Today's feel-good story

Miss D. is presently in Alaska, where she's putting her aircraft back together after re-sparring the wings. She sent me a link to this story.

German shepherds were bred for intelligence to protect sheep flocks from predators. They are revered for their loyalty and renowned to be sensitive to people’s emotions. While a collie named Lassie may be best known as a dog hero for the saying “Lassie, go get help,” Buddy carried on the tradition set by German shepherds Strongheart and Rin Tin Tin when he went to get help after his owners’ Caswell Lakes property caught on fire on April 4, 2010.

Like usual, Buddy was beside his human companion, Ben Heinrichs, who was working in the family’s shop. A heater ignited chemicals the 23-year-old was working with, giving Ben flash burns to his face. The flames quickly grew as Ben escaped the shop. However, Buddy was briefly entrapped inside the burning shed when Ben shut the shop door behind him to keep the flames from spreading. After extinguishing the flames on his body, Ben immediately realized his dog was still inside the shed and went back in to let Buddy out. After Buddy exited the shed, Ben said to him, “Buddy, we need to get help.”

Buddy headed for the woods, but not to hide as his owners expected the shy dog to do. Instead he ran to Caswell Loop Road where he eventually found help.

Alaska State Trooper Terrence Shanigan was struggling with finding the fire in the Caswell Lakes area outside Willow, which has approximately 75 miles of back roads.

He had just received a frantic phone message calling for help left by neighbors of the Heinrichs who are members of the local neighborhood watch program.

Shanigan’s global positioning device froze up on him, and dispatch was trying to pinpoint the address among the maze of neighborhood back roads. He was planning on taking a turn that would send him the long way around the neighborhood when Buddy appeared as a shadow at the edge of Shanigan’s moose lights on his patrol vehicle.

When Shanigan approached the intersection, the dog looked at him, and took off running down a side road. Shanigan acted on a hunch that the loose dog was there for a purpose and followed the running dog through three turns that eventually led the Heinrichs’ property.

Every once in a while during the run back to his home, Buddy looked back at Shanigan’s car as if to make sure the trooper was following. By the time Shanigan reached the property, the work shop was fully engulfed in flames that also lapped precariously close to the Heinrichs’ house.

Shanigan said Buddy stopped at the end of the driveway and turned around to wait for him. When Shanigan got out of his parked car, the dog ran around the patrol vehicle and approached him, jumped up and down and nudged him as he walked up the driveway to the burning building.

. . .

“Buddy’s valiant actions saved Trooper Shanigan valuable time in responding to the fire,” said AST Director Col. Audie Holloway. “Buddy’s pluckiness is a bright spot among an otherwise tragic event for the Heinrichs family.”

Because of this, Buddy will be presented an award at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 23 at the Alaska State Troopers Headquarters building at 5700 E. Tudor Road in Anchorage. Buddy and his owners, Lynnette and Thomas Heinrich and their son, Ben, will be given the award with much appreciation from Alaska State Troopers. AST Director Col. Audie Holloway and Trooper Terrence Shanigan, who works out of the Talkeetna post, will be present as well.

There's more at the link. Here's a video clip from Officer Shanigan's dashboard camera, showing Buddy running ahead of his car and guiding him to the fire.

Well done, that dog! I hope his owners gave him the biggest steak they could find!

Peter

An Australian satirist examines the Iceland volcano

One of my favorite humorists, Australian Richard Glover, has some trenchant (and funny) thoughts on the disruption to air traffic caused by the volcanic eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier in Iceland.

OK, we get it. People in Iceland are perpetually cold. But does that mean they have to take it out on the rest of us? For the past couple of decades, they've been doing their best to bring the world to its knees.

First it was the export of Bjork, a woman whose singing pitch causes grand mal seizures among laboratory mice. Then it was the global financial crisis, with Iceland queueing to be the first country to go broke, after a collapse in the futures market for herring.

The Icelandic economy still had its AAA credit rating but the three A's were henceforth followed by the letters RRRGGGHHH. Suddenly, everyone realised Iceland mainly consisted of ice — a fact, you may think, the Icelanders had disclosed when they named it Iceland.

Still, no one was more surprised than the world's financial experts — a group of people who were already shocked to discover that unemployed people in the US's south sometimes found it hard to repay their home loans.

In the aftermath of these revelations, the world demanded that Iceland start paying its way. In response, Icelanders have developed a new export industry: ash.

They are distributing it by air, all over Europe, sourcing it from a volcano, the pronunciation of which is impossible unless the speaker is simultaneously regurgitating fish.

We are reminded that, like Danish, Icelandic is not so much a language as a disease of the throat.

Traditionally, when a volcano went up, the response was to throw in a few virgins to propitiate the gods. Presumably, the world's airlines tried gathering cabin staff for sacrifice but were stymied when Qantas couldn't find any virgins.

Ralph Fiennes had been too frequent a flyer.

Given the mounting losses, Richard Branson should now offer himself as the nearest equivalent, a sort of virgin-in-chief.

“We've all got to make sacrifices,” he'll say as he hurls himself into the gaping maw, a final picture opportunity from the king of the genre. Yet, for all the misery it's caused, there is something faintly educational about this single overenthusiastic volcano and the way it has stopped the world.

The Icelandic volcano is the global equivalent of Friday night acne. It reminds us that, however hard you try, you just can't control everything. As with the pimple, springing forth minutes before a big night on the town, the only reasonable response is to endure it; to submit to its red, throbbing power. No amount of squeezing or concealing, whingeing or whining, is going to change anything.

And yet, ever since the volcano went up, the whingeing has hardly stopped. It's difficult to know the planes have stopped, so constant has been the sound of low-level droning.

We have built an economic system on the basis of flying green beans and flowers daily from Kenya to Britain, oysters from Sydney to Berlin and butter from Denmark to Brisbane. Rather than rethink the wisdom of this system, we are instead horrified when it is occasionally interrupted.

We transport millions of holidaymakers from here to there, and there to here, so we all get the experience of ordering identical, global goods from identical, global businesses but with the thrill of paying in a different currency.

We also all get to read the same book — Twilight or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — on identical beach loungers in front of identical hotels. The idea that we are momentarily prevented from holidaying in, say, the Czech Republic rather than Terrigal, is enough to reduce us to cries of rage.

One woman from Birmingham told the Herald midweek that she was staggered when informed she might have to wait a fortnight before she could travel home: “I passed out, just fainted, from the sheer shock,” she said.

Really? The news was so unexpected she was rendered unconscious? Is Sydney Airport now like the scene of a Jim Jones massacre — scores of people flat on their back mumbling, “the horror, the horror”?

Personally, I feel like fainting when told that flying is possible: me and 400 people inserted into a metal tube and then hurled into the sky in the expectation we will be served very small packets of peanuts and then land, some hours later, in a different country.

We are perched on the side of this spinning planet; maybe we become delusional due to the constant motion. We end up thinking we can do anything; that nature will always be our uncomplaining partner.

I find myself spluttering with hubristic questions. Can't we just pour concrete into the volcano? Or blow it up? Or have Bjork sing to it?

Apparently not. We are like ants running around this thing. It's a power beyond us: a super-sized lava lamp with a missing "off" switch.

As such, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano might have a few things to reveal about the world. First up, the illusion that the world is always under our control.

Peter

Boobage alert - and possible earthquakes too!

Oh, boy, this should be fun . . .

I noted earlier this month that Iranian Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi had blamed inappropriately-dresssed women for earthquakes. According to a report in the Brisbane Times, he claimed:

"Many women who dress inappropriately ... cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes."

Well, one woman at least isn't taking that lying down. Jen McCreight of the Blag Hag has come up with a novel idea to test the Ayatollah's theory. She writes:

I have a modest proposal.

Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it'll be one involving plate tectonics.

So, who's with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you'll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake! Or join the facebook event!

Her idea seems to have taken off like wildfire. As of the time of writing, the Facebook event page has 67,752 confirmed guests, and 267,387 people awaiting a reply! In a follow-up blog post, Ms. McCreight writes:

Holy crap.

So what started as a joke and somewhat sarcastic reply to the ludicrous notion that women's immodesty causes earthquakes has now exploded. Seriously, internet, you scare and amaze me sometimes. The Facebook event already has almost 14,000 attendees (and 60,000 invited) in just over 24 hours. The wall is getting comments so quickly that I had to disable Facebook email notifications because my inbox was getting flooded. The twitter stream for #boobquake is updating so quickly that I can't keep up. To top that off, I just got interviewed by the largest newspaper in Canada and some radio station in Ireland wants to interview me.

Because I made a boob joke.

There's more at the link, including her proposals for 'scientific' research after the event. Great fun! The comments on the Facebook page are even funnier (although many aren't safe for work, so I won't quote them here).

Congratulations to Ms. McCreight for an idea that seems to have taken on a life of its own. Thanks to her, the science of plate tectonics may never be the same again!



Peter

When researchers go too far

The Havasupai tribe of Arizona appear to have won a major legal - and, most particularly, moral - victory over unscrupulous researchers. The New York Times reports:

Seven years ago, the Havasupai Indians, who live amid the turquoise waterfalls and red cliffs miles deep in the Grand Canyon, issued a “banishment order” to keep Arizona State University employees from setting foot on their reservation — an ancient punishment for what they regarded as a genetic-era betrayal.

Members of the tiny, isolated tribe had given DNA samples to university researchers starting in 1990, in the hope that they might provide genetic clues to the tribe’s devastating rate of diabetes. But they learned that their blood samples had been used to study many other things, including mental illness and theories of the tribe’s geographical origins that contradict their traditional stories.

The geneticist responsible for the research has said that she had obtained permission for wider-ranging genetic studies.

Acknowledging a desire to “remedy the wrong that was done,” the university’s Board of Regents on Tuesday agreed to pay $700,000 to 41 of the tribe’s members, return the blood samples and provide other forms of assistance to the impoverished Havasupai — a settlement that legal experts said was significant because it implied that the rights of research subjects can be violated when they are not fully informed about how their DNA might be used.

The case raised the question of whether scientists had taken advantage of a vulnerable population, and it created an image problem for a university eager to cast itself as a center for American Indian studies.

But genetics experts and civil rights advocates say it may also fuel a growing debate over researchers’ responsibility to communicate the range of personal information that can be gleaned from DNA at a time when it is being collected on an ever-greater scale for research and routine medical care.

“I’m not against scientific research,” said Carletta Tilousi, 39, a member of the Havasupai tribal council. “I just want it to be done right. They used our blood for all these studies, people got degrees and grants, and they never asked our permission.”

Researchers and institutions that receive federal funds are required to receive “informed consent” from subjects, ensuring that they understand the risks and benefits before they participate. But such protections were designed primarily for research that carried physical risks, like experimental drug trials or surgery. When it comes to mining DNA, the rules — and the risks — are murkier.

Is it necessary, for instance, to ask someone who has donated DNA for research on heart disease if that DNA can be used for Alzheimer’s or addiction research?

Many scientists say no, arguing that the potential benefit from unencumbered biomedical research trumps the value of individual control.

“Everyone wants to be open and transparent,” said Dr. David Karp, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who has studied informed consent for DNA research. “The question is, how far do you have to go? Do you have to create some massive database of people’s wishes for their DNA specimens?”

The Havasupai settlement appears to be the first payment to individuals who said their DNA was misused, several legal experts said, and came after the university spent $1.7 million fighting lawsuits by tribe members.

Even as the Havasupai prepared to reclaim the 151 remaining blood samples from a university freezer this week, Therese Markow, the geneticist, defended her actions as ethical. Those judging her otherwise, she suggested, failed to understand the fundamental nature of genetic research, where progress often occurs from studies that do not appear to bear directly on a particular disease.

“I was doing good science,” Dr. Markow, now a professor at the University of California, San Diego, said in a telephone interview.

There's more at the link.

I feel particularly strongly about such issues because I've run into them in Africa as well, where tribes were approached to get their permission for research, only to have that research go far beyond what had been agreed, to the point where the tribe was exploited and/or disadvantaged in one or more ways. I don't understand how or why scientists and corporate researchers so often feel that they can do anything they like, without bothering to get explicit and specific permission from their research subjects. It's a sort of blind arrogance that justifies anything on the grounds that it's 'good science' or 'necessary'. That's simply not good enough.

I'm very glad that the Havasupai have won their case at last. One hopes it'll help others who find themselves in similar situations in future.

Peter

An amazing piece of World War II history

I'd never heard of Ursula Bower at all, much less her genuinely heroic service in Burma during World War II, until an article in the Daily Mail (reporting on a recent book) highlighted her accomplishments. It's a pretty remarkable story.

This 30-year-old Roedean-educated girl from Wiltshire had been living among the Naga tribes for nearly five years when the war reached her corner of Asia in 1942. She had been studying the native people as an anthropologist.

But now, Malaya, Singapore and Burma had fallen to the Japanese army in the worst defeat in the history of the British Empire.

British and Indian troops had been forced into a horrific treat across the Burmese border, through the Naga Hills into eastern India.

Rumours were rife that the Japanese would push across the border and break through the gateway of India. If India fell, the British war in the east - and the Empire itself - would be finished.

But where along the long border would the Japanese come through? It was imperative that the British receive the earliest possible intelligence of such an offensive.

Accordingly, a special guerilla troop called V Force was set up to patrol the Naga Hills both sides of the border. Native tribesmen, led by British officers, were recruited to patrol the impenetrable jungle and provide early warning of a Japanese invasion.

Ursula Graham Bower was an early, if unlikely, recruit to this cause. She had first visited India in 1937 with a school friend, on a trip where her mother had hoped she would meet a nice husband. Instead, she fell in love with the Naga Hills and their tribes.

The Nagas were fiercely independent - they occasionally rebelled against British rule - and merciless to their enemies. Those who had claimed an enemy head in battle wore their victim's hair in tufts on their shields and earrings.

But they were deeply moral and loyal. As well as studying the tribe, Ursula dispensed medicines to them, and they took her to their hearts. They asked her to name their babies, and some even worshipped her as a goddess, believing her to be the reincarnation of a rebel priestess imprisoned by the British.

When famine struck the villagers in the years before the war, she procured them government aid, saving many lives.

Because of the loyalty she commanded among the Nagas, in August 1942 the head of V Force asked Ursula to form her local Nagas into a band of scouts to comb the jungle for the Japanese.

She became the only female guerilla commander in the history of the British Army, leading 150 Nagas armed only with ancient muzzle-loading guns across some 800 square miles of mountainous jungle.

Her story is one of the most extraordinary of World War II. But like that of so many of the brave veterans of the war in the east, her heroism has faded from the pages of history.

Now a new book by renowned BBC correspondent Fergal Keane reveals her incredible tale and tells of the campaign in which she paid a crucial role: the Japanese offensive into India, and the savage battle of Kohima on which the fate of two empires turned.

There's more at the link. Very highly recommended reading for all those interested in World War II (or military history in general).

I'm very glad to have learned of Ms. Bower's achievements. One hopes she'll be remembered with pride in Britain, and that her memory will live on as an example to those serving in the armed forces today.

Peter

A for effort, F for planning!

When a group of Russian policemen tried to drag a fallen tree out of the way, they demonstrated precisely why prior planning is really useful in such a situation. Without it, this can happen . . .

Peter

Useful computer security information

If you, like me, want to keep abreast of new developments in computer security, including the latest threats, viruses, etc., you'll find the Guard Central Web site very useful. It aggregates security information and articles from many different Web sites and presents it in concise headlines, which you can click on for further information. I've been following it for a couple of weeks now, and find it very informative. It covers more than just basic security, and one can keep abreast of what various companies, organizations and governments are doing in the field. Highly recommended.

Peter

Solar energy on the wing

To go with today's release of the first results from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (see post below), I found the news of the first flight of the Solar Impulse Project prototype to be very appropriate. Aviation Week reports:

The Solar Impulse prototype HB-SIA has now made its first official flight test.

The 87 minute flight saw the vehicle reach 1,200 meters, slightly more than first planned. Markus Scherdel was at the controls.




In a statement on the event, Andre Borschberg, CEO and project co-founder notes that "this first mission was the most risky phase of the entire project. 1 hour 27 min. of intense emotion after 7 years of research, testing and perseverance. Never has an airplane as large and light ever flown before!"

And, he adds, "the aim was to verify the prototype’s behaviour in flight and to test its reaction to various manoeuvres. The success of this first flight allows us to envisage the further program with greater serenity."

There's more at the link.

The Solar Impulse Project aims to fly an aircraft around the world using only solar power, using solar cells to charge batteries during the day and drawing on the latter for power at night. The prototype, which flew today, is intended to remain aloft for up to 36 hours at a time. A subsequent aircraft will make the first round-the-world attempt, with several stops to change pilots. As more powerful batteries are developed, a further development of the aircraft, with accommodation for two pilots, may attempt a non-stop circumnavigation. You can read more at the project's Web site.

Here's a video clip of the prototype's first flight.

Good luck to all concerned.

Peter

Amazing images of the Sun

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite was launched in February. Its first results were released today, and can be seen on the project's Web site and on this Flickr stream (from which the photographs below are taken). The BBC reports:

Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory has provided an astonishing new vista on our turbulent star.

The first public release of images from the satellite record huge explosions and great looping prominences of gas.




The observatory's super-fine resolution is expected to help scientists get a better understanding of what drives solar activity.

Launched in February on an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, SDO is expected to operate for at least five years.

Researchers hope in this time to go a long way towards their eventual goal of being able to forecast the effects of the Sun's behaviour on Earth.




Solar activity has a profound influence on our planet. Huge eruptions of charged particles and the emission of intense radiation can disrupt satellite, communication and power systems, and pose a serious health risk to astronauts.

Scientists working on SDO say they are thrilled with the quality of the data received so far.

"When we see these fantastic images, even hard-core solar physicists like myself are struck with awe, literally," said Lika Guhathakurta, the SDO programme scientist at Nasa Headquarters.

SDO is equipped with three instruments to investigate the physics at work inside, on the surface and in the atmosphere of the Sun.

The probe views the entire solar disc with a resolution 10 times better than the average high-definition television camera. This allows it to pick out features on the surface and in the atmosphere that are as small as 350km across.




The pictures are also acquired at a rapid rate, every few seconds.

In addition, the different wavelengths in which the instruments operate mean scientists can study the Sun's atmosphere layer by layer.

A key quest will be to probe the inner workings of the solar dynamo, the deep network of plasma currents that generates the Sun's tangled and sometimes explosive magnetic field.

It is the dynamo that ultimately lies behind all forms of solar activity, from the solar flares that explode in the Sun's atmosphere to the relatively cool patches, or sunspots, that pock the solar disc and wander across its surface for days or even weeks.

"The SDO images are stunning and the level of detail they reveal will undoubtedly lead to a new branch of research into how the fine-scale solar magnetic fields form and evolve, leading to a much, much better understanding of how solar activity develops," said co-investigator Richard Harrison from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).

"It's like looking at the details of our star through a microscope," he told BBC News.




And Dr Guhathakurta added: "It's thought that [SDO] is going to revolutionise heliophysics much as the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionised astrophysics and cosmology, which is true. There is however a very key difference. While Hubble is designed to observe almost everything in the cosmos, SDO is designed to study only one thing and that is our very own star. It is tailor-made for the study of Sun star."

There's more at the link.

This just blows my mind! To see the ultimate power-station generating life as we know it, in such detail . . . that's fascinating! I'll be watching the future output of SDO with great interest.

Here's a video showing the SDO's observation of a solar flare (i.e. sunspot) through various filters, at different color temperatures.

Truly, Nature never ceases to amaze me.

Peter

Most true-to-life video game ever?

Watch the video below for a view of life, video games and romance that's much more realistic than usual!

Peter

Perhaps it was left by a de-leg-ation?

This has to be the weird news story of the week.

There’s a mystery afoot in Sharon [Pennsylvania] — under what circumstances do you throw out a prosthetic leg?

In the course of picking up 21 tons of trash on the riverbanks of the Shenango in Jamestown and Sharon on Saturday, the River Watchers came across one of those rare gems of trash that there is probably a story behind: a prosthetic leg, complete with shoe.

Finding unusual things during cleanup is not at all unusual, said Shenango River Watchers cofounder Rick Barborak, who said a few notable items sometimes make it to their annual banquets.

“You name it, we pretty much found it. Some things, you don’t want to know. We found inflatable dolls,” Barborak said.

The prosthetic leg will probably fall into their category of “keepers,” Barborak said. That also includes the River Watchers’ mascot, “Scrappy the Duck,” who is an immense duck-shaped concrete lawn ornament.

There's more at the link.

Who on earth would mislay an artificial leg? And how? I mean . . . do you just hop off into the sunset after dropping it?

Hey! Wait a minute! She lives in a different State, but perhaps she was travelling. Oh, Breda . . .





Peter

More maritime history on the way to the scrapyard

Readers are probably familiar with the famous Liberty Ships of World War II.




2.710 of these 10,000-ton merchant vessels were built from 1941-1945. By 1943, three ships were being completed every day, a feat of mass production previously unimaginable. They helped to replace the thousands of merchant ships sunk by German U-boats, and made possible the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France, as well as serving in large numbers in the Pacific.

However, many people don't know of the successor to the Liberty ship, the Victory ships.




They carried only a few hundred tons more freight than their predecessors, but were faster (15 to 17 knots as opposed to the Liberty's 11 knots). Their internal frames were spaced so as to make them less rigid, producing a more seaworthy ship that was less prone to damage in heavy weather, and their bow was streamlined to be more efficient at their higher cruising speed. 534 of them were built in the USA from 1943-1946, with 300 more being built in Canada and some in British shipyards. Here's SS Winthrop Victory being launched in 1945.




After the war, many Victory ships were taken into commercial service. Several hundred went to the Reserve Fleet for possible future use, but few were called upon, and over time, many have been scrapped. Two were converted at considerable expense into electronic intelligence and surveillance vessels: one of them, formerly the SS Simmons Victory, was re-christened USS Liberty.




She became world-famous after the controversial attack on her by Israeli forces in 1967. She's shown below after the attack, severely damaged and listing to starboard.




Three Victory ships have been restored as museum vessels: SS American Victory in Tampa, Florida; SS Lane Victory in Los Angeles, California; and SS Red Oak Victory in Richmond, California. There are only four Victory ships left in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, all in very decrepit condition, and the time has come for them to be scrapped. The Pan American Victory left the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet base earlier this year, on her way to the scrapyards in Texas. She'll be followed by her sister ships, Earlham Victory, Rider Victory, and Winthrop Victory. As far as I'm aware, they're the last World War II-vintage general cargo ships left in the Reserve Fleet, and with their passing will go a piece of history.

Here's a photograph of Pan American Victory being towed stern-first through the Panama Canal on her last voyage.




Farewell to four faithful servants, in war and in peace.

Peter

The floggletoggle's connected to the thingumajig . . .

This marvelous piece of engineering gobbledygook was ad-libbed by an engineer at Rockwell some years ago. It's still one of the best I've ever heard.

Magnificent obfuscation!

(For more on the 'turboencabulator', see here. It appears to have been an in-joke among engineers since the 1940's.)



Peter

Iran's at it again with the smoke and mirrors

Iran seems to be in the habit of lying in its teeth about its military hardware and preparedness. Readers will doubtless recall the edited photograph released by the Iranian armed forces some years ago, purporting to show four missiles being launched, but which was rapidly unmasked as a fake.

At the Army Day 2010 parade, held last Sunday, Iran did it again. In the parade were vehicles purporting to be carriers for the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system:






These immediately raised huge question marks, because Russia hasn't yet delivered the S-300 systems Iran has ordered! Also, the vehicles don't look anything like the dedicated missile carriers used by Russia, and supplied with the missiles to other customers:






Careful analysis of the images by Ares shows that the Iranian vehicles' 'missile tubes' are, in fact, welded-together sections of oil drums, mounted on Bakr-series tank transporters. Needless to say, there are no missiles inside, and the S-300 radar and control vehicles are nowhere to be seen. It seems Iran wants to mislead at least its own citizens about its armament and military preparedness. I don't think their enemies (most particularly Israel) would have been fooled for more than a second or two!

This, of course, begs the question: why is Iran doing this? South Africa did the same in the years of apartheid, claiming that some of its new weapons systems were indigenous when it was clear to any informed observer that they were of foreign origin (most notably the Minister-class missile boats, which were clearly of the Israeli Reshef or Sa'ar 4 class, complete with Israeli Gabriel II missiles [known in South African service as the Skerpioen, or Scorpion]; the R-4 service rifle [a license-built copy of the Israeli Galil]; and the Cheetah development of the French Mirage III fighter-bomber, which was clearly built along very similar lines to Israeli-modified Mirages). The claims didn't fool anyone except the uninformed, so making them seemed pointless, to say the least. Iran's in the same position now, presumably trying to hoodwink its own population by keeping them uninformed, but not fooling anyone who knows military hardware. I don't see any point to it, quite frankly.

There were other interesting sights in the Iranian parade, including this mock-up of a 'concept stealth fighter' (which, with its outsize top air intake plus two ventral intakes, would be anything but stealthy!):




There were also these ghillie-suit-clad soldiers, looking for all the world like a Wookiee battalion out of Star Wars!




One wonders what the Iranian military authorities hope to achieve with such nonsense. All they appear to be doing is making themselves look like idiots to the rest of the world!

Peter

Another piece of automotive history up for sale

I was astonished to read that an original Hildebrand & Wolfmüller motorcycle, dating back to 1894, has been put up for auction. I've never seen an original of this, the first ever true motorcycle, and only one reproduction (shown below).




The auctioneers, Bonhams, have this to say on their Web site:

There had been steam-driven 'boneshakers' on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1860s and, of course, Gottlieb Daimler's gasoline-engined Einspur of 1885, but the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller was the first powered two-wheeler to enter series production; indeed, it is the first such device to which the name 'motorcycle' (motorrad in German) was ever applied. (Although a true motorcycle, Daimler's was only ever intended as a test-bed for his high-revving internal combustion engine, and as soon as that was powerful enough he turned his attention to automobiles).

Like many of their contemporaries, the Hildebrand brothers, Heinrich and Wilhelm, began by experimenting with steam power before turning to a (two-stroke) gasoline engine, the latter having been developed in partnership with Alois Wolfmüller and his mechanic, Hans Geisenhof. The quartet's next design was a water-cooled, four-stroke parallel twin displacing 1,488cc, which until relatively recent times was the largest power unit ever fitted to a motorcycle.




The Hildebrands were in the cycle business so their new engine was mounted in a bicycle frame of the newly developed 'safety' configuration. When this proved insufficiently robust, a more integrated arrangement was devised, based on that of the Hildebrands' defunct steamer, and the name 'motorrad' registered for the new invention, which was patented in January 1894.

Steam locomotive practice was further recalled by the long connecting rods directly linking the pistons to the rear wheel, which opened and closed the mechanical exhaust valves via pushrods actuated by a cam on the hub. The latter contained an epicyclic reduction gear and there was no crankshaft flywheel, the solid disc rear wheel serving that purpose. Rubber bands assisted the pistons on the return stroke. Fuel was fed from the tank to a surface carburettor and thence via atmospheric inlet valves to the cylinders where it was ignited by platinum hot tube, as developed by Daimler. The box-like rear mudguard acted as a reservoir for the engine's cooling water, while one of the frame tubes served as the oil tank. The tyres, manufactured under license from Dunlop by Veith in Germany, were the first of the pneumatic variety ever fitted to a motorcycle.

Cutaway drawing of Hildebrand & Wolfmüller motorcycle (click to enlarge)

Although modern in many respects, the H&W was primitive in others, most notably the brakes, which consisted of a steel 'spoon' working on the front tyre, the application of which automatically closed the throttle. The rider controlled the latter by means of a rotating thumbscrew; there was no clutch, which made starting an athletic procedure, the machine being pushed until it fired, whereupon its rider leapt aboard while simultaneously trying to regulate engine speed. Despite producing only 2.5bhp at 240rpm, the H&W was capable of speeds approaching 30mph, an exciting prospect at a time when powered road transport of any sort was still a novelty.

. . .

The example we offer has been in the ownership of the vendor's family in the USA since at least the early 1930s, which is when it last ran. While growing up in the 1930s in Staten Island, New York, USA, William 'Bill' McNee - the vendor's father - became fascinated by his grandfather's old motorcycle with the foreign sounding 'Hildebrand & Wolfmüller – Munchen' decorative script on the rear fender. Bill McNee's interest and enthusiasm was so keen that his grandfather, Bill Brassington, promised him the motorcycle when he got older.




Upon Mr Brassington's death in 1970 his daughter Marion McNee (née Brassington), Bill's mother, sold several of his old motor vehicles, including the H&W, to an interested neighbour. However, its loss was too much for Bill to bear and he very pointedly let his mother know how betrayed he felt that she sold the motorcycle promised to him years earlier by his grandfather. Mrs McNee felt so badly about her mistake that she repurchased the H&W the next day for double the price that the neighbour had paid her!




It was not until after obtaining the motorcycle in 1970 and doing some research that Bill McNee began to think it had some real historical significance and he arranged for a representative of The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC to inspect it. While the Museum's representative was able to provide quite a few additional historical details about the machine, the suggestion that Bill might like to consider donating it to the Museum was declined and back into his basement it went. Following Bill McNee's death in 2007 and his wife Cornelia's death in 2009, their daughter (the vendor) and her brother took ownership of the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller.

There's more at the link.

It's amazing to think the bike's been in the same family for almost eight decades, and never been restored. Its condition (shown in the last two photographs above) is surprisingly good for something that was last ridden in the 1930s!

Relatively few of these motorcycles were made (estimates range between 600 and 2,000, with most authorities estimating well below 1,000). Even fewer have survived, so this auction has to be the Holy Grail for any serious collector of motorcycle antiquities. I wouldn't be surprised if Bonhams' estimated sale price of £40,000-£60,000 (about US $60,000-$90,000) is considerably exceeded.

Peter

But did he capture its good side?

I was intrigued to read about an unusual underwater encounter.

A New Zealand diver was forced to give chase after an octopus wrestled his brand new digital camera from his hands and swam away, with the camera still recording.

The incredible video gives a tentacle-covered view of the five-minute chase, which only ended after the diver used his speargun to prise the camera back from the thieving octopus's grip.

Victor Huang was diving near the Wahine Memorial off the south coast of Wellington on Thursday when the octopus suddenly burst out of a bed of kelp. Huang 'freaked out' at first as he thought the octopus was attacking him - before realising that the octopus was actually just after his shiny new Panasonic Lumix camera.

A wrestling match ensued between the two as Huang tried to hold onto the camera as the octopus attempted to prise it from his grip. And in the end, the tentacle proved too strong - and the octopus 'swam away very quickly like a naughty shoplifter', Hung said on his YouTube video of the event.




The video then shows the camera's-eye view of the chase that followed - mostly covered in suckers - as Huang frantically swam after the octopus in an attempt to get his camera back.

It took five minute for him to catch up with the creature, at which point he managed to get his speargun under the creature and, when it grabbed hold of that as well, use it to pry the camera from its grasp.

He then spent a few more minutes taking the octopus for a ride on his speargun, which he says the octopus seemed to enjoy. He doesn't think the octopus meant him any harm - it had just become fascinated by the gadget.

'I honestly believe that it saw the bright blue digital camera and went ‘oh I need that’, you know?' Huang told stuff.co.nz.

Here's the video clip. The portion where the octopus is swimming away with the camera is obscured by its tentacles, of course, but otherwise it's some great footage.

That's one dive I'm sure Mr. Huang will never forget!

Peter

Obamacare - good for some!

I note that one country at least is looking forward to a bonanza from Obamacare.

U.S. healthcare reform gave 32 million new Americans insurance, the new U.S. president a feather for his cap and a good seven years' boon to the workload of India's $61 billion outsourcing industry.

India's Economic Times declared it the industry's "biggest bonanza yet" and "far bigger than the Y2K." While it's too early to know the extent of the boon, India's outsourcers — the call centers, the medical record transcribers, the software developers — are quietly gearing up for the increase in administrative work and technology development the health care legislation promises.

. . .

It's the classic outsourcing debate but with a newer, larger scale: Does the $940-billion bill, coming as unemployment persists at just under 10 percent, mean sending another round of jobs abroad?

Anything that is electronic in health care can be offshored — sent outside U.S. borders — and no state or federal regulations prohibit personal medical data from leaving the U.S. (Some insurers, however, choose to keep personal health data within U.S. borders.)

India's outsourcers get new health care work in two ways, by the initiative to computerize personal medical records included in last year's stimulus bill and by run-of-the-mill maintenance of health records both for the newly insured by the reform and the millions of others who already are but whose insurers will need to cut administrative costs.

That's where Firstsource Solutions, a Mumbai-based IT firm, sees an opening. Managing the new enrollments and claims, expanding member databases and revenue cycles that come with these 32 million "is very significant" for their business, its CEO Ananda Mukerji wrote in an email, adding that Firstsource has been watching the U.S. health care space since 2006.

Up to 41 percent of the money spent on a health plan in the U.S. goes toward administrative costs, according to a recent Deloitte Center for Health Solutions study. Insurance companies will face mandates to spend as much as 90 cents of every dollar on the actual well-being of a client, Mukerji adds, which will "drive increased need for administrative efficiencies, and thus increased demand for outsourcing."

Similarly, the initiative to digitize medical records could be a multibillion-dollar boost to India's high-skilled software developers. "You don't have enough people in the U.S. to put together these solutions and even if you did, it would be too expensive," said Sudhakar Ram, CEO of Mumbai-based IT solutions firm Mastek. He estimates that digitizing medical records will cost between $10 million to $20 million per U.S. hospital, based on his firm's similar work in the U.K. "That's a huge amount of investment. ... I would say it's a significant opportunity for Indian [firms] over a five- to seven-year time frame."

. . .

In the U.K., TV reporters highlighted the risk of sending health data abroad when they went undercover and were able to buy personal health records from a London hospital that had its health records processed in India.

There's more at the link.

I wonder how long it'll take before the first US patient records are illegally copied and offered for sale over the Internet? I imagine there'll be plenty of unscrupulous takers for such information. You want insurance? Your insurance company may not be able to access your private information here, but I'll bet diamonds to dirt they'll be able to buy any information they need from a third party outside the country . . . and end up either denying you cover, or charging you a lot more than you might have expected. There may be fertile new opportunities for blackmailing individuals with their sensitive health care information, too.

Unintended consequences strike again, it seems.

Peter

Colorful bowels???

I'm somewhat perplexed by a report in the Austrian Times.

A loo paper firm says it's on a roll after beating the recession with the world's first mood-matching toilet tissue boutique.




Paper makers Renova say their psychologically trained counsellors can match colours, textures and even the thickness of various loo rolls to individual clients.

Now customers are flocking to their first shop in Cascais, Portugal, for the ultimate in personal service.

"People can express their true personality with the type of paper they use and different family members have different needs," said a spokesman.

I don't get it. I mean . . . do emotions play that big a role when you're sitting on the throne? I'd have thought the only strain that one would feel is more in the physical line! And does this mean you have to change the roll depending on your mood at the time?

"Darling, will you run to the shops, please - quickly? I simply can't bring myself to go until we have the right shade of blue!"

And what mood fits charcoal gray toilet paper, for Heaven's sake? (On second thought, don't answer that . . . I don't want to know!)



Peter

"The Incredibly Stupid One"

Old NFO has a wonderful tale of courage, ingenuity and perseverance in captivity on his blog. Head over there and read it for yourself. Highly recommended.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #342

Today's award goes to the proof-reading department of Penguin Group Australia.

The publishing company was forced to pulp and reprint 7000 copies of Pasta Bible last week after a recipe called for "salt and freshly ground black people" – instead of pepper – to be added to tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto.

The exercise will cost Penguin $20,000, the head of publishing, Bob Sessions, said. At $3300 a letter, it's a pricey typo.

Stock will not be recalled from bookshops because it would be "extremely hard" to do so, Mr Sessions said. Copies remained on the shelves in city bookshops yesterday, selling for $20.

Mr Sessions could not understand why some readers had found the slip offensive.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," he said.

There's more at the link.

Perhaps this should be a double award: to the proof-readers for not catching the mistake, and to Mr. Sessions for gross insensitivity!

Peter