It's a wonder

...that Vista works at all.

I spent the better part of Thanksgiving week updating and securing my loaner laptop. After downloading and installing some 9,378,461 Windows updates, I have finally run into a wall. There are four updates that refuse to install. It's a larger problem for 64-bit Vista than for 32-bit. This means that the help available is for 64-bit, and of course this is a 32-bit machine. The last bit that I could find in the Microsoft Knowledge Base suggested that the fault is due to having the OS load for the first time without having certain hot-fixes and firewalls installed and running (a chicken-and-egg problem if ever there was one.) The solution was (as it always seems to be) to format and reinstall. Of course.

So mu initial research into vortex precipitation is not real promising. This page suggests that a high power laser could do the trick. Of course, you'd have to power the laser with a nuclear reactor, making it somewhat inconvenient for use on an aircraft.

Another page reports that cloud seeding in the Southern Ocean is more successful than average due to the purity of the air. Meaning the converse, dirty air would be more difficult to seed, is probably true. I wonder if you'd need to use traditional seeding techniques to get the energy in a wake to dissipate.

SpaceX might end up beating Scaled and Armadillo to orbit. They have their re-entry license, which is kind of a big deal for the coming back home part of spaceflight.

The Air Force sees utility in hypersonic weapons platforms. I thought that these ideas had died out with the crash of the Valkyrie. Not that I'm opposed, mind you. The engineering challenges are enormous - and fun.

Baby news. Our most recent doctor's visit went smashingly. Baby and mother continue to do very well. We will do the genetic counseling because we're old, but I expect that to be a non issue.

More Wednesday.

Cheers,

-- Zach