Gentelmen . . .

I tire of explosions, isotopes and molten sand. Nothing perks me up like a good birthday! It's David Ogden Stiers birthday today. Born in 1944 the actor known for his sophisticated edge has long been a TV staple. His most memorable work being "Winchester" in the MASH series. He is also a lover of classical music who actually knows his stuff; he has guest conducted for many symphony orchestras.

His early career was classical theatre and improv but he headed out west to Hollywood where he appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Kojak (oh my) among others. But it was in 1977 that he joined the cast of MASH where he won two Emmy's for his performance as a stuffy Bostonian.

His smooth authoritative voice projected breeding and style and was used in many animated movies and as voice overs for such diverse projects as Beauty and the Beast, the Myst PC game series AND George Lucas' THX 1138.

David Odgen Stiers shares his birthday with that well known bandleader Kinky Friedman.

Noble force of the explosions.

Sometime in the mid 60's the Soviet Union started to look seriously at what atomic bombs could do other than barbeque enemies. Originally it examined the same 2 objectives as the American Ploughshares program- nuclear "landscaping" and oil extraction. Frighteningly named "Program No. 7, Nuclear explosions for the national economy" it soon grew to take on at least a half dozen more uses for this power. One idea was to move asteroids. No details on what that means.

The first real use of the bombs was to cap runaway oil and gas wells. It was a success. Now they felt that this could actually be a viable business. The Soviets set off 122 nuclear explosions from about 1965 to 1989.

I had a look at the list and there are some ho hum shots and others just don't sound good at all. For instance theres the Water Reservoir Construction project. A bomb was set off and the ensuing hole left to fill with water. But what about the Toxic Oil Field Waste Disposal shot? Hmmm, maybe the toxic waste is ok after all. And here's the one I like- The Decoupling Experiment.

In actual fact the toxic waste disposal was as simple as the reservoir construction. A bomb was set off deep undergound and the hole it produced became a holding tank for the crap. Apprently, some are still in use.

The decoupling was nothing more than attempts to isolate the seismic vibrations all the explosions created so nosy parker US wouldn't know what uncle Joe was up to.

If you have the time, energy and would like to read a fairly technical summary of the entire Soviet peaceful nuclear program check out the link from the US Department of Energy's web site. Its actually quite well written.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp?purl=/793554-ZAQEpq/native/

So why is this a better idea.

Other countries flirted with the idea of using atomic bombs to move earth too. Most notably the former Soviet Union, but surprisingly Canada also toyed with the notion. Now in the middle of a huge oil and gas boom centred in North Eastern British Columbia and Northern Alberta, the industry pumps millions of litres of oil and gas.

It wasn't all roses for this business. Back in the late 50's engineers grappled with how the hell to get all the oil out of the tar sands and how to get the gas to come out of the ground easier. Production costs were insane, investors were wary of the new sources and oil was not at 90 bucks a barrel yet.

I found an excellent piece on Alberta's dance with lady fission on the Innovation Alberta website (link below) by historian Dr. Michael Payne. In it he describes how the plan was to detonate an atomic bomb at a place called Cheechum Crossing, just outside one of the hubs of the industry, Fort McMurray.

It was the progeny of the same Project Ploughshares that started the dig a canal campaign. A Dr. L. M. Natland of the Richfield oil company actually came up with the idea of setting off an atomic bomb under the Athabasca Oil Sands. The hope was to liberate the oil from the sand. It had long been a puzzle for engineers; so much oil, so close but how to get it out. The engineers, the oil companies and the provincial and federal goverments got together and started planning.

Thankfully, public sentiment and generally touchy world relations (the Cuban missile crisis was barely a year away at this time) stopped the idea from blossoming. It didn`t completely die out for a while though. In 1973 a Canadian oil company called Phoenix Oil actually took out a patent on a method for extracting oil using atomic bombs, but it never went any farther than that.

http://www.innovationalberta.com/article.php?articleid=90

Stand back a bit while I light the fuse . . .

My love of the ridiculously unsafe has once more been satisfied in this, the beginning of a new series playfully called: When using too much explosives is fun. I give you Project Plowshare. A program devised by the Americans to use atomic bombs as excavation tools.

No doubt the military tests, over 300 alone just in the United States, gave engineers something to think about. At the very least the damn bombs left great big holes in the ground. Seizing on the opportunity to pacify their guilt and perhaps use atomic bombs to give back to society, the engineers and scientists said "Whoa, look how many construction workers lives we can spare by creating and instant hole in the ground the size of a university."

In actual fact the bombs did work well for earth moving uses, it not only moved the earth but vapourized a good bit of it and deposited the rest in the atmosphere too, reducing the need to find a place to put the stuff.

One of the projects considered was replacing the Panama Canal. It had simply become too narrow and slow. The canals locks proved cumbersome and prone to repairs. The idea was to create a sea level canal (no lifting the boats up and then floating them on to the other side). By using atomic bomb excavation the canal could be cut through anywhere in the area regardless of terrain and it would be much wider and deeper.

Beginning in 1950, Project Plowshare seriously examined sites all over Central America until deciding on Darien province in Panama. It was 45 miles across Atlantic to Pacific at this point and scientists figured on a couple of dozen really big atomic bombs would soften the ground enough to auger out a canal.

This project was seriously considered. Only the test ban treaty of 1962, which halted all testing, actually stopped it. Engineers needed to do more testing before beginning excavation. Various other test bans came and went with no real progress on this idea, but Project Plowshare wasn't officially closed until 1977.

Logistically speaking.

Whilst puttering around looking for automobile failures and extra large things that blew up I came across this fellow and promised myself I'd find 5 minutes to write something down. Frederick William Lanchester was an inventor, engineer and transportation pioneer. Born this day in 1868 in London, England, he was one of eleven children ( 3 sisters and 6 brothers).

To say that he was an engineer doesn't quite cover the sheer range of his work. He worked on cars, boats, planes (before and after they were invented) photography, physics, and even created an entire new field called operations research. A real Renaissance Man.

He built his first engine in 1893 and together with his brothers, who had built a boat, created in 1894, the first powerboat to ply English waters. The following year he built, with the aid of another brother,(thank God they weren't all barbers) one of the first cars in England. The performance sucked according to Frederick so he built another engine with more power and a smoother feel. He had already begun to realize that the consumer wanted a quiet, comfortable vehicle to ride in. Automobile owners needed to feel safe and secure.The image of a soot covered mud encrusted Shakelton-esque trail blazer that owning an automobile then required of its owner was foreign to Lanchester.

In 1900 the brothers formed the Lanchester Engine Company and utilized Fredericks advanced designs like mid mounted engine for stability, 3 speed automatic transmission and a unique disc braking system that braked the clutch disc rather that the wheels.

Frederick never stopped with innovative new designs. When he invented larger and more powerful engines he again was faced with the vibrations and noise that occured. This would never do. He set about to design counter balancing shafts to smooth out the engine performance. A feature used today in high preformance cars.

Through several permutations of his company, Lanchester continued to build cars until he was bought out by Daimler in 1933. Tinted glass, left hand steering for export models were some of the options available.

Avast me hearties.

Crews have rebelled against captains, troops against generals for as long as men (and women) have been led or told what to do. I was watching a superd show called Mars Rising, narrated by William Shatner on Discovery Channel last night, when there was a brief snippet about rebellions in space.

As per usual I did some snooping and came up with a few close calls dating back almost 40 years.

Apollo 7 astronauts had an extraordinarily hard time of their mission in 1968. The first new Apollo launch after the Apollo 6 launch pad disaster, the crew felt the pressure to make this one a success. They had pressures from onboard as well: they all had colds. Great, a cold, clammy microscopicaly small capsule with 3 runny nosed men. For 11 long days. Around and around they go, orbit after orbit, testing and re-testing. Getting hundreds of trials completed, scenarios played out in orbit before the first long range charge at the moon. It is said that not all of the requests from mission control were carried out when they wanted them to.

In 1972, the crew of Skylab (remember Skylab?) got fed up with an over ambitious schedule and simply booked a flex day. The day after they worked out a more realistic work load.

MIR wasn't so lucky. A workhorse both in kilometers traveled and hours logged by its crews, it was also the first true space outpost. A place astronauts went and moved in and stayed. In 1995 2 Russian astronauts simply refused to don their space suits and head outside. Ground engineers couldn't do a whole heck of a lot so they said OK, fine, have it your way. Back on earth there was some crap flying. The MIR commander of the time had simply had enough and wanted to wait until fresh replacements arrived.

MIR had suffered an enormous fire that year, that if it had not been put out, could have done in the place. Later on in June a supply ship crashed into MIR, cutting its power in half and generally making a hash of the place.

Eeek, a mouse.

Joey Bishop, the 5th and last surviving member of the Rat Pack, died today, he was 89. Born in the Bronx, Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, was a comedian from the start. Unlike the other Rat Pack-ers, who were actors and singers first (true song and dance men) Bishop did stand up. He started doing vaudeville before he went off to war.

When he returned he went back to comedy, this time stand up in clubs, radio and that fledgling medium, television. Frank Sinatra caught his act and helped him get better gigs, including working with Sinatra.

Always the sombre "rat", his long face and quiet delivery eaned him a reputation for being the responsible one of the gang, the designated driver. He never matched his buddies for partying and girl chasing. In fact he was married to only one woman, Sylvia Ruzga, for nearly 60 years.

With the exception of a few movies in the fifties and early sixties, most notably, Ocean's Eleven, he was working the Vegas Clubs with the Rat Pack. TV offers surfaced starting in 1960 with many appearances on the tonight show hosted by comedy heavyweights Jack Parr and Steve Allen.

Soon after he starred in his own comedy show, The Joey Bishop Show, about a guy who stars in a late night talk show. When will they learn. Anyway it didn't last past a few seasons. Next was his own late night talk show, a real one, but it fizzled. Partly because Bishop was a comedian, not an interviewer, and partly because now he was up against the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at the helm. A young up and comer, Regis Philbin, was his sidekick.

Ironically, Bishop would guest host the Tonight Show more than 150 times.

Sometimes he appeared to be the junior member of the Rat Pack, or mascot. In typical Joey Bishop fashion he's quoted as saying “But even the mascot gets to carry the ball, too,”

Borrowed mind.

I said I was going to look into Tesla's remote controlled boat. The challenge with anything Tesla is, of course, the vast amount of stuff out there. Not so hard to sift through the printed works, but holy shit there is a mountain of it on the Internet. And Telsa is exactly the kind of guy, unfortunately, to draw wild eyed and creative thinkers to. You get my drift, not all of it is reliable, and I have pretty easy standards.

The year was 1898. The place, Madison Square Garden. In a custom made pool Tesla demonstarted a remote controlled boat. It was a homely thing, oven roaster shaped; it was hard to tell the bow from the stern which was slightly pointed. Constructed of metal and filled with batteries, wires and small electric motors, it thrilled onlookers. No one had heard of radio then, let alone witnessed the technology in action. Many thought HE controlled the boat with his mind.

The boat was over 6 feet long and heavy as all stink. Even though the device was high tech for then, all the batteries, motors and running gear weighed down the craft. It barely broke the surface. It had some cool features like running lights that the operator could control, and amazingly Tesla designed the receiver circuit to only operate on the signals from his transmitter, which is nowadays a common technology used in everything from cell phones to garage door openers.

It didn't take long for folk to go "hey, lets pack that puppy full of dynamite and drive it into the side of a ship". Tesla had, indeed, thought of this too, but war was far off for now and the navy (US and British) wouldn't bite. He did think that remote controlled craft in general were good for mankind and had originally hoped they would be used as labour saving devices. So was his death ray, oh well.

Robot-esque

Although not really a robot, Robby means robot for many people. Actually a very elaborate suit that an actor wore, Robby the Robot has it all going on. Designed by Robert Kinoshita for the 1956 MGM movie Forbidden Planet it had a plexiglass "head" spinning antennae, lights and rotating appendages galore.

Actor Frank Darro strapped on the Robby body during this film. A veteran actor who worked through the silent era and into the age of serials was well suited for this. Known as a fit, acrobatic and thankfully thin actor, he stamped around the sound stage from shot to shot. Since this was a suit, not unlike modern deep sea diving systems, it was hopelessly hard to keep your balance on solid ground.

I have been trying to find out who was inside Robby when he appeared in other movies and TV shows, notably: Gilligan's Island, The Banana Splits, Columbo (!), and Wonder Woman. Anyone out there have any info?

Yeesh.

So after the magical sophistication of Bow Shooting Boy we move into the 20th century. There is a brief stopover at the turn of the century for Tesla's radio controlled boat, but I started reading all the stuff and Tesla's just too big a subject for tonight. I give you instead, Elektro. Built by Westinghouse in 1937 for what reason I don't know. It was, no doubt, a promotional device, and Westinghouse dragged it all over the States for years, showing it off at fairs and expositions. I'm not convinced that it did the company much in the way of drumming up business. I mean, did anyone ever go "Hey, there's Elektro (with a "k"), make my next TV a Westinghouse!" Seriously it drew thousands of curious, astonished and nervous Americans who were staring at a world war just around the corner.

So, heres a few facts about the boy: Stood seven feet tall, weighed 265 pounds, could move by voice command, and talk, sort of. It played a 78rpm record of about 700 words delivered in robot speak. It could wave its arms and rotate its head. And for you kiddies out there it could smoke. For some unknown reason its photo electric eyes could distinguish colours. (It just gets more and more useful.) Someone decided to give this robot a chance and built a robot dog companion called Sparko for it in 1940.

Amazingly it was still being paraded about in 1950! It gets weirder. Elektro starred as Thinko in the 1960's classic Sex Kittens go to College. In the film he played a robot that could handicap horses. Elektro didn't do well after that. It was taken apart and pieces of it went south. Westighouse employees were quick to see the cultural significance of the example of the robot maker's craft and hung on to significant chunks of it. The result is on display at Westinghouse's robot exhibit of Mansfield's Memorial Museum.

Of the many things Elektro could say was this gem "My brain is bigger than yours."

Look up, way up.

I'm off for a bit, maybe just today, from the robot thing because I just found out that on this day in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was brought into force. Thank heaven. Originally just the US, USSR and and the UK signed on, odd since the latter hasn't had too many space shots that I can see. Whats even odder is that to date there are nearly a hundred countries that are party to the treaty.

Claiming to be the "law" when it comes to space, this treaty lays out what you can and can't do up there. No nukes are allowed, and definetly none on the moon (or any other object for that matter). Same goes for any other kinds of weapons, however the law is surprisingly fuzzy around laser technology, suggesting there could be peaceful uses for mind frazzling death rays.

Just to ease my mind, I did some snooping and found a copy of the treaty. Some of the countries that signed it include: The Holy See, Luxembourg, the Seychelles and mighty space explorers, the Swiss.

Karakuri ningyo man.

Hisashige Tanaka was a Japanese engineer/artist living in the Edo period (1603 to 1868). He actually lived from 1799 to 1881. He built the tricky, playful robots called Karakuri Ningyo, and probably created the most intricate and detailed examples.

He is best known for the Myriad Year Clock, or Japanese perpetual clock. But what I'm interested in is the Bow Shooting Boy, or Yumi-iri Doji, a mechanical wonder that took the art of robot making to the highest level. A young archer would pull an arrow from his quiver, load his bow and shoot a target in the bullseye.

He built these mechanical dolls from early on and even travelled the country in his early 20`s showing them off to the delight of all. In fact he created a puzzle box when he was 8 that couldn`t be opened until he revealed the secret. To give you an idea of the level of detail he worked at, his Yumi-iri Doji would even smirk when it was a good shot or look sad when he missed!

Hisashige was practical too. When the Japanese economy tightened up in the 1830`s and obvious luxuries were looked down upon, he moved to the manufacturing centre of Osaka to work on more useful household devices. Among them a collapsable candle, and the invention that started his climb up the industrialist ladder, the Mujin-to lamp. He spent so much time staying up late working on his inventions he probably got pissed off and invented it to save his eyesight. The genuis of the lamp was an air pump that created pressure in the oil reservoir, forcing it into the wick. The result was an intense light for the size of the lamp. In the end he turned the nighttime into productive time for the Japanese.

He founded his own engineering company,Tanaka Seizosho, in 1875. After several permutations and mergers it turned into Toshiba Corporation in 1978.

Captain Hercules Vinegar

Henry Fielding was just just 47 when he died, this day, in 1754. English novelist, dramtist and satirist, Fielding was a constant thorn in the side of ruling governments of the day. In fact, during one period in his early career when he wrote for the theatre, his pen was so savage that a law was created to blunt it, called the Theatre Licensing Act. In actual fact it was simply brutal censorship by the then Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. Any new play had to be approved before it could hit the stage. Along with Fielding's Tom Thumb, plays causing a fuss then included John Gay's Beggars Opera and Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos.

He wrote because he needed the money, and since he got himself censored, and plays did not bring in the cash anymore, he returned to his first vocation, law. He didn't so well at that and money became tight. In fact, money would remain a constant worry in the Fielding house.

He loved satire and didn't have the time of day for Walpole, so while his plays were quieted, his novels weren't. The History of the Life of the Late Mr Jonathan Wild is an example of his hatred of the liberal ruling class.

1749 saw the publication of Tom Jones, his greatest work. Written in the picaresque style, the novel still holds up. Its detailed accounts of the day and robust sense of humour make it worthy of any bookshelf. Other lesser known works credited to him include a real odd piece about a female transvestite called The Female Husband, where this person is brought to court because he/she tried to marry another woman.

His interest in law and things conseravtive got him appointed London's Chief Magistrate. He took the post very seriously and together with his little brother John worked hard to make London safer and criminal justice, well, more just. It is said that he and John created London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners.

Quack.

Just so you know, it was Karel Capek, a Czech writer, who came up with the word "robot" in 1920. Prior to that they were called "automata or automatons". He gave the world this word and stoked their imagination with his play R.U.R - Rossums Universal Robots. Actually, gave is the wrong word; the word "robot" was the invention of his brother Josef, from the original Czech word "robota" or forced labour. (so many quotation marks). One day I'll get back to this idea and write about the play etc etc, but I really wanted to get to a truly important piece about a robot duck.

Jacques de Vaucanson, a French inventor/engineer, born 1709, made robots that actually mimicked the bones, tendons and muscles of the real article. Originally he studied to become a surgeon, where, no doubt he gained the expertise and insight needed to create his inventions. He was very curious about the various systems in the body and wanted to recreate them in his robots.

Good timimg for him, because the early to middle 1700's was the time to build mechanical oddities. His first creation, not that unlike Al Jazari's musicians from 500 years earlier, was a shepard that played a Pipe and Tabor, a rather cool but kooky little flute and drum combo. Both instruments are designed to be played by one hand- you play the flute with one hand (the holes are all within reach) and the drum is tied to the waist or side and struck with a drum stick in the other hand. His little beauty was life size, it had to be loud, and was impressive in detail. The hands were covered in a skin like glove to give the illusion of moving fingers. Here's the cool part, it could be programmed to play over a dozen songs.

If this didn't get him press, his Digesting Duck sure did. This device from 1739 had 400+ parts and could do all the duck stuff- flap its wings, drink water, eat seeds and grain from a dish and poop. Because de Vaucanson was such a anatomical perfectionist the duck represented the digestive cycle with but one flaw. The robot fowl could not really turn the food into crap so it had a compartment of tasteful crap like pellets (it was often demonstrated to the wealthy elite of Europe) that came out after the correct interval.

Have a look at the cross section drawing above. I love the little arrow coming out of the ducks bum, in case we might be confused by the direction.

Beep.

So this is weird. I was combing the Inet looking for likely story ideas when I came across this CBC article about a Georgia Tech professor who looked at the attraction people have for vacuum cleaners. Ok, ok. The little Robot vacs called Roombas. I won't go on about it here because this article is much better written than anything I could come up with. Here's the link: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/10/02/roomba-study.html

But I got going on about it and had to find out what some of the first robots were like. Once again I'm off on another tangent. I'll be back to musical instruments soon.

Ibn Ismail ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari, we'll call him Al-Jazari, made several robots, or automata, around the year 1200. Power for the machines was limited to clockwork mechanisms, water flow (from one vessel to another) or animal power. Electrical power was a few years away. One real big example of his early work is the elephant clock. Its actually a water clock placed on top of a real big wooden elephant. The body of the beast hides the mechanism and water. The top part is the exciting bit.

Later on he built the most robotic (at least to our idea of what a modern robot should be)of his mechanical inventions. These were true humaniod automata. And they were programmable. A camshaft ran through the device, and depending on where the bumps, or pegs were placed on the shaft, the robots, in this case a band of musicians, would alter what they "played". Mainly it was drums or cymbals that were struck. You essesntially got a different group of noises, but still, it was controllable.

A buck or two.

Actress Lois Maxwell, famous for her role as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond films including The Spy Who Loved Me, View to a Kill and Dr. No died today. She was 80 years old. The Canadian born actress left home at 15 to join up and was touring Europe in a song and dance troup as a member of the Army Entertainment Corps when they figured out she was a minor. She was so good no one wanted her to be sent back so she enrolled in Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. It turned out to be a good career move.

After the war she went to Hollywood and worked with Shirley Temple and Ronald Reagan in That hagen Girl, earning her a Golden Globe. Then she appeared in a Life Magazine spread featuring up and comers of the day with another aspiring actress - Marilyn Monroe.

Rome called and she lived there in the 50's where she worked in film and met her husband, Peter Marriot. Next its a move to London and a family was started. It was during this time that she was appraoched about what was to be her iconic role, the flirtatious secretary to M. She lasted through 2 Bonds, Sean Connery (argueably the best) and Roger Moore (most prolific).

Canadian born, she returned to Canada after her husband died in 1973 and worked in film and television, wrote a newspaper column and just hung out and chilled.

She moved back to England and thence to Fremantle Australia, where she died. Roger Moore said at one time "I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M."