Rule No. Five: Keep Your Foot Off The Trigger

Comic book cover, from Boing-Boing.

It's A Rifle With A Tiny Cannon On It

Well, duh!

Neatorama.

She's God's Girlfriend; You'd Think She'd Be Happy

What chance do the rest of us have, mere mortal men?

Funny story by Simon Rich.

Welcome To America!

Boing-boing.

Gun Control - A Movement Without Followers

In the WSJ.

h/t Joe Huffman.

P.S. Ooops, you're right. It's not in the WSJ, it's in Bloomberg Business Week.

Daphne Oram

Interesting lady.

From Boing-Boing.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Drambuie!

Female Co-Pilot, too!

There's a GIRL flying this plane!

Not Gonna Set The Alarm Clock

I have tomorrow off.

My second day off in three months.

My first Saturday off in eight years.

The New Chevrolet Trabant

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Link.

Obituaries

I make obituaries for TV now and then, so when a particularly good one comes along, I take notice. I hope that you will not think me too morbid if I admit to a small collection of my favorites.

The death of Christopher Hitchens on Thursday brought this to mind. A famous (or infamous) atheist, he was once asked if, as he breathed his last, we might expect a deathbed conversion.

I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire, who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.

And on Tuesday, the advertising executive Edie Stevenson passed away. She wrote the well-remembered TV commercial for Quaker cereal, "Three Brothers" in which the older boys conspire to use the youngest brother as a guinea pig when their mother serves a new breakfast cereal. “Let’s get Mikey. He won’t eat it. He hates everything.” Then the best line, "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!"

And from Ms. Stevenson's obit in the NYT:

In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her longtime partner, Gordon H. Price; two sisters, Daphne Stevenson Penttinen and Adelita Stevenson Moore; three sons, Steven, David and Donald Mann; and five grandchildren.

She also leaves a cat, Mikey.

But my favorite obit of all is Madeleine Pelner Cosman, a medieval studies expert and professor who passed away on March 2, 2006. From her obit in the NYT:

Ms. Cosman's husband, Bard, a plastic surgeon whom she married in 1958, died in 1983. Survivors include a daughter, Marin, of Scarsdale, N.Y.; a son, Bard, of La Jolla, Calif.; and four grandchildren. Information on other survivors could not be confirmed.

Ms. Cosman also leaves behind a vast library of illuminated manuscripts and a large collection of handguns.

And Just Over The Border...

...is the peaceful village of Moyock, NC.

On The Border

Thanks to reader Bob, we have one more Wullenweber. This one on the Virginia/North Carolina border (the horizontal gray line is the border.)

This one looks like it's been converted into a secret squirrel site.

Or a Walmart.

Wullenweber Antennas

Sobe, Japan

These are very large arrays for high-frequency reception and direction-finding, mostly by governments. Here is the Wikipedia article.

All of the installations were originally super-secret, but most have been dismantled and only a few are left, all of them inactive.

In addition to RAF Credenhill in the previous post, these Wullenweber sites remain:

Chicksands, UK

Elmendorf AFB, Alaska

Misawa, Japan

Imperial Beach, California

This one has an interesting history. Built in Karamursel, Turkey, it was dismantled by the Turkish government in 1977 in retaliation for a U.S. arms embargo. That was 34 years ago and it's still easy to spot.

They're anachronisms now, but as this 1955 snapshot shows, security at Misawa was serious.

What Color Is The Boathouse At Hereford?

There seem to be many different possible answers to that time-honored question.

But first, what is this Big Round Thing?

And what is this Little Round Thing?

They've got their own orchard, we know that.

And some sort of Big Square Thingy. Avec flagpole.

Nice antenna.

What say you, Bobbi? Appears to me to be a broadband ten-element high-frequency Yagi. I'd love to own one.


There's a double fence around the whole place, with camera towers every hundred meters or so.

And a bit farther down the road we see the antenna in the distance. More like twelve to fifteen elements, I'd say. Like the one at the Pentagon. Maybe they talk to each other: "dit-dit-dit-dit-dit..."

They've got lots of stuff, but I don't see a boathouse. Musta been one of those trick questions.

Hey, what's that weird tower on the horizon? How'd I miss that?

OK, there it is. Maybe that's the mysterious boathouse.

"'ello, 'ello, 'ello! What's all this, then? That's as far as you go, Yank. Nothing to see 'ere. Just turn your fancy camera car around and get yer arse back to Cupertino."

"You think we're barmy? Get lost!"

"Um, Constable, is there a boathouse around here?"
"Bloody git!"

See for yourself here.

Marines vs. Rome, The Movie

It's the 35th MEU against the Roman Legions. My money's on the Jarheads.

From Boing-boing.

Great License Plate!

Spotted parked outside the telephone company.

And here's one of Steve Wozniak's original Blue Boxes, on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.