Microship Status 10/12/00 (Issue #137)

by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs


IN THIS ISSUE:

"It is not easy to write in a journal what interests us
at any time, because to write it is not what interests us."
     -- Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)


I've been doing this for so long that it hardly seems strange...
until I think about it for a minute.

I mean... it's Monday night in a campground at the foot of Mount
Shasta. I'm reclining on a king-size bed suspended above my old
pickup truck by a 44-foot gooseneck trailer, tapping on a Mac G3
PowerBook while nursing a righteous ale and occasionally reaching to
scritch Java as she lies purring beside me, hugging a cattail plucked
a few days ago from the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. I peer
over the LCD and there, shiny in the fluorescents like a tradeshow
exhibit, is Microship Io, snuggled into the gap between her sister
ship, Europa, and the space that was, until last week, occupied by
her well-traveled predecessor, BEHEMOTH. Natasha is sprawled nearby,
reading Moon's excellent River-Horse, and the air around us is filled
with the evocative outpourings of an MP3 recording that was, moments
before, just another of 16,258 files whirling around on a tiny
8-gigabyte platter on my lap. I retrieved voicemail from a RAM chip
on Camano Island via Globalstar satellite a few minutes ago, hardly
even thinking it remarkable; I yakked while driving today with a ham
back in 8-land, using Icom's amazing DC-to-daylight mobile rig to
shake up an Outbacker whip and cause a real-time replica of my voice
to appear in his shack, while I invoked DSP algorithms to dig his
replies out of the noise.

What a planet. Does this sort of thing ever blow you away, or have
you become jaded by computationally intensive miracles that render
global communications as routine as was nattering across the back
fence for our parents?

I suspect it's the contrast of "roughing it" that makes this life
seem like we stumbled into a Star Trek episode and homesteaded the
set after the cast went home. I strolled to the campground restroom
earlier, and, in keeping with the Prime Directive, just nodded
politely when a guy asked if this was a horse trailer...


TEST SAIL #4: LAKE MONONA

There's more to a 7-week Mothership adventure around the US than the
challenge of maneuvering a 56-foot monster through fuel islands every
few hours, schlepping heavy contraptions onto stages, finding
tolerable campgrounds with semi-scale pullthroughs, and overflowing
friends' driveways for impromptu visits that set the neighbors
tongues a-waggin' ("Whaddya s'pose he's got in that thing, a race
car?"). The primary rationale behind this new rolling stock was to
have a way to haul and launch both Microships.

One such opportunity occurred in Madison, Wisconsin on August 7,
during a relaxed interlude at Tim Nolan's house sandwiched between
Minneapolis and Chicago corporate gigs. The first task, after
applying my Washington registration number (WN4898NI) to the bow, was
to address the most persistent problem facing the machine: landing
gear fragility.

Remember way back in Issue #130, when I reported that the geometry
doesn't lend itself to rolling in reverse? This called for a complex
hydraulic system to provide active steering control. It actually
worked well and handily solved a few other problems, although it did
raise the parts count dramatically and you know what that does to the
Mean Time Between Failures:

As a machine's complexity approaches infinity, the MTBF approaches zero.

The presence of active steering gave us control, but didn't eliminate
the input stresses of fighting castering action when the trail goes
negative. Trying to back up is still a headache... with all slack
pushed to the limit and a general sense that catastrophic failure, or
at least cable slippage, is imminent. We therefore have to minimize
slop at every point in the system, especially the air that slowly
migrates out of the tap water we've been using as a convenient
hydraulic test fluid. By the time we reached Madison, every one of
the 13 cylinders on board had grown spongy... but as we discovered
some time ago, effective bleeding, once assembled, is impossible (and
"cracking" the tubing fittings doesn't do it).

So... I installed a stainless 1/16-27 NPT plug in the end chamber of
every Clippard cylinder (except for the skinny 3/4" bore units that
control the rudder, which get spot-faced and tapped for gasketed
10-32's). The plugs came from Mem-co in New Hampshire, and the
installation technique was to put the whole system under
carefully-limited garden-hose pressure, prep a cylinder end chamber
for surgery, drill a pilot hole (causing a jet of water to arc to
Tim's garage roof), enlarge the hole to 15/64, then tap the special
tapered thread JUST deep enough for the plug to tighten without
needing Teflon. Eventually, I'll purge the freezable and gassy tap
water by elevating a tank of distilled water with added propylene
glycol, but for now we at least have a simple way to get rid of the
mushbubbles.

Of course, this STILL doesn't solve the fundamental backing problem;
it just reduces slop. I'm now adding a shift mechanism to each
forward strut, using a chunk of Genoa track and a locking car to move
the unit 4" back and forth along the tensioned deployment line. This
will give me positive trail in reverse when I need it, though it
introduces another annoying modality that has to be taken into
consideration before gear retraction... we'll end up with a preflight
checklist at this rate. Cable slippage, which is still a problem, is
being solved by crimping beads to flank the cylinder interface and
redesigning an existing friction clamp to incorporate barrel
adjusters (like on old bicycle brakes).

Bleeding the system made enough difference to embolden us for the
2-mile round trip to Lake Monona, so strapped to the forward
crossbeam and bedecked in an orange safety vest, I towed Io out of
the garage. Natasha nimbly steered Europa out of the yard where she
had been assembling her system and joined me, with Tim directing
traffic and helping whomever seemed to need it when the going got
hilly.

OK, I suppose I should say something here about Tasha's wheels.
After observing the painful ordeal of overengineering on my boat that
led to a landing-gear system parts count exceeding 1000, she took my
early simple back o' the envelope tricycle concept, refined it
considerably through brainstorming with artist/welder Rick Wesley,
and had it executed beautifully in stainless steel by him in about a
month. It's so simple and trouble-free that it makes me jealous,
even though she can't sit in the cockpit and deploy the gear by
remote control but has to splash around a bit <fiendish chortle>.
Her rear wheels are robust triangular structures of square tubing
pivoting OUT from the hull to stow under the aft crossbeams, extended
for service by tensioning a 3-part purchase line that pulls the
struts against the hull through a piece of Sky Pole paddle shafting
glassed to her rear bulkhead above waterline. Her forward strut
pivots 270 degrees from its resting place on the foredeck to a
position parallel with the stem, whereupon it grips the boat with a
shaped receiver while being tensioned with a stainless ratchet strap
to the forward aka nest. UHMW sleeve bushings provide a steering
axis operated by a plug-in handle assembly; two Seitech wheels are
mounted on a long axle, like aircraft nose gear.

The damn thing works perfectly, even under harsh off-road conditions.
Drives me crazy.

We hauled our folded Microships through quiet neighborhoods to
Olbrich Park without incident (though the last quarter-mile was in
heavy traffic and not fun), then paused in the launch area to deploy
amas, raise rigs, and otherwise prepare for adventure. (See the link
below for some excellent photos by Tim, who documented our launch
then hopped into Europa to serve as crew.)

It was intense, challenging, and delightful to have the boat on
water. This was Io's fourth time afloat and Europa's very first, and
from the moment I rolled down the ramp I was simultaneously whooping
it up and making lists. Basically, we just played around in the lake
for a couple of hours, but with winds gusting to 20 knots and the
launch ramp tucked at right angles into a rocky lee shore it taught
us a LOT about these boats:


-- First, Microship sailing is vigorous and often blissful, and I
exceeded 8 knots a few times with the general sensation of screaming
across the water with spray flying in all the right places (the ride
is mercifully dry). Pedaling is smooth and unfortunately necessary
at times to get through tacks in moderate breezes... though I suspect
there may be a learning curve involved here. A few necessary
refinements notwithstanding, it is clear that the Microships are
generally seaworthy. This is useful information.

-- My T-handle rudder control system works well, though in the more
intense gusts there was surprisingly aggressive weather helm as the
freestanding mast flexed aft. I had to fight to keep from rounding
up on a hard beam reach, and partial dagger retraction to nudge the
CLR aft didn't fix it. A skeg? A wee headsail? A stayed rig? None
are very appealing. Tasha erred a bit with the dimensions on her
temporary wooden T-handles (short arms above the pivot) and only had
2 lines to the rudder for testing... she and Tim had to work even
harder to maintain helm control when the winds got feisty!

-- The furler drum is rather awful. I need to add a double drum with
a line looping through the cockpit from source to destination spools,
or do something to let the line slip predictably but grab under load.
I chewed up my hands trying to furl before slamming ungracefully into
the bricks, pedaling upwind while barely managing to put the flogging
sail away with only the bitter end of the line available. Tasha had
it easy here, as she had no cowling in the way and could lean forward
to turn the mast by hand, especially with Tim handling the helm.

-- The outhaul on the WindRider rig is difficult to use, especially
with the dodger in place, and the whole mast-stepping system is
tricky... perhaps even impossible on water. Our rig-hauling system
in land mode works beautifully, however, so I have to find a
compromise. This led to lots of fantasies about remote-control
tabernacle-based stepping schemes incorporating roller furling (and
while we're at it, a much-needed vang)... another elaborate
integrated system reminiscent of the landing gear <sigh>.

-- The pedals drifted to starboard; I don't like the tran-torque
shaft couplers at all, but these are temporary anyway as we're
preparing to fabricate stainless steel crank assemblies with proper
shaft locks. The SpinFin drive unit itself worked beautifully, and I
only had to clear biology once.

-- The gear hatches need hinges and latches; straps 'n buckles are a
nuisance. Tasha hinged her covers and made them flush with the
deck... they're easy to use but still need gaskets.

-- The front seat hangers are awful. Under anything more dynamic
than gentle lab conditions, they would flex inward and drop the seat
into the bilge, not to mention tearing up paint and interfering with
rudder handles on every retraction. On the water, I ended up lashing
them to the steering pivot cages so I'd have a stable place to sit.
(This was the first thing I fixed after returning to the lab: the
seat still uses Bob's elegant vernier scheme and pivoting retraction
mechanism, but the front now hangs via Wichard hooks from eye straps
bolted to the steering cages.)

-- My little rubber-sprung rudder kickup latch is way too wimpy - I
ended up lashing that too to keep the rudder down. I have to devise
a new system for this, and I'm also rough on that hydraulic cylinder
since it is subject to unconstrained motion... a handle extends at
right angles from the rod, with all latching and yanking exerting
side loads on the front seal. It may not be a coincidence that
that's the one that leaks; a replacement is ready for installation.


I was also reminded while scraping against the dock after making a
precise approach that installation of the Gunnel Guard on both amas
is a high priority. Reverting to land-mode took about 30 minutes,
though we were distracted by two persistent drunks who kept wanting
to shake my hand, get close to Natasha, and establish some kind of
kinship ("Whoooaaa, this is like a jet fighter, man! I used to fly
F-4's in 'Nam, and they had wheels just like this... so did you
patent this thing? You should, man, an' I could help you out 'cause
like I been there, dude... let me shake your hand... tell ya what,
man, this rig is a trip. Your wife, hey, she don' wanna talk to me,
guess she don't like me much, but whooaaa, dude, she lookin' good, no
doubt about THAT..."). We escaped a bit hastily and dove headlong
into rush-hour traffic, going the wrong way on a four-lane since the
sidewalk was impassable, Tim ahead of us encouraging head-on traffic
to merge left. Good thing Madison is generally a friendly town, but
still... the return to quiet neighborhood streets was welcome, even
with one brutal hill and a castering-induced landing gear mishap
resulting in steering cable slippage...

And so, we have a few more items on the TO-DO list before the next
launch, but that's what we do here at Nomadic Research Labs: spend
months tackling piles of fabrication projects way out of proportion
to the size of the boats, then go sailing for a couple of hours every
six months. Seriously, though, I've reached a major checkpoint in
Microship development... the test daysail series is over!

--> Test Sail Photos: http://www.microship.com/latestnews/images/images.html


UPCOMING MEMES

Yep, it's time to move beyond short afternoon jaunts within sight of
a launch ramp -- the return on investment for all the haulage is
marginal at best. We had to go through this phase to ascertain that
the boat floats and that things more or less work, but now the tests
are more substantial: anchoring, sleeping on board, meeting
navigational objectives, unsupported crossings and remote haulouts,
communications, solar operation, dealing with emergencies, and so on.

These comprise a critical level between brief daysails and
15,000-mile expeditions. I've dubbed them MEMEs, or Microship
Experimental Mini-Expeditions, and each will combine a set of systems
tests with an adventure. I'll never forget the deadline-driven
experience of showing up at RAGBRAI in 1991 to blast across Iowa at a
blistering 100 miles a day with 10,000 other cyclists. This was the
maiden voyage of a machine fresh from 3.5 years in the lab, which
was, like my body, far removed from 16,000 miles of previous
pedaling. The resulting mechanical meltdown, embarrassing at the
time even though I was back on the road a few days after RAGBRAI
faded into memory, is responsible for this whole series of Microship
test sails... a powerful lesson about ambitious public
launches aboard untested equipment!

This is where our decision to site the development lab on Camano
Island will pay off (not that it hasn't in other ways); I mean, here
we are, smack in the middle of the prime sailing destination of the
West Coast. Upcoming MEMEs include a loop to Port Ludlow and Port
Townsend around South Whidbey with a return via Deception Pass... as
well as various jaunts to interesting places around Puget Sound, the
San Juans, British Columbia, and nearby rivers. Not only should
these yield substantial test opportunities, but I reckon we'll
finally start generating some proper nautical yarns. Arrhhhh!


7,000 MILES IN A 56-FOOT MOTHERSHIP

Phew. This was a LOT of work. It began with the arrival of the new
44-foot Wells Cargo... which started imparting harsh driving lessons
the moment I hitched 'er up at Signal Trailer Sales in Everett and
tentatively pulled out of the parking lot. Yikes. This thing is
HUGE... and gosh, I really have to take corners WIDE, don't I?
Whoops... sorry, ma'am... didn't mean to terrify ya...

We only had 5 days between the level-1 learning curve and hitting the
road on a huge loop around the US, and it was intense. There was one
moment of relief: a disagreement forming in the vapors, poised to
coalesce into a Major Argument, concerned the Mothership's cat door.
This was a high priority for Natasha, who wants our child-surrogate
to always have the highest quality experience possible; it was a low
priority for me, who was not keen on taking a Sawzall to my new
trailer with so many other projects on the TO-DO list. But when the
machine arrived, we were both delighted to see a shore-power access
door, complete with lock, precisely the right size to satisfy feline
needs for nocturnal prowlage. (Phew) This became known forever as
the "relationship-saving cat door."

But there remained enough projects to keep us occupied before launch,
even without that one. Here I want to thank my friends Ned Konz,
Phil Rink, and Bill Harp for working heroically to install and cable
the Qualcomm Globalstar phone car kit, Icom 706 MkIIG ham rig,
automatic antenna tuner, CB radio, six antennas, power distribution
panel, and 2.4 GHz 2-channel wireless video link between trailer and
truck. The team worked tirelessly for two days, amazingly getting it
all done on the eve of departure, and the suite of communication
tools proved immensely valuable on the road (Globalstar is pure
magic, the Icom the best HF rig I've ever used, and the CB as boring
as always).

Meanwhile, we were preparing the technomadic road show for public
appearances, not to mention packing for 7 weeks on the road. The
most frightening moment had to be the first-ever loading of BEHEMOTH
and both Microships into the trailer... the whole spec, from the
choice of a 44-foot unit to the placement of all 11 tie-down
fixtures, had been derived on paper after careful measurement of the
equipment and then faxed to the Wells Cargo plant in Utah. This was
the moment of truth...

The bike was old hat; I rolled it in, installed wood tire guides with
drywall screws, and strapped 'er down. Europa was next, rolling with
enviable ease across the gravel from the lab and up the ramp to nose
against the gooseneck next to BEHEMOTH. So far so good. Meanwhile,
as this was the night before launch, a party environment had
mysteriously materialized, and by the time I gingerly trekked across
the lot and up the ramp with my freshly painted Microship, gleaming
in the fluorescents, a small wine-lubed group was clustered around
the back of the trailer.

Just as Io reached her target spot, with about 2 inches of clearance,
island artist Karla Matzke called out, "OK, just a little more --
you're hanging out about 2 feet!" Like life flashing before my eyes,
I suddenly reconstructed all my careful measurements and
calculations, staring in numb shock at the densely packed trailer...
until a ripple of laughter revealed that she was messin' with me.

And so, the next day we hit the road in the 56-foot rig, powered by
my trusty old diesel pickup painted to match the smoke-gray trailer
by the "fast food of paint" folks (they even sprayed the dirt caked
in the corners of the bed and a few rubber gaskets, but hey, what
should I expect for $350 -- a pressure wash and careful masking?).
The next 7 weeks was a mind-numbing blur of Interstate highways,
spiced with magical moments but permeated by the fundamentally
exhausting process of hauling equipment around for a speaking tour...
something I've been doing every year for over a decade now (not that
I'm complaining, mind you, but it's not easy being a trucker).

I did a dozen talks, ranging from casual parking-lot chats to
full-scale keynotes, from laid-back public events to on-site
corporate gigs. But it was different this time: my little boatlet,
for so long represented only by hand-waving "what's next" speculation
during BEHEMOTH-centric speeches, found herself the focus of
presentations at the SolWest Energy Expo, Tellabs, Life Fitness,
Clippard, the Usability Professionals Association conference, the
Huntsville Hamfest, Qualcomm, DraCo, Palm, The Computer Museum
History Center, Classroom Connect, and Hewlett-Packard. But that
alone doesn't tell the story, which, like any jaunt across America,
is less a list of gigs than a melange of strange moments...

Heat was a prevailing theme... we missed a perfect summer on Camano
Island while flinging ourselves headlong into a furnace where
temperatures over 100 were common and relief almost nonexistent. We
almost lost everything in an Idaho town curiously named Bliss -- at a
tiny truck stop, parked next to a tanker, Tasha went back to add ice
to the cooler and returned a moment later reporting that the trailer
smelt strongly of propane and the tank was hissing. The ambient
temperature was 105 and the overpressure valve was outgassing... I
became highly animated despite the lack of coffee, sprinted down the
long deathtrap between my rolling bomb and the one next to me, flung
open the rear door to maximize airflow (wondering all the while if
the process would create a static spark), then threw ice water on the
tank which politely stopped hissing. Um, DUHHHH... from that moment
on we carried the propane in the bed of the truck where it belongs.
I could have lost Natasha, Java, Microships, Mothership, BEHEMOTH,
and more. We continued across high desert, soberly exchanging dark
fantasies of my reconstructive surgery in Idaho and hobbling back to
my empty lab, empty house, empty life...

Other thermal issues were less potentially catastrophic, but they did
wear us down. Kamping On Asphalt in Tennessee... so hot at 3 AM that
we gave up and went to sleep on the grass, spiders and mosquitoes
notwithstanding. The cat moping about and hiding in dark places, the
miasma of sweat a constant companion, lying in the creek in John Day
during the solar fair, the general misery of Alabama in August... and
the tangible relief of crisp Colorado air as we returned west,
becoming chilled on a mountain hike and loving it.

Java, who now has 25,000 miles on her, was good company most of the
way -- and, however cats store memories, can now dream about sneaking
into fancy hotels, partying with the grownups in a big field,
skulking through campgrounds and neighborhoods across the land,
playing Great Furry Huntress on Safari, and giving us a big scare in
Paxico, Kansas. She disappeared that hot morning, prompting us to
hang around in the blazing sun for hours, wandering back and forth
along the wild riverbank calling her name with declining hopes and
sad images of our kitty clinging wide-eyed to the undercarriage of a
Winnebago enroute to Michigan. Even the local sheriff got involved,
stopping by to check on things (it was a slow crime day in Paxico)
and tromping fully armed through the fields, gruffly calling "Java!"
into the bushes.

We disconnected the truck and drove 30 miles for coffee and a general
store... and of course on our return there she was, bored, snoozing
under the trailer.

I'm tinkering with a tiny direction-finding beacon transmitter based
on a crystal oscillator chip with dipole cut to a suitable odd
harmonic, a technique used heavily by wizard-level hams Bill Brown
WB8ELK and Pete Sias WB0DRL to track homemade high-altitude balloons.
This will go on Java's backpack along with a receiver that can be
remotely commanded to flash LEDs and beep, as well as a Supercircuits
miniature B&W camera with built-in 432 MHz transmitter. These hams
were just two of the fascinating characters we visited on this trip:
Pete in Kansas has a world-class microwave installation and enjoys
moonbounce; Bill in Alabama is going for the CATS prize later
this month. Check this out:

--> Bill Brown's Rocket Launch: http://www.harcspace.com

Speaking of people with good ideas, I should mention that the
Microship-hauling technique took a while to get refined... by the
time we reached Minneapolis, we were on revision 3 of the tie-downs
and seeing tire-scrubbing, accelerated wear, and elastomeric
suspension blobs taking a set from ratchet-strap tension (the boat
sits an inch lower than she was, mildly annoying as the rudder and
SpinFin can't be fully deployed on land). Joe Tyner drove us around
and helped experiment with inflatable jacks and better strapping; Tim
Nolan built an 8-foot padded platform and helped rig a scheme with
four bottle jacks, two big log rounds found at a wild Montana
campsite, nylon slings from McMaster-Carr, and robust strappage from
a truck stop. The boat is jacked up, taking the load off her dainty
landing gear, then pulled down hard onto her broadly supported hull.
(Tasha's just sits calmly on her wheels, but we won't discuss that,
OK?)

The trip was diverse... cavorting with the energetic and passionate
solar crowd in John Day (including the fine folks who put out Home
Power magazine... note the link below, as it's my standard answer to
anyone who asks about alternate energy resources). I gave an urgent
fiberglass lesson to a litigation-magnet somewhere in the north...
a waterslide owner who mentioned shards of fiberglass at
the seams occasionally slicing kids (his horrific contraption,
stressed at every joint between loosely coupled segments, was
annually cobbled back together with Bondo!). We camped in conditions
ranging from outlaw street sleeping and rest-area overstays to a
mind-numbing RV park where Tasha got yelled at for cutting through
someone's space, but mostly stayed at commercial campgrounds with
individual quirks covering the whole spectrum from mean-spirited
scrooges to sweet folks who love their visitors, some of whom have
been there so long that their wheels are but useless vestigial
appendages...

Speaking of cultural phenomena, the Hamfest in Huntsville was
characteristic of the breed, but with a twist: it was a bimodal
distribution instead of the usual simple Gaussian curve of
intelligence. It's a NASA town, you know, and whenever some old guy
wandered over to our bike/boat/booksales setup, we never knew whether
we'd hear a dull "is this some kind of airplane?" or a delightful
reminiscence about working with Dr. Von Braun or the Spacelab design
team.

I smashed a finger on stage at Life Fitness in Chicago while
demonstrating rig retraction, capturing the unfortunate digit between
two very hard things when dropping it back in place. The fingernail
turned black instantly and I grew faint, continuing my speech for the
next few minutes on my knees (it was a good time to discuss landing
gear and pedal drive anyway). A sharp-eyed and heroic audience
member slipped away and returned with a Zip-Loc full of ice, which
saw me through the ordeal...

Of course, this was a business trip at its core, and in addition to
the gigs we worked to sell the new "BEHEMOTH to Microship" book...
moving about 250 copies or so. Cash went in one pocket and out the
other... for almost 700 gallons of diesel fuel ranging from $1.09
(Alabama) to $2.39 (California mountains). But the prize for the
biggest rip-off goes not to opportunistic gas stations without local
competition but to the Hampton Inn O'Hare in Chicago, which charges
direct-dial long-distance at daytime operator-assisted rates plus 40%
surcharge and tax: lazily skipping reconfiguration to the 800 number
cost me $27 for 17 evening minutes online to our ISP in Washington!

The trip was long, and this story is becoming so. My apologies to
all the other interesting people and companies who became part of the
adventure... I just don't have the space to tell the tales of
clambering in the Rockies and Santa Cruz mountains, delighting in
Boulder's marimba culture including an all-kids band that'll knock
your socks off, the endlessly stimulating folks of Draco and
Qualcomm, favorite old friends in the Bay Area who descended en masse
on my museum presentation, Bob Ellingson's collection of amazing
pinball machines, spending time with Maggie, enjoying the sparkling
minds of David Berkstresser and Tom Hoobyar, investigating potential educational
spinoffs of our adventure, hanging with new and old pals in Eugene
and Corvallis, visiting my father in Kentucky, and ohhh, so much more.

One last note on the trip. BEHEMOTH now has a new home -- The
Computer Museum History Center at NASA's Moffett Field in Mt. View,
California. It's a long-term loan that was inaugurated by a speech
in the NASA auditorium, and my road-weary bike, pedaled 17,000 miles
and trucked about ten times that, is now kicking back with the Mars
rover, a few robots, Crays various, an Enigma machine, and an
incredible collection of artifacts spanning the entire history of
computers. It's an unbelievably fascinating place, and I highly
recommend a visit. At the moment, the collection is behind NASA
security, but that section of the site, including the blimp hangar,
is soon to become a suite of museums and university-affiliated
facilities open to the public. It already attracts interesting
people and special events... on our last night there, we had the
pleasure of demoing bike and boat to Douglas Adams, John Perry
Barlow, Len Kleinrock, and a number of other characters whose wealth
of ideas keep conversation hopping like a drop of water on a pancake
griddle...

But now the wild melange of America is behind us; we're back in the
woods and slaving away with the expedition feeling more real than
ever... for Microship Io is electrified!

--> Computer Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org
--> Photos from museum: http://www.stimpy.net/pics/behemoth
--> Mothership photos: http://www.microship.com/latestnews/images/images.html
--> Home Power Magazine: http://www.homepower.org


ELECTRONS ON BOARD!

I'll keep this very short... but I have essential news: structural
fabrication is close enough to complete that I spent last week
installing basic power distribution components and wiring. The
marine deep-cycle battery is in its box against the forward bulkhead,
cabled via a 100-amp fuse and the main switch to terminal strips,
breakers, a fuse box for loads outside the console, and a battery
charger cabled to the shore power inlet. Wires are finding their way
through bulkheads to devices scattered about the ship... we now have
working navlights, bilge pump, and marine VHF. The Microship can
light up, grumble, and talk about the weather!

Tim Nolan's 6-processor power-management box now has a place to
live... it's the first of the interconnected pressurized enclosures
that will live under the cowling. The "geek within" is finally
starting to enjoy this.

--> Blue Sea Systems marine power components: http://www.bluesea.com
--> Marinco Shore Power hardware: http://www.marinco.com
--> Statpower battery charger: http://www.statpower.com


SPONSORS, MEDIA, AND RANDOM UPDATES

We have some new sponsors to thank! Global Medical Systems saw an
article about us in Seattle Times and made a wonderful offer:
telemedicine support, pre-launch field medicine training, and
assistance assembling the expedition medical kit. These guys have an
amazing service: live doctors on-call no matter where in the world
you are. We can email a JPEG of an injury via Globalstar and someone
will be there to tell us what to do...

--> Global Medical Systems: http://www.globalmd.net

Remember the Octagon PC-500 that we're using for embedded linux? The
board provides support for the M-Systems 32-pin "DiskOnChip" flash
memory parts, which look like bootable hard drives up to 288
Megabytes (with bigger ones coming), draw almost no current, and
survive brutal environmental influences unlike things with heads
flying microns away from disaster. The goal is to run linux and
essential tools with no moving parts...

--> DiskOnChip: http://www.diskonchip.com

Our recent jaunt around the US involved a lot of highway navigation,
which was easier than ever thanks to the Macintosh edition of
DeLorme's Street Atlas USA 6.0. I can't imagine traveling without
this... it works, it's browsable, and it's fun. You can find
addresses and zoom in on neighborhoods, and hooking a GPS to the
serial port puts you on the map as well. Highly recommended... and
there's a new PC-only product that also includes a full topographic
database.

--> Street Atlas USA: http://www.delorme.com

Informal thanks go to Larry Crutcher KB5HMU, a nomadic ham (with a
seriously geeked-out RV) whom we met at the SolWest Expo. Not only
did he donate an Icom cable to remote the front panel of the 706, but
he and his wife showed up this past weekend and spent two full days
setting up the ham shack and erecting a wire antenna.

And while we're in a grateful mood, thanks to all the speaking
clients who made this recent trip worthwhile... you've kept the
project going!

We have a bit of media coverage to report... most notably Steve
Silberman's excellent 16-page article in the October Wired about the
PerlWhirl Geek Cruise to Alaska. (We're off to the Java Jam in the
Caribbean in 3 weeks.) This is some great writing, filled with
startling insights into Perl community culture along with a bit about
us, our key software designer Ned Konz, tracking wizard Steve Dimse
K4HG, and Lee Devlin KØLEE who intrigued everyone by doing handheld
OSCAR satellite work from the cruise ship's deck.

--> Wired article: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.10/cruise_pr.html

There have been recent articles in the Seattle Times, as well as
online at Digital Living Today... the links are:

--> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/business/html98/loca30_20000730.html
--> http://DigitalLivingToday.com/yourdough/features/nomad/index.html

Our featured link for this issue is the site of William Least Heat
Moon. Larry Walker in Madison gave me his copy of River-Horse, and
it was rich with wisdom, insight, humor, and travel yarns... the kind
of book that one should read with a highlighter in hand. The author
has grown tremendously since Blue Highways, and this book about his
cross-country river voyage aboard Nikawa is a keeper.

--> River-Horse: http://www.heat-moon.com/

Our bonus link for this issue points to Dan Buettner and his team,
who are at it again... at this writing, chasing songlines in
Australia by mountain bike and reporting daily via text and video to
a huge audience of schoolkids...

--> AustraliaQuest: http://quest.classroom.com/australia2000/

And just one more... a vast link collection of cruising tales from all over:

--> Cruising Stories: http://cruisenews.net/index.html

I'm going to try to maintain a monthly schedule of shorter pieces
from now on. By the time we're on the water, these should be weekly
and shorter still. Following that to its logical extreme, my updates
should eventually become real-time and content-free... just like TV
<grin>.


Cheers from the lab!

Steve