Isegoria: Apparently a few smaller vessels were captured by the Japanese, USS Wake and USS Robert L. Barnes.
Jim: Were there really no U.S. ships captured in either of the Wars Against Germany?
Gaikokumaniakku: “Why, after the villain has fled in his private submarine, and while the high-tech palace crashes and burns, does the last unincinerated member of the villain’s private militia risk his life to take a shot at James Bond? Loyalty to Blofeld?” Madness? Spite? Hatred of bourgeois morality? The henchmen of a Blofeld might be good characters, full of dysfunctional motivations, if only there were time to hear their stories. Consider the following protagonist, who might be an anti-hero: Some...
Isegoria: Back in 2009, Lexington Green listed ten books he wanted to re-read, and I made the same comment about Verne-versus-Wells then: H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds – Wells’ early science-fiction stories have held up amazingly well — and much better than Verne’s “harder” science-fiction. It’s hard to stay amazed by a submarine and by waterproof doors lined with India rubber.
Isegoria: Speaking of Blofeld: The Problem of the Loyal Henchmen arises when people willingly obey authorities everyone knows to be evil. Why, after the villain has fled in his private submarine, and while the high-tech palace crashes and burns, does the last unincinerated member of the villain’s private militia risk his life to take a shot at James Bond? Loyalty to Blofeld? Loyalty to the principles of Blofeldism? What could that mean? […] The mysterious part of totalitarianism’s appeal — and here we...
Isegoria: My oldest post to mention the word “submarine” cited the late Steven Den Beste’s piece on the silent service, emphasizing this point that “loose lips sink ships”: Japanese anti-submarine warfare capability was never really very good, and in the early part of the war it was particularly dreadful. One reason for this was that the Japanese had incorrectly calculated the depth to which American boats could dive. They set their depth charges based on that, and the American submariners soon learned...
Bill: I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was eight or nine years old. What a story! I was lucky enough to be reading it in Florida when my uncle visited. He was an officer on the USS Corporal, one of our older subs. He eventually served on the Simon Bolivar, one of the most modern subs of the 1960′s. Unfortunately, I was too young to ask him any really good questions, and he took the idea of “loose lips sink ships” as seriously as you would want from the Weapons Officer....
Isegoria: When I first went back and read Verne, I found his work rather dull, because it’s hard to get excited about a submarine with hatches lined with…India rubber! His work is almost in the techno-thriller genre, but the near-future tech isn’t thrilling now. Wells is much more of a Big Idea guy, and I found myself enjoying his less grounded stories much more, even though I consider myself pretty grounded and a big fan of plausibility.
Bruce: Verne always sneered at Wells for failing to use plausible tech.
T. Beholder: Bruce says: Stalin or Napoleon better central planners? That’s the second question. Napoleon was a polymath. Stalin seems to have read a lot, but he sure wasn’t Napoleon’s equal. And that’s the third question. =) But on this one… Stalin’s style was all about the cadres. Sure, there were things he could not delegate. But most of the time his main concerns remained the same: to have the best available people in the right places and have them work toward maximally useful objectives, not wasting...
Bruce: Stalin or Napoleon better central planners? Napoleon was a polymath. Stalin seems to have read a lot, but he sure wasn’t Napoleon’s equal. The Code Napoleon settles the issue.In Napoleon’s letters, he says the point of the Code Napoleon was that he could tax any enemy to destruction with ease. But, he could do that because the Code was a such a huge improvement on previous French law.
T. Beholder: Napoleon…considered Britain’s Industrial Revolution too advanced for France to be able to compete against her in open markets. As wikings say, «citation needed». From Napoleon. Now, competing with the British fleets was certainly not something he could do directly. And they were the only serious player in the game left after they crushed Spanish and Dutch presence on the seas not by “too advanced Industrial Revolution” — not that this practically mattered. Jim says: Was Stalin a vastly...
T. Beholder: Jim says: Who defines “invasive” and “noninvasive”, and how? Whoever TF wants, obviously. For a meaningful criterion, to be invasive it needs to not only survive on its own, but either outcompete the locals, or breed explosively, i.e. be disproportionately resistant to local culling. Japanese knotweed is far worse than kudzu, and far more resistant to cold. It strangles local plants to the point where river banks start falling apart (which only helps it too spread). But then, even golden...
T. Beholder: Lucklucky says: I look at the post-fire pictures and see a lot of tree and bushes with vegetation and some even green near hundreds of houses burned to the ground. Yes. A tree quite often will have only cooked leaves (which regrow) and singed bark in all but the worst fires. Unless it’s dried up through and through or very diseased. Which is why Smokey The Dopey Bear approach actually helps little, and in dry lands only makes things worse. While a mild fire uses up fuel, so the next natural...
Jim: Was Stalin a vastly better central reformer than Bonaparte?
Jim: “In the United States, it is found in southern to south-western states and tends to crowd out native vegetation. Interestingly, it is not officially an invasive species in California given its long-term presence, common planting, and relatively low risk in comparison to other invasive plants.” Who defines “invasive” and “noninvasive” ;, and how? Is this yet another brainworm of PSYWAR modernity needful of excision?
Isegoria: Palm trees, pepper trees, and eucalyptus trees are all foreign imports to California.
Isegoria: You’re definitely allowed to love Fire and Ice for what it is: It’s a bit like Star Wars, but with Leia played by Jayne Mansfield, in an outfit smaller than the infamous Return of the Jedi bikini, and the Death Star taken out by Han Solo. That said, the film does feature some amazing rotoscoped action sequences atop beautifully lush background paintings — including some by Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light.
Jim: Australia’s sale of eucalyptus to California is undeniably one of world history’s international relations’ funniest japes.
T. Beholder: There is an adjacent phenomenon: moral fashion. The fashions are an actively developing and mutating zone of a memeplex. He touched this several times, but… The danger of these rules was not just that they created land mines for the unwary, but that their elaborateness made them an effective substitute for virtue. The problem indeed is not that some very thorny bushes exist in a human habitat (they are often quite useful, and normally a nuisance at worst), but the aggressive expansion of...
Isegoria, may you have a rational yet funny Christmas! ;-)
Thank you kindly, Borepatch. In fact, I’ll try to keep things rational yet funny into the New Year.
..and that’s why I come here often.
Happy coming New Year!
Happy New Year to you, too, Tatyana. (S Novim godom!)