| Sunday,
january 16, 2000
Subj: Media Research Center
"affiliation" with Town Hall and Heritage Foundation
From: monty@sprintmail.com
With all due respect, Dr. Pournelle, I do not think
it is appropriate to tar the Heritage Foundation or Town Hall with
whatever brush it might be appropriate to apply to the Media Research
Center.
The only connection I could see was that MRC is a
"townhall.com member organization".
And all that seems to mean is that MRC and TownHall
link to each other.
I agree with your analysis of the Global Warming
situation -- to wit: that it is appropriate, not to PANIC!!!, but to spend
non-trivial sums of public money to try to figure out (a) how the climate
system really works, and (b) what to do about it.
And I further agree, that when a conservative
organization like MRC behaves fuggheadedly, it is inappropriate for the
rest of us to follow, just for fellowship's sake.
But as far as the Heritage Foundation's subscribing
to the MRC Global Warming position, I invite your attention to the latest
Heritage Backgrounder in their "Environment Issues" library. The
position of the author of that Backgrounder seems pretty close to your
own. And that author is a Heritage Foundation research assistant.
Actually I am glad to hear that. I knew Ed
Fuelner when he was at DOD in the Nixon era, and he has always been a good
man; and I have always had a fair amount of respect for Heritage, but I
have to say I have paid little attention to them since Reagan left office.
My great interest in national politics was the Seventy Years War and now
that that is over, it's up to younger people to save the world. I have got
increasingly less enthusiastic about politics as the Republicans seem
determined to revert to being The Stupid Party, while the Democrats want
to rule so badly they will ruin the nation if they aren't allowed to. As
to the Reform Party, jokes are always interesting. In a word, I have
pretty well got out of the political business; it's up to younger people
to save the world. I think I already said that.
So consider my remarks as directed to Bozell and
his MRC, which can do good work, but seems determined to be sloppy about
doing it. I suppose you could say I have been a bit sloppy in this
instance as well. Thank you for calling my attention to it.
Subj: Conservative Primer on the Web from
Texas
From: monty@sprintmail.com
When asked what "conservative" means, I
have generally pointed to Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind.
This has been less than entirely satisfactory in
some cases, since TCM is not available on the Web.
Today, though, I discovered A Conservative Primer by
Robert C. Koons, Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy Foundation and
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin, on the
Web.
I have not yet compared it line-by-line to Kirk's
explication, but on first reading it looks pretty good.
P.S. I discovered it via a link from www.townhall.com
. Perhaps they have redeeming social value after all? P-)
Subj: EMail procedures -- embedded links
From: monty@sprintmail.com
I sent you previous EMail in HTML form with embedded
links.
The targets of those links were not the same as the
labels of the links, and the targets got dropped from the messages as
posted.
Looks like your correspondents should refrain from
using such embedded links. As will I, henceforth.
Here are the links I tried to send you:
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder on Environmental
Issues/Global Warming:
http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1322.html
Conservative Primer from Texas on the Web: http://www.tppf.org/conserv.html
Please accept my apologies for the wasted motion!
Well, Russell Kirk was kind enough to be the
godfather of my number two son Francis Russell, and was a mentor in my
undergraduate days and a friend and colleague for the rest of his life. A
remarkable man, who had the damndest collection of ghost stories I ever
head, most of them first person. I never quite knew what to make of that.
I always believed Russell even when he told nearly unbelievable stories.
None of which detracts from the logic and soundness of his views. One can
do no better than turn to Kirk. I don't know Koons.
I agree Townhall has its uses and I was unduly
irritated by Bozell's wham against THE CROSSING for one line. I still am.
The Crossing was wonderful.
Subject:
You were too light on Brent Baker - The Crossing
I
suspect the successful use of artillery in close support would attract you
to the crossing the Delaware story (and the consequences of a lack of
artillery to the Fort Mercer? story).
Certainly
the need to revisit history does not imply the need to revise history but
some views do need changing. I
find the snide comments pretty senseless when Brent Baker writes:
"Bottom
line: Hired Hessian soldiers were no different in what they were fighting
for than George Washington and the Continental Army’s soldiers. But that
spin is no surprise when you learn that the screenplay was written by a
communist. Really. A man who regularly wrote for the Daily Worker and once
penned a book titled, Being Red. ...[large omission]...That’s right, a
rag-tag army fighting for freedom from onerous British taxation is really
seeking "profit" on par with those hired to travel the world to
fight wars."
I
wonder why I feel compelled to footnote so much in commenting on the web,
but I guess it helps keep the discussion on a different (perhaps higher?)
plane.
From: http://www.netaxs.com/~gothic/Hessian.html
1.0
Were the Hessians Mercenaries?
By
the most technical and liberal usage of the term, yes. But the term is
misleading and inaccurate.
One
must understand that the Hessian soldier received no extra pay for his
duty, and stood loyal to the German state of his origin. While some could
be enticed to disarm, none could be enticed to fight for the Rebel side.
And one of the defining terms of a mercenary is that he will fight for
anyone, for pay.
In
a year, a Hessian soldier could at most earn a grand total of 3 pounds, 10
pence. Hardly the rate of a mercenary.
Perhaps
James F. Dunnigan (author of 'Dirty Little Secrets' and 'How To Make War')
defines it best. He considers Hessians to be term unto themselves and not
mercenaries in the classic sense. If one looks at the situation the
Hessian were in and calls them mercenaries, one may become very
uncomfortable with the number of soldiers today who could be called
mercenaries. Paid allies may be the most accurate term.
(cf
James F. Dunnigan 'Dirty Little Secrets - Military information you're not
supposed to know' pp. 267-268)
The
book Being Red was an interesting apologia but hardly an enticement to do
likewise. I wonder what the Media Research Center would say about the San
Patricios of our war with Mexico?
Clark
E. Myers
e-mail at:
ClarkEMyers@msn.com
I wouldn't Spam filter you!
Thanks.
And I agree on Being Red. It certainly doesn't invite people to do
likewise. Fast has always been an excellent writer, and good story teller.
Given that one of the best story tellers I know is a liar and without
principles, the ability to tell stories doesn't always imply much about
one's personal life. On the other hand, the liar I mentioned writes about
honor and integrity in a very convincing manner. Odd. And no, I don't care
to say who I mean or even what genre.
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Since I agree with your views of THE CROSSING, I
will not add to that part of the discussion. Suffice it to say I have
little use for dunderheads, whether they be from the far right or left.
As many know, the so-called "Hessians"
were actually from many parts of Germany. When I was stationed in Ansbach,
Bayern (Bavaria) from '95 to '98, the local historians were quite proud of
telling the US troops that there was a regiment from Ansbach and that many
of them stayed in the US after the Revolution.
Also, I noticed that there were lots and lots of
Heinleins in town, far more than in any other part of Germany that I
visited. Does any one know of Robert Heinlein's ancestry? I am merely
curious, but have never discovered an answer.
My best as always,
Frank Luxem FrankLuxem@worldnet.att.net
PS: You may also know that Ansbach figured in the
Thirty Years War; it was a Protestant bastion in an otherwise generally
Catholic Bavaria. All in all a pleasant town, and a good place to be
stationed.
You
know, Robert once told me something of how his ancestors got to the US,
and I must confess I have forgotten. It wasn't an important point in the
conversation. To confuse matters worse, I know that I know at least one
major author who did tell me that his first American ancestor was a
Hessian captured at Trenton and who remained after the war, and I can't
recall who it was. It could even have been Heinlein. Ah well.
Jerry,
The BXA finally got it (nearly) right on encryption
restrictions ( http://www.bxa.doc.gov/Encryption/pdfs/Crypto.pdf
). Under pressure from Congress and the courts, this agency recognized
that the Internet has changed the rules. The unpleasant reality now is
that strict enforcement of strong encryption software export controls is
both an unattainable (and unenforceable) dream and worse, a hindrance to
commerce. It's nice when a federal agency comes to its senses.
Noncommercial Open Source encryption software now
needs only to be made available to the BXA prior to posting on the Net. Publicly
available (downloadable) commercial software is likewise no longer subject
to prior review. This means that American shops no longer need to go
through the subterfuge of outsourcing security software development
offshore. It also means that Linux can now ship with built-in encryption
capabilities, and this gives it an important advantage over commercial
OSes where it is an extra-cost option.
Most any competent programmer can, from scratch,
whip up a fairly secure encryption utility, using "one-time
pad", Blowfish, or some other well-know recipe. Any number of
programmers have done just that. Just as the government found it
politically inexpedient to prosecute Phil Zimmerman for distributing PGP,
so is it just as impractical to regulate just about any other encryption
software. Might as well try to restrict knowledge of the law of gravity
because people might be tempted to drop rocks on each other from high
windows and highway overpasses.
What is disturbing are the reports that the FBI and
Justice Department opposed relaxing the restrictions on encryption. This
calls into question the technical competence of our federal cops. Even if
the bad guys have encryption, this still doesn't mean that they know how
to use it correctly to conceal vital information from investigators.
Proper management of an encryption system is a pain in the butt. Cipher
keys have to be changed often. Plaintext files have to be thoroughly
deleted (and can usually be recovered by micro-magnetic analysis of drive
platter surfaces even after multiple erasure and overwrite). In short,
good old-fashioned police work can catch even terrorists or crooks armed
with encryption.
---
The DoJ vs. Microsoft lawsuit has accomplished its
purpose. It put MS on its best behavior for a couple of years, and this
has allowed Linux to get a foothold in the market and Apple to recover.
Now it's up to market forces. The best of all scenarios for the
competition would be for the appeals process to drag on for years more,
and if that occurs, the final outcome would likely be irrelevant to
everyone.
---
As an aside, my e-mail address 'thegrendel' has
nothing to do with "Heriot". It was a childhood nickname, dating
back almost 40 years (rhymes with my given name). In any case, the
original Grendel got some very bad press (see John Gardner's book, "Grendel").
Mendel Cooper thegrendel@theriver.com
Thank you. Good points on Microsoft, and on
encryption. I recall Gardner's book. But Grendel had this nasty habit of
carrying off men from Heorot and eating them... His mother wasn't nice,
either. Poor fellow.
Jerry,
This is not the first time I write to you. This is,
however, the first time since I just found Byte on the web a few weeks
ago, after being a loyal reader of the print version of the magazine for
several years. I am happy to have found Byte and your columns again.
I'm writing because I have some comments on your
column about Microsoft published in intellectualcapital in November, and
which I just read.
I am sure you get a lot of email on the issue, and
you probably don't want to know anything else about it. So, I'll try to be
brief and I hope my comments are useful to you in some way.
1. You say there is no evidence Microsoft actually
harmed consumers. Let's leave the evidence aside. I propose you this: take
a good book on OS design (my favorite is Silvershatz's "Operating
Systems Principles"). There, you will find that there are two ideas
that have been thoroughly researched and partially solved since the 60s:
stability and multitasking.
I think that Microsoft has no excuse for offering an
OS with decent multitasking until Windows95, when the issue was solved
with Unix in the 60s, if not before. There is simply no excuse. I think
Microsoft has been very, very slowly building a decent OS with ideas that
have existed for decades. They have been able to do so because they have
no real competition.
I think Microsoft has no excuse for not making W95
and W98 more stable. No OS is free from crashes and problems. W95 is a
joke in that respect, however.
I think that, in those two ways, MS has harmed
consumers. Consumers have harmed themselves too, for not dumping MS and
choosing something else. For many years, however, there was no real
alternative.
2. You say that MS should be free to include
whatever they want with their OS. The problem is that an OS is a perfectly
defined entity, in the technical aspects if not the legal ones (I refer
you again to Silvershatz). An OS does not include a calculator, or a
notepad, just as it does not include a web browser. It might include
system calls to help implement web browsers, but not the browser itself.
MS has done us all a favor in including a calculator
and a notepad with Windows. They are not part of the OS. Their inclusion
puts out of the market any company whose business was calculators or
notepads for Windows. The same happens with browsers.
One irrefutable fact is that Windows runs in many
computers. Many people don't have a true choice as to what OS to run. If
MS includes IE with Windows, then they are putting other browser
manufacturers out of the market. The technical merits of IE don't change
the fact that MS is taking advantage of their position in the OS market to
win the browser market.
So I say no, MS should not be free to include any
software they want with Windows. They can't do so when doing so risks
putting another company out of business.
(By the way, the minimalist approach to OSes is
essential for their efficiency and stability. One thing that MS includes
with Windows is a GUI. The fact that this GUI is so closely tied to the
kernel of the OS is, to a large extent, the cause of the system's lack of
stability.)
3. I agree with you that, in many cases, the
competition has not been up to the task of actually competing. Many of the
competitors were technically better than MS, but none has been able to
challenge Gates on the business side of the thing. This makes me sad,
because being an Electronics engineer, I hate seeing technically good
ideas fail because of business, marketing, or financial decisions.
4. I don't have any solutions and I don't have any
suggestions on how to best deal with MS. I hate the idea of seeing the US
government intervene in a dynamic and competitive industry. But I see all
around me Windows machines that crash, that offer no security, that are
not reliable. I see the ads in the magazines, where everybody sells
computers with Windows, MS Office, and IE included. I get frustrated
reading books and papers on other technically superior products that
ultimately fail. I know a lot of people who are not computer literate, but
who need to use a computer, and who suffer a lot because of Windows
crashing, losing files, needing a reinstall, needing for ever more memory,
CPU, HD.
The whole thing just frustrates me a little. I see
that I haven't exactly been brief as I promised at the beginning. I'm
sorry; I just hope I didn't bore you.
-- Miguel Bazdresch
I recall that for years people tried to get UNIX
running on PC's. When they did, consumers stayed away in droves.
For good or ill, Microsoft went into the PC
business with the notion of turning it into a consumer business, and their
customers never heard of Silvershatz's
"Operating Systems Principles" and
would run screaming from the sight of it.
You are telling me that if Ford puts a clock in
my truck and includes a radio they ought to be sued for putting clock and
radio aftermarket people out of business? Come now, you don't believe that
yourself.
In a Technocracy things would be different. But I
am not sure I wish to live in one.
MS has done us all a favor in including a
calculator and a notepad with Windows. They are not part of the OS. Their
inclusion puts out of the market any company whose business was
calculators or notepads for Windows. The same happens with browsers.
The above was in the mail section taking your view
of MS to task. I have to agree with you. The above is clearly wrong. I
remember that when Netscape sued over the browser issue many of us could
not understand why it was not thrown out. Shorty after starting the suit,
they claimed record quarter earnings. How can you be hurt if you have just
had record earnings ? All things being equal, UNIX (as a competing OS) is
not for the desktop and the average computer consumer. I am very computer
literate and UNIX has a steep learning curve. All of its various
lookalikes are in the same category. BEOS might become a competitor but I
doubt it. It is an amazing OS but seems to have little support and as of
now it looks as though windows programs will not run on it. Anyway I
ramble on too long. Thanks
J Shepard
Download NeoPlanet at http://www.neoplanet.com
Precisely...
Jerry,
I have loved your column and your approach to
computer hard/software ever since I first picked up a "Byte"
years ago; hey, I love your fiction too!!! <very jealous of Roberta and
her computers...>
Not sure what happened with you and NoteTab Pro
but... NTP is a great program and I **think** something is awry with its
setup on your system, rather than NTP being a crummy program or having
crummy programming.
Anyway I paid this evening via the website and a
credit card.
Glad to have found you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Patricia Osborne mailto:pako@mindless.com
Saint Louis MO 63110-1095 USA
Thanks for the kind words. It may be that NoteTab
doesn't like Windows 2000, or I may have a bad copy. I'll have to look
into it. Thanks.
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