Shattered Sword

The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway by John Parshall and Anthony Tully:

A lot of Japanese sources are now available in translation, and the authors took advantage of this. A number of stories about Midway (including some by a now-debunked (at least in Japan) Japanese) are myths, based on either posterior-preserving (as with the Japanese writer) or American misunderstandings and attempted propaganda.

A couple of things: the early attacks on the Japanese carriers were scattershot (the US had lousy command and control of its planes), and that kept the carriers dodging. Dodging meant they couldn't spot planes for an attack on the American carriers, though they could get a few fighters off. But even if they'd gotten an attack off, it was too late; the American planes headed their way had already taken off. If they'd used the American methods, they might have gotten enough planes up to take revenge, but their doctrine demanded a full attack group, and the way they spotted planes, though quite fast, wasn't fast enough under the circumstances.

The Japanese didn't store planes on the flight deck; they fueled and loaded them below and elevatored them up. That meant a bomb that penetrated the flight deck found a very rich environment, and since the lower decks were not open, the bombs' effects were contained and intense.

The story that the American torpedo bombers, though unsuccessful, had kept the defending Zero fighters low enough that they couldn't intercept the high-flying dive bombers that followed--it's a fable. The Zeros were perfectly capable of climbing back up in the minutes before the dive bombers' arrival. What seems to have been more of a problem is Japanese command and control of their own planes--the defending fighters, finding a problem in one sector, piled on, and left the other sectors less defended.

There's more of the backstory too--the surface fleet was kept far away to maintain secrecy, but that meant it was too far away to be of any support. The Attu invasion was not a feint, but part of their 3-pronged grand strategy. Their failed southern prong attack denied them the use of 2 carriers, so they only had 4 at Midway. Yamamoto's directions were ambiguous. And so on.

They write well. I met Parshall a few years ago--he's a nice guy and very knowledgeable. If you're interested in Pacific World War II, read the book.

That previous line reads a little strangely, doesn't it--a peaceful war?

Bookstores

From From Anecdotal Evidence: an essay on booksellers from 1963

My own relations with bookshops began more than forty years ago and they have extended into many countries and to all continents. I have gone to bookshops to buy and browse. I have gone to them to buy books I wanted, and because I just wanted to buy a book, and much of the time just because I wanted to be among books to inhale their presence. My case is an extreme one, and there are perhaps few people in my generation, more or less in their right minds and heavily engaged wvith all sorts of duties, who have spent so much time in bookshops as I have. I have talked with booksellers of every kind, angular Brahmins, mad Ostjuden, motherly widows, elegant patricians, sweet mice, and cagy and distrustful touts.

The retail book trade in new and second-hand books in the United States is in many important respects in an unsatisfactory condition throughout much of the country. There are some bright spots here and there, but on the whole the situation depresses, even appalls me. And it seems to be getting worse. It is not just because of my having less time now and so many books already that bookshops have become less attractive to me. My heart still pants for them "as the hart panteth after the water brook," but all too often it pants without satisfaction.

It's worse in many ways now--Barnes and Noble and Half Price Books are the only survivors within miles of here. Online stores help keep some places afloat, though. FWIW, in one Wyoming store I bought from, books had two prices listed. One was for in-person sales, the other for online.

AI and copyright

"Human authorship and creativity remain essential in the quest to obtain copyright protection"

The famous work "Notes towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare" is not copyrightable because the macaques were not human. (Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyrightabbility (2025) (Part 2) at 7-8)

The work must contain "some degree of originality and cannot be merely the result of time and effort." Randomness isn't really originality, so I guess "Notes" fails on both counts.

And I suppose if the experiment had been "successful," copyright on the original expired long ago.

More seriously, the office's conclusions seem pretty straightforward: AI-generated stuff (pictures or text or music or whatever) isn't copyrightable. A human has to make substantive contributions. Likely we'll require some case law to square away what "substantive" means, and case-by-case reviews are probably in the future--but we have some of that already. Taking an AI-generated image and redoing it, or moving sections around and changing size--that should probably be copyrightable. However, I'm told that making a good picture still requires artistic skill--the AI, for that artist, merely makes gives her the raw materials to organize and modify.

Dripping

The headline at SciTech is evocative: Scientists Discover That North America Is “Dripping” Down Into Earth’s Mantle.

Although the dripping is concentrated in one area of the craton, Hua said that the plate appears to be interacting with material from across the entire craton, which covers most of the United States and Canada.

“A very broad range is experiencing some thinning,” Hua said.

The image that comes to mind is water dripping from a faucet, which on the small scale is pretty dramatic, with a lot of shake-up. If you scaled that up, you could imagine a blob pinching off under the continent (e.g. New Madrid) with a resulting big up-bounce afterwards.

(Bigger image here)

But the "drip" is into a medium not much less dense than the dip itself, and the sizes involved suggest a much slower and wider "bounce". A simulation suggests "drips" of order 50km and timescales of order millions of years, not seconds.

Stresses and stress relief might trigger some other fault into action, of course.

Signal reaction

The first thing that came to my mind was an alleged Bismarck anecdote, though I haven't found a source.

Bismarck was commenting on the poor ethics of journalists, when a reporter pled "But haven't I always kept secret those things you told me in confidence?" Bismarck barked back, "The more fool you! Do you think I'd say anything to someone in your profession that I didn't want to see in print?"

The complaint about Europe seemed like a carom shot, but details about timing suggest that the incident really was a screw-up--unless they really trusted the recipient's reaction.

Politics and religion in other climes

I was chasing down a familiar name (my mother had worked with the man) in the news, and a rabbit trail brought me to an interesting election dispute:

NEC rejects Justin Oldpa Yeazeahn CKA New Zoe Prophetkey application to contest for the bi-election for Senate seat in Nimba. It is reported that he fraudenly inserted voter registration number on his application form, where as he didn't register to vote during the last election.

Mr. Yeazeahn who has asked young people in Nimba to have plenty children by impregnating their girlfriends and wives, and he will pay the hospital bills has responded to NEC communication to him as attached.

He said the National Elections Commission didn't send the communication in time , to allow him use the 48 hours appeal period to file an appeal. He indicated that the commission refused to use his email to address the communication which would have given him opportunity to immediately respond.

Mr. Yeazeahn also accused the NEC of not giving the signed copy of his rejection communication to the person he sent to receive it

Many who think that Prophetkey shouldn't run for public office because of his unruly behavior , noted for abusing women will be happy if NEC decision stands.

The public is watching to see what happens next!!!!

Thanks to HOTT FM 107.9 and Super Bongese TV.

Raised beds

I built short raised beds of wood shortly after we moved here, and though the wood is largely gone the piles of soil aren't that tough to keep more or less corralled. Since bending over is getting a smidgeon harder, I built a trial "higher" raised bed, so that the soil is about 20" above the yard. This also let us grow things that want deeper roots--the yard's "topsoil" is about 5" deep and then hits glacial till. Carrots bifurcate or go sideways.

Anyhow, I wondered how long the high raised bed would last and now I know--about 5-6 years. I'm thinking of replacing the useless wood with cement blocks--the 4x8x16 variety, in hopes that the 4" thickness and construction adhesive would be enough to anchor one side wall to the next. I'd dig a little foundation, and then use 3 courses of bricks glued together.

Does anybody have any experience with this? Alternatives? Suggestions? "Round" off the corners?

Real Education

I hadn't heard of Real Education by Charles Murray, published in 2008. He divides the book according to four claims

1. Ability Varies
2. Half of the Children Are Below Average
3. Too Many People Are Going to College
4. America's Future Depends on How We Educate the Academically Gifted

The lie is that every child can be anything he or she wants to be. No one really believes it, but we approach education’s problems as if we did.

It isn't a secret that things like Head Start can create a bump in achievement, but that it lasts less than a handful of years, at which point there's little to no difference in academic skills compared to the control sample. He suggests there can be in some interpersonal abilities.

I wasn't aware of how things like the NAEP math tests worked, and found his numbers on how many students couldn't solve the "8'th grade" problems horrifying.

He proposes cerfifications to undermine the BA fetish, hoping that a need for certifications would create a supply for them. Let employers who don't know what a school's BA is worth (or whether the fellow without a BA is good) have a way of measuring skill.

For those who go to college for STEM, he has little to say: The demands of STEM weed out those not apt; there aren't "too many" after a while. But many are encouraged to go to college who don't benefit.

For those who don't "live in Lake Woebegon," he points to existing and underutilized and underadmired career and technical education. He wants tracking--though I'm not sure he understands how big a staff increase this might require.

For the gifted he hopes to teach wisdom:

A wonderful maxim is attributed to George Christian, one of Lyndon Johnson’s press secretaries: “No one should be allowed to work in the West Wing of the White House who has not suffered a major disappointment in life.” The responsibility of working there was too great, Christian thought, to be entrusted to people who weren’t painfully aware how badly things can go wrong. The same principle applies to those who will become members of America’s elite. No one among the gifted should be allowed to rise to a position of influence without knowing what it feels like to fail. The experience of internalized humiliation is a prerequisite for humility.

At all levels, he wants to teach basic Western culture and the principles of virtue. Those aren't exactly popular, at least in public.

As a sympathetic onlooker, I offer one piece of advice to advocates on the front lines: Stop focusing on math and reading test scores to make your case. They are the measures of educational achievement most closely tied to the child’s underlying academic ability. The limits that public schools face in raising those scores also bedevil private schools, charter schools, and home-schoolers. The reason private schools, charter schools, and home-schooling are desirable is their ability to create a better education in ways that do not show up in reading and math scores.

What can push change? School choice (including homeschool) and certification can help address the first few problems. For the liberal education he hopes in four things: "The stuff of a liberal education is truly wonderful," professors trying to look smart with "impenetrable vocabulary" can't get away with that forever (may not be a safe prediction, it's an old problem), students already ask themselves the questions a liberal education addresses, and using your capacities to the utmost is fun.

Don't look for top-down solutions:

If there is to be a return to reality, it will not come from government. Of all the people hooked on wishful thinking, politicians have the most untreatable habit.

It's about 168 pages, with the rest being notes. Some of his ideas parallel things I've been thinking about education. Give it a read.

Cutting board data point

We've a small plastic cutting board that sees a lot of use because of its convenience. I had a look at it yesterday, and then had a feel of it. The edges had the original smooth corrugated surface. The middle felt fuzzy to the touch. I had a closeup look at it (*), and the surface looked like a sea of floppy snouts pointing up. A lot of plastic had been carved away, and in between where cuts had been the ridges had been re-scored in random directions -- everywhere I looked were bits of plastic begging to be cut or twisted free. I can see why the researchers found that cutting carrots on a board generated more fragments than cutting the board directly -- you'd also get the sideways motion of the cut vegetable to push on those little nubs of plastic. (This was on boards that had already seen a lot of testing.)

I think we're going to retire that board, and use it for craft work instead.

In answer to a question: The best case is that the plastic consumption is harmless, and given that we haven't all keeled over, that's a good approximation. There are lots of other things in our food environment that are "mostly harmless."

WA Guess--these things are a little like mercury: where the inorganic version is somewhat harmful but the organic compounds are deadly. The plastic bits may not cause much problem, but if (e.g.) our gut flora mutate to devour plastic on our behalf, the resulting waste chemicals might be harsh on the body.

At any rate, I prefer not to eat dirt or soap or other "mostly harmless" stuff, so I'll be trying to minimize my plastic consumption too. I won't be losing sleep, though.

(*) MicroBrite Plus pocket microscope--I bought it for science demonstrations in the park. The kids were too young and fumble-fingered to get much benefit from it.

UPDATE: Crummy picture, but you can see a couple of the "snouts."

Plastic dust

Researchers studied Plastic particles in bottled water, using Stimulated Raman Scattering:

The researchers found that, on average, a liter of bottled water included about 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic. About 90% of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics. This total was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in earlier studies, which mostly focused on larger microplastics.

and

The method identified millions of additional particles that did not match the seven categories of plastic. It’s not yet clear if these tiny particles are nanoplastics or other substances.

Why would there be plastic "dust" inside a water bottle?

So far I haven't found any definitive answer to that. However, water does do some damage even to PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is quite stable in water. Possibly stress points in the plastic bottles are more liable to "corrosion." Possibly the manufacturing process liberates some microstrands of plastic as it blows up the plastic. UV can accelerate degradation. I haven't thought of everything. (Different manufacturers had different quantities: maybe their processes differed or their water sources differed.)

At any rate, using their estimates I get something like a tenth of a part per billion mass of known plastic bits. And probably a hundred times that of unknown stuff--maybe other plastics, maybe bacteria; not known yet.

Influencers

Encouraging people to do stupid things isn't new with TikTok/YouTube/etc. Back when the Stegosaurus flailed his tail and I was an undergrad, a radio call-in invited people to tell their Thanksgiving recipes. In amongst the desserts, one called offered his turkey recipe--the core of which was to cook the bird at 180F for 7 hours. The host didn't spot the problem, but the very next caller did. At least with the Tide pod craze, you were only going to sicken yourself, and not the whole family.

Memories don't work the same

We went to an exhibit on Egypt almost exactly 21 years ago. The subject of the Book of the Dead came up, and as a result also the exhibit. I had forgotten some things that impressed me about the exhibits, but Youngest Daughter not only remembered them, she remembered exactly what dress she had worn.

Progression

"we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

One of the men in our Bible study this morning compared that to a toddler trying to walk and falling on his rump. It's trouble, but he perseveres and gains strength, and with strength skill, and gains the skill in the hope of walking just like Mommy and Daddy.

Some of those tribulations hurt a lot more and longer than a flop on the rump, though.

Monotheism

It's popular to say that Moses learned from Akhenaten (one of his poems resembles a psalm), and I've heard the reverse--that Akhenaten learned from the Jews. Given the difficulty with dating anything, I don't think that line of inquiry is very fruitful.

I like another approach. As I've read elsewhere, and Rodney Start reminded us, a "High God" tradition is pretty universal among "primitive" groups. In The Idea of the Holy Otto describes an "encouter with the numinous" that he, I think properly, regards as the source of religious feeling. Depending on when and where this encounter happened, you might attach the sense of awe with the ocean, or the stars, or the forest, and come to think of that as the god. The default numinous experience would be monotheist.

Polytheism comes in when the original experience fades, or you have to get along with (swear oaths for) neighbors who either had a different experience or inherited the rituals from someone who had a different experience. And henotheism devolves to polytheism (by the next generation, if not sooner) which will dilute devotion.

If this approach applies, then Akhenaten had such an experience, and was in a position to (at least for a while) defy politics and tradition and try to inspire everyone to give up the corrupt rituals of non-worship in favor of a truer devotion.

In other words, the two could have been independent.

Phytoremediation

A study using plants to pull lead from slag-contaminated soil in Atlanta found that in their pots, 10% of the lead could wind up in the plants. The soil had over 500mg/kg of lead. The paper deals with a number of the technical details, but for now just assume that the whole plant is removed and processed (maybe oxidizing it with H2O2 instead of burning) to retrieve the lead someplace either safe or usable.

If one harvest gets rid of 10%, and you want the concentration to be below 5mg/kg, that's about 44 harvests to clean up that dirt. 37 if you're OK with 10mg/kg, 22 if you're OK with 50mg/kg (and you probably shouldn't be).

The urgency of the problem is because people live there now. Some garden, and some of those eat what's in the garden. 40 years is a long time to maintain a program as people come and go, buildings wear out and get replaced, and political priorities churn.

You'd think that something like this would remain a priority, but experience of fighting wars, especially existential ones, says that even important projects get back-burnered or canned. Losing them is even more disruptive. And 44 years is a long time.

Chewing sticks

Some trees are preferred (arak?) for this dental hygiene product.

It's popular enough that the FDA (Forestry Development) had to ban their harvest for a while to keep down the clear-cutting of trees, although permits are available after sub rosa payments.

I've seen them in use, but never realized that the resource was limited.