Archive for October 5th, 2006

The Synergism of Life – The Answer to a Father

October 5th, 2006 by xformed

Welcome LGF readers. I hope this post helps improve your hope for the future.

Some would say we are disconnecting more in the Internet era. Some would say we’re connecting more. Because of the Internet, we can all share in this story:

From John of OPFOR Blog: Cpl Patrick R Nixon, USMC, died in Iraq Mach 23, 2003. Via an article in Smithsonian magazine, Patrick’s father, David Nixon, was connected to an Iraqi living in the marsh area of Iraq, Dr. Azzam Alwash.

Below is a link that shows you a very basic construct of functional societies: Some go forward to protect and lose their lives. Others benefit. The benefactors proclaim their thankfulness for the sacrifice. Read and understand and know there are those who value the sanctity of life. These ones are the “Marsh Arabs” of Iraq.

Warning: If you cry easily, or even with difficulty, make sure you’re ready in case you do.

“A People Have Been Set Free”

H/T: Gulf Coast Pundit

Also, while you’re here, please consider learning more about the Valour-IT project that provides laptops and voice activated software to our disabled service members. I posted about it here. Thank you for your interest and possible assistance in this wonderful work.

Category: History, Marines, Military, Military History, Supporting the Troops | 2 Comments »

Personal Computers – 25 Years and Counting – Part III

October 5th, 2006 by xformed

In Part II, more details of my “hobby” developed, assisted by about 15-20 devotees to the cause of the Apple ][ series personal computers.

I learned, by rapid immersion, the process of editing and producing a newsletter. It was great, as I had the collected archives of Washington Apple Pi and the big Apple club in Dallas. Now, the practical matter, as with other club type organizations, many have ideas, in this case for articles, but few every find the roundtoit to type it up and pass it along. I wrote some of my own, I cut and pasted many from other Apple clubs (allowed for giving credit and sending our newsletter to them) and for about a year, I was an editor of a documet. Page layout, limited at best, was a skill I developed. Then there was the hours standing at the Xerox machine, clearing the jams, collating and peeling and sticking the mailing labels from the roster generated by the Club Secretary.

The closing of the story comes about a year after I began, when I was to be uprooted and head off for school in Newport, RI. I announced, during “new business” time that I was resigning. The discussion that ensured began with a lady standing up and saying it was a terribly done document, and not worth much. I sat quietly until she paused, then I announced “Sounds like a volunteer to me!” There were a few chuckles and then she got voted to take job. Ah, sweet justice. Also, that certainly was the first time anyone told me it wasn’t any good. Oh, well.

During this time, I had the idea that I could make the computer work for me. Novel concept, and I discussed it with my boss, LCDR David Jones (no kidding, that was his name). He thought automating such things as the tasking we’d recently received to account for all of our day’s projects at the training command, as the Chief of Naval Education and Training’s (CNET) manpower review team was headed our way in a few months, armed with shapened pencils. LCDR Jones championed the plan to buy two Apple ][+ computers, and the StoneWare Data Base Manager software.

Dave Jones was a smart guy. His plan was to capture the daily travels of those of us in the entire department (he was one of the branch heads – the step below the Department Head), which, I seem to recall amount to 287 billted postions, most of which were full. Dave’s branch was the NTDS training shops, to include the various cruisers, detroyers/guided missile destroyers and guided missile frigate platforms, where replacement operators and new crews were training in their specific shipboard Naval Tactical Data System console operations. Other branches were the TACDEW (the great big simulaltor lash up for training, the predecessor to the Battle Force Tractical Trainer), and the branches that conducted tactical training courses such as the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) and the air controller (ASAC and AIC) classes.

Dave’s greatest idea, and a lesson well learned was: If you want data inputs, tell people how to give it to you, so you aren’t the one trying to align it all and make sense out of it. We made a stadnadrd form and all staff were issued a clipboard and a handful of forms. As you worked each day, you wrote the time you started, the activity, the project/course number, then the time you finished. Each day, the forms were turned into the two yeoman and they would then crank them into the database on the Apple ][+ computer. We did this about 8 months, and I had set up the database structure and trained the yeoman on the data input. Together, we (Dave, the yeomen and I) learned about generating reports along the way.

The CNET auditors arrived and the schedule of interviews was published. Our department head chose to send Dave in his stead to the meeting for our department. I recall it was a multiday affiar, with Dave calling for reports in varous formats and sorts, which the yeomen cranked out quickly and delivered them to the classroom in Gallery Hall, where Dave was being grilled. Well, the truth was, he was rocking the auditors back on their heels, as they came to the base with direction to cut billets. Dave kept producing the empirical data, quickly and legibly, showing the department was overworked, and, while some tasking was “out of the box,” he calso could show it was, more often that not, done at the specific direction of either a BUPERS office, or our own next higher command, Commander, Training Atlantic (COMTRALANT) staff, who had over-ridded standing guidance to not add any courses/course material, unless something was deleted as compensation. He had done a fine job in documenting that aspect of the manpower use, as well.

The bottom line: Our department was plussed up 9 billets, while almost every other department on the base was cut, or at the least, left alone. No other department gained even a single billet. The audtiors, initially came across very rough, but realized Dave had not used the computer to make stuff up, but had used it to capture an accurate picture of the workloading of the department.

This was the first fallout of my “hobby” in my career, and how the development of two smart guys in a garage in California made a difference for the Navy.

Next: HP Plotters and the Training Aid Graphics Generator (TAGG) project – Your tax dollars that worked!

Category: History, Technology | 4 Comments »

Also, Just in Time for Christmas

October 5th, 2006 by xformed

Tired of the commute (in the Metro DC area, escpecially)? Don’t like flying? The train is still too slow (and almost as expensive as flying?

If you answered yes, then….fear not, scientists are working for you!

Objects have now been teleported CNN reports today.

Well, maybe telephone booth sized teleporting booths won’t quite make it by this December, it looks like “Star Trek” and other science fiction, wasn’t off the mark with teleporting, and one day, you’ll maybe find one next to the Christmas tree with a large red bow tired around it…

Don’t forget to check out this other “Just in Time for Christmas” offering

Category: Technology | Comments Off on Also, Just in Time for Christmas

Oct 2, 1992: (Very) Shortly After Midnight – USS SARATOGA – Part I

October 5th, 2006 by xformed

I missed the “anniversary” of this in posting days, as the incident discussed here happened on October 2nd, but come the beginning of next year, the same number of years ago, I became involved in the incident where the mid-watch (0000-0400) team on USS SARATOGA (CV-60) made a terrible mistake and launched two NATO Sea Sparrow RIM-7 missiles into the former US GEARING Class destroyer, then the TCG Mauvenet. Some of the details are here.

Three Admirals are named in the Wikipeida notes, two of which I personally worked with during my career, and the third I knew of. One of my shipmates from a training command was working for Admiral Dur that night, and was present earlier in the evening when the SARATOGA Operations Officer came into the Flag Watch Command Center and mentioned they were going to play in the exercise using their NATO Sea Sparrow system (NSSMS). The reported response from Admiral Dur was “Yeah, right!”

USS BADGER BPDMS Launch

RIM-7 Launch from USS BADGER (FF-1071)

The NSSMS was derived from the successful air-launched Sparrow AIM-7 series, brought “down” to serve on ships as a “point defense” system. This means it was designed to be used against threats coming at the platform where the missile system was located. It was by no means an “area” defense system, as it had a very limited capability against “crossing” (read headed for another target) threats. The first installations were Frankenstein like conglomerations of a F-4 Phantom II radar system, mounter on a stanchion for manual aiming and targeting by a sailor on the open deck, which would then fire a missile from an eight celled launcher, adapted from the Anti-Submarine Rocket (ASROC) system. The system, in this configuration, was the Basic Point Defense System (BPDMS – pronounced Bee-Ped-EMus in verbal reference). It was a start, but the operator, strapped to the send and receive antennas mounted on the station on the open deck, had to be verbally pointed in the direction of the target, then he would sweep the area of sky where the target is supposed to be, while listening to the audible return signal of the radar, which would tell him when he had acquired the inbound target by a change in pitch. He also had the firing key for the system, as he was the only one who had the ability to judge if he was on target or not.

More later, but this will be presented in series, as once I get through the technology involved, then it will be on to the investigation.

Category: History, Military, Military History, Navy, Technology | 9 Comments »

Copyright © 2016 - 2024 Chaotic Synaptic Activity. All Rights Reserved. Created by Blog Copyright.

Switch to our mobile site