Fill her Up..

 When I first dipped my toes into inland navigation, I once embarked on a few zig-zagging trips aboard the local country boat ferries, known as “Bhutbhuti,” on the Brahmaputra in Guwahati. After my earlier failed attempts to engage with country boat operators and nearly getting tossed out by hostile crews, I took a different approach. I played the role of a clueless NRI( Indian residing abroad), out on a nostalgia trip in my hometown. With a big, stupid grin, obsessively clicking everything with my mobile, I asked the most naive questions, looking every bit like a harmless tourist.

 

 

A new government subsidized marine engine in a Country Boat Ferry,

but it still doesn't plug the leaks 

 

 What I saw on those trips wasn't eye-opening as I had seen it all before. The boats were all flooded up to the floorboards. Their propeller shafts, connected to old lorry engines serving as power plants, were so poorly sealed, that they practically poured water into the hull. When I innocently asked, “Why not pump the water out?” I got a surprising answer: “The water toughens up the wood!” 

The reality, of course, is quite the opposite. Constant exposure to water rots the wood, and that's why these boats crumble like matchsticks in every riverboat accident. These boats are made with reverse clinker hull constructions, where planks are nailed atop one another with an overlap, and the gaps are filled with rope and tar. Keeping the wood damp is part of their sealing process — the wood swells, closing the gaps. However, these boats leak at virtually every joint due to poor craftsmanship. But, it took me another half-decade of working in this field to understand why they keep their boats flooded. Most of the reasons are unknown even to the operators themselves.

1. Their design is inherently flawed, making the boats unstable. The water load inside acts as ballast, somewhat improving stability. But it comes at a huge cost — increasing the boat's weight, reducing speed, lowering the waterline, and making them prone to capsizing as the water inside shifts when the boat tilts.

2. There's a deeply ingrained belief that a heavier boat is a more stable and safer boat, a belief that has persisted for centuries. This thinking has even carried over to metal ferry builders and many naval architects. The result? It's not only the Country Boats, but inefficient steel monstrosities, consuming insane amounts of fuel, that continue to dominate our waterways for decades.

 

Water up to the floor boards, a characteristic 

of all wooden country boat ferries.

Crow Strike

 

 

 

 

My two cents on the Crow-Strike episode. Like a crow shit bombing your head, events of this magnitude rarely take place by fluke, but after meticulous planning. Compare it with the Stuxnet attack for perspective. Considering that a worldwide media hysteria has not been racked up for blaming Russians and Chinese, without any evidence of course, what are the alternative scenarios?

Remember, it's the same company that claimed that Putin hacked the DNC servers, again without providing a shred of evidence. A claim weaponized by team Hillary and taken to a point of frenzy by the pro-Democrat US mass media.

The current cybersecurity event is most likely a result of the infighting in the Democrat Camp and the US Deep State. Whether a coincidence or not, it took place just days after a Manchurian Candidate failed to assassinate Trump. While Biden withdrew his Presidential candidature the very next day.

Whether as a show of strength or an-arm twisting maneuver, it cost billions to very unhappy investors and businesses. A cyber 911 if you will, that is, unless you are still  drinking the US official Kool-Aid narrative and watching the poorly doctored videos of planes crashing into buildings.

And who is better for the job, than a very murky, US government-connected cybersecurity company with a couple of Russo-American Jewish founders (Déjà vu) with deep Democratic Party and WEF links, to hang millions of computers with an "Oops" update?

Crow-Strike co-founder Kurtz already has experience bricking tens of thousands of computers while working as the CTO of McAfee in 2010. His co-Founder and fellow Jewish (a coincidence I am sure) Alperovitch has since left the company and is functioning as Democrat/Deep State anti-Russia and anti-China hawk and mouthpiece, as well as self-styled geopolitical expert and a WEF stooge.

As for the overlap in other countries like India? 

Well, let's use the favorite American term..." Collateral Damage"!

Anyway, serves these Desi and other corporations right for blindly using a US monopolistic giant's substandard IT products when there are better, safer alternatives. One whose founder is incidentally more interested in promoting dubious vaccines and pandemic fearmongering than code? 

Conspiracy theory, antisemitism, denial, or just connecting dots to figure out the obvious. 

A Crow Strike it was...

Where's your Degree, Imposter ?

 

 Someone wrote a long LinkedIn post about the importance of a good educational record for furthering a corporate career.
 
I won't delve into the pros and cons of that view, as I chose to respect the current results, competence and the ability to take a challenge headlong, and not for what someone mugged up a decade or more back or the grades received.
 
I have repaired, rectified and corrected  Fuck-Ups ( for lack of a more genteel expression) of enough pompous and incompetent professionals (from Structural and Combustion Engineers to Marine Engineers and Naval Architects) who never fail to remind others of their prestigious Alma Mater, to have any respect for alumni of high ranking educational institution.

Nonetheless, experience has taught me that there is another side of the coin as well.
 
Recently, in a (nowadays) rare episode, I had a massive flare-up with a client whose IIT Rubber stamp Naval Architect conveniently overlooked drawing and providing diagrams of the hydraulic steering assembly for which I had to stay up the whole night to make them. I already had to rectify about 8-9 serious design lapses, which including regulatory violations, an anchor 5-times the required weight and a power generation capacity, trice the load. 

 

The client meanwhile, without informing me, made a backup plan by hiring a hydraulic Mechanic - a semi-literate know-all who considered looking at my diagrams or the product installation manual a waste of time and immediately demonstrated that he had no clue how to do the job. The result was that the project, already having an impossible deadline, was further delayed by another 5–6 days, and I effectively washed my hands off from making any further attempts to expedite things.

The client and his employees got an earful when I reminded him that not only I had bailed out the whole project, but also saved their asses for over a year, rectifying design errors, sourcing equipment, supervising installation and placating the unhappy principals for the delays. And yet, I was consistently saddled with his mistrust at every stage, as he doubted and 2nd guessed my every piece of advice and argued at each step, but after significant delay, invariably did what I first suggested. At the same time, he swept all the faux pas of the Naval Architects and Engineers under the carpet, and the sole reason for such partiality was that they had a technical degree, and I didn't. Notwithstanding their proven and often costly incompetence,   anyone with a formal degree would always remain the real deal for him. And I, despite my knowledge and track record, would always remain an imposter.

To my final proclamation that he is free to finish the project with his IIT pass Naval Architects, Engineers and super-specialist mechanics, the client retorted, "You can't be serious, they can't solve any practical problems!"

I be damned...