Book Review; Have Space Suit, Will Travel

You might think that I would get tired of Heinlein, but nah. To tell you the truth, when I was younger I didn't care for Heinlein too much. As I get older and crankier (or as I slowly morph into my father 2.0), Heinlein's writings speak to me more and more. The times, they are a changin'. Good to see that so many of his novels are available on the Kindle for a pittance, otherwise I'd ultimately end up trying to figure out where to put 30 some odd Heinlein novels.

It's easy to figure out why I liked this one. Imagine that you had this career choice that sung to you, but no real way to get from where you are to where you want to be. How do you get there? Or do you get there at all? That's the whole point of the book, in a nutshell.. A high school kid trying to make his way forward in the world, armed only with guts, intellect, and raw effort. Heinlein always tries to make the point that these things pay off in the long haul, despite how things look at any given moment.

Have Space Suit, Will Travel is one of Heinlein's Juveniles, a series of books written especially for young men and women. To that end it is kind of a watered down version of normal R.H., but make no mistake! This book is an adventure yarn, and Heinlein makes no bones about throwing in lots of technical details. He even slips in his criticisms of the (then) current generation of spacesuits and how they could be improved. He also chucks in some quick math problems, and note scales. He really did seem to think that the average high school student should have an excellent grasp on Physics, Calculus, Latin, and possess a wide variety of journeyman level skills (electronics, navigation, mechanics etc).

Guess I should brush up on my Latin.

Given that this book is many decades old now, it was as expected rather devoid of grammatical, spelling, or other editorial errors that can make reading books more of a chore than a pleasure. R.H. did rely on some technological deus ex machina in order to advance the plot on several occasions, but I'll allow it because he does make some attempt to explain geometrically how a ship could travel across the universe breaking lightspeed laws by traveling linearly in a noneuclidean fashion (has to do with the curvature of the universe and space-time, as well as extra-dimensional travel). Plot devices with an attempt at explanation trump plot devices with no apparent explanation every time.

I'd rate this book on my standardized bell curve about a 57 or so. It was better than the average book, but not enough to put in the realm of some of my more favorite R.H. novels, like Starship Troopers or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Aw, Jeez.

Youch. That's a damned shame, such a pretty car.

Emptying my Pockets

Ran into this article a while ago while doing my normal blog readings. The gist here is that civilians tend to be significantly better on a statistical level at hitting their intended targets, capturing bad guys after shootouts, get wounded less often, and mistake innocent bystanders for the criminals less often. Good reading.

Foot note to TTAG, your math is bad, and you should feel bad.

(4702 bullets fired - 323 ND's) * .78 Miss Rate = ~3415 bullets fired at suspects and missed.

3415 + 323 ND's = 3738 Total Number of Missed Rounds

3738 Total Missed Rounds/4702 Total Rounds Fired = 79.5% Total Miss Rate

100% - 79.5% = 20.5% Total Hit Rate for NY Police

*This is under the assumption that the study removed the ND's from the total number of bullets fired to boost the NYPD's accuracy rating.

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Here's a well written article on the logical fallacy of orienting maps Northwards, what we can do about it, and what the likely outcomes of making any changes would be. I can't help but think that this is an extremely cool but really impractical idea, just from the standpoint of trying to change a globally standardized and accepted method of displaying maps. 

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Never be surprised when bureaucracy is idiotic. That's it's natural state. 

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Pretty dang cool article on why the commonly held theory of the passive continental margin is probably wrong. The way the earth moves is just more complicated than we had originally thought, and I'm glad to see modeling that takes that into account.

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The perils of letting computers do too much of our thinking. A good read, but since higher efficiency is always the ultimate goal, quite a few more things will become the domain of algorithms in the future. Should break points for life and death decisions be put in so that the outcome is determined by a human operator? Absolutely.

My Top 10 Survival Tools

Again, your mileage may vary.

1.) Firestarter (any, and two different types)
2.) A belt knife, full or quarter tang. Rambo knives need not apply. Look for at least a five inch blade, and good retention on the hilt. Make sure you toss a sharpening stone into your kit.
3.) A multi-tool. Make sure it has a saw, scissors, and pliers. A leather awl is a bonus.
4.) A sportsman's emergency blanket. Two of them. One for shelter, the other as a blanket.
5.) 100 feet of true paracord. Shelter building, trapping, nets etc.
6.) A container for boiling water. Quart sized or better. I like the liter sized stainless steel bottles.
7.) A decently stocked first aid kit. Leave room for basic medications.
8.) Several large bandanas. For treating wounds, cooling off, and protecting your head from the sun.
9.) A food gathering kit, including snare wire and fishing gear. Just line, hooks, sinkers, floats, and a few lures.
10.) Gloves. A good pair of impact or cut resistant gloves are more than worth their weight. Hard to do anything without the use of your hands.

My Top 10 Survival Capabilities

Some things to bear in mind; I'm not a survival expert or some sort of guru. I'm not a military trained badass of any kind. I haven't spent extensive time in varied climates. However, these are my opinions and thus far in the relative wilds of North Carolina they have served me well. This list is subject revision as I gain experience, but I believe that it covers the basics pretty well.

1.) The will to live
2.) The ability to think clearly under stress
3.) The ability to create fire using modern and primitive techniques
4.) The ability to create an edged implement
5.) The ability to create a brush shelter out of found materials
6.) The ability to filter & purify water using a variety of methods
7.) The ability to create cordage and tie a variety of knots (rope craft)
8.) The ability to create and set simple snares and traps, and fish
9.) The ability to provide emergency first aid and preventative care
10.) The ability to signal for rescue using both modern and primitive techniques

This list is in a loose order of priority, but priorities have a way of changing based on actual field conditions. If you can signal for rescue, and expect it relatively quickly then you should do so. Active bleeding should be stopped prior to doing anything etc. Just use this list as a guideline and think for yourself.