But it would be done with panache, if I were working with one of these high-end Japanese kitchen knives. Not that I could afford knives that cost that much, but I can dream, can’t I?
I’d likely slice my fingers off
February 19th, 2009Cat 1, Dragon 0
February 18th, 2009Cordwainer Smith wrote a well-known science fiction short story titled, “The Game of Rat and Dragon,” in which telepaths teamed with cats to protect spaceships from space-based predators.
The relationship between cats and dragons appears to have been taken from life.
I have a dragon skull that I had on display in my living room. It’s a cast resin sculpture that I picked up some years ago. It was on a high shelf on my entertainment center, where I figured it would be safe.
I was wrong.
The missing small horn was with the skull; the missing large horn wasn’t. I believe that it’s under the entertainment center, which makes it pretty inaccessible. Guess I won’t be gluing that back anytime soon.
There’s an old Navy saying …
February 16th, 2009“A collision at sea can ruin your day.”
It can also ruin several careers. One of the “related content” articles says:
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One theory being considered was that their respective anti-sonar devices – which hide submarines – were just too effective in concealing one from the other.
Possible. Not necessarily likely. Both submarines are identified as SSBNs – ballistic missile launch platforms, rather than attack submarines. This means that, rather than actively “pinging” with their sonars and listening for echos, they were listening passively to what their sonar arrays were picking up.
Sound travels long distances and in funny ways in the ocean, and it’s not necessarily a very quiet environment. The article mentions rough seas – there was probably a lot of wave noise as background. Living things make a wide variety of sounds – for years, there was an unidentified noise that sonarmen referred to as “the A-train.” I believe it was eventually attributed to Minke whales, but I could be misremembering. The path sound takes in the ocean is dependent on water temperature, salinity, and pressure, and can curve in such a way that you could be travelling parallel to another vessel that is relatively close and never hear it. You could also hear it and think it’s in a different direction compared to where it really is.
There are also blind spots in a submarine’s sonar array. For one thing, you can’t hear behind you, both because the sonar array doesn’t usually have any elements pointing directly aft, and because any that point aft would mostly pick up your own propulsion sounds. Periodically, a submarine will “clear baffles” by putting a wiggle into its track, changing course for a minute or two so that the sonar will be able to “see” behind it, then coming back to its original course.
The description of the results of the collision leads me to believe that the French sub ran into the side of the British sub. I saw nothing to indicate what angle the collision occurred at. First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathan Band said that it was a low-speed collision, so it was probably just bad luck. It could have been worse – much worse.
Returning from patrol, there comes a point when you no longer have to hide your presence, and are allowed to make more speed. There is a tendency to request “going-home turns” from the engine room. Had that been the case, with the French submarine coming up in the other sub’s baffles, the collision could have been much worse. I’m glad it wasn’t.
- Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
UPDATE: Blackfive and Neptunus Lex have also reported on this story. The comments at Blackfive are more amusing, but the ones at Neptunus Lex are more informative.
On Handwriting
February 15th, 2009When I was young, I was taught script handwriting in grade school. We did the exercises with loops and such, and I learned to write legibly. I’ve lost a lot of that, mostly due to hurrying when I write. I have long admired people with elegant handwriting, though, and wished to improve my own.
In a recent search for handwriting tutorials, I found a book on the Palmer method, which seems to match the way I was taught, although this has much more depth than I recall from my lessons.
I don’t believe that you could use this book in schools today, though. The exercise at the top of this page would probably get any young man sent for counseling, if not suspended or expelled. I’m not certain what would happen to a young woman caught doing the exercise.
Want to see a chess machine in action?
February 13th, 2009Try here. It’s interesting to see the move possibilities, but I don’t play chess well enough anymore to want to do much with it.
Via Bifurcated Rivets.
Sounds about right to me
February 12th, 2009House of Eratosthenes (The Blog That Nobody Reads) is one of my favorite sites. Morgan Freeberg has a way of looking at things (and of expressing himself) that I really enjoy. This, from one of his recent posts, really tickled me:
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I have a really thin paperback on my bookshelf. Its called Government plans to meddle in the economy, that worked. Its up there, sandwiched among Republicans who survived scandals, democrats who didnt and Movies made from video games that dont suck.
I did not know that
February 12th, 2009There are many interesting stories to be found related to the naming of things. I had not known that Julian Street in Denver had one of them.
Continuing Education
February 12th, 2009If, like me, you’re currently out of work, you may want to think about improving your prospects through education. Perhaps Klingon Night School is for you?
This captures my feelings
February 2nd, 2009Birds
January 28th, 2009We saw lots of birds while we were in the Galapagos. Of course, we saw the Darwin finches. The problem was that they’re fairly nondescript, and you’d need to examine them fairly closely to tell the differences from island to island. Not being an ornithologist, about all I came away with was that they look a lot like sparrows, particularly the females. The males are darker-colored, as shown in this photo, so they look less like sparrows to me.
The birds that were both common and more noticeable were the warblers. This is a male (I think), denoted by the red markings. The ones without the red markings are, I believe, the females.
It was surprising to me that there were flamingos on the islands. It turns out that they’re considered a native species.
We also got to see the Galapagos Mockingbird. This is one that Tim, our guide, coaxed into view while we were on our hike around Volcan Negra.
One of the famous birds of the Galapagos is the Blue-footed Booby. There are actually three species of Booby in the islands – the Blue-footed, the Red-footed, and the Nazca. We didn’t see any of the Red-footed, and saw the Nazca only at a distance. We did, as you can see, get close enough to at least one Blue-footed Booby to show just how blue the feet and legs really are.
We also saw the Galapagos Penguin, the second-smallest penguin in the world, and the only species of penguin found in equatorial waters.
Frigate birds are found world-wide. It was getting to be the start of the breeding season, and the males were making their displays. This was on a small, uninhabited island that we passed, not much more than a large rock. It did have a number of birds roosting there, as well as marine iguanas.
On the same island, I got my only photo of a red-billed Tropicbird, which has a distinctive long tail. As you can tell, it’s an action shot. I consider myself lucky to have gotten it – I only saw three tropicbirds during the trip, and none of them were posing for us.
Another bird we saw was a Night Heron, which was hanging around a nature preserve. Actually, most of the land area of the Galapagos (about 97%) is nation park/nature preserve. Only four of the islands have permanent population, ranging from about 120 on Floreana to about 10,000.
We saw other birds, such as pelicans, sandpipers, and Calfornia oystercatchers. On one of our inter-island legs (Santa Cruz to Floreana), the boat crew identified some birds as albatross, but they were too far away to get good photos, even with my telephoto lens.