Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Radar. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Radar. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Radome

Radome (pronounced rey-dohm)

A dome-shaped device used as a protective housing for a radar antenna (although the word is loosely used and applied to structures of varied shapes in which radar equipment is installed).

1940–1945: A portmanteau word, a blend of ra(dar) + dome.  In electronics, radar is a device for determining the presence and location of an object by measuring the time for the echo of a radio wave to return from it and the direction from which it returns and in figurative use refers to a means or sense of awareness or perception.  Dating from 1940-1945, radar was originally the acronym RADAR which was creation of US scientific English: RA(dio)D(etecting)A(nd)R(anging).  In the way English does things, the acronym RADAR came to be used with such frequency that it became a legitimate common noun, the all lower-case “radar” now the default form.  Dating from 1505–1515, dome was from the Middle French domme & dome (a town-house; a dome, a cupola) (which persists in modern French as dôme), from the Provençal doma, from the Italian duomo (cathedral), from the Medieval Latin domus (ecclesiae; literally “house (of the church)”), a calque of the Ancient Greek οκος τς κκλησίας (oîkos tês ekklēsías).  Radome is a noun & verb; the noun plural is radomes.

Radomes at the Pine Gap satellite surveillance base, some 11 miles (18 km) south-west of Alice Springs (population circa 34,000) in Australia's Northern Territory (left) and a random radome which was blown onto an Indianapolis street by a storm (right).

Officially, the operation in Alice Springs jointly is operated by the defence departments of the US and Australia and was once known as the Joint Defence Space Research Facility (JDSRF) but, presumably aware nobody was fooled, it was in 1988 renamed the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG).  The Pine Gap facility is a restricted zone so it's not a tourist attraction which is unfortunate because it's hard to think of any other reason to visit Alice Springs.  FoxNews in June 2025 published pictures of the “random radome” which had “fallen from the sky” in Indianapolis, Indiana after a severe thunderstorm swept through the region, wind gusts as high as 65 mph (105 km/h, 56 knots) measured.  The spherical cap was reported as being the size of a “small shed” and it was “parked” neatly, the flat base next to the curb and in case any of the conspiracy theorists in the Fox New audience began to speculate about alien invasions or government plots, it was revealed the radome came from an installation at the nearby tech infrastructure company V2X.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Radar magazine, June-July 2007.  The last print-edition of Radar was in 2008; since 2009 it's existed in on-line editions.

Dating from the mid 1940s, the word radar began as the acronym RADAR, (RA(dio)D(etecting)A(nd)R(anging)), coined in the US and entering English as a word within years.  Specialized forms are created as needed (radar gun, radar zone, radar tower, radar trap etc); radar is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is radars.  In English, whether a string of letters is an acronym, abbreviation, initialism or word is determined both by form and organic process and the strings can emerge in more than one category.  Although it wouldn’t for a few years be known as radar, the system first became well known (within a small community on both sides of the English Channel) in 1940 because the string of radar installations along the English coast played such a significant role in the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) defense during the Battle of Britain, the crucial air-war fought that summer.  What the radar did was to provide sufficient notice of an attack to enable RAF Fighter Command to react to threats in the right place at the right time (altitude was always a problem to assess) by “scrambling” squadrons of aircraft on stand-by rather than having to maintain constant patrols in the sky, something which rapidly would have diminished resources.

Radomes don’t actually fulfil any electronic function as such.  They are weatherproof structures which are purely protective (and on ships where space is at a premium they also protect personnel from the moving machinery) and are thus constructed from materials transparent to radio waves.  The original radomes were recognizably domish but they quickly came to be built in whatever shape was most suitable to their location and application: pure spheres, planars and geodesic spheres are common.  When used on aircraft, the structures need to be sufficiently aerodynamic not to compromise performance, thus the early use of nose-cones as radomes and on larger airframes, dish-like devices have been fashioned.

North American Sabre:  F-86A (left) and F-86D with black radome (right).

Introduced in 1947, the North American F-86 Sabre was the US Air Force’s (USAF) first swept-wing fighter and the last trans-sonic platform used as a front-line interceptor.  Although as early as 1950 elements within the USAF were concerned it would soon be obsolete, it proved a solid, versatile platform and close to 10,000 were produced, equipping not only US & NATO forces but also those of a remarkable number of nations, some remaining in front-line service until the 1990s.  In 1952, the F-86D was introduced which historians of military aviation regard as the definitive version.  As well as the large number of improvements typical of the era, an AN/APG-36 all-weather radar system was enclosed in a radome which resembled an enlarged version of the central bosses previously often used on propellers.

What lies beneath a radome: Heinkel He 219 Uhu with radar antennae array.

The size of the F-86D’s radome is indicative also that the now familiar tendency for electronic components to become smaller is nothing new.  Only a half decade before the F86-D first flew, Germany’s Heinkel He 219 Uhu had entered combat as a night-fighter, its most distinctive feature the array of radar antennae protruding from the nose.  The arrangement was highly effective but, needing to be as large as they were, a radome would have been impossible.  The He 219 was one of the outstanding airframes World War II (1939-1945) and of its type, at least the equal of anything produced by the Allies but it was the victim of the internal politics which bedevilled industrial and military developments in the Third Reich (1933-1945), something which wasn’t fully understood until some years after the end of hostilities.  Remarkably, although its dynamic qualities should have made volume production compelling, fewer than 300 were ever built, mainly because Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945): (1) was less inclined to allocate priorities to defensive equipment (attack always his preferred strategy) and (2) the debacle of the Heinkel He 177 Gref heavy bomber (which he described as “the worst junk ever manufactured) had made him distrustful of whatever the company did.

Peak dagmar: 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville.

As early as 1941, the US car industry had with enthusiasm taken to adorning the front of their vehicles with decorative conical devices they intended to summon in the minds of buyers the imagery of speeding artillery shells, then something often seen in popular publications.  However, in the 1950s, the hardware of the jet-age became the motif of choice but the protuberances remained, some lasting even into the next decade.  They came to be known as “dagmars” because of the vague anatomical similarity to one of the early stars of television but the original inspiration really had been military field ordnance.  Cadillac actually abandoned the use of dagmars in their 1959 models (a rare example of restraint that year and not extended to the rest of the design) but concurrent with that, they also toured the show circuit with the Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74) concept car.

1959 Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74) concept car.

Although it was powered by the corporation’s standard 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8, there was some adventurous engineering including a rear-mounted automatic transaxle and independent rear suspension (using swing axles, something not as bad as it sounds given the grip of the cross-ply tyres of the era) but few dwelt long on such things, their attention grabbed by features such as the bubbletop canopy (silver coated for UV protection) which opened automatically in conjunction with the electrically operated sliding doors.  The decorative rear skegs (borrowed from nautical use where there were functional) had been see on earlier show cars (notably the 1959 "twin bubbletop" Firebird III) and they appeared on the 1961-1962 Cadillacs in two versions: skeg short & skeg-long.

1958 Edsel Citation Convertible (left) and 1964 GM-X Stiletto, a General Motors (GM) "dream car" built for the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Most innovative however was a feature which wouldn’t reach volume production until well into the twenty-first century: Borrowing from the North American F86-D Sabre, two radomes were fitted at the front, housing antennae for a radar-operated collision avoidance system (ROCAS) which fed to the driver information on object which lay in the vehicle’s path including distance and the length it would take to brake, audible signals and a warning lights part of the package.  Unfortunately, as was often the case with the concept cars, the crash avoidance system didn't function, essentially because the electronics required for it to be useful would not for decades become available.  As the dagmars had, the Cyclone’s twin radomes attracted the inevitable comparisons but given the sensor and antennae technology of the time, two were apparently demanded although, had Cadillac more slavishly followed the F-86D and installed a single central unit, the response might have been even more ribald, the frontal styling of the doomed Edsel then still being derisively compared to female genitalia; cartoonists would have had fun with a Cyclone so equipped seducing an Edsel.  In 1964, there's never been anything to suggest GM's designers were thinking of the anatomical possibilities offered by an Edsel meeting a Stiletto.

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Radar

Radar (pronounced rey-dahr)

(1) In electronics, a device for determining the presence and location of an object by measuring the time for the echo of a radio wave to return from it and the direction from which it returns (originally the acronym RA(dio)D(etecting)A(nd)R(anging)).

(2) Collectively, the hardware & software used in such systems.

(3) Figuratively, a means or sense of awareness or perception.

(4) Modified as "gaydar", an informal description of one's ability to "sense" who might be "gay", the most refined systems with graduations including also: "a bit of a homosexual", "suspected homosexual", "possible homosexual" & "probable homosexual".  

1940–1945: An acronym (RADAR: RA(dio)D(etecting)A(nd)R(anging)), coined in the US and entering English as a word within years.  Specialized forms are created as needed (radar gun, radar zone, radar tower, radar trap etc); radar is a noun, verb & adjective; the noun plural is radars.  In English, whether a string of letters is an acronym, abbreviation, initialism or word is determined both by form and organic process and the strings can emerge in more than one category.

Although it wouldn’t for a few years be known as radar, the system first became well known (within a small community on both sides of the English Channel) in 1940 because the string of radar installations along the English coast played such a significant role in the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) defense during the Battle of Britain, the crucial air-war fought that summer.  What the radar did was to provide sufficient notice of an attack to enable RAF Fighter Command to react to threats in the right place at the right time (altitude was always a problem to assess) by “scrambling” squadrons of aircraft on stand-by rather than having to maintain constant patrols in the sky, something which rapidly would have diminished resources.  Other (presumably opportunistic) adoptions of RADAR noted by Acronym Finder include: Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (UK), Regional Alcohol and Drug Awareness Resource (US), Random Access Digital Audio Recorder (a 24-track digital multi-track recorder) Radical Arkansas (in political science, the immediate post-war years of Republican governance in the state of Arkanas following the US Civil War (1861-1865)), Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis Research Group (UK), Rational Assessment of Drugs and Research (Australia), Rassembler, Diffuser Les Archives de Révolutionnaires (Collect and Disseminate the Revolutionary Archives), (in French historiography the collection of material relating to the period following the French Revolution (1789) and since 2006 (a RaDAR Gazette) a site digitizing material & archives of the French workers' and revolutionary press (excluding the French Communist Party and satellite organizations), Register of Australian Drug and Alcohol Research (Australia), Rural AIDS and Development Action Research (South Africa), Radio Association Defending Airwave Rights (a US lobby group defending the rights of motorists to install and use radar detectors), & Reseau Afro-Asiatique pour le Developpement de l'Aviculture Rurale (Afro-Asian Network to develop rural poultry production).

RAF radar towers on the Channel Coast, 1940.

There was some criticism that after some early attacks on the radar installations, the Luftwaffe didn’t persist, much to their disadvantage as it transpired.  In fact, the early attacks were successful and for periods, the ground controllers substantially were “blind” but the Germans could only attack what they could see and this was the masts and wires along the coast, easily and quickly able to be repaired.  The Germans knew what the radar was doing and suspected the advantage it offered the defenders but because their early attacks on the towers and wires, although clearly destructive, appeared to do little to diminish the RAF’s ability to respond, they switched to other targets.  The towers and wires were actually just a part of a system, much of which was underground, and it was the connectivity between the controllers receiving & interpreting the radar data, the sector stations and the fighter squadrons which made the RAF so effective.  Technically, the way the British implemented radar was an inefficient "brute-force" approach but it worked well and was able to be built and repaired quickly.  RAF was also an interesting example of how acronyms are adapted for use.  The British traditionally sounded RAF as the letters R-A-F rather than “raff” but when the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was formed, they adopted the form “raff”, presumably as a point of differentiation and, the Australians being never fond of wasted effort, something like “R-double-A-F” would have been a bit much.

Although some have tried to be prescriptive about forms of use and for centuries others have published style guides and books of “rules”, English tends still to evolve organically and words, “rules” and conventions come and go; only the strong survive in this laboratory of linguistic Darwinism.  The transition of an acronym to a recognized "word" is an example of some of the processes involved and although the proliferation of acronyms is certainly a recent phenomenon, they’ve actually be around at least since Antiquity, their initial attractions being they saved space on the expensive material on which stuff was written, they meant a scribe or scholar saved time (some paid by the hour or even the characters used) and generally, they made texts easier to read.  However, in the West, it was during World War I (1914-1918) that the growth in the number of acronyms really began, the military taking to them with a glee which soon infected the rest of government.

Etymologists note the trend of construction beginning early in the twentieth century before the great spike during the Great War but the word acronym seems not to have entered English until 1943.  It was borrowed from the circa 1902 German Akronym, from the Ancient Greek κρον (ákron) (end, peak) & νυμα (ónuma) (name), the construct being acro- (high; beginning) + -(o)nym (name) and modeled after two other German nouns from semantics “homonym” (word with the same sound and spelling as another but different meaning) & Synonym (a word with the same meaning as another word).  For most of us, whatever looks like an acronym is an acronym among the specialists for who structural linguistics is a profession, a calling or an obsession (there’s often overlap), there are distinctions.  They will insist that an acronym is a construction which is always sounded as a word (eg UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization which is pronounced yoo-nes-koh) whereas one (certainly since the mid 1950s) where the letters are sounded as letters (eg BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation which is pronounced bee-bee-see) is an initialism.  Initialism actually had its own history: in mid-nineteenth century academic publishing it was used in the sense of “group of initial letters of an author's name (rather than the full name) atop a published paper” and an earlier term for what is now known as an initialism “alphabetic abbreviation”, dating from 1907.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover or Radar magazine, June-July 2007.  The last print-edition of Radar was in 2008; since 2009 it's been released on-line. 

For most folk their handling of such things has little to do with the structural distinctions but is more pragmatic and based on linguistic convenience and administrative convenience.  When typing, www makes more sense than “world wide web” yet in speech the full version is an economic three syllables, unlike the acronym which takes a time-consuming nine and is thus rare.  In the 1990s, “dub-dub-dub” was suggested as an alternative but it never caught on.  There are also situations where an acronym may be a homophone of another word so while ETA (the acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty), the armed left-wing separatist organization in Spain’s Basque Country) was pronounced etta, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (an armed secessionist movement of Bougainvilleans seeking independence from Papua New Guinea (PNG)) enjoyed the acronym BRA but it was never spoken as brah but always B-R-A.  So, the constructions which most regard as acronyms (or variations of the breed) consists of eleven types:

(1) Pronounced as a word, containing only initial letters (eg TIFF: True Image File Format; pronounced tif), (2) Pronounced as a word, the construct a mix of initial and non-initial letters (eg Radar: RA(dio)D(etecting)A(nd)R(anging); pronounced ray-dar), (3) Pronounced as a mix of letters and a word (eg JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group; pronounced jay-peg (although the variation jay-pee-gee is widespread because the file-name format used by CP/M in the 1970s and PC/MS-DOS in the 1980s in which file names used a string of up to eight characters, followed by a period, followed by an type-identifying file-name extension of up to three characters meant JPEGs were named filename.jpg), (4) Pronounced as a string of letters (eg BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation; pronounced bee-bee-see), (5) Pronounced as a string of letters, but with an interpolated verbal shortcut (eg National Health & Medical Research Council: NH&MRC; pronounced enn-aitch-and-emm-are-see), (6) A Shortcut incorporated into a name (eg SCO: the Santa Cruz Operation; pronounced sko) (7) The mnemonic (eg KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid; pronounced kiss), (8) The self-referential (eg TLA: Three Letter Acronym; pronounced tee-elle-eh), (9) The interpolated acronym (eg GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program; pronounced gimp), (10) Pseudo-acronyms (eg K9: pronounced key-nahyn (ie canine) which when sounded invoke a word or phrase (thus technically gramograms) and (11) The dreaded internally redundant acronym where a word (usually the last) is duplicated (eg ATM: Automated Teller Machine which is often used as ATM machine).  Despite the duplication, "ATM machine" seems to have entered the language so it's unusual in that in English the trend usually is to eliminate words where possible so forms are shorter.

The ATM machine might be OK if ATM had become a word (a la radar) but it never did.  Why some acronyms enter English as genuine stand-alone words while others never do is influence by a number of things but there are certainly no defined rules:

(1) Frequency of Use: If an acronym is used widely and frequently it can come to be accepted as a word: Thus, while NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics never reached critical mass, it’s successor organization NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) certainly did.

(2) Ease of use: The effortlessness with something rolls off the tongue will influence acceptance.  Radar and scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) both benefited from this but sometimes an acronym’s creators may have wished they’d thought of something less amenable: In 1972, Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) campaign staff created the "Committee to Re-elect the President" which they abbreviated to CRP but the (usually hostile) press of course prefered CREEP and that's how it's remembered.  As it turned out, the journalists were right; in addition to fund-raising, printing flyers and producing bumper stickers, CREEP also engaged in back-channel deals and dirty-tricks operations.

(3) Portability: If an acronym is used in ways other than for the original purpose, it’s more likely to become a word.  Radar came to be used in many figurative ways and even spawned the imaginative “gaydar” (a portmanteau word, a blend of gay + (ra)dar, a colloquialism describing an individual’s (deductive or intuitive) ability to identify another as gay when it’s not immediately obvious through visual or other clues.

(4) Lexical Adaptation: The more an acronym can be adapted to fit standard grammatical rules, the more quickly it might be accepted as a word; laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) & radar both quickly came into use as nouns.

(5) Duration of use: The longer an acronym is in use, the more likely it will become ingrained in the lexicon.  Of course notoriety can transcend time: The Nazi Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police)) existed for barely a dozen years but remains so notorious it’s part of language, used especially in political discourse when critiquing the powers of the state.

(6) The lexicographical imprimatur: If the editors of dictionaries accept a word and grant it an entry, there’s probably no more significant step for an acronym on the way to word-hood.  Of course, an entry in an established publication (preferably one with at least a history of print editions) suggests legitimacy in a way that on-line versions curated by users may not but English in such matters also works by acclamation and it may be some acronyms which became words really did first appear in the very often helpful Urban Dictionary.

Friday, February 9, 2024

Blip

Blip (pronounced blip)

(1) A spot of light on a radar screen indicating the position of a plane, submarine, or other object (also as pip); any similar use on other electronic equipment such as an oscilloscope.

(2) By adoption from the use in radar (and applied very loosely), any small spot of light on a display screen.

(3) In any tracked metric (typically revenue, sales etc), a brief and usually unexpected.

(4) In general use, an aberration, something unexpected and (usually) fleeting (often in the expression “blip on the radar).

(5) In electronic transmissions (audible signals), a pip or bleep (also both onomatopoeic of short, single-pitch sounds).

(6) By extension, any low level, repetitive sound (rare).

(7) In the slang of software developers, a minor bug or glitch (retrospectively dubbed blips if promptly fixed (or re-labeled as “a feature”)).

(8) A specific data object (individual message or document) in the now defunct Google Wave software framework.

(9) In informal use, to move or proceed in short, irregular movements.

(10) In automotive use, briefly to apply the throttle when downshifting, to permit smoother gear-changing (the origin in the days of pre-synchromesh gearboxes, especially when straight-cut gears were used) and still used in competition to optimize performance but most instances by drivers of road cars are mere affectations (used as noun & verb).

(11) In informal use, abruptly to change a state (light to dark; on to off etc), sometimes implying motion.

(12) In broadcast media (and sometimes used on-line), to replace offensive or controversial words with a tone which renders them inaudible (a synonym of “bleep”, both words used in this contexts as nouns (a bleep) and verbs (to bleep out).  In live radio & TV, a junior producer or assistant was usually the designated “blipper” or “bleeper”.

1894: An onomatopoeic creation of sound symbolism, the speculation being it may have been based on the notion of “blink” (suggesting brevity) with the -p added to bli- as symbolic of an abrupt end, the original idea to capture the experience of a “popping sound”.  The use describing the sight and sound generated by radar equipment was first documented in 1945 but may have been in use earlier, the public dissemination of information about the technology restricted until the end of World War II (1939-1945).  The verbs (blipped & blipping) came into use in 1924 & 1925 respectively while the first documented use of the noun blipper dates from 1966 although “bleeper” appeared some fifteen year earlier and the role was acknowledge as early as the 1930s.  Blip is a noun & verb, blipped & blipping are verbs and blippy, blippier & blippiest are adjectives; the noun plural is blips.

The blipster

One unrelated modern portmanteau noun was blipster, the construct a blend of b(lack) + (h)ipster, used to refer to African-Americans (and presumably certain other peoples of color (PoC)) who have adopted the visual clues of hipster culture.  Whether the numbers of blipsters represent the sort of critical mass usually associated with the recognition of sub-cultures isn’t clear but as in medicine where a novel condition does not need to be widely distributed (something suffered even by a single patient can be defined and named as a syndrome), the coining of blipster could have been inspired by seeing just one individual who conformed to being (1) African American and (2) appearing in some ways to conform to the accepted parameters of hipsterism.  Labeling theory contains reservations about this approach but for etymologists it’s fine although there is always the risk of a gaboso (generalized observation based on single observation).  Predictably, there is debate about what constitutes authentic blipsterism because there are objections by some activists to PoCs either emulating sub-cultures identified as “white” or taking self-defining interest in aspects of that culture (such as those associated with hipsterism).  What seems to be acceptable is a stylistic fusion as long as the fashions are uniquely identifiable as linkable with traditional (ie modern, urban) African-American culture and the cultural content includes only black poets, hip-hop artists etc.

The Blipvert

The construct of blipvert (also historically blip-vert) was blip + vert.  Vert in this context was a clipping of advertisement (from the Middle French advertissement (statement calling attention)), the construct being advertise +‎ -ment.  The -ment suffix was from the Middle English -ment, from the Late Latin -amentum, from -mentum which came via Old French -ment.  It was used to form nouns from verbs, the nouns having the sense of "the action or result of what is denoted by the verb".  The suffix is most often attached to the stem without change, except when the stem ends in -dge, where the -e is sometimes dropped (abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, lodgement etc), with the forms without -e preferred in American English.  The most widely known example of the spelling variation is probably judgment vs judgement.  In modern use, judgement is said to be a "free variation" word where either spelling is considered acceptable as long as use is consistent.  Like enquiry vs inquiry, this can be a handy where a convention of use can be structured to impart great clarity: judgment used when referring to judicial rulings and judgement for all other purposes although the approach is not without disadvantage given one might write of the judgement a judge exercised before delivering their judgment.  To those not aware of the convention, it could look just like a typo.

As both word and abbreviation “vert” has a number of historic meanings.  One form was from the Middle English vert, from Old French vert, from Vulgar Latin virdis (green; young, fresh, lively, youthful) (syncopated from Classical Latin viridis)  In now archaic use it meant (1) green undergrowth or other vegetation growing in a forest, as a potential cover for deer and (2) in feudal law a right granted to fell trees or cut shrubs in a forest.  The surviving use is in heraldry where it describes a shade of green, represented in engraving by diagonal parallel lines 45 degrees counter-clockwise.  As an abbreviation, it's used of vertebrate, vertex & vertical and as a clipping of convertible, used almost exclusively by members of the Chevrolet Corvette cult in the alliterative phrase "Vette vert", a double clipping from (Cor)vette (con)vert(ible).

Vette vert: 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 convertible which sold at auction in 2013 at Mecum Dallas for US$3,424,000, a bit short of the L88 coupé which the next year realized US$3,850,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale; that remains the record price paid for a Corvette at auction.  The L88 used a 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 with a single four barrel carburetor, tuned to produce between 540-560 (gross) horsepower although for official purposes it was rated at 430, slightly less than the advertised output of the L71 427 which, with three two barrel carburettors was the most powerful version recommended for “street” use.  The L88 was essentially a race-ready power-plant, civilized only to the extent cars which used it could be registered for road use but, demanding high-octane fuel available only in a limited number of locations and not offered with creature comforts like air-conditioning, it really was meant only for race tracks or drag strips.  For technical reasons, L71 buyers couldn’t order air-conditioning either but were at least allowed to have a radio, something the noise generated by the L88 would anyway have rendered mostly redundant.

When humans emulated CGI: Max Headroom, 1986, background by Amiga 1000.

A blipvert is a very brief advertisement (a duration of one second or less now the accepted definition although originally they could three times as long).  The concept first attracted widespread attention in the 1980s when it was an element in the popular television show Max Headroom, a production interesting for a number of reasons as well as introducing “blipvert” to a wide audience.  In Max Headroom, blipverts were understood as high-intensity television commercials which differed from the familiar form in that instead of being 20, 30 or 60 seconds long, they lasted but three, the line being they were a cynical device to discourage viewers from switching channels (“channel surfing” not then a term in general use).  The character Max Headroom (actually an actor made up to emulate something rendered with CGI (computer generated imagery)) was said to be pure software which had attained (or retained from the downloaded “copy” of the mind taken from a man killed after running into a “Max Headroom” warning sign in a car park) some form of consciousness and had decided to remain active within the television station’s computer network.  In this, the TV show followed a popular trope from science fiction, one which now underpins many of the warnings (not all by conspiracy theorists) about the implications of AI (artificial intelligence).  Although a creation of prosthetics rather than anything digital, the technique was made convincing by using a background generated on an Amiga 1000 (1985), a modest machine by today’s standards but a revelation at the time because not only was the graphics handling much better than on many more expensive workstations but even by 1990, despite what IBM and Microsoft were telling us, running multi-tasking software was a better experience on any Amiga than trying it on a PS/2 running OS/2.

On television, the stand-alone blipvert never became a mainstream advertising form because (1) it was difficult, (2) as devices to stimulate demand in most cases they appeared not to work and (3) the networks anyway discouraged it but the idea was immensely influential as an element in longer advertisements and found another home in the emerging genre of the music video, the technique perfected by the early 1990s; it was these uses which saw the accepted duration reduced from three seconds to one.  To the MTV generation (and their descendents on YouTube and TikTok), three seconds became a long time and prolonged exposure to the technique presumably improved the ability of those viewers to interpret such messages although that may have been as the cost of reducing the attention span.  Both those propositions are substantially unproven although it does seem clear the “video content generations” do have a greater ability to decode and interpret imagery which is separate for any explanatory text.  That is of course stating the obvious; someone who reads much tends to become better at interpreting words than those who read little.  Still, the blipvert has survived, the advertising industry finding them especially effective if used as a “trigger” to reference a memory created by something earlier presented in some form and those who find them distasteful because they’re so often loud and brash just don’t get it; that’s the best way they’re effective.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell (b 1943)) being re-sensitised (blipvert by blipvert) in Stanley Kubrick's (1928-1999) file adaptation of A Clockwork Orange (1971).

The concept of the blipvert is sometimes attributed to US science fiction (SF) writer Joe Haldeman (b 1943) who described something close to the technique in his novel Mindbridge (1976) and it’s clearly (albeit in longer form) used in the deprogramming sessions in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962) but use predates both books.  In 1948, encouraged by their success in countering the Partito Comunista d'Italia (PCd'I; the Communist Party of Italy) in elections in the new Italian republic (the success achieved with a mix of bribery, propaganda, disinformation and some of the other tricks of electoral interference to which US politicians now so object when aimed at US polls), the newly formed US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) turned their attentions to France where the perception of threat was even greater because the infiltration of the press, trade unions, universities, the military and many other organs of state was rife.  The US was well-placed to run effective propaganda campaigns because, uniquely in devastated, impoverished Europe, it could distribute the cubic money required to buy advertising space & airtime, employ cooperative journalists, trade union leaders & professors and even supply scarce commodities like newsprint and ink.  To try to avoid accusations of anything nefarious (and such suggestions were loud, frequent and often not without foundation) much of the activity was conducted as part of Marshall Plan Aid, the post-war recovery scheme with which the US revived post-war European economies with an injection of (what would in 2024 US$ terms) be something like US$182 billion.  As well as extensively publicizing the benefits of non-communist life compared with the lot of those behind the iron curtain, the CIA published books and other pieces by defectors from the Soviet Union.  One novelty of what quickly became an Anglo-American psychological operation (the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE) having honed successful techniques during wartime) was the use of 2-3 second blipverts spliced into film material supplied under the Marshall Plan.  The British were well aware the French were especially protective of what appeared in cinemas and would react unfavourably to blatant propaganda while they might treat something similar in print with little more than a superior, cynical smile.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The blipvert is sometimes grouped with subliminal advertising and that’s convenient but they’re different both in practice and definitionally and the rule of thumb can be expressed as (1) if it can (briefly) be seen it’s a blipvert and (2) if it can’t be seen it’s subliminal.  No doubt media studies academics (of which there seem now to be many) could punch holes in that and cite a dozen or more exceptions but as a definition it at least hints in the right direction.  What subliminal advertising involves is the presentation of understandable information (which can be images, sound or text) at a level below the conscious awareness of the viewer, the idea being (unlike the confrontational blipvert) to bypass conscious perception.  The extent to which subliminal messaging is an effective way to influence consumer behaviour is debated (as is the notion of whether it’s manipulative and unethical) but the continued use of the technique in political campaigns does suggest that in that specialized field of consumer behaviour, there must be many convinced of the efficacy.  Certainly it appears to work although the less subtle forms are quickly deconstructed and critiqued, such as the sudden adoption in sports, almost as soon as tobacco advertising was banned, of color schemes triggering memories of cigarette packets.

A Marlboro Man lights up.  The "Marlboro 100s" in the gold & white pack were so-named because each stick was 100 mm (4 inch) long.

After some years of prevarication, in 2005 the European Union (EU) banned tobacco advertising “in the print media, on radio and over the internet” at the same prohibiting “tobacco sponsorship of cross-border cultural and sporting events”.  Making unlawful the promotion of a known carcinogen responsible over a lifetime of use for shortening lifespan (on average) by just under a decade sounds now uncontroversial but at the time it had been bitterly contested by industry.  Of interest to some was that despite the introduction of the laws being known for some two years, only couple of months earlier, Ferrari had signed a fifteen year, billion dollar sponsorship deal with Philip Morris, best known for their Marlboro cigarette and “Marlboro Man” advertising campaign which featured a variety of men photographed in outdoor settings, five of whom ultimately died of smoking-related diseases.

Variations on a theme of red & white.  Ferrari Formula One cars: F2007 (2007) in Marlboro livery (left), F10 (2010) with "bar code" (centre) and F14 (2014) in post bar-code scheme.

Ferrari’s lawyers took their fine-toothed legal combs to the problem and came up with a way to outsmart the eurocrats.  The Formula One (F1) cars Scuderia Ferrari ran began to appear in what had become the traditional red & white livery (the same combination used on Marlboro’s signature packets) but in the space where once had been displayed the Marlboro logo, there was instead a stylized “bar code”.  In response to a number of accusations (including many by those in the medical community) that the team was guilty of “backdoor advertising” of cigarettes, in 2008 a statement on the company website said it was “baffled”:

"Today and in recent weeks, articles have been published relating to the partnership contract between Scuderia Ferrari and Philip Morris International, questioning its legality.  These reports are based on two suppositions: that part of the graphics featured on the Formula 1 cars are reminiscent of the Marlboro logo and even that the red colour which is a traditional feature of our cars is a form of tobacco publicity.  Neither of these arguments have any scientific basis, as they rely on some alleged studies which have never been published in academic journals. But more importantly, they do not correspond to the truth.  "The so-called barcode is an integral part of the livery of the car and of all images coordinated by the Scuderia, as can be seen from the fact it is modified every year and, occasionally even during the season. Furthermore, if it was a case of advertising branding, Philip Morris would have to own a legal copyright on it.  "The partnership between Ferrari and Philip Morris is now only exploited in certain initiatives, such as factory visits, meetings with the drivers, merchandising products, all carried out fully within the laws of the various countries where these activities take place. There has been no logo or branding on the race cars since 2007, even in countries where local laws would still have permitted it.  The premise that simply looking at a red Ferrari can be a more effective means of publicity than a cigarette advertisement seems incredible: how should one assess the choice made by other Formula 1 teams to race a car with a predominantly red livery or to link the image of a driver to a sports car of the same colour? Maybe these companies also want to advertise smoking!  It should be pointed out that red has been the recognised colour for Italian racing cars since the very beginning of motor sport, at the start of the twentieth century: if there is an immediate association to be made, it is with our company rather than with our partner.

When red & white was just the way Scuderia Ferrari painted their race cars: The lovely, delicate lines of the 1961 Ferrari Typo 156 (“sharknose”), built for Formula One's “voiturette” (1.5 litre) era (1961-1965), Richie Ginther (1930–1989), XXIII Grosser Preis von Deutschland (German Grand Prix), Nürburgring Nordschleife, August 1961.

The suggestion was of course that this was subliminal marketing (actually unlawful in the EU since the late 1950s) the mechanics being that Ferrari knew this would attract controversy and the story was that at speed, when the bar code was blurred, it resembled the Marlboro logo; racing cars do go fast but no evidence was ever produced to demonstrate the phenomenon happened in real world conditions, either when viewed at the tracks or in televised coverage.  It was possible using software to create a blurred version of the shape and there was a vague resemblance to the logo but that wasn’t the point, as a piece of subliminal marketing it worked because viewers had been told the bar code would in certain circumstances transform into a logo and even though it never did, the job was done because Marlboro was on the mind of many and doubtlessly more often than ever during the years when the logo actually appeared.  So, job done and done well, midway in the 2010 season, Ferrari dropped the “bar code”, issuing a press release: “By this we want to put an end to this ridiculous story and concentrate on more important things than on such groundless allegations.

Friday, February 25, 2022

Phalanx

Phalanx (pronounced fey-langks or fal-angks)

(1) In Hellenic Greece, a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping.

(2) A body of troops in close array.

(3) A compact or closely massed body of persons, animals or things, usually united or aligned for a common purpose.

(4) A radar-controlled 20mm Gatling-type gun deployed on US Navy ships as a last line of defense against cruise missiles.

(5) In Fourierism, a group of about 1800 persons, living together and holding their property in common.

(6) In anatomy and zoology, any of the bones of the fingers or toes (the related adjective phalangeal).

(7) In printing, to arrange the distribution of work in a production house as evenly as possible.

(8) In botany, a bundle of stamens, joined together by their stalks (filaments).

(9)A form of vegetative spread in which the advance is on a broad front, as in the common reed.

1550s: From the Latin phalanx from phalangis & phalangem (compact body of heavily armed men in battle array) derived from Greek phalanx (genitive phalangos) (line of battle, battle array).  The origin of the use as a descriptor of finger or toe bone (originally "round piece of wood, trunk, log”) is unknown, most often thought to be from the from Old English balca (balk), from the primitive Indo-European root bhelg (plank, beam).  In anatomy, a phalanx was originally the whole row of finger joints, which fit together like infantry in close order.  The rare adjectival forms were phalangeal & phalangic.  The figurative sense of "number of persons banded together in a common cause" is attested from 1600, the most recent adaptation probably the 1937 Spanish Falangist, (a member of the fascist organization founded in 1933), from the Spanish Falange (Española) (Spanish), from the Latin phalanx.

Phalanx terminology.

The Macedonian military formation known as a phalanx consisted in theory of fifty close files, sixteen ranks deep, the men clad in armor, bearing shields, armed with swords and spears between 21 - 24 feet (6.4-7.3 m) in length.  In array, the shields formed a continuous bulwark, the ranks placed at such intervals that five spears which were borne pointed forward and upward protected every man in the front rank.  Properly handled, on level ground and with its flanks and rear adequately protected, the phalanx was a formidable formation but was cumbrous and slow in movement, and if once broken could only with great difficulty be reformed.  It was thus dependent on high-quality leadership and highly-trained troops and was notably vulnerable when, as inevitably happens under battlefield conditions, it was assembled, sometimes hastily, with whatever resources were available.

Phalanx live fire test, USS Monterey, November 2008.

Designed essentially to meet any incoming missile with a “wall of metal”, the Phalanx CIWS began life as a close-in weapon system installed on naval warships as defense against anti-ship missiles. Developed and manufactured by the General Dynamics Corporation’s Pomona Division (now a part of Raytheon), it’s based around a radar-guided 20 mm (0.79 in) Vulcan cannon mounted on a swiveling base and is used by more than a dozen navies on every class of surface combat ship.  The reliability and flexibility attracted wider interest and a land based variant known as C-RAM has been developed, deployed in a short range missile defense role to counter incoming rockets and even artillery fire.  The early models were (hydraulic driven) with a fire rate of 3,000 rounds per minute (rpm) and the magazine drum had a capacity of 989 rounds while the later, pneumatically driven modes fire at a rate of 4,500 rpm from a 1,550-round magazine.  Each round costs about US$30 and typically between 100-200 are expended during each targeting.  A combination of the appearance of the distinctive, barrel-shaped, radar dome (radome) and the automated operation, meant the Phalanx CIWS units soon attracted the nicknamed "R2-D2", named after the droid from the film Star Wars (1977).

Lindsay Lohan's fractured Phalanx

During an Aegean cruise in October 2016, Lindsay Lohan suffered a finger injury.  In this dreadful nautical incident, the tip of one digit was severed by the boat's anchor chain but details of the circumstances are sketchy although there was speculation that upon hearing the captain give the command “weigh anchor”, she decided to help but, lacking any background in admiralty jargon, misunderstood the instruction.

Detached chunk of a distal digit was salvaged from the deck and expertly re-attached by a micro-surgeon ashore, digit and the rest of the patient said to have both made full recoveries.  Despite the injury, Ms Lohan still managed to find a husband so all's well that ends well.