August 29, 2008
"The Most Entertaining X-Ray We've Ever Seen."
One lone duck's revenge:
Seems this dog decided to swallow his... oh god, it hurts to type this... his CHEW TOY. Well, the duckie got his revenge, as
the dog required emergency surgery to remove the offended vulcanized anadatae.
Power to the Duckies!
(ps: I'm glad the dog is okay, click the linky for more x-rays)
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August 27, 2008
Owtch! That's GOTTA Hurt.
From a statement by the Chicago Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief, Michael Cooke, regarding the resignation of the execrable Jay Mariotti from their sports section:
The Chicago Sun-Times had the best sports section in the city before
Jay Mariotti came to town -- that's why he signed up with us -- and his
departure does not change that. We wish Jay well and will miss him --
not personally, of course -- but in the sense of noticing he is no
longer here, at least for a few days.Wee-owtchy-owtchy-ow-wow. (
via)
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Did they really say that? Must have been an extremely acrimonious breakup. Sheesh.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 28, 2008 12:06 AM (+rSRq)
2
So it seems. To be fair, Mariotti is easily the most annoying reporter/hack I've ever seen, so if anything the Sun-Times may very well be understating the case. It wouldn't surprise me to find out they threw parties when he resigned.
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 28, 2008 12:17 AM (AW3EJ)
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August 23, 2008
A Bird Dies In Valencia
Is that what I think it is?
Hello, little birdie! You must be deaf, eh?
Um... climb
faster, you feathered rodent!
AIEEEEEE!!!
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Is a pigeon. Whaddye expect?
(It really splattered, didn't it? Yikes!)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 23, 2008 10:03 PM (+rSRq)
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SPEED used a different video feed for the first few minutes, one that showed the external view of the track, and the explosion of feathers was
incredible.
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 23, 2008 11:04 PM (AW3EJ)
3
Oh my...
Is PETA aware of this?
;-)
Posted by: Mallory at August 24, 2008 06:33 AM (WJ2qy)
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August 21, 2008
Flight Deck Round-Downs... Why?
The early days of aircraft carrier design saw a lot of different concepts that eventually went by the wayside. Such "innovations" as multiple flight decks (so airplanes could launch directly from their hangars), transverse-mounted catapults that launched planes perpendicular to the direction of travel (ditto), longitudinal arrestor wires, arrestor gear at both bow and stern (so if one end of the flight deck had a hole in it, the ship could steam in the other direction and launch planes from the undamaged end), carriers without islands, the list goes on and on. All of these elements made sense, however, and one can see why an Admiralty could think they were good ideas at the time.
One design feature of some early carriers, however, has always struck me as being particularly pointless, with no redeeming features whatsoever: the flight deck round-down.
HMS Hermes
As can be seen in the above picture, a round-down is a sharply sloping portion of the aft end of a flight deck, a location particularly unsuitable to topography of any sort.
IJN Akagi, circa 1927-'35. Note the "fly-off" decks, right, round-down left.
In the book
Shattered Sword, it's mentioned that the
Akagi's round-down is so pronounced that it, in effect, shortens her flight deck, as planes cannot be spotted there without having them roll off into the sea.
So why are they there at all? Throughout all my readings through the years, the only reason I've seen is that they were thought to be aerodynamically helpful for landing planes, perhaps by creating an are of calm air behind the ship.
But even if that were so, doesn't it seem that it'd be a rather ill-positioned lee for an aircraft attempting to land, not to mention small? Further, they also look like a fairly hostile place to try and land upon in the first place. Imagine: you touch down on the round-down, crest the "hill", and then? You're thrown back into the air, much like today's "ski-ramp" carrier decks would do.
Do any of you, my readers, have an idea? I'm completely flummoxed here!
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I wonder if they thought of it as a way to make the initial contact just a bit more forgiving. If you came in just a bit too low, then if the flight deck was level you'd run into it, but with that dip you might bounce off and still have a chance of catching the arrestor cable.
I don't think it would work, but I wonder if that's what they were thinking?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 21, 2008 11:22 PM (+rSRq)
2
The variation in forms of early aircraft carriers mirrors the variation in forms of early combat aircraft two decades before. The thing is that we see the mature aircaft, and the mature carrier, and know what they look like, but the people back then didn't.
Obviously, what we're seeing is the result of their experimentation and evaluation, to determine what works and what doesn't. For instance, it always gets me just a little to see WWII carriers without angled flight decks. It just seems to obvious that a carrier should have such a thing, yet it wasn't until the end of WWII before anyone (the Brits) even thought of such a thing.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 22, 2008 11:24 AM (+rSRq)
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I remember reading a book about Ark Royal iii (the WW2 one), which said the flight deck's was deigned to give better air flow, therefore helping take off. (British naval aircrst in the inter war years being... antiquated to say the least). Not sure about landing though,
The later Illustrious class had a similar shaped flight deck, later more powerful aircraft didn't need the assistance and at least one (Indomitable?) had the bow and stern rebuilt post war.
Posted by: Andy Janes at August 22, 2008 03:32 PM (xVeNB)
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I believe it was to accommodate the original longitudinal arrestor wires. Once the now standard transverse arrestor wires were implemented, the rounding was no longer needed. They didn't build carriers with it any more, but they didn't spend the money to flatten it out either.
Posted by: Paul Fitch at February 05, 2013 01:09 PM (M/vyn)
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August 16, 2008
An Unfortunate Encounter
I'd like to relate to my readers something that happened to me earlier today, something that can only be described as confusing, perplexed and, ultimately, sad.
This morning, I went grocery shopping at a local store that has a fairly decent "international foods" section. You know the type: Mexican staples, Indian chutneys and the like. There's also a wide selection of Asian foodstuffs, including Japanese things like soba, 10 different types of soy sauce, some microwaveable beef bowls (awful), a couple of different flavors of Pocky, instant miso, sushi fixings, yadda yadda...
I was browsing through the section, trying to decide if I wanted to get a cheap packet of instant miso (I did, eventually) along with the Pocky and some hot sauce (good to add to chili) when an elderly man said to me "you shouldn't buy that (crap)." I gave him a surprised look and asked, intelligently, "what?"
He repeated his assertion, adding "it's made by the Nips."
By now, my eyebrows had long left my forehead and headed for the stratosphere. Like an idiot, though, I asked him what's wrong with getting Japanese food. It's awfully tasty, after all. He visibly became angry with me as he said (I'm paraphrasing here) "I fought them in the Philippines, they shot me and killed some of my friends, I hate those damn Japs and I will until the day I die."
I want you to imagine my state of mind at this moment: standing in front of me was a man I automatically honor, a WWII vet, and one who fought in the Pacific theatre no less, an area of history I'm fascinated in. At the same time, though, he's trashing an entire race of people (including some that I'd call casual friends: Duck U has an exchange program with a Japanese college, so there's always around 5-10 students from there attending) for events that happened over sixty years ago, and a culture that I enjoy learning about to boot.
To say that I was confused and saddened just then would be accurate. I would have loved to have spoken with him about his experiences if he would have let me, but at the same time his attitude (and don't get me wrong, I understand where it comes from: if you're not going to like someone or something, seeing your friends killed and being shot yourself is a pretty good reason) was distasteful at best.
Fortunately, he didn't recognize the baseball cap I was wearing (the
Hanshin Tigers, brought back from Japan by a Duck U student for me). After heaping some more abuse on "the Nips" and scorn on me, he stalked off (as best he could, using a cane and an old person's shuffle) muttering under his breath.
I'm still disturbed by the whole thing. I think of
Brickmuppet, who's touristing in Japan right now, and wonder if there's old members of the Imperial Japanese Army who might want to chew him out, or skewer him with a bayonet if they could get away with it, just for being American. I think of my DVD rack, filled with anime, and my end-table, covered with pockyboxes... and one of my bookcases, stuffed with history books about the Pacific war.
And I wonder which of us has the right of it: the elderly man who fought and bled for our country, who's attitudes are over a half-century out of date? Or myself, who has the more modern attitudes, but who respects the actions of the other man.
In this multi-culti, politically correct world, are the experiences of the old soldier scornworthy? I'm glad I don't feel the way he does, but is he wrong to feel that way?
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It's understandable why he should feel that way, though many old soldiers do not.
I'm glad you didn't try to argue with him; that would have been wrong.
And it's OK for us to like the Japanese. The war was a long time ago.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 16, 2008 08:43 PM (+rSRq)
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I guess there really is no "right" here. My dad fought in Europe (came ashore 3 days after D-Day) and fought all the way through (including in the Ardennes during the Bulge) until about two weeks before V-E, when he was hit by shrapnel and ended up in a British hospital. Just like the man you encountered, he lost friends and was wounded. He didn't seem to harbor any particular hatred towards the Germans. I suppose it's something we can never understand, so its best to just let it lie.
My dad's unit was one of the ones that liberated Mauthausen... if he had been there, he might have felt the same towards the Germans that the man did towards the Japanese. Hell, I'd probably feel the same way.
Posted by: Evil Otto at August 16, 2008 09:15 PM (tYvh+)
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Steven, the last thing I would have done is argue with him.
Otto, everything I've ever read indicates that the Germans were "just like us" in WWII. How many immigrants from the Old Country served in the Army, after all? Or lived on your street? The Japanese, though, were looked down upon to start with, then as backstabbing sneak-attackers after Pearl Harbor. There weren't internment camps for German-Americans, but there sure were for Japanese. They were (and, I suppose, still are in some ways) too different.
Which is why I'm fond of the Japanese culture: it's
different! In another world, maybe I'd be fascinated by (say) the Indian culture, or Egyptian, or whatever... *shrug*
But add in the stress and horrors of war to the "different", and one can see how hatred can occur.
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 16, 2008 10:35 PM (AW3EJ)
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In response to "but is he wrong to feel that way?" I feel the answer is no. He's entitled to feel any way he wants. People are who they are and they take from life what they choose. But always remember that we are entitled to agree, disagree, become motivated, be disappointed, etc with/by the thoughts and behaviors of others. He will never change and I find it sad, but what would be sadder is if you allow his bitterness to affect your life. You each have the right to live your lives as you see fit. His issues are his. Don't let them become yours.
Posted by: The Librarian at August 17, 2008 02:44 AM (lMPdx)
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We tend to forget that history was and is personal, that all those good and bad experiences happened to someone.
My boss is half-Japanese. I've had the pleasure of meeting her mother, who fits the perfect stereotype of the little old Japanese lady. Her mother's family still lives in Japan. Her father is a veteran who was stationed in Japan after the war. I've never felt comfortable asking, but I'm sure there's a story there.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a veteran of World War 2 somewhere, probably of Jewish or Eastern European ancestry, that fought alongside one of the Nisei units in Europe, that admires the Japanese but can't look at a German car without feeling a similar hatred.
Posted by: Civilis at August 17, 2008 05:01 AM (Y1ZWN)
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I don't think he's wrong to feel that way at all. He's got a good reason for his feelings and he's entitled to them.
That's the way of it, though, and his time will eventually pass. Japan and the US are friendly now, and in some ways we would both suffer greatly from ending that friendship.
Of course, I'm a big Japan-o-phile too. I'm sure my Dad (who was in boot camp about the time they vaporized Hiroshima) was mystified that I could be so interested in Japanese culture and stuff.
Posted by: Ed at August 17, 2008 06:15 AM (XJZSD)
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I think that if I had time to compose an answer, I'd offer him my hand and say, "Thank you for helping make it possible for future generations to not hate the Japanese people."
In reality, I don't think my synapses would start firing until about ten minutes after he left. I could manage the thank you, but that's about it.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at August 22, 2008 06:48 PM (2XtN5)
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August 15, 2008
It's Happy Fun Time At Duck U!
Really, though, I kinda mean it. On Saturday, the new students to Duck U move in to their dorm rooms. Returning students come back on Tuesday, and the new school year begins on Wednesday.
What the campus will look like on Monday...
So it's a little bit hectic around the ol' Duck U Bookstore these days. Throw in the D. Duck Memorial College of Nursing, who's books we also supply, and it gets even more exciting!
Starting Monday, posts might be a wee tad thin on content (and for all you who are currently saying they already are, well, pbpbpbpbpbth!), but never fear, the F1 UPDATE! crew will keep us all informed about the August 24th race at the new street circuit in Valencia.
Anyway, this is the Duck U Bookstore's Christmas season. Approximately 25% of our annual sales comes from this next week... Christmas for sure!
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August 14, 2008
Olympic Scandal?
This is bigger than that
Chinese gymnast being too young to compete... a lot bigger.
And has deeper ramifications for all of us.
more...
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Posted by: Ed at August 15, 2008 04:15 AM (xJmTL)
2
I think she must be CGI, just like the opening fireworks.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 15, 2008 10:59 PM (+rSRq)
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Is that a Monty Python reference? If so, I salute you!
Posted by: ngthagg at August 22, 2008 04:31 PM (DNKpt)
4
It was, and thank you for noticing!
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 22, 2008 07:48 PM (AW3EJ)
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August 12, 2008
It Was 20 Years Ago Today...
...that Momzerduck and Ph.Duck were married, with young Wonderduck as the Best Man.
Congrats, you two lovebirds, and here's to the next 20 years!
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Coincidentially, my 20th anniversary was yesterday, only our mascot is a hare.
Posted by: Pete at August 13, 2008 08:48 PM (/ppBw)
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August 11, 2008
A View From Japan
As you may or may not be aware,
The Brickmuppet is over in Japan (too many entries to link, just scroll and enjoy). Last night (Pond time; it was closer to noon where he was) he sent me a picture with instructions to do with it what I will, as it would be "perfect for The Pond".
He was right, and here it is for your enjoyment:
Not
quite as cool as the sailor-suited curry-seller, but still awfully great. 'Muppet tells me that it's a cell-phone drop box for recycling purposes... he thinks. And a wholehearted thanks to him for letting me use it here at The Pond, too!
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It's advertising
these guys. The non-profit Nagasaki Prefecture Maritime Rescue Association.
Posted by: Andrew F. at August 12, 2008 03:46 PM (EP84l)
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That's a neat mascot for which is obviously a praiseworthy group.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 13, 2008 12:16 AM (+rSRq)
3
Looks like that group may be loosely affiliated with the Japan Coast Guard, who have their own
pretty neat mascots.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 13, 2008 12:19 AM (+rSRq)
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Testing, testing...
Well, this one worked,
Pixy, but the larger file still isn't working.
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August 09, 2008
Tech Help Requested
Okay, here's the problem. Chiyo-chan keeps popping the DVD drive open, and/or attempting to read the DVD in the drive, seemingly at random. Even when there's NO disc in the drive, it tries to access it.
This makes trying to play games pointless, as it only takes a few minutes for the DVD to either eject or access at the wrong time, resulting in a program crash.
If I don't use the drive for a period of time (week to 10 days), the problem goes away. Of course, if I try to play a CD, or burn something, that starts everything up again.
As I've typed this, I've done the "close drive, watch it open on its own" routine five or six times.
Anybody have this happen to them? Anybody heard of this before?
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The thing to do is look for auto-loading background tasks which might be interested in the CD. For instance, if you've installed Nero (CD/DVD burning program) it installs a couple of auto-load programs that monitor the DVD. Turns out that PowerDVD does the same, and so does the other major DVD player program.
Get rid of all of them. There are tools to allow you to see what is auto-starting, but if you can't do it any other way, then get into this registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Software
Microsoft
Windows
CurrentVersion
Run
and the same subpath to HKEY_CURRENT_MACHINE
If you're mucking with regedit, make sure to make a registry backup first. (Regedit can do that for you; I don't remember how so hit the help frame to see.)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 09, 2008 10:16 PM (+rSRq)
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that should have been "...that monitor the drive".
And the other major DVD player program is WinDVD.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 09, 2008 10:17 PM (+rSRq)
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There are tools to allow you to see what is auto-starting...
Any recommendations?
My last computer had a similar problem, and I solved it by adding another DVD drive to it and ignoring the old one. Unfortunately, I can't think of what programs were on both 'puters.
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 10, 2008 09:00 AM (AW3EJ)
4
Well, this one looks like it should work for you. It's what I used recently to tune Vista.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 10, 2008 09:46 AM (+rSRq)
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I suppose I should say this: that tool is extremely dangerous. Some of the things it shows you and permits you to disable are necessary for the operating system to run. So be really cautious about killing things off.
Probably the best way to work is to run that tool and see what's listed as auto-start. Then if you think something might be causing your problem, open the task manager (right-click the start bar to get it) and try directly killing that task. If the OS freezes, you know you can't spare that one. If the drive stops causing problems, then that was it and you can remove it using the autostart program.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 10, 2008 10:38 AM (+rSRq)
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I had a similar problem with a misbehaving DVD drive a while back, and eventually traced it back to the an install that I'd run off a DVD and thought had completed, but it expected one more shot at the disc after reboot, so it kept trying to access that file. Between poor error handling in that installer and the windows most-recently-used files list, there was an unending series of issues with that drive until I just used an old restore point to take my machine back to its state from before the issue arose.
Posted by: David at August 10, 2008 09:59 PM (UpR/+)
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It's a bit safer (assuming you're not using Vista; dunno what does the trick on that) to just run "msconfig" from the Run option. Not quite as comprehensive, but it does give you a list of auto-running software (with the option to disable, and it's easy to re-enable later if you hit the wrong one), and it keeps you from mucking with the registry, so you shouldn't explode your PC or anything.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 10, 2008 11:06 PM (pfysU)
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Sometimes it really is just as simple as a defective drive. If you have another computer/drive you can test with, I'd try that first.
Posted by: pxcasey at August 11, 2008 11:40 AM (Y4/VY)
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I do have a spare drive. It's a 12x DVD (as opposed to the 20x in there now), but it does work. I'm going to try it before I go into the nightmare of messing with the registry.
For the record, nothing in my startup seems to be the sort of thing that'd try to access the drive... except for maybe qttask.exe, the thing that brings up the quicktime icon on the taskbar. Which is annoying, since I've done everything I can to avoid the stink of Apple on Chiyo-chan.
Posted by: Wonderduck at August 11, 2008 06:44 PM (AW3EJ)
10
You definitely don't need qttask.exe. But if you decide not to autostart it, then after you've rebooted do run the QuickTime movie player once. Then look again; I think it's possible that the movie player will add it back to the autorun registry key again automagically. It might be necessary to rename the qttask.exe file so that it cannot be found.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 11, 2008 08:01 PM (+rSRq)
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August 05, 2008
Still Weatherblogging
Continuing with yesterday's impromptu weatherblogging, tonight is much more calm. No thunder, no lightning, no cows being thrown past The Pond's balcony, nothing like that. However, there is one thing that's the same: the humidity.
Hot + humid = a miserable Wonderduck. I've had a rather offensive sinus headache since yesterday afternoon, but today was unbearable. By 2pm I gave up on the day at work and came home, took my fourth and fifth tylenol, ate something, and went to bed hoping that when I woke up, my face wouldn't feel like it was either going to fall off or explode.
An accurate representation of how my head felt.
It's now after 8pm, and I just got out of bed. While I'm still a little rocky, I feel like a new duck, albeit one that's just cracked out of its shell. I don't think that blogging much tonight will help matters any, though, so I'm going to call it a night.
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August 04, 2008
Cross Your Fingers...
There are reports of tornadoes on the ground in the vicinity of the north side of Chicago... more specifically, in the area of Wrigley Field. The Cubs were playing the Houston Astros tonight at Wrigley, with a full house of around 41000 people in attendance.
The storms in question came through the Duckford area, and here at The Pond, it was actually quite terrifying. Nearly constant air-to-ground lightning strikes, and reportedly, the storm actually got stronger as it moved away to the east... towards Chicago. The weather folks say there's about 30000 people without power in Duckford, trees down, yadda, you know the drill. You can see the bow shape in the picture above, meaning that there's strong winds in there.
As I said, it was terrifying enough here at Pond Central... I can't imagine what it'd be like outside at Wrigley. Let's hope everything's okay... as I typed that, the weather folks say there's reports of heavy cloud rotation near O'Hare Airport.
All is well here at The Pond, the power never even fluctuated. Momzerduck and Ph.Duck report that they're okay, too.
UPDATE 840pm: A few minutes after I hit 'save' on this post, WGN radio, which has gone to continuous weather coverage, reported
80mph winds blowing on Michigan Avenue and heavy, heavy rain. Still nothing heard from Wrigley, but considering that WGN (the flagship station of the Cubs radio network), isn't saying anything about it anymore, I'd say that a bullet has been dodged. Holy crap, a weather reporter says that there were
100mph winds on the south side of Chicago, too.
UPDATE 850pm: "We've never seen anything like this at Wrigley Field before." No tornado, thankfully, but Cory Probst, the play-by-play team's info guy, says that the rain was incredibly heavy, there's standing water on the warning track (and this after an off-season renovation of the field to improve drainage), and there's loads of debris. Nobody's said anything about the game coming back on, and hopefully everybody at Wrigley is okay. The worst of the weather has moved into Indiana and Lake Michigan, reportedly. Neo couldn't have dodged the bullet any closer.
UPDATE 1025pm: The Cubs just retook the field after what must have been a miracle job by the groundscrew. And there are still plenty of fans there, too! The foul lines are pretty much gone, though, and I've
never seen that before!
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