At least to western eyes, this is totally off the wall. It makes it look just “totally hip” (or maybe totally gay) to be in the JMSDF; and oddly enough it's in english...sort of. It is on a real Japanese government site though...

Lyrics:
We have seaman ship, seaman ship, for love;
We have seaman ship, seaman ship, for peace;
[voiceover translation: I love Japan. I love peace. Maritime Self-Defense Force.]
We have seaman ship, seaman ship, for love!

The ship would appear to be the JDS Hatsuyuki (Early Snow) as Hatsuyuki has the hull number DD-122, and the 1 could be dropped because all JMSDF destroyer hull numbers start with 1.

http://www.jda.go.jp/JMSDF/event/cm_p/index.html

I love freeware, and I actually have been known to make donations to the authors of the stuff I really like. Well, I have found one of the “Holy Grails” of freeware: a good, working PDF writer. Yes, I know that OpenOffice.org will write PDFs but only from Word or OpenOfice.org Writer files. This application will write PDFs from any application (just like Adobe's Distiller) and it (as far as I can tell) embeds fonts by default. It does require installation of an additional application (Ghostscript) to perform the actual PDF conversion, but it's downloadable from the same page as the application. The product: CutePDF Writer. (Despite the similar name, it appears to be unrelated to CuteFTP and CuteHTML.) Not spyware or shareware, no ads, and it works flawlessly on my XP system. You do have to install it as administrator. I put it through the wringer with tough, complex WordPro files and CorelDraw files with lots of details and color gradients, and it passed with flying colors. It also accomplished their purpose, because I did look at their other products (CutePDF Form Filler and CutePDF Plus), both affordable, capable PDF tools. Nice job, Acro Software!

Brilliant concept, very well executed: http://www.blanksheetmusic.net/. Free printable music scores. Very cool.

I just stumbled across an enormously valuable retirement benefit which every Navy retiree ought to know about--but probably doesn't! Navy Knowledge Online(NKO) is a comprehensive Navy portal site and includes full access to Navy eLearning. Web-Based Training (WBT) on the Navy eLearning site includes Harvard Business School courses, the full line of Thomson NETg information technology online courses (a HUGE value!), SkillSoft business skill courses (which includes a full range of project management courses) as well as a broad range of Navy courses. Amazing! The NKO site is slow and sprawling but there is a lot there and I've only begun to scratch the surface.

There are hundreds of free font sites online; I looked at a lot trying to find a clone of Adobe PL Latin (never could find it--had to buy it from fonts.com for $22). Of all of these sites, perhaps the best organized with a great selection of fonts is the 3700-font collection of ABC Webworx. It has really cheesy and annoying banner and pop-up ads, which are not stopped by pop-up blockers, but it's worth enduring them because the selection here is great.

Another great design resource, especially if you are creating advertising material, is the Russian site the best brands of the world, self described as the “World's largest collection of the brands” [trademarks]. Thousands and thousands of trademarks, all in scalable .eps format, many in color. My guess is that these folks are taking full advantage of the uneven enforcement of intellectual property law in Russia. The site has a lot of relatively discreet ads and it looks like they are probably making money, which is good because I have found it to be indispensible. A similar site--although not as comprehensive--is Logotypes.ru.

As I mentioned, I bought a font from fonts.com. It was a Type 1 font, and when I downloaded it, I thought it would not be usable, as there was a .afm file, a .pfb file, and a .inf file--and no .pfm. Taking a chance, I dragged-and-dropped all three files from my desktop to the Windows XP Fonts directory. Lo and behold, a .pfm file was automatically generated and appeared in the Fonts directory! When I drag-and-drop the .pfm file into TextPad, two files open: a .pfm and a .pfb file. So Windows is hiding the .pfb file from us: why? Your guess is as good as mine. Who can fathom Microsoft?

Finally, the best color scheme generator--great for Web site schemes and almost infinately flexible--is Pixy's color scheme picker. Try it--I guarantee you'll like it!

(Update: pixy's site has relocated to http://wellstyled.com/tools/ and added a newer version as well. Another great font site I found is Granny's Attic.)

(Translated from the Portuguese from an article in Sistemas De Armas). Lockheed Martin is developing a protype for a naval Covert High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft (CHARC - pronounced Shark in English). The CHARC uses a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) design, has a crew of two in an attack helicopter-type cabin and will also be offered in unmanned versions. It is armed with a 20mm cannon in the nose and four internal weapons compartments for AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or long-range NetFires, and possibly a grenade launcher. There will be two variants, 11 meters and 12 meters for use in special operations command missions. It will carry out missions of defense against light boats, anti-submarine warfare in flat waters, mine hunting and insertion of special forces. It will operate from existing surface ships and the new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The SWATH configuration will it give great stability, with diesel propulsion and a maximum speed of about 60km/h. The use of water jets increases the agility. It will have a minimum draft of 1.5 meters to operate in shallow water. It will have a low IR, radar and visual signature. The exhaust will be underwater. It will have a mast of sensors with a large field of vision. The struts can fold to fit in an area 3.6 meters wide and 3.6 meters high for storage, about the same the space necessary for an 11 meter RHIB boat. The struts will have wheels to maneuver it inside the ship. A 1/4 scale model will be constructed initially. The prototype should be available in 2008.
[From Sistemas De Armas]

Update: Read more and see more photos at Boat Design Forums.