Category Archives: View

View from Chaos Manor, Thursday, February 12, 2015

Was scheduled to meet with Niven and Barnes to discuss the new Avalon novel. In which we incorporate Grendels and Cthulhu’s with a number of other new aliens. If that makes no sense, read The Secret of Blackship Island, only it won’t make sense unless you have read Legacy of Heorot and its sequel Beowulf’s Children. And if you don’t know about those you ought to: they’re part of a series about the first interstellar colony in slower than light, with new aliens, and lots of adventures: the kind of science fiction I like to read as well as write. Good stuff.

Anyway, Niven will be here shortly and we’ll lunch while working on concepts and characters. I’ll post this before we go.

There is a flood of concern over the latest territorial dispute in Europe, and everyone seems to want to make it our business. Exactly why the eastern Ukraine is our business is not known to me. Putin has Imperial ambitions, but that is no surprise nor is it much of our concern. I remember in Cold War days my friend Rolfe, a science administrator and grant progress monitor, said he felt as safe in Moscow in the 70’s as in Washington. He wondered why I was so concerned with the Cold War. I didn’t agree, then; Russia was exporting Communism. But it no longer does. It’s now an imperial republic run by a bureaucracy like most of Europe; why is it our concern? Russia and the US have common objectives: why do we ring it with NATO? I have sentimental concerns about the Baltic Republics, but they are mot threatened, and NATO without us can handle their problems.

NTO is an entangling alliance. More later, and we will also tackle the declaration of we don’t like ISIS that the commander in chief sent to Congress

If I can’t have it, neither can you!

Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses      nyt

By TAMAR LEWINFEB. 12, 2015

Advocates for the deaf on Thursday filed a federal class action against Harvard and M.I.T., saying both universities violate antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online lectures, courses, podcasts and other educational materials.

“Much of Harvard’s online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” the complaint said, echoing language used in the M.I.T. complaint. “Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

Otherwise known as the dog in the manger position.

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

View from Chaos Manor, Tuesday, February 10, 2015

My hand is healing nicely, and my only problem is that I still cannot type as fast as I used to, so everything takes longer. I see that Word 2010 has restored the autocorrect access option, making it easy to add frequent mistypes into autocorrect: right click on a red-underlined word, see the options, and if you like, rather than merely correct the word, left-click “autocorrect” in the menu that appeared when you right-clicked, then choose the relevant word in the list that appears when you do that. But—sometimes the correction is not proper at all, but is the correction for another misspelling entirely. I don’t know why, and it does not happen often. If it does you must retype the word – either the original misspelling or the correct spelling. You will find that the autocorrect table has that correction now, as it should, and does not incorrectly autocorrect the original misspelling. I have not been able to make sense of this, and since it is not repeatable I can’t report it to Microsoft.

In general, though, autocorrect works as it should, and since my most common mistake is hitting more than one key, using autocorrect saves me a great deal of time. This whole exposition came about when I typed everythiong instead of everything in the first sentence; I right clicked it, chose everything as the correction – who would ever want that misspelling – and autocorrect changed the word to especially. I don’t know why. I then looked into the autocorrect table – file > options > proofing > autocorrect scroll down the table to find the misspelling, see that it is set to make the proper correction – and all is well. I have no idea what happened. Now I always get the proper autocorrection of the misspelling, and to get the misspelled word I have to type it, let it autocorrect, backspace into it and misspell it again, and voila! as above.

Complex as this seems, it turns out to save a lot of time, and I use it. Alas the autocorrect option on right click does not appear in Word 2013, which is a shame and very much a Microsoft error; one I hope they correct soon.

I’m late and John is here to discuss a new novel. I’ll post this, more later today.

Back from a very productive lunch with John DeChancie; we will have a finished novel by summer. Themes are interplanetary commerce, Artificial Intelligence, and social decay under crony capitalism/liberal progressivism. What my late friend called anarcho-tyranny, which seems as likely as anything. Smart robots and oligarchs.

Yet another assault on the complexity of General Relativity:

No Big Bang, no ‘dark matter’, no ‘dark energy’ – and gravitonic aether?

<http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html>

Roland Dobbins

Note there are some similarities to Petr Beckmann’s Newtonian alternative to Einstein, which makes local gravity the aether.  The theory of relativity predictions can be derived from Newton – see Beckmann – but perhaps not all of them; this is disputed. More later.

But then:

…If they are finding it in other galaxies, I would expect it to be in ours as well. There’s nothing particularly different about ours; we even have at least three satellite galaxies, have experienced several galactic collisions, and there is a SMBH at the core. So…yeah.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209113046.htm
Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.

Dark matter and dark energy

Hello Jerry,

“Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.”

As you point out, the scientific method has been changing over the last few decades. 

Formerly, scientists made observations and devised theories to explain them.  When observational data called the theories into question, the theories were modified, or replaced with new ones that explained the observations better.

Now the theory is sacrosanct, particularly GR.  When observations contradict GR, the universe is modified to preserve GR.  In this case, the physicists, noting that matter, as observed, was not behaving as GR predicts, simply added a bunch of undetectable matter/energy until they had enough, with the proper distribution, to make the universe behave as decreed by GR. 

For what it is worth, Dr. Mike McCulloch, a physicist who teaches at a British university, has devised a theory under which the universe behaves as observed, but requires no unseen/unseeable matter/energy.  He has a blog, here:

http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com

for those who are interested.  As a side note, he claims that his theory also predicts thrust from EmDrives and the magnitude and sign of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, although Cal Tech has already said that it was explained by the pattern of heat radiation from the spacecraft.  I have no idea if Dr. McCulloch is right or not, but I am very predisposed to WANT to believe someone who tells me that the universe is actually made up of stuff that we can see/detect, rather than being >95% invisible/undetectable (other than being ‘detected’ by being necessary to make our sacred equations match observations).

Bob Ludwick

I remain (1) convinced that the universe is observable and comprehensible, and (2) that GR and String Theory are neither; but then I am not a physicist. I have examined the evidence for dark matter and it assumes a constancy in the speed of light and no aether. I see no experimental proof. So far as I know Beckmann’s entangled local gravity explains all observed evidence more simply. And it does not need Dark Matter.

Just to end this:

“Comments from a Marine in Afghanistan”

Dr Pournelle,
Confirm that this article has been going around since at least 2005 in various forms.  It also plays on the old stories of the AR15/M16 style direct impingement gas system rifles being fundamentally flawed, along with the 5.56mm round. This has long since been proven untrue. You will find many many articles and publications that bash it, but they can all be debunked.
It’s a not a perfect weapon/caliber, but when used properly it is very effective. In my own experience, the more experienced/well trained/elite troops tend to like it the most. When properly maintained, its advantages far outweigh its shortfalls.
It isn’t the most popular rifle in America for nothing.
Matt Kirchner
Houston, TX
Formerly Captain, IN, USA

I would not say “proven”; the debate over optimum rifle for infantry continues. For general socking around in scrub I find the old thirty-thirty more handy, but I grew up in a different era and in scrub you get few long shots.

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
It appears that the climate debate is difficult, in part, because the temperature data is willfully falsified.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

There are many “refutations” or defenses of climate data adjustment, but few encourage me to believe that it yields accuracy of 0,02 degrees. The error bars are greater than the differences. http://arstechnica.com/staff/2015/02/temperature-data-is-not-the-biggest-scientific-scandal-ever/ states their case, but only repeats the reasoning behind the adjustments. They must decrease the accuracy; how could they not?

The earth is warming and has been since about 1800. How much is due to CO2 is the question, and the answer to that is we don’t know,

Not in front of the telly: Warning over ‘listening’ TV

9 February 2015 Last updated at 06:20 ET

Samsung said personal information could be scooped up by the Smart TV

Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Such TV sets “listen” to every conversation held in front of them and may share any details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

Data sharing

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.

I don’t have a smart TV

I found this a fascinating story:

https://medium.com/backchannel/how-a-lone-hacker-shredded-the-myth-of-crowdsourcing-d9d0534f1731

I think you will also.

Net Neutrality

I had HughesNet service for several years after moving to a rural area. So far as I could tell they followed your description of net neutrality and truth in advertising:

“We can agree on that: you must deliver what you promise. If you are going to slow down high volume users, you must tell them that if you exceed some limit your download speed will be reduced. I don’t care what you are downloading,”

I must say though, that my downloads never included movies or other large files. My weakness was lots of browsing an many small downloads.

Charles Brumbelow=

House to Probe White House Role in FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Proposal – WSJ

Posted on February 8, 2015

Panel launches investigation into whether the White House improperly influenced the agency on its new rules for how broadband providers treat internet traffic.

https://muzaffaruddin.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/house-to-probe-white-house-role-in-fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-wsj/

And more. The FCC is determined to have control of the Net, and build a big regulatory agency to do it. It then will find plenty to do, to justify its existence. The administration is determined.  If you like your telephone you will enjoy FCC Net regulation.

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

View from Chaos Manor, Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Thursday, February 4, 2015

Spent another day with Niven and Barnes, and we made great progress on the next book in the Avalon/Beowulf’s children series. We could not go out to lunch because we had to wait for Terminex to send out a man to remove the dead rat under the stairs: something I used to do but can’t do now, alas. Steve Barnes offered to do it, but we had already scheduled the man. I suppose we could have gone to lunch without Roberta, but that hardly seemed fair.

So we ordered pizza and salad and kept on working, resulting in many notes, several ideas for new aliens – Legacy of Heorot and the sequel Beowulf’s Children are about colonizing an extraterrestrial planet without faster than light drives, thus with limited resources and no possibility of help – and much more, but in the process I exhausted myself and didn’t get this done by Wednesday. So it goes.

Of course that phrase was used by Vonnegut and we dealt with it in Inferno, possibly a bit unfairly. Anyone who can write Harrison Bergeron was a prophetic and talented. https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt or Google for better formatted text; I don’t know where you can buy it.

Anyway, I’ll try to catch up today. Start with Internet Equality, a scheme to make a few regulators very powerful and a few people rich while restricting competition.

More on Stephen Hillard, the Investor Behind Dish Network’s Spectrum Win     (journal)

• By
• Shalini Ramachandran
• •

Dish Network Corp.DISH -0.92% scored a $3.3 billion discount on spectrum at a government airwaves auction with the help of a little-known Texas investor: Stephen Hillard. The former jailhouse teacher and fantasy author played a key role in assembling the team that backed Dish’s bid, drawing on his extensive connections with Alaskan Native American groups.

Here’s more on the man who made wireless-auction magic happen:

Middle Class to Millionaire: Mr. Hillard was born in Dallas and grew up in a middle-class family in Grand Junction, Colo. He spent his summers herding sheep and trimming orchards with his grandparents in Hotchkiss. Soon after earning a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1976, Mr. Hillard made a spur-of-the-moment decision to move to Alaska, where he began advising Native corporations on business dealings. Eventually, he became a top executive at one of them, Cook Inlet Region Inc. And now, he runs a private-equity firm, Council Tree.

From The Wall Street Journal:

By

Kelly Ayotte And

Ajit Pai

Feb. 4, 2015 7:14 p.m. ET

Should the federal government hand out more than $3 billion from American taxpayers to a Fortune 500 company as part of a program to help small and disadvantaged businesses compete with large corporations? Of course not, but it’s about to happen.

First, some background. The Federal Communications Commission is in charge of auctioning a public asset—the nation’s wireless spectrum—for private-sector use. Last week the FCC finished auctioning spectrum for nearly $45 billion. This spectrum will now be used to deliver high-speed Internet access on mobile devices.

While most bidders put their own money on the line, some of the largest companies in the auction were using billions of taxpayer dollars. How is that possible?

The answer is the FCC’s “designated entity” program. In 1993 Congress directed the FCC to give small businesses an opportunity to compete in spectrum auctions against large corporations by providing the small companies with taxpayer-funded bidding credits. The program was supposed to work like this: A small business that lacked pockets deep enough to outbid large, established corporations would get a taxpayer-funded boost to its bid. So if a small business bid, say, $100 for a license, it would pay $75 and a federal subsidy would cover the remaining $25. It was a well-intentioned program to help the Davids compete with Goliaths.

To nobody’s surprise, the biggest competitors have figured out a way to game the system. Industry giants are claiming those taxpayer-funded discounts for themselves and using them to outbid smaller, would-be competitors.

In the latest auction, $13.3 billion worth of spectrum may soon be awarded to two companies in which Dish Network —a company with almost $14 billion in annual revenue—has an 85% interest. But those Dish-owned entities aren’t planning on paying full freight. They are counting on American taxpayers to kick in over $3 billion for their auction spending, each having sought “designated entity” status, and hence discounts, from the FCC. Dish isn’t the only beneficiary of this loophole.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/kelly-ayotte-and-ajit-pai-ending-welfare-for-telecom-giants-1423095287

Also from the Wall Street Journal:

Musicians and Kardashians may claim they can break the Internet by posting alluring photographs, but they have nothing on Tom Wheeler.

The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission unveiled on Wednesday a plan to demolish a policy that for two decades has allowed the Internet to become the jewel of world-wide communication and commerce. His new “Open Internet” plan represents a monumental shift from open markets in favor of government control. It is a grave threat to American innovation.

***

In a piece for Wired magazine, Mr. Wheeler announced that this week he will circulate to his fellow commissioners a plan to enact what President Obama demanded in November: century-old telephone regulation for today’s broadband communications companies.

“This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles,” wrote Mr. Wheeler, and he’s right. The game plan is to apply to competitive digital networks rules originally written for monopoly railroads in the 1800’s. But don’t worry, this “common carrier” regulatory structure was modernized for telephones as recently as the summer of 1934 when Franklin Roosevelt signed the Communications Act.

The Wheeler cover story is that such antiquated rules are necessary to provide “net neutrality,” the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and not blocked from reaching consumers—in other words, to allow the Internet to function pretty much as it does now.

But even if net neutrality were threatened, the Federal Trade Commission already has authority to punish companies that discriminate against consumers, and Congressional Republicans have already expressed their willingness to enact a law preventing the specific abuses Mr. Wheeler claims he wants to prevent. In any case, even the old telephone regs don’t treat all customers equally—they allow heavy-volume customers to get a better deal than mom and pop.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-conquers-the-internet-1423095660

It ain’t broke but it might break, so let us have the government fix it now, at great cost, creating much corruption and crony capitalism.

Net neutrality means that I must pay for the net access, which I use a couple of hours a day, exactly as much as the kid down the street who downloads porn and bit torrents 24 hours a day; which is to say I must subsidize his activities. And no one can offer me a lower price for what I use than they offer him for his massive use. That is known as fairness.

Note that the “auction” was won with government money. And that’s now, when in theory we don’t regulate these things.  Another column in the Journal sums up nicely the policy which drives the move to “Net Neutrality” and other “infrastructure” on the Federal level.

An Empire of Taxation

The government role in Obama’s budget looks like something last seen in 17th century Europe.

By

Daniel Henninger

Feb. 4, 2015 7:16 p.m. ET

The president’s annual budget reminds the Beltway tribes of what they do—tax the country, distribute revenues to their allies, and euphemize it as a budget. With his 2015 budget, Barack Obama at last makes clear his presidency’s reason for being: to establish an empire of taxation.

Commenting on Mr. Obama’s nearly $4 trillion budget, Jared Bernstein, a former policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden , told the New York Times : “It’s a visionary document and basically says, ‘You’re with me or you’re not,’ and we can have big philosophical arguments about the role of government.”

He is right. For the Obama presidency that is what it has always been about: You’re with me or you’re not. The government role reflected in this budget looks less like a 21st century American institution than a system last seen in 17th century Europe, in which a leader defines national wealth by handing out dispensations, emoluments and punishments.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-an-empire-of-taxation-1423095409?tesla=y

Alas, this isn’t just the goal of Obama and his friends. It is the goal of Liberalism.  Most Liberals don’t understand that this where their leaders are taking them. They think they are “liberating” people but of course the result is to create power centers. Look at where it leads: to Czars who may – may – be honest, but those with access to the Czars include many who are not. And of course we create new bureaucracies subject to the Iron Law.

Despair is a sin, but this internet neutrality stuff sure tempts me to despair.

In a piece for Wired magazine, Mr. Wheeler announced that this week he will circulate to his fellow commissioners a plan to enact what President Obama demanded in November: century-old telephone regulation for today’s broadband communications companies.

“This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles,” wrote Mr. Wheeler, and he’s right. The game plan is to apply to competitive digital networks rules originally written for monopoly railroads in the 1800s. But don’t worry, this “common carrier” regulatory structure was modernized for telephones as recently as the summer of 1934 when Franklin Roosevelt signed the Communications Act.

The Wheeler cover story is that such antiquated rules are necessary to provide “net neutrality,” the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and not blocked from reaching consumers—in other words, to allow the Internet to function pretty much as it does now.

But even if net neutrality were threatened, the Federal Trade Commission already has authority to punish companies that discriminate against consumers, and Congressional Republicans have already expressed their willingness to enact a law preventing the specific abuses Mr. Wheeler claims he wants to prevent. In any case, even the old telephone regs don’t treat all customers equally—they allow heavy-volume customers to get a better deal than mom and pop. Tom Wheeler’s announcement that the FCC will regulate the Internet like a public utility. Plus, Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 vaccine-skeptic remarks and why Republicans are joining the fray, ISIS’s execution of the Jordanian pilot and more IRS drama.

Mr. Wheeler is seeking to overturn Bill Clinton ’s policy of allowing the Internet to grow as a lightly regulated “information service” because Mr. Wheeler does not want light regulation. And while the successful bipartisan policy of allowing Internet creativity to flourish was widely supported as recently as 2010, when 74 House Democrats opposed treating the Web like a telephone system, Mr. Wheeler now sees a policy opening. With 23 months left in the Obama Administration, the former lobbyist aims to make the FCC the ruler of the Internet.

In an acrobatic feat of Orwellian logic, Mr. Wheeler even implies that telephone-style regulation must come to the Net to prevent problems that existed in the old telephone network, such as the difficulty faced by entrepreneurs trying to deploy new communications devices. But unlike in the days of the old Ma Bell telephone monopoly, new devices and services are multiplying today.

But it will give great power to a few people. Which is the purpose of it.

Yes, that 3D-printed mansion is safe to live in (WP)

By Tuan C. Nguyen February 5 at 7:54 AM

Back in April, a team of Chinese construction workers used a 3D printer to construct houses. By day’s end, there were 10 standing. They were compact and fairly bare bones — nothing much to look at besides the “wow!” factor of there being as many as — count them — 10. But this time around, those same builders have taken the wraps off an achievement that’s roundly more impressive.

In Suzhou Industrial Park, adjacent to Shanghai, stands a five-story structure that the WinSun Decoration Design Engineering firm claims is “the world’s tallest 3D-printed building.” Next to it is the equally massive 3D-printed mansion, which measures 11,840 square-foot. Like the previous buildings, the walls are comprised of a mix of concrete and recycled waste materials, such as glass and steel, and formed layer by printed layer. The company stated that the total cost for the mansion was roughly $161,000.

Competition at work:

Verizon Wireless Joins the Mobile Discount Parade     nyt

By Brian X. Chen

February 4, 2015 1:24 pm February 4, 2015 1:24 pm

Verizon Wireless executives say they are confident that network quality, not price tags, will attract customers. But that hasn’t stopped the company from cutting prices.

Verizon said on Wednesday that it was trimming the costs of most of its mobile shared data plans by $10.

For example, a plan that includes one gigabyte of data now starts at $30, down from $40; a plan that includes six gigabytes now starts at $70, down from $80. (Verizon’s shared data plans separate the costs of data from the costs for each phone line, so these rates refer only to the data portion of a phone bill.)

Verizon, however, is still resisting calling these price cuts. Instead, the company says customers can pay the same amount as they used to, but now they will get more mobile data for what they pay.

The move was surprising given that just a few days ago, Verizon said on its financial earnings call that it would not compete on price. Jan Dawson, an independent telecom analyst, said it was a sign that Verizon was finally responding to price cuts happening across the wireless industry. Chief among the many deals is Sprint’s offer to cut bills in half for any Verizon or AT&T customers who switched to Sprint.

Without net neutrality regulations

F.C.C. Chief Wants to Override State Laws Curbing Community Net Services    nyt

By Steve Lohr

February 2, 2015 5:40 pm February 2, 2015 5:40 pm

The future of protecting an open Internet has been the subject of fierce debate, and potential changes to the rules by the Federal Communications Commission could impact your online experience.

Video by Natalia V. Osipova and Carrie Halperin on Publish Date May 15, 2014.

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose an order to pre-empt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services, senior F.C.C. officials said on Monday.

The proposal focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. About 21 states, by the F.C.C.’s count, have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services. The initiative by Mr. Wheeler, if endorsed by the full commission, would be the first time the F.C.C. has tried to override such state laws.

Mr. Wheeler is expected to circulate his plan to the other commissioners on Thursday, and the full commission is scheduled to vote on Feb. 26.

Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending

The party is over:

<.>

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates.

Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over

$200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.

<…>

By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations.

</>

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/02/03/the-legacy-of-debt-interest-costs-poised-to-surpass-defense-and-nondefense-discretionary-spending/?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

I have nothing constructive to say at this time.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

There isn’t much encouraging to say. And we are to add new regulatory bureaucrat who must be paid for all of their lives.

As we suspected’’

Google, Microsoft and Amazon pay to get around ad blocking tool    ft

Robert Cookson, Digital Media Correspondent

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola have quietly paid the German start-up behind Adblock Plus, the world’s most popular software for blocking online advertising, to stop blocking ads on their sites.

The deals, which are confidential but whose existence has been confirmed by the Financial Times, demonstrate that some of the biggest participants in the $120bn online advertising market see the rise of ad-blocking as a material threat to their revenues.

Adblock Plus has become one of the most popular free extensions on Chrome and Firefox browsers in recent years as internet users have attempted to eliminate the interruption of advertising. Eyeo, the German company that produces the software, says it has been downloaded more than 300m times worldwide and has more than 50m monthly active users.

However many publishers that fund their operations through advertising worry that ad-blocking will undermine their business model. German media groups including RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 are seeking damages from Eyeo, while French publishers are reportedly considering whether to follow suit.

Google and Amazon declined to comment.

Dear  Jerry

I don’t understand all this  fuss about the Moties  invading Known Space:

Look at the size of the things !

http://youtu.be/zpJAnFE33w0

—                          Russell Seitz

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

View from Chaos Manor, Monday, February 02, 2015

I got Firefox spelling checker to work on the SFWA forum, but it was a lot of effort.The easiest way to explain it is that after much searching I found:

Firefox Enable Internal Spell Checker

I occasionally find a problem with Firefox where it will stop spell checking all fields. It’s a small bug, but it’s easily fixed.

Firstly, make sure you have spell checking on:

Tools > Options > Advanced > Check my spelling as I type

If that is checked then uncheck it and restart the browser, then recheck it and again restart the browser – if the spell check still doesn’t work, then once again uncheck the option, then enter about:config in the address bar.

Search for Layout.spellcheckDefault and change the setting from 0 to 1 to enable spell checking in all <textarea> fields, or make the value 2 to enable spell checking in all text input fields.

See also: Layout.spellcheckDefault – MozillaZine Knowledge Base

http://www.liamdelahunty.com/tips/firefox_enable_spelling_check.php

It told me more about Mozilla than ever I wanted to know – I just use the thing, I’m not developing it – but going through that rigmarole did the job.

Yesterday we got a lot said about air supremacy; if you are interested, scroll down. There was plenty. Alas I have had many distractions today and I am a bit tired.

“About 75% of these sorties were in Vietnam (shame we didn’t win that one, eh?). “
The United States did not lose the Vietnam war. The United States destroyed the Viet Cong, and drove the North Vietnamese Army out of South Vietnam. The United States signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam and withdrew its troops from Vietnam.
After that, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese request American aid to repel the Northern Invasion. Congress under the control of the Democrat Party refused to provide funds or permission for the US to aid South Vietnam, which in due course collapsed, causing the deaths of millions of innocent people in Vietnam and Cambodia.
This is an extraordinarily shameful chapter of American History. But it is about the treacherous behavior of the Democrat Party, not about any failure of the United States Armed Forces.
The leftists who run the schools and the media have created the legend of the loss of the Vietnam War, as part of their mimetic assault on patriotism, and also because they want to lie and blame others for their perfidy.

Robert Schwartz

Actually it’s worse than that: in 1972 the North invaded with 150,000 men.  Fewer than 50,000 ever got home. The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam, (ARVN) with US air support decisively defeated an invasion force the Wehrmacht would have been proud of, and it had more tanks than many WW II campaigns in Russia. ARVN won big, and there were only 650 Americans KIA in a campaign as big as Kharkov.  ARVN won big.  Then in 1975 the North sent another invasion force south, just as large, and the Congress would not allow US air support, while Russia supported its ally.  Viet Nam accordingly fell. But America was not defeated. And the tanks destroyed in 1972 were Russian and had to be replaced, with bad effects on the Soviet economy.

We could have won the Viet Nam War, but Congress did not want to.

I do not say our air support in Viet Nam was not effective, even though we did not have many USAF planes designed for that mission – the Navy and Marines were better.  USAF did a good job when they had to. But we need better ground support against ISIS.

: The End of Mutually Assured Destruction?

This article is worth your time; it covers how changes in ballistic missile accuracy undermine the assumptions necessary for Mutually Assured Destruction; to wit, second strike capabilities and the relatively haphazard nature of nuclear weapons.

Matt at 1913Intel.com wrote a small commentary about this article that presses the point:

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Changes in missile accuracy in effect force the other side to act earlier. They lower the threshold for a bolt-out-of-the-blue preemptive nuclear strike </> http://www.1913intel.com/2015/02/01/the-5-most-dangerous-nuclear-threats-no-one-is-talking-about-the-national-interest/

The crux of the article is here:

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However, after modeling a prospective first strike against Russia’s strategic forces, Lieber and Press concluded that the U.S. could execute a successful first strike with a high degree of probability against even Moscow’s massive nuclear arsenal. In fact, they claimed that U.S. policy makers had actually constructed America’s strategic forces with the goal of strategic primacy (defined as “the ability to use nuclear weapons to destroy the strategic forces of any other

country”) in mind. Furthermore, they later concluded that this effort extended beyond nuclear weapons. As they explained in 2013, “the effort to neutralize adversary strategic forces—that is, achieve strategic primacy—spans nearly every realm of warfare: for example, ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, intelligence surveillance-and-reconnaissance systems, offensive cyber warfare, conventional precision strike, and long-range precision strike, in addition to nuclear strike capabilities.”

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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-5-most-dangerous-nuclear-threats-no-one-talking-about-12160?page=show

This is most interesting and it almost forces Russia to keep pace, develop it’s own methods of primacy, and — perhaps as Matt points out

— act while they have the advantage. And, what about China?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

We have seen the increasing accuracy of ICBM’s coming on since the 60’s, although I doubt anyone anticipated Moore’s Law then; I certainly did not when I was editor of Project 75 in 1964, We knew technology was advancing on an s curve. See the Strategy of Technology by Possony and Pournelle. And in my International Stability Study for the Air Council I noted that the stabilizer power needs escalation dominance at the high end. That remains true – but we have given up SAC. Nuclear stability requires a Force that is always ready but if successful will never be used. That is an elite force, hard to build, and USAF has let it go. It’s more fun to zoom around.

We sow the wind.

How long is Australia’s history with Jihad?

Now, that’s not a question I expect many people to be able to answer. As it turns out Australia imported a number of “Ghans” in 1860. While that’s short for Afghan the group included Muslims from many places around the world.

In 1914 the Ottoman ruler issued a jihad fatwa.

===8<— quote

The Ottoman fatwa declared that it was a religious duty “for all the Muslims in all countries, whether young or old, infantry or cavalry, to resort to jihad with all their properties and lives, as required by the Quranic verse of enfiru.” The verse of enfiru (Arabic ‘go forth’) is a reference to Sura 9:38:

===8<— quote

You who believe! What is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the path of Allah, you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless you go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place…

===8<— end quote

===8<— end quote

“From Broken Hill to Martin Place: A Tale of Two Jihad Assaults in Australia a Century Apart”

http://www.islam-watch.org/authors/89-other-authors/1600-from-broken-hill-to-martin-place-a-tale-of-two-jihad-assaults-in-australia-a-century-apart.html

You’d think people would have learned by now that Jihad is built into Islam.

True believers must answer calls to Jihad.

The saving grace is that such calls can only be issued by a real Caliph, a ruler over the entire (or a very substantial portion of) the Islams in the world. So today, nobody is authorized to issue the call to Jihad. This is why ISIS and all the others try so hard to pass themselves off as setting up a Caliphate. Then their calls must be obeyed by all observant Muslims.

Another saving grace is that most Muslims really do not understand or know the Qur’an or Sunnah. The Sunnah is the way of life for Muslims derived from Mohammed’s words and actions. The Qur’an, by contrast, is supposedly revealed to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel and is Allah’s actual words, despite how utterly clumsy they appear.

So Australia has had 100 years to have figured out that regardless of how many Muslims adopt the strict Islamic way of life, terrorism, violence, and destruction follow Muslims as they migrate.

I wonder when WE will figure out what Thomas Jefferson had figured out when he sent the Marines to visit Tripoli et al.

{^_^}

This email is from a Marine who’s in Afghanistan; his buddy Jordan provides many of the details.
No politics here; just a Marine with a bird’s eye view opinion.

US Weapons:

1) The M-16 rifle: Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because it’s lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They lack the ability to mount the various optical gun sights and weapons lights on the picatinny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment.
They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinder block structure common over there and even torso hits can’t be reliably counted on to put the enemy down.

Fun fact:
1) Random autopsies on dead insurgents show a high level of opiate use.

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial disassembly (that’s fun in the middle of a firefight).

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun performs well in desert environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.

4) Mossberg 12 ga. Military shotgun : Works well, used frequently for clearing houses to good effect. (Great weapon – I used these when transporting prisoners).
5)The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 NATO (.308) cal . belt fed machine gun, developed to replace the old M-60 (what a beautiful weapon that was!) Thumbs up.Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts ’em down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The 7.62 round chews up the structure over there.
6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun : Thumbs way, way up. “Ma Deuce” is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight stopper – puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted weapon in-theater.
7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol around out there. Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands on one. With few exceptions, one can reliably be expected to put ’em down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it. The old government model .45’s are being re-issued en masse.
8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.
9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to take out vehicle suicide bombers (we actually stop a lot of them) and barricaded enemy. It is definitely here to stay.

10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up. Mostly in .308 but some in 300 win mag. Heavily modified Remington 700’s. Great performance. Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it a marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually exceeded Carlos Hathcock’s record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.

11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6 lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even will stop an AK-47 round.
The bad news: Hot as hell to wear, almost unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees). Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the bullshit about the “old” body armor making our guys vulnerable to the IED’s was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and body armor doesn’t make any difference at all in most cases.

12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period. Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy being whacked at night during movement by our hunter-killer teams. We’ve all seen the videos.

13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal lights are Surefires, and the troops love them. Invaluable for night urban operations. Jordan carried a $34 Surefire G2 on a neck lanyard and loved it. I can’t help but notice that most of the good fighting weapons and ordnance are 50 or more years old! With all our technology, it’s the WWII and Vietnam era weapons that everybody wants! The infantry fighting is frequent, up close and brutal. No quarter is given or shown.

Bad guy weapons:
1) Mostly AK47s: The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably. PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective. Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots like shit. Undisciplined “spray and pray” type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision weapons, especially sniper rifles. ( Iran, again)

2) The RPG: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys. Simple, reliable and as common as dogshit. The enemy responded to our up-armored Humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.

3) The IED: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found in Jordan’s area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3 155 mmartillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated by cell phone and the explosions are enormous. You’re not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous thing our guys do over there. Lately, they are much more sophisticated “shape charges” (Iranian) specifically designed to penetrate armor.
Fact: Most of the ready made IEDs are supplied by Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train the insurgents in their use and tactics. That’s why the attacks have been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the latest being shape charges, in Styrofoam containers spray painted to look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are unsung heroes of this war.

4) Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent. The soviet era 122 mm rockets (with an 18 km range) are becoming more prevalent. One of Jordan’s NCO’s lost a leg to one. These weapons cause a lot of damage “inside the wire.” Jordan’s base was hit almost daily his entire time there by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns and cause fatigue (It did.). More of a psychological weapon than anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles, fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.

Fun fact: Captured enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let’s just say they know better now.

Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is by cell and satellite phones and also by email on laptops. They use handheld GPS units for navigation and “Google Earth” for overhead views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE. Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment and the GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel when captured.

Who are the bad guys? These are mostly “foreigners,” non-Afghan Jihadists from all over the Muslim world (and Europe). Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end up as suicide bombers or in various “sacrifice squads.” Most, however, are hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas etc.). These are the guys running around murdering civilians en masse and cutting heads off.
The Chechens (many of whom are Caucasian) are supposedly the most ruthless and the best fighters. They have been fighting the Russians for years. The terrorists have been very adept at infiltrating the Afghan local government, the police forces, and the Army. They have had a spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80s.

Bad Guy Tactics: When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses kicked every time! Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them screaming and firing AKs and RPGs directly at our bases just to probe the defenses. They get mowed down like grass every time (see the M2 and M240 above). Jordan’s base was hit like this often. When engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call in air and that’s the end of that more often than not. These hole-ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeos (Allah’s Waiting Room).
We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science. The fast movers, mostly Marine F-18s, are taking an ever increasing toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter gunships and AC-130 Spectre Gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon and rocket fire, especially at night. Interestingly, artillery is hardly used at all.

Fun facts: The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand. That is why we’re seeing less and less infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber shit. The new strategy is just simple attrition. The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-combatants as cover. They know we do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and especially Mosques are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons, and ammo and flee to when engaged. They have absolutely no regard whatsoever for inflicting civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the Americans. Kidnapping of family members, especially children, is common to influence people they are trying to influence but can’t reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics, tribal leaders, etc. The first thing our guys are told is “don’t get captured.” They know that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet. They openly offer bounties for anyone who brings in a live American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who otherwise don’t give a shit about the war. A lot of the beheading victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to them. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death. Surrender is not an option. The Afghanis are a mixed bag. Some fight well; others aren’t worth a damn. Most do okay with American support.

Finding leaders is hard, but they are getting better. Many Afghanis were galvanized and the caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went right up, along with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in good intel because the Afghanis are sick of the insurgent attacks against civilians.
Morale: According to Jordan, morale among our guys is very high. They not only believe that they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. Our guys are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see lies like “Are we losing in Iraq” on TV and the print media. For the most part, our guys are satisfied with their equipment, food, and leadership. Bottom line though, and they all say this, is that there are not enough guys there to drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily because there aren’t enough troops in-theater to shut down the borders with Afghanisan and Pakistan. The Iranians and the Syrians just can’t stand the thought of Afganistan being an American ally (with, of course, permanent US bases there).
Anyway, that’s it, hope you found this interesting.

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