I've been sitting here all day watching as I get huge numbers of refers from all over, to 8+ year old posts on USS Clueless. And the IP is always the same: 111.13.8.19

He crawled kuro5hin.org, and followed the few links there to me. He crawled janegalt.net. He crawled freerepublic.com. He crawled drweevil.org. johnquiggin.com. gnxp.com.

And he just found ai.mee.nu. I fear he's eventually going to crawl my server and hammer it into the ground.

So who is this wonderful person? A reverse DNS fails. APNIC says it belongs to China Mobile Communications Corporation. So is it a gutsy user with lots of money to pay for bandwidth? Or is it the government of China looking for things to block in the Great Firewall? Or maybe some native Chinese search engine's crawler.

Christ knows. I was seriously considering blocking him in my firewall, but if it's really a citizen in China, looking at conservative web sites, I don't really want to exclude him.

UPDATE: You know, you can hunt all through the APNIC web site and if you can find any indication of where in hell it's located, you're better than I am. Even the job listings don't say where they are.

I had to visit Wikipedia to find out that it's in Brisbane.

UPDATE: Our friend just found bojack.org and samizdata.net. Also perfidy.org. ashbrook.org.

UPDATE: He just started dumping my site.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 05:10 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I sometimes see google searches in my refer that I think are noteworthy. Here's one that makes me a bit sad:

who+were+we+fighting+in+world+war+1

Whoever this is, why didn't they learn about that in school history class? Unfortunately, that's a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.

For the record: once things settled down and everyone was involved, on one side the major players were Imperial Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottomans (Turkey). On the other side the big teams were Britain, France, Italy, Imperial Russia, and eventually, the United States. There were a lot of other countries involved (e.g. Belgium, Canada) to a greater or lesser extent on one side or the other but few of them made much difference at all.

Imperial Russia was knocked out of the war by the Russian Revolution, about the same time that the US began sending significant forces to France.

And who won? Well, pretty much no one. Austria lost the worst, Germany probably second worst. The US lost 117,000 dead and didn't really gain anything out of the war, but among the big players that was the best outcome. So I guess it would be fair to say that the US was the best loser, if that makes any sense. Maybe, we could say the US lost the least.

The war formally ended with the Treaty of Versailles, which in my opinion is the most misbegotten, ill-conceived "peace treaty" in all of history. It pretty much guaranteed another war, and starting in 1939 we got it. "World War II" really should have been called "World War I, the next generation" or "WWI part 2" or maybe "Son of WWI", because that's what it was.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 01:18 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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I read a minor rant one time by Larry Niven, that went something like this: "How the hell are we supposed to write SF about the Solar System when you astronomers keep changing everything?"

I think it was a comment about his story "The Coldest Place", which assumed that Mercury was tide locked, and its dark side was eternally dark and very cold. It actually turns out that Mercury is tide-locked, but it's in a 3:2 resonance. Basically, a Mercury day is 1.5 Mercury years long. But it means that all parts of the surface are exposed to the sun about half the time.

I'm rereading Heinlein's novel "Space Cadet", which is subject to a bit of that. I just encountered a scene where Pete, from Ganymede, mentions that the surface gravity there is 32% of Earth. And it occurred to me that this might have been subject to revision.

I was right. The current estimate is that the surface gravity is 14.6%. The earlier estimate was based on guesses about the moon's internal composition, which assumed it was about like Earth: rock and metal. We now know that there's a hundreds-of-miles-thick layer of ice, which is a lot less dense.

The mass of Ganymede was calculated based on how it affected Galileo's flybys, so it's very accurate. The earlier number was little better than an educated guess.

The last third or so of this book is where things really changed the most, though. It was written back when the orthodoxy (at least in SF) was that the surface of Venus was a jungle. Of course we now know it ain't so. The surface of Venus is the closest approximation in the Solar System of traditional Hell. There is no life on Venus and there never will be. The temperature on the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead.

None of which takes away from enjoying the story, of course. But it's interesting to think about just how much the Solar System has changed during my lifetime -- or at least, how much our conception of it has changed.

When I was a kid, there were nine planets. Now there are only eight.

UPDATE: They changed things on me again. Now the orthodoxy is that Mercury's day is two Mercury years.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 05:59 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Here's someone asking what a "carriage return" is.

I learned to type on a manual typewriter. Summer school between 6th and 7th grade. And if you want to know it, that was the single most valuable course I took in all my years of schooling.

And part of learning it was using the carriage return. And now there are people who don't even know what they are... sob, I'm getting old...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 12:13 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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1 You can tell the age of a computer keyboard by whether the key says "Return" or 'Enter" on it.

But yes, a touch-typing class in high school was one of the most valuable classes I had there.  Although spending countless hours on BBS's and later on a text-based MUCK really refined my skills and speed.

(I still need to break the habit of backspacing multiple words out of existence to fix a typo rather than using the mouse).

Posted by: Mauser at May 05, 2012 12:48 PM (cZPoz)

2

Even in the earliest ASCII iteration, though, a carriage return was kept separate from a line feed, and with the various text editors using CR, LF, CR/LF, and LF/CR to represent different things almost at random, I guess questions about it were inevitable.

Just be glad you can provide that knowledge to the next generation. Otherwise we might get ubiquitous word processors that use VT to mark paragraphs.

Posted by: Tatterdemalian at May 05, 2012 01:04 PM (4njWT)

3 I too, consider the touch-typing course I took in high school to be the single most useful class I ever took in public school.

...but I learned on an IBM Selectric ("the electric typewriter with the little type ball" for those born after 1990) rather than a full-manual.  But I had used full-manual typewriters before that, so I knew what "return" was doing.

Posted by: atomic_fungus at May 05, 2012 02:15 PM (vq4t5)

4

Back in my school days, I had to take typing on electric typewriters.  Before that, I had a manual typewriter and later an electric typewriter, and had to replace typewriter ribbon.  The latter was drafted for several years to do my reports, even after I got a PC, because the serial port on the hand-me-down PC did not work (Thus no printers - and back in those days, we used serial ports and not USB for connecting the printer to the computer.).

Last month, after I posted about the Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun Returns CRPGs on the Fandom Post, I had someone ask what a CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game) was.  Sob...

C.T.

 

Posted by: cxt217 at May 05, 2012 03:24 PM (QzVZ+)

5 Typing was the only course I failed in high school.
It was also the only course I took that would have been of any significant use to me in life after high school (computer programmer, then writer).
Figures.
I still hunt and peck (at about 40wpm, though).

Posted by: Toren at May 05, 2012 04:32 PM (tcSL4)

6 I failed it too. Although in my case it was because I got roughhoused at school and my finger was broken in the altercation.  Even though it was only a couple of weeks after the beginning of the school year, they wouldn't let me change to another course.  I still managed to get enough out of it to be a ten-fingered typist, but not a good one.

That was my last year at that school; my parents pulled me out and sent me to private school (at great expense) afterwards.

Posted by: ubu at May 05, 2012 04:52 PM (GfCSm)

7 I took the typing class in seventh grade.  I'm fairly sure it was on electric typewriters; while the school was in a poor neighborhood, that the gifted and creative arts programs were contained therein made sure that it was well-funded.

I don't remember what grade I got in it, though I'm fairly sure it wasn't a good one.  To this day, I type in a unique, Wonderduck-centric style that typing teachers would loathe.  Still effective, though: 80wpm last time I was tested. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at May 05, 2012 05:02 PM (6CHh4)

8 We actually had an old typewriter. Didn't work very well, which was actually great, since that meant it was "a thing the kids can play with" rather than "an expensive thing kids don't get to play with".

Got replaced by an actual word processor. Remember those? Then that got replaced by a 286...

By the time I got to typing class in middle school, I was proficient enough to test out of it. Just as well, I would have been rather bored...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at May 05, 2012 05:16 PM (GJQTS)

9

When I was in grade school, my mom liked to visit places like St. Vincent de Paul, which collected junk and sold it cheap. I guess they were in the same business as Goodwill back then.

She didn't mind if we bought junk and brought it home. My brother and I did a lot of that, buying old radios and tearing them apart to take out all the resistors and capacitors, for instance.

One time I bought a manual typewriter which wasn't working properly, and took it apart (somewhat!) and put it back together.

And it worked afterwards, but I had a couple of pieces left. I never noticed anything that didn't work, so I still wonder just what those pieces were for?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 05, 2012 05:45 PM (+rSRq)

10

And it worked afterwards, but I had a couple of pieces left. I never noticed anything that didn't work, so I still wonder just what those pieces were for?

I can think of many, many situations where 'a couple of pieces left' after reassembling a machine would cause an immediate scramble for the exit.

Strangely enough, I do not remember using word processors.  I probably did in my typing class, since I remember sessions where I typed the lesson and only after I was finished did everything come spitting out in one long chatter of type.  Which reminded me of the tractor feed printer I had once upon the time for my Commodore 128.

C.T.

 

Posted by: cxt217 at May 05, 2012 06:41 PM (QzVZ+)

11 Oooh, there's a common experience.  I once found an old manual Underwood with a cracked upper frame, and I fixed it up and used that to type school reports.  I'm not sure what happened to that giant hunk of cast iron, but I think my folks ended up with it and eventually threw it out.  I also used to desolder all the components from failed electronics, including a tube-based color TV.  I think I still have a box full of that junk somewhere.

The one place where typing class has done me a disservice is that I end sentences with a double-space, and whoever the douche is who specified it in HTML decreed that all whitespace collapses together, thus you type two spaces, it displays as one, and whether it's stored as one or two is up to the gods.  DeviantArt tries to help, replacing double spaces with two   (non-breaking space) strings, which inflates the hell out of my file sizes and plays hob with the line breaking.

(ooh, and typing that escape string for nbsp and hitting preview shows it as unescaped text in the preview, but converts it in the edit box below the preview.)

Posted by: Mauser at May 05, 2012 07:58 PM (cZPoz)

12 I hate the double-space. Hideous.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 05, 2012 08:23 PM (5OBKC)

13

Typing class in high school was on selectrics, but I started earlier than that with an old cast-iron fully manual monster (Mom's from her college days.)

I'll break with tradition and say it was not the most useful class I took...  Because I became an EE and had taken 3 years of vocational electronics in HS.

And I'm cursed to forever be a double-spacer.  The concept has hung around in strange places... on the iPhone, space-space converts to period-space, so you don't have to switch to the "numbers and punctuation" screen when texting.

Posted by: Mikeski at May 05, 2012 09:48 PM (1bPWv)

14 I heard that the engineering term for when you take something apart, put it back together, there are parts left over and yet it still works is "adding lightness."

Posted by: Toren at May 06, 2012 04:15 PM (tcSL4)

15 In software development, we call it "refactoring".

-j

Posted by: J Greely at May 06, 2012 05:31 PM (2XtN5)

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Another Hot Air Green Room post.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 08:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of my favorite games in the old days was Super-hero League of Hoboken. For those not familiar with the US, Hoboken NJ is just across the Hudson river from Manhattan. This year's US F1 is going to be run there.

I've been hoping GOG would acquire that title, but it hasn't happened. It's a DOS game, and I bet it would run under DOSBOX. But my copy is long gone, and them's the breaks.

Hoboken's name is obviously funny, and as a town it's strictly bedroom. Most of the people who live there work somewhere else, particularly in Manhattan, to which they commute on the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) subway which runs under the river.

One of the PATH stations used to be under the World Trade Center. I'm not sure if it's still in operation.

Anyway, Hoboken is one of those places like Poughkeepsie which pretty much brings a snicker when mentioned, even if unjustly, just because the name is so strange.

And that's why it was used in this game, which is completely tongue-in-cheek. It's full of topical jokes which probably haven't aged well.

One of them is that at one point in the game the League goes to one particular place, and Dick Clark is running a concert, "...and he still looks young!"

Well, not any more. He died today, age 82. Bummer.

UPDATE: Another joke was that at one point the League finds a bunch of corpsicles. They revive two of them, and it turns out to be George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin. Steinbrenner hires and then fires Martin twice in the ensuing conversation as they exit.

The League also visits Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Sadly, it isn't there anymore. It was torn down last year.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 01:43 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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If you live in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, or Iowa, please spend all of tomorrow in your storm cellar.

This isn't a joke. NOAA thinks there's going to be a boat-load of tornadoes tomorrow.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 09:03 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I've made another post to Hot Air's Green Room.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 04:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You all are familiar, I assume, with the American fad to get tattoos in Chinese, usually resulting in gibberish or something really embarassing.

Seems that the new fad in China is to get tattoos in English.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 06:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Only this one's an autogyro.

And there's no possible way it would be street legal in the US.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 06:36 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Before another natural disaster strikes, I hasten to mention that I'd like an Icon A5 for Christmas (http://www.iconaircraft.com/). It's an airplane that one can tow, which basically has all the advantages of Terrafuga, but keeps the performance of a normal airplane - speed, range, and payload - because it does not carry a redundant engine and other attributes of a car. Unfortunately, A5 was a vapor for many years, as the company is struggling to create the impossible: an airplane that can be flown by any boater safely. Last I heard from them, they just completed and certified a spin-resistant design (on top of an unstallable wing).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 06, 2012 06:55 PM (5OBKC)

2 It has 3 wheels, this opens a LOT of loopholes in US regulatory assininity. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at April 06, 2012 07:03 PM (EJaOX)

3 Brickmuppet, you're right. That makes it a motorcycle, doesn't it? So it doesn't need 10-mph crash bumpers or stuff like that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 06, 2012 07:44 PM (+rSRq)

4 That's nice work for a prototype - even the pusher prop folds itself up to stow away neatly.

I love regulations like that - three wheels makes it a motorcycle....  With a pusher prop and rotor blades.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 06, 2012 08:22 PM (PiXy!)

5 I like that one much more than the Terrafugia.  Of course, aside from the fact that I couldn't afford either one, my normal commute goes nowhere near a place where you could take-off or land either one.

Posted by: David at April 06, 2012 09:45 PM (Kn54v)

6 I am not a big fan of autogyros for the reason that they combine the worst control response and stability characteristics of airplanes and helicopters. Only experienced rotorcraft pilots can fly them, and even then the last time an autogyro was on the market ("AT-2"), its crash record was unimaginably bad: something like 1 in 5 flights ended in a mishap. Most were related to a roll-over. I cannot imagine PAL-V being flown routinely by someone who's not a professional stunt pilot.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 07, 2012 07:17 AM (5OBKC)

7 Depends on the AutoGyro design. A lot of the kit-built sort don't have a horizontal stabilizer, and have poor thrust/Drag lines, making them very vulnerable to "Power Push Over", where in a climb, the pilot tries to level out before reducing power. The sudden reduction in drag from the rotor disk vs the high thrust line from the motor (mounted too high for ground clearance) and the low drag line from the fuselage/Pilot (mounted too low because long spindly landing gear is harder to design), results in the machine toppling over. A properly designed autogyro will have the thrust and drag much more aligned, and a horizontal stabilizer will prevent toppling over.

Remember when they were first invented, the idea was to make a crash/stall-proof airplane. There were some advantages to the original tractor designs.

(How on earth did I end up logged out?)

Posted by: Mauser at April 07, 2012 10:27 AM (cZPoz)

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