The Silicon Graybeard

Every so often you come across a story that just kinda tickles some neurons, or something.  I find it hard to forget.

So a few months ago, the UK Natural Environment Research Council opened a contest to name a new research vessel.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Weird history, yes, but history nevertheless.

Just a day after the NERC launched its poll to name the £200m vessel – which will first head to Antarctica in 2019 – the clear favourite was RRS Boaty McBoatface, with well over 18,000 votes. The RRS stands for royal research ship.

It was quite the competition until it closed on March 16,

Some undoubtedly were, with its website, which kept crashing on Sunday under the weight of traffic, showing dozens of serious suggestions connected to inspiring figures such as Sir David Attenborough, or names such as Polar Dream.

But the bulk of entries were distinctly less sober. Aside from the leading contender, ideas included Its Bloody Cold Here, What Iceberg, Captain Haddock, Big Shipinnit, Science!!! and Big Metal Floaty Thingy-thing.

Seriously, my UK friends: I love you.  

Anyway, the NERC has always said that they were going to view the winning name as a suggestion rather than swearing they'd use it, lest they find themselves sailing, as the Guardian put it, "...in a vessel that sounds like it was christened by a five-year-old who has drunk three cartons of Capri-Sun."
The RRS Insert Name Here.  Courtesy of the Guardian.

The Guardian waxes poetic over the name, reaching truly epic levels of tongue-in-cheekiness in anguish that the NERC will not use Boaty McBoatface as the vessel's name.  You should go RTWT.  

Boaty McBoatface was too beautiful to live. He was a rare and precious flower, simply not cut out for these ugly times. We created Boaty McBoatface. We created him after our own image, in a rush of optimism, deluding ourselves that he was ever worth a damn. Boaty McBoatface was a perfect idea in an imperfect world. He was all that we were not. He was strong. He was resolute. Truly, he was Boaty McBoatface.

Boaty McBoatface is dead. The government killed him.

Actually, that’s an exaggeration. The government has strongly hinted that it’s about to kill Boaty McBoatface, for it understands that vanquished hope is a more powerful tool than relentless despair. Present the people with an idol, then smash it before their eyes. Soon they will learn that resistance is futile, and the state’s power is absolute.

To be technical, the RRS Insert Name Here isn't a boat, she's a ship.  Ships are big enough to carry boats, which she will; boats don't carry ships.  We can't just change the name to Shippy McShipface, though, first because of the inevitable mispronunciations that will follow, but also because the people chose the name Boaty McBoatface.  She deserves to be Boaty McBoatface whether or not the other research ships laugh at her behind her back. 

I'm talking about the mainstream media's reaction to Garland. 

After January's Charlie Hebdo attacks, they were full of "Je Suis Charlie" and solidarity.  Condemnation of the attackers (not full-throated loud, still tons of PC-crap).  There was some "they had it coming" talk but the strong current was blaming the perpetrators. 

Here we are barely four months later and this time the tone is virtually completely blaming the victim.  "I support free speech, BUT...";  "Pamela Geller has the right, BUT..."  The UK Mail claims to be the most widely read news site in the English language and they attacked Pam on May 3rd, literally hours after the attack, with a headline proclaiming her "long history of hatred".  The NY Times, probably ashamed to be beaten to victim-blaming, declared her to be purely motivated by hate.

Charlie Hebdo is a publication whose stock in trade has always been graphic satires of politicians and religions, whether Catholic, Jewish or Muslim. By contrast, Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam campaigner behind the Texas event, has a long history of declarations and actions motivated purely by hatred for Muslims.

To steal a quote from Mark Steyn,

The media “narrative” of the last week is that some Zionist temptress was walking down the street in Garland in a too short skirt and hoisted it to reveal her Mohammed thong – oops, my apologies, her Prophet Mohammed thong (PBUH) – and thereby inflamed two otherwise law-abiding ISIS supporters peacefully minding their own business.

To channel Heinlein, the correct way to punctuate, "I support free speech, but -- " is with a period after the "but".    Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.  As everyone has pointed out, free speech is only important when we don't agree.  The more disagreement, the more free speech is needed.  The Mail, the NY Times, NPR, Bill O'Reilly, and all the people who have started their attacks on the victim are sanctimonious, hypocritical cowards.  Pamela Geller has the nerve to stand up and know she's putting a target on her chest.  She is doing this to demonstrate just how bad the jihad problem is.

This isn't simple dhimmitude, the media being docile pets to appease their Islamic masters, for the Lamestream Media it's America's insane politics writ large.  The attack on Charlie Hebdo was OK to be against, because there were no Republicans involved.  The attack on Pamela Geller was on an American Jew on American soil; it could end up affecting the 2016 election.  "If we support her, we may end up giving ammunition to a Republican". 
Nevertheless, this is fantasy...

Me, Je Suis Pamela Geller.

Yet again, the civilized world has to bear not only the depraved antics of the Muslim murderers, we have to bear the pea-brained apologists telling us, "it's the religion of peace" or "yes, but it's just a small minority", or "what about the Christians or Jews or murder in the name of their religion?". 

The news broke this morning while I was about to leave for work.  Mrs. Graybeard assumed it was Muslim terrorists; I said, "I'll bet you any amount of money it wasn't the Amish".  She replied, "When was the last time a busload of Rabbis did something like this?"

Of course we knew it was Muslims because it virtually always - always - is.  And that's a problem.
Google and my high school French translate that as: "I'm not afraid of reprisals.  I have no kids, no wife, no car, no credit.  It probably makes it a bit pompous, but I prefer to die standing than to live kneeling".  

I heard Dr Zuhdi Jasser, head of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Cardiologist/Internist, and US Navy veteran, on Dana Loesch's TV show tonight.  Dr. Jasser's organization is devoted to pushing for a reformation movement in Islam similar to the Christian reformation.  One of his points was that the politically correct constant pandering to the violent Muslims by not condemning their views is actually giving them the advantage in society.  The Western groups saying all religions are the same are preventing the dialog and change that Islam needs.  Political correctness, yet again, is doing the exact wrong thing, and endangering us all. 
The attack leaves me saddened, but more than that, it leaves me angry.  I can easily see something like that happen here in America.  I can easily see that happening to fellow bloggers whom I consider friends.  There's a joke going around you may have heard that I'll give the name "cowboys and muslims" to.  Without repeating the whole joke (here) the gist of it is a Montana cowboy, a Native American (hmm, I'm a native American... let's call him a Blackfeet Indian) and a muslim end up sitting next to each other in an airport.  The Indian bemoans the fact that his people were once many and now they are few; the Muslim replies his people were one few in this land and now they are many, so why do you think that is?  The Cowboy replies, "That's because we ain't played Cowboys and muslims, yet, boy". 

I think the time is coming when we're going to need to play a serious game of Cowboys and muslims. None of this "run a few fighter sorties"; more like "What the hell do you mean we're out of ICBMs and MIRVs??"

Je suis Charlie.  Nous sommes tous Charlie, si nous nous soucions

Texas Instruments announced the Regency TR-1, the first commercial consumer transistor radio.

Today, transistors that would be used in an AM radio are silicon, but in the early 1950s (and for another 15 to 20 years) another element, germanium was used in making most transistors.  TI had been making germanium transistors but the market had been slow to respond, comfortable with vacuum tubes.  A vacuum tube portable radio was a large thing to lug around.  The typical portable tube radio of the 1950s was about the size and weight of a lunchbox, and was powered by several heavy, non-rechargeable batteries. A transistor radio could fit in a pocket, weigh half a pound, and be powered by a single, small, 9V battery.
With these pros in mind, TI’s executive vice president Pat Haggerty “decided that the electronics industry needed a transistor wake-up call and that a small radio would provide it,” according to TI’s Web site. 

TI started down the path to the TR-1 in the spring of 1954.  Although they had made transistors for a few years, individual transistors were hand made(!) and radios made with them frequently needed manually selected parts, due to the varying parameters in the production transistors.  TI partnered with Regency Electronics, where engineer Richard Koch developed a feedback circuit that accommodated the variation in the transistors.  With this circuit, it was possible to open the floodgates of manufacturing, stuffing printed wiring boards with miniature parts to make the pocket-sized receiver.

The new transistor radio would be introduced in New York and Los Angeles by mid-October to take advantage of holiday sales. The 5×3×1¼-inch radio used four TI transistors and a TI subminiature output transformer.  When it went on sale on November 1, the Regency TR-1 cost $49.95. Although its price was high in terms of 1950s dollars, nearly 100,000 of the pocket radios were sold in a year.

Transistor radios were more than a new market, they became a cultural icon and gave rise to much of the music-centered culture of the 50s and 60s, from Elvis to the Beach Party movies of the late 50s/early 60s to the Beatles, the Beach Boys and beyond.  It has been estimated that over seven billion transistor radios have been manufactured.  

Put down the stick, Opie.  (Eric Allie at Townhall). 

Is there a world out there today?  I've been home rearranging all day.  We bought a sound bar for the TV/home entertainment center and had to tear that apart and rebuild it.  Along the way we thought of another dozen things that needed to be done, moved, or reconnected, and a few things to do to get the workshop back in shape (my CNC mill and stuff).   I'm running out of day.

I see the Algerians proved yet again that if you're going to be a contractor overseas in the oil/gas business and get taken captive, you better hope it's the US specops that come to get you.  The US does not subscribe to the "kill them all, let Allah sort them out" philosophy.  Yet.

If you're in the Bulgarian equivalent of the Secret Service, I expect you're going to questioned about how something like this can happen.  Dudes with guns should not get this close to a president. 

A young mother gets knifed in Bed Bath & Beyond?  I guess the media doesn't care since this wasn't a shooting, but to slash a total stranger with a knife a dozen times, puncture both lungs... why is this guy wasting oxygen?  IMO, he should have been locked up for a thorough evaluation, a month or two in a rubber room, when he set a cat on fire a few weeks ago.  What's up with psychologists not locking these guys up?  Ann Coulter writes. 

While the randomness of the crime is horrific, another young woman, this one a part-time model in Kentucky, was attacked by two other women who wanted to rearrange her face with razors.  While this one might be marginally more understandable - it might involve jealousy about an ex-boyfriend - here's a hint, ladies: assault with a deadly weapon is never an appropriate way to argue. 

Confidential to the gun grabbers: violent crime doesn't always happen to someone else, and it doesn't always happen in some mythical "bad part of town" that you don't live in and can ignore.  Every trained, concealed carry permit holder knows the axiom that if you're going somewhere you think you're going to need a gun, you don't go there!  Sometimes it happens to completely innocent people in a suburban home furnishings store or in a busy mall. 

New Years is often a time for sappy remembrance pieces on the news and even on the blogs.  Thankfully there isn't much of that around this year - and there won't be any sappiness here.  I do (as always) have a few of my odd perspectives to pass along.  Enter our annual friend, Janus, stage left...
The reason why there are few sappy "biggest news of 2011" stories on the air appears to be the Iowa caucuses, which, judging by the palpable excitement of breathless news bimbos, are going to be any minute now.  The Iowa caucuses are such a big deal because they mean just about nothing.  Pretty much exactly nothing.  The Stupid Party winner last time was Mike Huckabee, who went on, flush from that victory to ... nothing.  He appears to have gained back about 50 pounds (like I should talk...) and hosts a variety show.  The Iowa thingy isn't even an election, so anyone with a good organization can bring people from a thousand miles away to caucus.  Whatever that is.  New Hampshire is a real primary, and means marginally more.  At most, these early things sort out some real marginal candidates.  Maybe, maybe, they alert us to an unknown who has put together a popular approach (Bamster won last time).  As far as campaigning goes, wake me in a month or two.  Actually, living in Florida, I probably need to be awake sooner, since we vote January 31. 

News pundits regularly try to predict what's coming in the new year, but the major news stories of the year are never guessed. 

I'd say the biggest story of 2011 was the Japanese quake and tsunami - of course that couldn't be predicted.  Probably the next biggest story would be the Arab uprisings which started in Tunisia and consumed the region; again, unpredicted.  In the coming global war, this might be the true "archduke Ferdinand moment" (my reference was to the coming financial collapse).  The combination of the Islamists trying to establish a caliphate working with socialists trying to collapse the west could be the most important story of the year, for its potential, but I don't recall that being predicted this time last year.  Finally, the biggest domestic story was probably the Occupy Whatever idiots (all of what I've written is here, I think).  A marriage of convenience between zero-government anarchists and total-government socialists, this seems to go back to a talk by an SEIU vice-president last spring, but was not predicted.  Occupy got enough good will from the Evil party - and even some III patriots - that you can expect them back when the weather warms a little.  The potential I see is for them to act up so badly that the (bankrupt) cities can't handle the expenses.  Perhaps they assassinate a politician they don't like, or duplicate the Chicago 1968 DNC riots.  The (bankrupt) cities beg the (bankrupt) feds for help, and the National Guard is called up.  Martial law is enacted, giving the fascists the chance to surround the white house with tanks and address the (right wing) domestic terrorism problem.  This could make the last presidential election The Last Presidential Election. 

While Fast and Furious is a story that gets most of us ready to heat up tar and gather feathers, it has yet to as much national traction as it deserves.  The excellent work of Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea goes without saying; the right folks know who broke this story.  Kudos to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS for trying to make this the national story it deserves to be. Our runaway federal debt with no elected politicians calling for actual spending cuts should be a big story, but only us deficit-geeks care about it.  Until the collapse. 

Actually, looking at my post for New Year 2011, most of it still goes, and worked out pretty accurately.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of you who stop by and read my rantings.  A year ago, Sitemeter said I got about 70 visits per day average; this last week it was 350 per day average.  My aim is to make it worth both of our time. 

Happy New Year to all.  May we look back some day and say 2011 was the worst year we ever went through. 

"She's the kind of a girl,
who makes the News of the World
yes, you could say she was attractively built"
- Polythene Pam, Lennon and McCartney, 1969, Abbey Road B Side

The guy progressives think is evil incarnate because his media empire includes Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, killed the British tabloid News of the World this week, over a "scandal" involving hacking the phones of a dead schoolgirl, some victims of the 7/7 Tube bombings and some British servicemen who died in Afghanistan.  Classless? No doubt.  Rude?  You betcha.  But that's what tabloids do. The News of the World was a 168 year old newspaper and still wildly popular - can the NY Times say as much?  As the inimitable one, Mark Steyn, said over at National Review,

"Nobody much cares if the Aussie supermodel Elle Macpherson and other denizens of the demimonde get their voicemails intercepted, but dead schoolgirls and soldiers changed the nature of the story, and events moved swiftly. On Thursday, Rupert Murdoch’s son and heir announced the entire newspaper would be closed down. The whole thing. Gone."

and to follow up:

"Last Sunday, it was the biggest-selling newspaper in the United Kingdom and Europe. This Sunday, it’s history. To put it in American terms, consider those George Soros–funded websites claiming they pressured Fox into “firing” Glenn Beck. This is the equivalent of pressuring Mr. Murdoch into closing down the entire Fox News network."

Now the left knows exactly what it has to do to get Murdoch to flinch.  Just bait someone in the hated news service du jour, and keep baiting until they do something that gets a reaction.  Expect this to step up.   

Congress?  We Don't Need No Steenkeeng Congress!

The White House is starting to believe they don't need congressional approval to raise the debt ceiling.  Such sterling legal scholars as Chuckie Schumer and even the occasionally-sane Chuck Grassley are starting to say such things.  Schumer, of course, has taken life on as the politically correct replacement for the phrase, "when the Schumer hits the fan" or "Schumer flows downhill", so he's already a laughing stock.  Grassley is doing good work on Gunwalker/Fast and Furious, and does display occasional cogency.  On the other hand, Grassley is one of the guys who got corn ethanol subsidies passed.  He is from Iowa, after all, a corn-intensive state, and bringing home the bacon, um, bringing home the bread, or cornbread is what he thinks his job is.   

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?  The debt ceiling has been a legal falsehood since 1917 - false in the sense that a ceiling has never, never, been held when congress wanted to spend more.  So now, when we finally might have the stupid party invertebrates in congress growing the most rudimentary spines and standing up against spending, the president is going to decide this?  Excuse me? 

And, of course, not passing a debt ceiling doesn't mean default - I'm tired of hearing that.  It simply means we have to eek by on $200 billion per month tax income; a lot, but 2/3 of what they want to spend. 

Casey Anthony,  Planned Parenthood's Mother of the Year, Not Guilty

I really shouldn't say much about this, because I did my best to avoid the story.  It was wall to wall on the local news when the poor little girl disappeared, and has been in the news ever since.  For a couple of years, I've been hitting the mute button when coverage came on TV.  As I said in the OJ case, you'd have to be a pretty bad writer to not be able to come up with some plausible scenarios where someone else did the murder.  I know because I'm a pretty bad writer, and I can come up with at least a few. 

So not being contaminated by any, you know, actual facts, I can pontificate with the best of the media.  I think the jury simply concluded the state didn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.  As others have said, our legal system is deliberately set up with the view "it's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to hang one innocent man".  I don't think we measure up to that, even on our best days, but it's a worthy goal.  We go so far as to allow juries to nullify laws they find immoral or "wrong" - even if the defendant is thought to have violated that law - by finding them not guilty.  Is young Miss Anthony a psychotic?  Sure looks like it to me.  But being psychotic and being a murderer are not identically equal. 

"...although I will say that there is no truth to the rumor I’m starting that the National Organization for Women (NOW) will be honoring Casey as the “Woman of the Year” for pioneering abortion in the 11th trimester." 

(source)
And if you're as old as I am, you'll remember a two season long satire show in the 1960s called "That Was The Week That Was".