Sunday, August 18, 2002

Sunday's Topics: Current Events; Great Links; Internet News; Military History; Murphy's Laws. I am 35% Geek according to the [Thud Factor]. 6:53:35 AM

Prospective future categories for my Weblog content based on my initial interests.  I will need short labels for each so as to save space on directory list columns and width of urls. Computing PC Al = Al home PC adventures & periodic melt downs PC = World of Micro Computers (PC and Apple) Com Big = Bigger than a Micro (e.g. IBM) Com Sec = Security Also review random stuff I try out or explore Documentation and Education BPCS = My day job's ERP PC Ed = Basics (Browser, e-mail, Norton, Microsoft love hate relationship) RU Ed = Al generally figuring out Radio Userland FAQ (dws connection) e-Organization (careful - Radio url drops dash of e- anything from Story linkage) and Internet Navigation topics E all (users) = Accessibility E good = Better Writing E law E link = Deep Linking Al 2 do = Personal to do reminders E what = Topics Indexing E nice = Web Design E stuck = Quicksand and miscelaneous other Friends and Family Humor I will probably populate the Gems, after I figure out how to navigate them News Junkie that I am Book Reviews HisTech = History of Technology Military History and current trends Politics World News Today SF = Science Fiction and Science Fact Frontiers SF TT = My Time Travel Simulation Game 6:23:12 AM

Dresden floodwaters crest and US Aid to flooded Czech Republic [USA Today : Front Page] What does it take for our civilization to invest in R&D towards weather control? Europe could use less input to their rivers.  This is being called the worst flooding in 175 years for Central Europe. My pen pal in Poland informs me that this year is not the only such nasty incident. Two apartment buildings collapsed in Prague. It will cost billions to repair the damage to Germany.  A rail bridge collapsed.  More cities downstream are threatened. US Western states could use more precipitation over forests often on fire. 4:45:44 AM

Hippocrates. "Walking is man's best medicine." [Motivational Quotes of the Day] This is one thing I should be doing, or taking a swim, not relaxing by playing with my Radio, or my Microprose Transport Tycoon.  Sunday afternoon I pledge to walk to Bob Evans (about 5 city blocks to the North West of where I live) for a decent meal, then walk home again. 4:43:14 AM

Arrested for needing to go to the bathroom at the airport.  Another reason why I don't fly no more, I need to go too often. 4:16:15 AM

I was impressed with the effort of family members of 9/11 victims to go after the financiers of terrorism. Here is CNN link to summary of the story. If you want to watch it on C-Span, here is link to 2 hours worth. 4:13:53 AM

[Paul Graham]'s Plan for Spam on the challenging art of filtering software and the heartache of false positives. 3:53:24 AM

[Dave Madsen]'s picks for the worst five military disasters of the 20th century. Hitler declares war on the USA 1941 4 days after Pearl Harbor, the USA had made no military moves against Germany.  Despite US support for the Allies, the war was going good for Germany.  Had Hitler kept silent, the Pacific first crowd in US politics might have won, leaving Britain and Russia to be defeated by Germany. Verdun 1916 In WW I, the Germans came up with a plan to bleed the French army at a point close to Paris where the French honor would not permit retreat.  The result was that the Germans and French bled each other equally, leading to combined casualities of 800,000 men, costing Germany her last chance of victory in WW I. Singapore 1942 100,000 British troops, guarding supposedly the world's most impregnable bastion, surrendered to a Japanese force of 62,200.  The legendary Singapore 15" guns faced out to sea, with no defense against attack from the supposedly impenetrable Malaya jungle. Tsushima 1905 Japanese expansion meets Tsarist Russia, knocks out 7 Russian battleships at Port Arthur at a cost of 2 Japanese, so the Tsar sends a totally inadequate fleet to reinforce that front.  In the North Sea, the Russians encounter some British fishing ships and mistake them for the enemy.  In consequence British coaling stations all along the Russian route are denied them.  The Japanese twice crossed the T of the Russian column  The battle was the most complete naval defeat in history, and its news provoked the 1905 Revolution, opening the door to Lenin. Yalu River Advance 1950 The North Koreans almost defeated the South Koreans, then the UN force led by US General Douglas MacArthur reversed the Korean fortunes.  Despite Indian intelligence warning that an advance to the border with China would provoke them into entering the conflict, MacArthur persuaded President Truman to let him do this.  The Chinese damn near wiped out the US led force, and this catapulted the People's Republic of China into being a world power. A few hundred people at www.kuro5hin.org comment on this collection, suggesting a few alternate picks for the worst military blunders of the 20th century. The alliance system that ensured that one Serbian Student could start a World War. The battle of Tannenberg The Russian commanders hated each other and failed to communicate properly. The Germans intercepted everything. WW I tactics of trying to break a hole in lines for the cavalry to exploit. Commanders failed to realize effectiveness of artillery and massed machine guns. Had USA backed Germany in WW I, both would have won. Hitler would never have come to power. There would have been no communist revolution in Russia. China would not be communist today. Atomic weapons would never have been developed. Crushing retribution of the Treaty of Versailles laying groundwork for the next World War. How could Japan think they could win in China? Chamberlain surrenders Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. Operation Market Garden (A Bridge Too Far). Operation Barbarossa. Many Axis blunders would not have been blunders were the Allied codebreakers not been reading their mail. The belief that their codes could not be broken. Japanese failure to finish off Pearl Harbor when they had the chance. Bay of Pigs. Vietnam strategic thinking. Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Six Day War in the Middle East. Gulf War with Iraq 1991 not removing Saddam Hussein from power. It is important to define what is a blunder.  Some things go with the territory. Most every war, including present day Homeland Security, if strategized the same way most people invest in the stock market, by looking in the rear view mirror to see what has happened in the past. US Civil War casualities were so high because the Generals were fighting historical tactics using rifles that had much greater accuracy.  Some things are just an accident. Confederate soldiers dropped battle plans for Gettysburg on the road to be found by Union soldiers. The Maginot Line should have been obvious in advance. Built with no rotating turrets for the guns. Perhaps a different time period when no one could question top commanders.   2:59:41 AM

[Because I Say So] reminds us of the importance of timely backups.  She was doing a search and replace and accidentally replaced all instances of gym on her site with a blank space, and now has a few choice words to say about this oops. Radio Wish: I would like to have a button close to my Radio application, which I periodically push to backup selected portions of my Weblog.  I would push it when I think something is broken, before I take measures to try to fix what might not be broken. I would push it before I tinker with my template, links, other behind the covers stuff. I would push it before I delete a major chunk of stuff that I thought I copied to a story. Beside this hypothetical button would be some indicator of how many backups I have, and how much disk space they eating. 2:34:45 AM

Lots of interesting news from [NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence] about: US Coast Guard upgrading Port security; US Military wargames; US Nuclear Powered Carrier Abraham Lincoln makes a port call in Japan; US Submarine Dolphin troubles; US Sealift arms to Middle East (target Iraq?); UK military concerns about attacking Iraq; UK troops in Afghanistan; UK tanker hijacked off Somalia; UK Nottingham which ran aground off Australia; Current operations of the Indian Navy; Pakistan to export Submarines; 50% of Taiwan's military budget goes to upgrading its Navy; Background briefing on Iran; 2:18:26 AM

[A blog doesn't need a clever name] passes on the interesting statistic that 10% of the world's population now has Internet access, according to [Europe Media.Net] from Nua. com's 2002 Global Internet Trends report.   Europe now has more Internet users (185.83 million or 32 %) than USA and Canada combined (182.83 million). Asia / Pacific has 167.86 million people with access to the Internet. Latin America has 6 % of the world's Internet users. The Middle East has 1 %. Africa has 1 %. Nua forecasts 1 billion Internet users by the end of 2005. 2:07:15 AM

Where do sites like [missing matter] find all this cool information?  How can we stay current with understanding it all? 1:49:45 AM

Aug 15 [Rick Klau] has a comparison of KM Knowledge Management in Britain vs. the USA. Saturday's Topics: Accuracy; eyes-friendly; e-organization; e-writing style; great cool links; Radio education. 1:40:42 AM

© Copyright 2002 Al Macintyre.