Busy as a bee

 Yep, there's a lot of good ideas that I've written about.   Here's one from the other blog, but it might be here in this one too.   In case it isn't, here's the link.   Actually, there are already wild bees out there on the property.  I saw a swarm of them on one of my trips.  Glad I wasn't outside when those went by.  I've actually drove through a swarm of bees once.  Imagine all the bug splats on the windshield.

What's up post

 

HTML--hyper text markup language

 

It can be a pretty unpredictable thing, at least for the moment and for me. Even this blog is acting in an unusual manner.

 

It seems that I cannot access a post for some reason. It just ignores my click.

 

Anyway, the links to the web page developmental project are now broken. There's a reason for that, as I am going to start up another project. The other page still exists, but seems to be unavailable at this time. If possible, I may bring it back. I see no reason why it couldn't, if I so choose.

 

Quick update:

 

Demons?

 

As the late comic Flip Wilson liked to say, the Devil made me do it.

 

 

Odd thing about this post, too.  The link on that post doesn't work properly.  That's a bit strange.  A possible explanation is that the post was taken down.  However, the link is not at fault.  It is pointing to an explicit referenced link, but when it goes to the link, the page doesn't show---something else does.

Rapid iteration is like what you do in coding

11/19/25:

 

Rapid iteration doesn't seem very rapid at times. After a good deal of trial, and mostly error, I got the video player going the way I'd like. It cycles through the videos that I have on the list. I can add more to the list, and make a small addition to the code, and the video player will accomodate it. It had two videos for awhile, now it has three. If I add another, it will take minimal programming to do it.

 

It sure took a lot of effort.

 

11/18/25:

 

Brief observation here... While learning to code again, I note that I have to keep correcting errors. There's a bunch of those. Well, as you may know, SpaceX uses the rapid iteration technique to improve their rockets. It seems that Elon Musk's first big commercial success may have been a programming project--it may have been PayPal.

But it is better to not to make so many mistakes. Blowing up rockets is an expensive undertaking. Blowing them up in virtual reality may be a lot cheaper...

Incidentally, there's been talk about landing the heavy booster out in the Gulf. Why would Musk want to do that? Could it be that he wants to land them out in the Gulf in order to improve performance. Bringing the booster back to the launch site costs a lot of fuel, which hampers performance. If the booster could land in the Gulf, and then transport back to the launch site, it would enable better performance.

 

An idea that he may have, or may not have, is to re-fly the booster back to the launch site after a launch. The boost back to launch site from the Gulf would involve adding fuel to it again, and then launching a booster alone from the Gulf for the short trip back to the launch site. Why do this? It would save time. It may take a day or two to get it back to the launch site by sea, you see.

 

After all, the whole idea is to have short turnaround time. A booster that can be re-used several times a day could reduce launch costs even further. Also, landing out in the Gulf could increase useful payload to orbit up to maybe 75 tons--instead of 200 tons to orbit, it may go up to 275 tons to orbit. All that while maintaining rapid launch cadence.

 

So now's there's a plan

There's a saying out there in the world that goes something like this: "Make your plans, and God will smile." That means, whatever you make plans for, there's likely to be a few things that you haven't allowed for. Incidentally, I may have mangled that quote up pretty badly, and adapted it to what I'm thinking.

Which allows me to segue into another quote that might get mangled. All war plans do not survive contact with the enemy. The enemy of any plan, including war or any other endeavor, is the radnomness of existence. Now that I've bored you with philosophical nonsense, the plan is in effect. It is to use the results of my learning to code in order to make money. Or to sell the land in order to obtain money for some other plan that I've not concocted yet. The plan is underway, and things appear to be going okay. But the reality hasn't hit yet. No money may be made, no sales may get transacted. That's the way things may go, but there's enough optimism to try.

 

Does SpaceX know how they're going to land on the moon?

 

With so little said about the details of how they're going to fulfill the mission requirements, it seems like the scene in a Dirty Harry movie, thusly:

One could legitimately ask if SpaceX really knows what they're doing here. Of course SpaceX knows rockets, but they've never done this kind of thing before, which is something that they've got to master before they can be successful.

Why not copy what worked before? What worked before was basically the solution for the tyranny of the rocket equation. NASA's solution was shed mass as you go along. The Saturn V's first two stages did the heavy work of getting to the edge of space, then the IVB third stage finished off the orbit phase, and served as the translunar injection phase. After its job was complete, the mass was discarded, as were the first two stages of the Saturn V. At this point, there is about 100k lbs that has to finish the mission. That's just 50 tons.

No need for complex operations like refueling in space. The last part required only a relatively small amount of thrust and fuel. Even that obeyed the same strategy. The lunar module had two sub-modules. The lander part got the lunar module on the surface, and the ascent module got the astronauts back to the command module. Let's say the lunar module massed out at 16 tons. That left 34 tons to get back to Earth. To get from the lunar surface required only 10k lbs or 5 tons total mass. These are approximate numbers, but that's not the point. The point is that in landing such a large spacecraft on the lunar surface requires a very complex set of maneuvers.

Refueling may work, but the shedding of mass has been proven to work. So SpaceX is basically re-inventing the wheel here. With the heavy lift capability of the superheavy, it should be well within its capabilities of landing a spacecraft on the moon. Just not the Starship. If Musk insists on the Starship, then he is incurring far more mission risk on something that hasn't been proven in action before. Just sayin'.

School bus conversion to tiny home

Very nice.

 

Do you need a $30k trailer?

 

This video challenges that notion. Looks interesting.

 

 

Coding on Raspberry Pi

10/7/25:

Interesting. It may be hard to understand the narrator, because he is obviously not a native English speaker. Anyway, Thonny is on my Raspberry Pi machine, so the example he gives is easy to follow. It may be a bit embarrassing at first, because it seems TOO easy. But it has been 20 plus years since I coded anything at all. I'm pretty rusty. Not to worry, it's coming along fine.

10/6/25:

 

Can you ride your motor scooter, Billy Boy, Billy Boy

10/4/25:

 

The scooter didn't come with mirrors. For a nominal cost extra, it now has them. It's a little more reassuring to be able to see if there's a car coming in behind you. This scooter may have a problem with hills. If not that, then it seems to have some other problem because it quits sometimes. That's rather annoying. It could be a long walk home if that thing quits on me in the middle of town.

 

7/12/25:

 

Making the ramp now. It's almost ready to be tested. If that test works, then I can get the scooter outside and try it out. I tried it inside a bit. Everything seems to be working, and I'm nearly ready to ROCK n' ROLL!

 

But do I ever get tired easy. Maybe if I am lucky, I can rebuild myself while I'm doing this. This is embarrassing.

 

By the way, did I mention that I found the missing bolt? However, the other wire basket between the seat and the handlebars, and is actually large enough to carry some cargo, is IN THE WAY. So, I had to take it off. The seat feels okay for now, but I'm not bouncing up and down on a bumpy road yet. We'll see.

 

7/11/25:

 

The scooter came, I saw, but it did not conquer me. Not yet, anyway. There was some assembly required--for the scooter, that is. The cursed thing arrived late afternoon. I got the bright idea to take it out of the box while outside in the sun. By the time I got it out of the box, I knew I was in for a battle.

 

I fought this thing for the rest of the day, and retired for the evening in a very tired state. In theory, the assembly should have been easy. Among the issues were that the handle bars "quick disconnect" mechanism would not go on properly. Fortunately, this feature is not necessary. The status of the assembly was mostly finished by bedtime. But I was still in the fight.

 

First thing this morning, the battle raged on. The parts of this scooter have a very annoying tendency to want to fall to the floor. I have a strong tendency not to want to bend over and pick things up off the friggin' floor all the time. So I battled this thing for another hour before finishing up the assembly. That is, what I could do of it. A part went missing when it hit the floor. I spent another hour looking for it with no luck.

 

The original idea was to build it outside because I wanted to store it in the van. But it is too hot to store it outside, says the manual. So I have to keep it in-friggin'-side. So that is the current state of this adventure. The question being, how to I store this thing inside, and move it outside where it can be useful when I want it to be? I will build a ramp. There's some stairs to traverse in order to get it back down to ground level.

 

More assembly required. I'm getting too old for this shit.

 

7/10/25:

 

Amazon and UPS needs to get their heads wired up to their asses. They are giving conflicting information. It's not a problem so far. We'll see.

 

7/9/25:

 

The scooter is still on its way. Not due for a couple more days.

 

I tested the battery by using it to power the weed eater. The weed eater pulls about 700-800 watts estimated. It will drain a battery of this type in a relatively short time. It will run a dehumidifier for 3 hours continuous if it is in as good a shape as last year. It has seen little use since I stopped that experiment. Now there's this experiment.

 

There's always something, said Rose Ann Rosanna Dana.

 

7/8/25:

 

The repairs are complete, but there may be some tweaking ahead. Still in testing phase, but it appears to be working as intended.

 

Still waiting on the scooter to arrive.

 

7/7/25:

 

The solar panel system has been acting up. When I moved the trailer recently, I may have pulled a wire loose. I forgot to unplug everything, and while pulling the trailer, I notice something was being dragged along behind me. Oopsie.

 

It's been a slog to figure out what got messed up. It's charging the battery again, so that's good. I want the switches to shut it off and on to work, but these aren't cooperating at the moment. No biggie. I'll figure it out.

 

7/5/25:

 

Awaiting my moto scooter, and it is no ring-tail tooter. (Ref: Slick Willy Update of the Rush Limbaugh show dating back to 1992's election campaign ) Getting my stuff ready, as preparations are needed.

 

The following video is a little closer to the update version, but it isn't quite there. I can't find it on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

07/03/2025:

 

Got an idea about buying a mobility scooter. The one that would seem most handy would cost over $3k, and can be obtained on Amazon.

 

It is electric, and would have a 30 mile range, or so it says.

 

Having experimented with an electric scooter before, the range would seem be inflated. It all depends upon battery capacity. This one has a 48 V, 20 AH electrical setup. That's about 1 Kwh. If it is anything like autos, it may get 4 miles.

 

Even so, it would be sufficient for ample mobility.

 

The price is high, but not beyond me. What about a golf cart?

 

07/04/2025:

 

Here's what I did: I got an electric scooter. It is pretty much the same thing I had before, so it won't cost much, and it can't do all that much, but it can do a few things ( I hope ).

 

Back in 2003, I bought one for $150. It is now $450 on Amazon. Now that is what I call "progress". Free delivery! Like wow, man.

 

I'll use my solar panels to provide electricity for charging the thing. Maybe this idea will actually work. Most of my ideas don't work worth a sheet, main.

 

 

How small can you make a nuclear weapon?

 

YouTube video by Curious Droid

Comment:

He mentions the objections that would arise if such were actually proposed for use in spacecraft propulsion. The advantages would be in increasing ISP, which determines the amount of propellant mass needed. A nuclear device may have an ISP hundreds of times greater than the best chemical engines.

There was a proposal to do atomic propulsion back in the fifties, but the idea is moot since it is outlawed by international treaty.

Nevertheless, it is an intriguing idea, which forms the basis of the Jumbo sized Aldrin Cycler. You could transport a massive structure out there using atomic propulsion. Once out there in its orbit around Mars and Earth, it could be used to transport lots of people and cargo to the Red Planet.