Why Not Be Creative When You Go?

From the BBC, a picture-album article about a craftsman in Accra, Ghana, who makes some very interesting custom coffins for people. This guy should get in with Novica, he'd make some decent money selling to an international market. If you wanted to find someone doing custom coffins stateside, you could go with Outhouse Charlie -- alas, his website isn't up yet, so there are no examples of his work. Bet you he could make you some mad crazy wooden or fiberglass coffins, though...

@#$@^% AWESOME!

Okay, okay. So I'm drunk on two-water--well, one-water--grog. I admit it. But Firefly is AWESOME. I remember, while reading critical reviews of science-fiction, about the relationship between westerns and science-fictions. In particular, Star Trek was supposed to be some great Space Western. Well, the folks who did Firefly really took the whole western theme to heart. Firefly IS a space western, with the guns and the accents and the music and EVERYTHING, mixed in with great humor. And oh, how I weep that it was on Fox, the people who never advertise anything decent (Millenium and Space Above and Beyond springing to mind) and then cancelling it after a small number of episodes if the bloody advertiser response is not great enough, damn their soullless hearts. 'Cause I went and bought Firefly and have just watched the first episode and MY GOD, it's WONDERFUL. Go thou forth and buy it, it's incredible!

"Hathcock". "Hancock". Coincidence?

Blackfive, from whose blog I got the information about the teddy bear drive, also has a link to an article about a Marine Corps sniper who took out an insurgent from 1,050 yards away. Magic most grim & deadly.

Cookies

The Bonhomme Richard is hard at work.

In support of Operation Unified Assistance, multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (BHR) (LHD 6) delivered more than 7,000 pounds of humanitarian assistance Jan. 7 to disaster stricken areas of Sumatra, including Banda Aceh and Blagpidie.

There's a nice picture at the site of U.S. Marines helping to pack huge crates of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) for the victims of the tsunamis. My favorite part of the article is this:

To uplift the spirits of the local population in the hard hit Banda Aceh area, BHR’s culinary specialists worked around the clock Jan. 6, with all ovens full speed ahead, to bake more than 22,400 cookies for the people around northern Sumatra.

This is awesome -- not only are the Navy recipes for cookies really good (I have gained 10 pounds since being onboard, alas), but there's just something special about cookies. When we're at sea, the ship often has to refuel and take on supplies. On deployment, that's every three days or so, usually, depending on what's going on. It's traditional for the ships to swap stuff, usually by tying it in a plastic bag to one of the fuel hoses: some ship's hats or coins (coins are very popular), photos, that sort of thing. We usually made up a huge box of cookies, which we'd triple-wrap in plastic and send back to the ship as a thank-you. Reading about the Bonhomme Richard's cookies made me remember this. "Let them eat cake, huh?" Detractors might scoff, but I think instead that it's more like hugging someone you can't reach. The military can seem cold and distant, but it's these sorts of things -- the cookies, or the teddy bears that Gunny Sergeant Mike got together to send to the children of Iraq -- that remind you that the military is a group of human beings who, minus the occassional person who doesn't care about anything, really do care about the people they're helping or defending.

If Only It Could Really Do This

I'm sure you've already seen this, all you hip people who regularly browse the sites devoted to cool commercials or who are on the cc: lists of all of the well-connected people at work. I don't look around as much as I should, and not too many of the people I work with forward me much of anything (except uncool things like watchbills), so I ran into this for the first time quite recently. If you haven't seen it, check it out -- it is really neat. Richard Eriksson talks about it and has links to an article about how the video was made, as well as a link to the effects studio that made it, The Embassy. It doesn't look like they've made much, but this one is a real standout. I love the little details, such as the sidepanels shifting as the arms move and the fact that the animation is carried through a shaky man-on-the-scene cut in between the steadycam and static camera cuts. It makes me happy. Enjoy!

Who Benefits?

Ah, modern America. I'm waiting for an oil change at Hall Honda and they've installed Web access in the waiting lobby. I love these guys.

Anyway, I wanted to comment about the new (and inevitable) reporting about the possibilities of the US either causing, or failing to forewarn countries about, the tsunami. James links to some good articles about the whole brouhaha.

First off, I checked out the link on Natalie Solent's article on the "biased BBC" website. It's a BBC article, and say what you will about the BBC, but I think it's cool they allow for the readership to post comments (whether they actually read, think about, or heed those comments is another question). I was disgusted by the article, but heartened by the comments, most of which were along the lines of "this is bull*$#$", pointing out such matters as the fact that the US might, just possibly, do environmental and oceanographic surveys before placing an extremely expensive Naval base somewhere so as to mitigate the effects of wind & weather. It's nice to see that the majority of commentors believe that this is all nonsense. But why does the story come up? Natalie talks about scientific ignorance, and I think that's exactly it: the people who are talking up these conspiracy theories are ignorant of what modern technology is capable of -- to them, the US has this magical ability to communicate; therefore, a failure to communicate must have been intentional.

Let's work this all out: the National Oceanographic people see evidence of this massive earthquake. "Hey," they say. "Big earthquake. We should start telling people." Here's your question: how? Natalie stated it best in her article: "I'm a scientist! Get me the President of Indonesia!" So you're going to use the phone? Okay. How does the information get from NOAA to the people who need it, such as all those fishing villagers and tourists on the beach?

It's easy to get a warning to a Naval Base. Any Naval Base in the world is furry with antennae and fat from all the communications equipment. Communications is absolutely central to military activity -- hell, if something goes down, we have to know about it right away. How do you think we got aid on the way so damn fast?

But to tourists & villagers? How long does it take to get emergency information to the average citizen in the US who has everyday access to what -- for the majority of the world -- is high communications technology? How long did it take the people in the Twin Towers to find out that something was going on, and then to start evacuation? And the majority of them still weren't out by the time the towers came down, which (as I recall) was hours later.

The tsunami travelled at 500 miles per hour. How could we possibly have gotten word to all affected governments in its path in time, and even if we had, how could we (and they) have possibly gotten people out of the way in time?

Yes, the US has access to a dizzying array of technological and communication marvels. This is true. But the fact that we can't employ them doesn't mean that we have some agenda that leads us to let a quarter of a million people die. The technology has to be there on the other side for this to work.

Al, in Brazil, left this comment in the BBC article:

It IS ODD. And I don't think its anti-US sentiment but something a lot more worrying about all these conspiracy theories. What if it isn't just paranoia after all? Should we be scared? Who profits? (With anti sentiment, fear, or else?) Please do approach these questions. Thank you.

Well, I think what's clear is that it's the news outlets' advertisers who profit from this sort of uncritical thinking, because sensation draws readership like an ant trap draws ants.

The One That Got Away

On a lighter note, I have a sea story to relate.

We pulled out of Naval Station Norfolk a while ago. This involves setting the sea & anchor detail -- people whose watches related to the sometimes tricky proposition of pulling away from a pier and getting through restricted navigational waters until we're far enough out to sea to have some "breathing room". The spots in the rivers and bays around here are marked with buoys to indicate navigation channels, and we (mostly) stay in those channels (unless we're in a nice deep bay and some other unnamed ship decides to almost run into us and we have to kick up to full speed and zoom around it, not that that recently happened or anything). I am on the sea & anchor detail -- my job: man one of the M-2HB .50 caliber machine guns we have set up to deter small boats from attacking us. In an ideal situation, we're not shooting anything; instead, we gun watchstanders act as additional lookouts, reporting close contacts up to a central monitoring point. It's a pretty long sea & anchor detail to get out of Norfolk -- about 3 hours. In nice weather, it's great. In winter, especially when it's raining, well, it sucks. But hey, it's an adventure, right?

So anyway, we got underway, and there I was, standing topside (outside) in about 15 layers of clothing. It was actually really nice outside, but the wind was still cold, so I was glad for the fabric (MOM: THANK YOU FOR THE SILK THERMAL UNDERWEAR!). We came across a gaggle of fishing boats, and most of them were outside the channel in their little boats. One, though, was either on the edge of the channel or slightly inside it. So he was fairly close to where we were going to go -- not so close as to cause us to worry about collision but, as I said to my partner at the time, "oh, man, we're gonna swamp that guy with our wake". So we steam by him, and see the reason why he's not getting out of our way: he's got a net on a pole and is trying to catch a fish he's hooked that's this big <makes classic 'fish-that-got-away' size sign with hands>. He tries for it once, misses. Tries for it again, and at this point our wake has hit his boat and sets it to rocking. He misses again and the fish is gone.

"OHHHHHH!" He throws up his hands and yells, in that classic frustrated voice. We've been watching this whole scene, too, so we throw up our hands and yell in sympathy too.

The guy thumps back on his back in his boat, slapping his hands to his face, then gets up and yells, "HE GOT MY LURE!" I do the Italian hand-waving thing and yell "OH NO!" in sympathy -- my partner busts out laughing. So I turned to him and said, "Dude!" But the guy on the boat was laughing too, and we all waved at each other as the McFaul pulled away.

People used to wave at us when we sailed on by, I'm told. I don't see it that often; it makes for a rather chilly feeling when coming or going. I wonder what people think, when they just watch as we go by: are they worried we'll shoot them? Do they think we're all baby killers? Are they just hung over and not in the mood? I don't know. But that was a really cool moment (except that it was a shame that the guy lost the fish -- it really was this big). It's nice to make a connection with the folks we're serving out to sea, out to sea.

Half-Masted Flags

Ever since the tsunami disaster, all the ships at Norfolk Naval Base (and the base) have half-masted their flags. It's a way to show respect for those who have died, and to indicate that the service is in mourning for their loss We went to another installation, one with a crane, and they'd rigged their flag to hang from the crane hoist with a weight on the end to keep it stable. And they'd lowered the flag to half-mast; too

Some cynical people (or the UN) might say that we're only mourning for the Americans (or Westerners) who died. But I know better.

The US Navy Just Keeps Getting Stingier and Stingier...

The story's actually a couple of days old now, but I want to post about it anyway.

Twelve ships from the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command will support the United States' relief effort for victims of the tsunami that devastated South Asia Dec. 26.

TWELVE! Check out this pic of the USNS Ranier (warning, it's very huge). See that spot sort of in the middle, where there's an opening in the railing of the ship, and there's a sort of slightly curved, darker grey thingie overhanging that opening? That's a RHIB -- a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat. Seats 18 people in good weather. This should give you a good idea of the scale of this thing.

In addition, there are several articles on the above-linked website that talk about how the whole Abraham Lincoln Strike Group is being sent south to help. I'd already talked about the cost of sending the Abraham Lincoln alone; here are the other members of the STRIKEGRU:

The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group will deploy with the following San Diego-based ships: the cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67), commanded by Capt. Joe Harriss; and the destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65), commanded by Cmdr. Don Hornbeck. Other ships deploying with the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group include the Everett, Wash.-based destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86), led by Cmdr. Alexander T. Casimes; the Pearl Harbor-based attack submarine USS Louisville (SSN 724), under the command of Cmdr. David Kirk; and the fast combat support ship USS Rainier (AOE 7), based in Bremerton, Wash,.

This is on top of all the cash we're donating. So I don't want to hear any more lip out of the UN about us being stingy. As for "moral authority", well, my response is in keeping with most of the blogs I've read so far:

NUTS!

Gotta run -- don't want to be late for watch.

A Merry Cthulhu Christmas

Okay, so it's six days past Christmas already. Let's just say that I failed my Spot Hidden roll.

More JTF 536 News

According to this item on Yahoo! News:

From dawn until sunset on New Year's Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants.

"They came from all directions, crawling under the craft, knocking on the pilot's door, pushing to get into the cabin," said Petty Officer First Class Brennan Zwack. "But when they saw we had no more food inside, they backed away, saying `Thank you, thank you.'"

"The mob decided how we distributed the food. There were so many hands outstretched I don't think any package touched the ground," added Zwack, of Sioux Falls, S.D.

The helicopters took off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, staged in calm waters about three miles off the Indonesian province of Aceh along with four other vessels to launch the sprawling U.S. military operation.

More than a dozen other ships were en route to southern Asian waters, with the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying Marines, headed for Sri Lanka, which along with Indonesia was the worst-hit area. The mission involves thousands of sailors and Marines, along with some 1,000 land-based troops.

Anguish, and Hope, in the New Year

A Chilling View

From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose Web page has a timeline of the NOAA's own actions in response to the warning signals it received from ocean monitoring equipment comes a chilling animation of the tsunami wave. Click on the pic below to see the full-sized QuickTime animation.


Make sure you look through the rest of the site, it's fascinating and also features a database of historical tsunami events.

p-t-r wn

I found a story at BBC News that should be interesting to anyone who likes Ancient Egypt or rabbits -- the British Museum is publishing a version of Peter Rabbit in Middle Kingdom hieroglypics:

Peter Rabbit becomes a square, a semi-circle, an ellipse and a rabbit image.

The "time seemed appropriate" for the hieroglyph version, due in April, translators said, as the story had already been published in 35 languages.

The text pictured reads "Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter..." The article mentions some difficulty in trying for a literal translation from English to Middle Kingdom:

Potter's landscape and wildlife would also have been unfamiliar to ancient Egyptians - who had no words for things like blackberry, gooseberry, blackcurrant and potato.

"Beatrix Potter's words sometimes do not readily fall into ancient Egyptian," [translators Richard Parkinson and John Nunn] wrote in the foreword.

"The surviving texts provide no easy model for such colloquial phrases as 'Now run along, and don't get into mischief.'"

Don't know how to read hieroglyphs? Omniglot is a good place to start for info.

Stingy

US ups its pledge.

You listening, Mr. Egeland?

Holy Cow!

I continue to be amazed by the things I'm seeing in stories about the tsunami disaster. For example, an article on the BBC news site about the unclear fate of isolated, aboriginal peoples on a group of islands west of Thailand:

Great Nicobar suffered badly in the disaster. One island in the chain, Trinket, split in two under the impact. Most of the rest are under water.

An island. Split in two.

BBC is also talking about the not inconsiderable effect that bloggers are having towards providing news about the disaster and generating aid for its victims

Good News from the Seychelles

While we were on deployment, the ship visited the Seychelles, a set of islands northwest of Madagascar. The country is a sovereign nation, having become independent in 1976. One of the activities arranged by the ship for the crew were diving trips; I attended a PADI introductory dive and liked it so much that I visited the the Underwater Centre just about every day and obtained my basic SCUBA diver certification. The proprieters, David & Glynis Mowat, were wonderfully friendly and happy to accomodate getting extra lessons in for me; I'm especially grateful to Jean Paul, who was a terrific teacher. So when the tsunamis hit, I was worried about them, especially when I learned that the waves had reached East African shores.

So I tried sending an email and got good news in return: everyone at the Centre is just fine (and damage was obviously not so bad as to lose Internet connectivity). David writes:

One of our boats moored in Victoria decided to park itself in the Marine Charter car park and totalled both engines and the blue bus has now decided it has caught a cold after being up to its windows in sea-water... but compared to the other areas we are still in good shape!

According to David, the Seychelles faired pretty well -- some people were drowned, but overall the damage was not as extensive as it has been in other areas. So this is really great news. If you're ever going to go to the Seychelles, make sure you stop by the Underwater Centre on Mahe and say hi to them. David, by the way, is one of the directors of the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles, and one of the really interesting thing that group does is track whale sharks around the islands. They conduct daily ultralight flights to count whale sharks and also have a program wherein they attach transmitters to the sharks in order to track their migratory routes.

The Hidden Cost of Aid

James posted a couple of posts about the US' contribution towards relief for the tsunami disaster, and mentioned in particular a post at Is This Blog On? that references a Reuters article detailing pledges, by country. Is This Blog On? also mentions an article which talks about U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland's criticism of the US "and other western nations" being stingy.

One of my pet peeves about this sort of reporting is that usually, it's the cash donations that are mentioned. Then people get all up in arms because country A (okay, I'll be less circumspect: I mean, the US) doesn't pledge as much as other countries, or as much as other countries feel it should pledge. What usually isn't mentioned is the logistical cost of providing support from, say, the military. When something like this happens, the US always -- always -- has US Navy ships on hand, and the Air Force usually jumps in with both feet to help too. Navy Seabees go out to rebuild bridges, and it's not uncommon for the other branches to send servicemen and -women to help recover and rebuild. I mentioned in an earlier post that the Navy sent the USS Bonhomme Richard, a large-deck amphib ship, and the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, to render assistance. So how much does this cost?

I went over to the General Accounting Office, and I'm still looking, but I did find this cost analysis information in a paper comparing and contrasting nuclear carriers vice conventional carriers:

Table 3.1: Life-Cycle Costs for Conventional and Nuclear Aircraft Carriers (based on a 50-year service life)

Cost catagory	CV	CVN
Fiscal year 1997 dollars in millions
Operating and Support Cost
Direct operating and support cost	$10,436	$11,677
Indirect operating and support cost	$688	$3,205
Total operating and support cost	$11,125	$14,882
Annual operating and support cost	$222	$298

(GAO Report "NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIERS: Cost-Effectiveness of Conventionally and Nuclear-Powered Carriers", p.76)

Okay. The Abraham Lincoln is a nuclear aircraft carrier. According to The Inflation Calculator, $298 million dollars in 1997 dollars is $334,263,334.38 in 2003 dollars (the latest year available). Divide by 365 and you get a cost of $915,789.96 per day. About a million bucks per day. That's just the one carrier. And the price seems a bit low to me, but even if you go with that, and know what else we're doing to help, then you get an idea of how much of the taxpayers' money the government is really spending on top of that $25 million cash.

And all of that pales in comparision to what US taxpayers and corporations are giving straight out of their own pockets.

What Happens When Gaming Geeks Have a Lot of Time on Their Hands?

Well, if they like MMORPGs, this is what happens.

Steam Tech

I've always been fond of steam tech, especially as a mix of futuristic S-F and Victorian design. The idea of jet packs and robots powered by steam is charming, but seemed hopelessly impossible, too.

Glynne Bowsher worked on the first car to break the sound barrier -- the ThrustSSC. Now, he and a group of fellow engineers are working on a steam-powered racecar.

That's right: race car. This thing is supposed to be able to go faster than 200 mph.

Instead of using a more conventional piston-operated engine, they'll be using a steam turbine that's driven by steam generated by four boilers which use propane gas to heat up water and make it into steam. Ah, turbines. The McFaul is driven by four Lockheed-Martin LM2500s, which are normally used to power airplanes. So they're putting one into a car? Cool!

The 13 inch diameter turbine is non-condensing and is fed at four nozzles, one from each boiler. The system is total loss, which means that each run will expend the total amount of water carried each trip. The exhaust steam will be vented to the wake of the car.

The link above leads to the Steam Car website. Check it out -- it's got some interesting stuff. Make sure you look at the section on Safety Systems.