I like Cessna just fine

Do you know what a Cessna looks like? Would you know one if you saw one?

Cessna 150 II

Cessna 172

Cessna 182

Cessna 210

Cessna Caravan

Cessna A-37 Dragonfly

Cessna Mustang

Cessna Citation X

List of Star Trek Klaxons

SUPER O.C.D. NERD MODE GO!

It seems there is not a comprehensive list of alarms on the ships from Star Trek. I'm not going to upload the sounds, because I don't have time, and it might draw the ire of copyright lawyers.

These alarms change from time period to time period depending on what Starfleet R&D finds to be the most effective, so while the alerts themselves may not change, the audio accompanied by them will.

Boatswain's Whistle

Aural cue used to signify that the commanding officer, executive officer, or acting commanding officer of a vessel or base is about to address personnel via the public address system.

Condition Green

Aural and visual cues to signify that a higher alert status has been canceled. Momentary aural and visual cues.

Yellow Alert

Aural and visual cues to signify that a yellow alert has been declared. Usually followed by computer aural warning. Typically defensive shields are activated, hatches sealed, and typically shuttle bat doors closed. Some personnel report to particular duty stations. Momentary aural and continuous visual cues.

Red Alert

Aural and visual cues to signify that a red alert has been declared. By policy, followed by verbal instruction from the officer that declared the alert status via public address systre. Defensive shields are activated, hatches sealed, and typically shuttle bat doors closed. All hands report to battle stations. Weapon systems (directed energy weapons, such as phasers, and torpedo systems, such as photon or quantum  powered and armed. All hands report to particular duty stations. Momentary aural and continuous visual cues.

Intruder Alert

Aural cues indicating an intruder. Momentary aural cues. Can be triggered automatically or manually.

Proximity Alert

Aural cues indicating an object within predetermined proximity. Momentary aural cues, usually localized to command area (bridge, operations, etc.). Can be triggered automatically or manually.

Blue Alert

Aural and visual cues to indicate any of the following conditions: Docking maneuvers, hull separation maneuver, landing maneuver. Momentary aural and continuous visual cues.

Evacuation Signal

Localized Aural warning to evacuate a particular area. Commonly heard in engineering sections. Can be triggered automatically or manually. Continuous aural cues.

Abandon Ship

Similar to evacuation signal. Aural and visual cues to abandon ship followed with verbal instruction. Can be triggered automatically or manually. Continuous aural cues.

General Warning Tone (almost exclusivly seen in latter TNG, DS9, and VOY)

A tone used to indicate a problem. Generally used in conjunction with a control panel (i.e. speed warning on helm controls). Usually accompanied by computer aural warning. Typically heard during audible self destruct countdown. Can be momentary or continuous. 

And while I'm here, I might as well address the two types of self destruct these ships have. Every Star Trek fan knows that a ship's main power source is a "warp reactor core" fueled by matter/anti-matter reactions, but many fans do not know that these ships also have fusion reactors to supplement the reactor core. Generally, when a crew decides to scuttle the ship, the self-destruct mechanism will detonate the fusion reactors, resulting in almost complete destruction of the ship, with minimal collateral damage. When the ship itself is to be used as a weapon, instead of, or in addition to detonating the fusion reactors, the entire supply of deuterium and anti-deuterium will flood the engineering section causing a much more massive explosion (similar to a warp core breach, but intentionally creating the largest possible destructive yield). This causes far greater collateral damage, which may prove beneficial in combat as a last resort, but will cause far greater collateral damage and fallout.

Nuclear Eggs

I've been undergoing a battery of tests to find out why my bowels are inflamed, and what inflammatory bowel disease I have. My favorite so far is the gastric follow-through. This is because when I arrived at the hospital, I was shown to a room called "Nuclear Medicine", and fed a breakfast of NUCLEAR EGGS!

Basically, it was scrambled eggs on toast with a cup of ice water. The secret ingredient? Technetium-99m. ^99mTc  is a radioactive isotope of Technetium, and is used in tens of millions of diagnostic procedures each year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technetium-99m). I even got this spiffy card to show to the TSA should I set off a radiation detector at the airport.

That got me to thinking - I wonder if I would make one of those Geiger counters go "clicky clicky clicky"? Now, if only I had a Geiger counter. 

Well, as it turns out, I do (sort of). You see, a Geiger tube is not the only thing that can detect the 140,000 electron-Volt gamma particles that comes spewing out of this stuff. A type of sensor called a complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor can detect these as well. Turns out these CMOS sensors are the sensors located in cellphone cameras. So maybe if I blocked out the visible light with a piece of plastic or something, only the  high energy photons of gamma rays would penetrate all the way to the detector. Now, if only I could write a program that could convert that information to a meaningful micro Civert count. 

OH WAIT, SOME ONE ALREADY DID!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.radioactivity&hl=en

So, I downloaded the app, had Brandi (who hasn't been irradiated today) calibrate it, and tested it out. Now, I realize that this isn't exactly scientific equipment, but it will at least show relative differences between sources. 

The room we were in produced about 12CPM.

Brandi produced 17CPM.

A bunch of seven bananas produced 48CPM. (Bananas are radioactive. Look it up)

And Tony for the win, produced 115CPM! In fact, the numbers on the display all turned red, indicated an unsafe dosage. BUWAHAHAHA!

To be honest, it only produced that high count when the sensor was directly over a specific part my abdomen. The rest of my body produced about a dozen CPM. 

Now before you start saying "DUDE, HOW CAN A PHONE MEASURE RADIATION?", remember that Android phones all have a magnetometer, three accelerometers  a GPS, one or more cellular transceivers, a Bluetooth transceiver, a WiFi transceiver, and an unspecified number of thermometers, and then go read up on ionizing radiation, gamma ray radiation, nuclear decay, high-z particles, Geiger counters, Technetium-99m, and CMOS CCD sensors, and THEN feel free to say stupid things. 

Also, nuclear farts. I've been ripping them all day. 

Softmod Wii Quick, Fast, and In A Hurry

Another post from Dimitri. (DISCLAIMER: I do not condone or encourage any of the activities or actions described in this third-party blog post):

Things you'll need:
Nintendo Wii 
WiFi and Internet connection for aforementioned Wii
A 4GB SD card and an external USB drive with at least 16GB

.          -OR- 

A 16GB SD card

Format SD cards and/or USB drives in any one of the following formats:

*FAT

*FAT32

*NTFS

Avoid exFAT, WBFS, ext1, ext2, ext3, CDFS, or any other formats not listed.

I went from not owning a Nintendo Wii to having one fully modded playing free games (homebrew and Wii) in about fours hours time, but it only took that long because of all the trial and error. Tony's says my last post on his blog was pretty since for some of his classmates, friends and family always asked these questions on the Internet without really getting any good information. So, here's what to do.