Chapter 581

3/11/2021

Global Foundries

microchips, woodchips, solar energy and materials science

link to GE engineer interview 

The link above describes the development of rocket science which commenced here with the help of captured Nazi scientists from Operation Paperclip at the end of WW2. Note their Edison Tech Center channel which begins with a discussion of a computer hard drive mechanics that I later delve into.

A proposal for a 3 million square feet warehouse  for the Global Foundries chip fab site could wipe out the remnants of these rocket gantrys and test stations.

I've covered this subject previously in chapter 320 . Felt like it just needed to be documented. The close proximity between the old cold war missle technologies that ruled the world and that of the new world order of microchips is striking.

Colleen's dropped HP laptop computer suffered a fatal hard drive injury. She bought a new one for work but I tried to salvage the old. Picked up a used HD for $25 from a local recycling facility (Pro Tech),  installed a free download of Windows 10 and had it working nicely until I attempted to upgrade the BIOS chip. It got corrupted irreversably and now the old laptop is unusable. 

Melissa has been teaching Junior High all year from her home laptop with the covid situation still in the air.

Had another sunny day for a short time so I hit the nearest interesting site. We have bought some firewood from this Lindsey's Farm on Grooms road. Noticed their massive solar arrays and the addition of some horse stables in the background. I would expect they get a massive economic return for doing this and wonder if the wood operation will just fade away.

Made a return to the Twin Bridges after reading an article about faulty bridge construction (below). It's fun to fly in good weather.

I collected a bunch of these A235 that were required to be torqued to 70 % yield strength 92,000 psi on the interstate bridges decades ago during my work for the Department of Transportation.  The Times Union reported on a pathetic situation for the Tapanzee/ Cuomo Bridge where barrells of bolt heads of their stronger A490 bolts had snapped off during girder assembly. They covered up the situation replacing bolts at night and were fined $2 million but the court records remained sealed some 4 years later still under appeal by the Tapanzee Corporation.

I believe it's a Barred Owl that has visited my backyard. The Cooper's Hawk still seems to be hanging around and took great offense to the owl's infringing on it's territory. At one point I noticed the owl in an odd awkward free fall from the tree straight down getting a mole (or vole) of some sort. Got a good picture of it being eaten which is not necessary to show.