Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Catching Up
Yes, it has been six months since my last update, but this blog isn’t dead, it was just napping.
Work continues to draw far too much of my time, but I’ve been getting to several SCA events, including some notable accomplishments. I’ll be posting the backlog over the next few days, and will try to keep a little bit better up to date going forward.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Where were you?
"December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy..."
9/11/01.
I'm not the first to play compare/contrast with these two events.
But let's add two more:
11/22/63.
1/28/86.
I bet even if you don't recognize either date immediately, you can figure both of them out without looking them up.
Each of these events defines a generation. I'm just old enough to remember two. There are still people alive who remember all four.
So what do the raid on Pearl Harbor, JFK's assassination, the Challenger tragedy, and the 9/11 attacks have in common?
Well, aside from being massive media events, almost nothing.
It's easy for me to dismiss the middle two as not being in the same category as the first and last, but I don't. The loss of life was tiny - orders of magnitude lower, in fact. The real, immediate consequences were far less - neither event started a war (accepting the War on Terror as a war, despite the lack of a formal, and legally required, declaration to that effect).
But each event, in its own way, was a greater tragedy. In both cases, a tragedy of lost potential, rather than lost lives.
On 11/22/63, we lost one of if not the best President of the United States of the 20th century. He'd already set us on the path to the moon and defused one of the most serious crisis of the Cold War. He still had a full year left in office, and it is hardly a stretch to imagine him being re-elected had he lived. What might he have done?
On 1/28/86, a combination of cowardly management, hasty engineering, and bad luck broke the dream of space into pieces. The Space Shuttle, already questionable on its technical and economic merits, received the final nail in its coffin, and in a very real sense mankind turned its back on space. It has yet to truly return. What if the culture of yes-men in aerospace management had broken the ranks formed only two generations ago and said STOP? Might we have recovered from our stumble and continued on our path to the stars?
We'll never know, of course, just as we'll never know what a crewman on the USS Arizona or a passenger on United Flight #93 might have done with the balance of their life.
About midway between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 sits a positive event that will also be remembered. Optimistically, I think it will be remembered even when all four of the others are forgotten. That assumes the human race survives the death of Sol, but, well, hence the optimism.
Know what I'm talking about?
7/20/69. How about now?
"One small step for man..." What Neil Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin did that day was, admittedly, a stunt. They were on the moon for less than 24 hours, and they never returned. But they were the first humans to set foot on the ground of someplace other than Earth.
So remember 2011 as the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, or even the Centennial of the Colt 1911 if you will.
But remember also it is the 42nd Anniversary of "...one giant leap for mankind."
Where were you?
9/11/01.
I'm not the first to play compare/contrast with these two events.
But let's add two more:
11/22/63.
1/28/86.
I bet even if you don't recognize either date immediately, you can figure both of them out without looking them up.
Each of these events defines a generation. I'm just old enough to remember two. There are still people alive who remember all four.
So what do the raid on Pearl Harbor, JFK's assassination, the Challenger tragedy, and the 9/11 attacks have in common?
Well, aside from being massive media events, almost nothing.
It's easy for me to dismiss the middle two as not being in the same category as the first and last, but I don't. The loss of life was tiny - orders of magnitude lower, in fact. The real, immediate consequences were far less - neither event started a war (accepting the War on Terror as a war, despite the lack of a formal, and legally required, declaration to that effect).
But each event, in its own way, was a greater tragedy. In both cases, a tragedy of lost potential, rather than lost lives.
On 11/22/63, we lost one of if not the best President of the United States of the 20th century. He'd already set us on the path to the moon and defused one of the most serious crisis of the Cold War. He still had a full year left in office, and it is hardly a stretch to imagine him being re-elected had he lived. What might he have done?
On 1/28/86, a combination of cowardly management, hasty engineering, and bad luck broke the dream of space into pieces. The Space Shuttle, already questionable on its technical and economic merits, received the final nail in its coffin, and in a very real sense mankind turned its back on space. It has yet to truly return. What if the culture of yes-men in aerospace management had broken the ranks formed only two generations ago and said STOP? Might we have recovered from our stumble and continued on our path to the stars?
We'll never know, of course, just as we'll never know what a crewman on the USS Arizona or a passenger on United Flight #93 might have done with the balance of their life.
About midway between Pearl Harbor and 9/11 sits a positive event that will also be remembered. Optimistically, I think it will be remembered even when all four of the others are forgotten. That assumes the human race survives the death of Sol, but, well, hence the optimism.
Know what I'm talking about?
7/20/69. How about now?
"One small step for man..." What Neil Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin did that day was, admittedly, a stunt. They were on the moon for less than 24 hours, and they never returned. But they were the first humans to set foot on the ground of someplace other than Earth.
So remember 2011 as the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, or even the Centennial of the Colt 1911 if you will.
But remember also it is the 42nd Anniversary of "...one giant leap for mankind."
Where were you?
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Rights or Reason?
The 'occupy' movement is getting a lot of press. A lot of quite favorable press, in fact, and a lot of people loudly claiming that they're simply exercising their First Ammendment rights.
I think a lot of those people need to go read the Constitution, or accept that they must then also be fine with me walking down Wall Street with a full-auto M16 slung over my shoulder.
"But a firearm is dangerous!" Many would cry loudly.
Yeah? Ever seen what a mob can do? And that's all the 'occupy' movement is, is a mob. They have no leadership, no coherent agenda - and quite clearly many of them are more than willing to resort to violence.
Now, the First Ammendment prohibits Congress from ..."abridging... the right of the people peacefully to assemble..."
Please note. CONGRESS. Via the Tenth, that means the States aren't bound, and I haven't seen anywhere a single Federal uniform doing a darn thing to the 'occupy' mob. The Constitution is being fully observed.
So what if I want to walk down Wall Stree with that rifle? Well... "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." No clarifier that Congress shan't do this, please note. Go ahead, look it up yourself. Again, via the Tenth, since this right is granted to the people, not simply denied to Congress, the States ARE bound.
Let's note anothe key word of the First. Peacefully. Peacefully to assemble. Punching cops is NOT peaceful. We could debate whether violating local ordinances is peaceful, and I'm not entirely sure myself, but as a former member of public safety, I can assure you that punching uniformed public safety personnel in the performance of their duty is NOT peaceful.
Cops aren't perfect, and do get carried away. Part of that, in this case, is because any long-serving cop in a major city has seen very clearly what a mob can do, and they know that you can't appeal to a mob's better nature. Once a mob is in full howl reason is out the window. You can reason with a person, even a very angry or even unstable person. Reasoning with two is a dozen times as hard. Reasoning with ten? Once their blood is up, don't bother. A good orator can still steer them, channel them, but he's not REASONING with them, he's FEEDING them.
Now let's apply the cop test to the Second. Are cops on guard around people with firearms? Surely. If you haven't seen a gunshot wound first hand, you haven't been a cop or a medic in a major city very long. They don't wear those optimistically titled 'bullet proof' vests because they're fashionable. But you can still reason with someone with a firearm. Quite often, even someone who's already drawn a firearm. Again, cops do this - they talk down people who are armed and dangerous.
So, do you support the 'occupy' movement's 'right' to camp out on a mix of public and private property while they wait for a miraclulous solution to occur to one of their number?
I think a lot of those people need to go read the Constitution, or accept that they must then also be fine with me walking down Wall Street with a full-auto M16 slung over my shoulder.
"But a firearm is dangerous!" Many would cry loudly.
Yeah? Ever seen what a mob can do? And that's all the 'occupy' movement is, is a mob. They have no leadership, no coherent agenda - and quite clearly many of them are more than willing to resort to violence.
Now, the First Ammendment prohibits Congress from ..."abridging... the right of the people peacefully to assemble..."
Please note. CONGRESS. Via the Tenth, that means the States aren't bound, and I haven't seen anywhere a single Federal uniform doing a darn thing to the 'occupy' mob. The Constitution is being fully observed.
So what if I want to walk down Wall Stree with that rifle? Well... "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." No clarifier that Congress shan't do this, please note. Go ahead, look it up yourself. Again, via the Tenth, since this right is granted to the people, not simply denied to Congress, the States ARE bound.
Let's note anothe key word of the First. Peacefully. Peacefully to assemble. Punching cops is NOT peaceful. We could debate whether violating local ordinances is peaceful, and I'm not entirely sure myself, but as a former member of public safety, I can assure you that punching uniformed public safety personnel in the performance of their duty is NOT peaceful.
Cops aren't perfect, and do get carried away. Part of that, in this case, is because any long-serving cop in a major city has seen very clearly what a mob can do, and they know that you can't appeal to a mob's better nature. Once a mob is in full howl reason is out the window. You can reason with a person, even a very angry or even unstable person. Reasoning with two is a dozen times as hard. Reasoning with ten? Once their blood is up, don't bother. A good orator can still steer them, channel them, but he's not REASONING with them, he's FEEDING them.
Now let's apply the cop test to the Second. Are cops on guard around people with firearms? Surely. If you haven't seen a gunshot wound first hand, you haven't been a cop or a medic in a major city very long. They don't wear those optimistically titled 'bullet proof' vests because they're fashionable. But you can still reason with someone with a firearm. Quite often, even someone who's already drawn a firearm. Again, cops do this - they talk down people who are armed and dangerous.
So, do you support the 'occupy' movement's 'right' to camp out on a mix of public and private property while they wait for a miraclulous solution to occur to one of their number?
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Elements
Something occurred to me tonight - why are the four classic elements (earth, air, fire, and water) the four classic elements?
It is an easy game of 'one of these things is not like the others'. So who thought fire belonged with the other three?
Really, there are three basic elements - not coincidentally, there are also three basic states of matter. OK, once you get a fair amount of energy or the ability to look at really small things a fourth one shows up, but plasma is a latecomer at best and a stretch at worst.
Even if you do insist on four elements, why fire? Why not the one stable thing you can have in a primitive world that is not like earth, air, or water... life.
You can't, at least not in a primitive world, have a bucket of fire. True, it is hard to conceptualize that an empty bucket is a bucket of air, but once you do it becomes clear that fire doesn't belong, yet there is one thing in your world that is not earth, not air, not water, and yet can fill a bucket: living things. Flesh and leaf, blood and feather. Life becomes the fourth element that weaves through the other three, while most fire can only survive in one.
It is an easy game of 'one of these things is not like the others'. So who thought fire belonged with the other three?
Really, there are three basic elements - not coincidentally, there are also three basic states of matter. OK, once you get a fair amount of energy or the ability to look at really small things a fourth one shows up, but plasma is a latecomer at best and a stretch at worst.
Even if you do insist on four elements, why fire? Why not the one stable thing you can have in a primitive world that is not like earth, air, or water... life.
You can't, at least not in a primitive world, have a bucket of fire. True, it is hard to conceptualize that an empty bucket is a bucket of air, but once you do it becomes clear that fire doesn't belong, yet there is one thing in your world that is not earth, not air, not water, and yet can fill a bucket: living things. Flesh and leaf, blood and feather. Life becomes the fourth element that weaves through the other three, while most fire can only survive in one.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Auto Work
OK, I give up, why does anything on a car cost so @%^^@#! much to do?
The parts are unreasonably expensive - AIRCRAFT PARTS often don't cost that much, and anything that flies gets a huge cost penalty from the fact that one must deal with the FAA. Trust me on this, that ain't cheap.
I used to assume that much of what had to be done must require extremely skilled technicians. Slowly I've ruled out most of the tasks however, and this weekend I ruled out body work requiring high skill/experience.
This weekend with a spray can of paint, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a sanding pad, and a roll of paper towels I eliminated a score of minor scratches, scrapes, etc. in Lupae's paint job. You really can't tell the new from the old at a distance of more than a few feet anywhere, and in some cases I have a hard time spotting the new paint from an inch away.
I'm hardly what you'd call a spray-can master, so what's the deal?
Is there anything that gets done to a car that isn't a ripoff when done by professionals?
The parts are unreasonably expensive - AIRCRAFT PARTS often don't cost that much, and anything that flies gets a huge cost penalty from the fact that one must deal with the FAA. Trust me on this, that ain't cheap.
I used to assume that much of what had to be done must require extremely skilled technicians. Slowly I've ruled out most of the tasks however, and this weekend I ruled out body work requiring high skill/experience.
This weekend with a spray can of paint, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a sanding pad, and a roll of paper towels I eliminated a score of minor scratches, scrapes, etc. in Lupae's paint job. You really can't tell the new from the old at a distance of more than a few feet anywhere, and in some cases I have a hard time spotting the new paint from an inch away.
I'm hardly what you'd call a spray-can master, so what's the deal?
Is there anything that gets done to a car that isn't a ripoff when done by professionals?
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