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Element 109 on the Periodic Table is meitnerium, first synthesized by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg in 1982; Mendeleev referred to it as eka-iridium in his predicted periodic table. Although itself uncontested, the element was caught up in the Element Naming Controversy until 1997, and was temporarily designated unnilennium until it was resolved.
Meitnerium takes its name from the Austrian physicist and mathematician Lise Meitner (1878 - 1968), whom Albert Einstein referred to as “our Marie Curie.”
Meitner suffered from the double handicap of being both female and Jewish, at a time and place when either one was enough to stunt a researcher’s career. She was acting director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin when Hitler came to power, and held onto her position by being both Austrian and apolitical. The Anschluss stripped her of these protections, and she fled Germany in 1938. She found refuge in Stockholm, where she could continue her research (in an outbuilding, because the head of the research lab would not have a woman on the premises when men were present).
Meanwhile in Germany, her former collaborator Otto Hahn continued their work while she advised him from abroad. Although Meitner is credited with one of the key insights that led to nuclear fission (she realized that neutron bombardment could split a uranium atom into two nearly equal parts), Hahn had the facilities to do the practical investigation. He received the Nobel Prize for chemistry alone in 1944.*
Meitner does not appear to have been bitter about being overlooked by the Nobel Committee, and remained on good terms with Hahn. She remained in research and became a Swedish citizen in 1949. She died at the age of 90 in Britain, and is buried in Bramley, Hampshire.
There is no record of any romantic involvement in her life. She was close to her nephew, Otto Frisch, and corresponded with many of the brightest scientists of her day. She seems to have been married to her work, an unusual fortune in a female scientist of her time. I hope that she was happy.
* History has its own balance sheet: Until 1997, element 105 was unofficially known as hahnium. In 1997, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry adopted the name dubnium for element 105 and the name meitnerium for element 109. The element hahnium no longer exists.
—Science Week
I have a wonderful book (the title of which escapes me) about Mendeleev.
One Mendel describes genetic patterns, and another elemental.
Oh yeah, his name is fun to say.
Lots of schools are named after Meitner, which I think is a great legacy.
None for me please. I'm driving.
Has anyone read this bit of codswallop ?
Also, codswallop is a cool word.
There is so much that I have to discover
that I regret each moment lost to sleep,
each second given to that simple cheap
loss of the self; letting the mind hover
between the places where life is so steep.
There is so much that I have to discover:
What moment makes of me a lover,
allowing my small heart to make and keep
the very things that matter and are deep;
there is so much that I have to discover.
My HS Physics teacher had us all pick a scientist from history and do a report on his or her contributions. An interpretive report - we were supposed to submit a paper and then speak in character for five minutes about what we did. Meitner was mine. One of my friends beat me to Maria Goeppert-Mayer, dang it.
Lise Meitner was an impressive scientist.
Josh Jasper -- But how do you pronounce codswallop?? Cods_wallop or cod_swallop? I see it both ways, with an instinctive tendency toward the latter.
Re: the Forbes article. What are the odds that the article's writer has herself submitted the odd manuscript? Maybe I'm being catty, but lines like "For decades, the publishing industry has taken advantage of authors. Amazon: authors are counting on you to turn the table!" raise an eyebrow.
Fragano -- lovely poem. May your dreams all be creative chaos (the good kind).
Debbie #7: Thanks.
It's pronounced cod's wallop, btw. Curiously, the OED's earliest citation is only to 1959.
Has anyone told Tom Lehrer? How will he make it fit into the song?
Is it just me, or does everyone agree that it's even less acceptable to get "it's" and "its" incorrect on this site than it is generally, given the cheat bar right above the comment submission form? I noticed a post that was incorrect on an old thread just a minute ago, and wanted to point out how wrong that was, i.e. rant (without the personal attack part.)
A question for Fluorospherians with equestrian knowledge:
This past weekend I went to the desert. While following part of the Applegate trail, I saw a small herd of wild horses. One of them--no good picture, sadly--looked exactly like a brown horse that happened to be wearing a cow-skull mask*.
Would there be a horse-markings word for this pattern? "Baldface" doesn't seem to capture the skull-like pattern around the eyes.
----------
* Or white horse forehead armor, although narrower than armor towards its nose. That is, it had a wide white stripe down the top of its head (although thinner than the "baldface" marking), narrowing towards its nose, with a white band around its eyes and one flare between its eyes and nostrils.
Kathryn @ 11, the term is indeed: bald.
Were there other markings on the horse? Coloration?
Carl 9: It's already in there. "There are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, and there may be many others but they haven't been discovered."
Surely you're not suggesting that he update the song, which perfectly captures a moment in time, just because another one has been discovered? Would you put sunglasses on the Mona Lisa?
Another question for the fluorosphere - I can't seem to come up with search terms good enough to find this on my own.
Quite a while ago I read a short story wherein a sociologist (or similar) designed rules for a club that led to it propagating beyond control. It may have had a name along the lines of "The Some-town-name Social Club," and had a golden age flavor like Henry Kuttner's work. To my best recollection, it never used the word "meme."
Please, someone identify this story. Thanks!
Premiering on July 29, the third season of Eureka.
Science!
Jason @ #15:
I remember that story, too. I'm certain it was from the early 1960s at the latest, probably earlier. Sadly, I can't remember the author or the title - obvious searches using Kuttner, Tenn, Sheckley, and Leiber turned up dry.
Kathryn from Sunnyvale: The description is bald.
Josh Jasper: That feels like a fluff piece. There are a lot of rosy assumptions tossed off (amazon has a "wonderful user experience", will decide to forgo 30 percent of the return; so that it can pass the money along to the author, etc.).
Some of the turns off phrase are very reminiscent of the things said by the rep from whichever publishig house is trying to create a POD outlet for itself.
And her math is borked. She has the agent taking 15-20 percent of the gross.
Press release as news is my take.
Damn it, now I'm going nuts trying to remember this story. Nothing I have tried pans out. I think the club in question was a garden club, if that helps anyone. But I'm not sure.
Yep. It's been stuck in my head for months. Maybe we should start a club...
I know that story!
Katherine Maclean: The Snowball Effect. Printed in 1952, according to Locus.
I know that story!
Katherine Maclean: The Snowball Effect. Printed in 1952, according to Locus.
That story sounds familiar, but I remember it as a sewing circle.
I had thought it was Asimov, but a quick check shows I was thinking of his story Ignition Point which revolves around a sociologist coming up with a way of making speeches "ignite" crowds, which gets out of control.
Should have refreshed the thread! Sew it goes.
Oh right! Yay! It's "ask the internet a question" time! So, internet, I have a mechanical/hardware question which has baffled at least five learned people so far. Say you have two metal tubes that telescope, one inside the other, and each has a hole drilled through its diameter, and inside the innermost tube is a peg being driven to expand by a spring (the setup I saw was on a hang glider, I think, with the peg being cylindrical with a half-dome on either end), and when the tubes line up the peg springs through the holes and holds the tubes in that position until you press it in with your fingers and can slide the tubes again.
What's that peg called? I want to buy one, but various combinations of "spring pin peg lock telescoping" aren't getting me to the right doodad.
Tania @ 17... How many shows are there where it's not unusual to hear some say this?
"I hate to interrupt, but we have bigger issues at hand. Time is unraveling. The laws of physics are breaking down. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's the kind of thing that's not gonna stop at the city limits, is it?"
I also wonder if Deputy Jo will be having further erotic fantasies about Fargo.
We have a Dude!
Gareth was born on May 20th at 1:23 AM, 9 pounds, 14.6 ounces (that's 4.495 kg for you metric types) and 20 inches.
He will be with us at WorldCon, for anyone who's showing up.
Congratulations! May he abide.
And he was born on Eliza Doolittle Day. Most auspicious, unless you think having him grow up into a musical comedy queen is a bad outcome. :-)
Considering thst I've been singing Gilbert & Sullivan to him, I don't think that's a problem. :D
B. Durbin --- You star! Con-Dude-ulations!!! Pics?
All hail the Dude, may he long abide!
Pics here. There actually aren't a whole lot post-discharge because there's only so many pics you can take of a sleeping baby— and when he's not sleeping, the pics would be NSFW.
Madeline@27: Say you have two metal tubes that telescope, one inside the other
Hm, I just bought a painter's pole that had a push button extension thingy. They called it a "tab". But it was a button on the outside, not a thingy on the inside.
Oh, and just put up a lawn umbrella this weekend. That actually had the tube-in-a-tube setup, with the two holes and the spring loaded thingy. But I threw out the instructions already, so I can't help other than to say check out yard umbrellas and see if you can find what they call it. I think its a pretty common design for them to break into two pieces that way. smaller box.
I can't imagine a generic part that will join any two tubes, though. More like find the thing that gets joined and scavenge parts. I mean if you need something strong enough to hold a hang glider together, that's a bit different than the yard umbrella.
b. durbin,
congrats on your new dude!
B.Durbin @ 36... I especially like the 'baby burrito' photo.
Congratulations, B. Durbin! Love babies in hats :)
Duuuuude! Welcome to the world! Congratulations to the happy parents -- and get plenty of sleep now, before you need it. ;-)
@29,
Dude! Duuuude. & Dude? Dude.
(Congratulations. Cute.
Remember, when it seems like they're on a random sleep schedule, they're not. They're just on a 48 hour cycle for the first many weeks.)
#11 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale
Walleyed horse, is how I was told.
Love, C.
B. Durbin--that is definitely and undoubtedly a baby. Good work.
Profound wisdom from my mother--"If he's sleeping, let him!"
Congrats: Sleep when you can.
May he long abide.
Serge @ 16 -
Science!
(from the really neato Dresden Codak)
b. durbin, Congratulations on your dude! Really cute pictures.
Congrats to the Dude! Many, many happy returns on this most auspicious birthday!
B. Durbin -- that is one exceedingly adorable baby. Well done.
Yay, a baby. Congratulations!
#15: I think the story is Silverberg. Give me a minute to come up with a title.
Oh, and for those of you appalled by the "taste of dead cabbage" remark in the last open thread, that literally disappeared right away. As in within the second meal post-labor. (The first I won't swear to as there were many other distracting things going on at the time.)
In fact, eight days post-partum, almost all of the pregnancy symptoms have resolved. That's really nice.
And how could I forget? Here's a pic I took on what turned out to be my last day of pregnancy. I'd been waiting months to set up that shot...
Madeline F @ 27 -
I believe that's called a "detent". If not, I've been using the wrong word for it for a while now.
Abide with us Dude, sweet baby boy
bringer of smiles, chuckles, and unfettered joy
Congratulations!
Let me add my congratulations! Yay for babies!
And yay for the end of dead cabbage!
Scott Taylor @ 49...
When she's dancing next to me
"blinding me with science - science!"
"Science!"
I can hear machinery
"blinding me with science - science!"
"Science!"
It's poetry in motion
and now she's making love to me
the spheres're in commotion
the elements in harmony
she blinded me with science
"she blinded me with science!"
and hit me with technology
"good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!"
coffeedryad: The detent is what the prong goes into.
I've been trying to find some sound advice about short stories, and figured I'd turn to the Fluorosphere for guidance, because you all just seem so swell.
There's a small stack of short stories that I've written that are more-or-less gathering dust on my desk (or harddrive). I keep promising myself I'll "send them out," but then I realize that I'm not even sure I know how to go about sending stories anywhere, where'd they go and so forth, and the whole thing gets daunting and then I just need to sit down.
So I've resolved to seek illumination, and so far the internet has mostly been confusing and untrustworthy.
In particular, I wanted to ask about simultaneous submissions. I get that it's mostly (if not universally) frowned upon with novel-length manuscripts, but I'm finding somewhat conflicting opinions when it comes to shorter forms. I've found a couple of people whose advice is "ignore sim sub guidelines," but my instinct (largely informed by Making Light) seems to say that simply ignoring guidelines is a bad, bad thing.
So I guess that's my question: should I be simultaneously submitting my short stories to a bunch of journals, or is that just going to be hurtful, in the long run?
And, I guess some additional questions: anyone have any advice on getting some short stories published? Places to look, at least? Journals/magazines that are simply screaming for submissions from a young, as-yet-unpublished writer?
(Also, to pack everything into one post, I'd be much obliged if you fine folk would take a look at a very (very) short story writing experiment I started with a friend called The Two Minutes Project. We'd appreciate any and all feedback.)
(And finally, congrats on your Dude, B. Durbin.)
Regarding the codswallop: I just got a card from an acquaintance who is publishing a book through amazon.
Sigh.
On the website it's explained that self-publishing is being done by so many authors because the present state of publishing makes it so hard to do it, "the other way."
It's also explained that the people who read books won't care if the book is well written. Which is true.
I really liked the option of getting an version, "unsigned on Amazon Kindle."
I have not much hope for the quality of the book, but doubt this will disuade the author from thinking it's the fault of the "industry".
That is a very cute baby. I like the name Gareth as well, but will not be indulging my bro-in-law by naming our dude after him. He (BiL) is entirely too proud of himself as it is. And I remain hopeful that I will manage to make it through the next 4 weeks with no icky cabbage taste, since I've yet to experience such unalloyed vileness. Congratulations on the lovely addition.
Congratulations to the healthy baby and mom!
From my understanding... do not ignore guidelines.
B. Durbin #29: Congratulations!
All: Since everyone else is doing it, I have a question for the fluorosphere in general.
Does anyone know of the existence of a book I could go to in order to get a basic knowledge of what it's like to fly a fighter jet? Specifically the kind of jet is a Messerschmitt Bf 110, and specifically the reason is that I'm currently in the research stage of writing a story about Rudolph Hess's wacky 1941 solo flight and I know about as much about the physical reality of flying any aircraft, let along a German WWII fighter jet, as I do about the physical reality of living on Gliese 581 c.
I know so little about it that I don't even know if this is a realistic question to be asking. Or if the question even makes sense.
The Bf-110 is a strange plane. I'd look, basically, at a normal book on flying a twin-engined aircraft.
Then I'd look at flying prop-fighters.
The thing to find is a reprint of a basic manual, then I'd read some memoirs.
B.Durbin: I woke up this morning, thinking "You know what the world needs? More Dudes." And then there you (and him) go!
Congratulations!
Terry Karney @ 19: "That feels like a fluff piece. There are a lot of rosy assumptions tossed off (amazon has a "wonderful user experience", will decide to forgo 30 percent of the return; so that it can pass the money along to the author, etc.)."
That was what I thought too. Amazon would split the savings with the author? Um, why?
And the Amazon recommendation is, I have to say, not the secret of their success. "Oh look! Other people who bought this book went on to buy another book by the very same author! I would never have thought of that!" Amazon does a lot of things very well, but recommendations is emphatically not one of them.
Let me clarify, it was a twin engined "fighter".
As a pure fighter it was useless, not fast enough, not manueverable enough. It couldn't attack bombers, because the fighter cover would chew it up.
But it had range (which is why Hess chose it). It carried a lot of firepower. It was a decent night-fighter (because it was large enough to carry the radar of the day, and a person to operate it).
For practical purposes (in light of Hess's flight) it's basically the same as any other twin-engined prop plane, of small size.
I thought, as readers & writers, people visiting here might be interested in reading an edited transcript of the closing address Junot Diaz gave recently (25 May, 2008) at the Sydney Writers' Festival: Literature opens the door to compassion in our brief lives.
And yay, Dude! There will be mud (, mud, glorious mud – by Flanders & Swann)
Madeleine F., #27, those are spring-loaded locking pins.
B. Durbin, #29 & #36, congrats! He looks like a baby!
ethan@67: get a basic knowledge of what it's like to fly a fighter jet? Specifically the kind of jet is a Messerschmitt Bf 110
well, what do you mean by "what it's like"? I recall a history channel thingy about the german jet engine program and one of the german pilots said it was "like being pushed by angels" or something to that effect.
Wait, the 110 is a twin prop job according to wikipedia, not a jet. I was thinking of the 262.
The basic controls will be the same. stick and pedals. The thing about twin engines is you can tweak the engine throttles to the individual engines so that you get exactly the same RPM. If they're off, you can get a pretty loud beat frequency. At least that'd be for piston powered twins. I don't know if it's present in twin jets or not.
Otherwise, its the basic pull back go up, push forward go down, and the pedals act like the old foot-steering mechanism on the old wooden sleds, turns you so your nose points into the wind.
Mostly you drive with the stick and use the pedals to keep the "slip" straight ahead. About the only time you use the pedals for something extreme is if you have full flaps and you're too damn high to land and you need to lose altitude fast, then you slip the plane, basically turn it so it's flying sideways a bit, and it'll drop fast and keep your airspeed up so you don't stall, then you right it, and fly down the centerline.
planes are pretty stable. the first time I flew, it sort of felt like driving a boat. you kind of bounce around, but the boat just naturally follows the waves and corrects a lot of stuff naturally. even if you let go of all the controls. (as opposed to helicopters which want to kill you) Actually, the training for small plane stalls at altitude was, if I remember right, apply power and let go of the controls. The plane will naturally correct by going nose down, gaining speed, and getting out of the stall. (if you let go of the controls on a helicopter, specifically the cyclic, you might kill yourself)
I can give you some basic stuff about flying. If you want specific 110 stuff, then that's out of my league.
ethan, I did a Google search for "world war 2 german fighter pilot" and got a lot of hits, one of which was Stackpole Books. It looks to have an awful lot of war diaries and histories from several conflicts, including WW2. A couple were akin to "Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe," although they seemed to be flying 109s, not 110s. Nonetheless...
B. Durbin, well done with the dude!
heresiarch @ 69
One of my pet peeves about Amazon is that when I am logged into their site, so that they know all the stuff I've bought from them, they recommend books that I've already bought from them! It makes them look awfully clueless.
Ugh, the 110 is a tail dragger. I've never flown one of those, but my understanding is they're a bit harder on take off because you have to first get up enough speed that you can get enough lift to get your tail off the ground, then get enough speed to take off.
You won't be able to see over the nose until you get the tail up, and the center of gravity is screwy so that it's a bit easier to unintentially do a Rockford on the runway.
Landing is either 3-point, all three wheels simultaneously, or front 2 then slow till you lose lift and the tail lands. Not sure which way the 110 worked.
Most of the WW2 planes were tail draggers, so it wasn't like it was a big deal then, but it affects the experience.
Oh, when you're on the ground, the stick doesn't do anything. You steer by applying brakes to one wheel or the other, or by adjusting engine power to turn. The brakes, at least in modern aircraft, are on the tops of the rudder pedals.
And being inside a twin prop fighter cockpit would probably be extremely fricken I don't care what you play as long as you play it LOUD.
Greg: The WW2 types (not carrier based) were all 2 point landers.
And in high-performace planes (which the 110 was) have some other uses for the rudder, mostly in high-bank turns. The other problem with them (and I don't know if the 110 was counter-rotating, or not) is the torque (and the slipstream rotational pressure on the rudder) which required some rudder pressure to keep the plane straight on the runway.
In the tail draggers of the US and RAF (I don't know for the Germans) the rear wheel was connected to the rudder, which gave steerage on the ground.
B. Durbin -- congratulations to you and yours!! That is one cute Dude.
Guess you won't be needing us to provide distraction anymore, eh?
B. Durbin @29:
Hartelijk gefeliciteerd! Yay and hooray!
Looks like a very good dude indeed; I hope you're having fun with him.
ethan @ 67:
(Hmm... I remember building a plastic model of the Bf 110 when I was about 10 or 12.)
A little googling turns up this recommendation from some random forum:
May I recommend "Schnaufer, Ace of Diamonds" by Peter Hinchcliffe (Tempus, £19.99), the biography of Germany's top-scoring Night fighter of WWII? a superb read from start to finish, he was a 110 man - gives a great account of what it was like.
Here is an article by a German pilot who flew Bf 110s during the war -- including how he got confused by the controls and accidently raised the landing gear just before landing, and what it was like to bail out of a Bf 110.
Another letter by a former Bf 110 pilot is here; it includes some comparisons of different models (e.g., the Bf 110-E vs the 110-G. This suggests that if you want to be really authentic (probably far more than is necessary!), you should figure out what model of 110 Hess would have flown (some more googling suggests it was a brand-new 110-D). The accounts by night-fighter pilots (like the ones I've linked to) could be slightly misleading here and there, since they were flying later models of the basic design. But, again, that may be way too much authenticity for your purposes...
A quick check on Amazon shows half a dozen or more books on the Bf 110; these seem aimed at the military history and/or model-building crowds, and so may not contain much detail about the experience of flying one, but those are possible sources as well. (Some might even have photos or illustrations of the instrument panel and cockpit interior, which it occurs to me might be useful for you.)
Terry@63: "It's also explained that the people who read books won't care if the book is well written. Which is true."
The first four times I read that, it parsed for me as:
"people who read books won't care whether the book is well written", rather than:
"people who read books won't care as long as it's well written""
Funny word, "if". Now it makes much more sense :D
Hmm... From newborn babies to war planes... Yup, this is a Making Light thread.
Given the subject of the story, ethan probably doesn't need too much information about what landing a Bf 110 felt like...
31: Excellent. Though a Gilbert and Sullivan baby should really have been born on 29 February.
I look at publishing as a game. You get published, you win! Or something like that.
Changing the rules doesn't win the game. There are good reasons for print on demand— there's a family geneology, for instance, that is of almost no value to anyone outside of our family. So that one was self-published. Or there's a particular piece of historical fiction for which the target market is Oregon Trail museum bookstores. That's not precisely a NYT bestseller market. So that person went to POD and markets the book directly to the little museums.
But fiction? Unless the whole point is to get ONE copy of a book into a particular person's hands, you're better off playing the game.
P.S. #79: I don't need distraction any more, true. So I'll just have to come here 'cause it's fun.
Jon Carroll about Oakland's elections...
Mario Juarez, who's running for Oakland City Council, has been walking my block handing out tomato plants. It's not a campaign tactic I've heard of before, but now I have three official Juarez seedlings. I'm not sure what it means. Juarez is endorsed by all sorts of people who have reason to be mad at Ignacio De La Fuente, the incumbent in District Five. Juarez also endorsed by his seventh-grade teacher. (Really; it's featured in his campaign literature. If you're a hero to your seventh-grade teacher, you can pretty much get along with anyone.)
I don't know if my 7th grade teacher would endorse me, should I run for office, but my 10th grade's chemistry teacher remembered me fondly when we met a decade later.
Greg London @73 -
Stall training (for me, at any rate) handled stalls in two configurations. One was in the landing configuration: power to idle, full flaps, pulling back until you get a stall warning or you start to fall (all lift has ceased). Recovery was full power, lower the nose, flaps to 20 degrees, when positive rate was climb was established, flaps up and airspeed to cruise.
The other was a full power-on stall, much as you might encounter during take-off. Recovery was lowering the nose and reconfiguring for cruise. In both cases, using rudder is important to prevent a spin.
Needless to say, stalls were practiced at about 3000 ft, because it's really easy to lose altitude during a stall.
Another question on the open-thread-of-questions:
I am looking for a professional organizer willing to travel to Brooklyn. Has anyone here worked with one, or does anyone know one?
Also, congrats, B. Durbin! Hello Dude!
Terry@78: mostly in high-bank turns.
Yeah, you're tweaking the rudders as you fly, but it's more like a background process and the stick is foreground. Use the stick to turn where you want to go. idle time? OK, check the slip indicator. Oop. kick it left a bit.
The planes I flew all had slip indicator guages in the cockpit. But the best slip gauge was a piece of yarn attached to the outside of the cockpit glass. If the yarn was lying along the centerline, you were good, if it way lying to the left or right, you could see the airflow slipping sideways across your fuselage.
Don't know if the 110 had some sort of string/yarn based slip indicator or not. 400 mph might be too fast for WW2 yarn/string. But if it had one, it'd be right there in front of you, on your windsheild.
Comcast.net seems to be in the process of 'improving' its site.
"Oh crap", HellBoy would say.
Serge #90: Yeah, it's Comcastic.
In the republic no serf fears to speak
but the bright hero need not listen hard,
there are no weapons given to the weak.
These are not memories that we should seek
nor are there ways that should have been unbarred,
in the republic no serf fears to speak.
A short bright moment's given to the meek,
but all pay homage to the blonde retard;
there are no weapons given to the weak.
A golden statue's raised upon the peak
to honour those whom we call avant-garde;
in the republic no serf fears to speak
We claim the future never could be bleak
nor your bright visage ever could be marred;
there are no weapons given to the weak.
The whole endeavour's safe from all critique
we do not think that anyone's been scarred.
In the republic no serf fears to speak,
there are no weapons given to the weak
Bruce Cohen @ 76: Yep. Maybe their recommendation system was groundbreaking in 1998. But that's, like, a gazillion years in internet time.
#7 - Debbie :
It's pronounced (best I can tell) CODS-wall-op.
The history of the word is in the Wikipedia link : The more popular etymology places the word's origins in the brewing industry.[citation needed] In 1876, British soft drink maker Hiram Codd designed and patented a bottle designed specifically for fizzy drinks. Though his Codd-neck bottle was a success in the fizzy drink industry, alcohol drinkers disparaged Codd's invention, often saying it was only good for "wallop" (a slang term for beer in the late-19th century).[citation needed] The term soon became "Codd's Wallop" and was eventually used for anything of low-quality or rubbish.
Ooh, a question thread. I gots one:
Can anyone recommend a book/resource that is, more or less, "The U.S. Military for Dummies"?
(Checking Amazon reveals that there is, in fact, a "U.S. Military History for Dummies", but that's not the same thing.)
I'm not interested in the history. What I need is kind of a broad-strokes primer on the current armed forces and how they're set up and how they operate; ranking systems, training methods, standard equipment, etc.
The kind of thing that would answer random questions like, "Are the Marines actually trained to use swords, or are they just part of the ceremonial dress uniform?"
Stupid question, right? Well, that's what I mean. I have very much a lack of clue here. I know there are tons of ways to get this info, but it would be nice if there were one or two 101 sources to get me started.
EClaire @ #64:
Letting brothers-in-law determine the name of the new baby can be a very bad idea.
Why, I heard of one woman who had twins, and was so exhausted afterward that she let her BIL fill out the paperwork; he put the girl's name down as "Denise"...
...and the boy's as "Denephew".
Ethan @67: I can't vouch for this, but have you thought about Flight Simulator?
http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads-file-746-details.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22bf+110%22+%22flight+simulator%22&btnG=Google+Search
ethan #67: ISTR that there was a flight simulator/fighter game called Yeager (after Chuck Yeager) that let you pretend to fly various German WW2 planes. I'm not sure whether that's at all useful to you ("Then, he his the space bar to fire the machine guns...."), but maybe there's some value.
Leigh Butler @ 95
Each of the US military services, Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy has its own website. A large part of the content near the front page is intended to help recruiting, so thay have a lot of that sort of low-level information, sort of a huge FAQ. Air Force and Navy are trying to attract techies to run their complicated machines, so they have lists of airplane and ship types, with specs and such. And they describe micro and macro organization ("who runs the Army", "what's a regiment", "how many soldiers in a platoon"), rank and uniforms ("why a sergeant-major doesn't wear oak leaves"*), etc., etc. I go to them once in a while to see how things have changed since I wore the green.
* Honest cowboy, coming out of Basic, one of the less clueful guys in my company decided to impress his girlfriend when he went home. He figured he'd tell her he'd been promoted to Sergeant-Major (E-8 paygrade then), so he went to the tailor to have a sergeant E-5's stripes sewn on the sleeves of his dress uniform, and a major's gold oak leaves pinned on the collar. Then he put the uniform on and walked out on the streets of the base, where an MP immediately arrested him for being out of uniform and impersonating an officer.
#95: If you find one, we ought to send a copy or two to Hollywood. Every time a military movie comes out, the armed forces folk I know smack their foreheads at the dumb things that make it in. (Military advisors to films prevent this; most films don't budget them.)
I don't know about the swords* but I do know that the Army used to have weapons badges for all sorts of weird weaponry— things like the sling, or the atl atl. I know this because we had a friend whose stint in the Army included trying to get as many of those as he could. (He was five foot three and really enjoyed the confusion he'd engender by being "the weapons expert.") I think they got rid of most of the separate badges in the end.
*Except that they are nicely balanced. My cousin Fig** showed his off once.
**Last name of Newton. I don't know what his real first name is, actually.
James Dunnigan's "How to Make War" is pretty good on how wars work, but less so on the US military specifically. I had to write a short guide to the British Army last year for the benefit of my mother, who was busy transcribing my grandfather's letters home and wanted to know things like "how big is a brigade" and "what is a CCS", but I think you probably want more detail than that.
I love the fact that the US army had an atlatl proficiency course.
The British Army will still teach you not only to ride a horse, but also to use a lance from horseback - there are tent-pegging competitions. (where you have to spear a wooden peg at high speed and take it out of the ground; get it wrong and your lance goes into the ground and you pop out of the saddle like a pole vaulter)
7 (Parachute) Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, however, have neither parachutes nor horses. Pity.
Delurking...
Debbie @ 7 and Josh Jasper @ 94 --
The OED says, re: codswallop etymology
"It is often suggested that this word is the genitive of the name of Hiram Codd (1838-87), British soft drinks manufacturer, who patented several designs for mineral water bottles in the 1870s + WALLOP n. (see sense 4c at that entry), and that it was originally used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for soft drink. However, no evidence has been found for early use of the word in this sense, and derivation from the surname is not supported by early spellings."
The true origin is unknown.
I'm sure people can tell by the fact that I called it a "jet" that I really have no idea what I'm talking about. In my brain jet and plane are the same thing, just like bug and insect or boat and ship or even coat and jacket, no matter how much other parts of my brain might know otherwise. Thank you, Terry, Linkmeister, Greg, Peter, Steve, Jason, albatross--I knew I'd get a lot of responses around here!
Greg, what I meant by "what it's like" is pretty much exactly the stuff you guys have been saying--what it feels like in there, what you have to physically be doing while you're flying, that kind of thing.
So yeah, thanks everyone--between what you've said here, the books and articles you've pointed out, and the simulators (maybe, although for some reason that idea scares me), I'm sure I can work this stuff out...eventually. When I decided to write this story, I realized it would involve a lot of research, but the more I look into it the more I realize just how much water there really is over my head.
ajay #84: Ha! Good point.
ethan @ 103... In my brain jet and plane are the same thing
Today's kids... And this reminds me of Sid Caesar's skit where he plays a test pilot who freaks out when he realizes his plane has no prop.
Ethan @103: If you want a reminder as to the difference between a plane (prop) and a jet, the Air Traffic Control rules might help.
Under those, a balloon has right of way, that is the more agile (jet) has to make way for the least agile.
True story: 2 jets in formation just finishing a Veteran's Day fly-by suddenly realize they're sharing airspace with a blimp -- and split the formation to go around it. I saw it happen, and I wish I had had a radio that covered the ATC frequency. The subsequent conversation had to have been...interesting.
Sten @ #22:
Thanks for identifying the story! Now I can sleep at night.
Russ @82: Thank you for that re-parsing, as I was finding it impossible.
In my dialect
"people who read books won't care _if_ the book is well written."
Can only mean
"people who read books won't care _whether_ the book is well written"
I can only get the second reading if there's a pause before the 'if':
"people who read books won't care, _if_ the book is well written."
=
"people who read books won't care _as long as_ it's well written"
These two sentences seem to have very different structures (the scope of the if clause?).
Sten @ #22 - Thank you! I need to find more Katherine MacLean stories.
Can two words be deadly to keyboards? They will! And Fragano @91 will bring it to you!
Russ: Funny word if. The confusion is from my lack of a comma. Mea culpa.
Zvi @107: Thanks, I was thinking/reading the same way. The comma makes it much easier there for me to consider the "if" as conditional.
Way, way too long past my formal English grammar studies to be able to analytically describe why that's so, however.
Also, very much enjoy the aviation geeking out. I've only been in a taildragger once, Greg, and that was just before I met you and the rest of the VPX crowd. I was surprised at how much easier it was to land than I was expecting. Take-off, though, as you describe, was complex.
Eh, I'm new enough to this stuff that I'm still congratulating myself on getting over my "stage fright" enough to ask Denver Approach for Class B clearance this weekend. ("Dude! They vectored us through! We're flying in DIA's airspace! So Cool!" "Yes, dear. Very cool. Now please just fly the plane.") I'm new enough, in fact, to still have this stupid radio stage fright.
Anyway, it's really fun to hear the much more experienced pilots talking about planes I've never yet had the pleasure of flying.
--
Big-time congrats to B. Durbin and the Duuuude! Looking forward to seeing you both in August!
One point about Rudolph Hess: the story is that he was detained shortly after 11pm, by a ploughman with a pitchfork.
We're talking Scotland, so dusk would be quite late.
Now for the catch: 1941 was the first year in which an order was made for Double Summer Time, 2 hours in advance of GMT, starting on the day after the first Saturday of May. We don't need to know which day was the first saturday of May: it's impossible for it to be later than the 7th, so the change took place on or before the 8th. and Hess made his flight on the 10th. So his arrest at about 11pm was at about 9pm GMT
So he was flying in daylight.
But a good chunk of the flight was made over the North Sea, which meant navigation by clock and compass. And then some fairly hurried searching for visible landmarks on the coast. The obvious landmark ia the Firth of Forth, but there would have been a lot of heavy AA. I don't have a clear account of the route Hess flew, but it looks more sensible to cross the coast in Northumbria, with landmarks such as Holy Island.
The straightline course looks to come close to some fairly heavily defended parts of northern England, and the flight would be about 800 miles. Rather than changing course over the North Sea, it might have been that Hess would have set off on a compass course from some landmark on the Danish coast.
What time did Hess take off (and how was time being measured)? I don't have cruise speed figures for a Bf 110, but think four or five hours....
Leigh Butler: Shrort answer, I don't think the sort of detail you are asking about there is in a book (and no, they aren't trained to use the sword, though there are some ceremonial flourishes the guy who do Silent Drill Team learn).
On a more prosaic note, you can feel free to ask me questions, though some of my knowledge is obsolete (they've changed basic training a lot since I survived it).
Bruce Cohen: Any fool knows the Oak leaves go under the chevrons.
B.Durbin: Adivsors fix some, but rarely all. Then there are the strange myths (an officer's uniform has to have an error, or the actor will be arrested). I keep thinking I wish I knew how to get some of those gigs; because the little stuff drives me batty. The things most people won't notice; like having a film set in 1990 using the (slightly different) helmet of 2005 (when everyone got the parachutist helment).
re badges: One can still qualify in lots of things. One gets rungs to a ladder below the level of skill. There are limits to how many ladders (and one can only have two skill levels, of the three possible) For me I find it amusing the one which impresses people most is my expert pistol (easy to get, IMO) and least is Expert Grenade (far and away the hardest; at least of any I've had the chance to see the qualification tables for).
Serge: MY stepfather's dad was in WW2, he says he almost got killed in the middle of bridge as the lot of them were figuring out how much it could bear in the current (he was an engineer, of the strange sort the army makes). The were croggling at the plane which wasn't falling out of the sky; for lack of a prop, when the water 100 yards beyond them exploded.
He figures the pilot was brand new to them, and hadn't internalised the higher speed, leading to underestimated lead.
re that if: Looking at the original, that's the way it's phrased. Didn't giv me hiccups, but there you go. I think that may be part of why the book wasn't picked up, "the other way,"; if that's an example of the writing style.
I should better have phrased it, "if the book's well written, people won't care how it was published."
Nicole @ 112 -
Yeah, "mike fright" can be a bit unnerving, particularly if a controller chastises you for stepping on another transmission (which happened to me once). I learned to fly at a Class D airport near Houston, and protocol is much easier there, and I stay away from the Bravo airspace, though I've talked with Houston Approach from time to time.
I don't have any taildragger time, but I was tempted last week when I saw this new Cubcrafters Cub at my FBO. But they also had a new Cessna 400 that was being shown, and that's a sweet looking plane. Too bad I don't have $620,000.
My next step is to get a complex endorsement in the flight school's Piper Arrow.
World Wide Words' entry for "codswallop" has the Codd story, but notes that it's most likely a spook etymology, and that there's no other commonly-accepted explanation.
Terry Karney @ 114... he was an engineer, of the strange sort the army makes
Would that be the kind with a knack for improvisation and for risk-taking that would make the NCC-1701's engineer look like a timorous person?
Dave Bell #113: That's interesting. I'd been picturing the parachute-ploughman-pitchfork series of events happening well after dark. I'll have to look into that.
It almost sounds as though someone searched for an appropriate (beverage) name to legitimize the pronunciation already in use.
Not having grown up where it was actually used, it'll probably continue to be cod_swallop to me. The associations -- cod/strong fish/swill/swallow -- suggest a right mess of nonsense.
B. Durbin @85: But fiction? Unless the whole point is to get ONE copy of a book into a particular person's hands, you're better off playing the game.
This was precisely why I self published my first novel. It was written as a present for my wife and so long as she has her copy and likes it, I consider it a success.
Also, it's a Gothic Fairy Tale, which as a genre, has an audience you could fit in a medium sized living room. So I saw no point in pursuing the mainstream publishing route. I can publish the book on Lulu.com and have it in a little over a week or look for a publisher which could take, gee, like, two, maybe three weeks, at least. And that's assuming anyone would be willing to court the aforementioned totally massive and rabid fan base of maybe twenty (judging by the number I've sold so far, which is 19 times more than anticipated, making it a huge success by my admittedly minuscule expectations).
But yeah, the next novel is intended for a larger and more robust audience and will be making its way into the slush piles of publishers, forthwith.
#99 Bruce Cohen: I was hoping to find something on paper, honestly. I've been researching it via Wikipedia and similar, and after a while it makes your eyes cross. But you're right; nothing like going straight to the source.
#100 B. Durbin: That is actually fascinating, and startlingly relevant to why I'm doing this research in the first place. They got rid of the badges, but do they still do the training? If you have more sources on unconventional weapons in the Armed Forces I would dearly love to hear about it.
Also, congrats on the Dude!
#101 ajay: yeah, those are exactly the kinds of dumb questions I have about the U.S. military. I'll look into the Dunnigan book, though.
#114 Terry Karney: I would love to pick your brain, if you're willing. Can I email you?
I find this little story very alarming.
Fragano Ledgister @123:
That was... something else. Sort of speaks to why the term Jar head was invented. This Marine should have kept his coins in his jar.
Keith #124: I'm waiting for the outcry that he was just doing his duty as an Xtian.
Yesterday's news
Left dead in the past
Though consequences do not go away
Yesterday's news
Forgotten in the last,
Though the problems are still here with us today.
The world of bloggers
Posters on the Internet
And newsgroups
Epherma like flotsam on the seas
The messages that flow around
The spammers and the trojans
Are modern forms of robbers, tolls, and fees.
Yesterday's news
Goes trailing cruft in wakes,
The eddies leaving websites years behind
While someone once intended
To update and renew,
Nothing there that's current shall you find.
Yesterday's news
Today's gone by so fast,
And timebound, we are hopeless e'er to change,
Yesterday's news
We live part in the past,
As life goes on the world becomes more strange.
(c) 2008 Paula Lieberman
Fragano Ledgister @125: It's sad but such an outcry is all too likely, and from the usual sources.
Fragano, that sounds like just what the neocons and xtianists were planning - although I think they were hoping for either violence or mass conversions of the 'heathens', rather than complaints from the locals. Depending on their personal religious views, of course.
Leigh: If the training is still there (though for atl-atl and sling, I doubt it: though I saw guys working with them at Cp. Williams... so? and Javelin doesn't mean what you think it does) the badges still exist.
But one can only wear so many. What this guy had (and one can still get) is a huge list of qaulifications on one's personell file.
Feel free to e-mail me.
Serge: Yes. The sort who realised, a tad too late, that blowing the remnants of Remagen; without emptying the downstream Bailey Bridges was a bad idea,and got in his jeep and told his driver (he was an officer, with at least a comany; perhaps a Bn) to race down to them.
He says they managed to clear them.
Then they had to repair them.
Comments on Open thread 109: