The Daily Show, the Dimitri Martin Special: Person, and the launch of clearification.com. Staring...well Dimitri Martin of course. Who also stared in the launch of an interesting plot based site: The Institute of Advanced Personhood. Looks like the Dharma Initiative from Lost if it were run by Microsoft. Kind of neat though, I'm going to explore more.

I have to say, I'm impressed by the marketing. If they spent as much time on the code as they did on the focus grouping, it might be brave new world for Microsoft and Gates both. I played with one of the betas and liked the look and feel, but was decidedly not impressed by driver support and hardware requirements. Don't get me started on the nannyware (Are you absolutely, positively, super-duper, triple-dog-dare sure that you want to install that?). But as Bill said on the show tonight, the beta is not the real deal.

I'm reserving judgement. If I see anything awesome, I'll let you know.

Labels: Dimitri Martin, Microsoft, technology, Vista

Bill Gates is tonight's guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista is going live tomorrow, and my world is about to change. I generally avoid writing about work in this forum, but in this case it's unavoidable.

First let me say that I'm not a hater; Uncle Bill puts food on my table after all. But Vista is going to drop like a bomb and I'm going to have to pick up the pieces, so please forgive me for having already installed Ubuntu on my media server.

I'll be posting some more of my thoughts on the Vista launch and the aftermath soon. Keep Watching!

Labels: Bill Gates, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Vista

During the 1961 SOTU address, President John F. Kennedy renewed his call for the establishment of a National Peace Corps, "enlisting the services of all those with the desire and capacity to help foreign lands meet their urgent needs for trained personnel." Officially, the Peace Corps mission today has three goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

A product of its hippie-feel good time, the Peace Corps embodies the nobility of our democratic experiment while advancing the interests of our nation. Fast forward to 2007.

On Tuesday, President Bush capped the romp through Bizarro world that was his SOTU address with a call for the formation of a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps, he declared "would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them." This little gem was dropped into the speech between his call to expand America's standing Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops, and the expected Iran-is-gonna-go-nuclear! posturing; the proposal was not further defined. Some admittedly amateur research on the proponents of the Civilian Reserve Corps yielded two major advocates and their ideas of what the Corps should look like.

First is 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, four-star General Wesley Clark. The General's 2004 platform envisioned a volunteer force of specially skilled Americans to be called at the pleasure of the President to serve both domestic and international functions ranging from fighting forest fires to nation building. Think "Global Frequency," but run by the President and only for Americans.

The second Civilian Reserve Corps cheerleader is Refugees International. In their 2006 testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, the policy organization stressed the need to fund a Civilian Reserve Corps under the direction of the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. More on their views can be found here.

There are still a ton of questions to be answered, but the primary goals seem to be:

1. Decrease or eliminate the fabulous amounts of U.S. tax payer dollars paid to private contractors (Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc) for their rolls in certain areas of operational support.
2. Take pressure off the Pentagon which is struggling with the nigh-impossible challenges of recruiting, training, and retaining individuals who are both able and willing to perform highly specialized occupations (i.e translators!) for a fraction of what they could earn in the private sector.

Whether the Civilian Reserve Corps will be a de facto National War Corps comprised of mercenaries and opportunistic malcontents or a real life GI-Joe(listen to the words, people) remains to be seen. Either way, it will change the way American foreign policy, and the business of war is conducted for generations to come.

The biggest WTF? Why aren't more people talking about this?

Labels: Blackwater, Civilian Reserve Corps, General Wesley Clark, Global Frequency, Halliburton, John F Kennedy, KBR, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., SOTU Address

The first rule of watching the SOTU is to discount the standing ovations. I even know some old schoolers who refuse to watch at all, and prefer to listen to an audio broadcast, or read a transcript to avoid being influenced in their thinking by all the clapping going on. The reason to ignore the ovations is obvious: It generally doesn't give any indication as to how Congress will actually vote on or spin the issues they are clapping for. These are career politicians, and they can't be seen not clapping for things like helping the poor, supporting the troops, or outlawing miniature bunny stickball. It's just bad business. But this Congress is severely divided with the Administration on nearly every aspect of American foreign and domestic policy, so the silent, uncomfortable battle of wills that led up to these First Citizens of America actually rising off of their privileged asses almost thirty times to applaud our lame duck President was thoroughly entertaining.

There were a few gimmies of course. Madam Speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is the highest ranking female elected official in our nation's History. She got two ovations out of the gate. Then there were the four ovations directed toward the gallery where the President's invited guests (an altruistic African immigrant, a millionaire entrepreneur mom, one of the damn craziest New Yorkers EVER, and an Army Sergeant wounded in battle) were seated. But the most telling ovations were those given so grudgingly it hurt just to watch.

First was a stuttering, are you gonna stand? I'm not standing. Are you standing? No, I'm not standing. I'm just leaning forward in my seat while clapping. Well, you look like you're gonna stand so I'm standing. Oh, crap he stood up! Now I have to stand. Shit now we're all standing and clapping. What are we clapping for? Oh yeah, the President just said "global climate change." Meaningful? Besides the fact that the most obtuse President in History paid lip service to climate change...no. But it was entertaining. Way to go Dems! Didn't you get the memo?

The other two ovations of note were in response to the proposed troop increases in Iraq. One of the best lines of the speech, "Ladies and gentlemen, on this day at this hour it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. Let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory," was met with all the tension and awkwardness of an overly affectionate hug from a drunken in-law at a bereavement function. And the response President's plan to station those troops in Baghdad and Anbar Province was even worse than that.

There's much more of course. So be sure to tune in next time for Ern's State of the Union Recap, Part 2: WTF?

Labels: Nancy Pelosi, SOTU Address

"In a video released Monday, al Qaeda's second in command ridicules President Bush's plan to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and predicts a fate "worse than anything you have yet seen." Al-Zawahiri cites Bush's plan to send more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, and asks, "Why not send 50,000 or 100,000?" FBI officials said Monday that U.S. forces found documents at least six months ago indicating al Qaeda in Iraq has aspirations to attack on U.S. soil." ~CNN

Hmmm...immanent threat. So like August 6, 2001 PDB immanent threat? Or Katrina Force Hurricane immanent threat? I'm not sure. And the President's not telling. This threat was discovered six months ago, and yet it's made public the day before his sixth State of the Union Address when his popularity is currently next to nil.

No one is taking George's calls. And he needs to send more troops to Iraq! Why? Something about it being the only way to win. Why they didn't slap a Mission Accomplished sign over a KFC/TGI Friday's/Nike sponsored globally televised execution of Saddam and start bringing troops home the next day, I will never know.

The policies to be set forth in the State of the Union Address are getting a vicious going over both in the international press, and here at home. Taxing our health benefits as income? This is a win for us how? Think, damn it! Your policies have failed. You're presiding over a red hot economy that doesn't know whether to implode or dominate the world, you're out-to-lunch playing at a fantasy with our dime and the lives our fellow citizens, and you want to tax health care as income?

I have no words.

Labels: al-Qa'eda, FUD, Katrina, saddam hussein, Surge

The spread of multi-drug resistant infection concerns us all. And having some small experience with military and VA medical facilities myself I found this article to be particularly troubling.

"The wounded soldiers were not smuggling bacteria from the desert into military hospitals after all. Instead, they were picking it up there. The evacuation chain itself had become the primary source of infection. By creating the most heroic and efficient means of saving lives in the history of warfare, the Pentagon had accidentally invented a machine for accelerating bacterial evolution and was airlifting the pathogens halfway around the world."

If you or someone you love visits VA medical facilities, be aware of the dangers and keep an eye out for symptoms of infection. If you have the choice, seek care at civilian facilities whenever possible. I know this is a no-brainer for most of you, but let your parents and grandparents know too. From the article:

"One of the most unsettling long-term questions about the military outbreak is how far the bugs of war will proliferate now that thousands of Iraq veterans have entered the VA hospital system. Many of the older vets who are already there - struggling with chronic conditions for decades, in and out of nursing homes - fall into the bacteria's target demographic."

On a conspiratorial note: Do medical investigators have access to the engineered, oil-eating versions of this bug mentioned in the Wired article? Was it used in the clean-up operations following the first Gulf War? Did the engineers build in a genetic kill switch?

~Wired

Labels: Acinetobacteria, gulf war, iraq

The U.S. Navy has successfully tested 8-megajoule electromagnetic rail gun, and has plans to test a 32-megajoule version of the weapon in June. Their goal is to achieve a 64-megajoule system by 2020. Is it doable? Sure. Pump enough electricity into the rails and you can shoot something to the moon.

My question: What happens when it gets wet? ~via

Labels: darpa, military technology, Navy, Rail Gun

You may have already heard the tale of an east German retiree who breeds giant rabbits the size of dogs. But he's in the news again having been asked by North Korea to set up a rabbit-livestock farm in the food starved, communist country.

I'm not sure if anyone involved has seen "Night of the Lepus," but it might be worth a bit more investigation.

Fear them. They are coming. via

Labels: North Korea

What a way to end the week. Bush wants a troop increase; a “surge.” One last thrust to quell the violence once and for all. You know, like Belfast. That he's had to reshuffle his military, intelligence and state department personnel to get this idea to float above outright ridicule is telling. Everyone knows a radically new strategy is necessary. And almost everyone knows a redeployment is an integral part of any such strategy, but not our Commander-In-Chief. I swear the man must think he's been chosen by God Himself to run this war. Oh wait...he does.

Our fledgling Democratic Congress has chimed in, and so has the military. It seems that while most of the plans for Operation Soup Fork call for 20 to 40 thousand additional U.S. troops, the Pentagon has reported that there's only a fraction of that number in any position to answer the call. Even a draft couldn't help with this plan. It would take months to train and deploy that many conscripts. And then there's Iran.

After a hopeful showing by moderates and reformers in the election recently, Iran has once again rattled its nuclear saber prompting Israel to intentionally leak its own military plans for a preemptive strategic nuclear strike against them. Madness just doesn't quite sum it up.

It's 2007. Any nation with the will to develop nuclear weapons shall have them. We need to accept this, and work with the facts. We didn't invade or bomb China when they went nuclear. We engaged them. The same can happen with Iran and every other nation that chooses to seek the bomb. There is always common ground, and there is always leverage. In this case we must accept that every nation has the right to self-determination (even the wacky ones). On these terms we can end our 27 year silence with Iran and re-establish diplomatic ties as co-equal, sovereign powers. Then, together with the other nuclear powers of the world we can begin what the wonks call a meaningful dialog.

Meanwhile, at the U.N., we can do something really nutty and stop behaving like hypocritical neo-nationalists and start acting like the world leader we claim to be. First step: an international nuclear open door policy. The nuclear powers of the world will police one another with a regime of inspections and standards formulated to discourage proliferation while maintaining the security of the most destructive weapons on Earth. That doesn't sound so bad now does it? For the sovereignty nuts out there I say: "Suck it." The American people have been not asked, but told that we will relinquish more civil rights and liberties for this global war on terror then I care to list here. What's the matter with letting the other kids in the club see our goods if it means we can subject them to the same mandatory inspections? It'll keep us safer in the long run while allowing us to keep an eye on our adversaries.

But that'll never happen. There will be troop increases in Iraq, and they will remain there long enough for the fat 30 year contracts to drop, so Bush & Co. can ride off into the sunset in style. Iran and Israel will forget about each other until CNN has another slow news day, and everyone will live happily ever after except the poor bastards in combat boots.

Labels: George W. Bush, iran, iraq, Israel, Surge

Joi Ito discusses WoW, MMORPG communities, project management, etc. ~via BoingBoing

Labels: Cyberculture, MMORPG, technology, WoW

Even with 25% of Americans expressing a belief that Jesus Christ Himself will return to Earth in the next year (*shudder*), I am hopeful that 2007 will be a good year. Forgive me for skipping the pedestrian "here's what I'm going to do this year" or "here's what I accomplished last year" list. I've already been featured in the top spot on one such list, and that's more than enough for me ;]. Instead, I'd like to share with you a gift that keeps giving. It's got a little bit of everything for everyone: slacking, data mining, social networking, personal introspection...the works.

In the days before Google I'd browse directory sites like Yahoo! or AltaVista for hours consuming information (hits like heroin). Starting with something like History, I'd drill my way down through various subcategories, and finally arrive at a list of sites devoted to specific topics like creation myths or cartoon theme songs. While Google gives us that shot of efficiency/instant gratification that makes the web what it is today, randomness and serendipity have for the most part been removed from the experience. Enter Stumble Upon.

I've been using Stumble Upon since April 2005. You register, download an unobtrusive toolbar, and select topics that interest you. Then, whenever you're bored or there's "nothing good on the Internet" you click the Stumble button. You'll be brought to a site related to one of your topics of interest, and you can vote yea or nay as to whether you'd like to see similar sites in the future to fine tune your experience. Neat-o quick-fix boredom cure. And there's more.

If you choose to, you can use Stumble Upon as a social networking engine akin to MySpace. You can find people with interests similar to yours with a single click. And if you're looking for someone in a specific geographic area, the search functionality is outstanding. The profile for your account is customizable, and while not as flexible as a MySpace profile, it has an option for Myers-Briggs typology. And that's just plain awesome; I'm an INTP.

In terms of data mining and aggregation, Stumble Upon is every bit as risky as other sites and services, if not more so. However this is balanced by excellent functionality, and an interesting user experience. Best of all, you can turn the data mining lens inward from time to time and see what your web browsing habits say to others about you. For instance, here are the topics I chose to stumble back when I first registered, and here are the topics Stumble Upon suggests I should add to my profile after 1.5+ years of stumbling and voting.

The other functions and nuances of the experience are too numerous to list here, but all told, of the myriad ways to engage in aimless web browsing and online social networking, Stumble Upon offers the most direct access to the data that makes us who we are online even while we are connecting with others.

Labels: Cyberculture, Stumble Upon