Parallel?

A cousin spent some time digging around her family trees. The oldest record she found was a court record from England several centuries back. An (probably, records aren't always reliable) ancestor of hers had blocked off a public road and was charging tolls.

I just paid the second of the Houston toll bills. We've been using I-Pass, but Texas doesn't recognize that, and Houston has at least two independent toll systems.

Self sealing fuel tanks

I'd read about them in WWII history. Here's a history.

One of the chief difficulties encountered in cooling gasoline by dropping dry ice into it lay in the fact that as the dry ice extracted the heat from the gasoline, gaseous carbon dioxide was liberated and in the process caused heavy boiling of the gasoline. While we could reach the desired temperatures very quickly by using adequate amounts of dry ice, we were limited to the amount which would not cause all of our gasoline to bubble away and be lost. ... This same effervescing of the carbon dioxide from the cold gasoline caused us no end of trouble in keeping filling connection caps on the tanks during gun-firing tests.

Yes, they had to test the self-sealing in cold as well as hot; rubber gets brittle in the cold.

The British shot down so many German airplanes over England that it is reputed that they were in a position to supply the Turkish Government with spare parts for the airplanes which the latter had procured earlier from the Germans.

Teaching mathematics

"Every working mathematician knows that if one does not control oneself (best of all by examples), then after some ten pages half of all the signs in formulae will be wrong and twos will find their way from denominators into numerators."

archive.org version

(The Cours de M Hermite so highly praised here seems not to be in English.)

Prince Caspian

While checking a pacing question, I read a bit of Prince Caspian last night(*). It was never my favorite--the kids didn't have much to do except issue an improbably accepted challenge, and the long flashback was offputting the first time I read it. This writer explains more precisely. It's better than the movie, which is a low bar. I get the attempt to illustrate "You need not fight in this battle; take your position, stand and watch the salvation of the LORD in your behalf" sort of ideas, but it doesn't make for a very interesting story.

At any rate, the answer to my pacing question is that I have a bit of revising to do.

(*) Bronchitis makes composition, or much of any creative work, hard.

When fighting starts

Buffet said that when the tide goes out you discover who was swimming naked.

I've not learned much in the past few years to encourage great faith in our upper level defense establishment. I'm not a prophet--I don't know how wild this is going to get--but I suspect that if things get bad we're going to learn some unhappy things about our military. (Including the "even if you have overwhelming force stashed somewhere, it takes a long time to position it" law that lots of us civilians forget about.)

We've some nice hardware, but Ukraine should have warned us that a war runs through supply really fast. The Houthis were running through some of our ships' defense material pretty fast--can we resupply quickly?

I wonder if we'll learn the right lessons. Screw-ups and heirs-of-screw-ups are generally good at plausible excuses, if nothng else.

I wonder if Arthur Clarke's short story Superiority is required reading in military colleges.

Totality

I missed last totality--my wife had had knee surgery and couldn't travel comfortably. We showed the partial off to people around us last time, in 2017. It seemed odd to me that in downtown Madison, there were adults walking about who had no idea what was going on that day, and who were astonished and pleased to be able to see it through a pair of those goggles.

My wife's experience was different. She was working with an ESL student, going over some exercises and helping keep the lady's daughters entertained by looking at the eclipse from time to time. Other kids came by. "Kids under 11 thought looking through the glasses was cool. Girls over 11 thought looking through the glasses was cool. Boys over 11 looked at their Big Bug to make sure looking would be cool, and when he demurred, they went on their way. 15 minutes later one of the boys showed up alone and begged to look, and 10 minutes after that a second one came."

This year I was the sick one--nasty persistent cough. However, I noticed that it was worse when I lay down and better sitting or standing, so we headed for Taylorville Sunday afternoon (and got there rather late). We got up at 5 to leave at 7 for the revised destination of a state park south of us, realized it was not quite in the centerline (and some of it was closed to boot!), and went back to our original target of Olney. Traffic proved quite light. In town one Baptist church advertised an "Eclipse party" but we stuck with our idea of trying a natural area so we could hear the wildlife, so we went to the wildlife refuge at the east edge of town. So, over the course of the day, did a number of other Wisconsin-ites, and Champaign-ites, and Decatur-ites. I'd picked Olney as a big enough town and roughly equidistant from metropolitan areas, and it seemed to work out fine.

There was a bit of a line for the restroom, but not terrible, and plenty of room to spread out--though latecomers had to park on the road. As occultation began we carried our chairs into the woods to a clearing where Merlin had ID'd a dozen birds, and we'd seen a few silent ones (e.g. a heron) as well.

The light changed, and my wife got pictures of buds and sunning turtles and trees in different lightings. When it got too dark the flash went off for her picture and the turtles scampered into the lake.

It's funny how much we count on some things just being there: it feels like a more profound loss than just light as the "wolf eats the last bits of the sun". What would we do without it? The shadows on the clouds moved in. (There was a light haze above us.)

A friend said he felt a little breeze as totality began; we didn't. He said the birds went silent. Most did, but the tufted titmouse didn't miss a beat. It makes a huge noise for such a little bird. (We used the Merlin recording feature to hear the birds before and during totality to be sure.)

And we got to see the Sun with her hair down, and a couple of little pink pyramids of light just above the Moon's surface. I was awed and fascinated enough that I forgot to take pictures--it would have seemed like a distraction.

Afterwards we hung around town for another hour, and then went to the town park to see if we could see the famous white squirrels of Olney (my wife knew about them; I didn't). We spotted a few draped on branches high above the recent infestation of dogs and urchins in the park.

The traffic back home was mostly not terrible (except in a few places), but not good either, and we didn't get to bed until 1:30. The cough is worse, unfortunately, so I think I'll post this and go back to bed again.

And yes, somewhere across the lake it had sounded like someone was firing a shotgun to scare away the wolf eating the sun. I guess they succeeded.

A not-so-good example

I've heard the wheelbarrow story for ages. You know the one: a tightrope is stretched across Niagara Falls, and a daredevil walks over and back with a pole. Then he does it without a pole. Then he does it pushing a wheelbarrow. Then he does it balancing the wheelbarrow on his head. Then he does it pushing the wheelbarrow full of a couple hundred pounds of bricks. The crowd cheers each time. He asks the crowd, "Do you believe I could push a man across the falls in this wheelbarrow?" "Yes," is the answer. He addresses the nearest man who said yes: "Get in the wheelbarrow."

The lesson drawn is about faith, and the difference between thinking something and being willing to follow through.

OK, ok, but look at it a different way. What's the benefit? The daredevil gets acclaim when he pushed the bricks across the falls--"What a wonderful man to be able to do that!"--but nobody cares about the bricks. If you get in, the daredevil gets the glory, and you get the "He's a very trusting soul" reaction. And the downside is that every now and then you get a wind gust, and a very intimate view of the falls.

Looking backward

I cleaned up a shelf of accumulated documents yesterday, and among the items I found a 50-year old notebook of mine, with essays on this and that, a talk I was going to give, the beginnings of a few stories, and some math problems that amused me at the time.

We've a grandkid almost as old as I was when I wrote that.

I was struck by a few things--how much better my handwriting was then, and how pompous some of my phrasing was. I'd write on those topics much better now--and did, sometimes several times. I was young enough to know everything, I guess. The story fragments weren't memorable, and I know how organizations work much better now. And the math problems were going at them the wrong way.

It feels strange; would I have liked the old me if we met now? I didn't care for his work; trashed it.

Liberation

The World War 2 Museum in New Orleans was worth visiting. Yes, it took more than a day to cover. If it had told the viewpoints of more countries it would probably have taken weeks.

I gather that they have a large collection of personal stories--many of which are integrated into the displays. We didn't see all of the displayed ones. I should contact them and see if there's internet access to their archives.

In one auditorium they ran video distillations of interviews with concentration camp liberators and inmates. Horror and anger and disbelief on one side, and joy, numbness, and disbelief on the other. One stuck with me:

An American told a hungry Jewish prisoner that he was free to leave the camp now, and that he'd be happy to take him to get some food. The man thanked him, and in the interview told us the rest of his story, as he explained it to his liberator. (My quotation will not be perfect.)

Here I was a slave. Not a Jewish slave; a slave. If they gave me non-kosher food, I had to eat it or die. If they said work, I had to work or die. If they said work on Shabbat, I had to work on Shabbat or die. But you have come, and now I am a free man. It is Shabbat, and a free man does not have to travel on Shabbat. I will stay here one more day.

'as I have loved you"

"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."

We look at this in retrospect, knowing how Jesus showed His love next. No doubt He meant them and us to look at it that way thereafter, and that's the most important aspect to meditate on. But... how would they have herd it then?

How had He loved them so far?

He condescended. That's not available to us, since we're equals. Last time I checked, I wasn't God. But I can try to give up some of my pride.

He was patient. He reproved, but didn't give up on the disciples. We can try to do this, too, though within the church sometimes we have to exercise some discipline.

He protected them. We usually don't have that requirement or option.

He taught them. Teachers among us do so, but most of us are not in that kind of position vis a vis each other. I've taken the approach that everyone has something to contribute sometime or other in Bible study, and most everybody does eventually, but it's easy to spot the teachers.

He shared with them--apparently others provided most of the time.

He encouraged them ("You will see greater things than this", "I will make you fishers of men"). We don't read of many examples, but they act as though He was encouraging them, along with the recorded rebukes. We can do that.

He offered fellowship to Judas one last time, and the advice not to dwell on what he was about to do and deepen the sin. We can, when it isn't damaging the church.

He called them from many jobs, not just religious ones, and called them friends. I think we can handle this one too.

Looking at the list, I think Jesus was referring to love shown in unrecorded incidents; the kind of environment of little things that makes such a big thing.

And then there's Good Friday, which overtops them all.

Naming my designs

I was seven when National Geographic printed an article on the X-15. That seemed the coolest thing ever, and I promptly got pencil and paper and made a drawing of my own rocket airplane. With the naive confidence so cute in little boys (and so horrible in politicians and generals) I figured that the only thing it needed now was a name in order to be a complete design. The "X" series was in use already, so I picked "V" and explained to my father that this was a picture of a "V-1." I didn't quite follow all his earnest explanation, but I gathered that the name had already been used, likewise the "V-2", and that it would be much better if I didn't try to use anything in that series of names.

I mulled this over for a moment. "Y" just sounded weird, and "Z" too final. I asked if "W-2" would work as the name for my rocket plane.

My father was working as an accountant at the time. I don't remember if he laughed.

Lex DEI

The penny finally dropped. I'd wondered why DEI seemed to be such a cult, overriding any human or observational law and even laws of logic. (In my defense, I never took Latin.)

Muddy speakers

I have heard muddy PA announcements too often. Sometimes it has been a lousy speaker, but often these days it is the room response doing strange things with the frequency mix. High frequencies may get absorbed, low ones echo, and the distortion makes it hard to distinguish words. The room response varies from place to place, and on how many people are in the room, which complicates matters, but for the moment just consider the average.

Suppose you could measure the room response, and use a "smart" speaker that included a correction for that. You send a digital signal, a chipset uses a programmable correction template and produces an output that would sound OK for that room. People will measure your room response for you. Invert that distribution (with cutoffs) and download it into a smart speaker, and you should get clearer messages. The only thing missing is the smart speaker technology--doable, but is it doable cheaply, and is it durable/robust over time and voltage spikes?

Code of the Street

by Elijah Anderson (1999) This is ghetto Philadelphia from 25-30 years ago. Does it still apply? Probably, the situations and attitudes are self-reinforcing. Is it worse now? The trends were bad when he wrote it, and the politics of race turned pretty bad in the intervening years.

The labels the people in the area used were "decent" and "street," with meanings you can guess easily enough. The "street" boys and young men (growing old can be a challenge) live and die by respect and lack of it. Always being ready to violently defend your status puts a strain on everyone, including the "decent" kids who have to live in the mess--and who have to "look the part" to avoid being preyed on. It isn't entirely "all against all"--sometimes your family members will come out to avenge your injury or death, no matter the facts of the case. The dead are eulogized--everybody pretends they were good people.

Of course the more girls you get to have your babies, the higher your status is--among the other young guys on the street. The girls tend to get pregnant early, unmarried, and very often never-to-marry. Having a baby puts the young woman among the adults--whether she likes it or not. This was at a transition time of "welfare to work," and the welfare check expectation was changing--Anderson didn't know what was going to happen.

There is/was some respect for the older "decent" men who took no nonsense from their families or the street, but not enough to protect them. The "Grandmothers" still have some power--they can coordinate support from family members. However, with the increase in crack addiction, many of the grandmothers are also snared and useless.

At the time crack was a huge problem. I assume new stuff has taken its place. The appeal of the fast life as a dealer is huge, and some even retain a glimmering of a conscience--some dealers were known to return half of a woman's money when they found she'd spent the kids' food money on drugs. Most don't, and try to get anybody, even family members, hooked.

Most decided that the police don't care about investigating crimes--they have to fend for themselves. Given that they also don't talk to the police (as a rule), it's not surprising that the police don't bother wasting their time.

Outsiders have no idea who is "decent" and who is "street", and who is straddling the border of the categories. Not unexpectedly, they don't want to hire "street" and will write off anybody who looks the part or has a bit of a record. Since carrying a gun there is probably wise whether you're "street" or not (I would), it's easy to get snagged by unlawful carry laws and wind up with a record.

As an aside, several police departments have gotten rid of their gang registries--which seemed utterly mad when I first heard of it, and seems even crazier after having read this book. Most people don't cause problems--even in the ghetto. It would be nice to be able to sort out who's who after a stop.

He includes a number of individual stories, generally sad.

The "decent" folk concentrate on individual responsibility. Anderson brings up economics (almost no jobs available) and racism. He touches briefly on how those problems are fed by the crab-bucket "street" culture--nobody wants to hire "street", and the quickest ID is "black with street accent/clothes". And the price of expanding a business in the city being astronomical, businesses move to where the land is cheap and the taxes not so high--tough if you can't catch a bus to get there or need a second car.

OK, nothing unexpected in the book. I borrowed it precisely in order to learn about who, besides the most short-tempered thugs, the street respected, and how: The old heads and the grandmothers. That was interesting, though the trends were discouraging. He claimed that the framework for being hair-trigger, once understood/internalized, helped keep the violence lower than you'd expect. However, "an armed society" doesn't have to be a "polite society."

I was also hoping to learn if there were rules for courtesy. That didn't seem to be a focus of the book.

Naturally one wonders if the material is dated, or biased in some way. I looked around a bit to see what people thought of it. So far it seems to have held up well, though there are some subtleties about women and violence that didn't appear in the book--if they're real.