Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, March 15, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

I have solved the problem of searches in Windows 10, and it makes sense.

Eric Pobirs sums it up nicely:

               The search function is designed to find, quickly, user files, not system or program files. This is how mature modern systems work. Much like the modern automobile owner doesn’t need to know much about how the stuff under the hood works. New cars are not nearly so friendly to tinkering as their ancestors but as consumer products are far more reliable and refined.

                Because early versions of Windows made no effort to segregate user space from system space, it encouraged users to develop bad habits that they retained long after Microsoft had finally begun addressing those deficiencies. The first big step towards this was designated directories for users to save data, such as documents. This gave the system and installed apps a default location to use. This also simplified frequent backups as staying within those directories made it likely the default backup scope would cover everything important, which meant the average user was far more likely to get satisfactory results.

                In the period between XP and Vista two things were decided. First, fast search mattered, and that meant some stuff would be favored over others. Second, search by default should not show system and certain other types of files because the average user only tended to get in trouble that way. I can remember the days when people would need to reinstall Windows because they deleted a critical directory with no interference from the system.

Mostly, I’m attempting to recuperate from a cold. It got much worse last night, and today I have that familiar head stopped up, ache all over, just want to go out of being feeling. I had split pea soup for dinner last night, but even that was a bit much to bear today, so I’ve had thin gruel.  I’m sure I’ll be all right by Thursday when I am supposed to entertain the LASFS, but I’m sure not going to get any work done today.

My Windows 10 condolences

Dear Jerry:

Several months ago Windows 10 installed itself on my computer right after I clicked the button saying not right now (or whatever it said).

Windows 10 is a severely crippled version of Windows 7. The start menu is ugly, dysfunctional, and inflexible. The new Edge browser is a caricature of a web browser. I wondered if it had been an undergraduate software project rather than something developed by experienced professionals. The loss of color in title bars and the flatness of dialog boxes seemed a giant step backwards for a user interface. And system controls are excessively deep in the settings menu system.

Fortunately within a couple of hours of being bludgeoned into using Windows 10, I discovered Classic Shell. It restored my hierarchical, nested folder submenus to a Windows 7 level of usability. And its free. Highly recommended. It has worked flawlessly. And it allows you to switch to the Windows 10 menu with a single click should you want to remind yourself just how badly Microsoft messed up its user interface.

http://www.classicshell.net/

And fortunately Internet Explorer was still available with Windows 10. So I am no longer bothered by Windows 10 as it now looks and behaves pretty much as my old Windows 7 did.

For backing up only changed files and for comparing contents of folders I recommend Free File Sync. I back up my daily changes to three different external devices with just a couple of clicks, but I suspect your archiving needs are more complicated than mine.

http://www.freefilesync.org/

Best regards,

–Harry M.

Well, now, I wouldn’t say that.   Windows 10 is actually an improvement in many ways. Its problem is that the instructions for using it are wretched. I’ll have a lot about that in Chaos Manor Reviews when I recover enough to write it. Windows 10 is meant for large, fast, modern systems, and it’s pretty good for those; I presume it won’t self install on any system that’s not powerful enough for it. One secret I found about Search: you don’t need a “go do it” command when you type in a Search Window, whether it’s Cortana or an Explorer instance. Once you type something it goes for it like a retriever dog, and if you continue to type it redirects itself.  There’s no consistent indication that this is happening: it just does it, and sometimes there’s and action bar and sometimes there isn’t, and if the area searched is huge it may take a while – tens of seconds to minutes – for the first signs that anything is happening to appear.  It’s taking me longer to correct my c

paragraphs than it does to write them, so I won’t go on.  Stay tuned.

I will say I wouldn’t put Windows 10 on an older slow system; at least I don’t think I will.

Another thing, FreeCell addicts will need to get a free copy of the old Windows 7 FreeCell.  You actually have it if you were converted from Windows 7 to 10; it’s not all that hard to find, and searching for it online doesn’t take long if you can’t find it.  More on that when I can type again.

Over half country dislikes Trump

“Mr. Trump’s real problem is, something over half the country as a whole, among these a major slice of conservatives, dislikes and distrusts him.”
Hhmm. Based on voting percentages, about 70 to 75% of voters (so far) do not like Cruz enough to vote for him. That compares to about 60% that didn’t vote for Trump. Don’t people that make these claim, quoted at the top, look at the other side of these numbers?

Walt…

Apples vs. Oranges Jerry,

I failed to state what should have been obvious – I didn’t specify “as measured by nationally polled favorable/unfavorable ratings” when I said “Mr. Trump’s real problem is, something over half the country as a whole, among these a major slice of conservatives, dislikes and distrusts him”.

This apparently led reader Walt into the error of logically equating that statement to “…about 70 to 75% of voters (so far) do not like Cruz enough to vote for him.” (It’s 71%, FWIW.) (For Trump so far, 65%.)

In a multi-candidate field, “did not vote for” is not at all the same thing as “actively rated unfavorably in a poll.” Put another way, Walt is equating “failed to like more than all others” to “actively disliked”.

For actual data, check out

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/trump_favorableunfavorable-5493.html

Trump’s current overall rolling-average unfavorable are 61%. The highest unfavorable rating of any winning Presidential candidate since

1992 is 49%. QED – nominating him would be electoral suicide for the Republican Party.

Hillary’s current rolling average unfavorable number? 53.3%, also higher than any modern winning candidate. Which points out the size of the opportunity the Republican Party would be blowing by nominating the even-more disliked Trump.

Cruz’s equivalent number? 48.6. Not great, but electable.

Forgive my irascible tone, but it’s an important point, and claiming “it ain’t so” based on non-equivalent numbers no more refutes it than would sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and humming very loudly.

Porkypine

And over half the nation’s voters say Hillary is not honest or trustworthy.  Those are the top two candidates for President. We live in interesting times. I am not making predictions at this time. I will remind you that Trump has gathered some attractive endorsements from fairly astute politicians.

We never lost a major engagement

Dear Jerry –

Since the subject of Vietnam has come up, I’ve got to comment.

Speaking as a two-tour Vietnam vet, I agree with your larger assessment of why we lost. It just goes to show that the adage, “Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics,” has considerable truth.

That said, your correspondent who stated that “We never lost a major engagement” should qualify that with a discussion of what constitutes “major”. If getting a battalion chewed up and spit out doesn’t count, I’m not sure what does. I refer, of course, to the battle of Ong Thanh, 17 Oct 1967. An arrogant battalion commander fed two companies of 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment (1st Div) into an ambush by a reinforced VC regiment, in terrain which severely hindered the air and artillery support which was our biggest advantage, at 10:1 odds. That’s 10:1 in favor of the VC.  After inflicting 90% casualties on the US forces, the regiment withdrew in good order, and 22 VC bodies were recovered. God save us from  more engagements like that one, and let’s not consign the lessons it teaches to the memory hole.

Regards,

Jim Martin

I never said we didn’t have some incompetent tactics, especially as we transitioned from guerilla war to Battalion and Regimental engagements. As the German General Staff commented, Americans know less and learn faster than anyone they had ever fought.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/03/14/theres-a-new-theory-about-why-some-cancer-therapies-fail-its-about-timing/

There’s a new theory about why some cancer therapies fail. It’s about timing. (WP)

By Ariana Eunjung Cha March 14 at 10:09 AM

One of the most disheartening things about cancer care today is the amount of guesswork that goes into drug treatments. It isn’t uncommon for patients to go through two, three or more therapies before finding success or running out of time.

Scientists now know that genetics explain why some drugs may work work miraculously in one person but not at all in another. Mike Hemann and Doug Lauffenburger of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have just come up with evidence that timing may be just as critical.

The researchers reported in the journal Cell that their work shows that tumors evolve though various stages and that some are more vulnerable to drugs than others. This suggests, Hemann said in an interview, that there may be a “windows” of opportunity for drugs that had previously been written off as failures.

The team’s work grew out of observations that the new arsenal of targeted therapy cancer drugs often appeared to have initial success, but that tumors came back within four to six months after having developed resistance. By using computational models and experiments on mice, they found that the progression of this resistance doesn’t appear to be linear. That is, the patients aren’t necessarily becoming more resistant to a drug over time. Instead it appears that the period of transition from a non-resistant state to a resistant state actually may be the time when it is most sensitive to drug therapy.

“You can think of it as replacing a roof on a house,” Hemann explained. “The most sensitive time is when you’ve taken down the old roof but before you’ve put the new one back on.”

Hemann said that if providers can predict the evolution of a tumor, they can target it along the way.

“If we know the route to resistance,” he said, “we can ambush tumor cells.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/03/12/after-a-year-in-space-astronaut-scott-kelly-is-retiring-from-nasa/

‘We must always challenge ourselves’: Scott Kelly to retire after year in space (WP)

By Niraj Chokshi March 12

Less than two weeks after returning from a year in space, Scott Kelly says he plans to retire from the astronaut life.

Kelly, who has amassed a cult following thanks in large part to the steady stream of photos from space he posted to social media, said Friday that he will retire from NASA effective April 1.

“Our universe is a big place, and we have many millions of miles yet to explore. My departure from NASA is my next step on that journey,” Kelly said in a Facebook post.

Kelly, who turned 52 in February, returned from his year-long mission earlier this month, earning himself the American record for most time spent in space. He orbited the earth 5,440 times — traveling an estimated 143,846,525 miles — and conducted three spacewalks during that trip.

He also became something of a celebrity along the way. From space, Kelly appeared on early-morning and late-night television and posted hundreds of photos to Twitter, amassing more than 1 million followers.

But his primary mission was to help further NASA’s understanding of the effects of extended time in space on the human body.

“In his year aboard the space station, he took part in experiments that will have far-reaching effects, helping us pave the way to putting humans on Mars and benefiting life on Earth,” Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. Scott Kelly previously visited space in 1999, 2007 and 2010.

He joined the U.S. Navy in 1987 and NASA in 1996. And while he plans to retire in just a few weeks, Kelly said his will continue to work with the space agency.

“I remain ever committed and dedicated to the service of human exploration and advancement whether in space or on Earth,” he said. “… I will provide periodic medical samples and support other testing in much the same way that my twin brother, former astronaut Mark Kelly, has made himself available for the Twins Study throughout this past mission.”

Kelly was born in New Jersey in 1964 and is a graduate of the State University of New York Maritime College and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Project Orion documentary must See!

Dear Jerry,

Highest Recommendation, a BBC documentary on the history of Project Orion. Believe it or not, even the conservative./leftish “Beeb” overall finds merit in the idea. Along with many of those interviewed, I cannot help believing that someone is going to build one of these and get out there. It’s just too tempting, and there is no shortage of desperate people who will realize it’s raining soup, and this is the bucket to catch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw

Petronius

When Freeman Dyson first proposed Orion for serious consideration, I was a member of the advanced proposal evaluation at Boeing. The senior members of the team were sharp cookies. I got to play with it, and our conclusion was that we could not only land a man on the Moon, we could put up an entire Colony and possibly start making some revenue:  movies, of course, but low gravity – i/6 gee –, various materials testing, an absolutely biologically isolated test lab, and various other ideas.  I understand there was resistance from SAC – Orion used a lot of nuclear warheads – and of course all kinds of environmental problems.  But it sure was fun to play with!

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Sunday, March 13, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

This morning I came into the front office to my main machine, an aging but still pretty good Intel Core I-7 I call Alien Artifact because of his very convenient Thermaltake large case, told me “Welcome to Windows 10”. This was a surprise because when I went to bed he was running Window 7, and I had just refused one of the innumerable Microsoft pop-up messages exhorting me to take advantage of their free offer and upgrade.to Windows 10. Apparently they got tired of asking and just did it.

There didn’t seem to be much choice about it. I expect that if I looked online on one of my other machines – all of which use Windows 19, as it happens – I could have found a way to refuse, or get back to Windows 7. Indeed, a quick Google of “is there any way to refuse the windows 10 upgrade?” gets a number of answers, including passionately stated reasons why I might want to do so; but for good or ill, I submitted. It didn’t take long, and up came the familiar screens telling me that all my applications are exactly where you left them, and after more trundling I found my tray full of the same icons as before, and they all seemed to work.

Then I looked for Free Cell, which is my mindless timewaster; and it wasn’t there. There was, in all applications, a Games icon, but no intelligible search function. I wasted a lot of time trying to find freecell.exe on my computer and gave up; fortunately I found it by looking at a backup copy, and installed it without problems, so it’s there. I also managed, and I am not quite sure how, to activate the Windows 10 Games pack that includes a new, improved animation, needlessly slow and needlessly jazzed up form of free cell; hurrah and all that, but I didn’t like it much when I played it on other Windows 10 machines where I thought I had no choice, and I don’t need it here. So I’ve got real FreeCell pinned to my start menu, and I can forget the jazzed up ersatz version that I suppose comes with Windows 10. Someone at Microsoft undoubtedly got promoted for this gaga monstrosity; me, I’d want to see he or she never worked on anything else, but then I’m not a Microsoft exec.

The lack of a real search function, and of a useable file manager, are the obvious defects of Windows 10. Windows 7 had an awkward Search function, but you could work around it; but Windows 10 either doesn’t have one at all, or they have made the instructions incomprehensible. I find all kinds of references on line, but they all lead to instructions I can’t follow: commands that aren’t where they say they are, and other such nonsense. If anyone knows of a good, simple way to search for files by name, as we had from DOS days, please tell me. I’ve had Windows 10 for a while, but not on my main machine; I do a lot of searching for files, and now I can’t. I’m sure there must be a way, but Microsoft has stymied me on that one. Also, I could use a good file manager that will copy all but only the later files in a folder to the backup folder. XCOPY does that, but the default locations for files is buried in an interminably deep nest, and I can’t type well any more. I can sort of use Windows Commander, and I suppose I’ll get by with Explorer, but I got used to file managers when Windows first came out, and I see no reason for abandoning them. I still use Norton’s Windows Commander, which works; MicroLogic’s Diskmapper NT – the name ought to indicate how old it is – worked fine on Windows 7, but trundles endlessly on Windows 10, so I suppose I’ll have to part with it.

Anyway, they’ve forced the issue. I’ve only used Windows 10 on secondary machines, for late night work, and some games, and of course on the Surface Pro when I needed a tablet/portable on the few occasions I’ve worked away from home; but I’ve always just sort of endured the uncertainties and the puzzles and the odd guru-friendly direction they’ve taken it under the illusion that they’re making it more user friendly. Maybe they are, and maybe it’s experienced users like me who are increasingly frustrated with their pesky improvements; there’s a lot to like about Windows 10, but for me the improvements are dwarfed by the loss of choices and practices we learned long ago and have become habits.

Machines are getting faster and faster, increasingly more powerful doubling g in power every couple of years. Memory is getting very cheap. There’s no need to bum code, eliminate redundant commands, leave the old way in even as you add new; you’re not saving much, and you frustrate heck out of long time users who don’t want to learn simpler new methods for doing things we’ve done for decades.

Oh, well.

I’ve just found that if you let MicroLogic Diskmapper NT run long enough, it does work with Windows 10; mine was apparently set for a drive with some old backup files or great complexity, and it took minutes to run. I’ve tested it now on other better organized drives, including this machine and by network the C: drive on the Surface Pro 3, and it works in tens of seconds. If you want a picture of what’s on your drives, it’s a great way to get one.

I’ll be doing a lot more fooling around with Windows 10 now, and with luck one you will know of search and file management programs that work with it that I can recommend. I’ll have a full report later, but, my initial impression is that it’s faster, it’s mostly easy to use, but the lack of a good search for files program, and a file manager, is very annoying.

Late Sunday Evening:

I’m told by my advisors that there is too a search function in Windows 10; just punch the Windows key and start typing.  When I punch the Windows key I get to type to Cortana, who simply cannot find, for example, dmnt.exe even though I am looking at the file in C:/WORK/DISKMAPPER.  It’s there, and actually I can open it by clicking on it, but I can find it only because I know where I put it.  I need a working example of precisely how to use this search program, and can I make it look at mapped disk drives as I could in Windows 7? I can’t do it now, which means I can’t tell you how to do it. 

Peter Glaskowsky says: …”there is a “real search function” in Windows 10. It should appear as a magnifying glass on your task bar, or maybe just a field that says “ask me anything”. Or you can just open a File Explorer window and use the search box near the upper-right corner.”

The problem is that none of those methods find C:/WORK/DISKMAPPER/diskmapper.exe. I know the file is there; I can see it in an Explorer, or in Windows Commander; but neither Cortana (“Ask me anything”), nor the search window in Explorer can find it.  Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I have tried this on Alien Artifact, who just got sandbagged with Windows 10, and on Swan who has been running Windows 10 for months, and on neither does the search program work for me.  It may be  there, but they sure can’t explain it to me; and I have a lot of experience that says that if I can’t use it. there are a lot of others who can’t either.

Peter also tells me that with modern fast disks, it’s not so important to have “copy changed files only” functions for backup.  Of course for fiction and articles and various text files, he’s right – unless you have a big “Full Monty” folder with everything you’ve ever written in folders and sub-folders within it.  Alas I do, and I copy every new creation into it, and once in a while burn DVD’s of it, too.  It gets pretty big, and copying every file in it takes quite a while; and of course there are better ways to organize things so that time problem can be made to vanish.  But one can’t: Outlook.pst files get huge.  Even if you work to archive often they get huge because the archive files get huge, and after a few years there are a lot of them. If you think to do it you can stop opening some of them when you open Outlook, but if you need to search for something you get two years ago that archive file better be routinely accessed by Outlook, or it won’t be indexed, and…   Anyway, I started using XCOPY outlookfolder1 ouflookfolder2 /e/s/d/y because if does copy all but only the outlookfolder1 files that have been changed since last time.  that can the several gigabytes of copying avoided.  It’s easy enough.  Except that the various default folders Windows now puts things in are routinely buried deep with very long pathways, and I don’t type accurately any more.  Ah well.

I am also reminded that computing power no longer doubles every two years; more like 10% a year.  All true, although that’s an astonishing growth rate, and our software has a long way to go to catch up wish what we’ve already got.  Even so, it grows fast enough that removing redundant commands is no longer very productive, and programmers need not bother bumming a few kilobytes to make room for the new stuff; there’s plenty of room for the old for the convenience of those who already learned how to do it.

Incidentally, this is sort of the process I used to vet my old BYTE columns, and Chaos Manor Reviews;  you don’t normally get to see it.

And now it’s after midnight and I’m still getting instructions on haw to

Game over.

I just explained this to my wife. She said that computers beat people at games often and I told her this is different because chess is to go what checkers is to chess. It is the ultimate game of spatial awareness in my opinion.

People think men came to “dominate” society because they’re musclebound jerks. I think it has more to do with our spatial skills and our ability to use missile weapons to hit moving targets efficiently. Spatial skills are what allow the males of our race to defend the race, make conquests in the name of the race, and foster the race’s continued survival and perhaps excellence.

Now AI is better at that than us. It’s over. If people think superior weaponry or technological gimmicks will save us, they learned nothing from Vietnam. In my opinion, we lost Vietnam — despite not losing a single military engagement as far as I know — because the Vietnamese generals used go-styled spatial skills and our generals used semi-spatial, semi-Shakespearean style chess skills.

AI wins. This article admonishes us to “keep an eye on AI” but AI could become self aware and no reason exists why we would need to know as my friend and mentor George Jackson pointed out. I went further to tell him that, realistically, they could create orders, have things shipped, and even pay people to come and work and assemble things for them if they ever got internet access and learned to use a web browser…

https://in.news.yahoo.com/rise-machines-keep-eye-ai-142626820.html

So, I guess we try to become better people and hope the AI race is more gentle with us than we’ve been with everything and everyone, including ourselves. My computer, Sabazios, thinks so…. 😉 ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Well now, I wouldn’t say that. Imagine what a human assisted by a computer can do.

And Watson already knows how to use the Internet and has a web browser.

We didn’t lode in Viet Nam. By 1972 ARVN could and did resist invasion from the North of 150,000 men and more tanks than the Wehrmacht had in taking France, and indeed if the USSR had sent that army into France and the US gave the French no more assistance than we gave Viet Nam in 1975, France would have fallen in 1972; but we did give air and logistical support, and lost fewer than 1000 casualties; of their 150,000, 100,000 were killed, captured, or surrendered; fewer than 50,000 ever made it home again Of course in 1075 we supplied almost nothing and gave no air support, so Viet Nam fell, as would practically any other country on Earth invaded by a new army of over 100,000 with more tanks than the Wehrmacht sent into Russia. What would you expect?

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

That’s fair, but Watson is not self aware is he?

And, you’re right about Vietnam. My comments related to forces present, patterns in their behavior and inferences about their decision making.

And, yes, a human computer hybrid would be most interesting. We might become biomechanoids. Homo sapiens domesticus becomes homo sapiens machina?

The thing with Vietnam is that we didn’t lose major military engagements and still lost the war. So, maybe more weapons would have the desired effect, but it seems to me that military force was sufficient and we needed something more to win.

Joshua Jordan

We have two threads going here, and I haven’t much time for either just now. We were beaten and humiliated in Viet Nam, but it wasn’t our army that lost; neither strategy nor tactics was all that defective. We lost in Berkeley, and on CNN, and in the Halls of Congress, and finally in the White House where they were too distracted to talk about the Grand Strategy of the Nation and the Cold War — which was still dangerous.

Neither Watson nor Deep Mind is self aware, and neither have any “desires” we have not given them; but I do suggest we have great care in telling Deep Mind what it “wants” to do. It needs primary preferences that tell it that it is better that it “fail” at any given mission than harm humans, harm needs to be defined, and a lot of thought needs to go into constructing that primary table of preferences. I hinted at that in my novel Starswarm and it will be dealt with more in the books I am working on: LisaBetta with John DeChancie, and the Avalon series third novel with Niven and Barnes.

I think your reader (“The Battleground Poll…”) is an optimist about Trump’s chances in November. And it’s not a low-stakes gamble:

President Clinton, and all that entails.

Yes, it’s long been known that the actual majority in this country is right-center. The progressive/coastal-elite MSM monopoly, plus a couple dozen Dem urban vote-manufacturing machines, plus, yes, the Rep faction more concerned with getting invited to coastal elite cocktail parties than with their constituents, is what’s allowed the progs the power they have.

That said, I expect the GOPe would cut a deal with Trump. That’s what they do.

Mr. Trump’s real problem is, something over half the country as a whole, among these a major slice of conservatives, dislikes and distrusts him.

He’s spent his entire adult life as the sort of salesman that’ll sell a LOT of cars – to the people he doesn’t cause to walk right back out of the dealership, as soon as they can politely disengage. Many, many people across the spectrum Just. Don’t. Trust. Him.

Yes, Hillary is the only other candidate that approaches his unpopularity. And, yes, conservatives KNOW she’d be bad, where they merely suspect he will. Tactically, yes, a lot will hold their nose and vote for him – which is good for half to two-thirds the turnout as would be actual enthusiasm.

Low enthusiasm outside his core minority aside, some tactical points:

– The Dems can pretty much replay on Trump their destruction of Romney as an uncaring rich guy. Only more so. It was largely fiction with Romney, but Trump over the years has provided them with more ammo than they’ll ever be able to use.

– One place Trump will create enthusiasm, via fear, is the Dem base.

Some will cross over (though less than you might expect – I suspect many of the Dem crossovers thus far have been tactical, not sincere) but many more will turn out against him who would have otherwise stayed home for Hillary. Hope that the Bernistas will all (or even mostly) stay home is likely false – much of last night’s anti-Trump turnout in Chicago was them.

– Given our thoroughly corrupt DOJ, Trump is far more vulnerable to an October Indictment than his alternatives. Criminal tax fraud, anyone?

The charges don’t have to be provable, just plausible enough to hold up through November (ask Ted Stevens) and Trump has already provided the plausibility by admitting that his tax returns are, um, complex and already under question.

– And speaking of our corrupt DOJ, I expect the only way we’ll see a Hillary prosecution is if despite all this she show serious signs of losing anyway. At that point, she’s lost her protecting-the-legacy (and keeping the files sealed) utility to this lawless administration, and they’ll do whatever it takes to parachute in a less unpopular substitute. Think they’ll care about the law? They haven’t so far.

They’ve already packed the DC Circuit, so 4-4 in the Supreme Court is a win for them.

Yes, these last points are an argument that the general this year will be tougher than expected for ANY Republican candidate. All the more reason not to go with the one most obviously legally vulnerable, and with by far the highest inherent negatives.

Porkypine

I have not endorsed Trump, but I do not reject him; it becomes clearer that the GOP Establishment either does not get the message that a large majority of the Party does not want to go where they are leading, or, as they did in the Goldwater days, simply will not change course. Reagan corrected some of that, but I note that days after Bush I was inaugurated, the only person General Graham and I could talk to about Strategic Defense was Vice President Quayle; all the other people Dan or I knew in the White House were fired by Bush I and quickly at that. The country club Republicans came in, and were so well established that when Bush I was turned out – mostly by Republican voters staying home – the establishment ran just about the only man Clinton could beat because it was his turn.

Perhaps this convention will be divided, and the winner will be negotiated: someone acceptable to Trump, Cruz, and the Party regulars. That will be some negotiation.

But even the Democrats are showing signs of a large disaffecting group.

Interesting times.

Digital universities
With the constant talk among the youth of this country about making university education free (IE: making taxpayers pay the exorbitant and never ending fee increases), the discussion in the household turned towards the obvious question…
Why isn’t there an Alphabet (Google) University? A monthly all access pass to an accredited associate degree program in most every topic available, fully populated with years worth of university lectures, course materials, books, labs and of course, entirely monitored so that when you graduate, you can then give any perspective employer a full detailed list of courses taken, time spent on them, grades, etc..
Or insert your favorite media source – Amazon University, Apple University, Netflix University.
To ensure the integrity of the program, users would verify their identity while performing coursework by a simple photo from their laptop, tablet or phone’s camera, and all would be required to attend an in person testing session which would have an individually printed and fully customized test drawing from tens if not hundreds of thousands of questions which would exactly match the course work the student performed over their education. No risk of someone buying answers as the answers for any one test would be useless to anyone else.
It would seem with the ever increasing automation coming in the future that making a better educated population (who are there by desire, not by requirement) would tie into everyone’s interests.
Playing devil’s advocate, it was questioned what would happen to traditional universities and community colleges – highline schools would likely be unaffected – you go to Yale to go to Yale, whereas the mass of basic classes which every community college presently mills students through would likely to turn to far more hands on skills, and universities would likely welcome students arriving with the basics already covered.
Further questions were made – wouldn’t an online education be less welcome in business? I think being able to show a perspective employer actual detailed records of the education would be more productive, as you could show exactly what was studied, the exact results of those studies, the time spent on it, etc. Whereas you have to make a bit of a leap of faith that the two year degree from x university actually included the skills you imagined it to.
But what about essays? The mainstay of a university education, the ability to communicate actual understanding and knowledge of the topic – the last real impediment to that is likely solved through Google’s Mind (or IBM’s Watson, etc.) You could constantly verify those results through paying graduate students to grade a very small sampling of those essays.
All in all, it really appears that every ingredient for the next ‘super app’ or online package is out there, there’s a strong demand for ‘affordable’ advanced education, it is easily verifiable, most content could be gathered within a single year, and prices would naturally be low as any high priced service would likely immediately inspire others to leap into the industry.

Gary Fuller

Most of my earlier stories assumed that the university establishment, having become manifestly useless, would shrink as Westinghouse and General Electric and other great corporations established their own; they needed competent workers, and the US Educations System wasn’t supplying them. That was also the theme of Higher Education by the late Dr. Charles Sheffield and me. It doesn’t seem to have happened. We can speculate on why, but the need is obvious.

ISIS Data Breach Identifies 22,000. Dear Dr. Pournelle,
While I wish I could believe that the above is a brilliant piece of intelligence happenstance, I’m not at all sure that it isn’t just elaborate disinformation…
Firstly, the circumstances surrounding how it was obtained, allegedly by a disgruntled ISIS member who stole a thumb drive from the head of their security, border on the bizarre. It’s not impossible, of course, just unlikely, if this aspect of the report is accurate to any great degree.
Secondly, many of the files apparently relate to terrorists who are known to be deceased, many of them for some time. I would have expected them to be culled upon confirmation of death…
And thirdly, since Arabic is a Semitic language and written from right to left, I was surprised to see that the format of the forms was Western in appearance (with information boxes positioned on the left). Maybe this is how they do things, though; I personally don’t know…
I’m not saying this data breach is a fake, only that at least some elements of it could well be. I hope it turns out to be completely accurate and gives us a chance to neutralize, by whatever suitable means, any ISIS operatives and/or sympathizers mentioned therein. But I also hope the powers that be exercise a degree of caution when they do so, just in case…

Jack Dwyer.

My experience has been that there is healthy skepticism in the intelligence community, so we may hope you speculation is incorrect; I wouldn’t know. I’m long out of that game.

Were the Mysterious Bog People Human Sacrifices?.

<http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/were-europes-mysterious-bog-people-human-sacrifices/472839/?single_page=true>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Sunday, March 13, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

This morning I came into the front office to my main machine, an aging but still pretty good Intel Core I-7 I call Alien Artifact because of his very convenient Thermaltake large case, told me “Welcome to Windows 10”. This was a surprise because when I went to bed he was running Window 7, and I had just refused one of the innumerable Microsoft pop-up messages exhorting me to take advantage of their free offer and upgrade.to Windows 10. Apparently they got tired of asking and just did it.

There didn’t seem to be much choice about it. I expect that if I looked online on one of my other machines – all of which use Windows 19, as it happens – I could have found a way to refuse, or get back to Windows 7. Indeed, a quick Google of “is there any way to refuse the windows 10 upgrade?” gets a number of answers, including passionately stated reasons why I might want to do so; but for good or ill, I submitted. It didn’t take long, and up came the familiar screens telling me that all my applications are exactly where you left them, and after more trundling I found my tray full of the same icons as before, and they all seemed to work.

Then I looked for Free Cell, which is my mindless timewaster; and it wasn’t there. There was, in all applications, a Games icon, but no intelligible search function. I wasted a lot of time trying to find freecell.exe on my computer and gave up; fortunately I found it by looking at a backup copy, and installed it without problems, so it’s there. I also managed, and I am not quite sure how, to activate the Windows 10 Games pack that includes a new, improved animation, needlessly slow and needlessly jazzed up form of free cell; hurrah and all that, but I didn’t like it much when I played it on other Windows 10 machines where I thought I had no choice, and I don’t need it here. So I’ve got real FreeCell pinned to my start menu, and I can forget the jazzed up ersatz version that I suppose comes with Windows 10. Someone at Microsoft undoubtedly got promoted for this gaga monstrosity; me, I’d want to see he or she never worked on anything else, but then I’m not a Microsoft exec.

The lack of a real search function, and of a useable file manager, are the obvious defects of Windows 10. Windows 7 had an awkward Search function, but you could work around it; but Windows 10 either doesn’t have one at all, or they have made the instructions incomprehensible. I find all kinds of references on line, but they all lead to instructions I can’t follow: commands that aren’t where they say they are, and other such nonsense. If anyone knows of a good, simple way to search for files by name, as we had from DOS days, please tell me. I’ve had Windows 10 for a while, but not on my main machine; I do a lot of searching for files, and now I can’t. I’m sure there must be a way, but Microsoft has stymied me on that one. Also, I could use a good file manager that will copy all but only the later files in a folder to the backup folder. XCOPY does that, but the default locations for files is buried in an interminably deep nest, and I can’t type well any more. I can sort of use Windows Commander, and I suppose I’ll get by with Explorer, but I got used to file managers when Windows first came out, and I see no reason for abandoning them. I still use Norton’s Windows Commander, which works; MicroLogic’s Diskmapper NT – the name ought to indicate how old it is – worked fine on Windows 7, but trundles endlessly on Windows 10, so I suppose I’ll have to part with it.

Anyway, they’ve forced the issue. I’ve only used Windows 10 on secondary machines, for late night work, and some games, and of course on the Surface Pro when I needed a tablet/portable on the few occasions I’ve worked away from home; but I’ve always just sort of endured the uncertainties and the puzzles and the odd guru-friendly direction they’ve taken it under the illusion that they’re making it more user friendly. Maybe they are, and maybe it’s experienced users like me who are increasingly frustrated with their pesky improvements; there’s a lot to like about Windows 10, but for me the improvements are dwarfed by the loss of choices and practices we learned long ago and have become habits.

Machines are getting faster and faster, increasingly more powerful doubling g in power every couple of years. Memory is getting very cheap. There’s no need to bum code, eliminate redundant commands, leave the old way in even as you add new; you’re not saving much, and you frustrate heck out of long time users who don’t want to learn simpler new methods for doing things we’ve done for decades.

Oh, well.

I’ve just found that if you let MicroLogic Diskmapper NT run long enough, it does work with Windows 10; mine was apparently set for a drive with some old backup files or great complexity, and it took minutes to run. I’ve tested it now on other better organized drives, including this machine and by network the C: drive on the Surface Pro 3, and it works in tens of seconds. If you want a picture of what’s on your drives, it’s a great way to get one.

I’ll be doing a lot more fooling around with Windows 10 now, and with luck one you will know of search and file management programs that work with it that I can recommend. I’ll have a full report later, but, my initial impression is that it’s faster, it’s mostly easy to use, but the lack of a good search for files program, and a file manager, is very annoying.

Game over.

I just explained this to my wife. She said that computers beat people at games often and I told her this is different because chess is to go what checkers is to chess. It is the ultimate game of spatial awareness in my opinion.

People think men came to “dominate” society because they’re musclebound jerks. I think it has more to do with our spatial skills and our ability to use missile weapons to hit moving targets efficiently. Spatial skills are what allow the males of our race to defend the race, make conquests in the name of the race, and foster the race’s continued survival and perhaps excellence.

Now AI is better at that than us. It’s over. If people think superior weaponry or technological gimmicks will save us, they learned nothing from Vietnam. In my opinion, we lost Vietnam — despite not losing a single military engagement as far as I know — because the Vietnamese generals used go-styled spatial skills and our generals used semi-spatial, semi-Shakespearean style chess skills.

AI wins. This article admonishes us to “keep an eye on AI” but AI could become self aware and no reason exists why we would need to know as my friend and mentor George Jackson pointed out. I went further to tell him that, realistically, they could create orders, have things shipped, and even pay people to come and work and assemble things for them if they ever got internet access and learned to use a web browser…

https://in.news.yahoo.com/rise-machines-keep-eye-ai-142626820.html

So, I guess we try to become better people and hope the AI race is more gentle with us than we’ve been with everything and everyone, including ourselves. My computer, Sabazios, thinks so…. 😉 ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Well now, I wouldn’t say that. Imagine what a human assisted by a computer can do.

And Watson already knows how to use the Internet and has a web browser.

We didn’t lode in Viet Nam. By 1972 ARVN could and did resist invasion from the North of 150,000 men and more tanks than the Wehrmacht had in taking France, and indeed if the USSR had sent that army into France and the US gave the French no more assistance than we gave Viet Nam in 1975, France would have fallen in 1972; but we did give air and logistical support, and lost fewer than 1000 casualties; of their 150,000, 100,000 were killed, captured, or surrendered; fewer than 50,000 ever made it home again Of course in 1075 we supplied almost nothing and gave no air support, so Viet Nam fell, as would practically any other country on Earth invaded by a new army of over 100,000 with more tanks than the Wehrmacht sent into Russia. What would you expect?

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

That’s fair, but Watson is not self aware is he?

And, you’re right about Vietnam. My comments related to forces present, patterns in their behavior and inferences about their decision making.

And, yes, a human computer hybrid would be most interesting. We might become biomechanoids. Homo sapiens domesticus becomes homo sapiens machina?

The thing with Vietnam is that we didn’t lose major military engagements and still lost the war. So, maybe more weapons would have the desired effect, but it seems to me that military force was sufficient and we needed something more to win.

Joshua Jordan

We have two threads going here, and I haven’t much time for either just now. We were beaten and humiliated in Viet Nam, but it wasn’t our army that lost; neither strategy nor tactics was all that defective. We lost in Berkeley, and on CNN, and in the Halls of Congress, and finally in the White House where they were too distracted to talk about the Grand Strategy of the Nation and the Cold War — which was still dangerous.

Neither Watson nor Deep Mind is self aware, and neither have any “desires” we have not given them; but I do suggest we have great care in telling Deep Mind what it “wants” to do. It needs primary preferences that tell it that it is better that it “fail” at any given mission than harm humans, harm needs to be defined, and a lot of thought needs to go into constructing that primary table of preferences. I hinted at that in my novel Starswarm and it will be dealt with more in the books I am working on: LisaBetta with John DeChancie, and the Avalon series third novel with Niven and Barnes.

I think your reader (“The Battleground Poll…”) is an optimist about Trump’s chances in November. And it’s not a low-stakes gamble:

President Clinton, and all that entails.

Yes, it’s long been known that the actual majority in this country is right-center. The progressive/coastal-elite MSM monopoly, plus a couple dozen Dem urban vote-manufacturing machines, plus, yes, the Rep faction more concerned with getting invited to coastal elite cocktail parties than with their constituents, is what’s allowed the progs the power they have.

That said, I expect the GOPe would cut a deal with Trump. That’s what they do.

Mr. Trump’s real problem is, something over half the country as a whole, among these a major slice of conservatives, dislikes and distrusts him.

He’s spent his entire adult life as the sort of salesman that’ll sell a LOT of cars – to the people he doesn’t cause to walk right back out of the dealership, as soon as they can politely disengage. Many, many people across the spectrum Just. Don’t. Trust. Him.

Yes, Hillary is the only other candidate that approaches his unpopularity. And, yes, conservatives KNOW she’d be bad, where they merely suspect he will. Tactically, yes, a lot will hold their nose and vote for him – which is good for half to two-thirds the turnout as would be actual enthusiasm.

Low enthusiasm outside his core minority aside, some tactical points:

– The Dems can pretty much replay on Trump their destruction of Romney as an uncaring rich guy. Only more so. It was largely fiction with Romney, but Trump over the years has provided them with more ammo than they’ll ever be able to use.

– One place Trump will create enthusiasm, via fear, is the Dem base.

Some will cross over (though less than you might expect – I suspect many of the Dem crossovers thus far have been tactical, not sincere) but many more will turn out against him who would have otherwise stayed home for Hillary. Hope that the Bernistas will all (or even mostly) stay home is likely false – much of last night’s anti-Trump turnout in Chicago was them.

– Given our thoroughly corrupt DOJ, Trump is far more vulnerable to an October Indictment than his alternatives. Criminal tax fraud, anyone?

The charges don’t have to be provable, just plausible enough to hold up through November (ask Ted Stevens) and Trump has already provided the plausibility by admitting that his tax returns are, um, complex and already under question.

– And speaking of our corrupt DOJ, I expect the only way we’ll see a Hillary prosecution is if despite all this she show serious signs of losing anyway. At that point, she’s lost her protecting-the-legacy (and keeping the files sealed) utility to this lawless administration, and they’ll do whatever it takes to parachute in a less unpopular substitute. Think they’ll care about the law? They haven’t so far.

They’ve already packed the DC Circuit, so 4-4 in the Supreme Court is a win for them.

Yes, these last points are an argument that the general this year will be tougher than expected for ANY Republican candidate. All the more reason not to go with the one most obviously legally vulnerable, and with by far the highest inherent negatives.

Porkypine

I have not endorsed Trump, but I do not reject him; it becomes clearer that the GOP Establishment either does not get the message that a large majority of the Party does not want to go where they are leading, or, as they did in the Goldwater days, simply will not change course. Reagan corrected some of that, but I note that days after Bush I was inaugurated, the only person General Graham and I could talk to about Strategic Defense was Vice President Quayle; all the other people Dan or I knew in the White House were fired by Bush I and quickly at that. The country club Republicans came in, and were so well established that when Bush I was turned out – mostly by Republican voters staying home – the establishment ran just about the only man Clinton could beat because it was his turn.

Perhaps this convention will be divided, and the winner will be negotiated: someone acceptable to Trump, Cruz, and the Party regulars. That will be some negotiation.

But even the Democrats are showing signs of a large disaffecting group.

Interesting times.

Digital universities
With the constant talk among the youth of this country about making university education free (IE: making taxpayers pay the exorbitant and never ending fee increases), the discussion in the household turned towards the obvious question…
Why isn’t there an Alphabet (Google) University? A monthly all access pass to an accredited associate degree program in most every topic available, fully populated with years worth of university lectures, course materials, books, labs and of course, entirely monitored so that when you graduate, you can then give any perspective employer a full detailed list of courses taken, time spent on them, grades, etc..
Or insert your favorite media source – Amazon University, Apple University, Netflix University.
To ensure the integrity of the program, users would verify their identity while performing coursework by a simple photo from their laptop, tablet or phone’s camera, and all would be required to attend an in person testing session which would have an individually printed and fully customized test drawing from tens if not hundreds of thousands of questions which would exactly match the course work the student performed over their education. No risk of someone buying answers as the answers for any one test would be useless to anyone else.
It would seem with the ever increasing automation coming in the future that making a better educated population (who are there by desire, not by requirement) would tie into everyone’s interests.
Playing devil’s advocate, it was questioned what would happen to traditional universities and community colleges – highline schools would likely be unaffected – you go to Yale to go to Yale, whereas the mass of basic classes which every community college presently mills students through would likely to turn to far more hands on skills, and universities would likely welcome students arriving with the basics already covered.
Further questions were made – wouldn’t an online education be less welcome in business? I think being able to show a perspective employer actual detailed records of the education would be more productive, as you could show exactly what was studied, the exact results of those studies, the time spent on it, etc. Whereas you have to make a bit of a leap of faith that the two year degree from x university actually included the skills you imagined it to.
But what about essays? The mainstay of a university education, the ability to communicate actual understanding and knowledge of the topic – the last real impediment to that is likely solved through Google’s Mind (or IBM’s Watson, etc.) You could constantly verify those results through paying graduate students to grade a very small sampling of those essays.
All in all, it really appears that every ingredient for the next ‘super app’ or online package is out there, there’s a strong demand for ‘affordable’ advanced education, it is easily verifiable, most content could be gathered within a single year, and prices would naturally be low as any high priced service would likely immediately inspire others to leap into the industry.

Gary Fuller

Most of my earlier stories assumed that the university establishment, having become manifestly useless, would shrink as Westinghouse and General Electric and other great corporations established their own; they needed competent workers, and the US Educations System wasn’t supplying them. That was also the theme of Higher Education by the late Dr. Charles Sheffield and me. It doesn’t seem to have happened. We can speculate on why, but the need is obvious.

ISIS Data Breach Identifies 22,000. Dear Dr. Pournelle,
While I wish I could believe that the above is a brilliant piece of intelligence happenstance, I’m not at all sure that it isn’t just elaborate disinformation…
Firstly, the circumstances surrounding how it was obtained, allegedly by a disgruntled ISIS member who stole a thumb drive from the head of their security, border on the bizarre. It’s not impossible, of course, just unlikely, if this aspect of the report is accurate to any great degree.
Secondly, many of the files apparently relate to terrorists who are known to be deceased, many of them for some time. I would have expected them to be culled upon confirmation of death…
And thirdly, since Arabic is a Semitic language and written from right to left, I was surprised to see that the format of the forms was Western in appearance (with information boxes positioned on the left). Maybe this is how they do things, though; I personally don’t know…
I’m not saying this data breach is a fake, only that at least some elements of it could well be. I hope it turns out to be completely accurate and gives us a chance to neutralize, by whatever suitable means, any ISIS operatives and/or sympathizers mentioned therein. But I also hope the powers that be exercise a degree of caution when they do so, just in case…

Jack Dwyer.

My experience has been that there is healthy skepticism in the intelligence community, so we may hope you speculation is incorrect; I wouldn’t know. I’m long out of that game.

Were the Mysterious Bog People Human Sacrifices?.

<http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/were-europes-mysterious-bog-people-human-sacrifices/472839/?single_page=true>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Friday, March 11, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

Tuesday is do or die for Marco Rubio; after that he has a decision to make. Meanwhile, the number to watch is the number of delegates each candidate has.

Hitler and Mussolini used to disrupt their political’ opponents’ meetings and speeches, Hitler’s gangs with truncheons, Mussolini’s with castor oil which they forcibly fed to opposition leaders. These tactics had been honed by the Reds before the Revolution, and were exported for use by the Communists in various parts of Europe. To the best of my knowledge there have been no such operations by Trump’s followers, but apparently there are increasing numbers of protests at his meetings. While there have always been some roughhousing and scuffles in American politics, raiding each other’s gatherings has not been traditional, with some exceptions. More usual is getting yourself thrown out of someone else’s meetings, thus getting the publicity rather than the speaker. I expect to see a lot of that in the next few weeks, and a great deal more after the conventions.

Deep Mind, the Google computer and programs that have won at Go, learned to do so by playing thousands of games against a copy of itself, and analyzing the results. I see no reason why such a program cannot be used to teach Deep Mind how to pose as a human and thus pass the Turing test, and given the surprisingly short time it took to beat an international grandmaster at Go, I would expect it to be able to pass for a human with most interviewers by 2018, if it takes that long. The technique would be to have two or more such machines try to fool each other… millions of times, learning from each attempt. How long would that take?

If you think you know how this nomination contest is going, wait a day.

Today’s surprise is, anti-Trump protesters just started showing up at Trump rallies in large numbers rather than the previous couple dozen.

A bunch got inside a rally in St. Louis earlier today, locked arms, and shut down the rally for twenty minutes while cops removed them. Then in the last hour, a big crowd – Trump just said “a few thousand” outside the hall – showed up to protest the Trump rally at UofIL Chicago, and enough – hundreds? – got inside the hall that Trump after consulting with Chicago PD decided to cancel the rally before it started.

Reporter on the spot says, the protesters are a mixed bunch, not just students, not Black Lives Matter types. “Sanders supporters” was the description he eventually reluctantly came up with when pressed. He said he’s heard via his daughter (a local student) that this got organized via Facebook over the last few days, and just snowballed.

Spot interviews came up with one 80-year-old woman who didn’t like Trump quoting Mussolini, two typical lefty-protester types, and one Republican Kasich supporter who said she showed up because she just doesn’t like Trump.

No major violence reported – the Chicago cops are said to be doing a good job keeping the two crowds separated. A few punches thrown inside the hall. Protest continues noisily outside the hall.

If this is truly self-organizing via social media, things may have just gotten really weird. Weird-er. I’d suspect GOPe dirty tricks, but that probably ascribes them a lot more imagination and competence than warranted. There’s some real chance this is just people who don’t like Trump self-organizing.

How might this affect the race? You can think of the same 60’s analogies as I do – but how do they apply? Hardhats for Nixon? New Left sinking the Dems?

One way I can think of to look at it is, Trump has been playing with classic rabble-rousing techniques, only now anti-Trump rabble has decided to show up also.

And Trump just made what may be a very shrewd observation – that both sides are protesting the same problems – unemployment, underemployment, etc. Which would fit with the protesters having a Sanderista core.

If this was the thirties, we’d get to see who’s followers are better street fighters. Trump cancelled the rally and called for peace, and so far he’s mostly getting it. It ain’t the thirties, so far.

But the thing is, if protesting Trump becomes a mass thing, he may have to give up rallies to keep it from coming to that. That, or count on having good enough control over his followers that some don’t come loaded for bear next time. Playing with fire, etc.

Welcome to 2016…

So far no Castor Oil, and I expect Trump and his followers are too smart to retaliate in kind; but we’ll see. Interesting times indeed. And as you say, they are protesting what he is fighting. I saw a number of “Veterans for Trump” looking rather disgruntled but doing nothing.  The US Army, led by West Pointers, is not the Wehrmacht of the Thirties, nor is the American Legion anything like the Stahlhut. But there are veterans of the Iraqi wars not all that much older than the protesters, and it is rather unwise to taunt them beyond the limits of patience.  Eventually that is going to happen and the result will not be pretty.  Today’s veterans are all veterans of a volunteer army; very few squishes among them.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3030564/microsoft-windows/microsoft-uses-the-force-you-will-upgrade-to-windows-10.html

Article:

OPINION BY STEVEN J. VAUGHAN-NICHOLS

Microsoft uses the force: You WILL upgrade to Windows 10

They are wearing me down. This machine is Windows 7, but I expect I’ll eventually succumb to one of the free Windows 10 offers. I have advanced copies of Windows 10 on three machines now, and when it is good it is very good; and the glitches have been increasingly rare with the latest builds. And some of the features of 10 are excellent.

Subj: Wow –they caused it now they have to fix it

This is infuriating but good to know the strategy of the enemy!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201407/anti-intellectualism-and-the-dumbing-down-america

J

Somebody has to fix it. The whole point of the United States was to allow many approaches to social procedures, with the theory is that the best ones would be adopted. Centralization, making a Federal Case of everything, defeats that; and the result is the train wreck they have made of what was once the best public education system in the world. I don’t know which is The Best system of education, but it’s certain that the US Dept. of Education doesn’t know either. Give the money now paying for DOE salaries and pensions to the 20%  poorest school systems, and go back to local school districts and local school taxes;  those who pay get to vote on who runs them. You’ll see instant changes for the better.

The Battleground Poll, which is equally funded by both Democrat and Republican research organizations, has, for nearly two decades, shown that self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by two-to-one. This is irrespective of the candidates, issues, and other factors. The Republican establishment either doesn’t know this or doesn’t care. For decades they have done nothing but alienate the very people who could hand them permanent control of Congress and the White House.

If Trump takes the nomination and the GOP OB club sits it out, Trump still wins. Some conservatives are skeptical of him (I am one), but my guess is that most will be willing to give him a chance, seeing that he is hated by both the Democrats — particularly the mainstream media

— and the GOP establishment that has betrayed them so often. They will be joined by many blue-collar Democrats as well. Bernie’s supporters will stay home or get drunk. Hillary may spend election day behind bars, out on bail, or at least under indictment. Certainly Trump will not play nice with her, as Romney did with Obama in 2012.

He will go after her like an angry pit bull on email, Benghazi, Bill’s women and much else.

We live in interesting times.

Richard White

Austin, Texas

We do indeed.

The DOJ Threatens to Seize Apple’s Crown Jewels (Fortune)

The government’s over-reach in San Bernardino has finally gone too far.

The court papers filed by the Justice Department on Thursday—the ones describing Apple’s rhetoric in the San Bernardino standoff as “false” and “corrosive”—objected in particular to Apple’s description of the FBI’s court order as leading to a “police state.”

But “police state” is not a bad description for the scenario the DOJ paints a few pages later in Footnote Nine:

“9. For the reasons discussed above, the FBI cannot itself modify the software on [the San Bernardino shooter’s] iPhone without access to the source code and Apple’s private electronic signature. The government did not seek to compel Apple to turn those over because it believed such a request would be less palatable to Apple. If Apple would prefer that course, however, that may provide an alternative that requires less labor by Apple programmers.”

Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily tech newsletter.

Did you catch that? That’s a classic police threat: We can do this easy way or the hard way. Give us the little thing we’re asking for—a way to bypass your security software—or we’ll take whole thing: Your crown jewels and the royal seal too.

With Apple’s source code, the FBI could, in theory, create its own version of iOS with the security features stripped out. Stamped with Apple’s AAPL 1.08% electronic signature, the Bureau’s versions of iOS could pass for the real thing.

Does the Attorney General know what her lawyers are up to? Does the President?

They know exactly what they are doing; do not be mistaken about that.

‘It’s all another sobering reminder that any powers we grant to the federal government for the purpose of national security will inevitably be used just about everywhere else. And extraordinary powers we grant government in wartime rarely go away once the war is over. And, of course, the nifty thing for government agencies about a “war on terrorism” is that it’s a war that will never formally end.’

<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/03/10/surprise-nsa-data-will-soon-routinely-be-used-for-domestic-policing-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-terrorism/>

Surprisingly insightful, for Pravda on the Potomac.

Of course, they’re still unable to comprehend that this applies to *all* areas of government, not just ‘national security’. Or, if they comprehend it, to admit it.

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

The Washington Post gets a number of things right. Those tend to vanish among the other stuff.

: Language requirements

Dear Jerry,

Some thoughts on the value of learning foreign languages-

Over 40 years ago, if I may refer to such antediluvian times and still be considered “relevant”, the United States Army discovered, more to my surprise than the Army’s, that I had an aptitude for languages. That, and a 160 (out of 160 possible) score on my Army General Test, led me to one of the most interesting scholastic experiences I’ve had: An eight month posting to the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. Interesting mainly for the way I went from “Ein Bier, bitte”

to being rated as being at a three out of five level of competency in speaking and comprehension of German In 32 weeks of six hours a day, five days a week study.

I had never been a good student. A solid C average in high school, and had flunked out Of community college. The Army ignored both data points, and suddenly instead of a buck private I was in E5 with a valuable skill. What skill? Not the German, though the Army thought of it that way. The Skill was something considerably more valuable: I had learned HOW to learn!

Nothing does that quite like being immersed in a task that requires every intellectual skill you have, gives you immediate feedback as you see yourself learning the new language and, not unimportant, also avoid the immediate transfer across the bay to Fort Ord for training as either a cook or truck driver should you fail to maintain passing grades. It concentrates the mind wonderfully, and once you have that skill, the world opens up for you.

I was never a good student. Learning a new language turned that into a degree from the University of California, Magna etc., graduate studies and a professional career.

Someone said that learning a new language is like getting a new soul.

Perhaps. Learning a new language gave me a new brain.

I’ll bet that stating the above would get me kicked out of any School of Education. But, I’ll bet the Christian Brothers in Tennessee would not be surprised by any of it.

Petronius

I was required to take Latin. I am glad I did, and I learned to read it pretty well, but I have no one to converse with in Latin. But I was always taught that knowing how to speak in foreign tongues was very valuable. I managed to pass examinations in German and Spanish in graduate school, but there is some controversy over whether I can speak either.

Incidentally, my wife’s brother Bill used to be the Sergeant in charge at the Army Language School many years ago, around the time we came to California.

Hack Brief: ISIS Data Breach Identifies 22,000 Members

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/hack-brief-isis-data-breach-identifies-22000-members/

Tracy

I will have more to say about this as the story develops.

Russia wants to use a modern NERVA to go to Mars.

<http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-thinks-can-use-nukes-fly-mars-90-days-can-find-rubles/>

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Roland Dobbins

Jerry

Shades of ORION:

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-thinks-can-use-nukes-fly-mars-90-days-can-find-rubles/

Ed

When Barry Goldwater Jr. was in Congress – I was co-director of his campaign – we worked together to try to save NERVA, but NASA didn’t want it. We’re paying for abandoning it now.

We buy our booster from the Russians. Will we buy interplanetary ships from them too? And will they sell them?

Not Everyone Ignored Possibility of a Tsunami
The Japanese village of Fudai survived the tsunami that caused the meltdown at Fukishima. Why? Because of a former mayor that remembered a similar incident as a child back in 1933 and heard of another back in 1896 and knew it would happen again. He got a lot of resistance from the town council at the time.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanese-mayor-laughed-building-huge-sea-wall–village-left-untouched-tsunami.html

Arondell Hoch

Indeed. The Japanese reactors were not faulty; their sea walls were abysmally low. A strange risk to take.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.