| Thursday,
October 19, 2006 ========
Subject: Installing IE7,
Jerry
I just today read that Microsoft released Internet
Explorer 7, so I followed the link in the news story and downloaded a copy
of the installation file. I started it up, and it told me to close all
antivirus and antispyware software, so I unplugged my computer from my
router, stopped my antivirus software and resumed the installation.
The installation went smoothly. Typical for Microsoft,
the installer told me what it was doing as it went along. I was happy to see
the malicious software removal tool was part of the package.
When it was done it told me that it was done
installing, but that I would need to install updated software from the
Microsoft Update site, so when I restarted my system - reconnected - that
was the first place I went. I had checked for updates before I had started
the IE7 installer, so I should not have been surprised to find there was
nothing there for me to update except for tired old Windows Messenger, DRM
Net Framework and other useless impedimenta which I always ignore.
In starting up, IE7 asked if I wanted to engage its
anti-phishing feature. Firefox's anti-phishing feature is turned on by
default, but can be disengaged in the Options.
The IE7 main window is a compacted copy of Firefox
with the don't-hide-the-tabs option enabled. I guess that is a form of
flattery. I haven't tried any betas of Vista, so I don't know what it will
look like, but I can see what the Firefox developers were trying to emulate
when they developed their new look for Firefox 2.0, which will be released
in another week or two.
The dropdown history puts the current page in context
with forward and back history, which is interesting and may be a timesaver.
The icons for the Links bar look too much like the
we-don't-know-what-application-goes-with-this-filetype icon for my taste.
Tabs: the dropdown tabs list is nice. I don't know
whether Firefox imitated an early IE7, or IE7 imitated Firefox or the tool
originated independently, but it is nice to have. IE7 did borrow Firefox's
method of middle-clicking on a link or bookmark to open the link in a new
tab, which is sensible. The focused vs. non-focused tabs are similar to my
SphereGnome theme family on Firefox. I don't like the IE7 method of opening
a new tab next to the focused tab, pushing the other tabs further to the
right; but it may be better when you have pushed tabs off the page.
Tabs get too small when you make too many of them -
too small to have any meaningful label. This is unnecessary since the tabs
can be pushed off the page. One really nice feature of the Tab List is that
the tabs which are on the page are shaded in the list. A great idea.
The Quick Tabs feature - showing up to 16 reduced
pages on my 1280x1024 display - is cute. It is probably even useful. And it
is pretty, much prettier than the browser's main window.
Overall, a worthy competitor to Firefox. The only
thing I miss from IE6 is the ability to drag toolbars anywhere I wanted to
in the browser's main window.
Ed
========
Subject: Alas, your books are still
proving to be prophetic
Dr. Pournelle,
from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles
/news/news.html?in_article_id=399145&in_page_id=1770
"After months of being taunted by a gang of yobs,
grandmother Diane Bond finally stood up to them when she was abused while
walking her pet dog. During a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse, the frail
64-year-old prodded the teenager ringleader gently in the stomach when he
urged her to 'Hit me, if you dare'."
"Moments later, the 5ft 1ins pensioner found herself
flat on her back and nursing a broken arm after the 15-year-old boy, who was
7 inches taller, pushed her to the ground. But to add insult to injury,
police officers arrested her for assaulting a child after his mother moaned
he had been attacked."
I seem to recall a similar scene from your novels,
involving a man standing up to a youth gang, his prosecution by an ambitious
DA, and his pet kitten being nailed to his door.
The news item above occurred in England, but sadly
would not be surprising if it happened in the US.
We may yet live to see the establishment of the
CoDominion.
Take care, Winchell Chung
There are 82 gangs in the San Fernando Valley
now, with plenty in North Hollywood.
===========
Subj: 100 men a month meat
grinder?
That's one of the questions, isn't it? How many men a
month?
http://icasualties.org/oif_a/CasualtyTrends.htm
Does that look like a "100 men a month meat grinder"?
Seems to me 100 men a month would be about 25 a week. I see spikes above
that level, but not many, and I see lots of weeks below 20.
Can the enemy sustain the current high rate? Or is
this like the Battle of the Bulge, a last gasp before collapse?
We won't know for years. If we give up now, it won't
matter much: we'll have made it like the Tet Offensive.
The commanders in the field, and even the SECDEF,
might have a better idea, if they're looking at data with better resolution
in the space whose axes are geographic location (al-Anbar, Baghdad,
elsewhere), nature of engagement (did our guys get ambushed or were they
attacking?) and which enemy (al Qaeda, Baathist, Mahdi Army, ...) and if the
books aren't being cooked.
There's now much of a downward trend, true. But is
that because we're in a steady-state quagmire, or because we're carefully
working our way through our target list (al Qaeda, then Baathists, now Mahdi
Army...) and will, in due course, run out of targets worthy of *our*
attention -- leaving the final cleanup to the Iraqis, as has always been the
plan?
Are the reports faked, that most of the Sunni Arab
tribes in al-Anbar have now turned against the insurgents? What would it be
worth, in terms of a temporary spike in casualties, to convince the last few
holdout tribes there that it's time to try the political game instead?
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20060922.aspx
Counter-Terrorism: Iraqi Tribes Turn on al Qaeda
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
We can probably reinstall Sunni dominance
in Iraq. Whether you call that democracy or not is a different question. We
can also partition Mesopotamia. I do not believe we can install national
liberal democracy with rule of law in a national Iraq.
Subj: Iraq: Oct 2006 Coalition Conference
http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/FrontPage%
20Stories/Coalition%20Conference%20Looks%20at%20
the%20New%20Iraq.aspx
Interesting that convoys no longer get ambushed on the
road between Baghdad and the airport.
=Eighty-nine Iraqi Army battalions are in charge of
their own battle space – on a map, a swath of perhaps three-quarters of the
country – and that number will pass 100 by year’s end. Two Iraqi provinces
fell under complete Iraqi control in the past three months — that number
could double by January. The Iraqi chain of command is solidifying. The
Iraqi security forces are growing. And the Baghdad Security Plan grinds on,
neighborhood to neighborhood, house to house.=
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
==
Subject: Join the Legions, see the world....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801500_pf.html
Tim of Angle
==
Subj: Is the advisory effort in Iraq broken? or just
adolescent?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzkzYjRkMGF
jNTI0MDc2MWNiYWY0Yzg4MjZkMzQ5YzY=
Summarizes _Wall Street Journal_ and _LA Times_ pieces
on what's wrong with the work of advising Iraqis.
A big part of the problem is that doing advisory work
is not career-enhancing, so top-quality people neither seek such assignments
nor are given them.
Maybe that's changing:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWM
wNjExNmZhODBkYTRmYTkzZTFjMmMzNTMyN2VhYTk=
My own view is that this is most likely just another
example of how Americans win wars:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail309.html#Monty1
Most likely, we just haven't figured out
*institutionally* how to do it yet -- the institutions that have to do it
have to grow up some. Of course that'll go better if the parents let the
kids outa the basement and feed them better... . 8-\
Note that the widely-lauded book by Nagl, _Learning To
Eat Soup With A Knife_, is not just about counterinsurgency, it's at least
as much about the different learning (or not) styles of the
British-in-Malaya and the Americans-in-Vietnam.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/567702.html
Preface to [the second, paperback edition of] Learning
to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
by John A. Nagl
=[P]erhaps the most basic flaw in the book that
follows ... is something of a blithe sense that defeating the Communist
insurgents in Malaya was easy once Sir Gerald Templer and Harold Briggs
showed the British army what to do, and that the American army could
similarly have won in Vietnam if only it had adopted earlier the changes
promulgated by Creighton Abrams and Bob Komer. The truth is rather more
complex. Changing an army is an extraordinarily challenging undertaking.
Britain was able to adapt to defeat the insurgency in Malaya for many
reasons, but those reasons certainly included the British army’s
comparatively small size and its organizational culture that had been honed
in a number of small wars fought over generations. Changing the American
army is a task of an entirely different scale, a challenge that the
organization struggled with during the Vietnam War.=
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
I had flagged those articles for an essay
yesterday, but Inferno got in the way. The real question is not whether we
can create a constabulary; it is whether we ought to be doing that. Should
we be over there? Should we create the kind of occupation forces that are
good at this sort of thing? These are questions that go to the heart of
America and our purpose in this world.
Is it our job to be the shining
beacon, the city on the hill, to be the best United States we can be, or to
go impose something less than that on others, and thereby assure that we
will not be the best we can be? Or is that a silly question?
=========
Subject: Google's code search
Dear Dr. Pournelle
Did you see this new Google service?
http://www.google.com/codesearch
The coolest thing they ever did - methinks. For
example, as a Python afficionado, just run this simple query:
lang:py factorial
Best -- KE
Neat!
===========
Subject: Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility next?
Hi Jerry, I think I remember a quote somewhere about
"sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic" or
words to that effect. Well, looks like some folks have come up with a first
pass at an Invisibility cloak for microwaves - which may be extended to
visible light:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,222432,00.html
Keep going strong, Jim Laheta
===========
Subj: Princeton Project on National Security
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/06/1016/1a.shtml
Project aims to ‘kindle debate’ on U.S. national
security - 10/16/2006 - PWB - Princeton
=After more than two years of work and contributions
from more than 400 academics, policy-makers and other leading thinkers, the
Princeton Project last month released its final report, “Forging a World of
Liberty Under Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century.”=
== Major recommendations
Major recommendations made by the Princeton Project on
National Security in its final report, “Forging a World of Liberty Under
Law: U.S. National Security in the 21st Century”:
• The United States must be able to address multiple
threats, including: conflict and radicalism in the Middle East; global
terror networks; proliferation and transfer of nuclear weapons; the rise of
China and regional security in East Asia; global pandemics; and American
overdependence on oil.
• Framing the struggle against terrorism as a war
similar to World War II is a strategic mistake that strengthens and
legitimizes America’s enemies. America’s response must take the form of a
“global counterinsurgency” utilizing a range of tools, particularly law
enforcement, intelligence and special military operations.
• Sweeping reforms are due for international
institutions, including expanding the U.N.Security Council; setting up a new
“Concert of Democracies” institution to strengthen cooperation among liberal
democracies; and reviving nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
• The United States must build democracy around the
world, not by jumping immediately to elections, but by bringing countries up
to “PAR” (“Popular, Accountable and Rights-regarding” governments) through
incentives and support for common problems.
• The United States must maintain a robust defense by
sustaining the military predominance of democracies, updating doctrines of
deterrence and retaining the option of preventive uses of military force,
but only as a last resort under strict controls.
• A gas tax should be introduced to wean the United
States off its dependence on oil. ==
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
New taxes! Astonishingly new idea! And the US
must interfere everywhere. The end of history is upon us, but not just yet.
Get on! March in step with the flywheel of history. Enlist in the
Constabulary today.
=========
Subject: March 2006 Book of the Month
Dr. Pournelle:
I was looking through your Books of the Month link and
came across your recommendation for Dr. Sowell's Applied Economics. Good
call! One of my MBA profs recommended it as well, and being a fan of
Sowell's columns, I zipped off to Barnes & Noble to grab a copy. I've been
recommending that book (along with his Basic Economics) to friends with
economics-deficient backgrounds. These books help to see through the spin
put out by the news and polititions during the current election cycle.
I noticed that month's review also discussed
Civilization IV. I have a copy, and enjoy the Warlords expansion pack (when
my bride doesn't remind me of some chore or another). You must be a more
aggressive player than I, because I never finish before about 2030 or so. I
prefer to build up my cities into cultural masterpieces, but what few
opponents I have left always have much larger armies. I build one nuke (per
remaining opponent) and get left alone. I'm still 50-50 about the "borders"
concept introduced in Civ III. I'll probably be purchasing CivCity (a
combination of Civilization and Caesar 3) soon, provided I get the garden
weeded and the grocery shopping done.
Best regards,
Bill Kelly Houston, TX
============
Subject: Jerry: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 and vox
repetitive strain injuries
Jerry,
I have been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 and find
it highly functional for taking referenced notes while reading technical
books and articles. Some initial training is required, and the environment
must be fairly quiet, but it works. I've found it possible to use a Sony
ICD-MX20 voice recorder (top rated by Dragon) and headset while sitting
comfortably in a deserted library corner, then upload for processing.
It is astounding to see this technology actually
function -- dual cores and 2 gigs of RAM blazing-- after decades of work.
SciFi come to life.
How people like the Bakers ever imagined a light at
the end of the tunnel from 1970 or even 1990 I cannot imagine:
http://www.dragon-medical-transcription.com/history_speech_recognition.html
One caveat is sometimes overlooked... the human voice
works by muscles, tendons, flesh and blood. It is not magically immune from
repetitive strain injuries. Serious users may need pointers from voice
coaches on how to keep their larynx properly lubricated with air, and all
that. Still, voice interaction gives another option to vary and rest parts
of the human musculoskeletal interface.
--John Ganter
=========
Subject: The ultimate gadget
You may know that I collect knives. I’m not sure
that’s what this is ….
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/8b97/?cpg=38H
Russell Kay * Kay & Kaboodle
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