tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post3014234363112621785..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: All we have to do to fix the planes / schools is put the best pilots / teachers in the worst situationsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66972037898244445732013-12-24T15:39:13.650-08:002013-12-24T15:39:13.650-08:00@Discard
The SCR-270 unit located at Opana Point ...@Discard<br /><br />The SCR-270 unit located at Opana Point on Oahu was the one where two privates famously spotted and reported a "large formation" of initial Japanese attack aircraft approaching from the north at 0702 hours December 7th from 130 miles out, but which unfortunately was interpreted by the duty officer back at Fort Shafter as an expected flight of six B-17s due from the mainland. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80297370745237289612013-12-24T02:31:24.976-08:002013-12-24T02:31:24.976-08:00Sulla: I don't recall ever reading about the M...Sulla: I don't recall ever reading about the Marines landing on Guadalcanal having radar, but I'll accept your story. (Jeeze, what else have I forgotten?) <br /> Discardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71095930913911318722013-12-23T15:57:53.127-08:002013-12-23T15:57:53.127-08:00The reverse of the aphorism 'Those who can'...<i>The reverse of the aphorism 'Those who can't teach' is that really good teachers can very well do something else. Something that contributes more to society.</i><br /><br />So basically Bernoulli was just wasting his time with Euler, and Socrates could have contributed far more to society than to have taught Plato.<br /><br />I like a lot of your ideas Pat and I have always enjoyed reading your comments, but one should not dismiss the contributions a great teacher can make. A great teacher is a force multiplier. <br /><br />The ability to teach well, to hold interest, to pose the right questions, to generate a zeal to ferret out the truth, to lay the foundational mental pathways early in life so that the student will not spend the rest of their life having to unlearn an epicyclic view of the world - this is far from distributed uniformly in those with high IQ. Amongst my professors, all of whom most likely have similar IQs, there were probably only a 10th of whom I would call great at teaching. Some were irredeemebly hopeless.<br /><br />In a lot of ways, taking these great teachers away from what they do best is like eating your seed grain. In that respect it shares a lot with the leftist obsession in sentencing highly intelligent women to labor in academia, the business world, the military, indeed anything but labor, i.e. birthing children, that might result in the next generation being better than the current one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3093702271156650712013-12-23T15:21:34.567-08:002013-12-23T15:21:34.567-08:00@roundeye
Make that Cutlass not Vulcan.@roundeye<br /><br />Make that Cutlass not Vulcan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-566254122214631142013-12-23T15:13:48.717-08:002013-12-23T15:13:48.717-08:00@roundeye
The Vulcan we had in the park was not a...@roundeye<br /><br />The Vulcan we had in the park was not a wrecked one but a decommissioned airframe without engines and hydraulics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-712138219339393362013-12-23T15:07:54.979-08:002013-12-23T15:07:54.979-08:00@Discard
Actually the 1st MarDiv landed in August...@Discard<br /><br />Actually the 1st MarDiv landed in August of 1942 with two types of ground radar which they had been training with since 1941. The SCR-270 long range radar and the SCR-268 anti-aircraft artillery control radar.<br /><br />The long range radar worked pretty well except when Japanese aircraft attacked from the south or southwest and were screened by the mountains and hills.<br /><br />The SCR-268 triple-A radar worked less well. Also, the newest of the American destroyers that were deployed on patrol in The Slot had state of the art radar.<br /><br />This of course is not to take away anything from the inestimably brave coast watchers who were deployed along for hundreds of miles further up the archipelago.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63867939817856937002013-12-23T13:07:15.194-08:002013-12-23T13:07:15.194-08:00Off Topic but I was reminded of when I was assigne...Off Topic but I was reminded of when I was assigned to Naval Safety Center Norfolk. Our Harrier Rep, a hilarious Marine, recounted his experience aboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_1288<br /><br />One of his pals said he should have held out for more than the paltry check being robo-issued. Our REP said he'd have a tough time convincing anyone he'd suffered trauma watching strangers die when half his fellow harrier buddies were killed flying the same jet he had served in.<br /> A few of the Marines in my class were upset to be assigned "JETS"(Harriers)because they had performed "too well" in primary flight training. (They wanted to fly helicopters)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43737306961640421722013-12-23T11:12:35.873-08:002013-12-23T11:12:35.873-08:00"This led American pilots to develop tactics ...<i>"This led American pilots to develop tactics suited to confronting the Zero such as using the "Thatch Weave"</i><br /><br />A bit of smarts applied to tactics by those in the arena can go a long way. The Wildcat was inferior in many ways to the Zero, yet at the crucial battle of Midway, due to the Thach weave, 6 hopelessly outnumbered Wildcats lead by Thach fought about 20 Zeros, for a loss of 1 Wildcat against a loss of 3 Zeros. And this with the Wildcat pilots not particularly practiced in the weave.<br /><br /> <a href="http://aviationtrivia.blogspot.com/2010/11/tactics-over-technology-thach-weave.html" rel="nofollow">"Tactics Over Technology: The Thach Weave"</a> (Extract from <i>"United States Naval Fighters of World War II in Action"</i>, Michael O'Leary, 1980.)<br /><br /><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thach-Weave-The-Life-Jimmie/dp/1591142482" rel="nofollow">"Thach Weave: The Life of Jimmie Thach"</a>, Steve Ewing:<br /><br /><i>"...convinced that his Wildcat was no match for Japan's formidable Zero, found a way to give his squadron a fighting chance. ... Throughout his forty-year career, Thach provided answers to multiple challenges facing the Navy, and his ideas were implemented service wide."</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Of course IQ uniformly distributed across a society surely can't matter:<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.navalhistory.org/2013/06/07/midway-tactical-lessons" rel="nofollow">"Tactical Lesson of Midway: The Thach Weave"</a>, Naval History Block, U.S. Naval Institute, Robert J. Cressman, May 2009:<br /><br /><i>"“Our planes and our pilots, if properly handled,” Flatley declared, “are more than a match for the enemy. .... Work out tactics on that basis. We should be able to out smart him…”<br /><br />... Thach’s work, Lundstrom notes, “offered the first steps in providing the Navy’s fighter pilots concrete tactics to counter fighters with superior speed and maneuverability.”"</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Wikipedia's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave" rel="nofollow"> article on the Thach Weave</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41182759665190386282013-12-23T09:55:44.106-08:002013-12-23T09:55:44.106-08:00"All we have to do to fix the planes / school...<i>"All we have to do to fix the planes / schools is put the best pilots / teachers in the worst situations"</i><br /><br /><i>Throwing good money (pilots, teachers) after bad (aircraft, students). Nothing new. Also known as doubling down. </i><br /><br />Wrong. The analogy between flying eXperimental -- notice the "X' designations -- aircraft and American education mass market nostrums is incorrect. Here's why:<br /><br />(1) Probably only two or three of each of those aircraft were built. When testing revealed the aircraft to be conceptual failures, the projects were cancelled. Checking Wikipedia, I see that Lockheed only ever built ONE (1) XFV tailsitter and McDonnell apparently built two Goblins. The Goblin project was cancelled in 1949. The tailsitter project was cancelled in 1955. But, the tailsitter concept has come back. Some smaller firm is offering a small unmanned air vehicle -- a drone -- in the tailsitter format. I can't find the link just now.<br /><br />This is different from attempts to foist nostrums such as so-called Common Core on schools all over America without rigorous testing of the concept.<br /><br />(2) By definition, "X" aircraft are in an unrefined state of development. Therefore an X plane may be unreliable and hard to control in flight. Therefore only very good pilots may be able to fly an X plane. However, since only onesies and twosies or threesies of aircraft such as the Goblin or the XYZ Tailsitter were or are ever built, only tiny fractions of the "best" or "very good" Navy and Air Force pilots are ever called upon to fly such experimental aircraft.<br /><br />The hope is that early test flights are promising, then controlability and reliability of the aircraft can be refined and improved before going into mass production.<br /><br />Again, the analogy to mass market American public education fails.<br /><br />By the way, both the Harrier prototype, which was the Hawker Siddeley P-something, which orginaly flew in 1960, and NASA's X-15, were hard to control. These successful X projects had there share of naysayers early on.<br /><br />From Wikipedia: <i>Design work on the P.1127 was formally started in 1957 by Sir Sydney Camm, Ralph Hooper of Hawker Aircraft and Stanley Hooker (later Sir Stanley Hooker) of the Bristol Engine Company.[6] The close cooperation between Hawker, the airframe company, and Bristol, the engine company, was viewed by project engineer Gordon Lewis as one of the key factors that allowed the <b>development of the Harrier to continue in spite of technical obstacles </b> and political setbacks.[7]</i><br /><br />Hmm, Lockheed Tailsitter cancelled in 1955, P1127 design work started in 1957. A learning process?<br /><br />Some of you iSteve peepul are the kind of yokels who laughed at the Wright brothersDavid Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17287888792804647272013-12-23T08:49:28.913-08:002013-12-23T08:49:28.913-08:00Anonymous said, re: England in the 1950's:
AD...Anonymous said, re: England in the 1950's: <br /><i>ADHD still existed, but violence of the sort [i.e., wacking a child across the nuckles with a ruler] is at least minimally effective in convincing people to develop coping mechanisms to deal with it, atleast for most people.</i><br /><br />Of course there was no such term as ADHD known in the 1950's. There were simply kids with a discipline problem. I was undoubtedly one of them and, if subjected to the modern American regime, I would no doubt have been put on ritalin, which could well have induced bipolar disorder, which would have led to treatment with up to ten other drugs, which would have left me a total wreck. <br /><br />Instead, I was merely disciplined sufficiently to complete secondary school, albeit with generally poor grades, and enter a university where I studied something I found so incredibly fascinating that I graduated with the faculty prize.<br /><br />Of course, in those days, in England, a teacher did not have to worry when disciplining a child, that they might be beaten up, or worse, after school by an outraged parent.canspeccyhttp://canspeccy.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82418580191943907032013-12-23T05:56:41.282-08:002013-12-23T05:56:41.282-08:00Jody said: "never said he didn't. what i...Jody said: "never said he didn't. what i said was, can you take vince lombardi to an average high school with average, fat slob kids who prefer video games and cell phones and drinking coke, which is what the majority of kids are like in 2013, and in 2 or 3 years, turn them into a football team that competes with the usual state powerhouses?<br /><br />no recruiting here, please. turn the available local raw material into a very good high school football team, using just vince lombardi magic.<br /><br />it won't happen."<br /><br />This is why state athletic federations/associations have divisions. Kids that play HS football are not fat slobs preferring Madden to the real thing. Those kids don't tryout. Weight training at 6:30 am and 2-a-days during the heat of August don't appeal to fat slobs. HS football is a commitment that should be respected, not diminished. And, yes, Lombardi, or Landry, or Shula, et. al., could create a winner in 2-3 years, no magic needed.<br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-86085765841271693362013-12-23T03:56:45.845-08:002013-12-23T03:56:45.845-08:00A great teacher and a competent teacher will produ...A great teacher and a competent teacher will produce somewhat similar results with indifferent students. <br /><br />But the great teacher will produce spectacular results with really talented students. So the issue is whether our society really wants great mathematicians, scientists or whatever.<br /><br />Actually, some teachers will be better with more problematic students than with talented kids. A retired Master Sergeant who likes kids and knows a bit of math will be much better with a tough class than a teacher who can get smart kids winning math olympiads.<br /><br />BTW, ricpic thinks it'd be fun to work in the military-industrial complex: you can make clear mistakes without recrimination and accuse your opponents of lack of patriotism. <br /><br />Reminds me when I worked in another area of government. I opposed a policy because it was just too complicated to work. But I was overruled ("It's necessary to ensure equitable outcomes".) And within a year the agency found it necessary to unstitch the glitch.Felix Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61548714429615204402013-12-23T02:55:18.057-08:002013-12-23T02:55:18.057-08:00Sulla: There was no radar on Guadalcanal when Joe ...Sulla: There was no radar on Guadalcanal when Joe Foss was there, there were only guys (coast watchers) hiding on jungle islands who would radio a warning that the Japs were coming. And the first rate Japanese pilots of 1942 knew all about diving out of the sun. Joe Foss was just an incredible fighter pilot who won without the technical advantages of 1943 and '44, against better pilots than Gregory Boyington (28 kills) or Dick Bong (40 kills) faced. <br /> And he was later the Governor of North Dakota (?) and then head of the National Rifle Association. A true badass and friend of Mankind. <br /> Discardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47138600987260812232013-12-22T19:39:29.153-08:002013-12-22T19:39:29.153-08:00The F-117 was a fighter-bomber. Watching videos o...The F-117 was a fighter-bomber. Watching videos on the tube of those TV guided "smart" bombs dropped from it on Bagdad during the run up to the first Gulf War was a truly awesome sight at the time. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47795574122156541772013-12-22T19:31:34.626-08:002013-12-22T19:31:34.626-08:00Joe Foss actually did fly the Corsair as commandin...Joe Foss actually did fly the Corsair as commanding officer of VMF-115. No kills flying it though.<br /><br />The F4F Wildcat had its advantages too. While the Zero was faster and slightly quicker turning it was only armed two thirty caliber machine guns and two extremely slow firing 20mm cannon which were only effective at close range. The Wildcat had six .50 caliber Browning machine guns, self-sealing gas tanks, and an armored cockpit all of which the Zero lacked. The Wildcat could also power dive at a much faster speed than the Zero.<br /><br />This led American pilots to develop tactics suited to confronting the Zero such as using the "Thatch Weave" with a wingman and also maneuvering their Wildcat formations with the help of ship and/or land based radar into a position so as to quickly dive on Japanese formations from out of the sun and then power climbing away afterwards.<br /><br />The Wildcat stayed in constant production until the fall of 1945 and was utilized on escort or "jeep" carriers later in the war after the F6F replaced it on the fast fleet carriers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-4611657518536607162013-12-22T18:44:59.492-08:002013-12-22T18:44:59.492-08:00Coaching quality can make a big difference at high...Coaching quality can make a big difference at high school level, but to get to the top takes recruiting. <br /><br />Like at my high school, they brought in an outstanding young coach just after I graduated. After about 15 years he won a SoCal championship with Chris Sailer kicking all those field goals, and around then is when he started getting potential NFL quality players.<br /><br />It's like John Wooden at UCLA -- about 15 years of steady building of a reputation, finally winning a couple of NCAA titles with nobody over 6'5", and then he recruits Kareem from NYC.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88863341208855925322013-12-22T18:35:16.156-08:002013-12-22T18:35:16.156-08:00Oh, wow, I didn't realize who the Medal of Hon...Oh, wow, I didn't realize who the Medal of Honor at the airport guy in 2002 Joe Foss was. I only knew the name Richard Bong among WWII aces. He died a couple of miles from here in 1945 at Oxford and Satsuma in North Hollywood. Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66089831708006302682013-12-22T18:23:16.902-08:002013-12-22T18:23:16.902-08:00They called it the Stealth Fighter rather than the...They called it the Stealth Fighter rather than the Stealth Bomber because they wanted to recruit fighter-quality pilots to fly the ungainly thing.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1046738333105078382013-12-22T16:43:10.297-08:002013-12-22T16:43:10.297-08:00There were some odd ideas about combat aircraft in...There were some odd ideas about combat aircraft in the immediate postwar decades.<br /><br />I once read (in Air & Space, I think) about an incident in which an F6 Hellcat converted into a remotely controlled target drone went rogue in the LA area. The Air Force sent F-89 Scorpions to shoot it down, but the fighters weren't armed with guns because guns were so...WWII. So they fired a bunch of unguided rockets at the drone, unsuccessfully. Fortunately, neither the (eventually) crashed drone nor the rockets raining down on Palmdale caused much damage.<br /><br />It seems like the sort of LA aerospace story Steve might be interested in.<br /><br />(The F-89 was also the first fighter equipped with the AIR-2 Genie, an unguided nuclear rocket designed to take out massed Soviet bomber formations.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43068375009589652592013-12-22T16:39:56.924-08:002013-12-22T16:39:56.924-08:00Wow, it must be great to be a military-industrial ...Wow, it must be great to be a military-industrial complex insider. You can not only kick around ideas that even on cursory examination are deeply flawed, you can go out and build multimillion prototypes that confirm your stupidity in concrete terms. So much fun to play with other peoples' money, lots and lots of it. And when anyone dares to question the mind boggling waste..."Whatsamatta, you got something' against the defense of our beloved country, bud?!"ricpichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01321511130788764861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80658965728956534142013-12-22T16:09:49.780-08:002013-12-22T16:09:49.780-08:00Part of the problem is that education is not gener...Part of the problem is that education is not generally viewed as an investment for public benefit, notwithstanding the fact that liberals like calling every outlay of public funds an "investment."<br /><br />The question guiding education policy should be, "How do we impart knowledge in a way that maximizes the general welfare?"<br /><br />Instead, the focus is on education as a Civil Right, a policy intervention that is both a reflection of, and an instrument for, blank-slate egalitarianism.<br /><br />The best teachers should have the best students because the benefit to society of incrementally improving the education of the next Edison is orders of magnitude greater than the public benefit of having a more numerate cashier at Wal-Mart.<br /><br />In any case, matching good teachers with bad students ensures that the lack of intelligence and curiosity of the students will be a limiting factor, making the more advanced skills of good teachers nugatory. It doesn't matter if you're a good calculus teacher if your students can't do basic arithmetic.<br /><br />(This is not even considering the fact that the next Edison probably comes from the upper-middle class anyway, and therefore doesn't need as much government support as his GI-Bill-era predecessors.)<br /><br />In general, it seems that liberals of previous generations were more inclined to view government spending as a genuine investment. Now it's all just ideological fixations and who-whom client groups.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91820260489023753702013-12-22T12:45:21.081-08:002013-12-22T12:45:21.081-08:00According to this AP "news" article, the...According to this AP "news" article, the achievement gap is actually due to funding differentials:<br /><br />http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latino-academic-achievement-gap-persists-21304309<br /><br /><i> As Hispanics surpass white Californians in population next year, the state becomes a potential model for the rest of the country, which is going through a slower but similar demographic shift.<br /><br />But when it comes to how California is educating students of color, many say the state serves as a model of what not to do.<br /><br />In California, 52 percent of the state's 6 million school children are Hispanic, just 26 percent are white. And Hispanic students in general are getting worse educations than their white peers. Their class sizes are larger, course offerings are fewer and funding is lower.<br /><br />The consequence is obvious: lower achievement.</i>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74174149518267300352013-12-22T11:28:22.721-08:002013-12-22T11:28:22.721-08:00Of course the idea of expending the best teachers ...Of course the idea of expending the best teachers on the worst students is immoral as well as bad economics.<br /><br />The reverse of the aphorism 'Those who can't teach' is that really good teachers can very well do something else. Something that contributes more to society.<br /><br />When I notice that a salesclerk is intelligent I feel sad. Salesclerks should be smart enough to make change, answer simple questions - and no smarter. People who are actually intelligent should not work as sales clerks or elementary school teachers.<br /><br />I taught college and graduate school for twenty years or more. But never full time. Teaching is fun. It's an indulgence. It's a form of socializing but the teacher gets an unequal role. You get to bloviate and the kiddies have to listen.<br /><br />I agree we should search for Superman. We should comb all our schools for the best teachers and move them into other fields. Take the top 5% of all math or science teachers and put them in aerospace. Maybe that would get us to Mars. <br /><br />The reason there is bad school behavior is because the students have caught on the fact that we are desperate to have them learn. They take advantage. We should reverse it. Just kick the bad kids out and organize them into chain gangs who pick up litter beside the freeways. <br /><br />It is important for the kid to get a high school diploma but less so for society. Screw them. If a kid talks in class - kick him out or at least make him mop the school halls. If you deny education to someone they value it more. As it is now the students think society is so concerned to see them graduate they think they can get away with anything.<br /><br />We should realize that marginal students are doomed to be criminals and/or welfare recipients no matter what we do. The wisest policy is to get them out of the way ASAP. <br /><br />If you want black 15 year olds to try harder to stay in high school, make the alternative to high school four years of picking up highway litter. <br /><br />For the Christmas season I don my Scrooge persona.<br /><br />Albertosaurus<br /><br />PS:<br />Yesterday I asked for more planes and less golf. Answered prayers. Pat Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13477950851915567863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67270937594312878702013-12-22T10:59:15.060-08:002013-12-22T10:59:15.060-08:00"The B-36 was an early Cold War heavy bomber ..."The B-36 was an early Cold War heavy bomber with immense range and capacity useful in dropping nuclear bombs on sites deep within the Soviet Union."<br /><br />I once saw a B-36, at the Wright-Patterson Air-Force Museum in Dayton. In its' sheer size, it is an awe inspiring sight. It is inside too, under a roof, and it makes the B-52 next to it look small. <br /><br />This country invested an enormous amount of money, talent, and effort in megadeath technology. And yet we will ultimately be undone by anchor-babies and food-stamps. Perhaps we invested unwisely.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13647586574709432632013-12-22T10:53:32.186-08:002013-12-22T10:53:32.186-08:00Unfortunately, due to white racism and white privi...<i> Unfortunately, due to white racism and white privilege or something, the best teachers somehow keep getting assigned to the schools with the best students.</i><br /><br />Low-performing schools have a higher proportion of beginning teachers compared to higher-performing schools. Of the beginning teachers at low-performing schools who have proved their competence, many or even most will transfer to higher-performing schools.<br /><br />There is a reason why low-performing schools always have more beginning teachers. They replace those who quit to go to higher-performing schools.<br /><br />[All this may have already been obvious.]Gringonoreply@blogger.com