The Morning Summary, April 25, 2011

8/7/26:

This post originated here. It was cross-posted on the other blogger platformed blog, and retained here. That means they are separate posts now on different blogs.

I noted firstly on the other blog this morning that folks may be interested in stats.

They're not reliable, and they've ceased to be of interest to me. But if anybody's interested, here's a stat for ya. Total views all time for this blog: 5,107,466

Make of that what you will.

4/25/11: The original post for the Boots and Oil Blog...

The statistics:

Time approx 4:30 am

Sitemeter; Mon. am. 4618; v. Sun. am 4599; 19 up 1 from Sun

Blogger: Sun. 83, up 24 from Sat. (59); overnight is 12 so far, compared with 21 this time yesterday.

Nothing to report on bids, nor sales, still zero on revenues, no clicks on Amazon.  Nobody appears to be clicking on the Products page nor on the Marketing pages.

New record for this blog on Blogger pageviews.

YouTube page: 848 v 847 channel views previously, 493 v. 492 upload views previously. Channel views improve by 1, upload views improve by 1.

It is gratifying to hit new records. On the other hand, the lack of marketing success is frustrating.

Update:

I think I am going to be lite with the blogging today. That's my agenda today. Just to think.


Update:

One thing I thought about was the Space Show yesterday. If you were to get large quantities of turpentine and nitric acid in orbit at a reasonable cost, that could be a plus. On the other hand, these hypergolics may be hard to find and to synthesize in space. It would be necessary to get this up there somehow. Once up there, they can be more useful than trying to store cryogenics. The big dumb rocket could send up buttloads of the stuff. Also, the Space Cannon concept may be able to send it up at a reasonable price.

Also, after I finished the above post, I started reading up on fusion. I may need to spend some time in these forums.

Update:

It is interesting to go back and look at previous posts like this.  It is all an education, just like yesterday.  I didn't know about Interorbital until I listened to the Space Show.  It is still a matter of getting educated on what's out there.

If I may interject a thought into these discussions.  Everybody is going at this in their own way.  But what if no single way exists?  That's a question that should be considered.  Take fusion, for example.  The fact that fusion can take place now is not in dispute.  The problem is getting it to do what we want.  But if we want to do something like generating electricity, it may not be possible by a direct approach.  Let's say if you wanted to use fusion for propulsion and then use that propulsion to emplace solar stations that would send energy back to the Earth.  But I don't think anyone is thinking that way.  Instead, they want to get it to produce net electrical power.  Maybe that isn't even necessary.  That's my point. 

Another Ranchero video

8/6/26:

The Ranchero has come and gone. Number one said that it was too fast for his taste. There's a video somewhere around here that I may be able to embed. But maybe I won't. In review, the Ranchero had the engine of a Mustang, but the body of a 60's era car/pickup hybrid concept seen here and there at the time. See the video below and the series of videos, if interested. Btw, there was no FBI. It had to be a gag.

6/17/21: The original post follows:

Taking a break here from Insurrection planning to bring you another video. I was in a bit too much of a hurry with my deep-laid plans to overthrow the government that I forgot where I put these pics. I made a new one.



Honestly, I don't know where I find the time to do all these things that the FBI seems so interested in. Wow. I must be Superman or something. You thought Superman was that guy who looked like a superhero, but I don't. Psst! It's my super-secret surprise. Don't tell anyone.

Starship recovery in the Indian Ocean

There's some doubt that this will work... It will be quite a salvage job if it does indeed work...

8/2/26: The original post below:

It's been over a week since the launch of Flight 13, and the Starship has not sunk. Evidently, there will be an attempt to tow it back to Australia. Here's a fellow that I've embedded a video on previously with respect to the Iran situation in the Strait of Hormuz awhile back. He's discussing what it may take to get it back to land in one piece. Not necessarily a piece of cake, I take it.

Collective Soul --- Shine ( repost )

8/4/26:

Last words of song: "Come on and Shine!". Amen.

12/31/25:

Author: Florence M-P

In the Database!

Update:

last posted on 12.29.16 :

This song popped into my head. I knew I had posted it before...if memory serves, I was feeling poorly at that time..

Felt a lot better today.   Got out a bit and heard this one on the radio as before.  Why not repost it?  I like it...

original post follows immediately...


Just heard this on the radio while in my Nissan.  The hubcaps arrived this morning, or should I say last night, but the delivery guy didn't knock or anything.   I didn't know that they were there.  So, the hubcaps are on the car, and it should be good enough for the inspection sticker I couldn't get last week.  My permanent license should be there tomorrow, but if not, no problema.  I'll just have to make another trip.

Anyway, that song was familiar from the nineties, but I didn't know the name of it, nor the artists.

I found the lyrics and notice how clean they are.  That was rare even 20 years ago.

Yeah--- another one of these

8/4/26:

"Doing something different" doesn't mean doing nothing at all, and counting that as different. /sermon off

8/3/26:

There are things that can be done around the house, so there's that.

One thing comes to mind today: If you get stuck in a rut, try something different.

Sermon/off

8/1/26:

Right after I wrote that I was getting the hang of it, I encountered a problem with this new version of the Construction Simulator.

The reason that I got stuck was so simple that it just blows my mind. I think that they may lose customers because of things like this.

The thing that I got stuck on was how to enter a building. This seems like it should be simple, and it is. But there's a little twist. In this version, you player can get out of a vehicle and walk around. All it takes to get in and out is to press a button. You'd think that it took only that in order to enter a building too, but no. You have to press the button for several seconds, and then you can enter the building. So simple, but it was enough for me to get stuck on it for a significant period of time. There are no hints to solve that problem. It seems that you have to figure it out for yourself. Same thing with the older version of the simulator. Just because it is a new version, that doesn't mean that there aren't little things like this that can trip you up.

Maybe I ought to have better things to do than this, but that's all there is.

7/26/26:

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's been awhle since I fired up the old Xbox (bought in 2020). The Truck Driver simulator is missing, but the Construction Simulator is still there. But I've run that through so many times that it is a bore, so I actually bought a newer version of it.

It seemed to be bewildering at first, but that's how the other version was too. So I stuck with it for awhile and got the hang of it. It may turn out to be easier to use than the old version. One thing is certain already. It isn't the same game.

4/20/21:

For those who are wondering why I waste time on this, well the answer is that nothing else out there is interesting enough for me. So why not do this?

Look, we've beaten the absolute hell out of the conservative issues. People won't listen. I don't know about anybody else, but beating my head against a wall doesn't interest me. If they won't listen, then I am going elsewhere.

No, I'm not giving up. But when I find something that I want to comment upon, then I'll do it. But I won't join the "woe is me" crowd. Sure, things are bad. But when people get in the mood to listen, you may have better luck than right now.

This video is a continuation of what I posted yesterday. I wasn't satisfied with what I did. Maybe this will explain the issue with the Construction Simulator 3 on Xbox.

Starship 12 failure analysis

8/2/26:

How did my "analysis" go? I didn't check the official report, so I won't comment there. Flight 13 did happen shortly afterward. There's still some engine problems, though. The re-light problem is for the real steely eyed rocket men. Not in my pay grade, which is zero anyhoo.

6/12/26:

Not claiming to be a steely-eyed rocket man here. However, I can always give my two-cents as to what happened that caused the failure of the booster to perform as intended on flight 12.

In my opinion, the whole problem boils down to timing. The rocket engines in the second stage have to light up just at the right time. These same rocket engines have to be gimbaled so that the engines are pointed at exactly the right angle at the same time. These same rocket engines have to hit the top of the booster at exactly the right place. All of this is a complicated maneuver that depends upon exactly correct timing. If anything happens at the wrong time or wrong place, the whole process will fail. I think that is exactly what happened.

It's not an engine problem, in other words.

It is probably easily corrected, in other words. We should see flight 13 within a few weeks.

Jun 10, 2026:

This video is from Alpha Tech. (Update: WTF??? How did WAI get in embedded in there?? Was that a mistake?! Something odd here...) It is probably a bit too long, or I'm too impatient. Take your pick!

In my opinion (which nobody asked for), I think it is obvious even to a non-steely-eyed rocket man that it couldn't have been SpaceX's intent to have its Starship's plume hit the grid fin of the booster! Therefore, the booster was out of its expected position.

If the booster is out of position, then obviously something went wrong with the hot staging. Everything else follows from this important fact.

You don't need a twenty plus minute video to explain that.

I don't want to be too critical ( even though I am anyway ), it is mostly an informative video.

Interesting Post

7/31/26:

You really have to be enthusiastic about what you're doing in order to produce a thousand words a day.

I can tell you this, I am not very enthused by what's been going on lately.

Posts like this are just filler material in order to keep the blog going.

You have to cast about for something to get excited about.

Well, in that case, there's always Football!

Are you ready?

1/5/11: The original post follows below:

From Ace of Spades HQ.

I wonder what kind of people would read a blog like this.  The "mind" class or the "hand" class.  Is there enough intellectual heft to make it to the mind class, or it is definitely stuck in the hand class?  I know one thing:  to produce enough stuff for this blog takes up plenty of mental energy.  Plenty of my mental energy that is.

I've thought about that.  If you were to produce a thousand words a day, somebody could read that in a few minutes.  Then what?  There's nothing else to hold anyone here.  But to produce that takes a lot more energy than to read it.  And time.

This isn't an easy enterprise.  Not a complaint, just an observation.