Cooking for one, Corn on the Cob

Good easy way to cook corn on the cob.  Buy your corn in the husk.  Soak corn in water for 10-15 minutes, long enough to get the husk good and moist.  Then pop the corn in the oven or on the grill for 35-45 minutes.  The kernels steam in the husk and come out exceptionally sweet. With butter and salt  it's delicious.
   This works for a single ear, or a dozen ears. 

Electronic Health Records hacked

This morning's NPR had a story concerning analysis of thousands of electronic health records to come to a conclusion that some widely used drug wasn't good for patients.  Can't remember what the drug's name was, nor how serious the problem was.
  The disturbing part about this, is giving outside snoopers access to my medical records.  My medical records are supposed to be private.  Medical records often contain derogatory information, like mental health problems, AIDS, chronic illnesses that make a person unemployable.  To have "researchers" going thru personal health records is bad.  To be fair, the NPR piece claimed that names had be redacted.  Yeah, Right. 
   Obamacare demands the all doctor's put all patient's medical records into computers (electronic health records) where they can be hacked and snooped. 

Let's fix ISIS for good

The Obama administration admitted that they are sending another 450 US troops to Iraq, to do some training.   They were going to set up a new training base near Ramadi.  
   If we wanted, they could recruit and train a good Sunni Iraqi army, under US control in a couple of months.  Just offer enlistment, with steady pay in US dollars, decent US rations, and a good uniform, possibly even a flak jacket.  Give 'em a couple of months of basic training, have the Americans run the promotion boards to fill out the squad and platoon NCO positions with good men, and I think we could have a 10,000 man army in Iraq that would fight, and we could keep 'em fighting against ISIS rather than joining political coups in Baghdad. 
   We did something like this in Laos, 50 years ago, and it worked. 
    Of course Obama would never approve. 

John W. Campbell, Creator of modern science fiction

John Campbell started as a science fiction writer himself in the 1930's.  I've read some of his stuff, not bad, but except for "Who Goes There", not truly memorable stuff.  He took the position of editor at Astounding Science Fiction magazine sometime before WWII.  He quickly moved Astounding up from just another pulp fiction rag to the leading science fiction magazine.  He asked his writers for good stories, with plot, with decent characters, and a thought provoking idea.  And the writers delivered.  Campbell found new writers and encouraged them to write for Astounding.  Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein, H. Beam Piper, Hal Clement, James H. Schmitz, Poul Andersen and many others were discovered and brought into science fiction writing by Campbell.  On the way, Campbell had plenty of time to explain his ideas  about the proper science fiction story.  Pretty much everyone came around to Campbell's way of thinking, and science fiction is better for it. 
   Campbell stayed on at Astounding into the 1970's.  He managed to change the name of the magazine to the more respectable sounding Analog Science Fiction.  

Save Money, disband the TSA

The TSA hassling and groping of passengers does nothing for air line security, it just drives away paying passengers.  Doesn't matter if the would be hijackers get weapons on board, the passengers will not allow them to take over the aircraft.  Flight 93 proved that.   Since that dreadful day there have been a number of incidents where unruly passengers were subdued, in one case by use of a fire axe, in flight by ordinary passengers.  Passengers know that should hijackers take over the aircraft, they will die in the resulting crash, which is plenty of motivation to heroic action.  In actual fact we would be safer in the air  if all the passengers carried concealed handguns. 
   Recent press stories of the total failure of TSA gropers to find 95% of concealed weapons carried onto aircraft by inspectors, failure to detect 73 airport workers who obtained airport jobs and security badges despite being on the terrorist watch list, and plundering passenger's luggage,  show that we would be better off if we disbanded the TSA completely. It would save money, and put a lot of democratic voters out of a job.  Those are good things.
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   Save money, increase security, make air travel less distasteful, disband the TSA. What's not to like?

Not all books are created equal

The Abby Greenleaf library in Franconia holds a used book sale over the 4th of July.  And my bookshelves are filled to overflowing.  So, I filled an empty liquor carton with some books I figured I will never want to read again and took 'em down to the book sale. 
   Well it seems that all books are not created equal.  The librarian had a written list of book they won't accept for the book sale. The black list includes:
Books in poor condition
Computer manuals
Encycopedias
Harlequin type romance novels
large collections of religeous or spiritual books
Magazines
Reader's Digest condensed books
Textbooks and reference books
Travel books older than 5 years.

Well, I mostly agree with this black list.  This is stuff that nobody will ever buy, leaving the librarians with the chore of hauling them down to the dump (excuse me transfer station).  Although the romance novels ought to sell to girls of the right age, not that I would ever read such.  Well, maybe librarians are down on romance novels on general principles. 

It pays to be first.

American railroads ran on steam locomotives thruout World War II.  Immediately after the war they began to convert to diesel locomotives.  By 1957, a mere 12 years, diesel conversion was mostly done.  Only the diehard Norfolk and Western was still running steam.  We are talking about replacing every locomotive in service in a mere 12 years.  That is one heck of a lot of locomotives.
   And, one company, the Electro Motive Division of General Motors gained the bulk of this business.  Other locomotive builders, Baldwin, ALCO, Fairbanks Morse, Ingersoll Rand, and General Electric  were driven from the market.  EMD sold 9 out of 10 locomotives in the early post war years.
   What gave EMD the edge?  Back before the war, EMD had been working hard to grow self propelled passenger rail cars into real road freight locomotives.  In 1939, on the eve of war, EMD put the 1300 horsepower FT freighter on the market.  There had been a few switch locomotives, of 600 horsepower or such, and low speed trucks built, but the FT was the first unit with enough power to move a big train at road speed.  Not only that, but the 1300 horsepower units could be coupled together, to form four unit lashups with 5200 horsepower.  That was enough to move anything, over any kind of mountain.  EMD managed to build and sell a few dozen units before WWII.
   When America joined WWII, the government set up the War Production Board to mobilize American industry for the existential struggle.  The new high tech diesel engines were needed for submarines, to power air and army bases, and dozens of other crucial tasks.  War Production told the railroads they would have to make do with the traditional steam locomotives, there was a war on, the the diesels were needed to fight it.  The only diesel railroad locomotives running were the few dozen that EMD had put on the rails.  They ran thruout the war, and those teething troubles that new machines are subject to were discovered and fixed before the war ended.
   So, when the post war locomotive boom began, EMD was the only company with a tested, debugged, and reliable design.  The also rans had to debug their new products, at the customers expense.  The customers noticed, and flocked to the reliable EMD product.  Which gave EMD the entire North American locomotive market for decades. 
It pays to be first.