Seventy Years Ago: August 30 1942 - A Marine Fighter Pilot's Story

Brad DeLong has an excerpt on his economics blog of a marine fighter pilot's exploits on Guadalcanal. Pretty exciting stuff. DeLong also has a link to the entire account from which it was drawn. Well worth reading.

Clearly, the Japanese Zero was a great fighter plane, but by no means invincible.

Japanese torpedoes, on the other hand....

Photo Below Is a Marine F-4-F at Henderson Field With 19 Japanese Flags
 

Wars And Rumors Of War

Did I hear John McCain last night say we should go to war with Russia, Iran and Syria to free the Syrian people? I think that's what I heard.

Sometimes political figures get carried away with their rhetoric.

Convention

I've been watching the Republican convention. So far, it has been in all respects conventional.

I confess, I miss the conventions of my youth, where nominations were actually made and the presidential election didn't get started until after Labor Day. In general, I don't think the takeover of the nominating process by primaries has improved the functioning of democracy. On the other hand, certain reforms in both parties have opened up the nominating process to groups (women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans) formerly left out of the smoke-filled rooms.

This convention has been particularly marked by homilies about individualism, self-reliance, education, and building small businesses.

I have been struck by the number of speakers extolling their immigrant grandparents who arrived with nothing and built businesses.

I don't have a statistical breakdown, but I noticed that many of those who worked hard to complete their education did so under the GI Bill or various government grants. Those who started businesses often borrowed money from the SBA. Or from parents or uncles. Or used other government programs.

I don't recall much specific mention of land grant colleges or federal and state roles in creating our railroad system, ports and waterways. These were all essential to the opportunities our immigrant ancestors found when they arrived.

Why elevate our small businessmen to a pedestal and pay no attention to the craftsmen, teachers, salesmen, soldiers, sailors, nurses, physician's assistants, union members and others whose interest is doing a good day's work for a fair wage and raising a good family?

Just saying.

Seventy Years Ago: Tokyo Express

After failure of two major efforts to retake Guadalcanal with large naval fleets and fleet carriers, Japan started what became known as the Tokyo Express on August 28.

The plan was to resupply the Japanese garrison and land reinforcements from high speed destroyers converted to transport duty. By using high speed ships, they could carry troops and supplies and return to their bases during a single night, avoiding daytime attacks by allied aircraft.

The scheme wasn't immediately successful. On August 28, Marine SBD Dauntless dive bombers sank Japanese destroyer Asagiri and damaged three more. Surviving ships were unable to land troops and supplies and returned to base.

It's An Ill Wind That Blows No Good

I'm watching the track of hurricane Isaac as it heads up the Mississippi valley. Maybe in the process it will deposit enough rainfall to let the freight barges move more easily downriver. Good for the economy, even if it is mostly too late for the crops in the Midwest.

Seventy Years Ago: New Guinea

While the US and Japanese navies were fighting it out near Guadalcanal, the Japanese army had not given up on New Guinea. On August 25, Japanese forces occupy three small islands at the Southeast tip of New Guinea. On August 26, they invaded Milne Bay on New Guinea's Southeast coast.

August 27th, large numbers of US aircraft began arriving regularly at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Henderson Field was increasingly the strategic linchpin of US operations in the Southwest Pacific area.

Look And Feel: Software Patents

Yesterday a federal court jury decided in favor of Apple and against Samsung in a lawsuit over patents in the smart phone industry. The real target, though, is apparently Google and its Android software. The claim, upheld by the jury, is that the Samsung phone copied the "look and feel" of Apple's iPhone.

Go back in time twenty-five years.

In 1987, Lotus Corporation, whose 1-2-3 spreadsheet dominated the PC industry under the MS-Dos operating system, sued three smaller software companies for having copied the "look and feel" of the Lotus spreadsheet. The three companies were Paperback Software, whose low cost "VP Planner" had significant functional improvements over other spreadsheets, including 1-2-3 and Excel; Mosaic, and Borland's Quattro.

I had used three of the four spreadsheets involved, and at the time was using VP Planner for my own spreadsheets. VP Planner had introduced a "three dimensional" feature to spreadsheets and was significantly better at printing spreadsheets on dot matrix printers than 1-2-3. Borland's product, too, was more convenient for users than 1-2-3.

Lotus, in turn, had clearly appropriated the look and feel of the Visicalc spreadsheet as it operated under the CP/M operating system.

I thought at the time that "look and feel" was a defective concept and I resented Lotus' attempts to protect market share by lawsuit rather than by improving the product. Although Lotus won against Paperback Software, who went out of business, they lost the case against Borland. I suspect Borland won, not because their case had more merit, but because their pockets were deeper. Anyhow, I never again purchased a Lotus product.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for protection of intellectual property, but I think in important respects patent law has got out of hand. When a company can patent a person's blood cells because they did research on them, that's out of hand. When companies get to patent icons that are common representations, that is out of hand.

Shame on you, Apple!

Do We Need More Rain?

Has it been forty days and forty nights yet?