Olympics Survival Tips for Twitter Addicts

It has come to my attention that people, including both Mike Greeney AND Mike Golic, are complaining that because of the way NBC is broadcasting the Olympics they already know who won a certain event before they get the chance to see the network's tape delayed and edited broadcast in Primetime.  The culprit: social media.

You know how it goes.  You are kicking back in the man cave.  You're reclining in your giant leather chair and you got a six pack on ice sitting next to you.  You are getting ready for some hot beach volleyball action in Primetime when you check your Twitter feed and see that your buddy Smitty has sent you a...ugh...."tweet"....saying that Walsh and May-Treanor thrashed the Russians to get to the next round and they looked sooooo good doing it.  Of course, you watch it anyway for the obvious reasons, but knowing they won (though, honestly, it would be truly shocking if they lost...) takes some of the fun out of it.   And you think "God, this would be so much better if I didn't know the outcome".

Well, America, never fear.  I, Nick Marickovich, Mr. Tape Delay himself, is here to give you some pointers on how you can never suffer the same fate again.  I assure you that I am extremely well qualified.  As an avid soccer fan, I often record key games on the DVR and watch them late at night, hours after they have been completed, without knowing the result.  It's as if it was live, even though...you know...it's not, and it leaves me with the rather unsettling question every time a goal gets scored of what exactly I am celebrating in regards to the space time continuum.

There are three simple steps...though I guess maybe the first one is a little complicated.  You'll see what I mean.

1.  Media Blackout.

If you don't want to know the result of a match or event, limit your information.  The severity of the blackout depends on the magnitude of the sporting event.  If, say, you want to watch Aston Villa v. Torquay United  in the first round of the FA Cup, you can probably limit the blackout to soccer websites like  www.AstonVilla.epl.net and www.HeyguesswhatTorquayhasafootballteam.com.  But if, say, you can't watch the Super Bowl live because you have a bunch of TPS reports to file, well, you better avoid TV, radio, Internet websites of all kind, and naturally all social media outlets.

Sadly, the Olympics is one of those times when its best to just shut it all down.  No radio, no TV, no Internet, and of course no social media.  You never know when NPR, or CNN, or FOX News, or The Bugle, is going to make a tweet or run or a story about the athlete who recovered from cancer 4 times while fighting to get his mother out of prison and went on to win the gold in Fencing even after losing an arm not three months ago in a tragic potato chip incident;  You never know when your best bud, moved by a sudden outburst of patriotism after seeing a US gymnast just barely eek out gold on the parallel bars, will tweet "WHOO! We Gymnasticated the fucking shit out of everyone!  USA USA USA #USA!" 

So when it comes to the media, just turn it off.  Don't take your chances.

The approach of a total blackout also helps put things into perspective.  Are you willing to go without Twitter  for a few hours so you can watch the Olympic duck duck goose finals?  If not, then maybe you aren't as interested in the event as you thought.  Or maybe you are so addicted to Twitter that you need serious help.

2.  Tell everyone that you don't want to know who wins.

Hey, it's a free country.  You may be in blackout mode, but your friends will not be.  If you find yourself at work or out with some friends during the event that you cannot watch, make sure you tell everyone you don't want to know the winner because you are going to watch it later.

There are two responses your friends will have to this:

• they will either be really considerate and not mention it even if they do get some kind of sports alert on their smart phone that tells them that, yes, Hector Rodriguez of Mexico won the duck duck goose final after the early selection of the heavily favored Nico Stepanovic of Croatia as the goose.  
• Or your friends will be total dicks and tell you that, yes, Rodriguez won as the early selection of Stepanovic caught the Croatian completely off guard and Hector was able to make a run for it, forcing Stepanovic out with three overs and a half jug.  Having eliminated his best competition, Rodriguez picked off the rest of the field with surprising ease, winning by the score of eleventy seven to twelve.  

3.  Convince yourself that if your friends to tell you the result, they are just messing with you and, to continue an example, Rodriguez really didn't win that final.

Apply a little deniability and delusionality.  To guard against the devastation of learning the outcome of an event before it happens, inculcate the belief that everyone talking about it is in a grand conspiracy to mislead you as to the winner.  Why they are doing this you don't know, but you never liked them very much anyway, and the situation definitely bears watching.

So there you go.  Turn off the Twitter for a bit, go about your business, and enjoy NBC's Primetime coverage of the Olympics in the full, sweet bliss of total ignorance.

On the Dark Knight Shootings

I think Charles M. Blow's excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times puts it pretty well:

"It is on days like this that we are reminded of how much more alike than different we are, when we see that tears have no color, when ideologies melt into a common heart broken by sorrow".  

The only thing I would add to that is that I find it sad that the only time we can come together as a nation is in the wake of tragedies like this; that the only time a staunch conservative and bleeding heart liberal can stand by side on a stage with common purpose is when it is time to mourn.  

Of course, it won't last long.  Already we are in a sharp skirmish over gun control laws.  But if I were to place my bets, I wouldn't place them on having some kind of sober national dialogue that actually changes anything.  Neither presidential candidate is likely to make gun control a plank in their campaign platform, and soon we'll be squabbling over Romney's tax returns and Obama's birth certificate once more.  Normal service shall resume.  

But let's focus on the current debate, however briefly it may last.  The arguments are familiar.  One side says if we simply outlawed all guns, the deranged perpetrator of these shootings would have never had access to the weapons he used and the shooting would have never happened.  The other side says that if someone had been carrying a gun in the theater they might have been able to take this guy and maybe save some lives.  

As with most purely ideological stances, both are arguments I find to be impracticable.  You simply can't ban all guns.  Our nation does have a gun culture (whether you like it or not), and if someone wants to have rifles for hunting or shotguns for home defense, if some old lady wants to carry around a 9mm in her handbag because it makes her feel safe, well, more power to them.  It's their right to do so.

On the other hand, when does somebody's right to own weapons infringe on another persons right to feel reasonably safe walking down the street or going to the movies without one?  While I readily recognize the fact that we have a gun culture, I also believe that it is out of control.  The argument that a citizen carrying a gun can thwart an event like this makes me think that the gun lobby really wants our nation to resemble the wild west.  Thanks, but that's really not a society I want to live in (though I'll take the hats and mustaches).  I'd really rather not have to lock and load just to go to the library.  Also, I wish to point out that it seems to me a person carrying a handgun in this situation might be a little outmatched by a man wearing tactical armor and carrying an AR-15.  Just an opinion.  

So, Government:  I would like to see more sensible gun control laws, please.  I think a good place to start would be a ban on assault rifles.  The only reason to have one is if, as the name implies, you are going to actually assault something.  Private citizens should have no need to do so.  And sorry, I don't buy all that stuff about how an armed citizenry safeguards democracy.  The implied threat of open violence against the government laced within such an argument is just a little frightening.  This isn't 1776.  

It's impossible to completely prevent tragedies such as the Dark Knight Shootings, April 16th, or Columbine.    I have to believe, though, that banning assault rifles and 100 round clips (or at least making them very, very hard to obtain) would lower the heartbreaking frequency at which these acts of depravity occur.  And when they do happen, maybe the lives lost will be less.  The police may be able to move in faster knowing a suspect is more lightly armed than they.  Maybe even that granny with the 9mm in her handbag would actually stand a chance.  

But there is no way our nation would ever be so sensible.  No way that the gun lobby, safe guarders of liberty and keepers of the peace, would be okay with giving up a freedom we really don't need so that the rest of us can actually be a little bit safer as we pursue our own happiness.  There is simply too much money, and votes, at stake.  

And so it goes.  

On Naval Architecture: A Treatise Courtesy of the NE Marickovich School of Naval Architecture

Dear Readers:

Ages ago I published my famous Treatise on Naval Architecture.  It was, and may prove to be, this blog's biggest hit.

I removed it to make some alterations to the forward, which was in very poor taste.  But those alterations have been made (basically the forward has been removed) and now I am pleased to present, in its second edition but without any great alteration (aside from the code for online exclusive content that is going to force you into buying a new book):

 On Naval Architecture:  

A Treatise Courtesy of the NE Marickovich School of Naval Architecture.

1.  INTRODUCTION

This is a ship:

Figure 1:  Aircraft Carrier (photo courtesy of US Navy)

So is this:

Figure 2:  Destroyer (photo courtesy of US Navy)

This is NOT a ship, but rather a boat (kinda sorta maybe).  It is important not to insult the Commanding Officer of any craft, and so if you are unsure of whether a floating object is a ship or a boat, it is best simply to call it a "vessel".

Figure 3:  Bass Boat (photo courtesy of the Confederate States of 'Merica Naval Defense Force and Bass Fishin Club)

Amazingly, all of the vessels above are subject to the same naval architecture rules.

2.  BUOYANCY and FLOATING

Determining the buoyancy is a simple matter of applying "Sir Lancelot's Principle", as shown in Figure 4:

Figure 4:  Sir Lancelot's Principles states that if a boat weighs the same as a duck, it is made of wood, and therefore it floats in water.  It is important to note that if the boat it is made of wood, it is a witch, and therefore upon decommissioning it must be burned at the stake.

3.  SURVIVABILITY

Building an "unsinkable ship" is virtually impossible, and even building a "sink resistant" ship costs a lot of money.  The best thing is to design and operate ships so that they are less likely to strike or be struck by an object that is going to do them harm.  Here are four simple survivability rules:

Rule Number One:  Avoid Ice burgs

Rule Number Two:  The best defense is a good offense (see section 5)

Rule Number Three:  Watch out for submarines (good luck with that).

Rule Number Four:  If John McCain comes aboard your ship, be wary. Remember, this man crashed two US Navy planes and survived; had a third plane blowed up (as he ran down the nose of the craft trying to get away) in the USS Forrestal fire and survived; got shot down in a fourth plane over North Vietnam and survived; spent eight years in a North Vietnamese prison and survived; comes back, hammers out a career as a politician, during which he has many times where he has been figuratively shot down and yet figuratively survived.  This man is either the luckiest man in the world or the unluckiest.  So, when he comes aboard, I would hedge my bets and keep a life jacket handy.  If anything, you can expect that while he is on the ship it will hit some kind of old French mine from WWI and it will sink....and yet John McCain will somehow survive.

4.  SEAKEEPING

Math.  Math math math, math math.  How do you math math math?  That's right!  Math!  Let's move on.

5.  TOPSIDE DESIGN (i.e. GUNS! MISSILES!  GET SOME!)

During concept design of any naval ship (and, let's face it, in America that is about all you are really likely to build), most questions concerning topside design start with "Dude!  You know what would be totally sweet?"  The result is figure 5.  Things usually get paired down by the cost guys later in the design spiral.  They just don't appreciate the awesomeness.

Figure 5

6.  SHIP SYSTEMS and ARRANGEMENTS

The configuration of a ship used to be an art done by an array of competent yet eccentric designers with slide rules and dip pens.  Lately, a bunch of college boys have tried to devise a computer program that would automate ship arrangements to a large extent.  If they succeed they will put good, decent, hardworking middle class Americans out of work.  Will they be stopped?  Depends on how you vote in the 2012 election.

However, in the interest of education, let's go over the theory from the Nick Parson's Project and discuss how it works.

First, you make a list of rules that are used to govern or evaluate a design.  As an example, here are the two most important rules in arrangements based on hundreds of years of naval tradition:

1.  The ice cream machine is the most important piece of equipment on any ship, but particularly on a submarine.

Note: Acronyms make the military go all wobbly in the knees, and so sometimes the Ice Cream Machine is referred to as an ICM...not to be confused with an ICBM, or InterContinental Ballistic Missile...the one time that actually happened, I can tell you, it was hilarious.  Not at the time, of course.  At the time it was a horrific clusterfuck that brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.  But as we got in the chopper after recovering the ICBMs that we had inadvertently sold as surplus to "Collis C. Collis Elementary School", I told my buddy that one day we would laugh about this.  And you know what?  I was....no, I was wrong.  It's not funny at all.  It's still absolutely terrifying to think about.    

2.  The soundness or desirability of a design is directly proportional to the proximity of the CO's stateroom to the ICM.

These rules are programmed into something called an optimization tool, which uses fuzzy math (no, its not just for politicians any more) and genetic algorithms (or divinely created algorithms, if you prefer) to evaluate a number of different designs.

For example, consider the following designs of "officer's country" aboard the SSN 825, the USS Barrack Hussein Obama:

Figure 6:  Design A

Figure 7:  Design B

Figure 8:  Design C

When we run the designs through the optimizer, we find that Design A is good, Design B is better, and Design C is the best, based on the rules.

So, clearly, we go with Design C.

7.  SHIPBUILDING

I think ship building can be summed up by the immortal words of Collis C. Collis (the C stands for Collington) when he founded a shipyard in a bucolic little town in Southeastern Virginia so many years ago:

"We Build Good Ships Here.  
But it's Gosh-Darned Expensive,
And it's Really, Really Hard.  
So Stop Whining and Ante Up."


8.  SHIP STRUCTURES

You know, when I was a lad taking European History in high school, my teacher was a retired US Navy Captain.  Consequently, he was great at teaching military history, but really awful when it came to teaching art.  So, to give us the whiff of culture we so desperately needed to become well rounded individuals, he left us in the care of Sister Wendy and her series "Sister Wendy's History of Painting", in which this little old nun with a whimsical lisp goes all over Europe talking about various masterpieces and tut tutting over all the tits and testicles that are an integral part of our shared Western cultural make-up.  

Well, I will tell you that ship structures is not my bailiwick.  So watch this video.  It will teach you everything you need to know about ship structures:

9.  CONGRATULATIONS!

Hey, you did it!  Congratulations on making it to the end of this post.  If you are not already a naval architect by trade (though in my experience as a shipbuilder everyone thinks they are a naval architect, deep down inside) you get a diploma for slogging through my "masterpiece".  It's a lot easier than slogging through 4-7 years of school.  Trust me.  

CONGRATULATIONS!  That's one for the refrigerator door!

My commencement remarks?  Use this diploma well.  Go register for Va Tech's Submarine Design Course and make sure I have something to do this summer aside from writing these epic blog posts...please! 

EXCLUSIVE ONLINE CONTENT THAT MADE YOU BUY THE NEW BOOK:

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