The strangeness of some internet reviews

Now that my third SF novel has been published, I've taken the time to go back and read through the couple of hundred comments my books have attracted over time.  I don't even mind the low-star reviews, provided that the reviewer makes his case and supports his points with evidence.  I really benefit from such reviews, as I read and re-read them and take them into account when writing the next book.  I did that with reviews of the first two volumes of the Maxwell Saga, and with beta reader feedback, when I delayed the publication of 'Adapt and Overcome' for two months to allow me to improve my character development and tighten up the plot and storyline.  I hope and trust you, dear readers, have found it an improvement;  and rest assured, I'll try to make Book Four better than Book Three in its turn.

Some reviews, however, are downright strange.  There's the reader who claimed he bought a copy of my first book 'at a discount but it was worth far less'.  If he didn't like it, fair enough - but my book had never been on sale at a discount when he made that comment!  Another reviewer of my first book was outraged at my description of a fork penetrating the hand of one character.  He found it completely unbelievable.  Unfortunately, that's one of the many incidents in all my books that's actually based on fact!  There are multiple eye-witnesses to its reality.  Another comment on my latest book caught my eye this evening.  The reader (?) complained that 'Some editing is still needed in places as there are obvious typos and grammar issues'.  Fair enough, if true:  but I've had a number of reviewers comment that one reason they like my books is that there are so few 'typos and grammar issues'.  In the latest book, to which this reviewer is referring, I've had no complaints whatsoever about its copy-editing - until today, at any rate.

Such problems aren't limited to my books, of course.  Most authors who've been published for a while have similar stories of reviews that appear to miss the point, or beg the question, or leave something else to be desired.  There are even some actively destructive reviewers out there.  Miss D. informs me that on Kindle Boards, where many independent authors hang out in the Writers' Cafe sub-forum, there's a well-known phenomenon.  There are 'lurkers' who watch for authors posting details of their sales figures.  As soon as someone posts a sales success story, within a day or so one or more one-star reviews will appear on their books' Amazon pages.  Someone on Kindle Boards was interested enough to do some research on this, and the pattern is inescapable.  One can only conclude that some lurkers out there are jealous of success, and determined to undermine it in any way possible.  Why, I have no idea . . .

Oh, well.  I can't account for such issues.  All I can say is, if you've read my book(s), I'll be very grateful if you'll please leave reviews on their Amazon pages.  It helps other prospective readers to assess whether or not they'll find them interesting;  and whether you liked it/them or not, your comments will help me to write better in future.  Everybody wins!

Peter

Can one 'hack' true love?

I must confess to irrepressible glee when I read about Ravijour's 'True Love Tester' bra.

The “True Love Tester” bra can’t be masterfully unhooked by some skeevy player who hit on the wearer at a club. No, this bra only comes undone when sensors embedded inside it that are connected wirelessly to a smartphone app detect a particular heart rate.

According to the Victoria’s Secret-like company that made the bra, Ravijour, a particular heart rate over time indicates “love.” And what do you know, they even have a graph comparing the effects of jogging, shopping, eating spicy food and watching a horror movie with “flirting” and “surprise gift” on a lady’s heart. What better way to acknowledge being “in love” than having your glittery bra fly open?

There's more at the link.

Here's a video of how the 'True Love Tester' bra will work.

Am I the only one who can foresee every teenage computer geek becoming instant computer hackers, trying to get that smartphone app to pop open the bra on every conceivable occasion?  (You should pardon the expression.)





Peter

A battleship-size cannon - on a tank???

Through a series of unrelated searches today, I came across a 1950's Soviet self-propelled cannon that dwarfs anything of its kind I've ever seen before.  It's the 2B1 Oka cannon, with a bore of no less than 420mm. - 16½ inches!!!  Even the legendary Iowa class battleships had only 16" guns (406mm)!

This behemoth's barrel was 20 meters in length, meaning that it was 47.6 calibers long (i.e. the length of the barrel divided by the bore diameter;  this is similar to the main battery of the Iowa class battleships, which had 16" guns with 50 caliber barrels).  It fired a projectile (shown below) weighing 750kg (1,650 pounds) over a distance of up to 45 kilometers (just over 28 miles).

The Oka was basically just a cannon on a chassis.  It had no turret or other protection for its crew when in action, and carried no ammunition itself - it would be loaded from a support vehicle.  It had mammoth hydraulic suspension and support systems to cater for the immense weight of its gun, as can be seen by closer examination of the breech area (visible below) and the suspension (see bottom picture).

Firing the colossal cannon produced enormous stresses on the vehicle, which proved very unreliable as a result.  Wikipedia reports:

Due to its complexity of loading it had a relatively low rate of fire - 1 round every 5 minutes. Field tests showed various drawbacks of the entire design (the recoil was too strong for many components - it damaged drive sprockets, tore the gear-box away from its mountings, etc.) and the sheer length rendered it incredibly difficult to transport.

I'll bet!

Further development was halted in 1960, by which time tactical ballistic missiles had been developed that had a longer range, delivered a more deadly payload, and were far more reliable than this lumbering monster.  Only about 20 had been built.  At least one is displayed today in a Russian museum, with its enormous shell on cradles in front of it.  (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)

It amazes me to see a battleship-size cannon on a tank chassis.  I don't see how it could ever have been made to work . . . but the very fact that someone not only conceived of it, but actually built it, is astonishing in itself!  You can read more about it here, if you're interested.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #748

Today's award goes to Spanish infrastructure-building company AZVI.  A tip o' the hat to Australian reader Snoggeramus for sending me the link to this article.

IT WAS meant to be Chile's first drawbridge.

Instead, it was built with at least one traffic deck upside down, so opening day will have to wait, officials said.

. . .

Inspectors getting ready for opening day found that either one or two of the traffic decks were installed backwards, authorities said, though they presumably know their drawbridges even if the old technology is new to Chile.

There's more at the link.

How, precisely, do you install a bridge deck upside-down? I wouldn't have believed it was possible!





Peter

Does anyone speak kamikaze?

If you do, a museum in Britain would appreciate your help.  The Flight International editor's blog reports:

The Fleet Air Arm Museum is trying to find the meaning of insignia on a rare Japanese Second World War Ohka 2 – which has been hanging from its rafters for over 30 years.

. . .

This model is to feature in a new display to commemorate the war in the Pacific.

The markings are on the left hand side of the aircraft and the hatch cover; there is also a cherry blossom, from which the Ohka takes its name, a Japanese symbol of flowering and rebirth.

. . .

If you think you might be able to help in the translation of the Japanese insignia on the Ohka, please contact the museum’s curator of aircraft, Dave Morris, at: davem@fleetairarm.com.

There's more at the link.  Here's the museum's Ohka aircraft.

And here's a graphic from the August 1945 edition of Popular Mechanics, showing how the Ohka (code-named 'Baka', the Japanese word for 'stupid', by the US armed forces) was carried to its target.

US forces captured a number of Okhas on Okinawa in 1945.  Here's a short video clip showing one being dismantled for examination.

If the invasion of Japan had gone ahead, the US Navy would have faced hundreds, perhaps thousands of these aircraft as it sought to deliver the landing force to its beachheads.  Fortunately, that wasn't necessary, as their speed would have made them very difficult targets for US defenders.

There are very few of these aircraft still in existence.

Peter

Perhaps a quick visit to Africa might be in order . . .

With a trembling in my bones, I've just realized that this weekend and early next week are going to be the coldest temperatures I've ever experienced in my life.  I'm an African boy.  I grew up used to summers with heat up to or exceeding 100° Fahrenheit (38° Celsius:  sometimes rising as high as 120°/49°).  Winters very seldom dropped to below freezing, and when they did, it was only by a few degrees, and not for long.  Snow was a once-in-a-decade thing, and then only in a few cities.  It would literally stop traffic, as everyone got out of their cars to catch the few falling flakes and marvel at it!

When I first came to North America, on a seven-month work-related visit in 1996, I landed in Toronto, Canada, in a snowstorm and sub-freezing temperatures.  My sinuses instantly quit in protest, and for the next three weeks I was barely able to whimper at the chill.  I spent several weeks in what was allegedly spring in Canada and the northern USA, with snow on the ground, ice not uncommon, and a frozen African body screaming with every fiber of its being, "Take me back to the Namib Desert!"

Since then I've experienced sub-freezing temperatures on quite a few occasions, along with snow and the occasional ice storm.  The coldest I've ever known (and that only late some nights, for short periods while outside) is about 15°F/-9°C.  However, Monday is forecast to get down to a maximum of 9°F/-13°C, and Monday night the mercury's supposed to fall as low as 3°F/-16°C.  Up in Minneapolis, friends of ours will be facing a low of -19°F/-28°C.  (One of them is scheduled to fly here on Monday.  All I can say is, I hope they manage to break his plane loose from the ice floe so it can try to take off!)

In one of my favorite pubs in Swakopmund, on Namibia's coast at the lower edge of the Skeleton Coast, it'll be in the balmy 70's to 80's Fahrenheit over the weekend and into next week.  It'll be twenty to thirty degrees hotter further north and inland.  I think this is the perfect weekend for a visit there, and a nice cold Windhoek lager . . .





Peter

Post-modern agricultural implement?

An anonymous reader sent me the link to this picture on Imgur:

Go to the link and click on the picture there for a much larger version.

Hmmm . . . I've heard Harley-Davidson bikes being referred to as 'Hogs' before, but I've never seen a motor-bike looking so unabashedly agricultural!





Peter

Pajama Boy 'comes out'

I'm sure many readers are familiar by now with the hilarity generated by the Obama administration's effort to spread the word about Obamacare with this Twitter advertisement.

Both liberals and conservatives immediately had a collective attack of hysterical laughter.  I've seldom seen so much lampoonery (if that's a word) of an ad campaign.  For a few examples, see Newsmax, Truth Revolt and Powerline.

The model in the ad has been identified as Ethan Krupp.  Unfortunately for Obamacare, his views are so stereotypically moonbattish that he might be a poster child for all that's wrong with the present Administration, let alone its policies on health care.  I'm not going to quote him directly, due to profanity, but you can read the whole thing here.  It explains a lot.

My next question:  how can the Obamacare promoters recover from this colossal public relations blunder?  I'm sure they're going to try.  I look forward with eager anticipation to their next inspired (?) effort.

Peter

Verily, the mind doth boggle - roadbuilding edition

I was dumbfounded to read about a road in Iceland whose construction has been held up.

Elf advocates have joined forces with environmentalists to urge the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission and local authorities to abandon a highway project building a direct route from the tip of the Alftanes peninsula, where the president has a home, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer.

They fear disturbing elf habitat and claim the area is particularly important because it contains an elf church.

The project has been halted until the Supreme Court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental and the cultural impact - including the impact on elves - of the road project. The group has regularly brought hundreds of people out to block the bulldozers.

And it's not the first time issues about 'Huldufolk', Icelandic for 'hidden folk', have affected planning decisions. They occur so often that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries, which states in part that 'issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on'.

Scandinavian folklore is full of elves, trolls and other mythological characters. Most people in Norway, Denmark and Sweden haven't taken them seriously since the 19th century, but elves are no joke to many in Iceland, which has a population of 320,000.

A survey conducted by the University of Iceland in 2007 found that some 62 per cent of the 1,000 respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist.

There's more at the link, including several pictures of the landscapes concerned - which are rather beautiful, I must admit.

Oh, well . . . I guess we can call this a Public Health issue - pronounced in Cockney style, of course, as "Public 'Elf"!





Peter

Cthulhu at your table!

Talk about channeling H. P. Lovecraft!  The Gothamist reports:

Rusty Eulberg, a database administrator from Lubbock, Texas, tells us he brought forth what he called the Cthurkey about two years ago. Reached by phone at work, Eulberg says, "Apparently my Cthurkey — I always called it a Cthurkey as opposed to a Cthuken (no duck) — blew up online. A buddy of mine just told me he found it on Tumblr."

According to Eulberg, he and wife Jennifer Robledo "wanted to do something unique for Christmas dinner with friends of ours. Jenny is a big fan of Cthulhu so we went and bought some crab legs and some octopus and bacon and cooked them all separate and slapped them together on a plate, and that was it. The next year I made a Cthicken; the same thing using squid instead of octopus and a chicken."

Eulberg says, "The universal reaction was, 'Oh my God, I couldn't eat that.' But each individual piece was cooked separately; all I did was set them together on the plate. It was delicious. The crab leg was awesome and the bacon added a nice flavor to the turkey. And for added horror, the serving platter is an old Nazi plate with a Swastika on the bottom that a friend bought in an old abandoned Luftwaffe base in Germany."

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

I'm sure it's as delicious as he claims . . . but doesn't that look like the kind of meal you'd serve to your mother-in-law to discourage future visits?





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #744

Today's award goes to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for its mission logo for the launch of mission NROL-39, carrying a classified reconnaissance payload.  In the light of the current brouhaha over the NSA's unconstitutional and (arguably) illegal spying on Americans, couldn't it have picked something a little more sensitive (not to mention politically correct) than this image?

What's next?  Changing the toll-free telephone number of the NRO's public relations office to 1-800-CHTULHU?

On the other hand, this isn't the first creepy mission logo we've seen from the NRO.  Consider this one from the previous mission, NROL-38:

A triple-headed dragon licking the earth?  Verily, the mind doth boggle . . .  Perhaps the NRO is becoming insufferably Sm(a)ug over its success rate?





Peter

Odd shoot-downs

The milblog War Is Boring has produced two articles about unconventional, odd and weird incidents where aircraft were shot down or destroyed in unusual circumstances.  Here are a couple of excerpts from the second article.

March 1943: U.S. Army Air Corps parachutist versus Japanese Zero

2nd Lt. Owen Baggett was the co-pilot of an Army B-24 bomber sent to bomb Japanese facilities in Burma. Their plane shot nearly to pieces by Zero fighters, Baggett and four other crewmen bailed out. The Zero pilots made sport of the parachutists, machine-gunning and apparently killing two of them in mid-air.

Enraged, Baggett—still dangling from the silk canopy presumably thousands of feet in the air—drew his .45-caliber pistol and fired at a passing Zero. The Japanese plane stalled and crashed. Later, while a prisoner of the Japanese, Baggett learned that he had hit the Zero pilot in the head, killing him.


1948 & 1949: Royal Air Force Spitfires versus Israeli Spitfires versus Egyptian Spitfires

During skirmishes in the Middle East in 1948, the armed forces of Israel, Egypt and Great Britain all used pretty much the same models of Spitfire fighters, leading to fatal confusion.

British forces were pulling back from Palestine, leaving Egypt and the new state of Israel to fight it out over territory claimed by both Jews and Arabs. In May, waves of Egyptian Spitfires attacked the airfield at Ramat David, believing it to be held by Israel.

But in fact, British troops were still in charge of the base. The Egyptian planes unwittingly destroyed two Royal Air Force Spitfires and two transport planes and killed four men. With help from gunners on the ground, surviving British fighters destroyed five Egyptian Spitfires.

And after weeks of chaotic combat on three sides, in January 1949 two RAF Spitfires mistook two other RAF Spits as Israeli planes and shot them down, too.

There's more at the link, and in the first article in the series.  Interesting reading for aviation buffs.

Peter

Talk about overloaded!

Received via e-mail, origin unknown:

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #739

Today's award goes to the Russian motorist who outfitted his car with the most powerful speakers he could shoehorn into it.  Just watch what the vibration does to his vehicle.  (Please turn DOWN the volume on your speakers and/or the video!)

I don't see (or hear) how any occupant could escape serious, probably permanent ear damage . . .





Peter

Did you know today was World Toilet Day?

Unlikely though that sounds, yes, it really was.  It's an annual event (?) organized by the World Toilet Organization, complete with its own Web site.  This year's event was actually designated by the United Nations General Assembly.  If ever an organization was full of . . . well, what you use a toilet to get rid of . . . it's that one, so their recognition was doubtless highly appropriate!  (I would say "long overdue", but that would suggest political constipation - something else for which the General Assembly is renowned!)

The Telegraph celebrated the occasion by publishing a series of pictures of 'Loos with views'.  Here are a couple from their gallery.

Mount Baker, Washington, overlooking Vancouver

The Chateau at Wolwedans Lodge ("Wolf Dance Lodge"),

NamibRand Nature Reserve, Namibia

There are more images at the link.

The Telegraph found the pictures in a book called 'Good Loo Hunting'.  I'm not sure whether it's suitable for reading anywhere else but on the porcelain throne, but it certainly looks entertaining . . .





Peter

Ever heard of a 'Guybrator'?

I hadn't, until I came across an article in the Telegraph mentioning it and a number of other 'male-prefix' words.  In case you were wondering, a 'guybrator' is a male vibrator (whatever the hell that is, and I don't want to know!)

See how many of these terms you understand:

• Blokebuster
• Dicklit
• Heavage
• Manscaping

They're all explained in the article, along with several others.  Clearly, I've led a sheltered existence, as most are new to me . . .





Peter

"Baby Brain"???

I'd never heard of so-called "Baby Brain", a loss of mental focus and concentration in expectant mothers, but a correspondent in the Telegraph alleges his wife suffered from it during pregnancy.  Here's an excerpt from his article.

Amidst all the excitement of expecting a new baby, baby brain – which kicks in with cruel timing at just about the exact moment morning sickness subsides (16 weeks approx) – can be a real challenge for couples to cope with. It’s an exhausting spanner lobbed into the daily routine. Baby brain, not something you read much about in the books, has even been compared to temporary Alzheimer’s.

It was so bad after our second child (baby brain can continue for a year or more post-natal) that my wife, in distress, did actually call the Alzheimer’s association to ask if it was possible that she was suffering from early onset of the disease.

The suspected cause of baby brain – which has been shown to get worse with each pregnancy - is that the mother’s body is so hard at work building the baby’s brain that it neglects to conserve enough nutrients to nourish the mother’s grey matter.

. . .

There are many studies on the consumption of fish oil, fish, raw fish – some of them are rounded up here - and they have come up with wildly varying results on the effects of DHA consumption on the braininess (or otherwise, the fish oil backlash is well underway) of your child.

But there is no study anywhere that has researched the effect of DHA on baby brain.

And although my trial has just one subject, the results are staggering. My wife’s ditziness has decreased massively since she started taking the DHA.

There’s still the odd total blank-out (the other day she was giving a talk about the artist Eileen Gray, and listened attentively to one of the crowd asking a question during the Q+A, before turning to one of her co-panelists and saying, “What did they just ask me?”) but they are fewer and further between. If forced to put a number on it, I’d say her brainpower is 50% better. She reckons she is functioning at 80% of normal brain power.

There's more at the link.

Intrigued, I looked for more information. WebMD and the Mayo Clinic were ambivalent in their articles on the subject, but it seems it's a recognized phenomenon, even though there doesn't seem to be any concensus about what causes it or how to treat it.

What about you, readers?  Can any of you tell us more about this from your own experience, or your spouse's?

(I don't think this has anything to do with pregnancy cravings, which are very well-known and a completely different thing.  My father reported that when she was carrying me, my mother demanded spinach with peanut butter . . . a combination I've made sure to avoid ever since!)

Peter

But is it art?

A Russian 'performance artist' (who might perhaps be better described as a masochistic exhibitionist) has chosen an unusual way to publicize his objections to the State.

A Russian performance artist nailed his genitals to the ground outside Moscow's Red Square in protest over Russia's "police state" as the country marked national police day.

There's more at the link.  Those wanting to see it will find a video clip about it here (WARNING - it's graphic).

Dare I say it took balls to do that?  Or is that too obvious?  And does he still have (the) balls to do something like it again?

Peter

So much for crossing cultural boundaries . . .

One has to laugh at the mishaps that can occur when marketing Western entertainment to other cultures. The most recent mixup occurred in China, where the film 'Thor: The Dark World' has just opened. Here's the original poster for it.

Unfortunately, there seems to be something called 'erotic fan fiction' in existence. According to Yahoo! News:

A hilarious mix-up at a Shanghai, China cinema has resulted in a fan-made image being used as the official poster for “Thor: The Dark World.” The digitally altered image ... Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in an uncharacteristically tender embrace -- it's likely the work of erotic fan fiction enthusiasts. Why the theatre opted to use the fan-made poster and not the official Chinese “Thor: The Dark World” poster is unknown.

. . .

Erotic fan fiction is a little-discussed element of fandom, but one that has had a surprising impact on the literary world and in Hollywood.

. . .

Thor and Loki are far from the only unlikely gay coupling to come out of the fan community. One of the most famous fan-fiction tropes is called Kirk/Spock, an entire fan-made subgenre which depicts Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock of “Star Trek” fame as being in a serious romantic/sexual relationship. If you can think of two or more fictional characters, there’s a good chance that there’s a small but dedicated online community devoted entirely to writing about and/or illustrating a relationship between them.

There's more at the link.  Here's the 'gay' Thor poster.

Umm . . . yes, I'd say that poster certainly . . . er . . . redefines the relationship between them!





Peter

Fred on feminism, schools, education and socialization

The iconoclastic Fred Reed has penned two articles on education, feminist teachers, and what they do to boys who just want to be boys.  I don't agree with all his points, but he does make some very valid arguments, IMHO.  (Lest any of my lady readers take offense, I hasten to add that he's addressing the problems caused by radical feminism.  He's not blaming 'normal women' for them.)

Here's an excerpt from the second article.

All of my teachers in grade school, and perhaps half in high school, were women. They were fine. The reason was that they accepted the masculine view that schools existed to teach content. They did: first arithmetic and then math, and history, English grammar and composition, literature, Latin, and so on. Bless them.

What I dislike is the feminized, therapeutic view of schools as places not to teach anything but to engage in Pavlovian conditioning of kids to female norms of syrupy goodness, non-violence (tag, dodge ball, and wrestling) docility, conformity, and warm interpersonal glop. Learning anything gets short shrift.

. . .

Maybe fifteen years ago I went into a middle school in mostly white, moderately upscale Arlington, Virginia, and found on the wall a student´s project celebrating the contributions of Italians to science—specifically those of of Enrico Fermi to, so help me, “nucler physicts.” On the wall. Without correction. I have seen other examples.

These malfeasances spring from favoring self-esteem (when I am dictator I will have anyone who uses that word hanged) over knowledge. It is not a masculine approach. Nor will it produce the thoughtful, intellectually competent citizenry the country desperately needs.

In a Marine Corps day rooms I once saw a coffee mug inscribed, “To err is human, to forgive divine. Neither of which is Marine Corps policy.” (Why did that come to mind, I wonder?)

Something strange is happening in the United States. A Canadian friend recently said, “I can remember when Americans weren’t afraid of everything.” Just so. Don´t run on the playground because you might fall. Don´t roughhouse because you might get a bruise. Don’t go outside at high noon because you might get skin cancer. Don’t swim after eating, because you might get a cramp. If a child draws a soldier, call a SWAT team because he is a murderous psychopath. Don’t ride a bicycle without a helmet. Fill in the deep end of the pool because someone might drown. Supervise everything. Control everything. Fear everything.

If these are not the neurotic fears of women and capons, please tell me what they are. Such run the schools. They make policy.

There's more at the link, and the first article in the series is also worth reading.  Food for thought.

Peter