What book(s) are you reading right now?

[bbhaag]

The Ball RedBook.
This year we decided it was necessary to grow our own herbs due to supply constraints but we had never done it before. The Ball RedBook is a very helpful tool with regards to timing your crop for retail sales. It is also helpful with things like when to fertilizing, which size container is appropriate, and pest management applications

Due to the knowledge in this book we were able to capture over $10,000 in sales that we would have missed out on.

 

[Stiff Clamp]

Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles: Commentaries on German Folklore
some newly-translated short folk stories in English for the first time

author's commentary features too much judgy modern sensibilities IMO

 

[Brainonska511]

Started reading Downfall by Richard Frank (1999) using a copy from the local library (first library book I've taken out in at least a decade). It reviews the final months of the Pacific War and events leading up to the use of the bomb and Japan's surrender, but it does this through the lens of contemporary knowledge and largely discounts postwar retellings. The idea was to build a picture of where things actually stood at the those particular moments in history, what did people know, and what was Japan prepared to do before the atom bombs were dropped.

 

[Perknose]

Started reading Downfall by Richard Frank (1999) using a copy from the local library (first library book I've taken out in at least a decade). It reviews the final months of the Pacific War and events leading up to the use of the bomb and Japan's surrender, but it does this through the lens of contemporary knowledge and largely discounts postwar retellings. The idea was to build a picture of where things actually stood at the those particular moments in history, what did people know, and what was Japan prepared to do before the atom bombs were dropped.

Authors and historians are divided about the end game in Japan. Some say the bombs were a message to Russia as much as anything. But surrender was touch and go even after both bombs. Hell, more died in the fire bombing of Tokyo. An obedient populace was prepared to kill as many Americans as possible at any landing site. The human carnage on both sides would have been brutal.

 

[Brainonska511]

Authors and historians are divided about the end game in Japan. Some say the bombs were a message to Russia as much as anything. But surrender was touch and go even after both bombs. Hell, more died in the fire bombing of Tokyo. An obedient populace was prepared to kill as many Americans as possible at any landing site. The human carnage on both sides would have been brutal.

He touches on many of those things, and it is certainly worth a read to get a view minus the warping of postwar memories and whitewashing.

Contemporary accounts suggest that it wasn't a message to Russia, Japan was not really willing to surrender before the bomb was dropped (in fact, they were fortifying positions on Kyushu and preparing to fight to the bitter end), and the damage/bomb yield (minus radiation effects) was comparable to the amount of bombs that could be dropped by a typical B-29 raid.

 

[Muse]

He touches on many of those things, and it is certainly worth a read to get a view minus the warping of postwar memories and whitewashing.

Contemporary accounts suggest that it wasn't a message to Russia, Japan was not really willing to surrender before the bomb was dropped (in fact, they were fortifying positions on Kyushu and preparing to fight to the bitter end), and the damage/bomb yield (minus radiation effects) was comparable to the amount of bombs that could be dropped by a typical B-29 raid.

It's a thorny issue. I hear still a lot about Japanese Americans' sense of betrayal by virtue of their internment after the Pearl Harbor attack. What I wonder about and don't recall hearing anything about is the question of whether or not this was in part intended as a measure to protect them from violence from other Americans. Now, part of the issue would be how this happened and if they were compensated for their loss of property of various kinds including their homes, businesses, and other personal property. I have not researched this personally.

 

[Brainonska511]

It's a thorny issue. I hear still a lot about Japanese Americans' sense of betrayal by virtue of their internment after the Pearl Harbor attack. What I wonder about and don't recall hearing anything about is the question of whether or not this was in part intended as a measure to protect them from violence from other Americans. Now, part of the issue would be how this happened and if they were compensated for their loss of property of various kinds including their homes, businesses, and other personal property. I have not researched this personally.

I think internment was just a bad thing and was poorly justified at the time.

This book didn't touch on that at all. it really just focused on the January 1945-September 1945 window, using contemporary sources to highlight what the US knew about Japan's plans and their own strategic thinking, and to discuss what Japan was or wasn't willing to do at each time point.

 

[Muse]

I think internment was just a bad thing and was poorly justified at the time.

This book didn't touch on that at all. it really just focused on the January 1945-September 1945 window, using contemporary sources to highlight what the US knew about Japan's plans and their own strategic thinking, and to discuss what Japan was or wasn't willing to do at each time point.

I've don't think I've ever seen a discussion of how that happened historically.

 

[Kaido]

I've don't think I've ever seen a discussion of how that happened historically.

iirc I had never heard of the American internment of the Japanese until George Takei talked about it. He wrote 3 books about his experience:

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/20/1245844347/george-takei-my-lost-freedom-picture-book

Same thing with the firebombings, never heard of those until well outside of grade school:

Many hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians perished in allied bombings in major Japanese cities such as Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Kuri and Tokyo. Of these bombings the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the most well-known allied bombings on Japan. These two bombings were very notable because they were the only two times in history where nuclear weapons were used in warfare, their devastation was enough to end the war. These bombings often overshadow the Firebombing in Tokyo that claimed the lives of over 100,000 Japanese, an equitable number to the death toll of the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

War is awful

 

[William Gaatjes]

It is not really a book, it is a technical article over the dielectric strength molded inductors need to have.
Making the perfect inductor with the perfect core in combination with fast GaN mosfets causes for high voltage spikes and therefor dv/dt issues.
The perfect molded inductor isolating layers can break down when used optimal but no care is considered about voltage spikes.

Interesting subject. Better components and all of a sudden physical properties that never where really an issue can now become an issue when selecting the wrong kind of inductor.
Now with current (MHz switching) SMPS technology the isolation strength of an molded inductor has to be taken into account as well.

Voltage specification for molded inductors

ANP126

www.we-online.com

ANP126 | Voltage specification for molded inductors

Excerpt from text:
"
With the continuous technological advancement in the semiconductor industry, MOSFETs today can achieve high power densities and fast switching speeds. For this reason, the question of the dielectric strength of inductors has become very important in recent years when selecting the right inductor and will continue to be a requirement to be considered in the future.

With the increasing popularity of molded inductors based on fine iron powder with a distributed air gap also the production process has changed in recent years. By constantly optimizing the production process and the material composition, it is possible to achieve the greatest possible permeability, in order to realize large inductance values in the smallest possible installation space. This must be combined with the maximum possible current carrying capacity. As a result, the power density per volume can be continuously increased. To constantly increase the power handling of the inductors in the smallest possible volume, the percentage of insulation binder in relation to the iron powder has been continuously reduced so that, consequently, the distance between the individual grain sizes has continuously decreased. This reduction has resulted in the fact that today, the applied voltages to an inductor within a DC-DC converter should be considered when selecting an inductor for an application and thus a high operating voltage can lead to failure of the entire application.

To ensure transparency, Würth Elektronik has developed a concept that tests the behavior of the component at higher voltages close to the application over a longer period in order to integrate the new property for molded inductors into the data sheets.
"

 

[manly]

I've been in a reading funk, and taking way too long to finish Last Night I Dreamed of Peace, the war diaries of a young Vietnam War doctor for the North. It's just not that interesting and critical reviewers question the translation (I don't think that's the basic problem).

He touches on many of those things, and it is certainly worth a read to get a view minus the warping of postwar memories and whitewashing.

Contemporary accounts suggest that it wasn't a message to Russia, Japan was not really willing to surrender before the bomb was dropped (in fact, they were fortifying positions on Kyushu and preparing to fight to the bitter end), and the damage/bomb yield (minus radiation effects) was comparable to the amount of bombs that could be dropped by a typical B-29 raid.

On balance, worth reading?

The morality and ethics can be harshly debated, but the general consensus is that the atomic bombs saved a lot of American lives. Probably saved many, many more Japanese civilians as well. I doubt civilians could put up much of a real homeland defense, so they would've just been cannon fodder.

IIRC Japan wasn't willing to surrender after the first A-bomb, and the U.S. bluffed them by saying we had even more. Even then, the emperor had to override the military that never wanted to capitulate.

 

[Brainonska511]

On balance, worth reading?

The morality and ethics can be harshly debated, but the general consensus is that the atomic bombs saved a lot of American lives. Probably saved many, many more Japanese civilians as well. I doubt civilians could put up much of a real homeland defense, so they would've just been cannon fodder.

IIRC Japan wasn't willing to surrender after the first A-bomb, and the U.S. bluffed them by saying we had even more. Even then, the emperor had to override the military that never wanted to capitulate.

Yes, I think it was worth the read. It was nice to see a more contemporary accounting that really tried to put things into perspectives that existed at the time, instead of a lot of retconning and misremembering that happened after the war.

Part of why the army didn't want to surrender after the first bomb is they thought that more materials were needed to make a bomb, so they believed the US only had one or two. Bombing Nagasaki a few days later dispelled the notion, and even then, there were still some who feared people lower down the command chain would not follow orders to surrender, and there was even a last minute attempted coup to stop the surrender announcement.

 

[igor_kavinski]

IIRC Japan wasn't willing to surrender after the first A-bomb, and the U.S. bluffed them by saying we had even more. Even then, the emperor had to override the military that never wanted to capitulate.

What breaks my heart is that innocent people had to pay for their military's crimes. Would've preferred if it had been a few military bases wiped out instead.

I thought this movie was decent: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103264/

 

[Brainonska511]

What breaks my heart is that innocent people had to pay for their military's crimes. Would've preferred if it had been a few military bases wiped out instead.

So this is also discussed in Downfall. There are a few factors at play:

1) The US didn't have as clear a picture of Japanese industrial capacity or layout, so it wasn't always clear cut what needed to be bombed
2) The jet stream and poor targeting systems (it was 1945 after all) made any sort of precision bombing nearly impossible
3) Japanese industry spread out heavily into "civilian" areas, with people even having little shops in their homes that fed into larger factories
4) Hiroshima was a major military transfer station, with the headquarters for the army overseeing Kyushu forces (where the Japanese army wanted to make a big stand to try and force a peace after a decisive battle); and the Japanese military had no problem setting up shop adjacent or within civilian districts