| Tuesday, April
2, 2002
Begin with one I hope you all know
about:
Dear Jerry
You may well have this information by now:
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24489.html
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/
downloads/critical/Q319182/default.asp
regards
Henry Nash
Then
Jerry,
I've just read your latest Chaos Manor (1st April)
re the Hitachi CM 721F monitor. It's no April 1 comment either.
I agree with you completely, I find it a dream to
use. And the flat screen has negligible beam-landing errors (bad focus at
the corners), the best I've seen in a monitor in this class. (Just one
point, I wish it had rotary knobs for the contrast and brightness; but
that's a forlorn hope as digital designers consider the incorporation of
an analog component a form of pollution that outweighs any ergonomic
advantage it might provide.)
In the last 20-plus years (since before your
"Godbout CompuPro--Gollum I think it was) I've read your advice, but
for once I seem to be in the vanguard as I've had my CM 721F since last
September.
Regards,
Grahame Wilson Sydney, Australia
P.S.: I paid $749 AUD for my CM 721F, that's pretty
close to $390 USD
And worth it...
Hi Jerry!
Enjoyed your column as usual. Noted your mention of
the 780 which you soundly recommended to me a couple of years ago that I
purchased online.
Sounded like you hadn’t seen them around—and by
now, someone has probably sent you the following, but thought I would
anyway, as I appreciate your column and suggestions so much.
http://www.neccomp.com/MobilePro/
Regards,
Marti
Actually hadn't seen that. Thanks.
Also from former BYTE.COM editor Daniel Dern, on the MobilPro
CDW.com has some in the $600-range, surplused. While
there's a few on eBay in the 200-300$ range, I've come to the conclusion
that, like monitors, devices like these are worth spending a little more
on to get one you can count on. At a price differential of $300-$400
between eBay and CDW, maybe it's worth trying for the bottom price
bargain... a few months back, I finally got a Jornada 820 on eBay for
~$350; versus another fifty or eighty bucks for an as-new one.
For the money I saved, I've got what turns out to be
a few sticky keys (Q and 1) and I'm short an adapter cable, I think.
Anyway, you might advise your readers to check CDW.
NEC still touts the 790 -- it replaced the 780 -- at
http://www.neccomp.com/MobilePro/790/
with links to their resellers
http://www.neccomp.com/wheretobuy.html
>From a still-happy 780 owner (much better
keyboard than the HP Jornada 820 -- the HP I got for the full-factor
screen shape, for email reading.)
Daniel
*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
Daniel Dern - Freelance technology writer ddern at world{dot}std{dot}com
or <www.dern.com> Contributing Editor, NewsForge.com Comic book
columnist, SFRevu.com
Daniel arranged for my first look at
the MobilePro 780, for which he has my long lingering thanks. I love that
little box.
Last week you had a reader who had uninstalled
Windows Messenger only to have a MS Critical Update re-install it.
There is an article in The Register about this:
http://www.theregus.com/content/4/24501.html
If someone has previously uninstaller Messenger and
had the Critical Update re-unstall it, Messenger can be turned off in
Outlook Express: Outlook Express/Tools/Windows
Messenger/Options/Preferences, and turn it off.
Hope this helps. Charles Butler
Thanks
From: Charles N. Johnson e-mail: charlesnjohnson@earthlink.net
If this had surfaced yesterday, I would have given
it short shrift.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/
cn/20020402/tc_cn/stealth_p2p_network_hides_inside_kazaa
Just a reminder to those who think that the
"evil empire" is co-extensive with Microsoft!
Cheers-- Charles
Yeeps! On that, this from Roland:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html
-----
"You hereby grant (Brilliant) the right
to access and use the unused computing power and storage space on your
computer/s and/or Internet access or bandwidth for the aggregation of
content and use in distributed computing," the terms of service read.
"The user acknowledges and authorizes this use without the right of
compensation."
On another subject:
Subj: DiskOnKey vs Electrostatic Discharge?
The DiskOnKey you describe in your 1 April column
sounds neat.
But how easy is it to kill with electrostatic
discharge? Do you or any of your readers have any experience with the
device in low-humidity environments? Or know of any formal testing?
A Zip disk should be relatively immune to ESD but
DiskOnKey must be a semiconductor device.
Rod Montgomery == monty@sprintmail.com
I can only say I have carried mine
around in my pocket, and once of them came apart to reveal the little
circuit boards inside, and there have been no problems at all. On
Republic and Empire,
Hi Jerry,
Confirmation of what you have been saying for a long
time!!!!
www.iht.com/articles/53203.html
Stay well,
Tony Brown
I would rather be wrong. And
this can stand for a number of mails:
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Saw the link to the "award". The stuff
passed to the URL redirector translates to:
http://cnn.com:443@212.190.116.226/news.php?PuU89q7W
which in turn translates to:
http://212.190.116.226/news.php?PuU89q7W
as everything before the '@' is treated as a login
name (in this case, ignored I expect). I looked up the address, and it
belongs to 212-190-116-226.iserco.org.
So, it looks like someone figured out how to play
with CNN's URL redirector.
Not that I don't think you do a terrific job --
*much* better than the flacks and hacks who dominate the fetid remains of
journalism today.
All the best,
Gordon Runkle
PS: I'm damn glad April Fools is about over, it gets
more and more wearying every year...
-- "Far and away the best prize that life has
to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore
Roosevelt
Thanks for the kind words.
Robert
Strausz-Hupe, RIP The
Protracted Conflict, by Strausz-Hupe, Stefan T Possony, and William
Kintner was a key document in the Seventy Years War. Strausz-Hupe was
senior author, but he was not the sole author. He was one of Possony's
mentors, and a great man in his own right.
Foreign Policy Research Institute A Catalyst for
Ideas
E-Notes Distributed Exclusively via Fax & Email
THE NEW PROTRACTED CONFLICT by Robert Strausz-Hupe
April 2, 2002
Robert Strausz-Hupe, founder of the Foreign Policy
Research Institute and first editor of Orbis, passed away on February 24,
2002 at the age of 98. He completed this document -- his last -- in
December 2001; it is the introduction to the Spring 2002 issue of Orbis,
which has a special focus on the war on terrorism.
Ambassador Strausz-Hupe founded the Foreign Policy
Research Institute in 1955 and two years later published the first issue
of Orbis. In 1969, he was appointed Ambassador to Sri Lanka and
subsequently served as Ambassador to Belgium (1972-74), Sweden (1974-76),
NATO (l1976-77), and Turkey (1l981-89). For more information about the
Ambassador, visit our website (www.fpri.org).
THE NEW PROTRACTED CONFLICT
by Robert Strausz-Hupe
In 1959 I wrote a book called Protracted Conflict,
which became my most popular work. Perhaps this was because the central
idea spoke to the times and because, although a professor, I did not let
too much learning interfere with the theme.
What I proposed was simply that after a dozen years
of Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, a pattern was
in place that would continue until one side or the other was transformed.
Either the United States would cease to be a democracy or the Soviet Union
would cease to be a Leninist dictatorship. The ideological divide was too
deep and wide for any lasting peace, and while tensions might grow or
diminish, these were tactical decisions dictated by geopolitical
convenience, not strategic changes. Try as Western statesmen might to
bridge this divide with detente or, from the Soviet side, with the
ideological sleight of hand called "peaceful coexistence," the
conflict would not end until one side or the other triumphed.
I thought it was supremely important for Americans
and their statesmen to understand that we were in for a "protracted
conflict." This ran against our national preference for quick
solutions and our tendency to believe that goodwill and money would always
turn an enemy into a friend. We would have to stay alert, dispense with
illusions about the other side, and keep ourselves mobilized. It would
indeed be a severe test of our democracy to prevail.
There were times when I feared we might persuade
ourselves that the conflict was over when it was not, and that then the
dangers would remain or even grow in the face of our weakness. Many
wagered against us, impressed only by our material cravings, political
cacophony, and apparent attachment to foreign policies predicated on
avoiding a fight. But they were wrong. This was one story with a happy
ending. The Soviet Union disappeared and that protracted conflict was
over.
I have never been of an apocalyptic frame of mind,
and so the end of the Cold War did not strike me as the end of history.
The last decade, although peaceful and prosperous, was still disfigured by
ethnic slaughter and the ascendancy of hostile doctrines, not least the
simple envy of American success. The American people, led by their
government, thought all of this was very far away. After September 11, we
knew that it was not.
This struggle will be difficult and protracted. Our
opponents deem us evil and some of them see an attack on us as the best
and shortest route to paradise. This is a formidable stimulus to action.
Terrorism is the instrument of the weak, and many of our adversaries are
weak. Americans still want quick solutions, still like to be liked, and
still see force as the very last resort. Our leaders must keep a
psychological balance between despair and euphoria as the campaign
proceeds, as most campaigns do, in fits and starts, on a field of battle
obscured by smoke, some of it rhetorical. There can be no successful
foreign policy without semantic leadership.
Still, we start with several advantages that the
Cold War generation lacked. There is no serious domestic opposition to
President Bush's strategy, at least not yet, no agitation for detente and
no arguments over arms control with our enemy. Furthermore, all the major
powers are ranged on our side. That Vladimir Putin's Russia has seen fit
to ally itself with us is not an adverse development so long as we do not
take it too far out of gratitude, for instance by extending Moscow a veto
over NATO. As for the Atlantic alliance itself, this is another challenge
to its role in a post-Cold War world and one that extends beyond welcome
military solidarity to domestic affairs. Our European allies share with us
issues of home security. One hopes also that this time at least, Turkey's
indispensable contributions -- as a member of NATO and a Muslim state that
seeks rather than rejects association with America and the West -- will be
recognized. These are all important assets that must be conserved.
My main point, however, is that this protracted
conflict, like the last one, will end only when one side vanquishes the
other. Either the United States, at the head of the international order -
such as it is - will forfeit its leadership, or international terrorists
and the states who use them will find violence against innocent civilians
a tactic too dangerous to be used.
I have lived long enough to see good repeatedly win
over evil, although at a much higher cost than need have been paid. This
time we have already paid the price of victory. It remains for us to win
it.
-------------------------------------------
FORTHCOMING April 2002 Orbis, Spring 2002
THE NEW PROTRACTED CONFLICT Introduction, by Robert
Strausz-Hupe
Finding a Foreign Policy by Harvey Sicherman
The Promise of Decisive Action by Michael P. Noonan
and John Hillen
The U.S. Army Special Forces Then and Now by Sam C.
Sarkesian
Homeland Security Concepts and Strategy by Chris
Seiple
Terrorism After the Cold War by Michael Radu
Intelligence and the War on Terrorism by Bruce
Berkowitz
The Roles of Law in the Fight Against Terrorism by
Jacques deLisle
The War and the West by James Kurth
The Islamist Syndrome of Cultural Confrontation by
John Calvert
FPRI Members at the Associate Level ($125) will
receive a complimentary copy.
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If the U.S. government has no knowledge of
aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it illegal for U.S.
citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?
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