Categories: Top :: Arts :: Day By Day :: Entertainment :: Living :: Personal :: Technology

War: How do you win?
Fri, 20 Apr 2007

They were going on about Iraq on 680 News Radio, and in words upon the CBC and CNN websites so I was stirred to wonder. Apparently another US senator has declared the war in Iraq a loss. Aside from anything else you can say (for or against, and is it a 'war' when it is not nation versus nation, and all that hubbub), it brings up some interesting questions about winning. I mean - How does one, in fact, win a war? Or lose one? What are the criterion? Do the Americans every have a victory condition? (I know in Civilization the game doesn't even begin until I've checked off sed details. Amateurs.)

At first impulse I would say 'taking land over' (since I played Risk a lot as a kid), but obviously that isn't true in the presence of a grass-roots resistance. France lost a lot of land up front in the last great war, but the war itself was on-going. The US "won" the Iraqi ground in a matter of days but akin to Vietnam (I think) and Afghan for the Russians in the past .. winning that battle doesn't end the conflict. The resistance will keep it going. Nation to nation if you grab the land and keep up a presence maybe you've got something, but even then .. the war could last decades so it is difficult to say exactly when the 'win' occurs.

I suppose when the major conflicts are over the military role is nearly complete .. thereafter things are a policing and reorganization matter. Politics. Hopefully people not killing each other. So the US certainly won militarily, but not yet politicly, and not yet socially (surely some natives support the US presence, while many are neutral or against it.) - not yet the war. When you think of war you think of military, but as we all noted years ago at the beginning of this mess, its not really about major battles anymore.

So then, this is what occurred to me when they mentioned all this futz on the radio -- It must be a tough place for the army, to be charged with 'winning the war' when it turns out war really isn't about the military. After all.. if it was it would be easy -- the military could just eliminate the population, and they win. An empty victory. Thankfully we include minimizing destruction and loss of life in the tally. So maybe the senator is correct -- the US is good at winning battles, but a skirmish here or there does not a war make. Is this what happened back in Nam? Did they not learn this crucial element, that knocking over a government doesn't make you the winner?

So how is war against a resistance 'won'?

[ Category: / day_by_day / news / war ] [link] [Comments]

Palm: The stats on smartphones
Thu, 19 Apr 2007

(While I am pretty darned sleep deprived I think I'm reading things right ;)

Being a developer for various sundry mobile platforms, I like to try and guess where things are going, and gauge where to spend my efforts, and really .. I like to see what new gadgets are out there, and fondle as many as possible. Its been a dry couple of years for us gadgetheads .. the sheer variety of toys we've seen before hasn't happened for awhile - no more Handera Inc's my dear friends. We need some shakedowns .. some rolling screens, not just GPS-in-everything. We're tough to please nowadays.

See more ...

[ Category: / technology / mobile / palm ] [link] [Comments]

Blogging: Facebook.. wtf
Mon, 16 Apr 2007

(Pardon me, allow myself to alienate uh, myself.) OKay, so people are into LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Grokster, Friendster. People click away requesting and confirming connections in this orgy of building bigger 'connection scores.' Well, I'm generally into hosting (and owning clear copyright to) my own content, and really don't care for the connection count dick-size war, but I will permit myself to hook up in facebook since my wife is sitting over there hooking up and making me very curious. Damnit, curiosuity whips snobbyness every time :)

So I head to Facebook and enter my info into the Register option; a minute later it times out and forgets everything. After another try (chalk -1 up for Web 2.0 :P) I get it going.

My wife has already requested a link to me I guess, since it magicly suggests hooking up with her. Thats sort of cool, so I hit 'Confirm' to her connection and it pops up a box to nail down the relationship. I check "In my family" and a picklist appears.. "sibling, parent, child, cousin, extended family." So here we have a website with millions of users that doesn't understand the concept of wife. And crashes on registration.

Why do people put up with this crap?

Oh, right, dick-size wars.

I wonder how many people spend all day sending requests, checking off those requests in all those sites above, and entering their blog into Livejournal, then looking at their LJ and FB 'friends lists' to see all their blogs.. man. I know I get a half dozen 'confirm' requests a day and I'm sure I'm nothing compared to your average 14 year old :) Pick one site. Everyone, stay on LJ so we needn't monitor 17 sites :)

Edit: (I do realize they have 'We hooked up' but thats generic since you then type into a 'and it was..' field, so thats vaguely possible; theres also 'we dated' which sort of works with its options. I know, I just turned Old, and this site is for highschool folks. But make me feel like I'm still In, okay? :)

[ Category: / technology / blogging ] [link] [Comments]

Windows: A perfect summary for Windows
Wed, 11 Apr 2007

It is difficult to sum up everything that is MS Windows in one word or phrase. "Damn" would be one way, but "Mostly Harmless" would be another. Today I choose to describe it with a simple scenario that happens to me every couple weeks -- frequently enough that I can say its bit me dozens of times, but not so frequent that I've bothered to hack the OS to not do it.

Imagine you're working away with a dozen applications open in one form or another. You head downstairs to make lunch, or head out to the doctor, or go buy a coffee, or whatever. Upon return, you find a nicely rebooted machine. The reason is simple -- MS offered an update, and you wisely had the machine set to auto-download. Further, rather than be pestered every day, you set it to auto-install updates. For, being a Windows box, you bloody well need the patches. So "yes" I'd like auto-downloads, "yes" I'd like auto-installs if they're passive. No, I do not want "auto reboot" .. wtf genius defaults to the worst possible option? Its akin to highlighting the "Yes" button by default, in the "do you wish to format your hard disk and destroy all data" type box.

Really, its the whole mentality summed up -- when MS wants you to reboot they pop up a dialog that out of the blue starts capturing all your inputs mid-typing, and defaults to rebooting your machine in a few seconds if you're not there looking for it. Thats the MS way -- not to think it through whatsoever.

So today, I went down to check on the baby, and a few mins later.. yep, no more open applications. Thanks again Bill, for the lost data!

Aside; a friend brings up the interesting question -- if they're remaking every movie from the 60s and 70s.. when are they going to remake Star Wars? Obviously, Lucas mucks with it every year anyway, so thats a moot point. But, he asks.. when will they dare to remake The Godfather. Scary times, is when.

[ Category: / technology / windows ] [link] [Comments]

Baby: A night in the life of ..
Mon, 02 Apr 2007

It is an odd thing, I might say.

I mean .. as I understand it, babies are often fussy between 7pm and 10pm (even in the womb.) I know ours little girl is - then and now. Maybe its the switch from my wives arms to mine, the nightly hiccups or the outside pressure and temperature change in the weather.. who knows? I'll get home each night, take a few minutes to gulp down some food (which will inevitibly be cold before I finish it) and then take my turn with the baby shift. Being that I usually get home around 7 or so, babs is just warming her cycle up: carry for 20 mins, feed for 20 to 90 mins, shushing and calming and singing as I go. Try and sit, change hands, swap her to another person and out comes the screaming monster. Repeat this cycle for a few hours and by 10 pm or ultimately midnight.. she'll start to fall asleep. Well, she'll sleep for 10 mins then awaken.. but eventually she'll go down for the count. Sometimes it gets me a little mad, but usually she's just gassy or constipated, so you can't be upset with her. Its tough being a baby :P

Anyway, each night by about 9:30 pm I spend a good 15 mins being annoyed, and I complain to my poor wife who's trying to catch some sleep (as my shift extendeds through to about 2-3am so she can get a few hours rest up front.) I imagine by now, anyone reading will be wondering.. wtf dude? Why tell you? Permit me to continue, dear friends.

Somewhere around 10:30pm .. maybe its the way the lighting has gotten to, or the heavier my eyelids have become, or just maybe the way she seems to suddenly recognize who I am and snuggle up to the warmth. Maybe its feeding her and the way she looks up with those adoring unspoilt eyes as she aclimatizes to my ministrations instead of mommies. Something happens and no matter if she is fussy or babbling happily, if she's waving her hands around or spitting up .. she is beautiful. Don't get me wrong as she has just as many quiet nights or days as she does freakout ones, but something about this magical notch on the clock.. you just have to lean back with this little person in your lap and feel like the world is okay. Not just okay.. gorramned awesome. Pudding, instead of oatmeal.

Sometimes she'll crack that happy little post-feeding drunken gerber smile and that my friends is why I'm posting, and why I can't wait all day to see her again. I know she'll be ready to cry by the time I get home, but I know my wife is safe at home and ready to bring the baby to the door when I arrive.

Coming to the door of your home, seeing your wife holding a smiling little baby girl..

Who wouldn't want to come home to that?

(Aside: BTW, this is Iron Maiden day in my books. Tomorrow might be The Distillers day.)

[ Category: / personal / baby ] [link] [Comments]