The latest amusing TV commercial has the AFLAC duck undergoing physical therapy, swimming, arm and biceps machines, stair climbing and all the rest. It's as funny as the GIECO gecko flubbing his lines filming a new commercial.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Littoral Combat ships
Question: What is a littoral and how do you combat it? Most warships have names that suggest what the ship is supposed to do. Destroyer, battleship, aircraft carrier, mine sweeper, and so on. Even a land lubber can form an idea of what such a ship is supposed to do. Where as combating littorals draws a blank, even among sea goers.
The dictionary defines littoral as seashore or coast. So presumably the littoral combat ship (LCS) is supposed to operate close to shore. In the old days such a ship was called "coast defense", but real Navy officers want to operate world wide and in blue water, and so "coast defense" became perjorative (bad think) and we have "littoral combat" instead.
The Navy wants a fleet of 50 odd littoral combat ships and already has half a dozen in service or under construction. They are small (2500-3000 tons) fast (40 knots) stealthy, and pricey ($440 million each) which is a lot of money for a small ship. They don't carry the Aegis SAM system to save money, space, and weight. Aegis is big, and effective and has been the standard anti air system on Navy ships for many years. Without Aegis, the littoral combat ship will be in trouble if enemy aircraft appear. LCS is armed with a single 2 inch gun, enough to deal with a Somali pirate motor boat perhaps, but not enough to convince a regular merchantman to stop, change course, or obey orders, not enough for anti air craft work, not enough for shore bombardment, and certainly not enough to fight it out against an enemy destroyer.
LCS does carry a lot of other neat stuff, like a flight deck big enough to operate a couple of helicopters, a stern boat launch well to put Marine landing parties ashore, a dual power plant (gas turbines for the 40 knot dash and diesels for long range cruising). The plating is all sloped to make it stealthy.
LCS doesn't have armor plate and is built to ordinary commercial standards rather than the tougher Navy standards. The Navy has said the LCS is not expected to remain mission capable after taking a hit. A nice way of saying that one hit will sink it. This is not unusual for a Navy ship, certainly WWII destroyers would sink after taking a solid hit.
I would feel better about LCS if they were cheaper. A lot cheaper. And carried a real gun.
The dictionary defines littoral as seashore or coast. So presumably the littoral combat ship (LCS) is supposed to operate close to shore. In the old days such a ship was called "coast defense", but real Navy officers want to operate world wide and in blue water, and so "coast defense" became perjorative (bad think) and we have "littoral combat" instead.
The Navy wants a fleet of 50 odd littoral combat ships and already has half a dozen in service or under construction. They are small (2500-3000 tons) fast (40 knots) stealthy, and pricey ($440 million each) which is a lot of money for a small ship. They don't carry the Aegis SAM system to save money, space, and weight. Aegis is big, and effective and has been the standard anti air system on Navy ships for many years. Without Aegis, the littoral combat ship will be in trouble if enemy aircraft appear. LCS is armed with a single 2 inch gun, enough to deal with a Somali pirate motor boat perhaps, but not enough to convince a regular merchantman to stop, change course, or obey orders, not enough for anti air craft work, not enough for shore bombardment, and certainly not enough to fight it out against an enemy destroyer.
LCS does carry a lot of other neat stuff, like a flight deck big enough to operate a couple of helicopters, a stern boat launch well to put Marine landing parties ashore, a dual power plant (gas turbines for the 40 knot dash and diesels for long range cruising). The plating is all sloped to make it stealthy.
LCS doesn't have armor plate and is built to ordinary commercial standards rather than the tougher Navy standards. The Navy has said the LCS is not expected to remain mission capable after taking a hit. A nice way of saying that one hit will sink it. This is not unusual for a Navy ship, certainly WWII destroyers would sink after taking a solid hit.
I would feel better about LCS if they were cheaper. A lot cheaper. And carried a real gun.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Rutger's Cans a Coach
Some coach at Rutgers is in trouble, as like getting fired, for using bad language and homosexual slurs on his players. The Fox Five talking heads was hashing this over, some of them saying good riddance, others are saying this is the wussification of America, winning coaches have to get in their athlete's faces.
That's one of those things. There is a fine line between pushing the team hard to win, and being an asshole. Without being there, and knowing the coach and the players, and listening to endless video tapes of practices, I would not venture an opinion in this case.
Nor can I offer any rule of thumb to sort things out. All I can say is coaches that I have played for or known, Tom Ludwig, Fred Swan, Col. Raiford, John Roberts, were tough, but they were gentlemen. I never remember them using bad language or belittling players or impugning a player's sexual orientation.
The Fox Five would have done more good if they had attempted to spell out the difference between tough and pushy and being an asshole.
That's one of those things. There is a fine line between pushing the team hard to win, and being an asshole. Without being there, and knowing the coach and the players, and listening to endless video tapes of practices, I would not venture an opinion in this case.
Nor can I offer any rule of thumb to sort things out. All I can say is coaches that I have played for or known, Tom Ludwig, Fred Swan, Col. Raiford, John Roberts, were tough, but they were gentlemen. I never remember them using bad language or belittling players or impugning a player's sexual orientation.
The Fox Five would have done more good if they had attempted to spell out the difference between tough and pushy and being an asshole.
Bicknell's Thrush goes to court
A Vermont green group is going to sue the US Forest Service on behalf of Bicknell's Thrush. They claim the Forest Service isn't doing enough to protect this endangered species.
Bicknell's Thrush didn't even exist before 1995. Up until 1995 thrushes were thrushes, just an ordinary songbird. Somehow in 1995, thrush lovers managed to get Bicknell's Thrush declared a separate species, different in some way from just plain thrushes. The differences are minute, a bird watcher's website warns that Bicknell's Thrush is difficult to distinguish in the field. Anyhow the thrush lovers managed to get Bicknell's Thrush declared an endangered species shortly after getting it declared a species.
Bicknell's Thrush was immediately put to work slowing down skiing at Mittersill. The Forest Service managed to postpone the re opening of the old Mittersill ski trails for many years because green groups claimed that skiing would disturb critical thrush habitat. Finally after much paperwork, it was decided that Bicknell's Thrush didn't nest during ski season and the trails could be skied without endangering the thrush.
The green groups next employed Bicknell's Thrush to slow down the scenic ridgeline wind farms that are disfiguring the NH landscape and raising NH electric bills. According to the Littleton Courier, they are giving the thrush some backup by hiring lawyers and going to court.
If we worked at it, we might be able to convince the Forest Service that the Northern Pass project is bad for our favorite thrush.
Bicknell's Thrush didn't even exist before 1995. Up until 1995 thrushes were thrushes, just an ordinary songbird. Somehow in 1995, thrush lovers managed to get Bicknell's Thrush declared a separate species, different in some way from just plain thrushes. The differences are minute, a bird watcher's website warns that Bicknell's Thrush is difficult to distinguish in the field. Anyhow the thrush lovers managed to get Bicknell's Thrush declared an endangered species shortly after getting it declared a species.
Bicknell's Thrush was immediately put to work slowing down skiing at Mittersill. The Forest Service managed to postpone the re opening of the old Mittersill ski trails for many years because green groups claimed that skiing would disturb critical thrush habitat. Finally after much paperwork, it was decided that Bicknell's Thrush didn't nest during ski season and the trails could be skied without endangering the thrush.
The green groups next employed Bicknell's Thrush to slow down the scenic ridgeline wind farms that are disfiguring the NH landscape and raising NH electric bills. According to the Littleton Courier, they are giving the thrush some backup by hiring lawyers and going to court.
If we worked at it, we might be able to convince the Forest Service that the Northern Pass project is bad for our favorite thrush.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
No Nukes is Good Nukes?
Fox TV was having a discussion of US nuclear weapons policy yesterday. They had a guy saying that the US ought to get out of the nuke business, reduce our arsenal to zero, make the country nuke free. This was a sacred mission for this guy.
I don't agree. US nuclear superiority kept the cold war cold for fifty years. That's a pretty good track record. Let's not mess it up. The world is OK with the Americans having most of the nukes. They figure we will do the right thing by them.
The anti nuke guy passed out a whopper and no one called him on it. He claimed that the number of nuclear states is smaller today than it was in the past. Not true. The number of nuclear states has been rising slowly since 1945. No nuclear state has ever given up nukes
I don't agree. US nuclear superiority kept the cold war cold for fifty years. That's a pretty good track record. Let's not mess it up. The world is OK with the Americans having most of the nukes. They figure we will do the right thing by them.
The anti nuke guy passed out a whopper and no one called him on it. He claimed that the number of nuclear states is smaller today than it was in the past. Not true. The number of nuclear states has been rising slowly since 1945. No nuclear state has ever given up nukes
Monday, April 1, 2013
Too many software guys with nothing to do
Facebook clearly has too much spare time. Just to keep busy, they rearranged my "timeline" Now the text is on the left and the photos on the right. Used to be the other way round.
This is a constructive use of software development resources?
This is a constructive use of software development resources?
Florida girls are pretty tough
This was on TV. Florida, nice sunny day, an elementary school building. Nice and neat and well kept. Lawn is mowed, sidewalks are weed free. All is in order except, for a seven foot alligator strolling along the sidewalk. Gator is in an ugly mood, snaps at the camera, snaps at everything.
The school resource officer, a strapping young blonde woman walks up to the gator and drops a rope around its neck. This sets the gator off, lot of writhing and snapping and bad temper. Blonde is not fazed, she gets the gator turned upside down and duct tapes its jaws shut. Then she calls animal rescue to haul it away. All in a day's work. She didn't even get her uniform mussed up.
Pretty tough young lady.
The school resource officer, a strapping young blonde woman walks up to the gator and drops a rope around its neck. This sets the gator off, lot of writhing and snapping and bad temper. Blonde is not fazed, she gets the gator turned upside down and duct tapes its jaws shut. Then she calls animal rescue to haul it away. All in a day's work. She didn't even get her uniform mussed up.
Pretty tough young lady.
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