What have PCs and Grandfather Clocks got in common?

They’re both less agreeable when you move them.

Doesn’t matter how many carefully you move it, the darned thing never works just right the first time in its new location.

Pentagon Wins A Stop Loss Round

Pentagon Wins A Stop Loss Round

I first found out about this in an episode of Boston Legal. I thought it was a joke.

It’s not!

Qualls was in the Army from 1986-94 and re-enlisted in the Army National Guard’s “Try One” program in July 2003.

Under the program, Qualls was supposed to be in the Guard only for one year.

However, in October 2003 the Army told him he was recalled to active duty and his “expiration of term of service” was being moved from July 6, 2004, to Dec. 24, 2031 — not that Qualls would actually be held for that long. Stop-loss generally means a soldier is held in the service to the end of his or her tour of duty and 90 days after returning home.

It gets worse:

For Jessica Salamon of Ravenna, Ohio, the stop-loss policy has already affected her and her husband, Chad, a National Guardsman who is serving in Iraq with the 118th Medical Battalion as a mechanic. Chad Salamon’s six-year commitment should end in March, but he is almost certain not to return by then.

“This is supposed to be an all-volunteer military,” said Jessica Salamon, who has been to therapy and has seen her dream of starting a family deferred. “They’re not volunteering when they’re told they can’t leave.”

(Soldiers Facing Extanded Tours)

War

I’ve just finished watching an episode of Boston Legal, where James Spader is arguing that a soldier killed in Iraq shouldn’t have been there, was fraudulently kept in service and not given the correct equipment.

I don’t know how much, if any, of the story is true or based on true events. And since the phrase “based on a true story” has been rendered completely meaningless by cynical movie producers, I probably never will know.

But what I started thinking about was the reasons for going to war.

You see, I can understand why we went to war against Hitler. There was a clear threat there.
I can understand why the Korean War happened, because it was necessary to halt the spread of communism in an unstable region.

But then it gets a little hazy.

I understand (roughly) why the Vietnam war started, although I was shocked upon looking it up to discover that it ran for 16 years. Sixteen years at war.

I sort of understand the Falklands War, started because of a misunderstaning between what was said and what wasn’t said between the UK and Argentina. Basically, we decommissioned a small patrol boat guarding the island, a boat that would have lasted exactly five minutes against the Argentinian navy, but they saw this as a message that the UK would not defend the island if invaded.

But I cannot begin to explain the war in Iraq. I mean, I understand the first one. What I don’t get is:

1. Why we never finished the job, deposed Sadam and liberated the country.
2. Why we felt we had to go back and have another go at it.

The amount of money being spent there is obscene! Hundreds of billions so far. Likely to be measurable in trillions of dollars before it’s over. And why?

Yes yes yes, I know. Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Weapons that we already have, by the way. Weapons we haven’t been able to find, due to a fundamental failure of intelligence. A failure that continues to be promoted.

It’s like halfway through a game, somebody suddenly changes the rules. All of an instant, no-one’s talking about WMDs. I can almost imagine someone off stage whispering to the President or the PM: “Downplay the WMDs!!!”

This failure can be traced back to the bay of pigs incident. A small almost forgotten incident that occured (and partially led to) the Cuban missile crisis.

Basically: The CIA, with the support of the US armed forces, would support an invasion of Cuba by exiled activists. The key word there is “support.” No direct action would be taken, save for air support.

There was good intelligence that there was a lot of resentment of Castro at the time, so a small uprising could give way to civil war and depose him. The insurgents were to be dropped off where they could make their way to nearby mountains if they needed to retreat.

Well first, the landing site changed. The mountains were now too far away. Secondly, Kennedy seems to have changed his mind and cancelled the air support, which was vital for the plan to work. But worst of all, the reported feelings of hostility towards Castro in the general populace was completely untrue. The CIA’s network had been completely infiltrated by Castro’s men and they were feeding false information to the CIA.

Castro then decided that he needed insurance against a US led invasion, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisis. Missiles were installed, and we damn near had world war three.

And all because the Pentagon was too eager to believe the reports coming from Cuba without verifying them.

My question is: Have we really learnt the lessons from our past? Do we truly understand how wars start and why they are fought? And do we know how to end a war when we know we can’t win it?

The Anne Hathaway Paradox

Odd thing about Anne Hathaway. She keeps doing Disney films like the Princess Diaries, and family films like The Devil Wear Prada. But every other film she seems to spend a lot of time with no clothes on.

Seems strange that she keeps getting cast in kids films.

What does quantum theory and SETI have in common?

And no, I’m not looking for the answer: They’re both expensive branches of science.

Here’s the thing. Everyone’s been looking for a way to unify quantum mechanics with gravity, a so called quantum theory of gravity.

There are numerous theories all trying to explain a way to unify them, often involving reasons why we haven’t found a theory yet. For example, the laboratories at Cern is looking for the Higgs boson. To find it, a new super collider is being built, that can accelerate particles to even higher energies than has been achieved before.
And even while this is being built, some theorist are saying that it won’t be able to achieve the energy level required to detect the Higgs boson.

Each experiment to find a new particle, or examine the structure of space-time in greater detail almost always require more powerful or more sensitive experiments. And sometimes it’s not even necessary. A twin satellite system called Gravity Probe B was launched recently to detect the distortion of space-time that occurs near a large, rotating body (like the Earth). And yet, the data to prove their case already existed from the Mars Global Surveyor in polar orbit around Mars.

This is exactly the same argument that has been levied at SETI. The argument goes something like this:

If we spend the next 100 years searching with every radio telescope on Earth, looking for signals from intelligent aliens, we still might not find anything. And yet, there’s always another way to search, different fequencies, different methods, another reason we haven’t found the alien signal, another reason to change the way we’re searching.

Since we don’t know in advance if there are intelligent signals to detect, we can’t be sure that it’s worth searching at all. Compare that with clearing a minefield, for example. You can be certain there are mines there, and you can be certain that you’ve got them all after you’re done.

The search for a unified theory might have the same problem. There’s no proof that such a unification is even possible. In fact, the reason we’re searching in the first place is that we know that both theories are correct (they’ve been obsevered working), except that they contradict each other.

So we have a choice:

• Continue searching for a way to unify the two branches of science or,
• Learn to live with the contradiction.

It’s something of a conundrum for humans. We can’t resist a good mystery.

And so, we search.

Year of the….?

So (if my calculations are correct) tomorrow was the Chinese New Year in 2006. This year, the new year begins on February 18th.

2005 was the year of the rooster.
2006 was the year of the dog.
and by the look of things 2007 is the year of the racist.
(actually it’s the year of the pig, which makes me giggle).

All I can remember thinking when I heard about the racism row in Celebrity Big Brother was “Yet another reason I’m glad I’m not watching.”

However, I do find it…perplexing, that this starts to happen after bosses at Channel 4 admit that this was shaping up to be the most boring Big Brother ever.

I’m not being paranoid, they really are out to get me.

Don’t DO that!

Oh my aching heart!

Windows got to the loading screen today and just froze!

Thankfully, one quick reboot later and all appears well, but oh god that gave me a shock!

There’s never a defibrilator nearby when you need one….