Rough Times in the SPD

Politics : This week here in Germany, the socialist party (SPD) has been celebrating its 140th anniversary. Thats a heck of a long time! No! Wait! Only 140? Then to which party did Johannes Rau originally belong? ;)

(In)competence at MS (again!) : A Windows XP update released last Friday cut off Internet connections for an unknown number of the 600,000 users who installed it. Microsoft has withdrawn the update and is investigating the glitch.

Remind me again about Bill Gates "secure computing" initiative please :(

posted by Stu Savory on 29th May 2003 at 10:19 Central European Time

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What rough beast?

Politics : Donny Rumsfeld, the US minister of war, now wants to have a go at Iran, it seems. This guy is dangerous, destabilising the middle east. Somehow, the situation in this new millenium makes me think of the famous poem by W.B.Yeats, which I reproduce for you below. I'm told Dubya is a "born-again" guy, too. Maybe he and his Junta should read Solomon 16:32.

Poetry :

The Second Coming

W.B.Yeats

 TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
 The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
 Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
 The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
 The best lack all conviction, while the worst
 Are full of passionate intensity.

 Surely some revelation is at hand;
 Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
 The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
 When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
 Troubles my sight:  somewhere in sands of the desert
 A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
 A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
 Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
 Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
 The darkness drops again; but now I know
 That twenty centuries of stony sleep
 Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
 Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 
                                     

posted by Stu Savory on 28th May 2003 at 20:29 Central European Time

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Lying with Statistics :)

Math : Great lecture by Prof. Walter Krämer (University of Dortmund). He filled the auditorium to capacity at the HNF. Very amusing lecture, here just three examples:

• Always define what you are measuring and comparing precisely. For example Infant Deaths. In old East Germany these were defined as "Newborn who was either breathing or had a heartbeat, and subsequently died." In West Germany the definition was (and is) "Newborn who was breathing AND had a heartbeat, and subsequently died." In some states of the US the definition is "Baptised child who subsequently died." And the definitions, rather than the medical facilities in each country, accounted for the different rates of Infant Death.
• Similarly with Unemployment. German definition "Someone , between 18 and 65, who now does not have a job, although trying to find one". And in the divisor (in the rate calculation) soldiers and civil-servants and clerics are excluded. In USA: "Somone, regardless of age, who does not have a job". In Japan: "Someone, who previously had a job, and who does not now have one." So the japanese exclude all school-leavers, students, military, returning mothers etc. No wonder they have a low unemployment rate.
• Using the same correlation argument used by the Green party to prove that nuclear reactors cause leukaemia, I can show you that catholic churches in the USA cause AIDS. Mark on a map areas where there is a large number of AIDS cases and other areas (same size circles) where there are no cases. Now count the number of catholic chorches in both types of areas. The probability of a catholic church being in an area with high AIDS is much higher than the areas with low AIDS. This was the argument used for nuclear reactors. True, but the areas will have different population densities too! You only build the churches and reactors where there are people who want to use them.

If you want more, I recommend his book So lügt man mit Statistik, Frankfurt 1991 (Campus; 8th edition 1998, also in paperback with Piper).

posted by Stu Savory on 24th May 2003 at 12:19 Central European Time

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'Bush' Airfields in Europe :)

Flying : Yesterday evening, at the flying club, several other old pilots and I (58) were remeniscing about difficult approaches, hairy landings, etc pp, to impress the youngsters, as one does :) To prevent the shaggy dog tales and inevitable exaggeration, you get challenged "Show us your log-book entry for the landing, then!" And you'll get booed off as an incorrigible lier and showoff, if you can't ;)
But I managed to find two entries (from about 20 years ago) which I had even logged as being "hairy". So here they are, for the delectation of any pilots reading this Blog :)
Click in the thumbnails to get a larger view of the approach plates.

Barra is a Scottish island in the Atlantic, and when you look at the area sheet (click the left thumbnail), the airfield appears to be for seaplanes. Not so! It is for landplanes.

<- VFR Approach plate . . . Airfield description ->

The runways are only there at low tide! They are on a sandbank at altitude zero (=mean-sea-level), offshore. So you fly to Oban on the nearby mainland coast first and go talk to the harbourmaster(sic!), to find out when low- and high-tides are, before even considering an approach. Now click on the right thumbnail and read the (not so) subtle hints, warning amateurs off:

• Landing and take-off areas ... ridged by hard sand ... pools of standing water ... hazards to aircraft (sic!)
• Turbulence ... down-draughts ... nearby hill.
• To remain stationary ... may result in wheels sinking into the sand.

Yupp! Barra qualified as "hairy" according to my logbook notes:)

Meribel is a mountainside airfield high up in the french alps. 5636 feet up, to be exact. And with an approach path like a used paperclip, instead of the usual straight-in that IFR pilots are used to. And within a half-mile to the left, to the right and straight ahead are peaks 1000 feet higher than the field. So the final approach MUST succeed, it's a dead-end valley. Click the left thumbnail to see the VFR approach plate.

<- Approach <- Field data . <- Hints

The runway itself (click centre thumbnail) is only 400 meters long, it goes uphill and slopes to the right (trying to put you in the weeds!). And this field is permissible for twins, according to the data sheet. There are noise abatement procedures mentioned too (e.g. try to miss the golf course ;). I went there one summer afternoon with the density altitude around 8000 feet in a plane with an 11,000 foot ceiling :(

Now click on the right thumbnail to read the "gentle hints" listed under 'additional information'. "Unusable outside of runway" means, if you get onto the grass/undergrowth with its soft soil, tough luck! If you blow the approach and need to make an emergency landing, the recommended area is a) behind you, b) directly behind the church spire, c) up a 20% slope into the hillside and, to crown it all, d) not even marked on the approach plate !

BTW, landings are uphill regardless of wind direction. Take-offs are made by charging downhill and falling over the cliff at the end of the runway :)

Yupp! Meribel also qualified as "hairy" according to my logbook notes:)

Please do enjoy your boring airline flight next time, OK :)

posted by Stu Savory on 17th May 2003 at 07:19 Central European Time

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Links to Odds and Ends

Lecturing : Yesterday I was at a conference, giving a lecture. Even after all these years and three-digit lectures, I still get stage fright. So it's nice to read that others get nervous too. Go read about a conference delegate's sensibilities ;)
Laugh? I nearly fell off the podium ;)

Reasons for blogging : A few days ago, I asked "why do you blog?" and got several answers by Email. However, the alpha-bloggers like Halley Suitt and Dave Winer etc. answered in their own blogs. I guess that's one reason why they are alpha-bloggers and I'm still an also-ran :(

Space-flight : Recently a Soyuz re-entered from the ISS and was 400 km off course on landing. My cosmonaut friends tell me that you can't actually see out of the Soyuz during re-entry and this landing inaccuracy was due to new software. This surprises me: you can have a SW error, without Windows ;) ?

Music : An unbelievable concert last weekend! Stiller Has can really sing the Blues - however, in Schweizerdeutsch ( the Swiss dialect of German!). When someone in the audience complained it was unintelligible to a native German, they did another song, NOT in Schweizerdeutsch, they proclaimed. Turned out to be just as unintelligible, because it was in low Austrian :grins: :) Go listen to their MP3 samples.

Poetry : Having read through my collection of classic (and short!) poems, Lucy sent me her Poetry Pointers. Well worth a visit!

HTML Tips : Another site worth a visit is that of Mandarin Design, with their neat daily tips for polishing your website. This week they had a bloghunt too. Great idea!

Politics : Jerry - whose politics are considerably to the right of mine ( he wrote part of Reagan's SDI Star Wars speech ) - writes that in delicate diplomatic discussions, such as those with Syria recently, the USA generally has the better arguments :(
But I do admire the Chinese, at least for the sheer honesty of their translations. This photo is from Cheng Da railway station, maybe they could make a copy for Washington, DC?

posted by Stu Savory on 15th May 2003 at 06:03 Central European Time

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US culture

Facts about the US ;)

• Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning. Most americans drink coffee in the morning.
• Most dust particles in a US house are made from dead skin.
• The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
• Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
• Marilyn Monroe had six toes. Nobody cared!
• Walt Disney (he of Mickey and Minnie fame) was afraid of mice.
• The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. More americans die of lung-cancer than diabetes. More americans die of diabetes than alcohol-poisoning.
• Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
• In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the USA's nuclear weapons combined.
• On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year. Schools report that the number of US citizens who have difficulty writing is increasing. Dubya is reportedly dyslexic.
• Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
• The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
• A snail can sleep for three years. Dan Quayle was in office for over three years.
• The electric chair was invented by a US dentist.
• US Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
• Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. The FAA is doing nothing about this either.
• Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
• You burn less calories watching television than you do sleeping. Couch potatoes gain weight.
• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
• Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. Microsoft however, still distributes an animated GIF of the Earth rotating clockwise.

posted by Stu Savory on 13th May 2003 at 06:03 Central European Time

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Censorship

History : 70 years ago today, here in Germany, the Nazis burned books of which they did not approve. Nowadays you cannot buy a copy of "Mein Kampf" here, unless you are a bona fide historical researcher. The pendulum swung the other way. Different countries have different censorship rules. In the US or UK you would just go into a book store and order the translated version (0-7126-5254-X, Pimlico Press, UK). However, don't try to import it here!

Secret Pawn : Many US universities, companies and institutions censor what their (adult!) surfers can access, using software designed to help concerned parents control what their children see in the web. Mind you, the children can watch lurid Hollywood violence on TV all day there (violence is a part of american culture ;)
But despite a spam and pawn filter, I just received this (secret) pawn picture :-

It got past the filter by using a cryptographic technique called steganography.
(N.B. more on Crypto on my German Chiffriergeraete pages.)
The picture doesn't worry me in the slightest, I just like the way it's done! To see the hidden picture, just mark it (or use CTRL-A) and MSIE will reveal the secret picture. Just MSIE 6.x, it seems, doesn't work with Opera or Netscape or IE5 I'm told. I experimented with changing the size of the picture - via resize and via rescan - but any change spoils the effect. Even feeding it through a blue filter doesn't work. Anybody want to know how this is done ? (Purely in the interests of scientific knowledge :)

Photo : This photo was taken near a US air-base in Germany (grin).
I just wonder why they didn't have a German version of the sign too? Duh!

posted by Stu Savory on 11th May 2003 at 07:03 Central European Time

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Auld Lang Syne

Friends : Met up with some old friends this week. Friends with whom I worked together for a quarter of a century. Now we are dispersed our sundry ways, so it was good to meet again. Nice seeing you, guys!

Blogging : Nice too, to see that Dear Raed is back, blogging from Baghdad again!
Here is the story.

Rants : And as if we didn't already know it, you can't trust Mickeysoft! Their socalled secure Passport service has a security-hole which you could drive a tank through.
MS Passport has betrayed the secrets of 3/4 million customers! And Mickeysoft tried to hush the scandal up of course, sweeping it unter the carpet.

Politics : This really pisses me off : influential ultra right wing US hawks planning for total world domination by the US (aka Bush Junta).

Oops : Go visit the website of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians Europe. Having done so, now just read their URL (=web address) aloud ;)

posted by Stu Savory on 10th May 2003 at 09:03 Central European Time

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Warning Signs

Politics : Thanks go today to Laurence Britt for a list of 14 signs of incipient fascism, which I summarise below. Here's a link to the original article.

• Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
• Disdain for the importance of human rights.
• Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
• The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
• A controlled mass media.
• Obsession with national security.
• Religion and ruling elite tied together.
• Power of corporations protected.
• Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
• Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
• Obsession with crime and punishment.
• Rampant cronyism and corruption.
• Fraudulent elections.

If any 'Merkins reading this find it familiar, let them take heed!

posted by Stu Savory on 8th May 2003 at 10:13 Central European Time

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Wrong decisions

When the Lord gave out ears
I thought he said beers
And I ordered two long ones

When the Lord gave out legs
I thought he said kegs
And I ordered two fat ones

When the Lord gave out chins
I thought he said gins
And I ordered a double

When the Lord gave out guts
I thought he said huts
And ordered a big round one

When the Lord gave out noses
I thought he said roses
And I ordered a big red one

When the Lord gave out wangs
I thought he said fangs
And I said "real short, please"

When the Lord gave out brains
I thought he said drains
So I skipped mine

O Lord, am I in a mess!

posted by Stu Savory on 6th May 2003 at 23:13 Central European Time

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Blogworld

Blogging : You look at Blogging and you can't help wondering. There is so much going on all at once, and the whole thing is so interconnected and complicated, and there are so many roaring individualists there, all railing at each other over tiny differences of opinion, that it confuses an old fogey like me :)

Why would anyone, you might ask, deliberately dive into that maelstrom, merely to become just another blogger?

Well, I posed that question at a local blogmeet. The tumult stopped instantly. In the dead silence bloggers stared at me for not knowing the clearly obvious. But I got as many different answers as there were people present! Then they were all at it again, all talking at once, and shouting for your attention. Today online, they are at each others' throats once more, snarling over either the Dubya Junta (like Stavros & I), or being insulted by the Whiner, or claiming it is social-SW (Liz), or blogging instead of having alpha zex. So I shrug my shoulders and think "What could you expect, they're all bright young things, all out of their minds (and into others', in blogspace)".

So just mail me you answers pls, ten lines or less, to the question "Why do you blog?"

posted by Stu Savory on 3rd May 2003 at 10:23 Central European Time

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Mayday

Politics : Ever since Hitler made 1st of May into a public holiday here, this date has been used for political statements. A wierd week: Monday was Saddam's Birthday, which was not on 20th April, thus destroying one of C.G.Jung's theories and confusing Dubya. Wednesday was the 60th anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Not that it helped them much; Tuesday was Holocaust Day. And midnight brought us Walpurgis Night, so - fittingly - today Bush the Usurper will announce the end of the war he started. So here's the press interview which will not appear elsewhere ;)

• Mr. President, what's your message to us today?
• I'm the bestest World-Prezzi y'all ever had! The war in Iraq is over!
• Well, did you win?
• Uhh, no.
• You started the war, you said, because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Did you find any?
• Uhh, no..
• Well did you at least manage to capture Saddam?
• Uhh, no...
• But you did manage to kill a couple of thousand civilians?
• Well, yes.
• And over a hundred americans and their allies died?
• Well, yes..
• In fact you killed some of them yourselves, by so-called "friendly fire"?
• Well, yes...
• And will you stand for re-election on your record?
• Uhh . . .
• And will it be a real election, next time?
• If pigs could fly!
• Well sir, maybe they can . . .

Gift : If the rant given above was too mild for you, go read the rant at Emptybottle, dated 30th April. The Bush Junta's politics really do chafe his scrote! But if you are still looking for that perfect gift for your loved one, then how about a purse made from a castrated's scrotum ? Aussies do have wierd tastes!

posted by Stu Savory on 1st May 2003 at 11:24 Central European Time