catch of the day.

Cheddar Bunnies: They're To Die For!

overheard on the radio this morning.

Driving the sprogs to their new vet, I listened to the radio, and apparently there were a bunch of college football games played just a few days ago.  Seems they all go by some variation of "Bowl"--Rose Bowl, Cheetos Bowl, you probably know what I'm talking about.

One of the local radio folks had the idea for an addition to the college football bowls--have one played annually at the football field up here at Dartmouth, and call it the "Hypothermia Bowl".

last day of 2007.

I don't have any special resolutions for 2008, just a general set of goals that aren't specific to the calendar year.  Since I met Robin, every year has been an improvement over the one before it, so I'm hoping the trend continues unabated.  2007 was a little marred by the Move from Hell, but it was also the year in which Lyra was born, so it was a very good year in the end.

Two thousand and eight already, folks.  I'm still waiting for the rocket car I was promised for the year 2000.  The other day, I thought of the fact that Quinn and Lyra have a better than even chance of seeing the 22nd century...with health care and life expectancy improving in quantum leaps every generation, they ought to make it to their 90s. 

Then again, our species has a history of exterminating each other over silly shit like what name to call our invisible friends, or the melanin content of our skins, or what have you.  Nitwits and nukes don't go well together...and I'm not just talking about the Jihadis.

now in stores!

Here's a game to pass around, perhaps a meme of sorts.

Pick a blogger from your blogroll, and then imagine they have an action figure modeled after their likeness available at We-B-Toyz.

What kind of accessories and accoutrements would that blogger's action figure have in the blister pack?

I'll go first, since I thought this thing up, and nobody can pre-empt my pick.

I bring you the Tamara(tm) Action Figure. Comes with bottle of Ruination IPA, paperback novel, and lime-green "iBook" accessories. Clothes include blue jeans, GSG9 boots, Kalashnikitty t-shirt, and black 5.11 tac vest. Optional accessories (sold separately) include Z3 convertible with authentic dent in the hood, and retro-chic 1980s UJM motorcycle. Comes with realistic swilling action!

Your turn.

anyone have irwin mainway's number?

The holiday season is upon us, and with it the inevitable chorus of quavering voices from the consumer safety folks. I greatly enjoy their "Ten Most Dangerous Toys" list every year, as it serves as an excellent guide for holiday gifts.

I can't read articles about toy safety anymore without channeling Mr. Irwin Mainway, president of Mainway Toys, and his fantastic line of hazardous toys. My all-time favorites are his "Johnny Space Commander Helmet" (a plastic bag and a rubber band), Johnny Combat Action costume (with real M-1 Garand rifle), the "Invisible Pedestrian" Halloween costume, and the Johnny Human Torch costume (a bag of oily rags and a lighter.)

Here's one of the old Irwin Mainway appearances on SNL, back when the show was funny.


Consumer Reporter: Good evening, and welcome to the holiday edition of "Consumer Probe". Our topic tonight is unsafe toys for children. For instance, this little bow and arrow set. [ holds up ] Pull the rubber suctions off, and the arrows become deadly missiles.

[ cut to full shot, showing Irwin Mainway seated to Joan's right ]

We have with us tonight, Mr. Irwin Mainway, President of Mainway Toys. Uh, Mr. Mainway, your company manufactures the following so-called harmless playthings: Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set, Mr. Skin-Grafter, General Tron's Secret Police Confession Kit, and Doggie Dentist. And what about this innocent rubber doll, which you market under the name Johnny Switchblade? [ holds up doll ] Press his head, and two sharp knives spring from his arms. [ demonstrates ] Mr. Mainway, I'm afraid this is, by no means, a very safe toy.

Irwin Mainway: Okay, Miss, I wanna correct you, alright. The full name of this product, as it appears in stores all over the county, is Johnny Switchblade: Adventure Punk. I mean, nothing goes wrong.. little girls buy 'em, you know, they play games, they make up stories, nobody gets hurt. I mean, so Barbie takes a knife once in a while, or Ken gets cut. You know, there's no harm in that. I mean, as far as I can see, you know?

Consumer Reporter: Alright. Fine. Fine. Well, we'd like to show you another one of Mr. Mainway's products. It retails for $1.98, and it's called Bag O' Glass. [ holds up bag of glass ] Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous, glass bits.

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, right, it's you know, it's glass, it's broken glass, you know? It sells very well, as a matter of fact, you know? It's just broken glass, you know?

Consumer Reporter: [ laughs ] I don't understand. I mean, children could seriously cut themselves on any one of these pieces!

Irwin Mainway: Yeah, well, look - you know, the average kid, he picks up, you know, broken glass anywhere, you know? The beach, the street, garbage cans, parking lots, all over the place in any big city. We're just packaging what the kids want! I mean, it's a creative toy, you know? If you hold this up, you know, you see colors, every color of the rainbow! I mean, it teaches him about light refraction, you know? Prisms, and that stuff! You know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: So, you don't feel that this product is dangerous?

Irwin Mainway: No! Look, we put a label on every bag that says, "Kid! Be careful - broken glass!" I mean, we sell a lot of products in the "Bag O'" line.. like Bag O' Glass, Bag O' Nails, Bag O' Bugs, Bag O' Vipers, Bag O' Sulfuric Acid. They're decent toys, you know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: Well, I guess we could say that all of your toys are really unsafe and should rightfully be banned from the market. I guess I would just like to know what happened to the good ol' teddy bear.

Irwin Mainway: Hold on a minute, sister. I mean, we make a teddy bear. It's right here. [ picks up giant teddy bear ] It's got a nice little feature here, you see? I'll hold it up here. We call it a Teddy Chainsaw Bear. [ revs chainsaw in teddy bear's stomach ] I mean, a kid plays with saws, he can cut logs with it, you know what I mean.

Consumer Reporter: Well, this is certainly a very sad situation. One of the precious joys of Christmas warped by a ruthless profiteer like yourself.

Irwin Mainway: Well, that's just your opinion, you know what I mean?

Consumer Reporter: Well, I just don't understand why you can't make harmless toys like these alphabet blocks. [ points to blocks ]

Irwin Mainway: C'mon, this is harmless? Alright, okay, you call this harmless? [ holds block in hand ] I mean.. [ plays with block and fakes injury ] Aagghh!! I got a splinter in here, look at that! This is wood! This is unsanded wood, it's rough!

Consumer Reporter: Alright, that's enough of this ridiculous display. [ holds toy phone ] Here is another creative toy, safe enough for a baby!

Irwin Mainway: [ grabs phone ] You say it's safe, I mean, look at this cord.. the kid is on the phone - "Hello? Hello?" - then.. [ twists cord around his neck, screams, and falls backward in chair ] You know what I mean? It's an example! You see my point, a dangerous toy like that?

Consumer Reporter: Well, let's try this one. What about this little foam play ball? I mean, even you, Mr. Mainway, can't find anything dangerous about this. Huh?

Irwin Mainway: [ takes ball, bounces it on table, then shoves it in his throat and feigns choking ]

Consumer Reporter: That's all the time we have for "Consumer Probe" this week.

[ show fades black ]

intangibles.

When I put my little "Five Airplanes" thingie together, I started thinking about what really made my particular choices stand out among all the other excellent aircraft I could have picked. Then I came to the conclusion that the same thing that makes these particular human-made tools remarkable is also the thing that makes any great human-made object remarkable, and that's intangibles.

Every once in a while, an engineer or artist manages to create something that is far more than merely the sum of its parts, something that performs far better than the addition of its specifications on a sheet of paper may suggest. Aviation is full of such creations, for example. There's no specific list of features that made the Douglas DC-3 the legend it is, but rather the way those features add up to something above and beyond sterile numbers about performance, cargo capacity, or range. A well-designed piece of machinery has much in common with a good musical symphony—you can dissect them into numbers and notes, but when you hear the thrumming of a DC-3s Cyclone or Twin Wasp engines, or the opening motif of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, you realize that you're witness to something significant.

Almost every one of us has favorites among our selection of tools, and most of the time, we can't precisely put our finger on the exact reason why we prefer our favorites over any other tool for a particular job. The more vital the task, the more attached we are to the tool in question, and there are few issues more vital and personal than self-defense. Therefore, people tend to get very attached to their choice of sidearm, for example, and that's the main factor behind the endless "brand war" discussions we see on the discussion boards dedicated to guns and self-defense.

A person's preference in personal sidearms is unassailable. You cannot convince a man of the inferiority of his pistol by dragging out sterile data if he's been carrying that pistol through thick and thin, war and peace, calm and danger, for the last ten or twenty or thirty years. Their reason for picking that particular gun might be insufficient for you, and your personal preference may beat theirs on paper when it comes to empirical factors like capacity, weight, or loading speed, but you cannot overcome intangibles with mere numbers.

Take my personal preference as an example. I've often talked about the virtues of my carry gun, the Smith & Wesson K-frame with a three-inch barrel. In a toe-to-toe battle of statistics, any Glock fan could beat me soundly with sheer numbers. A Glock 19, for example, is lighter, holds two and a half times more ammunition, and is much faster to reload than my S&W Model 13. On paper, the Glock 19 is the superior self-defense weapon, beating the Model 13 in nearly every category. So why do I carry the Smith instead of a Glock 19?

Why, intangibles, of course.

The M13 has a heft to it that's lacking in the Glock. It has just the right amount of weight—heavy enough to absorb recoil and make follow-up shots easy, and light enough to not be a burden on the belt. Yeah, the Glock is lighter, but the Smith is light enough, striking just the right balance between shooting and carrying comfort. It doesn't need to weigh twelve ounces, because it's not a pocket gun. (On a side note, if you can tell the difference between a 25-ounce gun and a 30-ounce gun on your belt, you need a better belt and holster, not a lighter gun.) Now, how do you quantify the "proper" weight for a gun? The simple answer is that you can't, because "proper" in this case depends on the purpose of the gun, and the opinion of the person who has to carry it. To me, a three-inch K-frame on the belt is just right, but to someone else, a fifteen-ounce J-frame in the front pocket is just right. Can you argue who's correct, armed with just a spec sheet with numbers on it? Of course you can't.

The M13 has other intangibles that make it superior to the Glock in my mind. It's more reliable—not hugely so, since the Glock is a very reliable design as well—but enough to make me trust it just a smidge more. It's more adaptable to my hand, and balances better because it's less top-heavy. It's easier to verify as loaded—all I have to do is to glance at the back of the cylinder. It's a self-contained system—there are no magazines to lug around, and no need to spend another $200 on a sufficient stash of them. It lets me keep all my brass, every last piece, and I don't have to bend down and spend fifteen minutes picking up empties every time I go to the range. It's less ammunition-sensitive—I don't have to spend any time trying to find a load that feeds well, and I can load and unload it a hundred times a day without having to worry about bullet setback and marred brass or bullets. It holds less rounds than the Glock, but I'm a better shot with it because it makes me place those fewer rounds more judiciously—with the Glock, I always have the thought of "I got plenty more" in the back of my head, and it's easier to get sloppy with shot placement. It's more monolithic in construction—you can't put it out of battery by pushing the muzzle into an assailant, and it makes a better impact weapon in a pinch.

All of these factors put together add up to something that I don't get with any other carry gun, and that's something you can't really express with cold, hard data. The M13 on my belt gives me the warm-and-fuzzies in a way the Glock doesn't, and you will not be able to talk me out of one in exchange for the other by talking about capacity, weight, reloading speed, or anything else to which you can attach numbers.

The next time you read a discussion about Glock vs. 1911, pistol vs. revolver, Ford vs. Chevy, Piper vs. Cessna, New England vs. Dixie, or any other attempt to quantify intangibles and determine that "A is better than B", look at it as if they're trying to establish whether Beethoven's Fifth or Mozart's Symphony No.40 are the better compositions. Could there be a bigger waste of time?

why do they do that?, part 1

Interesting bit of retail psychology:

Abercrombie & Fitch's stores play loud dance music, and their stores are underlit. This is done so that parents won't come in, and hand off the credit card to their kids instead. It's an ingenious way to remove parental spending restrictions.

engineering trivia.

Those Germans engineer some interesting stuff.

The most exotic use for a Wankel engine (itself an exotic German-invented combustion engine) is the seat belt pre-tensioning system in the New Beetle and some Mercedes-Benz models. When the deceleration sensor in the car detects a potential crash, it triggers small explosive charges. The expanding gas from those charges is piped through tiny Wankel engines, which then rotate to take up the slack in the seatbelts.

This is why Germans keep losing wars--they go overboard with the engineering. The German design philosophy seems to be, "Why use three simple parts for the job, if you can use eighteen complicated ones?"

put some real shoes on those feet.

I stopped by the grocery store tonight to pick up some milk.

Walking around, I usually pay attention to the folks around me, and tonight something struck me as interesting. The majority of people in the store were wearing rudimentary footwear--flip-flops, Crocs, open-backed sandals, and the like.

I realized that I neither own, nor wear in public, any type of footwear that does not enable me to break into a run. Some people might call it "paranoia", but I don't feel good about intentionally handicapping my gait in emergency situations. Sure, life in the suburbs is generally quiet and peaceful, but there may just be an urgent matter that requires you to run towards--or from--something at top speed, a situation where tripping over your flip-flops may be a bad thing.

Then again, half the customers at the grocery store tonight were in such shape as to render the point moot, since they'd not be able to exceed the natural speed limit of their flip-flops anyway.

thoreau says: ditch your iphone.

Okay, so Thoreau was a tree-hugging hippie, but he had some salient points. His views on taxation and civil disobedience are laudable, for example, and the older I get, the more I find myself agreeing with his ideas on simplification.

Five years ago, I would have been in line to get my paws on an iPhone. I used to be a gadget hound of the first order--when the original iMac came out, I did stand in line, money in hand, to purchase one of the first ones for sale at the CompUSA in Nashua. I used to be a proponent of what my friend Mark calls "the all-singing, all-dancing multimedia device", coveting and buying gizmos that shoehorned the maximum amount of capabilities into as small a package as possible. The first Windows CE handhelds? I had a bunch of them, despite the fact that the software sucked, and their batteries lasted a tenth of the runtime offered by Palm's devices. Hell, I would have bought an iPhone simply for the fact that it says "Apple" on it, and because it's shiny and glossy.

Fast forward to today, and I'm not very tempted to get a combined phone/music player/web-browsing-and-email device. (And no, it's not just because the piggy bank for toy money is chronically empty these days.) Sure, it looks gorgeous, and I have no doubt that it does all those things in a beautiful and simple fashion, but it doesn't fit my recent trend towards simplification.

My carry guns are one example of this trend. I didn't wake up one day and decide to pare my carry guns down to just S&W K-frames--it just sort of evolved that way. When I made the K-frame my regular carry piece, it was the simplicity of operation and complete reliability that was the initial factor, but after a while I found that I also really enjoyed not having to carry extra magazines. (Speed strips are far easier to carry around--just stuff a pair into your front pocket and be on your way.) Then I appreciated being able to keep all my brass, and after a while I realized that I shot the K-frame better than anything else. I actually ended up carrying the same gun all the time, instead of switching to the Carry Gun of the Month every few weeks, and as a result my skill and comfort level with the old S&W improved quite a bit.

So I ended up getting a duplicate for my carry gun, which is identical in every respect except the length of the cylinder chambers. (My Model 13 is a .357 Magnum, and my Model 10 is a .38 Special.) Both guns are set up identically, with the same grips, loaded with the same rounds (.38 Special +P LSWCHP), and they ride in the same holsters. You can't tell them apart without reading the roll marks on the barrels. Now I have a backup gun for the one I carry, and if the M13 ever breaks or gets taken after a self-defense shooting, all I have to do is get its twin and stick it into the empty holster. I don't have to worry about finding leather, keeping magazines loaded, futzing around with "feed-friendly" carry loads, or getting used to a different manual of arms. Simple is good: you can see the loaded status of both guns just by glancing at the cylinder, both operate in exactly the same fashion, and there's no extraneous fiddle-faddle. Even the sights are just grooves in the topstraps and no-snag low front sights on thick barrels. Recoil is next to nothing even with the +P carry loads, and both guns put those 158-grainers exactly where you point them.

Well, since the simplicity concept works well in that particular area (self-defense weaponry), I started thinking that it might work well in other areas as well. The idea is to pare down the required hardware for a task to the most simple form that still allows full functionality.

I use laptops for writing, and up until recently I usually bought the most powerful machine I could afford every few years. Then I realized that I really only use my portables for writing, and that I didn't need the extra capabilities afforded by a new laptop. I started to regress my writing machines to earlier technology, just to see how far I could downgrade before getting less productive, and to my surprise I found out that writing on an old machine actually enhances my productivity because it offers fewer distractions than state-of-the-art hardware. A ten-year-old Powerbook will still run Word as well as a brand new MacBook, and it won't beckon with World of Warcraft. Then I took that equation to its logical conclusion, and bought one of these, which only lets you do writing...700 hours of it on one battery charge. No email, no Internet, no games, nothing but empty storage space to fill with letters, words, and sentences.

That Thoreau fellow...he may have been a patchouli-scented tree hugger, but that "simplify" thing seems to work pretty well. We seem to be in the middle of the ADHD Age, and our tools and toys reflect that. Buck the trend and try to shed the fluff for a little while, and it might just amaze you how much you can get done when your technology serves you instead of distracting you. I'm a complete and utter capitalist, so I get a twitch whenever somebody starts ranting about "unchecked consumerism", but maybe we don't need the latest and greatest all the time, and the term "obsolete" is used far too liberally.

truth in advertising (sort of.)

Robin, in one of her rare beer moods, brought home a sixer of Beck's Dark from the grocery store. The cardboard carrier has the following claim on it--each line in progressively smaller script:

America's
#1
Imported
German Dark Beer

Well, golly gee. Can we make an even more specific claim to excellence? I think there are all of three imported German dark beers available in this country. They need to hang on to their #1 sales spot in that niche, otherwise they'll have to reprint the whole run of carriers to include an even smaller line at the bottom of the original claim. This one would have to read "that's called Beck's Dark".