The Current Job Market

California Bob reports:

So I was at my new job for about 5 weeks when my boss suddenly resigned.  Bit of a shocker.
Of course you never know the internal dynamics until you start, and even then it takes a while to interpret things.  But the situation here is, they are running out of cash, my boss doesn't like dealing with the marginally competent people, the apathetic people, or the rather mercurial owners.
A short while after I started, when he got comfortable with me, he began complaining bitterly about everything.  As do many people there.  He only gave 2 weeks notice.
In his view, the owners have no business sense, they burn through cash and then ask "where's the cash?", the operational people similarly are incompetent, etc., etc.
My views are somewhat more nuanced: the owners are focused on developing a brand and market presence, growth, and valuation rather than profitability.  They are top-heavy on highly-paid pompous executives, and various highly paid specialists, who do little to improve the business.  They have completely ignored some very basic administrative stuff that is hurting their cash flow: inventory control, reconciling credit cards receipts, etc., opting instead to focus on expensive packaging and marketing initiatives......
Anyway we have about 2 months cash left.  All it takes is 1 investor to keep us in business, but it would have to be a very risk-tolerant investor.
I understand you need to be employed at least 3 months before collecting unemployment, so that could be just about right!  Wish me luck.

Another person I know got an interview at some high-tech company and they want the applicant to prepare and deliver a power point presentation from a technical document. The request sounded a bit unusual, and so a query reached my desk, so to speak. In due course I offered up these pearls of wisdom:

Normal? There is no normal, at least not in these trying times.
On one hand it's like asking someone to do some work for free. On the other hand it is a pretty good test of whether they can do the work.
My neighbor got a Phd in some kind hi-tech optics. He spent the last few years flying all over the world giving presentations at conferences.
It's one thing to be able read and understand that document. I can see that it is fairly technical. It's another thing to be able to communicate the essence to other people.
The power point aspect is good in that it gives you two ways to present your message: orally and visually. So even if your presentation is weak in one area, you can compensate in the other. Best would obviously be to shine in both.
Some people (like my wife) do better with the spoken word. Other people, like me, do better with pictures.
To really top it, you need to be aware of how nuances of presentation can present certain aspects in a more or less favorable light. ("Yes, I've heard that the XYZ process works well, but I haven't actually seen any of their results. I have seen the results of the ABC process and I am impressed.")
Another aspect of power point is you can direct your audience's attention either towards or away from yourself. By speaking, you are drawing attention to yourself. By directing their attention to a slide, or a particular detail on a slide, you can draw attention away from yourself. It's essentially sales, but you have to understand your subject, and not everyone can do that.

Tempest in a Teapot

 "I'm a little Nazi, short and stout."

Via Tam.

Silbatone Acoustics

Introduced in 1929, the Western Electric 16A horn is a product of the early days of talking motion pictures. The 16A was intended as a compact solution for a horn speaker system to be mounted behind the movie screen hanging on chains. At 400 pounds and almost 3m. wide, the idea "compact" is relative.

Sound systems for movie theaters, that's what we're talking about here. Silbatone Acoustics makes high end audio gear for "serious music listeners". They draw their inspiration from the Western Electric sound systems installed in movie theaters, back before the accountants got into the act. Most of the pictures on their website give no sense of scale. The speaker in the picture above is ten feet wide (including the weird "ears" sticking out on either side). That's a bookcase on the right side of the picture.
    To drive big speakers you need big amplifiers. Here's a stack of Western Electric Model 46 Amplifiers:

Via Scott. Who else?

Whitworth

Sir Joseph Whitworth proposed this thread in 1841. This was the first standardised thread form. The form of the thread is shown in the diagram. The principal features of the British Standard Whitworth (BSW) thread form are that the angle between the thread flanks is 55 degrees and the thread has radii at both the roots and the crests of the thread.  (emphasis mine)

Most common machine screws use an angle of 60 degrees in the 'V' between threads. Whitworth, in his most benevolent wisdom, used 55 degrees. I am sure he had a very good reason for it. Not. He was British. He probably drank tea.

Jack found the ultimate definition of "arcane": a web page devoted to obsolete British machine screw thread standards. Back when I had my Triumph I needed three sets of wrenches to work on it:

1. American for the engine.
2. Metric for the front brake.
3. Whitworth for the chassis.

At that point I had never heard of Whitworth. Fortunately the former owner had a small set of Whitworth wrenches that would suffice for any chassis work I needed to do. He handed them over along with the motorcycle, and why not? What was he going to do with them? Go look for another English motorcycle that used Whitworth fasteners? No-thank-you-very-much.

Introducing the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) Video

The music got me at first - "that sound's familiar" I thought, kind of like Sail by Awolnation. Then while I am watching this it occurs to me it isn't just being strong and physically fit that makes these guys special. It's also the training and practice with all the different types of equipment that are available. It's one thing to know in theory how to rappel out of a helicopter, it's quite another to be able to do it right when it needs to be done. Likewise with guns and electronic equipment. It's one thing to be able to sit down at your leisure and puzzle out how to make the thing work, but it's another to able to employ it effectively when you are under a little pressure, not to mention when you are under fire.

The Quick and the Dead

Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead

This is a little jumbled. I've had some thoughts rattling around in my head the last few days and they haven't quite jelled, but I thought I'd dump them out anyway.
    When I hear the phrase "the quick and the dead" I tend to think of gun fighters from the old West where survival depended on fast you were with a gun. You were either quick with your gun, or you were very likely going to end up dead, or at least that was the way it was in TV land.
    It wasn't until much later that I discovered that the phrase originated in the Bible and that the "quick" was simply referring to the living. So "the quick and the dead" refers to all souls, dead or alive. Seems I have heard "quickening" used in reference to something coming alive, probably in an old time horror movie.
    Just for grins I checked a King James Bible for this phrase and found three instances:

1. The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy 4: I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2. The First Epistle General of Peter 4: who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.
3. The Acts of the Apostles 10: And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.

I got onto this subject because of Memorial Day. Memorial Day never set right with me. Seems like a lot churchy clap-trap without any real substance. Why bother remembering the dead? It's not going to do them any good. They're dead. Nothing on Earth can touch them anymore. Shoot, you might consider them the lucky ones compared to the people that were maimed, crippled or disfigured by war. And the speeches. All that talk about the "solemn occasion" and "the ultimate sacrifice" and those who "gave their lives" for our freedom. What a load of hooey. They didn't give their lives, they had their lives taken from them by all those who conspired to put them in harms way.

    I suppose I might feel differently if I had know anyone who was killed in a war, but I don't. I know a few people who have children in the military, but they are all (cross my fingers) still alive and well. One did get shot during some kind of interdiction on the high seas, but he has recovered and has returned to duty.

    A few years ago there was a movie called Proof of Life about a kidnapping in South America and the subsequent negotiations. Russel Crowe and David Caruso played soldiers of fortune. They get called in to take over the negotiations from a gang of locals and they evict the former negotiators at gunpoint. Nobody gets shot, the local guys depart and our heroes are now in business. Russell turns to his partner and says "That was fun." like it really was fun and David concurs. (It's like the last 6 seconds of this clip.)
    Hell yes it was fun. For a brief moment there we were alive! That's one of the things we hear from soldiers coming home is that they never felt so alive as they did when they were in combat. The other thing I hear from soldiers in Afghanistan is that when they are over there, they only want to be back home, but when they get home, all they want is to go back over there. Life here is just so deadly dull. Life in Afghanistan might be terrifying, but it isn't dull.
    Once you've had your fill of stressful situations, deadly dull can be nice, but do we really need to drain the life out of everything? No wonder people do the crazy shit they do. They want to feel alive. Our modern society can provide everything we need except it's all dead, dead, dead.

Another plane crash in Kyrgyzstan

A KC-135 tanker blew up in the sky last month with no explanation. Accident? Terrorist? I'm wondering, so I said send me more news. This showed up this morning. Check the highlighted text.

Small plane crash in southern Kyrgyzstan kills 3

Posted about 53 mins ago | 0 comment 

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN (BNO NEWS) -- At least three people were killed after a small airplane crashed in southern Kyrgyzstan, officials said Friday. 

The Antonov An-2 aircraft was carrying three people when it crashed at around 10 a.m. local time in the village of Zhyl-Kol in the country's Aksy region of Jalal-Abad oblast, Kyrgyzstan's Ministry of Emergency situations confirmed, Kabar news agency reported.

The small single-engine aircraft belonged to Valor-Air Airline LLC, and faced technical pobles during disinfection of field from locusts. The plane burned down after crashing, the ministry said. 

All three people on board were killed. They were identified as crew member V. Matveyev, Bishkek resident, A. Toktosunov and Aksy resident Sapar Alymbaev, who was a chief specialist of chemicals, defense and quarantine of plants.
(Copyright 2013 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.

I thought plagues of locusts went out with the Pharisees. Seems I was wrong. The Antonov An-2 has made this blog before.

Killing Time

Found a new game - Link-a-Pix. Sucked me in for hours. It is kind of a combination of paint by numbers and Legos. It also gave me an appreciation for what a computer goes through each time it draws an image on the screen, and this image was only 150 pixels square. Each pixel is blown up by a factor of at least ten, so the working image won't even fit on your screen, which makes it possible to easily select individual pixels.

Workers of the World Unite. Or Not.

Dave Schuler put up a post about incompetence at the FDA and suggests that something should be done. The problem, as always, is just what that something should be. The first comment describes the situation and the problem very well:

DC Loser May 29, 2013 at 8:03 am

I just retired from the civil service after almost 30 years of combined CS and military service. I was a GS-15 manager and seen many personnel rating systems come and go. There is no easy solution to this problem. In really good government organizations, where you have good leadership and high workplace morale, these problems don’t occur. Where they do occur are the places with lousy or nonexistent leadership, rule by fear, favoritism, mid-level managers who are little tyrants, and a workforce in constant fear of petty disciplinary actions or worse. I’ve seen your suggested curve system at work when it was used for officer evaluations in the Air Force. It was a disaster for the unfavored officers (in the USAF, they would be the non-pilots). All the commanders’ favorites got the high ratings, while the ‘barely tolerated’ got the low end of the stick. Needless to say morale went into a nosedive. In my last organization, they went to this rating system where supervisors were supposed to write ‘measurable’ objectives so performance could be quantified. Of course, the gaming began right away and supervisors and workers began to organize their productivity around numbers that were meaningless. For fear that everybody was going to get a high rating, management imposed a distriburted curve rating system that was supposedly illegal. Once again, worker morale went into a nosedive from the cynical manipulation of the system by manangers who wanted to protect their favorites. I have not seen a system that isn’t open to gaming and manipulation.

This second comment tells us why it can't be fixed:

DC Loser May 29, 2013 at 8:19 am

One thing that I’ve seen fierce resistance to by senior and even mid level managers in the CS is a 360 evaluation system, where managers will be rated by their subordinates. I advocated such a system and was pretty much ignored. Senior managers talk all the time about accountability, but they don’t want accountability for themselves.

Yay China.

I have no idea what this is. Okay, I mean I suppose it's an ad for Microsoft Windows, but I sure don't know what the point is. It's definitely weird and just a little scary. Via Dustbury.

Everest

Joint indo-nepal army team summits mount everest: 20 may 2013

A Joint Expedition of the Indian and Nepal Armies was flagged off from New Delhi by General Bikram Singh, Chief of the Army Staff, on 3rd April 2013 to summit the formidable peak. 20 mountaineers finally stood on the summit of Mount Everest during the early hours of 19th and 20th May 2013 and unfurled the flags of the two nations. 

This achievement came just nine days short of the Diamond Jubilee of the first ascent Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. The two teams began their final push for the summit at around 7 PM on 18th and 19th May 2013 from Camp IV, also known as the South Col, and took about 12 hours to reach the summit. 

This expedition has a special significance, as it has not only summited the highest peak, but also made a contribution towards cleaning it. More than a ton of non-biodegradable waste left on the mountain by generations of climbers has been brought down, making the mountain somewhat cleaner. 

Five Indian Army personnel will also participate in the “Everest Marathon 2013” from GOREKSHEP (17,000 feet) to NAMCHE BAZAAR(11300 Feet) on 29/ 30 May 2013. This is the highest marathon in the world in which participants will cover a distance of 42 KM.

See the little red dots along the ridge line? That's them. Makes me wonder how they got this photo. Helicopters can't go this high. Airplanes yes, but who's going to fly that close? Or hold a telephoto lens that still? I suppose with it's easier with digital cameras, but still, getting this shot was a bit of a trick. Pretty cool. Don't think I've ever heard of any natives climbing the mountain, except as porters for Westerners, which is really kind of dumb, isn't it? From Military Photos dot net

Dentist

They had a new toy at the dentist office this morning: a blood pressure cuff you wear on your wrist. They started taking my blood pressure there last year, or maybe the year before, I don't remember, but this was the first time for a cuff that you wear on your wrist. Fully automatic, put it on, put your arm across your chest and it goes about it's business. Came back with "good" numbers, so I guess I'll live for another day.
    The chair has a built in back massager. It kind of feels like a cat slowly kneading your lower back. A big cat. Best part of my visit.
    After many years, and after talking it over with my friend Jack, I have come to realize dental hygienists come in all flavors. Some are aggressive and will leave you feeling like your jaw has gone ten rounds with Rocky Balboa. Some are slow. A few are really good, quick, efficient and don't expend any more force than necessary. Or maybe I've just gotten better at brushing my teeth. Yeah, right.

The Lone Ranger Rides Again

Disney catches a lot of flak for some of their business practices, and for their hippy-dippy view of life, but dang, they make some fine movies. I used to watch The Lone Ranger religiously when I was a kid, and I've been watching Johnny Depp for years. Depp seems to embody the antithesis of everything Disney stands for. I mean, he is never the character that I expect in a role. OK, I'm shallow, I like the good guys to win, I like shoot-em-ups. This looks likely to be a really great movie.
    P.S. Gratuitous Lone Ranger joke: the Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding across the plains when they are suddenly confronted by an Indian war party. The Lone Ranger looks around and sees Indians to the left, Indians to the right and Indians behind them. He turns to Tonto and says "this doesn't look good, Tonto, we're surrounded by Indians", and Tonto replies "what do you mean 'we' white man?"

Sixto Rodriguez - Sugar Man

Read about this guy in a magazine at the doctor's office. Such a weird story:

Sixto Díaz Rodríguez (...) is an American folk musician based in Detroit, Michigan. His career initially proved short-lived with two little-sold albums in the early 1970s and some brief touring in Australia. Unbeknownst to him, however, his work became extremely successful and influential in South Africa; although, he was mistakenly rumored in that country to have committed suicide.
In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to seek out and contact him, which led to an unexpected revival of his musical career. 

Update June 2014: Original video clip has disappeared from YouTube. If I recall correctly, the original clip used video from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! This clip also uses video from that same film, though the scenes are different.

Bloodhound SSC

This car was in the news last week. When I first saw it, I thought "ho hum, another jet powered car built only to set a new speed record". Yes, it's basically cool, but what a waste of time and money. Then I read that it has three (3!) engines:

1. A jet engine,
2. a rocket engine, and
3. a conventional automotive internal combustion engine.

Now I'm thinking these guys are just geeking out because, well, someone gave them some money and said "build a really exotic car", and they just went nuts. I mean I can see having a jet or a rocket engine if you are going to attempt these kind of speeds, but why would you need both? And then I thought about it for a bit because they must have some kind of reason for doing this. I mean nobody puts up that much money ($10 million, more or less) just so some guys can geek out. Okay, nobody besides the military anyway. This is what I came up with.

    They want to go 1,000 Miles Per Hour. You aren't going to do that with a wheel driven machine, too many problems with traction and the drive train, so you need a jet or a rocket. Pound for pound, rockets are much more powerful than jet engines, so I figure they are going to use the jet to get somewhere around the speed of sound and then kick in the rocket to get the last few hundred MPH. The rocket engine is a hybrid, which means it uses a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer. The benefits here are that you only need one pump for the oxidizer, (conventional liquid fuel rockets have two pumps) and you can turn it off, which could be important if things go haywire. Conventional solid fuel rockets can't be turned off. They burn until they burn out. Pretty much unstoppable.

    The third engine, the automobile engine is used only to drive the oxidizer pump for the rocket engine. Rockets consume a great deal of fuel very quickly, and when you are pumping fuel into the combustion chamber you need to overcome the pressure of the combustion that is trying to force it's way out. The only reason you can succeed in this endeavor is that the volume you are forcing in is very small compared to the volume of gas that is trying to escape. Regular rocket engines using turbines to drive the pumps, but turbine engines are very expensive. They are also very light weight and weight isn't so important for this project, so a conventional, relatively inexpensive engine is the ticket here.

    The reason they are using a jet for the initial acceleration is that rockets consume a great deal of fuel, so by using a jet they are able to reduce the size of the rocket engine and it's associated fuel tank.

    That leaves the question of why they are using a rocket at all. I mean jet fighter aircraft routinely reach speeds well in excess of 1,000 MPH, so why not just use the jet engine and dispense with the rocket? I can think of two possible reasons for this. One is aerodynamics. Jet aircraft are operating far from the ground. Being this close to the ground and trying to go this fast could be problematic. The other is that in order to get the thrust they need, they might need an afterburner, and afterburners are big and inefficient. Including an afterburner would probably double the length of the car. Take that and combine it with additional jet fuel you would need to carry and it might be that a rocket engine is more efficient.

Forces Spéciales

I'm not too sure about this movie. On one hand I want to say the French Special Forces were very well done. On the other hand the story might be a bit far fetched. We (and by "we" I mean Western civilization, in this case the French) drop a squad into Pakistan to rescue a kidnapped (blond, beautiful, female) reporter from the evil Taliban. One of the bad guys takes it personally that his captive has been rescued and he sends a hundred gun men in pursuit. The good guy's radios get busted, they get cut off from their pickup point, and end up having to hoof it over the mountains into Afghanistan. It takes them 12 days, 12 days of running gun battles. I lost track of how many bad guys they shot. It's 82 miles from Peshawar to Jalalabad. I know walking over the mountains can be slow going, but how did the bad guys get ahead of them?
    There were several scenes where the camera is moving in a circle around the people which gives kind of a whirling effect to the background. Once or twice is more than enough. They kind of overdid it here. A few more long distance landscape shots would not have been out of place. Afghanistan is some of most hostile terrain on Earth.

Microwave Bacon

I like bacon, and I really like the giant Costco economy pack of precooked bacon. Just throw a couple three strips on a plate in the microwave and 15 seconds later, presto! Bacon, ready to eat. Not only is it quick, it's doesn't make a huge mess, and the best part is I am not stuck wondering what to do with the left over grease. My mom used to save it in a can. Presumably she did something with it, but I never found out what. All I knew is that she saved it. Everybody warns you not to pour grease down the drain, but I figure if you run enough hot water afterwards it will get flushed away, especially since we have those new fangled plastic drain pipes that aren't going to suck the heat out of the water like the old cast iron ones would. But here Kirkland/Costco is taking care of that problem for me. Presumably, being an economy minded business they would find some use for all that bacon grease, so I am not being just a self-centered piggish consumer, I am also helping to save the environment, er, bacon grease. I wonder what they do with it.
    I have been using a regular ceramic plate to heat the bacon on, and fifteen seconds would be enough to get it hot. Our dishwasher broke down a couple of days ago so today I used a paper plate and I had to heat the bacon for 25 seconds to get it hot. I would think that a paper plate would not have that kind of effect. The ceramic plate is Corelle, a glass plate from Corning, and they get as hot or hotter than the food placed on them. This generally is okay as it helps keep the food warm. A regular, microwave safe plate that does not get hot will suck the heat out of the food making your meal cold quicker. I have seen paper plates catch fire in the microwave, so I suppose the paper could be absorbing more energy than the ceramic, but I have never noticed them getting that hot, except when they actually catch on fire.

Eyeglass Repair with Microwelding

Pretty cool. Via Michigan Mike.

Giant Hot Air Balloons

Disasters seem to be the topic this week. I was talking to Jack on Monday and he mentioned the hot air balloon crash that happened in Egypt earlier this year that killed 19 people. I vaguely remember hearing about it, and while 19 is a lot of people for a balloon crash, it could have been a freak accident that involved a bus or something, and I didn't think any more about it. Turns out that all of the people who died were riding in the same balloon.

Some random group of tourists.

I didn't know they made such large ones. All I have ever seen is the small baskets that hold three or maybe four people. A balloon big enough to lift three people is huge, a balloon big enough to lift two dozen must be ginormous! I spent some time trying to find chart that would illustrate the different sizes of balloons, but all I could find was this chart from the Red Bull record setting high altitude parachute jump from last year.

Eventually I realized that a balloon's lifting capacity goes up by the cube of the diameter, so a balloon that is twice as big in diameter as a normal 3 or 4 person balloon would be able to lift 8 times as many people (2 x 2 x 2), or 24 to 32. One of these giant tourist balloons would not be as big as number 2 on this chart. Spreadsheet of popular commercial balloon sizes and capacities here.  It takes about 64 cubic feet of hot air to provide one pound of lift.

Abraj Al Bait

Stu is talking about clock towers today and he mentions this really big clock in Mecca, so I have to go look it up. It's not just a big clock, it's a friggin' huge building. I had no idea this thing even existed. That giant tower from Mission Impossible is on the left in this picture. The Sears Tower is the pale gray one just to the right. Here is a link to another size comparison chart.

Tornado

Tornado hit Oklahoma yesterday. 24 people dead, 240 injured.

Dustbury pointed me to this National Weather Service map. I noticed that the path of the 1999 tornado started AND ended outside the frame. How far did it travel? 

Quite a ways. Notice the relative locations of Newcastle and Moore on both maps.

Have A Drink

We've been watching Borgia, Rules of Love, Rules of War, and I finally put two and two together. Unlike Game of Thrones which has at least one character with a brain (the dwarf), none of characters in Borgia have distinguished themselves, at least not in a positive way. They all seem to be vile, conniving heretics.
    Then it occurred to me that they are drinking wine all the time, well, at least when they are in town. Occasionally you will see soldiers drinking water when away from town, but I'm pretty sure the habitual drinking of water in a town was a good way to contract some horrible disease that would kill you.
    So basically these guys are intoxicated all the time, so no wonder everything they do seems insane. Rational thought is going to have to wait for a couple-three hundred years for clean water.
    We're all in this together, we're all drinking, we're all crazy, and we're all comfortable with this. This is what we are familiar with: 5,000 years of the fruit of the vine.
    And then we run into ganja from the East, and hey, that stuff is different. Those people are different. They act different, they think differently, they smell different. Grrrr, they must be the enemy! Wine is the one true God! We must slay all the ganga smokers! And that's why we have our great and wondrous War on Drugs.

Small World

Our waitress at lunch today was in New Orleans on vacation last week when the Mother's Day shooting occurred, eight blocks from where she was staying. 

Talked to Iowa Andy today. He's in Stamford, Connecticut, 15 miles from where the commuter train derailed on Friday. 

The Ceolacanth, a cannoniere a vapeur (a steam powered gunboat)

This is a model of a gunboat, similar to the ones the French used at the Battle of Yu Oc in Vietnam back in the 1880's. Didn't realize their involvement went so far back. More photo's of this model here. Model was built in Tennessee for a customer in England. Via Scott.

Revolutions & Violence

Found these comments on BAEXPATS dot org and I think they are pretty good.

EdRooney: ... Coups that are accepted by the majority do not need mass disappearances and states of siege as did Videla, Pinochet, Ríos Montt et al. Certainly there is always an element of the monied interests that welcome a coup d'état, as was the case in Czechoslovakia, Iraq, Poland, El Salvador and Argentina, and just about anywhere else., but they are the MINORITY, and that is why the perpetrators needed violence to enforce their rule. You will always have somebody welcoming a non-popular conqueror, as has happened every time in every invasion or coup in history. This does not make them popular governments. ...

Newcomer: Kudos to your comment. Money and opportunity always play a role in the perceived support of a regime.
Every government, good or bad, left or right, military or pacifist, has supporters and detractors. And history has shown every government also has the ability to lose these supporters quite quickly. Violence does not regain popular support, it just makes this support unnecessary and irrelevant, inducing in the population a sense of sheer impotence. When things go wrong, any change is welcome (just as any treatment feels good when you're sick). People do not welcome violence, they welcome change when they feel they need it. When the remedy is proven to be worse than the disease, well, then they just stop drinking the kool-aid. 

Art

Tam bought a sort-of-a-knife at her local art fair, which reminded me of all the artified AK-47's I found on Military Photos dot net yesterday. I actually liked this one. Most of the rest didn't do anything for me.

Orchids

Color plate from Ernst Haeckel'sKunstformen der Natur

Came across this picture during a wiki-wander inspired by Dustbury. France Nuyen (or Nguyen)  was raised in Marseille by a cousin she calls "an orchidaceae raiser who was the only person who gave a damn about me." On first reading I missed the word "raiser" so I'm thinking an orchidaceae is some weird title, but it's just the fancy name for orchids, which is where this picture comes from.

A Steal - 1958 Philco Predicta TV restored (retro '50s) - $1800 (Skamania Co, WA)

From Craig's List. Via Scott. 

Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don't Fire Us?

Scott stirs the pot again. Today he sent out a link to a story in Mother Jones about how real smart computers may be here in ten or twenty years. The story makes use of an interesting example of exponential growth. That's all fine and wonderful, but the title (I stole the title for this post) is what worries me. If computers are doing all the work, nobody will have a job. On one hand it's paradise, you can just lie around and eat grapes all day. Ha. Who's buying the grapes? We have lots of people with nothing to do right now, and a lot of them are using their new found leisure time to make trouble. Dealing drugs, trafficking in arms, running credit card scams, dreaming up new class action law suits, starting religious revivals, recruiting jihadists, starting political action committees, the list just goes on and on. The more automation we have, the more people don't have any direction and the more trouble they get into. Maybe that's why the government is growing Homeland Security so much. Not because there are threats, but because we need something for people to do so they aren't out making trouble. We need a new model for society.
    Perhaps the expanding organic-free-range farming business will start employing more people. For it to expand enough to make a difference would mean people would have to give up some of their shiny new toys, and that could impact corporate profits, and lord knows we can't have that. I see trouble no matter which way we go.
    Update: Somehow I missed page two of the Mother Jones story, and that part talks about my concerns. He doesn't have any solutions either. Maybe join the Amish.

Say Hello to my Leetle Fren'

From the Internet Movie Firearms Database

What have I been saying about just scratching the surface of knowing how the human body works?  Turns out I was righter than I thought. Story by Micahel Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) in The New York Times about how microbes rule, we're just along for the ride. Via Scott (who else?).

Pax Vobiscum

We've started watching Season 2 of Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix, not to be confused with The Borgias on Showtime. In the last couple of episodes there has been a priest making trouble in Florence, and we recognized the actor as the advisor to the dragon lady from Game of Thrones. I'm trying to track this guy down and I'm looking for a summary and I'm not finding one. How can this be? Is this show really that far out on the fringe? I finally locate one in French. Google translates, and then I edited it. All I really needed were the names.

Borgia, Season 2, Episode 4 - Pax Vobiscum 

Cesare arrests Savonarola and has him tortured until he "confesses". Pope Alexander VI sentences him to death by hanging, and Cesare carries out the sentence. Savonarola uses his last breath to curse Cesare Borgia and his whole family. Cesare attends Midnight Mass and lights the traditional fireworks Florentine. Alessandro, his lifelong friend, wishes him "peace of God", but the peace of God no longer interests Cesare.

Iain Glen plays Savonarola, who was the instigator of the most infamous Bonfire of the Vanities. And here I thought it was just a clever name for a book.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I think someone must have given this to me as a Christmas or birthday present. I mean it's a new hardback. I never buy those unless they're on the close out table. Well, almost never.
    It's an excellent book that tells a very unpleasant story about a very unpleasant future. It's set in Thailand, which is hot and humid now. Think about what it will be like when global warming takes hold. The city is surrounded by dikes built to keep back the sea. There are coal fired pumps on the sea wall. They run on coal because we've run out of oil. Is the world overpopulated now? Hard to tell, numerous, constantly mutating plagues are on the loose, but it's still crowded in the city. And did I mention it's hot and humid? And everyone is constantly sweating? So, not a very nice place. But we have characters, interesting characters: the tiger, champion of environmental purity; the mole struggling to serve two masters; the evil agent of the evil genetically engineered seed company, and a host of other characters, some with large but minor roles, other with small but crucial roles. Political intrigue at it's finest.
    One of the most interesting bits was the description of a violent insurrection, how, to the average man in the street, the pot apparently just boiled over without any warning. Never mind the instigators had planned it out meticulously in advance. Maybe that's what it takes. That, and being able to keep a secret.
   Oh, yes, the Windup Girl. Victimized female, but attractive, with hidden talents (no, not that kind), who finally gathers herself together and ... well, I'm not going to say anymore, except that it isn't until she finally gets free that she manages to get a grip.

Update April 2016 added Amazon link.

Moscow International Business Center

We're talking about that cluster of new buildings all under construction. Massive pre-planned development in central Moscow. Google Maps View. Russian web site looks to the future.

Threshold

We have a cat. We've had him for a while, five or ten years or so. Everyone in my family loves him except me. Maybe I love him too, hard to say. It has fallen to me to feed and water him and clean his litter box. He has me well trained, he squeaks (meows) when he wants to go outside, and I open the door for him. He comes to my office window and bats at the screen or the glass when he want to come in, and I get up and go open the door for him and then walk up the basement stairs to open the door for him so he can gain access to his food and water. I try and remember to pet him at least once a day. I read something about how cats need to be petted, so I do my duty. Sometimes I will stroke him, sometimes I ruffle his fur, sometimes rub him vigorously. But I only spend a few seconds at it and then I'm back to whatever it is that fills my days. He will sometimes sit with my wife and I when we watch TV, but he is just as liable to get up in the middle of the show and wander off, or bolt. I don't know how I would feel if something happened to him. I might be relieved that I don't have to cope with him anymore. On the other hand I might miss him. I dunno.
    I have a bad habit of losing my temper: I yell and curse loud and long, and occasionally throw things. I like to think it happens less often now than it used to, but I don't really know. What I have noticed is that it is more likely to happen when I am tired, and moreover there seems to be a limit below which I am more likely to go off. When I am well rested, I am well behaved. As the day goes on and/or I exert myself, I become more tired, and if I am worn down because of previous exertions or illness, I am more likely to slip over the edge.

   Two days ago I had a migraine headache, the second one in a month, the second one in my life, or at least that I remember. I say "migraine" because the pain was bad enough to make me nauseous. I took a Zyrtec (anti-hay-fever medicine) and in a couple of hours it had gone away. Connection? Cause and effect? Sure. Maybe. Anyway, that episode drained me and next day I laid low. Yesterday evening, Gus, the cat, started squawking, making his little meowing noises, wanting something, I lost my temper and hollered at the little twerp. I made so much noise that older son came to see what the problem was. Fortunately he is mature enough to face down his father-the-jerk and tell me to cool it.
    So my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to recognize when I have reached the limits of my endurance and to stop before something happens that triggers an outburst of insanity. This is hard to do when I am tired. Perhaps now that I have identified the circumstances I might be better able to avoid these situations.

Software Patents

A 1911 Industrial Worker (IWW newspaper) publication advocating industrial unionism that shows the critique of capitalism. It is based on a flyer of the "Union of Russian Socialists" spread in 1900 and 1901.

I'm reading about those loathsome creatures, patent trolls, this morning and I come across this little bit:

Rader's four-judge group affirmed the broad scope of what is eligible for patenting under Section 101, written in 1952. "Both inventions and discoveries are eligible for patenting," wrote Rader. "Before 1952, the courts had used phrases including 'creative work,' 'inventive faculty,' and 'flash of creative genius' which compared the existing invention to some subjective notion of sufficient 'inventiveness' as the test for patentability."  

In the view of these four judges the 1952 Act, written largely by a patent judge and a chief patent examiner, got rid of that "flash of creative genius." It simply stated that to get a patent, an idea couldn't be obvious. This simple test for "nonobviousness" would be more "objective" than a test for inventiveness.

This might explain why I haven't patented anything. Everything I think of is perfectly obvious, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it. Never mind that you actually need to apply for a patent in order to get one.
    I don't like patent trolls (companies that make no use of their patents themselves other than to extort licensing fees from other people), but I view them as a product of our times. If our society was not so productive, we would not have so many under-utilized lawyers who have nothing better to do than to cook up near-criminal schemes for making money. It we weren't so busy pushing half of what we make over a cliff every day, we might be putting more people to work. I keep looking for an answer and I keep coming back to pyramids. We need a national program to transform the Rocky Mountains into a series of giant pyramids. That should keep the unemployed busy, and it would straightened out all those ugly, craggy rocks.

Tranquility

Quiet country estate, yours for a paltry 75 million. It looks like something out of someone's medieval CGI fantasy, but it's real and Sotheby's is selling it. The photos are unbelievable. I didn't think anyone built anything like this anymore. All you would need would be a couple of thousand stinking peasants groveling at your feet and you could feel like a real king. Once again Scott provides me with blog fodder.

The Bridges of Toko-Ri

Going through a pile of old books I came across a copy of James Michenor's The Bridges at Toko-Ri.  It looked familiar, but I didn't recall the story, so I started reading it and soon encountered the character "Beer Barrel", the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) who worked better when he had a couple of beers in him, and since he was critical to the successful operation of the aircraft carrier, the admiral overlooked the keg of beer he smuggled on for each cruise. So, yes, I read the story a long time ago.

Skyraider attacking a North Korean bridge during the Korean War.

    Scott sent me a link to the "true" story of the Bridges at Toko-Ri today, which reminded me of another story story about the Korean war that I wrote about earlier. This story had a couple of interesting bits in it. One is that the single engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider aircraft they were using had as much bomb capacity as the four engined WW2 B-17 heavy bomber, which depending on how you add things up could be true. Combat aircraft carry four kinds of payload: crew, ammo, fuel and bombs. Crew and ammo are pretty much fixed. You carry all the ammo you can, you don't want to run out. If you are not operating at the limit of your range, fuel and bomb load can be traded off. More bombs, less fuel, or vice versa.
    Another was Operation Pinwheel, where the propellers on the prop planes were used to help dock the aircraft carrier. I remember seeing this in a movie as a kid and I was amazed that you could do such a thing. I mean, who'd a thunk it? I didn't understand what the people in the movie were so upset about. I mean, those props are just big fans, aren't they? Why not use them if they are handy. Well, sonny, for the same reason guys get upset when their woman uses his razor to shave her legs. Or put it more plainly, for the same reason a surgeon would not want you chopping vegetables with his scalpel. You don't use highly stressed, precision instrument for crude, barbarian type work.
    The last was "the pilots marched into the wardroom singing the prisoners song" (para-phrased). The Prisoner's Song? What's that? A sad, sad lament. Not my cup of tea, but YouTube has several versions, including one by Johnny Cash.

Packards in Russia

Upon liquidation, the remaining pre-war Packard designs and tooling were sold to Russian car companies. For decades Packards would continue to be built under the ZIL and ZIM nameplates, catering to the Communist elite. Post-war Packard designs would continue to appear around the Soviet Union into the 1970s. - From a story about the Packard Factory on Something Interesting.

No wonder all those Russian cars looking like American cars from the 1950's. They were.

Futurific

What's Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week?

When I was a kid there were several stories that were told about what the future would hold. Among them were flying cars, robots, electric power that would be too cheap to meter and the three hour work week. We have made great strides in our technological capabilities, but we are still stuck with Homo Sapiens Version 1.0, and so we still have the 40 hour work week even though the number of people who have jobs keeps falling.
    Some people like to say that exporting jobs to countries with cheaper labor frees us up to do other, more important, more profitable work. But that more important, more profitable work requires a bigger capital investment, or more money gambled on business ventures, most of which will fail, in order to find one that will pay off. But we are expending ourselves in building war material which is getting burned up at the rate the of a million dollars a minute. That's like taking every new car and pushing it over a cliff.

Can't You Smell That Smell?

Massasoit and governor John Carver smoking a peace pipe

I've been trying to figure out what makes people crazy. Crazy enough, for instance, to become a suicide bomber, or shoot, even just a regular mad bomber. One favorite reason/excuse/agent is the temperature. The closer you get to the tropics, the crazier people get. But whenever someone makes that argument, some wet blanket comes along with some counter example that spoils all our fun. Then it occurred to me that maybe it's odors that are at the root of all this. The daily shower and ritual application of deodorant is a relatively new phenomena, maybe only 50 years old or so. 300 years ago tobacco was in the ascendancy  The common explanation for it's rapid adoption was that it contained a drug that people enjoyed. I'm thinking that possibly a bigger reason was the powerful smell. It blinded people's sense of smell and masked the odor of their fellows. Mind you this was all on a subconscious level. Smell is a funny thing. Odors that you are familiar with are pretty much undetectable, new and different odors are the ones you notice. Dealing with a stranger before tobacco could easily raise your hackles. Cover his stink with the soothing aroma of strong tobacco and business may be easily transacted. Makes me think the American Indians were on to something with their "peace pipe".

Blast From The Past

Ad for United Airlines, November 11, 1966, Life Magazine. From Scott.

Things have changed since then. Some things are better, some are worse. Sometimes I wonder if the good outweighs the bad.

Nick's Tale

Nicks tale from Charles Pergiel on Vimeo.
Up into Saguaro cactus desert hills at twilight, Nick grabs a lizard by the tail.

Update June 2022 replaced missing video.

Business as a Hobby

I often see small, hole-in-wall, businesses that seem to have almost no clients, no customers, no business, and I wonder how they manage to survive. Over the years a theory has been gestating in the back of my mind, and given any evidence to the contrary, I am beginning to suspect (as Sherlock Holmes would say) it is the truth. They are not "businesses" in the strict sense of the word, they are not making a profit and they are not paying their way. By any measure of accounting they would have to be considered hobbies. Lots of people have hobbies, some are very economical, others are very extravagant. A small business would probably tend towards the economical, I mean, if it ever took off it might become profitable. In many cases the proprietor probably owns the premises, so running a business there is more of a holding action until a real, rent paying client comes along. If you are running the place yourself, there is no salary to pay, and if you aren't selling anything you don't have the expense of replenishing your stock. The one constant is taxes, and if you do not have a profitable business, you could argue that the property isn't worth much, and so your taxes should be low. Also, as you are "running a business" any expenses you incur would go on the debit side of the ledger and could help at income tax time. I would not be surprised if a smart accountant could make a shop with absolutely no business show a profit just by juggling taxes.

My Niece, the Scientist

Amber in her secret laser lab. Tuscon, maybe.

Missing Battery

My wife got me a Makita cordless drill for Christmas some years ago. Along with a screwdriver bit extension and a Phillips bit, it is the handiest tool I have. A couple of weeks ago, or maybe a couple of months, depending on who you believe, one of the batteries and the battery charger went missing. Since they went missing together I presume that I put the battery in the charger and plugged the charger into the wall so as to charge the battery. Question is, where did I put it? I've been all over the house at least twice and I cannot find them.

    It's getting to the point where I am ready to give up and go buy a replacement. I can replace the missing items for about $40 off of E-bay, or I could buy a new, no-name drill, off of Amazon for about the same amount. Problem is that I know that as soon as I order new stuff, the old stuff will turn up, and then I'll feel like an idiot. Meanwhile, I am without a cordless drill and I am starting to feel pretty stupid. Gah! What a dilemma.