Comments for Curious Chap

Comment on Curiosity Killed the… Apple Keyboard by Guest

Guest — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:12:45 +0000

Your post makes me quite sad, as it means I won’t be able to repair my Keyboard

At least I didn’t destroy it…

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Guest

Guest — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:55:38 +0000

I think your article shows some reasonable doubt on aviation security…

Basically: You use the altimeter to calculate the vertical velocity, you use GPS to calculate the horizontal velocity, you use Pythagoras to calculate “diagonal” velocity. It really is a simple task and you will end up with that small error of GPS (which gets smaller as you travel at high speeds).

There are already personal GPS-devices out there that do this and with enough GPS-satellites in reach you can even use GPS itself as altimeter, so you would have a completely independent system to double check all your measurements.

To improve accuracy you could additionally use Russian Glonass and later European Galileo, which is especially designed to be usable at high latitudes and as an altimeter.

Even it’s not perfect, huge margins between the systems would make every pilot realize that something is wrong.

Comment on Color Oracle by Color Oracle Review + The Economist’s Red-Green Fixation « Kelso’s Corner

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:00:51 +0000

[...] Abboud over at the Curious Chap blog promo’d Color Oracle, the software that the talented Bernhard Jenny programmed (with my sometimes helpful [...]

Comment on How to Flatten the Apple Keyboard. Or Not? by Jay-Dog

Jay-Dog — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:18:21 +0000

Well, thank you so very, very much good sir. I just bought one of these keyboard with the intention of converting it into a controller for some music software. My thoughts were to: 1. pull it apart 2. paint the pieces 3. put it back together.
You saved me from destroying this poor helpless machine and so I am in a state of gratitude. This is the first time I’ve seen your blog and I would agree that it is hard to find pictures of this keyboard disassembled. The internet owes you a huge debt. As its creator, you should probably take that up with Mr. Gore. Thank you once again for this lovely post and for saving me from impetuous ruin (or at least for saving my keyboard from that).

Comment on Curiosity Killed the… Apple Keyboard by Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:48:10 +0000

It’s a shame these keyboards are glued together.
I was hoping there would be a way to remove the aluminium part to paint it black. So that it could match my PC better.

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Hisham

Hisham — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:31:19 +0000

Granted, it’s more difficult than I realized, but… When GPS data is combined with altimeter reading, engine thrust, plane orientation, and other info, I find it hard to believe that it’s impossible to calculate the airspeed. It may require artificial neural networks to accomplish the task — don’t know for sure what would work best. But my educated guess is that it’s feasible given some thought and research.

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Walker

Walker — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:19:32 +0000

The 5-10% margin for error with GPS land-speed calculation is absolutely irrelevant because, as already stated, GPS *cannot* measure air-speed.

Even if GPS could (and I emphasise: It cannot), a 5-10% margin for error would be *more* dangerous than having to contend with faulty pitot tubes. The ACARS messages sent while the plane was going down indicate a discrepancy in speed readings no more than 30 knots (approx. 15mph) apart. Ie. Less than 5%, but still enough to tear apart a commercial jetliner travelling at such high speed.

I mean really, what does the pilot do with this added layer of (pointless) complexity? Get a passenger to draw straws to decide whether to trust pitot tube #1, #2, #3 or the GPS which is about as much use as a banana when calculating air-speed?

As for extrapolating air-speed from other instruments when you haven’t even got time to radio an SOS message… well, don’t get me started….

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Hisham

Hisham — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:13:46 +0000

But the plane’s altimeter can be used to extrapolate/calculate the airspeed, no? As for a 5-10% margin of error, I think that it would still be better than nothing when pitot tubes fail.

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Walker

Walker — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:52:25 +0000

Perhaps this is the best way to think about it: If a plane is climbing at a 45 angle, it will take twice as long to cover the same ground as an aircraft flying horizontally (perpendicular to the ground) at the exact same speed. GPS would only show an accurate* speed reading for the latter.

*Actually, not that accurate at all because GPS has a 5-10% margin for error when measuring speed for non-airborne objects. Even if it was possible for GPS to measure air-speed, that margin would be very significant to an object travelling at 500-600mph.

Comment on The Outrage of Air France 447 Crash by Walker

Walker — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:35:57 +0000

Airspeed is not the same as ground-speed. GPS is only useful for the latter. For example: The speed at which Air France 447 was “passing” through the *air* while being tossed around during heavy turbulence would have been significantly different to the speed at which it was passing over the ground. That is why airflow is used to measure aircraft speed and not GPS.