It’s All About Attitude
The marketing strategy is coming together. I plan to drive traffic to johnpatrick.com where people can learn about the books and then one-click to Amazon to buy one. I am advertising on Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Th narrator, Hal Maas, is hard at work creating the Audible version of Reflection Attitude. As the flagship of the series, Reflection Attitude will be available in Kindle, Paperback, Hardcover, and Audible. Please take a look at the new site if you have not already. Feedback and suggestions are welcome.
The Brooklyn Bridge
Some years ago, I read The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by the late popular historian David McCullough. The book provides a history of the amazing engineering behind the building of the bridge. It took 14 years to build. Great book. For years I have said to myself, someday I am going to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. The someday turned out to be Thursday of this week. It was 1.57 miles and a beautiful experience. I took some pictures and, if interested, you can see them here. All the pictures were taken from the bridge.
Ukraine
Some more words from the Great Communicator. Here is one of his profound statements from this week:
“Today we have good news from the south. The number of Ukrainian flags returning to their rightful place in the framework of the ongoing defense operation is already dozens. 41 settlements were liberated. I thank all our heroes who make this advance possible.
But, rejoicing, we should all remember now and always what this movement means, we should remember that every step of our defense forces is the lives of our warriors. Lives given for freedom for Ukrainians. Everything that is happening now has been achieved by months of fierce struggle. It was achieved through courage, pain, and loss. It’s not the enemy leaving. It is the Ukrainians who drive the occupiers out at a heavy cost.
Just as in the east of our country, in the Kharkiv region. Just as before, in the north – Kyiv region, Sumy region, Chernihiv region. Now – Mykolaiv region, Kherson region. We have to go all the way – on the battlefield and in diplomacy – for our flags, Ukrainian flags, and never again enemy tricolors.
Space
Atmospheric entry is defined as the movement of an object from space into and through the atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. Examples of atmospheric entry are a shooting star, a space capsule returning astronauts from the International Space Station, or a nuclear powered rover going through entry, descent, and landing on Mars. In all of these examples, kinetic energy is converted to heat as the object’s velocity creates friction or drag with molecules in the air. Using a heat shield to absorb or dissipate heat from atmospheric drag is the most mass-efficient method of slowing a spacecraft down, but the size of the heat shield therefore spacecraft mass has always been limited to the size of the shroud carrying the spacecraft into orbit.
NASA is trying to reduce those constraints with Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) technology, which was demonstrated this week on the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID). Made of braided synthetic fibers that are 15 times stronger than steel, the inflatable structure is the largest blunt body aeroshell ever flown at 19.7 feet in diameter. HIAD is made of three flexible layers and is “foldable, packable, deployable, and tailorable”, which means it takes up less space in a rocket and is also scalable. This technology demonstration will help inform designs on future missions and could one day be used to help land humans on Mars.
– Aaron J. Patrick Crypto
This was a bad week in crypto. The gloom and doom comes from startup FTX run by 30-year-old CEO billionaire (before) Sam Bankman-Fried. I have liked him but he made a few bad decisions. Now he is filing Chapter 11 and he resigned. I never invested in FTX or any of its crypto. Bitcoin owners are not happy with the jolt downward from FTX effect. Bitcoin volatility is actually no more extreme than that of stocks, especially techs. Volatility will likely continue until regulation is in place. Everybody wants regulation but Congress cannot get its act together. Coinbase had a small investment in FTX and it will participate in Chapter 11 to try to reclaim some of it. Coinbase stock is up 13%.
Wall Street
Stocks up nicely, especially NASDAQ but still a long way to go. Rate fears still everywhere. GAMMAT now up to $7.6 trillion, a gain of more than half a trillion. Tesla still under pressure. Twitter has hinted at possibility of bankruptcy. I suspect Elon Musk has some surprises ahead. Meanwhile, his other companies are doing quite well. Tech layoffs are huge. They are all admitting they grew too fast and ramped headcount and big salaries way to fast.
