More alt history

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Via The Reality-Based Community, a link to this overview of the work of Onken and Jones. It ties in to a question I’ve always had about the way events work – are there really pivot points, or are there broad trends that force thing in certain directions and we retrofit the specific causes (or – as things seem usually to be – a bit of both)?

The researchers also found that assassinations have no effect on the inauguration of wars, a result that “suggests that World War I might have begun regardless of whether or not the attempt on the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 had succeeded or failed.”

In other news, my friend Ray seems to have been involved with early efforts towards a transatlantic cable, discussing same with a favorite steam-vicky – Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

From above

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A few pictures from the local métropole, taken from a vantage point I rarely experience. There was a vendor presentation today at a nice private club atop a local five-story skyscraper – nice lunch and very useful info (if you care about 802.11n and mesh networks). Win.

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BTW – I think Flickr’s been infiltrated by Mainers (compare where Flickr says the pictures were taken with where I placed them on the map)!

Alt history

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Alternative histories can be a lot of fun – or they can be teeth-grindingly dumb. Part of the trick, it seems to me, is to find a good pivot point – a specific thing that could have gone differently – and then carefully work through the implications. Done poorly, it devolves into a “Well, my Goths invented the Gatling gun” – “So what? My Romans allied with Godzilla!” kind of exercise (complete with the smell of burning plastic and the pop of Black Cats – not that I’d know anything about it); done well, it makes you wonder about why things turned out the way they did.

All this is a long-winded way of pointing you at a Strange Maps post on a map of the Republic of New Netherland – maps and alternative history – nice match. While I’m on the subject, C.M. Kornbluth’s Two Dooms is alt history that is definitely worth a read.

What kind of mutant?

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You are a: DIPROSOPIC PARAPAGUS

You have one head, one body, but two faces, partially merged, with a third eye in the center, two noses, and two mouths.

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From a distance, you look like anyone else. It is only those you allow close enough to look into your eyes who will see your true nature, which is emergent. You are neither one thing nor a different thing, but rather the difference just emerging from within the one. Walking down the street, you seem to hear other footsteps keeping pace with yours. Speaking, you hear your every word echoed, but so quickly you cannot be sure it is not your imagination. Reading, you see double; every word seems out of register. Never at ease, you are haunted by a feeling that something is about to happen. It never does; or rather, when things do happen, it is evident that they do not exhaust the sense of imminence that bothers you. When you close your third eye, and try to look at things as others do, you see all the more clearly the fissure in the heart of things. Maybe because your ordinary eyes are farther apart than theirs, you can tell, as singletons cannot, that the fat and friendly world they see as one is really the forced marriage of two parts that are already sliding apart—product of the binocular point of view. And when you close both ordinary eyes, and look at the world through the third eye that partakes equally in both parts of you, you begin to glimpse the world as it truly is: a scatter of sequins, a broken mirror. Your literary form is the off-rhyme.

You are related to…
The Two-Headed Lamb in Walter Potter’s Museum of Curiosities, who was born at Beeding Court Farm in West Sussex, around 1871.

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Quiz here, via Whimsy, Cabinet and ineradicablestain.

Orchid show

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It’s easy to forget that when you look at a daisy, you’re looking at the plant’s reproductive organs – the naughty bits. Not so easy to forget about when you look at orchids, though.

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I went to the NH Orchid Society’s 2008 show this morning. Beaucoup fun. It was nice to see one of my favorite genera – Phragmipedium – well represented, and a genus I’m warming to rapidly – Paphiopedilum – with a big hybrid and species presence. I have to admit that when it comes to orchids, I prefer species over hybrids.

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It seemed like one vendor just stepped off the pages of Orchid Fever. He had Paphiopedilum sanderianum and Chinese cymbidiums, both of which figure in the book, and has recently gone through all the assorted fun and paperwork involved with importing the first Phrag. kovachii into the country. I bought a Paph. venustum from him – someday, a sanderianum for me.

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Lots more photos on Flickr – click here to go to the set.

A little open water swimming

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Gary Sredzienski – local accordion celeb and polka maven – recently took a dip in the ocean. He swam the 6 miles from Odiorne Point to Appledore Island to raise money for the Krempels Brain Injury Foundation. Lest anyone think this is a one-time thing, Gary swims daily, year-round, in the saltwater creeks and back channels round here. I like open water swimming as much as (just about) anyone, but it’s a little too brisk for me this time of year.

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Full disclosure – I’m at 1 (2?) degree of separation from Gary – the Serf’s drummer is a friend of mine.

The Reserve

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A bad review that make me want to read the book.

Compare Kakutani:

Vanessa Cole is a parody of the crazy femme fatale, a woman, Mr. Banks would have us believe, so beautiful that men are willing to overlook her obvious mental illness.

with Bad New Hughes:

Sure, she’s good-lookin’. She’s also crazy. Crazy as a shithouse rat. Run for your life.

I’m with Uncle Patrick on this one. Parody? Hah.

While looking to see if the NYRB had weighed in on Mr. Banks’ latest, I came across:

In Japan neglected or abandoned blogs are called ishikoro, pebbles. *

Completely unrelated to Banks, but too nice a word to pass unmentioned.

Test, then code

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Patrick (in general) and a recent post by Steve (in particular) have got me thinking about closed registries, genetic diversity and dog breeding. Some of what I’m about to say is a rehash of other thoughts I’ve posted – sorry for any redundancy – them’s the breaks.

Let me start my explaining the title of the post. Years ago, I attended a software quality assurance training session led by Roger Pressman. The biggest single point I took away? Define the test plan before you start developing software (easier said than done). If you agree with the user on testing – “When I do X, I want Y to happen” – the folks developing the software have a clear statement of what they need to implement. What I call the ‘problem of intent’ remains (to be posted on someday), but letting the test plan drive requirements definition is a neat little bit of ju-jitsu.

You can generalize this idea to good effect: for things with definable endpoints like software development, bike design and dog breeding, define the desired outcome, then measure your work against the definition. In a nutshell – I don’t care how you get there, produce the dog I want.

Here’s my work in process definition of the versatile boreal cover dog:

  • Points feather instinctively. Points in a way that maximizes safety and shooting opportunities (I’m talking staunchness here).
  • Retrieves or indicates downed game (I’m a little more lax than some here, partly because I hawk and partly because ducking in the north really needs a dog focused on that activity).
  • Works at a cover-appropriate range.
  • Able to work in hour and a half blocks without problems.
  • Biddable/trainable.
  • Temperamentally solid.
  • Will blood track.
  • Genetically sound.
  • Between 20″ and 25″ at the shoulder.

Nothing in there about coat color or type, weight, ear or tail carriage, who mom and dad are registered with, etc. All of those things, while interesting if you are trying to differentiate your dog from others, are not central to the task at hand – helping the hunter bring game home. How might the Global Boreal Pointing Dog Certification Association* evaluate dogs? First off – against a standard. If your dog does x, y and z, (finds game, points it and is steady to wing and shot, for example), your dog qualifies on that portion of the evaluation. If your dog misses something entirely – bumps every bird it finds perhaps – you get a DNQ. If your dog does a fantastic job – handles, steady to wing, shot and fall, etc. – maybe you get a Q+. I’d want to include some obedience work – perhaps an AKC Canine Good Citizen/UKC Novice mashup – key element: the dog will listen to the handler and work calmly in the presence of another working dog. Finally, I’d want to have a genetic metric – something that would represent the overall genetic health of the dog. This sounds tough on the face of it, but if I’m not mistaken, it’s something that happens all the time in zoos and wildlife recovery efforts. For an individual dog, it would be a representation of the relatedness of the dog’s ancestors and would be a number you could generate for a litter before a breeding takes place.

It would be interesting – and good for the dogs – to develop a pointing dog land-race, as exists – at least for the moment – for gazehounds across Asia and the Middle East. The same model could be applied to earthdogs, stockdogs – any working dog (seems to be already there for working livestock protection dogs).

A breeder with brass ones could do a lot of this today. Test with NAVHDA, do obedience work w/ UKC (you might have to do some footwork to gin up a registry) and sit down with someone who manages a big cat studbook to figure out the genetics. My sequence would go like this: hit the lottery, buy the Walton Ford book, book a flight to the high Altai (see if Steve wanted to come) and bring back some Taigan, then develop the Indian Stream pointing mongrel. I’m having problems with step 1.

* Pretty impressive name for a non-existent entity, eh?

What am I missing?

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Talks in New York with the unnamed banks are part of Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo’s effort to stabilize the bond guarantors and bolster the market’s finances, said agency spokesman Andrew Mais in an interview. Insurers MBIA Inc. gained 33 percent in New York trading and Ambac Financial Group Inc. soared 72 percent.

New capital may help preserve the top credit ratings for the bond guarantors such as MBIA, the industry’s largest, and halt any erosion of investor confidence in the $2.4 trillion of assets they guarantee. Ambac, MBIA’s biggest rival, lost its AAA grade from Fitch Ratings this month on concerns that losses tied to subprime mortgages may increase. *

Let me see if I’ve got this straight… Banks/financial institutions hold a lot of iffy CDOs (aka Big Shitpile/matryoshka lemons) – bundles of loans that likely contain sub-prime stuff that may default. They’ve covered themselves against the possibility of the loans going bad by buying insurance from monoline insurers (MBIA and Ambac are the ones in the news). Now, loans are going bad – it’s hitting the fan. The worry shifts to the insurers – how are they going to make good? Because folks are thinking that the MBIAs of the world aren’t going to be able to cover the CDO losses, their stock price tanks. Low stock price = even less capital in reserve at the insurers. If the monoline insurers go tango uniform (toes-up tits-up – de-bowdlerized by audience request), the balance sheets of the institutions holding the CDOs take awful hits. So, lets have the banks (some of whom have got to be holding the paper in question) bail out the people who are insuring them.

Seems a bit circular to me – my guess – only a matter of time before I, as a taxpayer, have the privilege of bailing out Wall Street…

Update – check the comments if you are interested in the topic. Prof. Kleiman replies to my email query:

…if the monolines’ guarantees are seen to be worthless, the shitpile grows. (I love “matryoshka lemons,” by the way.) And they could suffer from a kind of “run on the bank” even if they’re actually solvent. So it’s possible that pumping more equity capital in would actually stabilize the situtation, whether it’s the banks’ capital or someone else’s. But the banks have an especially strong reason to want to stanch the bleeding.