Maggie's Farm

Insects of the Week: The Worst Bugs in History

Garfinkle in Wired News:

Last month automaker Toyota announced a recall of 160,000 of its Prius hybrid vehicles following reports of vehicle warning lights illuminating for no reason, and cars' gasoline engines stalling unexpectedly. But unlike the large-scale auto recalls of years past, the root of the Prius issue wasn't a hardware problem -- it was a programming error in the smart car's embedded code. The Prius had a software bug.

With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer -- a club that began in 1945 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system.¹The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found.

Read entire.

Phone Options: Should I Switch?

(This piece from a guest writer, fellow hunter, and our local tech whiz and tech biz whiz, on whom we should rely more often for these highly-paid contributions to Maggie's.)

Times are changing. Did you know that if you have broadband internet service you now have a viable option to replace your old telephone? Why would you change?  There are some good reasons to do so, and relatively few not to. It's a real problem for Ma Bell, but not so for you and me. It is called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP for short.

What is VOIP (Voice over internet protocol)?  As you may have figured out it is basically phone service over the internet, but you don't use your computer - you use your regular telephone.  Huh?  That's right.  If you get a call your phone rings - not your computer. Here is how it works: You sign up for the service using the provider of you choice (Vonage is a solid provider of voip service, but there are several to choose from). Next you receive a small interface box from your provider which you then plug into your broadband modem with one plug and plug the other end into your phone jack and you are done. Basically, anyone who can plug in a vacuum cleaner can accomplish this task. Now you are ready to make your first Voip call. Estimated install time 10 min ( less than 2 min for your average Maggie's farm reader).

Q&A

Does a call sound different? No

Does my phone ring or does my computer ring? Phone rings.

What if I dial 911? The earliest versions of Voip had some issues but today there are rules in place that require providers to provide emergency dialing, so it is no longer a big drawback.

What if the power goes out?  This is the biggest issue. If the power goes out your telephone will work but your VOIP won't (but neither will your cordless phones).  The main reason is because the modem needs electricity to work.  You can for a small investment buy an APC unit.

There are a few other small issues that could arise. For example, your alarm company may not be able to monitor your home over VOIP but these, like many other tiny issues will get resolved with time.

But why change?  The answer is money. Voip service is cheap. Usually for a flat fee like 20 p/m you get unlimited calls in the US and Canada, Caller ID and Call waiting for a flat rate. Everything is included for free.  The Bell companies charge a line fee + caller id + call waiting + usage fees. What you usually wind up with is something that looks a lot more expensive than Voip that isn't any better. Are you ready to switch?  I haven't yet, but I'm about to.

(Photo is the Western Electric Model 417, in production from 1907-1937)

A Joke

for our readers, while we are away:

Jim has his 6oth birthday, and decides it's time to get himself together. He exercises and diets, loses 30 pounds, dyes his hair brown, buys a new fashionable wardrobe, gets some Botox and a little chin work done.

Shortly thereafter, he is run over by a truck as he struts out of the gym.

 "Gosh" he says to God, "Why now? I finally got my act together, and I've been a good guy."

"Woops, Jim, I am so sorry." says God. "I didn't recognize you."

A quote from Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon, travelling through Texas:

"A massive, squared mound, quite unlike the surrounding hills, rose from a level valley; it had been the central element in a Caddoan Indian village a thousand years ago. I took a sandwich and climbed to the top to eat in the low undergrowth of wild blackberry bushes. There I was - a resident from the age of lunch meat, no-lead, and Ziploc bags - sitting on a thousand-year-old civic center.

The aura of time the mound gave off seemed to mock any comprehension of its change and process - how had it grown from baskets of shoveled soil to the high center of Caddoan affairs to a hilly patch of blackberries? My rambling metaphysics was getting caught in the trap of reducing experience to coherence and meaning, letting the perplexity of things disrupt the joy in their mystery. To insist that diligent thought would bring an understanding of change was to limit life to the comprehensible."

Dalrymple

There is a fine education in going to City Journal, and searching Dalrymple under "author". This Brit has been a prolific writer and thinker for years in that excellent journal, but our alert and intelligent readers have pointed me to one piece in particular of his, from 1995, Do Sties Make Pigs?, apropos of the French rioting. It's a case study of the law of unintended consequences, and of government's wealth, hubris, and lack of common sense. I quote here:

"But it is public housing that exemplifies most clearly the ideas of those who transformed the British urban landscape during the 1950s and 1960s. Here the new aesthetics combined with socialist reforming zeal to produce a multilayered disaster. 

After the war, bien pensants universally agreed that pre-war British society had been grossly unjust. The working class, it was said, had been shamelessly exploited, as was manifest principally in Britain's great inequalities of income and its overcrowded housing. A sharply progressive income tax (which at one point reached 95 percent) would redress the inequalities of income, while slum clearance and the construction of large- scale housing projects would alleviate the housing problem. 

The middle class reformers thought of poverty wholly in physical terms: an insufficiency of food and warmth, a lack of space. How, they asked, could people come to the finer things in life if their basic requirements were so inadequately met? What could freedom mean (I remember my father asking) in the absence of decent housing conditions? Since social problems such as crime and delinquency (which we were soon to discover were in their infancy) were attributable to physical deprivation—to the environment rather than the criminal or delinquent—the construction of decent housing would solve all problems at once.

But what was decent housing? A civil servant, Parker Morris, provided the answer: a certain number of cubic yards of living space per inhabitant. The Ministry of Housing adopted the Parker Morris standards for all public housing; they governed the size and number of rooms—and that was all."

Read entire.

GODDAMMO

For the unhappily divorced, keychain bullets made out of your wedding band. Reminds me of the old line: "I still miss her, but my aim's getting better."

Vermont Barbecue: Curtis'

Now I ask our Southern readers: Does this look real? It is.

Euro-weenies

Short report at LGF. Afraid to speak out against Jihad? Pathetic, especially when rationalizing timidity as "sensitivity." How sensitive do you want to be towards people who want to kill you and turn your country into an extension of the caliphate? Do you imagine that those who have contempt for you will react warmly to your weakness? What would Winston say? How would Adolph react?

But if you don't care what they would say, hey, why not just give your country away to them, you sanctimonious Euro-weenies, and move to the US, where we try to have a little more self-respect and courage and appreciation of our heritage, and also appreciate the virtues of firearms?

And when you come, just wade across the Rio Grande via Mexico in your Le Chameau wellies. You'll get more sympathy and better benefits that way than if you try the whole silly legal paperwork visa hassle, and our immigration is tilted against Europeans anyway thanks to the bozo NJ Dem Peter Rodino years ago. And the guards won't be able to confiscate your stash of Cuban cigars. If you do stumble into some Immigration government folks with sidearms, just say "Jose Gonzales, no speaka Inglese." They will leave you alone. Or you can always try the reliable "These aren't the droids you're looking for," if The Force is with you. Which it isn't, obviously.

A wide-ranging interview with Harold Bloom

The great Bloom discusses himself, aging, literature, wisdom, and, of course, Shakespeare:

"He (Hamlet) is simply not the nicest guy in the world. He is as much a villain as he is a hero. He transcends these categories as he transcends any category. He knows too well, he understands too well, he has thought his way to the end of thought. As I read Shakespeare, even though he is humane, he has thought his way into the abyss, into nothingness. Even though Hamlet moves us because there are intimations of transcendence, nevertheless they are of... And I think Shakespeare knows it. I think it's the darkest literary work I have ever read and its implications are shattering."

Read entire interview.

Our second installment of Nathan's diary: Click the Aliyah Diary category on upper left to learn what this is about. (Got to remind him to translate all of these Hebrew words into English, in parentheses, for us goyim.)

Oct 14, 2005: Yom Kippur and Ariel

        A seven year old's comment touches me and makes Yom kippur, although
I must wait until break-fast at her house to have the day fulfilled.
        How to picture Yom Kippur in Ra'anana?  the streets are empty of moving cars, instead filled with joyful children on bikes, rollerblading, playing. Some adults too are on wheels.  I split my time between Kinor David and Shivtei Israel, sneaking off for a nap at 1 and missing the reading of Job (which I read by myself).  Kinor David is nonstop praying from 730 am to a bit after 600 pm.  At Kinor, they have put my Hebrew name on the white plastic chair I am to occupy: Naftali Sheinberg, in Hebrew. I do believe that for generations, my predecessors had prayed to see their names written like this in  a  land like this.  But, a  bit too much religion for me at least in one day.  A bit more comfortable at Shivtei, despite the choir; Danny Beller the rabbi has an insouciant sense of humor, and I can slip out without being discovered.  I recall being in a choir at age ten with Michael Osband's father; given a short solo, I warbled
the tears into it, singing to the women's section. Later, at break, Osband's pere dumps on me for stealing the show. I wasn't naive about this; I knew that I would sing into the hearts of the women.  Perhaps like Amichai, I found the mehitza more enticing than foreboding.
        I also thought about the Torah and one haftorah readings for these holidays: Rosh Hashanah starts with the birth of Isaac, and next reading is about Abraham's' near murder of his only son.  The word's are short, powerful, Hebraic nomad language. I picture Sergio Leone, who did the Eastwood Spaghetti westerns, doing the laconic portrayal of these pre-cowboy laconic guys in desolate Beer-sheva.  God: "Lech lecha", the same words he commands Abraham some 30 years earlier to leave his father's house, journey 1,000 or so "klicks" from fertile Crescent to desolate Beer-sheva basin, God now uses to command Abraham to kill his only son with Sarah (as he once told him to send his only, only soon, Ishmael into the wilderness with his mother).  And Abraham's response:  the obedient, "Hineni,"  a Steppin Fetchit kind
of, "Here I is, Boss."   Then the reading on Yom Kippur:  after God kills Aaron's two sons for the sin of ..... getting too close to God, He goes about business, telling Moses to tell Aaron how he needs to go into the mitbe'ach, the holy sanctuary, only after special cleansing of body and soul and the sacrifice of two rams (I think, rams); one to be butchered near the alter, the other sent into Azalzel, the wilderness which I believe shares a zipcode with where Ishmael was sent. Or at least the same ecosystem.  Also, to sprinkle a dab of blood on the horns of the altar (Aaron shouldn't forget whom these two rams are a substitute for). I gather that some of the atmosphere of the mitbe'ach was a charnel house and the Cohanim, well, shochetim.

Miramichi Inn

A group of Maggie's Farm friends recently returned from a week at the above, with nothing but praise for the lodging and the sporting opportunities, despite having had lousy weather. It's a definite re-do for next October. They donated a spot for the conservation charity we support (Ducks Unlimited) too. Merci bien, Andre.  Miramichi Inn.

Bird Hunting

Kevins has a fine catalog which focuses on high-quality Southern bird hunting gear. Also, never underestimate LL Bean's hunting gear - it's how the company got started. And to save money, it's a good idea to check Sierra Trading Post for your gear needs, first. You will make some impulse buys there, and keep the economy rolling. They have some good deals on Aigle wellies right now.

Got to ask The Barrister to do a piece on wellies...he is the Wellie Maven.

Making Music vs. Listening to Recordings

It's about time that someone wrote a book about the effects of recorded music on music, and the way we listen to music, who makes the music, and the way music is performed. Robert Philip has done it: Performing Music in the Age of Recording. From a NYROB review by Rosen:

"Before 1900 in Europe and America, it was at home that music was most often experienced, by family members who played some instrument or sang, and by, willingly or unwillingly, the rest of the family and friends. (In Western society among the lower middle class and upward, most music was made by women, who were generally expected to learn to cook, sew, and play the piano. The majority of professional musicians may have been male, like the majority of professional cooks, but most of the cooking and piano play-ing was the lot of women. Music, like breakfast and dinner, was part of life at home.) More exceptionally, music could be heard in some public places—concert hall, opera house, or church. The public realm was essentially a complement to the private. It set standards and added glamour.

By the twenty-first century, all this has changed. Both private and public music are being displaced by recordings. Few people make music themselves at home anymore. Because of more cramped living space, it is now inconvenient to house a piano, a once indispensable piece of furniture for any household with even modest pretensions to culture and the instrument that for more than a century was the mainstay of classical music. Outside the big cities, live public music is disappearing as well. Most of the smaller towns that used to have a classical concert series have lost that, and if they are too insignificant to sponsor a popular rock group event, their public music must be confined to clubs. Even live symphony and opera broadcasts have been largely eliminated. At home today we play records. Classical and pop radio stations play records. And often ballet companies and theatrical productions play records in place of hiring musicians.

Robert Philip's Performing Music in the Age of Recording is a brilliant analysis of how this has affected performance style. It is also incidentally, for much of the time, the best account I know of how musical life in general has changed since the introduction of vinyl and long-playing records in the 1950s, which made it possible for records to invade everyone's home."

Read entire review here.

The Story of the Ford Edsel

Watching Ford and GM struggling today brings to mind the story of the Ford Edsel. The Edsel story is a case study in how not to develop and introduce a new product. That's not exactly the problem that the big American motor companies have today - it's bad contracts and their turning themselves into de-facto finance and healthcare corporations - but they have not been wise for many years. Detroit is suffering: Click here: RealClearPolitics - Commentary - Public Sector Unions Still Living in a Dream World by Tom Bray

From a piece by A. Young:

The early 1950s were a euphoric period for automakers. In 1955 Americans bought a record 7,169,908 new cars. This auto-buying frenzy was just one aspect of the postwar economy that Vance Packard described in The Status Seekers, published in 1959 ¹ In Packard's view, automobiles evolved from mere transportation vehicles just after World War II to symbols of middle-class affluence in the first half of the 1950s. The V-8 engine reigned supreme and horsepower was the watchword. In this heady market atmosphere Ford Motor Company conceived a new car that they hoped would help the company surpass General Motors in overall market share.

Read entire.

Tomato vs. Vinegar, etc.

To us in the Northeast, the barbecue wars of the South can seem like quaintly endearing rivalries - until you experience two things: 1. the true intensity and competitiveness of the regional barbecue wars (see Instapundit) and, 2. the total lusciousness of each one of these forms of commingled fat, smoke and meat. I hesitate to state that I prefer the Carolina-style pulled pork to the others, but I've never had a barbecue I didn't like. The pulled-pig I had in Kentucky may have been the best, a whole hog smoked in a freshly-dug hole in the ground for about 24 hours. You yank hunks of meat off the hog with your hands like a cave-man.

Our red-state readers hardly need a basic lesson in the regional barbecues, and in pits vs. smokers, and dry rubs vs wet sauce, or even pork vs the blasphemous Texas beef brisket, but I needed a primer, especially after a conversation last week about vinegar-based sauce vs. tomato-based - North Carolina's famous east-west division.

A barbecue primer here. Another piece with recipes here. Hungry already. Too bad this stuff is so scarce in the Northeast. I've had enough sushi for a lifetime, and the very thought of more of it is nauseating: from now on, I will call it "bait," not food. I think I just liked the wasabi and the ginger.

The Origin of Music

Fascinating subject, fascinating review of a doubtless fascinating, speculative book by Mithen on the origins of music:

"...late in evolutionary history, as pressures for complex social living increased, our own true, compositional language emerged from Hmmmm. Sentences were now made up of words, which in turn were comprised of infinitely-recombinable segments. Once this transition was completed, what was left of Hmmmm? Primarily, music. No longer needed for daily Hmmmm communication, music developed for others uses, first and foremost in the supernatural realm: “With the emergence of religious belief, music became the principal means of communicating with the gods.” "

Read entire scholarly review by King