Monday, June 10, 2013
Look, Ma, No Microphone!
Scientists are trying to capture voice audio by analyzing high-speed video of people talking. This sounds much like the challenge (already successfully done) of recovering audio from photographs of mechanical sound recordings (like Edison's early cylindrical wax recordings)...
The Old Cow...
Via my lovely bride:
DEATH OF THE OLD COW
Suddenly, a cow jumps out into the road, the car hits it full on, and the car comes to a stop.
Nancy, in her usual charming manner, says to the chauffeur, "You get out and check - you were driving."
So the chauffeur gets out, checks, and reports that the animal is dead - but it was old.
"You were driving, so you go and tell the farmer," says Nancy.
Two hours later the chauffeur returns totally plastered, hair ruffled with a big grin on his face.
"My God, what happened to you?" asks Nancy.
The chauffeur replies, "When I got there, the farmer opened his best bottle of malt whiskey, the wife gave me a slap-up meal and the daughter made love to me."
"What on earth did you say?" asks Nancy.
"I just knocked on the door and when it opened I said to them, "I'm Nancy Pelosi's chauffeur, and I've just killed the old cow."
Shifting Sands...
Watch this:
If this is new to you, there's a brief explanation here. There's no photographic trickery involved; if you were standing there, you'd see this.
I stumbled across this phenomenon completely by accident when I was in the U.S. Navy. The ship I served on was made of steel – decks, walls, ceilings, everything. In one small compartment, about 10 feet on a side, we had a pair of “motor-generators” (MG sets) that converted 60Hz AC to 400 Hz AC to power our computer systems. The MG sets ran at a constant speed, and served as a source of vibration. The floor acted like a nice metal plate, with the MG sets right in the middle. The dirt and junk on the floor acted just like the sand in this video, being bounced around by the standing vibration waves until they wandered into the stationary node lines. The result, just like this video, was a beautiful “picture” of the standing waves...
If this is new to you, there's a brief explanation here. There's no photographic trickery involved; if you were standing there, you'd see this.
I stumbled across this phenomenon completely by accident when I was in the U.S. Navy. The ship I served on was made of steel – decks, walls, ceilings, everything. In one small compartment, about 10 feet on a side, we had a pair of “motor-generators” (MG sets) that converted 60Hz AC to 400 Hz AC to power our computer systems. The MG sets ran at a constant speed, and served as a source of vibration. The floor acted like a nice metal plate, with the MG sets right in the middle. The dirt and junk on the floor acted just like the sand in this video, being bounced around by the standing vibration waves until they wandered into the stationary node lines. The result, just like this video, was a beautiful “picture” of the standing waves...
Whistleblower...
Edward Snowden is a 29 year old IT guy, the type of employee who usually remains hidden from the world, invisibly keeping the electronic gears of his employer turning. Like most IT guys, his work exposed him to information his employer considered confidential. Unlike most IT guys (though he's far from the first), Snowden elected to disclose some information about his employer's behavior that he found objectionable. That makes Snowden a whistleblower. What makes it newsworthy is that Snowden's employer was an NSA contractor, and the information Snowden disclosed was classified.
I wasn't sure how to react when I first heard this news.
On the one hand, if the NSA program was effective, and if (as the administration claims) it wasn't significantly infringing on American citizens' civil liberties – then Snowden's unilateral disclosure of the information was harmful to this country. I should point out something else that may not be obvious to everybody: Snowden couldn't possibly have known which information he had access to would be harmful to release (he claims to have carefully released only information that wouldn't hurt anyone).
On the other hand, if the NSA program was ineffective, or if American citizens' civil liberties were (or could) be infringed, then Snowden's actions were nothing short of heroic . He's sacrificing his own career, perhaps his American citizenship, and (if his own worries are valid) maybe even his life – all to help the rest of his fellow citizens.
And I didn't have enough information to know which hand to choose.
This morning I read this essay by Bruce Schneier, the clearest thinker I know on security-related subjects. He specifically calls Snowden an American hero, but his argument is much more general. Basically he points out that whistleblowers are our primary defense against an abusive government. That led me to ask myself an important question I hadn't asked earlier: am I more concerned about terrorism's effect on me and my fellow Americans, or about abusive government's effects? And the answer to that one is easy: I'm far more worried about the latter than the former. I have spent zero hours over the past ten years worrying about terrorism's effects on me, but hundreds of hours worrying about our abusive (and incompetent, and just plain stupid) government.
Mr. Schneier is right. Snowden is an American hero – even if the NSA program was effective and had no significant impact on our civil liberties. He's right on another count, too: we need more whistleblowers.
I wondered about two other aspects of the Snowden story, captured nicely by these two articles:
Doesn't the fact that the NSA trusted Snowden with classified data prove that the NSA is no good at keeping secrets? So why should I trust them to keep my data secret?
Snowden is worried about retaliation from the U.S. government. At first blush that sounds ridiculous – and then I remembered that our President has asserted his right to unilaterally kill American citizens on foreign ground, and he has actually done so, with drones. Hmmm...maybe Snowden is right to be worried!
I wasn't sure how to react when I first heard this news.
On the one hand, if the NSA program was effective, and if (as the administration claims) it wasn't significantly infringing on American citizens' civil liberties – then Snowden's unilateral disclosure of the information was harmful to this country. I should point out something else that may not be obvious to everybody: Snowden couldn't possibly have known which information he had access to would be harmful to release (he claims to have carefully released only information that wouldn't hurt anyone).
On the other hand, if the NSA program was ineffective, or if American citizens' civil liberties were (or could) be infringed, then Snowden's actions were nothing short of heroic . He's sacrificing his own career, perhaps his American citizenship, and (if his own worries are valid) maybe even his life – all to help the rest of his fellow citizens.
And I didn't have enough information to know which hand to choose.
This morning I read this essay by Bruce Schneier, the clearest thinker I know on security-related subjects. He specifically calls Snowden an American hero, but his argument is much more general. Basically he points out that whistleblowers are our primary defense against an abusive government. That led me to ask myself an important question I hadn't asked earlier: am I more concerned about terrorism's effect on me and my fellow Americans, or about abusive government's effects? And the answer to that one is easy: I'm far more worried about the latter than the former. I have spent zero hours over the past ten years worrying about terrorism's effects on me, but hundreds of hours worrying about our abusive (and incompetent, and just plain stupid) government.
Mr. Schneier is right. Snowden is an American hero – even if the NSA program was effective and had no significant impact on our civil liberties. He's right on another count, too: we need more whistleblowers.
I wondered about two other aspects of the Snowden story, captured nicely by these two articles:
Doesn't the fact that the NSA trusted Snowden with classified data prove that the NSA is no good at keeping secrets? So why should I trust them to keep my data secret?
Snowden is worried about retaliation from the U.S. government. At first blush that sounds ridiculous – and then I remembered that our President has asserted his right to unilaterally kill American citizens on foreign ground, and he has actually done so, with drones. Hmmm...maybe Snowden is right to be worried!
Sunday, June 9, 2013
An Old-Fashioned, Fiery Political Orator...
Who quotes the Declaration of Independence, Ronald Reagan, and My Country, 'Tis of Thee. There's a lot to like here, in E. W. Jackson, a current candidate for Lt. Governor of Virginia. If he's for real, I love the passion and strongly-held beliefs, even if I don't agree with all of them. We need some good old-fashioned ideologues instead of the damned “political operators” that dominate today...
The Scot vs. the Greek...
Via my mom, who notes that I have a lot of Scottish blood running through my veins:
The wit of the Scots
A Greek and a Scotsman were sitting in a Starbucks cafe discussing who had the superior culture.
Over triple lattes the Greek guy says, "Well we Greeks built the Parthenon" and arched his eyebrows.
The Scotsman replies, "Well…it was the Scots that discovered the Summer and Winter Solstices."
The Greek retorts, "We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics."
The Scotsman, nodding in agreement says, "Scots were the ones who built the first timepieces and calendars."
And so on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion.
With a flourish of finality he says, "The Greeks were the ones who invented sex!"
The Scotsman replies,“Aye, Aye that is true, but it was we Scots who introduced it to the women!"
Oracle Drops the Other Shoe – Right on Top of Java...
I've been programming almost exclusively in the Java programming language for over 10 years. Like many other Java programmers, ever since Oracle bought Sun (the previous owner of Java), I've been watching to see what Oracle would do to start making money on Java. It's not in Oracle's corporate DNA to support something like Java for the good of humanity – which is, essentially, why Oracle bought Sun and not the other way around :)
Now we see the beginning, I suspect, of the multiple “incentives” Oracle is going to provide for Java developers to purchase a support contract from Oracle. There are a lot of Java developers in the world – over a million, by some counts. If even a small fraction of those bought support contracts, Larry would have an interesting revenue stream.
I'd bet that this timezone data is but the first of many such changes to come, and that soon the only way you can be a serious developer using Oracle Java is to pay a “tax” to Oracle. What will be interesting to see is what happens next. Will the Java community just complain and pay up? Or will they fork the (still open source) Java code base and create a real open source community, perhaps with another, more altruistic sponsor?
Now we see the beginning, I suspect, of the multiple “incentives” Oracle is going to provide for Java developers to purchase a support contract from Oracle. There are a lot of Java developers in the world – over a million, by some counts. If even a small fraction of those bought support contracts, Larry would have an interesting revenue stream.
I'd bet that this timezone data is but the first of many such changes to come, and that soon the only way you can be a serious developer using Oracle Java is to pay a “tax” to Oracle. What will be interesting to see is what happens next. Will the Java community just complain and pay up? Or will they fork the (still open source) Java code base and create a real open source community, perhaps with another, more altruistic sponsor?
How America Lost Its Way...
Niall Ferguson on the same subject I wrote about a few days ago. Here's just one of several excellent points he makes:
Who benefits from the growth of complex and cumbersome regulation? The answer is: lawyers, not forgetting lobbyists and compliance departments. For complexity is not the friend of the little man. It is the friend of the deep pocket. It is the friend of cronyism.Read the whole thing...
We used to have the rule of law. Now it is tempting to say we have the rule of lawyers, which is something different. For the lawyers can also make money even in the absence of complex legislation
The All-Seeing State...
Mark Steyn on the IRS scandal. An excerpt:
If you don’t instinctively know it’s wrong to stay in $3,500-a-night hotel rooms at public expense, a revised conference-accommodations-guidelines manual isn’t going to fix the real problem.Read the whole thing...
So we know the IRS is corrupt. What happens then when an ambitious government understands it can yoke that corruption to its political needs? What’s striking as the revelations multiply and metastasize is that at no point does any IRS official appear to have raised objections. If any of them understood that what they were doing was wrong, they kept it to themselves. When Nixon tried to sic the IRS on a few powerful political enemies, the IRS told him to take a hike. When Obama’s courtiers tried to sic the IRS on thousands of ordinary American citizens, the agency went along, and very enthusiastically. This is a scale of depravity hitherto unknown to the tax authorities of the United States, and for that reason alone they should be disarmed and disbanded — and rebuilt from scratch with far more circumscribed powers.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Trey Gowdy...
Before this morning, I had never heard of Trey Gowdy, Representative for South Carolina's 4th District. He's been a member of the House since 2011; he's a lawyer and a Republican.
Then I watched this video of him during a Congressional hearing into the IRS boondoggle scandal:
More like him, please...
Then I watched this video of him during a Congressional hearing into the IRS boondoggle scandal:
More like him, please...
Rumors...
Via reader Jim M.:
Rumors are circulating in California that radical Muslims are planning to go on a rampage in Los Angeles, killing anyone who is a legalU. S. citizen. Police fear the death toll could be as high as 23.
Jamulians Against the Casino...
On Thursday, June 6, there was a meeting of Jamul residents opposed to the construction of the Jamul Indian Casino, organized as “Jamulians Against the Casino”. Debbie and I are adamantly opposed, but we missed the meeting. Our neighbor Marisa S. passed along the organization's email newsletter, which is full of linky goodness:
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Major News from Curiosity on Mars...
The lead:
PASADENA, CA—Nearly a year after Curiosity’s triumphant Mars landing, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced today that the NASA rover is preparing to explore a large structure six kilometers south of the Gale Crater, which preliminary reports indicate is an enormous Martian synagogue.Read the whole thing...
Visualizing the Wind...
The snapshot I took of the wind map doesn't really do it justice – the real thing is animated and interactive (you can zoom in on any particular area). The wind data being visualized is realtime, collected from NOAA via publicly available APIs. The statement on the web page says it's a personal art project, and in fact it is often quite beautiful. It's also a wonderful example of the power of data visualization: the animated map instantly conveys the current winds in a way we would never get by reading columns of locations, wind direction, and wind speed...
American Dialects...
At the University of Cambridge (UK), Bert Vaux has been running a survey of English dialects for some time, collecting a large amount of data (you can take the survey and add results yourself). Now Joshua Katz at the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics has taken this raw data, filtered it for the United States, massaged it a bit, and produced a beautiful set of interactive graphics like the one below, each exploring a different particular dialectical variant.
The example I've reproduced below shows one such dialectical variant: what you call the device for drinking water in public. The red areas mostly say “water fountain”, the blue areas “drinking fountain”, and the weird little green areas are where they say “bubbler” (what's up with Rhode Island and Michigan?).
If you're at all interested in language, or just English in particular, this is a fascinating interactive graphic, very well done...
The example I've reproduced below shows one such dialectical variant: what you call the device for drinking water in public. The red areas mostly say “water fountain”, the blue areas “drinking fountain”, and the weird little green areas are where they say “bubbler” (what's up with Rhode Island and Michigan?).
If you're at all interested in language, or just English in particular, this is a fascinating interactive graphic, very well done...
Climate Models: an Epic Fail!
Dr. Roy Spencer is a climatologist and long-time anthropogenic global warming (AGW) skeptic. He's just done all of us a favor by plotting all 73 of the climate models used by the IPCC to support their predictions of AGW – along with the actual observations since the mid-'70s. The data chosen is the “tropical mid-troposphere” temperature – the temperature of the middle of the troposphere (the lower 12 miles or so of our atmosphere, so about 6 miles high) at latitudes within 20&deq; of the equator. He chose this particular data for two reasons:
As Dr. Spencer says, this divergence between the models and the actual observations isn't news – skeptics have been reporting it for years. It's just becoming more and more obvious as the evidence accumulates that the IPCC models are fatally flawed.
There's no shame in their models being in error. There's great shame in their defense of them, even in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. That's not how science is supposed to work...
- The IPCC models make a clear prediction of rapidly increasing temperature in this area.
- Since the 1970s, we have excellent objective observational data for this area (from both balloons and satellites), with more than enough data to allow the various sensors to be cross-calibrated.
As Dr. Spencer says, this divergence between the models and the actual observations isn't news – skeptics have been reporting it for years. It's just becoming more and more obvious as the evidence accumulates that the IPCC models are fatally flawed.
There's no shame in their models being in error. There's great shame in their defense of them, even in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. That's not how science is supposed to work...
Friday, June 7, 2013
FJ Cruiser: Platform - Let the Painting Commence!
This morning I finished the last of the masking, and set up all the parts for painting. Some parts are going to be half orange gloss enamel, half rubberized deck coating (the surfaces the dogs will walk on); some are all orange enamel (having no exposed horizontal surfaces). The half and half parts I laid out on sawhorses, orange side up (since I'm painting that first). The all-orange parts I hung up, so that I could paint them in their entirety in one go.
First step: primer. I followed the recommendation of the “paint expert” at Home Depot, and bought two quarts of oil-based primer that's good for both wood and bare metal (that's a combo that's hard to find). The orange enamel is water-based, and depends on the primer for good adhesion to the metal-and-wood construction of the platform.
I figured that putting the coat of primer on would take maybe an hour, hour and a half. It ended up taking four and a half hours, and by the end of that non-stop marathon brushing session, my arms are mighty tired. I'm pausing to rest them between sentences here :)
It's been a good many years since I did any serious painting. I got a big surprise when I started using the primer this morning – it wasn't thin and watery like the primers I used years ago. The consistency of this primer reminds me of cornstarch-thickened clam chowder – the stirring stick would stand up in it for quite a while. The coverage and adhesion of this stuff was just awesome compared to the primers I've used in the past. It seems paint technology has come quite a way in the past twenty years or so!
Many years ago I had a job working for a slumlord in Trenton, New Jersey – a rotund Dutchman named Mr. Van Czak. It was a horrible job, but Mr. Van Czak taught me quite a few things about lots of “handyman” subjects (and also a thing or two about women, but that's a subject for another post :). One of the things he taught me was that you should always use a brush for applying primer. If you must use a roller or a sprayer, use them only for the topcoat. Why? It's because a skilled painter wielding a good brush can “work” the paint into every nook and cranny on the surface. Even surfaces that look smooth really have many small imperfections. By brushing the same spot in multiple directions, the brush's bristles will work the paint into all these little places, resulting in better adhesion and no holes in the coating. Rollers (but see note at the end of this post) and sprayers don't have this characteristic, and they will leave many minor imperfections in the paint coat. But...if the primer coat is perfect (brushed on), then a roller or sprayer on the topcoat doesn't really cause a problem.
So I brushed on my primer, and worked the paint in just like Mr. Van Czak taught me, 45 years or so ago. Here's what today's work looked like:
On rollers: I noted earlier why brushes do a better job at painting than rollers do. When I was in the Navy, around 1974, I ran into a kind of paint roller that actually did the job as well as brushing. I met this paint roller because of a job I was given as a punishment (nominally for looking unmilitary, but really because I pissed off the officer in charge of my group): for a month I was placed in charge of a group of Bosun's Mates as they repainted part of the ship.
If you haven't been in the Navy, then you probably don't know much about Bosun's Mates. They're the people who keep the ship in shape, cleaning, painting, repairing rope works, etc. Some Bosun's Mates are very bright and skilled people. Many, however, are not. In fact, the Bosun's Mates had a very well-deserved reputation for being closer to our evolutionary ancestors than most people. Some of them really could drag their knuckles when they walked. Some of them could lift hundred pound objects with their pinky fingers, while drunk. Some of them could read, sort off. Less of them could do arithmetic. Being put in charge of a group of them was an unending challenge.
The first thing my group of Bosun's Mates did was to grind off the old paint in the area we were repainting. This creates an ungodly noise, clouds of dust, and is generally awful. The Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice all this, though. Then they cleaned the surface with a dilute acid (this is metal we're talking about). Finally it was time to paint, and for that they broke out their electric paint roller. This paint roller looked a bit like an over-sized electric drill with the roller holder sticking out from where the drill bit should be. It didn't rotate, though - it vibrated, in a pattern designed to emulate the brush strokes of a skilled painter. Very clever! I tried it for a few minutes myself; it was easy to control, did a very nice job painting, but the vibration was really intense – far more intense than a palm sander, for example. I could feel my whole arm going numb. Once again, the Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice.
On one break we took during the repainting, I noticed that the Bosun's Mates were calling their roller “Sheila”. Naming their tools is not a normal Bosun's Mate behavior, so I asked them why. One of them eagerly obliged with a detailed explanation, promptly making me very sorry I had asked. It seems that soon after receiving the new rollers and noting their vibrations, the Bosun's Mates came up with an, er, alternative use for the the roller – as an aid for masturbation. All of my Bosun's Mate team proceeded to tell me, in very graphic terms, about just how wonderful this new roller was for it's off-label use. I'll spare you the details, except to note that they were quite clever about making use of this tool. It was very clear that they had all had a lot of personal experience with the roller, developing a close personal relationship with it. So good was the roller, in fact, that they decided the rollers (the ship had four of them) each needed their own feminine names.
If you've never been in the Navy, that conversation and its subject will probably seem unlikely and outlandish, but trust me, in the U.S. Navy of the '70s, that was behavior well within norms. With women on ships in today's Navy, I suspect the culture has shifted just a tad. Maybe. I debated about whether to pass the word on the off-label roller use to the guy in charge of the Bosun's Mates, but in the end I decided not to. If they wanted to have a romantic relationship with a paint roller, that was their business...
I've never seen one of those vibrating paint rollers for sale anywhere. A quick Google search didn't find any, either, though I did find this patent talking about the same general idea.
First step: primer. I followed the recommendation of the “paint expert” at Home Depot, and bought two quarts of oil-based primer that's good for both wood and bare metal (that's a combo that's hard to find). The orange enamel is water-based, and depends on the primer for good adhesion to the metal-and-wood construction of the platform.
I figured that putting the coat of primer on would take maybe an hour, hour and a half. It ended up taking four and a half hours, and by the end of that non-stop marathon brushing session, my arms are mighty tired. I'm pausing to rest them between sentences here :)
It's been a good many years since I did any serious painting. I got a big surprise when I started using the primer this morning – it wasn't thin and watery like the primers I used years ago. The consistency of this primer reminds me of cornstarch-thickened clam chowder – the stirring stick would stand up in it for quite a while. The coverage and adhesion of this stuff was just awesome compared to the primers I've used in the past. It seems paint technology has come quite a way in the past twenty years or so!
Many years ago I had a job working for a slumlord in Trenton, New Jersey – a rotund Dutchman named Mr. Van Czak. It was a horrible job, but Mr. Van Czak taught me quite a few things about lots of “handyman” subjects (and also a thing or two about women, but that's a subject for another post :). One of the things he taught me was that you should always use a brush for applying primer. If you must use a roller or a sprayer, use them only for the topcoat. Why? It's because a skilled painter wielding a good brush can “work” the paint into every nook and cranny on the surface. Even surfaces that look smooth really have many small imperfections. By brushing the same spot in multiple directions, the brush's bristles will work the paint into all these little places, resulting in better adhesion and no holes in the coating. Rollers (but see note at the end of this post) and sprayers don't have this characteristic, and they will leave many minor imperfections in the paint coat. But...if the primer coat is perfect (brushed on), then a roller or sprayer on the topcoat doesn't really cause a problem.
So I brushed on my primer, and worked the paint in just like Mr. Van Czak taught me, 45 years or so ago. Here's what today's work looked like:
 |
| Some tricky masking, on the inside of this connector. The piece of wood that fits in there must be removable, so both the inside of this connector and the mating wood part must be masked off. The wood was easy, but on the inside of this connector was tricky! |
 |
| Another tricky masking job: the hinge holes. I never had to mask a hole before! I did this by stuffing masking tape in there to completely cover the hole, then trimming the edge with my (very sharp) pocket knife. I had to do eight of these - what a pain... |
 |
| Hanging parts, on ropes rigged to pine trees, with steel wire risers and hooks I fabricated from 3/16 steel rod. This all worked great, except it really pissed off our grey squirrel. He sat up there in the center pine tree, high over my head, and hollered at me for hours... |
 |
| The half-and-half parts, laid out orange-side up on sawhorses... |
 |
| I'm hanging them from the points where they attach to the FJ. You can also see the hook I fabricated, slightly different for each part so that they hang correctly... |
 |
| This is the biggest part by far, probably as much surface area as all the other parts put together. It took me almost two hours to paint this one piece! |
 |
| All done with the primer (it's white). Whew! |
 |
| Those nuts and bolts are a real challenge to brush paint onto... |
On rollers: I noted earlier why brushes do a better job at painting than rollers do. When I was in the Navy, around 1974, I ran into a kind of paint roller that actually did the job as well as brushing. I met this paint roller because of a job I was given as a punishment (nominally for looking unmilitary, but really because I pissed off the officer in charge of my group): for a month I was placed in charge of a group of Bosun's Mates as they repainted part of the ship.
If you haven't been in the Navy, then you probably don't know much about Bosun's Mates. They're the people who keep the ship in shape, cleaning, painting, repairing rope works, etc. Some Bosun's Mates are very bright and skilled people. Many, however, are not. In fact, the Bosun's Mates had a very well-deserved reputation for being closer to our evolutionary ancestors than most people. Some of them really could drag their knuckles when they walked. Some of them could lift hundred pound objects with their pinky fingers, while drunk. Some of them could read, sort off. Less of them could do arithmetic. Being put in charge of a group of them was an unending challenge.
The first thing my group of Bosun's Mates did was to grind off the old paint in the area we were repainting. This creates an ungodly noise, clouds of dust, and is generally awful. The Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice all this, though. Then they cleaned the surface with a dilute acid (this is metal we're talking about). Finally it was time to paint, and for that they broke out their electric paint roller. This paint roller looked a bit like an over-sized electric drill with the roller holder sticking out from where the drill bit should be. It didn't rotate, though - it vibrated, in a pattern designed to emulate the brush strokes of a skilled painter. Very clever! I tried it for a few minutes myself; it was easy to control, did a very nice job painting, but the vibration was really intense – far more intense than a palm sander, for example. I could feel my whole arm going numb. Once again, the Bosun's Mates didn't seem to notice.
On one break we took during the repainting, I noticed that the Bosun's Mates were calling their roller “Sheila”. Naming their tools is not a normal Bosun's Mate behavior, so I asked them why. One of them eagerly obliged with a detailed explanation, promptly making me very sorry I had asked. It seems that soon after receiving the new rollers and noting their vibrations, the Bosun's Mates came up with an, er, alternative use for the the roller – as an aid for masturbation. All of my Bosun's Mate team proceeded to tell me, in very graphic terms, about just how wonderful this new roller was for it's off-label use. I'll spare you the details, except to note that they were quite clever about making use of this tool. It was very clear that they had all had a lot of personal experience with the roller, developing a close personal relationship with it. So good was the roller, in fact, that they decided the rollers (the ship had four of them) each needed their own feminine names.
If you've never been in the Navy, that conversation and its subject will probably seem unlikely and outlandish, but trust me, in the U.S. Navy of the '70s, that was behavior well within norms. With women on ships in today's Navy, I suspect the culture has shifted just a tad. Maybe. I debated about whether to pass the word on the off-label roller use to the guy in charge of the Bosun's Mates, but in the end I decided not to. If they wanted to have a romantic relationship with a paint roller, that was their business...
I've never seen one of those vibrating paint rollers for sale anywhere. A quick Google search didn't find any, either, though I did find this patent talking about the same general idea.
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