Sunday, December 23, 2012

Things to do

Memos to self:

Think up solutions to gun, violence, unemployment and income inequality problems by first of the year. Then explain again to readers how human rights really aren't.

Resolve to find a way to make Rocket Scientist angry enough to emerge from her current blue funk and begin fighting back again.

Find out why Grit didn't come to America this fall as promised and is instead replacing head on vehicle he should be leaving behind anyway.

Get authoritative second opinion on whether cotton is grown in Australia, since Lee is not above taking advantage of American ignorance on the subject.

Find out if Goatman really is.

Why can't I find out what radio frequency Titanic was transmitting on? Why the big secret?


10 comments:

  1. 1:Start with babies. Establish rules and boundaries. Teach that actions have consequences, and misbehaviour will always rebound upon the misbehaver. 'Do as you would be done by, and be done by as you did'.
    Here in Britain, I think it's now forbidden for a teacher to so much as frown at a misbehaving child. If a five year-old, when a teacher bends over him to tell him to stop disrupting the class, kicks the teacher in the face, then the parents complain that the school is over-reacting, when the parent is asked to take the child home and not bring him back until he's learned to stop assaulting anybody who says "No" to him.
    But really, I do believe the solution lies in early training, and that if children learned that society only works if the great majority of us can agree on a mutual code of behaviour.
    Culling the repeatedly violent might help too.
    Income inequality is a source of much violence. How we deal with that I don't know. Back in the seventies, or maybe the sixties, we had in Britain, a campaign to buy british made products. It had stickers "I'm Backing Britain!", and was moderately effective in demonstrating that buying foreign-made goods was just a simplified way of saying "I'm exporting money"
    China is building building building, a huge leap, effectively creating a new country. And we in the west are paying for it, but getting nothing out of it but cheap tchotchkes, in return for our closed factories and unemployed workforce. And rising crime as those who once had wages, and were too busy working and raising families to misbehave, seek shortcuts toward wealth.
    2: Put dainty morsels and pretty things outside her cave. Write manifestly wrong posts about matters scientifnological.
    3:Grit coming in springtime, eastertime, as previously stated, so long as U.S. eventually issues the right vast bundle of paperwork.
    Believe me, I'd be there now if it was simple.
    Elderly vehicle with newly restored valvegear will travel as excess baggage, strapped under the port wing. Starboard wing will carry a matching weight of books and stuff.
    Or it'll come in a 20 ft container to the port of Houston, 16 days at sea, and will stutter back to life crying "Aharrr, Matey!", and "Shiver me timbers" I rather hope that off the coast of Narragansett, they'll encounter a spanish galleon, and it'll get its share of doubloons.
    4:Australia, world's second biggest cotton exporter, after U.S. New South Wales and Queensland. Seventh in production though. U.S. is No3, China No1.
    5: 600-metre (500-kHz), and 300-metre (1000-kHz).
    Source: http://marconigraph.com/titanic/wireless/mgy_wireless.html

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    1. I would think the real number one exporter of cotton is China, if you count all the "I'm With Stupid" T-Shirts they send us.

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    2. I think the statistic relates to bales of raw fibre, as opposed to finished goods. But china's internal market is huge too.

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  2. Oh. Drat. Goatman, well, he has a story. Not really Caprine, more Vroom-Vroom.

    Ask him.

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    1. I think he (if he is a he) just graduated last in his class at West Point and is proud of it.

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    2. http://failuremag.com/feature/article/the_goats_of_west_point/

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  3. "Of 23,217 registered powered ships, about 1,000 (400 of them British) were fitted with radio and these were mostly ships on the busy North Atlantic. Californian's radio was fitted as late as January, 1912.All used spark transmitters, which were very wasteful of power.Titanic's Marconi set used 5 kW, of which only about 500 watts actually reached the aerial. The normal wavelength was 600 meters. On Marconi ships the time of each message was recorded in GMT, when east of 40° W and in New York time when to the west. The radio operators were responsible for maintaining clocks showing these times.Photos of the Titanic and Olympic radio rooms show these two clocks mounted on the bulkhead.

    At the time of the disaster some of the strongest signals on the air were from installations belonging to private clubs and individuals.Although initially blamed for interfering with emergency traffic, on the evening after the sinking all the amateurs in the New York area voluntarily stayed off the air.They spent that night copying the intermittent signal of the cruiser Salem near the scene of the sinking trying to report the names of the survivors.Through their efforts, and the Newport Naval Base, it was possible the next day for newspapers to publish a full list of the survivors of the Titanic disaster."

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  4. Haahahahahaha! Thanks, RM, for my first laugh and smile on Christmas morning! Below is something for you to read while you wait for Christmas lunch to cook!

    http://cottonaustralia.com.au/
    http://www.rochedalss.eq.edu.au/cotton.htm

    I've misplaced my goggles and flippers otherwise I'd dive down to the depth to see if I could solve your Titanic questions!

    A very Merry Christmas to you RM...I hope you have a most joyous, relaxing time with your loved ones; enjoy - worry about the waistline next week...it'll still be there! :)

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    1. Merry Christmas to you too, Lee. Thank you for the links. I believe. :)

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