The Haversian Canal

My kids aren't old enough for e-mail yet, but I got them gmail accounts with their names before those accounts were taken. I've started sending them links to things I might find interesting when they are old enough, like I sent my daughter a link to these pictures of a dancer in blue. Is that weird?

Taken in whole from gwpda.org

The following poem was posted on MARHST-L by Frank Pierce Young (PYoung1043@AOL.COM) on 3 August, 1998, and his opening comments have been included. This bit of verse was well-known in the English-speaking navies at the time.

Written at the turn of this century by a very wise Royal Navy captain who later rose to the rank of admiral, the following poem — a rhyming advice lecture, actually — is one of the most famous and oft-quoted pieces of naval literature ever penned. But its fame is in-house; it is virtually unknown outside Anglo-American naval officers' circles, apart from a couple of rare reprintings over the past 50-odd years in arcane yachting publications. Today, quite apart from its inherent naval parlance, some references are themselves arcane. For example, if offering it to others you may wish to substitute the words "strong armoured" for the author's "Harveyised" -- not since before World War I has anyone associated Mr. Harvey with development of nickel-steel armour plate for warships. But the poem's salty particulars cannot hide the essence of good advice for young hopefuls, whatever their sphere. Admiral Hopwood's words are all-encompassing and timeless, and deserve much more general appreciation.

THE LAWS OF THE NAVY

by Adm. R. A. Hopwood, RN
Now these are the laws of the Navy,
Unwritten and varied they be;
And he who is wise will observe them,
Going down in his ship to the sea.

As naught may outrun the destroyer,
So it is with the law and its grip,
For the strength of a ship is the Service,
And the strength of the Service the ship.

Take heed what you say of your seniors,
Be your words spoken softly or plain,
Lest a bird of the air tell the matter,
And so shall ye hear it again.

If you labour from morn until even,
And meet with reproof for your toil,
'Tis well, that the gun may be humbled
The compressor must check the recoil.

On the strength of one link in the cable,
Dependeth the might of the chain.
Who knows when thou may'st be tested?
So live that thou bearest the strain!

When a ship that is tired returneth,
With the signs of the seas showing plain;
Men place her in dock for a season,
And her speed she reneweth again.

So shall ye, if perchance ye grow weary,
In the uttermost parts of the sea,
Pray for leave, for the good of the Service,
As much and as oft as may be.

Count not upon certain promotion
But rather to gain it aspire;
Though the sightline may end on the target
There cometh perchance the miss-fire.

Can'st follow the track of the dolphin?
Or tell where the sea swallows roam?
Where Leviathan taketh his pastime?
What ocean he calleth his own?

So it is with the words of the rulers,
And the orders these words shall convey;
Every law is naught beside this one:
Thou shalt not criticise, but Obey.

Say the wise: How may I know their purpose?
Then acts without wherefore or why.
Stays the fool but one moment to question,
And the chance of his life passes by.

If ye win through an African jungle,
Unmentioned at home in the press,
Heed it not. No man seeth the piston,
But it driveth the ship none the less.

Do they growl? it is well. Be thou silent,
If the work goeth forward amain.
Lo! the gun throws the shot to a hair's breadth
And shouteth, yet none shall complain.

Do they growl, and the work be retarded?
It is ill, be whatever their rank.
The half-loaded gun also shouteth,
But can she pierce target with blank?

Doth the paintwork make war with the funnels
And the deck to the cannons complain?
Nay, they know that some soap and fresh water
Unites them as brothers again.

So ye, being heads of departments,
Do you growl with a smile on your lip,
Lest ye strive and in anger be parted,
And lessen the might of your ship.

Dost deem that thy vessel needs gilding,
And the dockyard forbears to supply?
Put thy hand in thy pocket and gild her --
There are those who have risen thereby.

Dost think in a moment of anger
'Tis well with thy seniors to fight?
They prosper, who burn in the morning,
The letters they wrote overnight.

For many are shelved and forgotten,
With nothing to thank for their fate,
But that on a half sheet of foolscap
A fool "Had the honour to state."

Should the fairway be crowded with shipping
Beating homeward the harbour to win,
It is meet that lest any should suffer,
The steamers pass cautiously in.

So thou, when thou nearest promotion,
And the peak that is gilded is nigh,
Give heed to words and thine actions,
Lest others be wearied thereby.

It is ill for the winners to worry,
Take thy fate as it comes, with a smile,
And when thou art safe in the harbour
They may envy, but will not revile.

Uncharted the rocks that surround thee,
Take heed that the channels thou learn,
Lest thy name serve to buoy for another
That shoal the "Court-Martial Return".

Though a Harveyised belt may protect her
The ship bears the scar on her side;'
'Tis well if the Court should acquit thee --
But 'twere best had'st thou never been tried.

MORAL

As the wave washes clear at the hawse pipe,
Washes aft, and is lost in the wake;
So shalt thou drop astern all unheeded
Such time as these laws ye forsake.

Take heed in your manner of speaking
That the language ye use may be sound,
In the list of the words of your choosing
"Impossible" may not be found.

Now these are the Laws of the Navy,
And many and mighty are they.
But the hull and the deck and the keel
And the truck of the law is -- OBEY.

Path/MOD: Albert, Edward
Pharm: Alex, Amitabh
Immuno/Micro: Sara, Jacqueline
Clinical Diag: Kelli and Mithu
FIM: Whitney
Genetics/Human Behavior: Niels
T2 Coordinator: Jacqueline
T1 Liason: Kelli

For those who went to Dr George's lecture today, the Wikipedia article on prothrombin time explains the INR.

This company makes the best medical animations, bar none! Check out this white blood cell exiting the circulation!

Here's a direct link to Dr Robichaux's comprehensive review pathology of infectious disease for the inflammation test.

My upload tools, Mozilla 1.7x and WS_FTP, break off my uploads when I upload files from my home Windows XP box. Other computers, a Dell laptop and a SUSE Linux box, both inside the same router as the Windows box, upload files successfully.

The Mozilla 1.7x interface is barebones, but WS_FTP does some weird stuff. The uploads will purport to start very fast, like 3000 kb/s. The speed then dwindles very quickly. The progress bar very quickly goes to 100% complete but then the status line reads "Timeout, no new data for 900 seconds", after, like, 1.5 seconds, and then the status bar counts down my 5 second retry time and trys again, asking if I'd like to overwrite the file I just supposedly transferred, but don't see in the remote window. If I select overwrite or resume, it will go through this inane process again and again, and again. If I say skip, then it will show me the partial file that was uploaded, which is usually about 350 KB. Sometimes its 570 KB, sometimes, if I try a really small HTML file, like 19 KB, it will be 19 KB, but even then the file won't run, it's partial.

All this only happens on this one Windows XP SP2 machine. This has gone on for three days now. The host server is up and I have uploaded to it with other computers and with other computers inside my home router. The browsers on the Windows box work. I can upload attachments into Gmail. I can upload with the Flickr Uploader. Interestingly, while the Flickr Uploadr takes the usual amount of time to actually post a new photo to Flickr, its progress bar also goes very quickly, very much like WS_FTP's. I have searched this board and Google for various things and tried some of them. I checked that my McAfee firewall is giving full access to all the programs. I've restarted the computer. The Windows Internet Options is set to allow passive FTP. The clock is synchronized to NIST. I reset the Windows firewall to default settings and turned it back off. I turned off the McAfee firewall at the same time. I turned off the router's firewall. None of these usually cause any interference. After all this, with all firewalls down, the upload programs still exhibit the same broken upload behavior.

WinSCP successfully transfers files from the Windows box to the Linux box, both inside the router.

Here's a relevant log excerpt:
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200 TYPE is now 8-bit binary

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.171] PASV

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.265] 227 Entering Passive Mode (Server IP address omitted)

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.265] connecting data channel to ***Server data channel omitted***

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.281] data channel connected to ***Server data channel omitted***

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.281] STOR Eye1.wma

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:51.437] 150 Accepted data connection

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:51 PM,1][2006.08.20 21:56:51.437] Send Buffer size: 65535

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:57 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:57.359] 421 Timeout (no new data for 900 seconds)

[7,8/20/2006 9:56:57 PM,0][2006.08.20 21:56:57.359] # transferred 7842288 bytes in 5.922 seconds, 10346.026 Kbps ( 1293.253 Kbps), transfer failed.
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Any suggestions?

Fun fact about anthracotic pigment, carbon dust commonly found in the lungs and hilar lymph nodes: anthracite is a form of hard coal found in Pennsylvania mines.

This weekend Brooke planted caladium and pentas lanceolata in the front garden.

Downtown student health is currently open from 8:30AM-3PM M-F.
Beginning August 28th, the Student Health Centers on both campuses will be open from 8:30AM-4:30PM
Uptown Student Health Center will be open on Saturdays from 9AM-12PM.
Downtown phone number is 988-6929
Uptown phone number is 865-5255

Sanguine advise for Step 1 of the US Medical Licensing Exam. I haven't taken the boards, but I know a carnivore when I read one.

Also, interesting note in our Pathology syllabus: "This is not a lecture course. It is impossible to cover all of the textbook material in a classroom setting. You must read and learn from the book. It is recommended that you read the "Recommended" textbooks."

Here's the Kaplan Q-bank package that I think most people get.

Here's the 120 hour tropical storm winds probability loop for Ernesto. Tropical storm winds are 39 mph or greater. Check the National Hurricane Center for the next forecast, due out at time 1500 UTC, 27 August 2006; that's 10 am Central Standard Time. Here's the current advisory.

Good time to review the evacuation kit.