Author: philg

National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 3

by philg

All of the third building is devoted to the Cold War:

Highlights of this hangar include the 10-engine B-36 “Peacemaker” and more familiar but still awesome machines such as the B-1, the SR-71, and the U-2. The primary heroes of the Cold War identified as “women” (as the term was understood by the primitive people of the 1950s and 60s):

The Air Force reminds us that “women are responsible for countless discoveries and inventions” (e.g., female engineer Kelly Johnson of Lockheed who led the P-38, U-2, and SR-71 design teams). The next hangar in the tour (building 4) has many reminders of the terrible ideas perpetrated by the inferior sex. Here’s a Canadian flying saucer, for example, and the Goblin fighter that would be dropped from the B-36 Peacemaker to fight then would return to the bomber mothership.

Here’s another “parasite” idea:

Men also came up with some terrible tilt-rotor ideas:

The Cold War hangar also showcases the contributions of mighty piston-powered aircraft. Who knew that the USAF operated the Grumman Albatross?

Imagine bragging about being an Air Force pilot and then being exposed as trundling along at 100 knots in a Cessna 195 on floats!

Speaking of feeble piston-powered machines, what about the Cessna 172? The museum describes the plane’s heroic role on September 12, 2001, shortly after the successful jihad against the World Trade Center:

The uniform and “Nikon” of a C172-flying hero:

The museum highlights the heroism of other Civil Air Patrol officers:

For folks who love engineering, a cutaway F-86 (more relevant to the Korean War, but in the Cold War hangar):

Also in the Cold War hangar, though describing a 2019 event, the Air Force highlights its refusal to follow Sharia and its prohibition on females leading worship of Allah for mixed-gender groups:

There are some outdoor exhibits as well, including this “simulator” that simulates flying by… flying.

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Meet up in New York or Boston?

by philg

Loyal Readers:

I’m headed to Manhattan this weekend and it would be fun to get together for coffee. Please email philg@mit.edu if interested. I propose Sunday, August 17 at 10:30 am. I propose that we meet near the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to celebrate NYC’s return to its glorious heritage of migrants housed in squalor. After coffee we can proceed to the nearby International Center of Photography and its “Great Acceleration” exhibition:

The Great Acceleration is an established term used to describe the rapid rise of human impact on our planet according to a range of measures, among them population growth, water usage, transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, resource extraction and food production, each of which Burtynsky has photographed the outward signs of at length and in great detail over the past forty years.

(And what better way to accelerate the Great Acceleration in the United States than via open borders and associated rapid population growth?)

After NYC I’ll be traveling to Boston/Cambridge. How about a Friday, August 22 noon meeting at Yume Ga Arukara, an udon place in Porter Square that is supposedly great? I’m open to alternative suggestions, but let’s try to avoid the towns in Maskachusetts that are currently drowning in garbage because elite Massachusetts Democrats refuse to pay their peasant workers a fair wage (the state is home to at least 355,000 “illegal and inadmissible migrants” so maybe the hope was that these enrichers would pick up garbage at a lower hourly rate?):

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Positive thought for the day: our mortgage rate is 0.425 percent

by philg

“Inflation Held Steady at 2.7% in July” (WSJ). We secured a 3.125% mortgage for our house early in 2022. Thus, the real interest rate on the money we borrowed is 0.425%. That’s a cheerful thought! We could take the money that we borrowed for the house and put it into a money market right now and get a 1% annual profit! Mark Zuckerberg could pay a mortgage for his $110 million compound for less than $40,000 per month in real terms. (Of course, it is still smarter to rent because property tax, maintenance, etc. are ruinous and the mental load of maintaining a house is better spent on productive activities.)

Here’s how state-sponsored NPR reports on the inflation that the Wall Street Journal describes as “steady”. It’s all doom and gloom thanks to the evil dictator who is taking away the state sponsorship that NPR claims they don’t get.

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National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 2

by philg

Continuing our tour of the USAF Museum (post 1) in Dayton, Ohio…

The second hangar is devoted to the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Walking into the hangar we are immediately reminded that it was American women who did the heavy lifting in the Vietnam War:

Turning 180 degrees we find the Korean War exhibit. The floor signs remind us that, as of July 14, 2025, we’re still fighting our War Against SARS-CoV-2:

Our brave young warriors are also protected from COVID-19 by simple non-N95 cloth masks:

The Twin Mustang was our favorite plane on exhibit in this section:

Tough to believe that these were actually used in combat!

Progressive Democrats have complained about the sometimes-too-cold and sometimes-too-warm air conditioning situation in Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, where noble undocumented migrants spend a few weeks in the UNESCO World Heritage treasure of the Everglades awaiting deportation. USAF pilots and mechanics deployed to Korea spent a year or more in tents without A/C or reasonable heat:

Returning to Vietnam, we lost the war because of failed political leadership:

Dogs and helicopters are appropriately recognized:

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National Museum of the US Air Force, Hangar 1

by philg

We visited the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio on our way to Oshkosh. This is a two-day museum if you want to read more than half of the signs and absorb the history and technical information that is being communicated (vastly more detail than at the Smithsonian Air and Space). The experience starts with words from President Nixon:

The curators are less prone to the Wright Brothers worship that pervades Dayton:

A Jenny is exhibited and also explained:

The museum seems to be run by a separate foundation so they’re perhaps not required to follow Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to refrain from dividing military personnel according to victimhood group. The museum celebrates Eugene Bullard, for example, not for being a military aviator but for being the “first Black military aviator”:

The drones that have transformed today’s battlefield were initially developed in Dayton, Ohio during WWI:

Here’s the only surviving Martin B-10 1930s bomber, out of 348 built:

The other side of the first massive hangar is devoted to more familiar World War II aircraft. Visitors are reminded that it was women who fought and won the largest battles, e.g., against bias, of World War II:

Here’s a less-familiar Douglas B-18:

At least in the signage, there are few mixed feelings regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. The B-29 that devastated Nagasaki is on display:

On a more cheerful note, a PBY is painted with the rafts of the aviators rescued:

An original Me 262 is displayed along with a cutaway Jumo engine (note the Donald Trump/Elon Musk symbol on the tail):

The B-24 is named “Strawberry Bitch”. Maybe after someone got a bill for an annual on the four-engine machine?

The WWII hangar includes an original Mitsubishi Zero and this unusual Kamikaze trainer (one flight school that it would be great to fail out of!):

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What is the Flag Code for the sacred Rainbow Flag?

by philg

Happy Gay Uncles Day to those who celebrate.

When the American flag is displayed we can refer to the official U.S. flag code for guidance on orientation, etc. I’m wondering what the corresponding document would be for the Rainbow Flag, which is far more sacred (it is permissible and protected speech to burn an American flag (Supreme Court) but burning a Rainbow Flag is punished by 15 years in prison).

Here’s what I assume is the proper way to display a trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag (flown by Joe Biden in 2023 and reported by state-sponsored PBS):

The trans-enhancing triangle is on the top.

Here’s part of a taxpayer-funded display of the state religion’s sacred symbol in Boise, Idaho on July 1, 2025 (after Pride but before Omnisexual Visibility Day (July 6));

The trans-enhancing triangle is on the bottom. That can’t be correct, I don’t think, but where is the flag code to establish authoritatively that it isn’t correct? (See Big Sky v. Jackson v. Park City as a summer destination for images of a taxpayer-funded display in 2023 where the triangles are on the top, just as Joe Biden set up.)

Speaking of the U.S. Flag Code and Boise, the folks who run the Zoo decided that the American flag fit perfectly into the Olive Baboon habitat:

The backup Baboon American flag boxes were displayed contrary to U.S. Flag Code (maybe a protest against the Trump administration?):

Finally, let’s have a look at post-Pride (July 2025) displays of the sacred flag and related symbols by merchants in Boise:

One establishment reminds the public that a MAGA hat can be considered “Nazi symbology” or, at least, Nazi-adjacent:

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Memory prices flat for 18 months

by philg

We supposedly live in a world where electronics get cheaper even if everything else is subject to rampant inflation. Here’s an example from PC Part Picker’s memory price trend for 18 months:

Most of the other graphs are flat as well. If you adjusted these for official CPI there would perhaps be a slight downward trend in real dollars.

Why are memory prices more or less stuck at 2023 levels? Is it that fewer companies are making RAM? That the AI Boom (TM) has increased demand? (economics proves that immigrants don’t drive up prices for housing, but Econ 101 says that demand for memory drives up prices for memory)

Related:

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COVID-19 vaccines saved about 15 million life-years

by philg

“Global Estimates of Lives and Life-Years Saved by COVID-19 Vaccination During 2020-2024” (JAMA Health):

Roughly 70 million humans die every year worldwide. Via a tortured statistical analysis, the nerds now say that it would have been 70.5 million per year for 2020-2024 but for the life-saving miracle of COVID-19 vaccination. Roughly 1.2 million people die every year in traffic accidents (WHO) and they’re typically much younger and healthier than a COVID-19 victim. If we’d ignored SARS-CoV-2 and implemented my Save lives by limiting cars to 35 mph? and Reintroduce Prohibition for the U.S.? ideas, in other words, we would have saved far more lives, and vastly more life-years, than we did by forcing people to accept experimental injections.

(A skeptic might say that the difference between 70 million people dying and 70.5 million people dying is too small to be noticed reliably and that, therefore, it is just as likely that the COVID-19 vaccines didn’t save any lives or actually resulted in a higher death rate by encouraging people to take risks after they were vaccinated, e.g., attending a crowded Taylor Swift concert (note also that the best way for a progressive Democrat who expresses concern regarding inequality to redress social injustice is to spend $10,000 on a Taylor Swift weekend rather than giving the $10,000 to the poor).)

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Should new neighborhoods include super drone zones?

by philg

eVTOL air taxis are a few years away, just as they were at Oshkosh 2018 (see Transitioning to electric flight (lectures at Oshkosh)). The static displays that appeared at Oshkosh 2025, e.g., Joby’s, seemed too large to fit comfortably into our car-oriented world. The U.S. population keeps growing, thanks to the miracle of immigration, and developers keep developing more suburban sprawl. Should each new reasonably elite neighborhood include a “super drone zone” where an eVTOL air taxi can land and depart without annoying or endangering anyone?

(Also, if eVTOLs start to work as advertised does that mean that the rulers of the U.S. will stop making any attempt to make surface transportation tolerable? If elites go everywhere by private air taxi why would they care that peasants must endure a Mumbai-/Delhi-like experience when they try to go somewhere by “surface car”?)

So that the zone need not be a fenced-off blight when not in use perhaps it could be a “smart LZ” in which a low perimeter fence of lights begins to flash when an eVTOL is inbound (i.e., the inbound eVTOL robot or human pilot can activate the “move away from the pad” lights). The same fence can be equipped with cameras and other sensors to detect the presence of humans and other obstacles and warn the eVTOL if the landing zone isn’t clear.

Here’s the Toyota-funded Joby in the new-for-2025 Toyota booth at EAA AirVenture:

(This was one of the places where I heard about the FAA’s new-since-November-2024 religion of productivity and consequent hope for certification.)

Note that the only electric aircraft that was apparently working well enough to be included in the daily airshow was BETA’s conventional (runwary-required) takeoff machine. (See A visit to BETA Technologies in Burlington, Vermont (eVTOL aircraft) for the 2023 status and BETA Technologies update from Oshkosh 2025.)

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Lucid Air Touring EV Experience

by philg

I spent a few days traveling around Mount Desert Island, Maine in a Lucid Air Touring. The back seat of this machine is truly palatial. The ride is solid and comfortable. Every hospital that profits from treating traumatic brain injuries should love this design because the dimensions are optimized for hitting one’s head while getting in and out (a common issue noted on the Interweb; example). It’s far easier to get in and out of a C8 Corvette without hitting one’s head than in/out of a Lucid, front seat or back.

Folks in Maine love Lucid so much that we parked next to two Lucids in the same color. Here’s one:

When it was my turn to drive, some of the limitations of the EV-smartphone integration became apparent. There apparently isn’t a way for an owner to authorize a friend as a temporary driver of the machine. I wasn’t able to register and log in for a Lucid account because there isn’t a vehicle registered to me. There is no “share this car” option in the Lucid app. I had to get my friend’s username and password and log in on the app on my phone. After that, we spent about five minutes trying to pair the car with my phone and finally succeeded after turning off Bluetooth on his phone. The car isn’t smart about whether it has been started with a phone or a key. If you have no key with you, but only your phone, it reminds you to take the non-existent key after parking:

My trip in the vehicle was on paved roads in what Mainers call “summer” (cloudy with light rain). We were rich in error messages. One concerned the failure of the LIDAR system with instructions to clean the lens:

This disappeared for no apparent reason (we neither found nor cleaned any sensor). Another error message concerned the stability control and regeneration systems. This cleared itself.

The driver assistance features are similar to those on a modern gas-powered car. The driver is warned about lane departure, cars in blind spots (the A and B pillars are huge!), and obstacles nearby when parking. Lucid doesn’t seem to be competing in the self-driving world so this is a car for the EV-lover who wants to drive him/her/zir/themself.

How would Mindy the Crippler like this vehicle? It’s a few button presses to get into “Creative Comfort Mode”, similar to Tesla’s Dog Mode:

I agree with my owner-friend (see below) that is a great car from the driver’s perspective, at least assuming that he/she/ze/they has recovered from the skull-roof impact. Loyal readers familiar with my passion for reducing inequality in American society won’t be surprised that my favorite moments with the Lucid were parked at a taxpayer-funded city-run charger. Here are photos documenting the transfer of wealth from peasants driving 20-year-old pickups to the person fortunate enough to own a $90,000 Lucid:

Here’s a sign posted at a pottery shop in nearby Islesford, Maine:

I haven’t figured out which of the above things that we must do covers “pay taxes so that owners of $90,000 SUVs can charge for free.”

Related:

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