UB.109T: A Technological Appendix to Postblogging Technology, March 1955

 

So my boss is on his annual pilgrimage to the Old Continent to show everybody that he's a big shot in Canada, and we're training yet another ambitious young man as a future produce manager, as we do because the company totally has a skilled labour continuity plan that involves systematically identifying talent and nurturing it. "Nurturing" in this case tends to mean humping oversized orders around the back room, because our automated perishable ordering system is proving the brilliance of our plan to use AI to replace skilled labour. (Look, it's obviously not the computer's fault that we use the same produce code for two distinct kinds of carrots, but manually straightening out the order and inventory every day is precisely the kind of fiddling that AI was supposed to get rid of!) The upshot is that yesterday was my second day off in the last eight and I was not exactly filled with energy on what had to be a laundry day anyway. 

Which is fine, because this is the month that Flight grudgingly fessed up to an explanation for why the United States has the Matador, and we don't. We have the UB.109T, or RED RAPIER. So why have I chosen a Bomarc for my thumbnail?

Because.

On 31 March 1958, the Canadian electorate got its long-awaited opportunity to send Canada's Natural Governing Party to the benches, electing "Prairie populist" John Diefenbaker and his Progressive Conservatives by a swingeing 53% to 34% popular vote majority. Diefenbaker proceeded to reign over the Party for an immensely destructive decade-and-a-half. Anyone who has read as much contemporary Newsweek as I have and wonders whether my narrator's cynicism is anachronistic is referred to my Dad's collection of old Brothers-in-Laws albums to illustrate one fairly common reaction to Dief the Chief.  One might even draw larger conclusions about contemporary events if it were desired! 

Although as far as aerospace defence issues are concerned this would be a red herring. Cancelling the upcoming Avro long-range supersonic continental interceptor was an unfortunate necessity, and the fact that the Bomarc was insane has nothing to do with the fact that Diefenbaker was also crazy. And since Wikipedia has pictures of Bomarc and not RED RAPIER, there you go. 

A Technological Appendix to Postblogging Technology, October 1954: Microelectronics and Music

 

"Micro" indeed. The screencap is the first size comparison for the proximity fuze I've ever seen, which is why I took the screencap. If you're disappointed that it's not a video, here it is:

I'll start with some housekeeping. The ordering software for the holdings stored in the UBC Library's  Automated Storage Retrieval System is working, and has been for several weeks now. The aisle that holds Engineering and Aviation Week is still only intermittently operational, and your requests will be available when the Library tells you so. I am not sure of the details of this, and the desk librarians are not forthcoming. My best guess is that they cycle the aisle every few weeks; and the moral of the story is that I probably didn't successfully place my request for them last fall, and so missed some retrieval windows. Or not. It's not like the library is inclined to explain! 

Honestly, automated storage is such a fiasco, especially considering that it cam in just as physical acquisitions collapsed. I know that it could be worse. When I got back to Vancouver after my PhD, much of UBC's old technical journal collection was held off campus with no intention of ever making them accessible again. The intent was to destroy them and create a pdf  library in the cloud, and there is going to be a history of the fiasco of Google Books one day, but the short summary is that this was, as usual, placing more faith in computers than warranted. (Seriously, check out this disaster!) Instead, it all went to PARC, which may or may not have automated retrieval, but, importantly, actually works. The building of PARC somewhere in the no visitor's part of UBC campus did lead to The Economist and Time being withdrawn from the open shelves, which is annoying, especially considering that  the university used up the freed floor space for underutilised offices. But, on the other hand they didn't pulp Newsweek. 

So will I have Aviation Week and The Engineer next week, when I have a long weekend to finish October postblogging? Who knows? The important thing is that I got in 40 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 during my (short) vacation.

Fortunately, there's a lot of "microelectronics" to catch up with, going back to the proximity fuze.

Postblogging Technology, January 1954, I: Night of the Comet

 

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

We're back in London, fully settled in, and back on the edge of the Comet investigation. It will probably be flying again, although James is pessimistic, mainly because he has lost confidence in De Havilland. The children are settling in, with Jim-Jim very cutely looking forward to nursery school, which we've discussed. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, January 1951, I: A Whole New Year

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

Thank you again for your hospitality, which I am sorry I am so late, but things in London have been hectic. You may have noticed from the calendar that we flew out of Montreal the day of the Comet grounding, and London was an absolute zoo when we got there. On the other hand the Azores are BEAUTIFUL, which is just as well because renting a car and touring made up for spending a week there.  Or almost did, because why did there have to be an entire class of children aboard that plane? Why? 

All this bad enough before the Britannia accident. And, yes, this should have been in the mail long before the first week of February, but what can I say?  I've been touring James around because we've only the one car and I've had business in the counties, too trying to get the business of assorted people who were trying to move sterling into dollars ahead of the Crash of '54 and don't hold with old-fashioned surface shipping any more. 

So. Late. Sorry. Grateful. Missing you. Busy. Azores nice. Summaries good.  

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, August 1952, I: Attack of the Saucers in 3D!

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada


Dear Father:

It has been a frantic week as Reggie received last minute instructions ordering him to the naval laboratory at Woods Hole for top secret discussions of top secret stuff related to listening for submarines from ground stations, and then back to New York in time to catch our liner. I was to have a fine time catching up with Miss K., who has since last I was part of her circle completed an MA  in French at the University of California, and who was on her way to Paris for PhD studies. Unfortunately for me, although not for her, a whirlwind shipboard romance supervened (and I think she has doubts about doctoral studies, anyway, and is more interested in authorship). So I have seen absolutely nothing of her, the Sorbonne will see nothing of her, and perhaps I was there to see the salad days of one of the writers who will answer John Pierce's call for a more serious kind of science fiction!

And I had the time to finish this letter, while my darling bones up on the physics of computed acoustics, or some such. It has Fourier and Laplace transforms, anyway. Whatever those are, for I fear that closer exposure will leave me an irremediable neuropsychiatric case! (Whatever happened to shell shock? I can spell shell shock without pausing and using my fingers to remind myself that the "y" comes before the "c." When I write in English, I mean. Or type it, which is the real issue.)

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, October 1951, 2: The Seawolf

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

I bet you had given up on this ever coming! I choose to blame Stanford and the BCG tuberculosis vaccine it mandated of me after a classmate was diagnosed, and which laid me clean out for a weekend when I should have been writing this newsletter.

Whatever, I am  not going to infect my baby, and I am done now, leaving me time to find out about this mysterious second nuclear submarine the Navy is working on.

I will leave further to you, as I expect to see you next week in Portland for the family meeting with this bright young thing of an engineer so that we can see his "slabs."

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, September 1951, I: The Age of Inflation

R_. C_.,

Shaughnessy,

Vancouver,

Canada

Dear Father:

Well, you can see that the distractions of  setting up housekeeping, motherhood, my husband being on the other side of the country, and, oh, yes, second year law school isn't keeping me from my newsletter! I shall perhaps have more gossip to report when we are separated by more than the week since I saw you off on the train. There seems to be some glimmer of hope on the horizon that my magazines will finally start reaching me soon. In the meantime, Aviation Week is still the exception and the local library has The Economist and Newsweek. I could also get my hands on Time easily enough, but I'm happy to let Mr. Luce's organ take a break for a week. 

In the mean time, at least rubber balls full of gasoline are not plunging to the ground around us, which is always good news. (I tried to think of a joke that I could make about the scheme, but how do you make it more ridiculous?)

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, July 1951, I: To Be Born Into An Age Without Clerks

R_. C_.,
Arcadia,
Santa Clara,
California


Dear Father:

Following on my telegram and my note in Mother's letter, I have quite a long one of my own that split the airmail envelope, which is why Mother is taking it back to Vancouver with her along with a camera roll. I will try to be professional in this letter, although my heart is breaking as we get ready to lift off from the harbour for Formosa. The Navy calls me away from my wife and son, until my leave in September. We are to close our little show. Wiser heads, etc, and now Koumintang pilots will not be trained for the electronic reconnaissance mission. From here on they will be conducted in routine flights between Clark and Okinawa, which finally has a proper electronics shop. I now have official word that my next posting will be to the Martin plant in Baltimore. Ostensibly I am going to get my first taste of bringing a new aircraft into service on the electronic side of thing, due to the very elaborate new radar on the plane. However, there is some suggestion that I should reacquaint myself with acoustics and pick up some oceanography. 

Your Loving Son,
Reggie

A Technological Appendix to Postblogging Technology, February, 1951: The Last Days of the Labour Deterrent

I am using the Parliamentary announcement of orders for the Vickers Valiant, the first of the V-bombers, as a reason to talk about Operation HURRICANE today. The official British request to use the Montebello Islands off the northwest coast of Western Australia is still a month away as of February of 1951, and the Australian general election is not until April, but surveys of the isolated islands are already well under way.  Ultimately, the bomb would drop, the Valiant fly, and, indeed, the whole era of the independent British nuclear deterrent would come and go before Labour returned to office, promising "the white heat of revolution," in 1964,  In Australia, in contrast, the Liberal-County coalition would be in office until 1983. This is getting to be our last chance to talk about the nuclear deterrent that Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin wanted, and which Hugh Dalton opposed: The Labour deterrent. Although it is also the Menzies deterrent in some sense worth talking about.

Postblogging Technology, February, 1950, I: The Armageddon Rag

R_. C__.,
Arcadia,
Santa Clara, California

Dear Father:

Thank you very much for your kindness during my too-soon-done trip to San Francisco. Dr. Rivers had the kindness to do up a full report that followed me back across the Pacific so quickly that I have it before me, which ought to be a lesson to some subscription services. It says, at more length and with some X-ray negatives, that everything is proceeding quite satisfactorily and that he sees no problems if I choose to give birth in Formosa, although as a practical matter I will be "couched," to be archaic and dramatic, in Macao and attended by some of your great-grandfather's intimate aides. 

You can see perhaps some anxiety leaking through in my comments about air safety below. Reggie said, anyway. I prefer to think that instead of succumbing to the anxieties of the  young mother-to-be, the scales are falling off my eyes due to the latest Air France and Northwestern fiascos. But maybe when I am delivered I will look back on these as just silly vapours! 

Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie

The first few minutes are awful, but Grable's athleticism is amazing. 

Postblogging Technology, August 1950, I: Pirate Business

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

Thank you for stepping in with the Junior College. I return my completed application for a year's medical leave enclosed, and make pious offering to the gods that someday my mail will follow me here to my bungalow by the sea. I also enclose Polaroids of our spacious new home for the impatient, who know who they are. It turns out that the squadron will remain on Okinawa, with only the advanced detachment here. but that still gives us some domestic security for the next year or so, fingers crossed, salt tossed, wood knocked. You will see that we have plenty of space for events foreseen and not. Everyone around knows that one tempts the gods by talking about such things, but talk there is, to the point where people show me cribs and the like just, you know, matter of interest. Grr!

In the mean time, and while I still can, I have given the Goose a bit of a work out. Flying into this or that flyspeck island fifty feet above the drink will never get old, but there are lots of people to talk to and we cannot leave it all to Big Deng or we will lose face. The piracy/embargo/blockade situation is a precious chance to make friends and offer favours with Hong Kong shipowners, and they need to know who they owe. Which I tell them. And will continue to tell them while I can still fly! 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, March 1950, II: Under the Hurtling Moons

R_. C_.,

Shaughnessy,

Vancouver,

B.C.

Dear Father:

Please thank Mother for the care package, which arrived via Uncle George yesterday. I am not going to be able to write her before Friday, as direct after I mail this, I have to go down to the capital to have a very important meeting. I hope I will be declared persona non grata and sent home on account of my family feuding with Gitmo's family. My enthusiasm for this gig knows no limits! Tell Mom not to worry. He's not even shooting his real enemies right now, and  I'm a serving US Navy officer! But I'm probably just going to get another argument about how the Koumintang needs more planes to parachute more agents into the South. I'm at a loss as to what they expect to achieve from all of this. The only argument in its favour that I can think of is that some of it ends up in Chennault's pocket. 

Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars. Swords are weird on Mars

Ronnie is trying to recover from moots and prepare for final exams all at the same time. Those are , hard things that law students do. So she'd have no time for all those magazines even if the public health office (no joy!) saw fit to release it. And they're being extra careful now that diphtheria has broken out again down south in San Jose. 

In the mean time, I'm trying to relate. In engineering, all you have to do these days is learn the solutions to the Three Partial Differential Equations You're Allowed To Put on the Exam. Some of my colleagues couldn't quite grasp that, but I honestly don't know why we aren't all on the honour roll. All engineers really need to know is how to punch out a mule, after all. I tell myself that that's what lawyers say about the first year law exams looking back, too. Maybe it's all for the best, as the more I think about it, the more I'm reminded that all the engineers are going back for their doctorates these days. I'd finally have an excuse to learn tensors!

Your Loving Son,

Reggie

PS: I notice that I've got a bit mixed up about where I am with Aviation Week. Well, that's tough. It's too hot to work and the custodian is outside waiting for me to go out for the evening so that he can update the cottage for summer. I don't think he's allowed to knock off until he's done, and it's already past 4.

Demuth, Wild Orchids

Postblogging Technology, January 1950, II: Isolate and Sterilise

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

As I'm stationed at the edge of the world, no gossip this time round! Except, well, you may not have heard that Sarah has come down with diphtheria just at the end of the incubation period, extending Ronnie's quarantine.  It's still a bit uncertain what's going to happen to her magazines. The books will be saved, but the magazines are cheap enough to burn? Doesn't seem like the way to stop a plague ot me, but what do I know?

The mood here in Formosa is febrile, with all eyes on Hainan Island. The crossing to Hainan is much less of a challenge to the Communists than the Strait of Formosa, but, in the end, the outcome of the fight would seem to come down more to defections on the Koumintang side than the strength of the Communists, which has everyone eyeing everyone else suspiciously. I find that my Mandarin has more of a Hakka lilt than I ever expected, which gives me a bit of an in with the old revolutionary crowd. I try to be discrete, given that a follower of Dr. Sun might turn out to be a followed of the Soongs. But the point is, I'm hearing more rumours and gossip than  you'd believe. Basically, everyone is talking to the Reds --according to everyone else.

I'm almost tempted to list everyone I've heard denounced. That way, when the Communists come, I'll be able to say, "I told you so," no matter whose sector they land in.   

Your Loving Son,
Reggie

Postblogging Technology, January, 1950: Straight out of Quarantine

(In honour of True magazine, some old time science fiction.)

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada


Dear Father:

I bet you were wondering who this letter would come from this month, what with Uncle George saying "no," Auntie Grace and James in Singapore, Ronnie in quarantine because of Susan's diptheria, and me waiting on orders.

Well, it's me. I was hoping that this would be coming to you from Tampa, and I could tell you about what it's like flying straight into a  Florida rain squall with the most giant radar the combined Navy and Air Force could dig up blasting into the thick of it to see what comes back. But, I'm not. I'm in the backwoods of Formosa, "advising" the Koumintang Air Force on the delicate subject of Stop Doing What You're Doing And Do Something Else Instead. I can't say very much about that, apart from the obvious, which is that the Communists are using Russian equipment, and don't seem to be doing it well, so maybe we'll go some way towards cracking their communications, which will be helpful for finding the B-29skis before they blow up Seattle (which would be bad, and we're against it even though it'll help Wichita pick up some contracts, which would make the President happy).

On the "bright" side, this is the back end of God's creation, and all of Ronnie's mail is being burned, because the Post Office doesn't know how to fumigate diptheria germs and quarantine is quarantine.   So all I've got for this project is the post's subscription to Aviation Week, Time, and (for some reason) The Engineer.  Or, well, I would, but some horse's rear end cleared out all this issues since 1930 and diverted the new subscription to an office in Taipei three months ago, and so much for that. (The post still gets to pay for them, though, so not all is lost! Or, no, wait, that means even more is lost.) 

Onward and ever upwards!

Your Loving Son,

Reggie

Postblogging Technology, February 1949, II: A Lithium Depression

R_. C_.,

Shaughnessy,

Vancouver,

Canada.

Dear Father:

You will be glad to know that I have my law school acceptances (and rejections, who shall all suffer my wrath!!!) before me. These include Stanford, frankly my first choice for family reasons, so considering that I have been deemed not to be Ivy League girl material, as see above, the choice is settled. I gather that there is even a little money set aside for worthy girls by the Women's Club, and I am both quite worthy, if I do not say so myself, and partial to money. 

But I did say that I had all my choice, and you will know, of course, that I did not apply to the University of Chicago, but there is their acceptance letter on my desk, brought to me by --oh, but I cannot say, except to express my happiness that I did not see his temper when I told him that I could not return to Chicago as long as Mom is being that way about Reggie. He, I think, vaguely, understands. Uncle Henry, of all people, had him by to chat about it! I'm not entirely sure I want Uncle Henry in my corner in personal matters, but you can't deny that he is good at getting his way!

On the subject of the senior thesis, the most mysterious aspect of the Horace Stevens case is that he actually got on the train for Portland, and yet there was no commotion when he didn't get off. The usual understanding is that he got off along the way, but if that's his body . . . Well. So there's the question of who might have dealt with him on the train, and with an athletic trunk as a clue, I looked at what we know about that train, which is a surprising amount, since it was carrying the Golden Bears ice hockey team and a number of boosters, and there are some articles in the Daily. 

Hmm. 

Yours Sincerely,

Ronnie.

Postblogging Technology, October 1948, II: The Dewey System

R_. C_.,

The Peninsula,

Hong Kong

Dear Father:

Happy Birthday and many happy returns to your wife! See you Friday! I am dashing this off because I am invited over for dinner with Professor K. and family. I think we're celebrating the fact that I'm in San Francisco on a Thursday, but it's a good trial run for the festive season. I am bringing a pumpkin pie that I am making myself, as advance practice for not having anything else to bring aside from a distinct shortage of relatives who will tolerate me at their Thanksgiving or Christmas table. Have you ever made one? I know you dabble. I will have --soon. The trick is the pastry as  usual, and at that, I say, hopefully, I am getting better. Practice makes perfect! Then it is to the train station to await the 4AM for Seattle, connections to Vancouver on those hard, narrow chairs. Reggie is flying. I'm sure that you've heard by now that he is held over in St. Louis by weather and so will miss his TCA connection, and won't be arriving at Vancouver until tomorrow afternoon. Between picking him up at the airport and me at the station, the dacoits will have a full day of chauffering and looking discreetly menacing. 

I've bought them gifts. In the future, it would be easier if I had sizes. Subtle hint. I hope that they're not too disappointed. I may have shaved some money off that cheque you sent last month, for which I am very grateful, even though I am pretty sure that "Thanksgiving Gifts" are not actually a Canadian tradition. 

Yours Sincerely,
Ronnie

Postblogging Technology, October 1948, I: Best Laid Plans

R._C._
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada

Dear Father:

Well, here she is, your future daughter-in-law (she said very, very firmly, though all the fires and floods of Hell and a frantic mother bar the way), back in hall for one more year at good old Stanford Junior College, and, yes, it's not called that, and, no, you may not ruin my fun. All the girls are back, and we have a novelty, a genuine English girl, enrolled because her Father is doing something for Mr. Giannini at the bank, and she can't be a continent away from her Mother, no matter that her brother is living high off the hog at Oxford on American dollars. 

We sympathise with each  other, and I am going crazy trying to catch her way of speaking without just imitating her. Classwise, it is all about the senior thesis; and at work, I am having to come down to being a waitress again. Though there's something to be said for working for work, instead of (mostly) learning how to do work, fascinating as fashion buying is. 

Except, that is, when I am called at the last minute to work the morning shift after a night shift, and lose a night's sleep for the sake of work, and end up having to rush my very important letter to my future father in law. (She says, firmly.)

James was in town for something to do with Warren for Vice President (and that Dewey fellow, too), I think is the official name of it, add capitals to suit. We had lunch, and agreed that Grace be none the wiser for it. I got caught up on Santa Clara, and Reggie and I await the Great Thaw. Perhaps after the wedding. Which will be June after next(!!!) 

Yours Sincerely,

Ronnie

 

Postblogging Technology, August 1948, II: Fall Is Coming

R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver, Canada.

Dearest Father:

You will perhaps notice the lack of a 16 August Time. A funny story about that --but I don't care to tell it, because, well, Ronnie and I --I know everyone disapproves, but. . .


Your Loving Son, Reggie.

PS: Will call with details.

Postblogging Technology, July 1948, I: Democracy Through Boogie Woogie

Edit: I was going to hold off on fixing the title of this entry until I had the actual "Postblogging II" post done; but that would have required buckling down on getting it done this week, and overtime has made that look a bit ambitious. So look forward to something about early postwar radar in the next few days, and Postblogging II next week.

R_., C_.
The Oriental Club,
London.

Dear Father:

Surprise! Here's the letter I told you that I'd never be able to write in between flying across the Atlantic and buying fall fashion by the gross. (Hope you don't mind the absence of Aviation. I hope that there's enough science, or possibly "science" in Fortune to more than make up for it! On the  other hand, I didn't have the time to find out that I didn't know the name of the President of the New York Stock Exchange, so "Oops" on that one.

You'll have heard from Reggie, so no need to go on for hours about the Berlin Blockade and the airlift. Reggie is not going to be flying in, as it has been decided that he is needed in Arcata. He'll be leaving his ship and escorting  his radar home to be installed in a less strategically vital hack. Bill and David are quite excited about flying over to Germany to do the job. I hope they don't mind "doing the "potato salad" a bit. (That's a joke.)

On the bright side, being just back from Europe gives me a certain cachet. I just wish I'd stopped in Paris, and not Wiesbaden and Frankfurt! Thank you for your package, by the way. Exquisitely chosen, and I can put on an "airplane set" look, even if I had precisely no time to shop.

Uncle George is very intrigued by your suggestion that, if a movie studio works in London, it might also work in Hong Kong. He is even talking about going out himself, which would be very good for him! (I'm worried that he is drinking too much.)

Yours Sincerely,
Ronnie.

P.S. Please no atomic wars until Reggie has had a chance to see me in the red number.

Not a single fashion ad in this coverage, because Forties. 

Postblogging Technology, March, 1948, II: Necessity is to Invention As . . .

R_. C_.,
Vancouver, Canada

Dear Father:

I hope this finds you well, as I'm personally a bit frazzled, having been up to the city again, this time to look for a place to stay, as it would be a scandal if I moved into with Queenie or the Cs. I've even resorted to the 'Ks.", so if I end  up staying in an (indoor) tipi, you will know why!

Not only to the city but to Oakland, as Mother made a flying visit to her sister's nurses. (Who were a bit mystified by  the origins of her authority, or why she looked like her sister.) My presence was commanded, so that Mother could snub me --although she relented when I asked whether I had had rubella far enough to promise to send me my medical records. A nurse dismissed for the crime of getting too close to Uncle Henry, she was off to Chicago, cool and distant as ever, and me to work.

I have decided that I do not like work. I  hope lawyering is nothing like it.


Yours Sincerely,
Ronnie

Happy Mother's Day!