Rights Commission.

*I am the first president in US history to have
the United Nations remove the US from the
Elections Monitoring Board.

*I removed more checks and balances, and have the
least amount of congressional oversight than any
presidential administration in US history.

*I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.

*I refused to allow inspectors access to US
prisoners of war and by default no longer abide
by the Geneva Conventions.

*I am the first president in US history to refuse
United Nations election inspectors access during
the 2002 US elections.

*I am the all-time US (and world) record holder
for most corporate campaign donations.

*The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign,
who is also one of my best friends, presided over
one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in
world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron
Corporation).

*I spent more money on polls and focus groups
than any president in US history.

*I am the first president to run and hide when
the US came under attack (and then lied, saying
the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)

*I am the first US president to establish a
secret shadow government.

*I took the world's sympathy for the US after
9/11, and in less than a year made the US the
most resented country in the world (possibly the
biggest diplomatic failure in US and world
history).

*I am the first US president in history to have a
majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my
presidency as the biggest threat to world peace
and stability.

*I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals
to be awarded government contracts.

*I set the all-time record for the number of
administration appointees who violated US law by
not selling their huge investments in
corporations bidding for gov't contracts.

*I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties
for Americans than any other president in US
history.

*I entered office with the strongest economy in
US history and in less than two years turned
every single economic category heading straight
down.

*RECORDS AND REFERENCES: I have at least one
conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas
driving record has been erased and is not
available).

*I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted
the military during time of war.

*I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any
questions about drug use. (wink,wink)

*All records of my tenure as governor of Texas
have been spirited away to my fathers library,
sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public
view.

*All records of any SEC investigations into my
insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed
in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

*All minutes of meetings of any public
corporation for which I served on the board are
sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public
view.

*Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my
VP) attended regarding public energy policy are
sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public
review.

With Love,
GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House, Washington, DC
Note: this information should be useful to voters
in the 2004 election.
Circulate to as many citizens you think would be
helped to be reminded about this record"

:: Dan 5.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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Hello, hello. I’ve been ill the last few days but I'm better now. So there should be a few updates today.

The World Beard Championships took place in the US over the weekend. The UK won the Fu Manchu category but if anyone can find a picture I’m particularly interested to see the Freestyle winners.

:: Dan 5.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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