Monthly Archives: June 2015

Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, June 24, 2015

The good news is that Niven, Barnes, and I had a great story session, and we have themes to make this a great science fiction novel. We had a great lunch too.  The bad news is that I had to waste the afternoon on computer neepery. Now back when I did that stuff for BYTE that would have made good news, but I’m not so much in that business any more.

Windows has improved Outlook and thus made it hard to use. It used to be that it was a very simple matter to View Unread Only in an Outlook folder, but no more. Actually, it was hard to use before. Now it is simpler, but finding out how to do it, not so much. I managed finally. Which is why I continue my love hate relationship with Microsoft. They mean well, and eventually…

Of course Windows “improved” Skype too, and made it impossible to edit contacts, at least on the Mac version; so Dr. Jack Cohen, who works with authors like Terry Pratchett and Annie McCaffrey and Niven and Barnes and me, recently changed his Skype ID and was invisible to us today because Skype wants to keep his old ID and doesn’t show him on-line. I try to edit the old contact I have for him – I know the new SKYPE address – but I can’t find a way to do that. Fine, I’ll delete the old. Won’t do it. Well, add a new one with the proper Skype address. Won’t do that. Eventually he called me, and when I answered it created a new Jack Cohen contact with a different Skype address. It works. I called him with it. But Microsoft as usual improved things so that they are very hard to use by their existing customers.

Maybe it’s better with the Surface Pro? They didn’t bother testing the Mac improvements because after all, who at Microsoft uses Macs anyway?

And it’s worse. We got rid of the old Wi-Fi nets here and put in a new one that works – but the Surface can’t find it. It doesn’t find the Ethernet either, so attempts to get help just cause endless search for nets, which it can’t find. I ask how to make it find a net. Endless nothing.

OK I turned it off; forced reset. Only now it won’t turn on. The on switch brings up the word Surface. Endlessly. Take it out of the docking station. It won’t turn on at all. Put it back. The Word surface comes up then the slide down to turn off your PC. Hit return but it slides anyway and goes off.

I fear I cannot recommend this thing for people who do not have endless time and transportation to some Microsoft store. They are about to convert me to a full time Mac user.

Well I got it back on, but just barely. I cannot make it search for a wireless net. It just won’t look. Now part of this problem was that I was working at 4 pm and Time Warner experienced its daily slowdown. Part of it is impatience. I resolved the Skype problem, at least to a working level. I am going to solve the Tablet problem by getting an iPad and a new Air. The Air battery expanded without limit in my old one and destroyed itself. It was costly but I could use it. Steve uses his. I no longer get paid to learn how to make things work. I have books to write.

I still think OneNote and a tablet with pen is the best research tool I know, and I would love it if the Surface Pro worked. That was one reason I wanted reliable Wi-Fi in the house. But the Surface Pro won’t just work, and I have more time to waste trying to make it so. Now the Wi-Fi won’t turn on. Maybe it’s because the Internet is working. I don’t know. There is something weird about that Surface Pro. It looked like everything I wanted, but it just doesn’t work right. One day Microsoft will help users, but this doesn’t seem to be the season.

And I need to find a way to write fast, and I sure don’t want to waste time learning on unreliable systems.

2200:  I have been a bit harsh.  I have not worked much to learn the Surface Pro, and it is an experimental operating system’ I was hoping to learn its quirks while running OneNote at the breakfast table, but Wi-Fi was not reliable there, so mostly it sat waiting for me to do something with it; and I got reliable Wi-Fi and now I can’t get it to use that or any other Wi-Fi.  It’s disappointing, and I expect it’s not its fault entirely; but still it takes up time I should be working with it to produce something. I make no doubt that OneNote and a good tablet is the best research tool around; I’m not sure that the Surface is a good tablet for users.  I think perhaps I will get an Apple tablet because my newspapers are in such small type that I can’t read them at the breakfast table.  And see where it goes from there.  Maybe Microsoft will automatically update the Surface Pro and it will work again.  It’s useless now.

Space Access Update #142 6/24/15

  Wednesday, 6/24/15 – We have a new Space Access Update out, #142, with a brief update on Commercial Crew Program funding-fight status, some recent examples of overreach by the program’s opponents, plus a heads-up about a very bad proposed change in ITAR arms-export regulations. You can see this Update at:

http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau142.html

It gets worse: Federal OPM hack affected up to 18 million (ZD)

In addition to current and former employees, it appears the records of people who had applied for government jobs were also revealed.

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Zero Day | June 23, 2015 — 14:33 GMT (07:33 PDT) |

CNN is reporting that the personal data of 18 million current, former, and prospective federal employees was stolen in the cyberattack that targeted the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack.

FBI Director James Comey reportedly gave the 18 million estimate in a closed-door Senate briefing not long after the breach. In addition to current and former employees, it appears the records of people who had applied for government jobs were also revealed.

Sources at other government agencies confirmed to ZDNet that more than 10 million personnel records were stolen.

The revelation does not come as much of a surprise.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federal of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents more than 670,000 federal employees, claimed that the hack was significantly worse than what the Obama administration first claimed.

Cox claimed “all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million federal employees” was stolen. At the time, Cox also said Social Security numbers had been stolen in an unencrypted format, which he described as “absolutely indefensible and outrageous.”

Since then, it’s also been shown that the OPM badly mishandled its first efforts to protect employees identity and credit history. The OPM and its contractor, CSID, sent e-mails to staffers that made it possible for hackers to launch phishing attacks on them.

That said, as this story continues to unwind, the news only looks worse and worse both for how the OPM handled its internal security and for the federal employees whose records have been revealed.

Neither the FBI nor the OPM confirmed at the time of this writing that 18 million records were revealed. An FBI representative said, “As this remains an ongoing investigation, we are unable to provide any details on this matter at this time. The CNN report noted that the two agencies did not deny it, either.

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

Chaos Manor View, Monday, June 22, 2015

I note that the FCC now is contemplating high speed internet for subsidy for the poor: the rest would pay. A new idea of rights? Providing it for all makes sense as a public utility although that would be inefficient; and after all, don’t we have a right?

F.C.C. Votes to Move Forward With Plan to Subsidize Broadband for Poor Americans   (nyt)

By Rebecca R. Ruiz

June 18, 2015 1:03 pm June 18, 2015 1:03 pm

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted along party lines to approve a proposal to explore subsidizing broadband Internet for poor Americans. The plan, introduced last month by the agency’s Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler, helps pave the way for sweeping changes to a $1.7 billion phone subsidy program.

Republicans have opposed extending the phone subsidy — known as Lifeline and initiated in 1985 under President Reagan — pointing to past instances of fraud in the program and suggesting that any expansion would generate more fraud. On Thursday, the two Republican commissioners delivered strongly-worded dissents.

“Adequate controls and deterrents against waste, fraud and abuse should be in place before considering expanding the program to broadband,” said Michael O’Rielly, a Republican commissioner.

Part of Mr. Wheeler’s plan approved on Thursday was an effort to allay those concerns. In its vote, the commission adopted stricter measures to ensure eligible households claim only one subsidy of $9.25 a month. Those antifraud measures — including new record-keeping requirements for service providers, who are charged with verifying a person’s income — are expected to take effect this summer.

“I am befuddled at how this Republican program has suddenly become so partisan,” Mr. Wheeler said in responding to the dissents on Thursday. “But I am proud to cast my vote with the majority.”

The commission will now begin to discuss the logistics of how exactly to incorporate broadband into the program and write specific rules. Those changes would need to be approved by a separate vote, one not expected for at least several months.

A principal question that regulators must address is how far, exactly, the current subsidy, $9.25 a month, can go in financing broadband.

Republicans and Democrats alike have wondered about the economic feasibility of offering a mix of phone service and broadband at the same price, which Mr. Wheeler has suggested would be possible. On Thursday, both Mr. O’Rielly and his fellow Republican commissioner, Ajit Pai, said they wanted to establish a firm budget and spending cap on the program to keep its cost from multiplying. Mr. Wheeler called those concerns “a rhetorical snowstorm to distract” from the basic premise of the proposal.

Still, Democrats celebrated the significance of taking aim at the so-called digital divide, the social and economic gap between those with access to technology and those without it. Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic commissioner, on Thursday called a broadband subsidy essential to bridging the “homework gap” in particular, pointing to children’s increasing need for Internet access.

“Students who lack regular broadband access are struggling to keep up,” she said, noting that as many as 7 in 10 teachers assign homework that requires online connectivity. “Now is not a moment too soon, because this is about the future.”

The proposal, Mr. Wheeler said, was about attacking problems in America that the commission should be united against.

“Both political parties now engaged in serious campaigning as to who’s going to be responsible for the country and the commission in a few years,” he said. “But both political parties are in violent agreement that our country is challenged by economic inequality.”

The End of History and the Last Man: Francis Fukuyama: 9780743284554: Amazon.com: Books

Jerry:

In your last View you published or republished some commentary that you
wrote while you were coping with your stroke. Your comments were unusually
benign towards Bush II and the neocons. I thought that I would offer some
comments.

In the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Bush was presented with two alternatives.
He could effectively surrender by treating these attacks with near nuclear weapons ( that generated casualties that would have been near nuclear if fortuitous circumstances hadn’t enable the evacuation of nearly everyone before the twin towers collapsed) as merely criminal attacks by prosecuting
the actual perpetrators. Alternatively; Bush could have responded with
punitive attacks on a proportionate but escalated scale.

An example of an effective, punitive response would be to use bombers to destroy the transportation and irrigation infrastructure of Afghanistan in
retaliation for harboring Bin Laden and Al Qaida. Such an attack would
ultimately have resulted in a famine that would kill millions of people.
Afghanistan would never by our friend, but they would have learned to fear
us.

Since the Taliban were effectively Pakistan’s puppet regime and the 9-11 attacks WERE an attack by Pakistan using the Taliban and Al Quid as surrogates, we also would have needed to conduct punitive attacks against
Pakistan. Since Pakistan already possessed nuclear weapons, such a
punitive expedition would have been dangerous unless prosecuted on a massive
scale. The US would have needed to destroy not only Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons but the production infrastructure. Even people who favor nuclear
power understand that destroying an operating nuclear reactor that has a full fuel load with a Gigawatt-year’s worth of fission products is going to result in unimaginable carnage.

Bush sought and found an alternative strategy as presented by the neocons.
That strategy is suggested by Fukuyama’s view that democracy is the ultimate
evolution of human governance. While Paleoconservatives such as yourself
rejected this premiss, it was widely accepted a year ago. All of the many
errors that Bush made, including disbanding the Iraqi army because of it’s genocidal history, are understandable if you support the ultimate goal of
creating a stable, secular democracy in the Middle East.

http://www.amazon.com/The-End-History-Last-Man/dp/0743284550/ref=pd_sim_14_3/190-1935410-9747627?ie=UTF8&refRID=033JE850E0GQ4SXDPEWZ

In retrospect, almost everyone understands that Fukuyama and the majority of
political scientist were naive or even delusional. It might have been
possible to nurture Iraq into a quasi-stable democracy if and only if Obama and subsequent administrations has been willing to occupy Iraq for half a
century as we did Germany and Japan. (it should be noted that these
occupations might not have been so successful if they hadn’t been preceded by the extermination of a large fraction of the male population.). The Fukuyama doctrine was taken to full fallacy by Obama and Hillary Clinton when they incited and supported the Arab Spring idiocy that overthrew Gaddaffy who had surrendered his WMD and Mubarak who had been a reliable US ally for three decades.

The End of History and the Last Man: Francis Fukuyama: 9780743284554: Amazon.com: Books

Jerry:

In your last View you published or republished some commentary that you
wrote while you were coping with your stroke. Your comments were unusually
benign towards Bush II and the neocons. I thought that I would offer some
comments.

In the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Bush was presented with two alternatives.
He could effectively surrender by treating these attacks with near nuclear weapons ( that generated casualties that would have been near nuclear if fortuitous circumstances hadn’t enable the evacuation of nearly everyone before the twin towers collapsed) as merely criminal attacks by prosecuting
the actual perpetrators. Alternatively; Bush could have responded with
punitive attacks on a proportionate but escalated scale.

An example of an effective, punitive response would be to use bombers to destroy the transportation and irrigation infrastructure of Afghanistan in
retaliation for harboring Bin Laden and Al Quid. Such an attack would
ultimately have resulted in a famine that would kill millions of people.
Afghanistan would never by our friend, but they would have learned to fear
us.

Since the Taliban were effectively Pakistan’s puppet regime and the 9-11 attacks WERE an attack by Pakistan using the Taliban and Al Quid as surrogates, we also would have needed to conduct punitive attacks against
Pakistan. Since Pakistan already possessed nuclear weapons, such a
punitive expedition would have been dangerous unless prosecuted on a massive
scale. The US would have needed to destroy not only Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons but the production infrastructure. Even people who favor nuclear
power understand that destroying an operating nuclear reactor that has a full fuel load with a Gigawatt-year’s worth of fission products is going to result in unimaginable carnage.

Bush sought and found an alternative strategy as presented by the neocons.
That strategy is suggested by Fukuyama’s view that democracy is the ultimate
evolution of human governance. While Paleoconservatives such as yourself
rejected this premiss, it was widely accepted a year ago. All of the many
errors that Bush made, including disbanding the Iraqi army because of it’s genocidal history, are understandable if you support the ultimate goal of
creating a stable, secular democracy in the Middle East.

http://www.amazon.com/The-End-History-Last-Man/dp/0743284550/ref=pd_sim_14_3

/190-1935410-9747627?ie=UTF8&refRID=033JE850E0GQ4SXDPEWZ

In retrospect, almost everyone understands that Fukuyama and the majority of
political scientist were naive or even delusional. It might have been
possible to nurture Iraq into a quasi-stable democracy if and only if Obama and subsequent administrations has been willing to occupy Iraq for half a
century as we did Germany and Japan. (it should be noted that these
occupations might not have been so successful if they hadn’t been preceded by the extermination of a large fraction of the male population.). The Fukuyama doctrine was taken to full fallacy by Obama and Hillary Clinton when they incited and supported the Arab Spring idiocy that overthrew Gaddaffy who had surrendered his WMD and Mubarak who had been a reliable US ally for three decades.

This brings us to the question of what do we do now. All of the talk about
sending in one or a few divisions backed by A-10 Warthogs to destroy Isis are at best just as delusional as Bush’s crusade to spread democracy at the
point of a bayonet. The seemingly pragmatic strategy of partitioning Iraq
between the Kurds, the “moderate” Sunnis and the Shia ignores the probable
consequence. The region and population dominated by the Shia would
immediately become a de facto province of a resurgent, Persian Empire that
will soon have nuclear weapons. I can’t imagine the Iranians resisting the
temptation to quickly conquer the remainder of Iraq. They already have
troops in Iraq with Obama’s blessing. For their own reasons, Turkey would eagerly invade from the North to conquer or even exterminate the Kurds.
Once a nuclear armed Iran has control of Iraq and Yemen, Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia will not last long. All of this will occur in the context of
massive, nuclear proliferation with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and perhaps Egypt acquiring nukes.

To make the future even more interesting, the ongoing destabilization of the ME is occurring in the context of the demographic implosion of America’s traditional allies. The much derided hysteria of Mark Stein as outlined in America Alone have been prophetic. Native Europeans are determined to embrace their extinction. If they could isolate themselves as the Japanese have done, they might survive the diminishment of their populations and economies, but they are being invaded by Africans and Arabs. Consider how the emergence of Eurabia will make nuclear proliferation a nightmare.

It is tempting to embrace isolationism. The only alternative that might be viable would be a profoundly pragmatic strategy of alliances with traditional enemies or non aligned, Russia, China and India.

Right now I favor isolationism. Get the Hell out of the Middle east and Afghanistan. Wish the Israelis well and gift them a squadron of B-1 bombers. Tell the Europeans to enjoy their demise. Drill here, drill now for oil and gas. Sell coal to the Chines at exorbitant prices. May be even sell Taiwan and South Korea to the Chinese. Use the money to build nuclear power plants, massively modernize our strategic nuclear forces and build factories to mass produce neutron bombs. Find out whoever launched the biowarfare attack that has caused the STD epidemic that will eventually exterminate the Iranians and give them a meddle.

James Crawford=

At best delusional regarding ISIS is simply not true. The Caliphate demands an actual state which they can govern as an illustration of conforming to the will of Allah, not just in intention but actuality; without a state they are only pretenders.

At the moment it would take only two divisions — one more than required when I first proposed this — to eliminate ISIS. Having conquered their territory — they are or claim to be a state — we could dispose of it at will; in the case of Iraq, partition seems the best way. It does not require a long term commitment. The result would not be optimum, but it is better than allowing an implacable enemy to thrive and grow.

It is not impossible that this is not true: that the Caliphate is no greater danger than Persia. I do not believe so; I think a dynamic and growing ISIS is a greater threat to our interests — and possibly survival — than Persia, which is, after all, surrounded by Sunni states. I think the existence of ISIS is the greater threat. It is growing; it may be the junior varsity now but it will not long remain so; and there is no foreseeable mechanism for transforming it into anything acceptable.

Eliminating it would establish the limits the US can allow, and leave a vivid memory of the consequences of stepping beyond those limits.

I see no way to bring about a permanent solution to the contradictions in the Near East; I think we can only muddle through. Had we handled the original invasion of Kuwait in a more realistic way, it might be different.

I am convinced that simple isolationism is not a viable action; nor is long term Imperial conquest. We simply must make an example of our most vehement enemies, while making it clear that being our friend is greatly safer than proclaiming unrelentless hostility.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Jerry:

You make a cogent argument.

My preference for neo-isolationism is driven as much by dismay over domestic political realities as geopolitical realities. It might be debatable that a country that would elect Obama to be President and even reelect him then probably elect Hillary Clinton to be his successor is still worth fighting for. However; I would not trust Obama, Hillary, or any of his other possible Democrat successors to competently prosecute a war against ISIS then manage the aftermath even if the operation was successful. Do we even have any competent Generals and Admirals who have survived Obama’s political purges?

The field of probable Republican contenders is not much more encouraging. Senator McCain and his POTUS preference Senator Lindsey Graham eagerly supported the Arab Spring lunacy that effectively resurrected ISIS after Bush II defeated them with the surge. McCain even managed to do a photo op with future leaders of ISIS whom he described as “muslim moderates.”. The other Viagra wing Republicans are just as bad. Aside from neoisolationists such as Senators Ron Paul and Rand Paul, almost everyone in the political establishment favored the Arab Spring which nurtured and armed ISIS. The lone exception is Governor Palin whose famous comment about “let Allah sort them out” was profoundly insightful.

While allowing ISIS to control enough territory to become a recognized State, given the existence of a nuclear armed Pakistan that is now ruled by the same, fundamentalist Islamic party that General Musharif launched a coup against, a nuclear armed North Korea, and a soon to be nuclear Persia, ISIS will at worst be no more of a threat. Given the influence that former Baathists have over ISIS, a state controlled by ISIS might not be any more of a threat than a nuclear armed Iraq ruled by Saddam or his sons would have been.

The worst case outcome from allowing ISIS to have a state is that they will launch a nuclear 9-11. Would that be any more damaging to the US economically and demographically than eight years of Obama’s rule? Such an attack would be targeted against densely populated areas that are dominated by liberals, so it would have the effect of culling the gene pool and purging the voter registration roles of useless idiots. Just think of it as evolution in action? A nuclear 9-11 would be profoundly educational to the vast majority of Americans who survived the event and would forever discredit the political class that enabled it.

James Crawford

I see but do not concede your point: I am not convinced that the next election will go that badly. The American people have not become that corrupt. And yes: I can categorically state that a nuclear 9/11 would be far more damaging to the United States, financially, demographically, and morally than Mr. Obama could accomplish even were he to turn from an ideologue into something more evil during his twilight in office.

I concede that I may have overestimated the threat of the Caliphate, but I do not think so: it is not at present a lethal threat, but it feeds on success, and that allows exponential growth.

And I think the aftermath of a nuclear 9/11 would be the rise of an avenging America dominated a party I would not prefer; not by realists, but the traditional American in arms, a sight terrible to behold but we would have to support. That price for national unity is very high. We would be fortunate to find a Charlemagne or an Akbar to lead it.

One remedy is competent Empire; but have we any competent Imperators? Washington refused the Crown; have any realistic competent candidates emerged since him?

Nunes says “Highest Threat Level”

We can’t find U.S. Navy ships for our Marines

(http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/21/marines-amphibious/28935549/)

and OPM can’t seem to secure it’s computers (http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/opm-hack-18-milliion/index.html),

or directly answer questions from Congress about their failures.

We’re getting rid of the A-10s, and we’re — allegedly — at the “highest threat level we have ever faced in this country”.

<.>

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee warns that America is dealing with “the highest threat level we have ever faced in this country.”

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the threat is coming from the radicalization of young people and foreign fighters heading to Iraq and Syria to join terror groups.

</>

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/06/22/devin-nunes-us-threat-level/

While I think that’s an exaggeration, I believe the situation is disgustingly out of control.

If you watch this interview, the interviewer actually asks the Congressman if we can defeat ISIS with “better tweets” through our efforts on social media… So, we’ll just solve this problem with some Twitter and Facebook posts? This is ridiculous. I understand the social media effort has it’s place, but our focus should be on physically dealing with this. Of course, as I pointed out, we lack the men and materiel to make that happen so I guess — like teenage boys — we’ll troll the internet and be keyboard warriors…

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

“We overreact to everything. That’s the American way and I’m a victim of that overreaction.”

<http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-popular-teacher-rafe-esquith-20150622-story.html>

Of course, the ‘concerned’ teacher likely hasn’t read _Huckleberry Finn_, as it isn’t considered politically correct, anymore.

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Your iPhone 6 has a barometric sensor and this weather app wants to use it (ZD)

One of the most accurate weather apps for iOS has a chance to get even more precise; if you let it use the barometer in your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, that is.

By Kevin Tofel for Mobile Platforms | June 22, 2015 — 19:26 GMT (12:26 PDT) |

One of the sensors Apple added to its newest iPhones measures barometric pressure. That’s handy to watch for local weather changes but it’s even handier when the data from thousands of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets are crowd-sourced, says Dark Sky.

The company makes what is one of my favorite weather apps due to its very accurate hyper-local weather information. Using various sources and user-reported weather conditions, Dark Sky is often correct in prediction to the exact minute when precipitation will start or stop.

With the latest software upgrade, Dark Sky gains a few visual features — such as a 24-hour weather timeline for your specific location — a daily weather summary option and the ability for newer iPhones to send in barometric pressure data.

The company says if you opt in, pressure readings will be periodically submitted to Dark Sky to help in creating even more accurate weather forecasts. Prior to this, Dark Sky relied heavily on what it says are “government run” weather stations as well as user-provided details.

The problem with the former is that there simply aren’t enough locations for the hyper-local service to use and the latter required a manual process.

That still exists in the app; at any time, you can report weather for your location but it takes a little effort. By allowing your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus to submit pressure information, it happens automatically.

Dark Sky costs $4.99 on the iTunes App Store and I had no hesitation paying for it once I heard how accurate it was.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve checked it to see just how much time I have for a run before the rain will start falling. Most times, the app is spot on. Adding data from the barometer in a large number of iPhones will only add to the accuracy, so count me in.

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

Chaos Manor View, Sunday, June 21, 2015

Father’s Day

My new Bluetooth gadget for my hearing aids needed charging again, and then the actually rather simple though unintuitive procedure to link it to the hearing aids themselves; after which it worked properly, and I can turn it on or off with the remote controller. That makes for rather a lot in my shirt pocket: iPhone 6, Hearing Aid Remote Controller, and the small Microphone unit – so I expect I’ll just get a larger man-purse to keep those in. I’ve been carrying one “just big enough” for my wallet and a Kindle, which really means not quite big enough.

Alex and Eric spent the early part of the afternoon permanently solving the wireless problem in Chaos Manor; I’ll no longer have a plethora of wireless networks. Now I have the Kindles and the iPhone 6 on just one wireless net; I don’t have to turn one connection off and log on to another if I go in the back room. We also changed the password to something more secure if harder to remember. I’ll let Alex tell you how they did it:

“We installed older Ruckus wireless networking gear from Location Connect (www.LocationConnect.com), our on-site networking company. Since this same gear provides wired and wireless networking for 20 to 20,000 people, it’s overkill, but it does the job well here.

“The biggest difference between pro-level Wi-Fi gear and your home router is cooperation, or perhaps hand-off. The ZoneDirector controller manages device hand-off between Access Points (APs), transparently connecting them to the best signal as the user moves through the house, office, concert hall, or wooded field (There’s a story in that last…)

“The ZoneDirector also scans to avoid interference, finding the best available channel for each AP. ‘Best’ changes over time, as new interference sources (Next door neighbors, phones in hotspot mode) pop up. Ruckus also uses beamforming to maximize signal to each device, not just ‘Blast max power always’ as common in consumer gear. This increases range and reliability.

“This solution replaced five different consumer APs, each with similar (but not identical) SSIDs, which meant manual roaming and dropped connections. Consumer gear doesn’t support handoff, and doesn’t do anywhere near as good a job of minimizing AP-to-AP interference. We simply turned off the wireless on each old AP—it’s important to actually turn the wireless off, not just turn off SSID broadcast, which won’t remove the interference, instead making it invisible.

“We’re using Powerline to connect different parts of Chaos Manor. We had much more trouble with the Powerline networking (Via the house wiring) than the Wi-Fi: The four different breaker panels interfere with Powerline networking between various eras of construction. That meant we couldn’t connect the Green (TV) Room and Dad’s office directly. We did find that an AP in the kitchen covers the Green Room just fine, which wasn’t the case with the Powerline-and-Wi-Fi unit it replaced. We’ll get an Ethernet cable run direct from the cable room to the back room next, so the TV, cable box and any future gear will be ready. That will also let us install another Ruckus AP back there, too.

“While installing gear in the Cable Room, we found the old core 24-port Gigabit switch was massive overkill for current requirements. It also had one bad fan and one dying, so an 8-port fanless gig switch was a better choice, and may increase overall network reliability. We combined two other switches into one while we were at it.

“So far, the results are exactly what we expected: Seamless roaming, fast speed, much better range, and overall management. I’ve been updating the ThinkPad V500; downloads from Microsoft and Lenovo have gone as fast as the cable modem will run. Dad no longer thinks about whether my iPhone will surf—it just does. Ditto the Kindle Fire. The single network connects in both yards, too.”

I’m looking forward to sitting in the breakfast room, the back yard, or the Green Room and checking e-mail. So far, Everything Just Works.

And while I was catching up on reading another conference that I used to follow but dropped out of partly due to the stroke, I found some material from May/June last year on the Middle East and Russian situations that I may or may not have published here; in any event it’s mine, and it seemed reasonable to post it again because it’s still relevant.

I’ve been reading Emma Sky’s The Unraveling (https://www.google.com/search?q=trinity+sunday&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=emma+sky+unraveling) which I’ve mentioned here before (https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/losing-the-technological-war-trump-and-jeb-bush-a-10-and-close-air-support/). This Liberal – in culture and politics so far as I can tell – civil service volunteer to the Foreign Office describes Iraq after the US invasion and victory, and the reading is important. I wish every Congressperson, Senator, and Senior State Department official would read it before we get any more notions of reforming the world, or the end of history. She pretty well confirms my view of the US/Brit occupation of Iraq. Great intentions; great expectations; not quite the results hoped for.

Warthogs, Stukas, and CAS Specialization

Jerry,

Agreed, we could use Stukas and still get the Close Air Support job done. Or, for that matter, F-16’s, or F-35’s. All could be used to get the job done (though none would be as efficient at it as A-10’s – armor and structural ruggedness very much matter flying down in ground-fire

range.)

The heart of the matter is not that any particular aircraft is essential for effective CAS. Rather, it’s essential to have pilots whose full-time job is CAS. Specialists.

Precision mud-moving is unglamorous, exacting, and dangerous. Doubly dangerous when done by amateurs, to both the amateurs and to the customers. My read of history is that giving CAS as a secondary job to air-to-air specialists means it will get done badly, when it gets done at all.

Keeping the Warthogs forces USAF to keep a core of CAS specialist pilots. Retire the A-10’s, and CAS will inevitably end up as an afterthought in the air-to-air squadrons’ training. Until, that is, a year or so after the next time we really need CAS. Which will be a year too late for too many of the soldiers that needed it.

Henry

Agreed; as we addressed in Strategy of Technology, weapons alone do not win battles; there must be doctrines and tactics and the troops must know them. I am doing a chapter on Close Air Support for the new edition of SOT we will release. In some ways it is the most important technological mission we have. USAF knows how to win air supremacy; it does not know how to exploit it. The P-47 was a very effective weapon in WW II, more so that heavy bombers, but only after achieving air supremacy, and then its effectiveness was discovered in part by accident.

The following excerpts are my contributions to a closed discussion of about a year ago, Before The Stroke, when I had time to say more before inability to type drove me nuts with frustration. I have indicated the essence of other discussants, who will neither be quoted nor identified. I want to emphasize that although we greatly disagreed on much, the discussion was civil and mutually respectful.

I open with my reply to a senior intelligence official who was not on the Russian desk at the time and who gave his views of Vladimir Putin. I replied.

Pournelle: Putin is playing dangerous games, but it is not wise to treat him as a pure villain. He doesn’t think of himself as a villain, but as a patriot. That makes a difference.

One thing about Ukraine, although there are two brands of Ukrainians, the vast majority of the population thinks of itself as Slavic. With Ukraine it’s a matter of using the Russian populations to gain strategic territory.  It’s different with the ‘Stans.

Then there were some comments condemning Cheney and advisors on their using WMD as justification, and implying that the Pentagon knew there were no WMD in Iraq. I said:

Pournelle: We didn’t need WMD’s to justify going into Iraq the second time, but it wasn’t unreasonable to believe he had them.  His own generals believed he had massive stocks of chemical weapons.  Iran believed he had them.  I’ve heard that even the Israeli’s believed in them.  And of course from the point of view of one trying to sell the invasion to the American people, WMD’s trumped the actual reasons anyway.

For the record, I opposed Gulf I and Gulf II, and I never believed the $300 billion estimate of the Gulf II invasion costs.  As I said at the time, invest that sum in oil refineries and pipelines and some nuclear power plants and you can let the Arabs drink their oil.  I suspect that didn’t go over well with the oil industry reps.

If you want to win battles, it helps if you are fighting Arabs; but if you want to rule in tranquility, Arabs and Afghanis are not the people to choose for your conquests.  Alexander the Great could have told you that, and in fact did…

= = =

There came more comments condemning the occupation, and implying that “The Pentagon” knew what it was doing.

Pournelle: Actually the situation was quite well controlled, until they chose Bremer, a career diplomat, to be proconsul, instead of sending a politician or even a good old boy friend of the President.

Saddam’s generals had their troops in barracks, and they believed the broadcasts by the US Army that the generals would have an honorable place in rebuilding the New Iraq.  Whatever Washington thought about Chalabi The Thief, those on the ground knew he wasn’t going to be welcomed.  Given centuries of history of simmering civil war between Sunni and Shiite, the only way Iraq could be governed would be by those outside that conflict: meaning Baathists in Iraq.  Who else was there?  And the generals were all Baathists.  Something could have been arranged.  Iraq is used to being governed by people from outside Iraq, after all.  Persians, Turks, Kurds —

But Bremer and the State traditionalists wanted “Democracy”, which actually meant “Let the majority Shiites have a go at governing and let the Sunni see how that feels,” but Bremer didn’t know that.  His sense of history is rather poor as you can tell by reading his apologias. He was startled by what happened to him.

But once that army was disbanded it would have taken a hell of a lot more occupation troops to govern Iraq without civil war, and we weren’t about to send enough of them.

The wish for implanting a stable democracy in the Middle East has burned in the hearts of State for a very long time, and the fact that the Jews were able to do that seemed to encourage the notion that the Arabs would also be able to; a conclusion that doesn’t much follow from the evidence.  So attempting to establish democracy created chaos, and most of those on the ground knew. And then there were those who wanted to make fun of the Army from the safety of their desks, and

Let’s just say that Bremer was probably not the proconsul needed if the goal was to have a stable government in Iraq and keep the violence to a minimum.

Germany had surrendered and we had enough occupation troops to keep order while everyone desperately rebuilt.  Alla same with Japan.  But we sent fighting professional  legions to Iraq, not occupation troops and American GI Joe conscripts,, and few military historians have found that the qualities that make winning professional armies are the same as those that make for good police work or government and educators or..

Ah, hell, I’m rambling.  Back at Gulf I when there were still people listening to us old Cold Warriors we tried to explain all this, and Bush I did keep the objectives low, turn Kuwait over to the Royal Family that spent their exile in the London casinos and get the hell out.  Bush II wasn’t much listening to anyone and particularly not old Reaganites….

There follows the Liberal criticism of Cheney and company believing their own propaganda.

Pournelle: I do not know what propaganda they are supposed to have believed.  The WMD were seized on as a justification; they weren’t needed to justify the invasion, if you assume there was any evidence whatever that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks.  That part I don’t know anything about, but it is clear from reading the books from the decision makers that they thought they were justified in wringing Saddam’s neck, and this was a fairly popular notion in the United States.  His sons were running amok, taking women off the streets and killing their husbands for objecting. By that time Saddam made one think the Syrians lucky in their choice of dictator.  But evidence of any intention of attacks on the United Stated, or harboring Al Qaeda is not so clear; apparently it was enough to convince key democrats in Congress to support the invasion.

My own view was that short of something I didn’t know about , they had no good reason for an invasion, and in any event once they accomplished a regime change their work was done: the idea would be to convince people that harboring the enemies of the United States was not a good idea.  I doubt very much if anyone in DOD or the National Security Council thought much beyond the point of Saddam fleeing his capital.  I do know there were fans of Chalabi the thief, but that was not the majority.

But State and some others had this “End of History” notion that the fate of the world was for everyone to adopt liberal democracy; and this view was very strongly held by the professionals in the State Department. So the military didn’t know what to do with a victory although some of the generals did begin to make some arrangements with the Iraqi generals about devolving government onto their shoulders.  We had done this successfully in Gulf I although we didn’t stay there all that long; but while we were there things went pretty well, with people like the Marine Reserve Colonel Couvillon (then a Major) who became a province governor and ran his province well — his troops were American reserves meaning they all had normal professions and weren’t professional soldiers, so they had some notion of how an economy might work.  Anyway that experiment didn’t run long enough to be well tested.,  But after all, we did so well in rebuilding Germany and Japan into liberal democracies so why not Iraq? Most senior Foreign Service Officers had advanced degree from good American universities.  We had the military power.  All we had to do was use it wisely.

Alas, Bremer and his FSO brethren believed that down to his fancy boots.  He was also contemptuous of the troops who had won his victory and allowed him to take his office.  No one wanted to die for his principles, so the Army did what armies have always done when they have an unpopular commander:  they fought for each other and for their junior officers, and to hell with the official objectives.

But I do wonder what propaganda you believe that the NSC people believed.  They thought that the objective was to throw Saddam out.  None of them had been elected to run a foreign country or establish a stable democracy where there has never been one.  (The closest thing was Lebanon in the old days when Beirut was the Paris of the Orient, and that worked because of a very careful power sharing agreement among Shiites, Sunni, Druze (considered heretics by both Sunni and Shiite), Marionites, Greek Orthodox..  They had an elaborate power sharing scheme for doling out offices by affiliation, and it worked quite well, but it sure wasn’t democracy).

Enough, I suppose.  I have opposed every US expedition over there except the initial Afghan expedition, and I wanted that brought home as soon as we could raise a flag in Kabul.  Leave with a warning that if you harbor Americas enemies we’ll be back. Meanwhile, here’s a billion in foreign aid, goodbye and it’s been good to know you.  But the nation building enthusiasts saw Afghanistan as an opportunity to show what we can do…

I don’t believe in nation building. We haven’t the time or patience or absolute supremacy that takes.  It worked in Germany and Japan because we did have that.  We would never have it in Afghanistan or Iraq.  And we could thank God, daily, that the USSR didn’t surrender to the west when Communism came apart…

I can accept competent Empire, but it’s a difficult and tricky path requiring building puppet kings and keeping your Legions out of the fight while your auxiliaries — the defeated enemy armies — do the fighting while looking over their shoulders in fear of the Legions, and American intellectuals generally haven’t the heart for doing it. But mostly I agree with Washington and Adams. The US military is for the protection of American freedom.  If we have to go slay a monster, we do it and come home. Europe for the Europeans…  Near East for the —  heh. Jews, Arabs, Shiites, Sunni, Kurds, Turks, Aryan Iranians, and myriads of tribes.

= = =

Yes; but the end of history, and the notion that democracy was on the move, was not a left or right wing historical heresy.  I suppose in a sense it’s a Marxist heresy stemming from the Trotskyites who became neo-conservatives, but it has adherents among straight out Marxists and Progressives.  I don’t know how much it caught on with the National Security Council people; none of those who talk to me caught it.  But it did argue that we knew what we were doing, all we needed was to throw out Saddam and don’t do stupid shit, and things would go in a good direction.

That seems to have been the Progressive belief back in the Arab Spring days:  we stay out of it, and all will go well.  We help bring down Khadafy, who did his damnedest to convince us that he had Finlandized and would do whatever we wanted, in hopes that if we wouldn’t shore up his government we’d at least help him find honorable exile — anyway, we helped bring him down and thought all would be well, but it didn’t happen that way.  And the Mamelukes bailed us out in Egypt, so there is still one country over there that recognizes Israel –but just barely, and it sure ain’t democracy.

The notion of the inevitability of democracy seems absurd on the face of it, but it certainly has some heavy weight advocate — and had even more including much of the Foreign Service back in 2002.

Ptolemy and the Moon

Jerry
The size of the Moon was not especially interesting for 2000 years for a reason that startles Moderns: astronomy was not considered a branch of physics. It was a specialized branch of mathematics (like optics and music). (Also IIRC it was Mars whose size was inexplicable; see infra.) The only requirement on astronomical mathematics was that it accurately predict eclipses, sunrise, Easter, retrograde movement, etc. for the sake of the three practical applications: making calendars, casting horoscopes, and (later) navigation on the high seas.
That astronomy should somehow also match the actual physics was a relatively new idea. After all, the Ptolemaic model was at odds with Aristotelian physics and the epicycles were not thought of necessarily as a physical fact, but only a computational convenience. However, the Renaissance had revived the Pythagorean notion of numbers as efficient causes. This struck Aristotelian empiricists as mystical woo-woo. Even today you will find those who claim the motion of bodies is <i>because</i> of the law of gravity rather than that the laws are merely a description of the motion of bodies.
Copernicus handled the Moon by placing it on a double epicycle — an epicycle around an epicycle was unprecedented — and his treatment of the Martian obit was most unsatisfactory, largely because the Martian orbit is especially eccentric and Copernicus insisted on pure Platonic cycles.
Only after the invention of the telescope did the minority view triumph that astronomers could make <i>physical</i> discoveries and not simply invent new calculations.
Mike

Geirion’s Redemption, an Underfable (and Brunner tribute)

Geirion’s Redemption

             an Underfable by Nathaniel Hellerstein

Once upon a time, after chaos but before order, the magic brook Geirion had great power, for its water revealed fearsome visions. These visions terrorized the folk round about; terror implies attention, which implies belief, and belief is the food of elementals such as Geirion.

But one day a traveler in black arrived, intent upon his single-minded mission of bringing order out of chaos. He quizzed a local about the magic brook; the local, perplexed, wished out loud to know the brook’s true nature; and the traveler said, “As you wish, so be it.”

The local suddenly realized that all of Geirion’s visions were false. He and his friends took to consulting the lying brook to rid themselves of baseless fears; under their mockery, the elemental’s power waned.

Later the traveler returned to witness Geirion’s last three lies. First the magic water revealed a vision of Utopia, where all is right and all are happy; where there is no injustice or want or failure or confusion; where all problems are solved, all desires are satisfied, and all tears are dried; where the lion lies down with the lamb, and even lunch is free.

But the traveler threw a pebble into the water, bursting the false vision, and he said, “You are bitter, Geirion. Have you no sweeter lies?” Then the water revealed a vision of Dystopia, where there is no law nor truth nor even hope of its own annihilation; where down is up, and war is peace, and foul is fair; ever plummeting yet never crashing; where bleeding never stops, and even figures lie.

The traveler broke this false vision with another pebble, and he said, “There, there. And what of yourself?” The magic water revealed a vision of that same brook, sometime in the future, showing a vision.

The traveler in black said, “As you wish, so be it,” and waved his staff of light. From then on Geirion never showed another vision, but was instead merely a beautiful forest stream of pure water.

Moral: Truth is free of power.

Comment: This tale is a tribute to John Brunner’s “Traveler In Black”. Dystopia is a terrifying illusion, and Utopia is even worse.

Paradocter

John Brenner and I disagreed on much, but I very much admired him and Traveler In Black.

Our Universities: The Outrageous Reality

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/our-universities-outrageous-reality/

L

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