Flying Pancake's blog

Freebird or Stairway to Heaven
I'm talking originals here. No covers.

(got this off a myspace group coz I couldn't write a good description)

Folding@Home is a Stanford University developed program that uses idle computers and PS3s all over the world to compute complex "protein folds". I won't go in depth about this, because you can find all of this info on the main website, http://folding.stanford.edu/

Basically, when your computer or PS3 is idle (not doing anything, yet still on) this program will run and start to simulate proteins as they change during thier lifetime. Sometimes an atom will mis-fold, and cause a disease. Your computer or PS3 records all of the data that it is finding, and when the program ends it will send all of the info to Stanford's servers, where scientists look through all of the data and conduct tests based on it. Before, all they did was do tests, and it took forever to find anything substantial. But now your computer can do the hard, and time-consuming part.

so anyone else doing this?
I'm thinking maybe putting a broth team (a team is a bunch of people contributing to the folding@home project putting their "scores" together for friendly competion) together (but thats up to the admins)

And if you do live there......
1) Anyone up for changing that advertisment outside the bullring for a certain soft gum....C to a B (think about it)

2) Anyone know when New Street Station is getting renovated

And if you dont live there WHY!

who would win in a fight between a pirate and a ninja.
I'd say the pirate.

This was my only hope in passing my English GCSE.
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Tyrannical Pillar

A pillar, they say can never be destroyed whilst it is important to people and they care what happens to it, some more than others but care still the same. And when the pillar is a a city can a city be destroyed man has tried but it’s inhabitants always pick up the pieces and start again only for another people to try an demolish it again. This city isn’t on the edge of destruction. It is near annihilation. Two peoples fighting over the city. Two opposing factions, two different ideals fighting amongst the bombed-out remains of peoples homes and work places, of schools and restaurants just memories of the peaceful life people who lived here used to have. Young men and women scurrying in and out of wreckage while their leaders sat comfortable in their chateaus which they commandeered to set up their “forward headquarters’’ even though they were so far away that it took hours to get from there to the front lines. Fire, smoke the smell of cordite wafting through the air as civilians either flee or die in the fighting. Elderly people, the infirm no one is pardoned from the slaughter. More fighting and more dying as the two fanatical leaders and their cronies delude more women and more men into the “glorious’’ fighting but if they survive their first week of combat they learn that their leaders “motivational’’ words are as good as the bloodstained earth they fighting over. The city’s name:
Stalingrad

“Get onto the boat!’’ a bellowing voice called.
The new conscripts after a miserable train journey in cattle trucks in which some were sick in where now faced with a different trauma. Near the bank of the river Volga there were mounds of casualties, all crammed in between crates and on the ground. Anywhere which was big enough to put someone in. Their bandages dirty and drenched with blood, their wounds at the mercy of infection and disease. Some crying out for there mothers some fitting from the combination of the cold and lack of medical care.
The doctors, nurses and field medics did their best but with the lack of supplies and sheer amount of cases they barely managed to cope. Something was also in the air, an evil smell that seeped up your nostrils and without warning hits you with full force and sends your senses reeling. Its was the smell of gangrene.

“Move it!’’ another officer bawled.
The new soldiers piled onto an old battered steamer that floated on the black water of the Volga. In the distance they saw it, the city was burning as if it was the place of residence of the devil himself.
“Doesn’t look good does it ?’’
“No’’
Two men in their mid twenties spoke. The question came from private Alexi Georgiev, the reply Alexsandr Sopolov. Two friends from the Urals they climbed into the steamer that took them across the pitch black waters of the river.

On the other bank of the Volga injured soldiers awaiting transport to the crowded field hospital on the other bank. Above them the oil refinery , its’ tanks ablaze filling the day sky with thick tar black smoke the smell of oil filled the place like an invisible blanket.
“Jesus’’ gasped Alexi.
“Christ’’ gaped Alexsandr.
The two soldiers were broken out of their stupefied state by a call from a loudspeaker….
“First man takes a rifle , The second ammunition when the first man dies the second takes the rifle and shoots !’’
The message was repeated again and again. Alexi and Alexsandr joined the crowd of men all wanting a rifle to pay the German invaders back. But half were turned away with nothing to face the enemy but a clip of ammunition. The two friends both received rifles and all the now armed men gathered into a crowd awaiting deployment. Every one of the new soldiers was frightened but never showed it in fear of one of the commissars shooting them for cowardice in front of the enemy there was also the enemy artillery projecting their deadly cargo of high explosive shells that sounded they were gradually creeping closer.

They were moved on though the sounds of battle and the voices of political commissars yelling speeches about the Motherland, their families and the sacrifices that their brothers made.

The soldiers were all packed into a bombed out building that used to be some flats. In front of the building there was a huge grey stone wall but peering over the top of it was the hill.

The hill was steep and at it’s summit was giant hexagonal bunker which with it’s several machine guns dominated the hill. The hill also had numerous machine gun nests that seemed to follow the very contours of it. The signs of battle were clearly visible. Shell craters, upturned earth, bodies and bits of bodies of both nationalities. Worryingly there more Russian bodies than German. There where flags and banners all over the ground some still in their carriers hands, once they would have shown the love for country now they were dirty and forgotten. One flag in particular caught Alexi’s eye and he called Alexsandr to look at it.

It wasn’t a normal Soviet flag with the hammer and sickle it had a white circle with a red star in the middle of it. Overlapping the star there was a red flag on the end of a golden staff and around the white circle there was a circle of gold leaves.

Alexi asked a grizzled sergeant where it came from.
“Its from a air force squadron’’ he said “when their base was bombed they came here to continue the fight, they were good lads, all gone now…’’
The sergeant was interrupted by a officer addressing the troops.
“Welcome to Mamaev Kurgan comrades, the facists are directing artillery from the top of this hill. We can’t take back Stalingrad unless we control that bunker, good luck comrades!’’
A commisar spoke up.
“Forward comrades!”
A cry rose up from the men.
“Defend your mothers!”
Another roar.
“Get the German invaders!”

That was the time to go, machine gun fire and artillery barrage waited for them as they charged through the holes in the wall and up the hill.

The fighting was bitter and hard to recapture Mamaev Kurgan and the Soviets lost a huge number of men a whole division (10,000 men) in one day. After the war a colossal monument of “Mother Russia” was erected on the hill that overlooks the modren day Volgograd. You may even find bones and rusty metal splinters on Mamaev Kurgan today,symbolic of both the human suffering and the successful yet costly ressistance against the German invasion.

Alexi Gergiev died in the battle to take the hill and Alexsandr Sopolov fighting in other pivotal battles gradually grew tired of the slaughter and deserted, he was recaptured and sent to a penal battalion. He died in mid 1945 whilst clearing a minefield. A week before the German surrender.

And when he gets to heaven,

To Saint Peter he will tell,

One more soldier reporting sir,

I’ve served my time in hell.
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Thanks for reading!

I am so eager to get my hands on a PS3 I'm even getting a job (i hate the word) to help pay for it (£425 your'e kidding...right?) but I would like to know where do your loyalties lie

PS3 or Xbox or Wii

There are good things about every console and bad things much to consider

I got a myspace a few days ago I thought I would just get it presentable and then I'll never visit it again but...

Since that day I been going back to it...

day after day

commenting

its like an addiction

I'm on it as I'm typing this

I need to go back, its been over thirty seconds

Can someone please make a MySpace rehab clinic

This is a little late but I have only become aware of this.
What is the opinion on white poppies?

My opinion:
I hate the things. It is a unwarrented assult on all those who have died in protecting our freedoms. Don’t get me wrong I hate war (even though I think some were necessary) but there has to be a better way to promote the anti war cause and also no protest in any form should be allowed on or near the Remembrance days. Lets remember the dead not critise them.

There is a reason why the cenotaph reads "the glorious dead"

About the white poppie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Poppy

I wonder if people were given a choice of which to attend what would they choose.

School or recuitment into the army.

I thought about this for a great deal of time (15 seconds untill one word jumped into my head.

COURSEWORK

Then being shot at didn't seem so bad.

One of the most weird and wonderful aircraft of all time the Flying Pancake is kinda unknown to the public at large. I mean nearly everyone knows about the Spitfire and the Mustang and righty so (though I would like to see the Hurricane given more of a mention) but little is known about this plane which was kind of the last gasp of air for the propeller generation.

So heres bit about it gained from various sources.

Vought XF5U-1
General characteristics
Crew: One, pilot
Length: 28 ft 7 in (8.73 m)
Wingspan: 32 ft 6 in (9.91 m)
Height: 14 ft 9 in (4.50 m)
Wing area: 475 ft² (44.2 m²)
Empty weight: 13,107 lb (5,958 kg)
Loaded weight: 16,722 lb (7,600 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 18,772 lb (8,533 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney R-2000-7 radial engine, 1,350 hp (1,007 kW each) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 425 mph (775 km/h)
Range: 1,064 miles (1,703 km)
Service ceiling: 34,492 ft (10,516 m)
Rate of climb: 718 ft/min (219 m/min)
Wing loading: 35 lb/ft² (172 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)
Armament
6x .50 machine guns or
4x 20 mm machine guns or
2x 1000 lb. bombs

The aircraft was the brainchild of Charles Zimmerman and was one of the first STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) in the world.
Designed for aircraft carriers, the protoype V-173 made its first flight in November 23, 1942 by Charles Lindbergh, who said was easy to fly.

The XF5U-1 was ground tested but the vibration caused by the gearbox which was partily made out of silver (pointed out by GO-GO) made it expensive. The final nail in the coffin for the XF5U-1 was the arrival of jet aircraft and the United States Navy finally canceled the promising project on March 17, 1947.

The prototype V-173 was transferred to the Smithsonian Museum for display while the only complete XF5U-1 was destroyed by wrecking ball because the airfrme was so strong (also pointed out by GO-GO) and sold for scrap to a compony who became embroiled in a government investigation when it attempted to resell the recovered silver.

Before he died in 1996, Charles Zimmerman's lifetime achievements were recognized when he was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; he was also awarded the Wright Bothers Medal.